Recent content by humble minion

Unscientifically and purely based on vibes, I suspect that AI bans HELP small creators much more than they hurt, because they mean that the products that the small creators make aren't drowned out in the sort of tidal wave of slop that deluges every outlet currently accepting electronic...

There was a pretty large amount of ENWorld consultation and input into A5e, I'm just saying....

Interesting survey structure, lots of questions about general trust in WotC (and probably lots of zeros...), but the only question I got that allowed for a written response specifically asked about how to improve trust in the direction of D&D under WotC ownership. So I read that as a question...

Yes, it would. But it'd also be better if there was world peace and I had a million dollar a year job as cocktail tester and once-a-week DM on Bikini Model Island, but that's not going to happen either. Imbalance, of a degree, it just a fact of life when you write a ruleset. No system is...

I think the big issue I had with the Soraks was that they were just so unvaried. They had the occasional big one who was tougher, and some spellcasters here and there from memory, but they were just lizardman poison enthusiasts in the end, they were a bunch of undifferentiated fanatics so there...

Bit of a sidetrack, but the labyrinth thing has always seemed ridiculous to me. Quick, think of a special ability that we can give to a mythological monster who is best known for being imprisoned forever in a labyrinth and being unable to find its way out! I know, we'll give it the ability to...

Too few decision/customisation points for PCs. Unless you're a spells-known caster, by the time you hit third level you've made almost every major choice you'll ever get to make when it comes to building your character. There is very little room to have your PC grow in reaction to events...

I quite like BOTH the dragonborn and the maybe-sarrukh art, so sue me! Have to say the alt covers aren't doing much for me though. Alt covers have trended towards more geometrical and abstract designs recently, maybe trying to look like faux-tomes themselves? The alt covers like Rising from...

When/if some publisher works out how to turn the terrifyingly, monumentally vast romantasy-reading demographic into a romantasy-RPG-buying customer base, D&D might actually finally have a genuine challenger after 50 years. (This is hyperbole, just in case it wasn't clear enough, but the point...

I do like the concept of removing the emphasis on full spellcasting. Long overdue and gives a lot more design space to play with now that we're not having to balance against other full spellcasters. For a REALLY comprehensive bard fix though - how about trying to make Performance skill checks...

Soth came back to Krynn in around 1999 as far as I can remember, and Weis and Hickman killed him off there in a novel in the early 2000s. I strongly agree that whatever W&H have been negotiation with WotC about, it's very unlikely to be him and Ravenloft all over again. Much more likely some...

One of my more out-there fanon theories is that Krynn is actually a domain in Ravenloft, with Takhisis the unknowingly imprisoned darklord. Her curse is to continually try to take over the place but to be continually and almost accidentally foiled by a bunch of bumbling 'good' gods, a gaggle of...

On balance, I probably prefer Soth in Dragonlance. He's just so wound into the history of the setting and he belongs there. On the other hand, he's one of the most genuinely literary-sense-of-the-term Gothic villains in D&D, so he's a genuinely good fit in Ravenloft too - much better than some...

I'm mostly a 5.0 guy myself, but honestly, have this conversation with your players. Ask them what the ruleset pain points were in the previous campaign, then see if those coincide with the fixes that 5.5 applied. I've stolen some of 5.5's stuff to use as houserules in my game, and that...

The Hexblade in its 5e form is the single most destructive post-core books error that WotC has made with their ruleset. It was only ever an attempt to make blade pact warlocks viable, but only succeeded in doing so for one specific very niche subclass that has some background lore that is very...