Recent content by kigmatzomat

Most cantrips see less use at higher levels (other than EB), but VM is still very useful. It's effective on casters using spell attacks as (other than EB) they will only get 1 shot per round. It is also a way to shut down a high level Rogue's sneak attack. We had a sniper do 85hp on our...

Which part are you disputing? The "nobles guard their privilege" or "rich became targets"? Because both appear true in your example. Despite two generations of Fuggers working for the royalty of the HRE, it wasn't until the 3rd generation of royal involvement that Jackob became a noble. Sounds...

Marcus Crassus is a great example. After Sulla defeated Marius, many Roman elite were put on prescription lists, where the families were killed/exiled/enslaved/imprisoned and lands confiscated. Crassus is notable in 82BC for adding a wealthy person to the list, just so he could claim their...

FTFY Outside of democracy-based states, the rich are the nobility. Or the nobility are the only ones who can be rich. Whichever. The exceptionally wealthy plebian will marry into nobility and a noble with enough troops can enrich themselves. Which, now that I see what I wrote, opens up the...

Marginal utility is the term you're looking for. It's like is it worth it to spend $10k on a crap car or $30k for a solid car? Generally the $30k car is a better choice from maintenance, performance, and experience. Is it worth going to a $90k luxury car? Not for most people. They'd spend...

The second paragraph of the PDF attributes the contents of the PDF to Saidoro, who compiled the list with lots of feedback from forums and wrote all the text, besides the introduction. Saidoro is also who posted the the thread. Inconnunom turned it from a wall of text into a very pretty PDF...

If everyone has attuned items they like, this would have to be better than one of those. It's a bomb. Most players will be averse to spending an Attunement slot and expending multiple actions on an item that can kill them and/or their allies. So this thing has to be awesome. The rogue...

This, this, a hundred times this. The last d&d campaign I ran, the low level adventurers could buy one or two healing potions from the mid-sized town as they were all people were willing to spare against emergencies, but there was an alchemist who could make more...given time. So they would...

We tend to do it backwards. "Well, we killed an albino harpy, two mind flayers, a mess of oozes and slimes plus we found that weird metal that casts no shadow in dim light but casts two shadows in bright light. What can we make with this?" "Hrmmm, with materials we can easily collect or buy...

Yowch. That's a painful, broken jaw. Now V, cast Enlarge on the dinosaur....

You know, as a way to describe arrays of probable/hypothetical objects (list 20 items found on a 1950 cruise ship but not on a modern cruise ship, tell me the brands of wine found in an upscale Parisienne cafe, etc ) based on wide swaths of sources, I like the LLMs. It's still mooching off...

We also have Paulhenge https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/58611

Str: Valor bard Dex: Fey Bard Con: Whisper Bard Int: Lore bard Wis: Creation Bard Cha: Eloquent Bard

You mention liking non-hp effects, perhaps movement would be a good one. Reduce their movement by 1ft per "new magic" item or maybe 5ft/attuned item or active "new" spell. Similarly, traps/constructs could either push or pull PCs based on their magic items/spells.

Once you are fighting a party with casters, it means you aren't dealing with level-0 nobodies. Those opponents can afford healing potions, which are is "don't die" in a bottle. As the bbeg is of a decent level, they have probably either been an adventurer or fought them. If you can't manage a...