Recent content by Melba Toast

Because AD&D ability checks were based on rolling lower than your ability score. Latter-day D&D players can't seem to grasp this concept for some reason. If you have the minimum 3 Str, you might suck, but you still have a 15% chance of success (on a 1, 2, or 3). If you have a 18 Str, you might...

I nixed darkvision from all races in my game except dwarves who I gave a weaker variation: low-light vision. My feeling is that torches make dungeons more exciting and eerie. Elves were given something else I call ultra-light vision, which allows them to see magical auras eminated from magical...

(polite note: apologies if this thread appears more than once. The quick thread feature doesn't seem to be working at the moment) Can the Ready Action result in a character getting 2 attacks in a round? Consider this scenario. We have 2 PCs: Sworddude and Axechick, and they are fighting a...

Did I kill this thread? Sorry.

I suppose you are right. Is this list exhaustive? Or is there anything missing?

Thanks; S'mon. I don't generally award XP in game, but I might do if the numbers were easily at hand. I've never built a combat encounter around CR budgets. I design encounters by what I reckon would be is ecologically realistic and dramtically interesting. CR budgets seem like a lot of work...

That's still a lot more brain processing power than looking at a chart. I've run all 5 editions of this game at one time or another and they have different modifiers. Maybe you don't have this problem but I'm old and not the world's greatest multi-tasker to begin with. Things get jumbled...

I think Wik is being a little hard on you. The basic components of a Dark Sun game are all there, its just missing some of the flourishes that make the world distinctive. Having said that, you could easily set your game in a generic desert setting and save yourself a lot of headaches (sorting...

Sorry to say but I'm not impressed with the WotC DM's screen. I bought it thinking it would help me transition from 2 decades of AD&D into the new world of 5th edition. I can't fault the screen for it's sturdiness, and it does suffice to hide my notes and rolls, but the charts on the inside are...

Hi there. Long time lurker coming out of the shadows. Recently switched to 5th edition after being a AD&D stalwart for 2 decades. Its been a... challenging... transition. Just wondering if anyone has bothered to produce (and share) a complete list of advantage and disadvantage situations based...

I favour starting out in a small, isolated village. As an old skool DM, I begin with the assumption that 1st level characters are amateurish, naive & immature. The small village represents the limits of their worldly knowledge and the extend of their comfort zone. From a storytelling...

Dude... I am so out of the loop on 4E. Did they ever even manage to get their digital initiative off the ground (i.e. virtual gametable)?

Aw, thanks Wik. I appreciate all the comments so far. Very interesting responses. Lets keep the thread alive! Those of us with experience in hexploration always draw back to the example of 'The Isle of Dread'. This is partly due to the fact that it was included with the original D&D Expert...

mmadsen Thank you for these constructive comments. Lets keep it up. Red Tonic I think the scale would really depend on the amount of detail you want to include within the hexes and what it convenient for you. Older 2E and OD&D boxes used to come with huge poster-sized hex maps with fairly...

*BUMP* After a long hiatus, I'm taking another stab at my hex-ploration game concept. We had an interesting conversation going on here that was eventually drowned out by all the 4E excitement back in 2009. I'd love to hear suggestions for a more interesting and effective random encounters...