Recent content by Paul Farquhar

As is destructive wave (if expensive) and trample (hint - move back and forth over the same enemies). The poison aura and AoE healing are good too. The spell list could do with tweaking to give a few more good options - I would add Bark Skin, Thunderwave and Dragon Breath. The thing to realise...

Giant ape use improvised weapons and unarmed strike. It’s only natural weapon attack that specifies wisdom, and strength is always equal to wisdom. But making melee attacks rather than chucking spells and AoEs is the wrong way to use the titan forms anyway

Talking of power level, I find it remarkable how many therorcrafters fail to understand the mechanical effect of size.

This will vary a lot between tables, and will typically depend on the nature of the familiar - which is not covered by the rules. An owl familiar can grapple - something mouse sized, a quipper cannot grapple anything. A monkey familiar can do a lot of things a spider cannot, but is less likely...

Sure, I wouldn’t go edgy, I would just go somewhere that wasn’t pastoral. The Dalelands is fine being the Dalelands, but I wouldn’t set an adventure there, so I wouldn’t buy a book about it. (I wouldn’t want to live there either.)

Well there is a book of adventures in the list, so I imagine so.

Sure, a boring place filled with an implausible number of high level NPCs and a megadungeon on the doorstep. Hommlet isn’t quite so bucolic, but I still wouldn’t use it. The similarities show just how generic they both are.

Grimdark is not the only alternative to vanilla. Calimshan in the new book is really great, and not at all grim or dark.

Grapple.

Dalelands is more old school and Tolkien-esque. We have the Shire parked next to a megadungeon. Sword Coast is more new-fangled 90s urban D&D.

March into battle surrounded by an army of low level NPCs. And the other forms have huge AoEs that can devastate enemy minions by the hundreds. The behemoth’s trample ability is particularly open to abuse. And that’s before you persuade your DM that your giant ape can wield a tree trunk and...

And the titan can cast a selection of spells and spell like special abilities whist shifted. Certainly if you just punch you are wasting it, but its emanations are massive. The bug titan can do AoE cure wounds covering an area of 96 grid squares at a cost of one first level slot.

Combat isn’t just about how much damage you do when you punch things.

🤷‍♂️ Some people like vanilla?

Which would make something such as "Champions of Light and Darkness" more likely than Return of the Revenge of the Book of Vile Darkness Strikes Back. Featuring options for paragons of evil and good. We are missing Angel, Dragon and Angel-with-a-pet-dragon archetypes. Or Owlcat have taken over...