Recent content by jmartkdr2

Rarely anymore, but ten years ago it was the norm. I think the people I’m playing with now are just too used to the system and the tropes to find the constraints of a first-level character interesting anymore; we have more complex ideas that need a few levels (or at least a subclass) to...

I feel like warlock mounts should be invocations rather than a patron. If you’re riding a nightmare, your patron is a fiend (who really likes you)

"Losing a turn" is the most un-fun mechanic in games, so you want to either not do that or do it very, very sparingly. Having a character's main thing be unusable for an encounter is better than that, but can get old quick. So I would be cautious about anything that shuts down spellcasting or...

My dm has said we're going to use the bastion rules to upgrade our airship but that hasn't happened yet. I do have the same overall experience as most people here: parties move arund too much. Even if they have a permanent home, they tend to be away too much for it to matter. Airships are...

DnD has always struggled with mounts, for a few main reasons: 1. Horses are bad at spelunking, and a lot of DnD adventures take place in caves and other dungeon settings. 2. If mounted combat lives up to the fantasy, it becomes a must-have option for all pcs, which doesn’t make much sense for...

My brother ran a mounted combat focused game of PF1e for a few sessions - I went all in with a lance-focused cavalier. He was amazingly powerful - I managed to one-hit-kill an elephant. I was awesome. But the scenarios were built around the idea that we'd all be mounted - swampy terrain or...

Barely anyone did; it was just incredibly niche 1. You had to be facing an enemy who used actual spells 2. You had to have the right spell prepared - given that there were hundreds of spells to choose from this was kind of rare 3. You had to ready an action to counterspell - which means you...

Honest question: who is demanding that? Like, actually want the game to have no consequences at all for player actions?

The problem with terrain specific subclasses is it’s hard to make them useful outside that one terrain. A Winter Walker is great in an arctic campaign but much weaker in a globe-trotting one. (This is why I prefer a Horizon Walker type that can adjust to whatever terrain you’re in, though not...

If this is a recurring problem at you table, a less radical solution might be more than enough: the Whiff Die Every time you miss, you gain a +1 bonus to hit on your next attack roll. This clears once you hit. Use a big die to remind yourself of the bonus. Eventually, you'll hit. (If you...

It's not totally dissimilar, and blaot is an issue. With PF2e, it's worth noting that 1) you still get subclasses they're just weaker 2) you also get ancestry feats, skill feats, and general feats on top of class feats and spells, so you're making multiple choices at each level - and to keep...

One by one: Artificers: you move all the subclass stuff to infusions. Works well enough for most but the armor infusion is either OP or level-locked to 10th or higher Barbarian: you're all totem barbarians now, but with more totem options. Bard: need more feats to cover the gaps Cleric...

I played a short game of Pathfinder 1e a while back where we were all mounted. We used a supplement for more interesting riding rules and it was fun; ranged didn't outshine lancers though. I don't recall any chariots but elephants with howdahs and massive rolling platforms were involved in one...

I think the trick here is to add a layer below subclass to give extra customization, then you can just lean into stuff with the subclass. So, paralleling warlocks: you get knack that are single discrete boons a la invocations, a Talent that's more powerful and possibly build-defining but a...

For a brand new player, switching weapons every day can be fun even if it’s not optimized. He can play around with the system, try out the different masteries and find out which are the most fun. After a while he’ll probably settle in on a favorite and stop switching most of the time, but...