Recent content by MerricB

It isn't. It begins with the challenge of how you deal with multiple in-party NPCs, and then continues from there. But I really like the underlying story and a lot of the locations. It feels interesting. My one adventure structure problem: I had one wonderful interaction in the adventure...

It does - check Step 9 of creating a monster stat block, where you factor resistances into account. (2014 only, of coruse!) Cheers!

Yeah. And it's nice when there's tiers beyond that. Which is why I've got this "mad" idea to reintroduce +1, +2, +3 resistances. You fight at the beginning. It's all good. You encounter monsters that need +1 weapons. That's a challenge to overcome. You finally get a consistent +1 solution...

To say that official D&D adventures are really terrible at giving out magic weapons rather understates it! I want resistances to matter, but it needs an approach that isn't just "oh, it'll be okay" - it needs more work than that!

These arguments are making me want to put back in resistances to tiered magic weapons +1, +2, +3, etc. into the game. And you're wondering, "Why do you hate your players so much?" "I'm an old school DM. It's what I do!" ;) But it's actually more nuanced than that. The trouble with the current...

The thing that infuriated me was they increased the hit points for the shadow, to make up for the loss of resistance to nonmagical weapons... ...but they kept in the resistances to elemental damage from spellcasters.

Magic weapons give a +1 to hit and damage. That helps you! But against all monsters. Very few monsters have resistance or immunity to normal weapons now.

It isn't in 2024, and we know there are conversion issues. :) However, in the interests of creating a ruling: Full text of Boon of High Magic: "You gain one 9th-level spell slot, provided that you already have one." (Note that a player can't choose this - it can only be given by a DM, per the...

One of the assumptions of 5E hiding that you may not be aware you're making: Does being "hidden" mean the opponent can't see you, or the opponent has lost track of where you are? In some versions of D&D, it's possible to be invisible, but you're making enough noise, etc. that the opponents...

Someone asked me why I cared, and I can say that when you organise public play every week in a store, you really don't want core rules to be confusing.

I wish they were so clear. :) Because of how they've broken up the rules, what was grouped together in 2014 got split apart in 2024. The DM decides part is in Chapter 1. All the actual details of the hide action (which exclude that pesky little detail) are in the Rules Glossary. It's very...

Their success was in clearly stating the requirements to become hidden using the Hide action. Everything else has been an unmitigated disaster, making hiding actually less clear than it was before! (And ruining the invisibility spell to boot).

It doesn't help, sadly. There are several areas where the rules are sadly deficient: * the rules are very vague about what "an enemy finds" you means. If I'm hidden, can I walk around in the open and can't be found until an enemy actually takes the Search action? It sounds ridiculous, but...

One of the #1 rules in rules interpretation is don't come up with examples that don't exist. :) Showing the rules break under hypothetical situations isn't that useful.

You don't prepare for slots. :) The 2024 text says "You determine what spells you can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. If you are a level 4 Ranger / level 3 Sorcerer, for example, you can prepare five level 1 Ranger spells, and you can...