Lanefan's latest activity

Coming back to pitfalls in game design, I’d like to talk about one that occasionally comes up in the games I read, which is...

It's passing rare that the PCs run into 20 creatures at once that aren't one-hit wonders even with their full hit points. Last session...

They don't. If you're rolling their hit points at d8 per hit die a 5 HD adult* Ogre can have 5-40 h.p. + 5 x its Con bonus, which...

There have been a lot of posts so you probably missed the scenario when it first came up. The scenario was minions attacking a town and...

Or - put another way - in fields like this where mistakes don't really matter very much, trial and error is sometimes the very best way...

Many game designers today say they started when they were kids, making crazy unbalanced games for their siblings and friends. Learning...

I have certainly never come across rules that ruin a game and which have been retained in that game while I continue to play. If a GM...

I think there are two different scenarios: If someone is seriously attempting to create a game they expect to distribute and have...

Image created from an idea by my five year old son. Presenting Bobasaur...

Good, because I'm not defending it. :) I think minions are one of 4e's poorest mechanic ideas.

Yes it is, to the point where this should pretty much go without saying. Get the mechanical simulation of its physicality vaguely right...

Not sure what you mean here. The dragon's breath weapon does its max hit points in damage, not its current hit points. This is all new...

Question: what's the functional difference between giving minions a damage threshold and just leaving them with the hit points they...

Bumping this question, curious if this exists for 3.x. I usually just base my buy range on eBay prices sorting by recently sold comps. I...

More often than many DMs (including me!) would like to think, it's fairly obvious when something's being made up on the spot.