Recent content by Mephistopheles

I think player input can be useful even in a sandbox game; it doesn't have to be as overt as Wil describes it. Players often throw ideas back and forth amongst themselves as they theorise or try to guess what's going on in the game. I'll just let them talk, take notes if I hear something I...

Weight in D&D isn't always just weight, though. It sometimes incorporates the bulk of items, in which case I can see the argument for adding a pound to the weight of the water for the skin. What confuses me in the adventuring gear table is vials. According to the capacity table, a vial holds 4...

With table time increasingly at a premium, these days I tend to prepare a document that provides an overview of the campaign, send it out a few weeks ahead of the first session, and have at least one printed copy for the first session. It includes things like: a setting summary (usually a...

For me it's probably bullywugs, but this has nothing to do with 5E. It goes back to a game session (maybe 2E or 3E, I don't quite recall) in which, after a series of misadventures, a party member went more than a little insane and set about building a temple to an unnamed bullywug god. Towards...

I'd second that recommendation. I really liked the setting and lore. I felt the NPC companions were probably the weakest element of the game; it's possible I'm just spoiled from playing a lot of Baldur's Gate augmented with a decade plus of community mods that, among other things, fleshed out...

Psionics. The idea of handling psionics as a universal subclass popped into my head while reading the thread about Mearl's question on psionics flavour yesterday. It's based on the 1E version of psionics, where regular characters had a chance to have psionics. While it was fun in its own way...

Actually, I'd say it's worse than that because the monk cannot see the target space within the area of the Darkness spell, and Shadow Step allows a teleport to a space "you can see"; however, I think the saving grace of the ability is that it works within "dim light". The PHB definition of dim...

This strikes me as a bad way to investigate. Before asking if the flavor needs to be altered I think some common ground needs to be established on what that flavor is. Just taking a quick skim through this thread it is apparent there are a few different takes on that starting point. This makes...

Nice work. Another thing I think could be added to the treatment of factions in the DMG is the application of Winninger's Second Rule of Dungeoncraft: whenever you design a major piece of the campaign world, always devise at least one secret related to that piece.

The section on injuries (DMG, p. 272) details some options for lingering injury triggers and effects (reminded me of injuries in Dragon Age when I first saw it). These options are on the grittier side of things: you've got three chances in twenty of losing an eye or limb, for example, which will...

If these are the articles you're referring to then they're still available. The Angry Guide to A$&kicking Combats (Part 1): Picking Your Enemies The Angry Guide to Kicka$& Combats (Part 2): Battlefields and BattleFEELS The Angry Guide to Kickass Combats (Part 3): Let’s Make Some F&%$ing Fights...

Here are a couple of quick ideas for reducing damage calculations without making it entirely static. (I'm shooting from the hip halfway through my morning cup of coffee, so I haven't really thought these through). One alternative would be to scale damage based on how convincingly the attacker...

No problem. Just pointing out things you didn't mention that may get in the way. A few levels down the track Haste spells or Boots of Speed will make it a lot more viable as a Fighter.

You can move through the spaces of non-hostile creatures without Halfling Nimbleness. Nimbleness is needed for moving through the spaces of enemies that are one size larger rather than two. You still won't be able to stop in the spaces of other creatures. So, for example, you wouldn't be able...

It does seem a more natural flow that the victim would do what you just commanded it to do right away, but I suppose that's down to the imposition of abstract turns in combat. Looking at the spell itself, in 1E and 2E it was not specific about when the victim took the commanded action. In those...