Recent content by JoesephBear

Also a GW2 fan here. This kind of thing was more common in AD&D and Basic/Expert D&D where PC's in a party were not expected to all be the same level. There were some limits of course, but one could reasonably get by with a level 4 fighter when other members of the party are around 7 or 8. This...

No friggin way. I went to SMU, and I've been in the steam tunnels. They are pitch black like a cave. They are a claustrophobic 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall. These tunnels have 5-foot drops straight down with no warning. They have random pipes that criss-cross the middle of the tunnel, again...

If the number of races in your game exceeds the number of AD&D 2e spells, it might be a fantasy heartbreaker. If half those races are elves, it might be a fantasy heartbreaker.

Special Snowflake. I like AD&D 1e, BECMI, 3e (computer games only though), and early 4e. Though I'm helping to playtest 5e, I plan to mostly play with a homebrew rpg I've patched together from my favorite editions. Weather I'll fully go gung-ho into 5e is to be determined. The playtest...

Going to be upfront and honest here, as kind of a confession (not an endorsement). No, this will not affect me in the slightest, because I'm doing it anyway. The genie's out of the bottle, and the packet is available other places that do not require the acceptance of WotC's terms. I must...

I've done some re-fluffing of clerics, paladins, and priests that applies to all my home-brewed stuff. It makes for what I feel is a bit more consistency. Churches are not nice little buildings you go to on Sunday. Churches are large, organized religions and are just as much a political force...

Why must killing monsters give xp? If monster xp is removed, how does this change the monsters with respect to their role in the game? If I entertain these two questions, I come to a few self-realizations. If monsters do not have xp, what does one gain by killing a monster? Treasure...

While true, here's my problem. v1.0 leak - "Oh it's just super early. Nothing is set in stone." Internal alpha test - "Ok, so it's still mostly bad, but internal playtesting will fix it." Beta test - "So the design philosophy hasn't changed at all yet. Don't worry. They'll surely listen to...

Curses, ya beat me to it. Anyway, this came out of SA and has been floating around /tg/. Historically, such leaks have proven to be quite true. It would seem that WotC, like Paizo, like TSR, like so many other game devs, is once again taking a stance that playtester & community feedback that...

Scumbag DM Runs an Oriental Adventures campaign. All the NPC's are anime-style caucasians.

Nat 20 = Crit. A crit is an automtic hit. Roll damage, then double it. That's how I've always done it. That's how I always will do it.

To the more wizened of the enworld community, for what reasons did pre-3E dnd have spell level disparity? What did it mean, both mechanically and in fluff, for magic-users to have 9 spell levels while clerics and druids and illusionists had 7? The only thing that popped into my head is that...

Kudos to the OP, as I am currently involved in the very same kind of personal project. My advice is to make a vary simple layout in Microsoft Word or Open Office. This is where you will be doing all your primary writing. It should be neat and organized so you can find things easily. This will...

No wait. Listen you guys. No...dude. You guys. I think I figured it out. A roleplaying game... is a game... where you play a role! *boosh*

Not sure on that (it's probably true), but I was just giving a good example to illustrate a point. Besides, the Black Arrow wasn't magical from what I read. It was just a royal family heirloom that had never failed Bard. I always envisioned him as rolling a 20 then rolling high on the damage...