Recent content by JPL

Thanks for the additional references.

So I'm pretty sure that the 3rd edition Epic Level Handbook is where we first encountered the LeShay. They were a race of extremely powerful immortal albino elves, aloof and mysterious and possibly the surviving original elves from back when elves were a new thing. I don't recall that the...

Well… I gather that big ruddy blonde guys like Jack were more in fashion, but there are occasional references to the idea that Stephen is capable of cleaning up pretty nicely, and is in his own way just as attractive as Jack. Oh, it would take a week to stat Stephen out in GURPS.

Stephen is a system-breaker. Brilliant surgeon / naturalist. Espionage agent. Speaks a dozen languages. Crack shot, deadly fencer. Maxed out in Intimidation. Cellist. Does just fine with the ladies, when he tries.

A further thought --- a great tactician who was not known for book learning said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." The banneret is more the guy who improvises in the heat of the moment, rather than the chess master who is ten steps ahead.

One of the bits I really liked out of 4th ed. was the warlord, a leader class which depending on billed could benefit from a high Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score. I hope we will eventually see a fighter build for 5th ed. for smart and/or cagey leaders. For now, the new banneret is a...

What it probably requires is some deep thought about how it affects the world that there are guys who can throw around ninth 10th and 11th level spells, even when those guys aren’t around. Maybe make it a metaphor for multi billionaires?

Or. . . .Romans were kinda mystified by the pyramids, which were as ancient to them as the Romans are to us. And Faerun has had some cosmic shifts and resets that we haven't had. As far as we know....

100%. You need to hit the time-traveling players with something really foreign and antiquated and exotic, and it is hard to do when they are pretty much walking from one epic fantasy Renaissance faire into . . . a somewhat epicer fantasy Renaissance faire.

I pulled out the old boxed set recently. I could see doing a campaign that might be sort of an epic fantasy "Lower Decks," with the PCs as a group of expendable apprentices working for a half-mad or completely mad archwizard. Up in the floating cities, everything is the worst kind of...

Seems like they could've knocked out some wizard subclasses, to model the different divisions in schools/traditions back in the days of yore. And I supposed they could've done 10th level spells and such, but that's a whole separate can of worms.

Makes sense. Thank you.

Any new stuff about how goliaths fit into the setting, and specifically, anything addressing all of these new subtypes? My first instinct is that they all somehow mimic the culture of their respective giant equivalent.

Random observation about the revised bladesinger: this is a great subclass to model "librarian who secretly does kung fu." You could have a character who first and foremost sees themselves as a sage who does a little divination magic to support their scholarly pursuits...but it's a dangerous...

Looks like the mechanical stuff is up at Backgrounds - D&D 5e (2024) Glad to see some mythal-related stuff for PCs. I've thought about a PC who is a high elf abjurer (or defense-oriented bladesinger) who is preoccupied with mythals.