Recent content by the Jester

  1. the Jester

    Cocktails

    I love chartreuse. I like to have a bottle each of the green and yellow in my bar at all times, but I like to have a lot of other things too, and there's always something missing at any given time. Currently, I only have maybe 1/6 bottle of the green on hand. Chartreuse helped me develop a...
  2. the Jester

    D&D 5E (2024) How excited are you for the 2 upcoming Forgotten Realms books?

    The Realms just aren't my bag. I don't buy much campaign specific material unless it's for a setting I like, so I'm not the audience for these.
  3. the Jester

    D&D 5E (2024) Representing afflictions in D&D 5e - which do you think work best/least dislike.

    It depends on the affliction in question. For example, for a bad luck curse, I have used a "dm's discretion, stuff breaks in your backpack, it rains on you, etc" with a minimal framework of mechanics, whereas for the hot shakes (a disease) I gave disadvantage on Dex attacks and checks and...
  4. the Jester

    D&D 5E (2024) Representing afflictions in D&D 5e - which do you think work best/least dislike.

    It just depends on the nature of the affliction. I like to use varied mechanics for these kinds of things, so that each instance stands out as different. In other words, I want two diseases afflicting the party to work differently.
  5. the Jester

    D&D General Does anyone recall coming across any magic weapons that return when thrown...other than Dwarven Thrower, Hammer of Thunderbolts or magic boomerangs?

    I believe 3e had a Returning property for some magic thrown weapons. In 4e, all thrown magic weapons returned to the wielder after the attack.
  6. the Jester

    D&D General Disparity in PC levels from same party

    Absolutely. 5e has quite a few things that enable mixed-level parties. I'll point at the 2014 version of Aid to start with (not sure how much it has changed in 2024).
  7. the Jester

    D&D General Disparity in PC levels from same party

    I'm fine with mixed level groups, both in those I run and those I play in, as long as the game mechanics don't basically prohibit it- 4e was terrible for this, and 3e wasn't great for it either. In both cases, the rate of increase of the numbers (hps, attack bonuses, save bonuses, etc) by level...
  8. the Jester

    D&D General The Jester's Perfect D&D

    Here's the expanded feats document. It includes a little section stating which feats are recommended for emulating classes other than the 'basic four'.
  9. the Jester

    D&D General The Jester's Perfect D&D

    Another little update: After three sessions, one of the groups has reached level 2, where they get their first feats. And there have been pretty interesting choices! I've added a bunch of new feats that haven't been posted here. One of the points of the feat system is to attempt to allow a pc...
  10. the Jester

    What are your thoughts on roll-under/roll-high mechanics?

    I love it so much that it's an integral part of my custom version of DnD- saves are 1d20, roll under, higher is better; and checks are the same except on xd6, where x is determined by the difficulty of the check. Some saves and checks also have DCs, so you might need to roll under your Wisdom...
  11. the Jester

    D&D General 70% Of Games End At Lvl 7?

    Generally years long, with lots of sessions that ranged from 3 to 8 hours. I can't really be more specific- each was different, and the rate of leveliing varied by edition and by what the pcs were doing (I have almost always run pretty sandboxy games where the risk and reward level is controlled...
  12. the Jester

    D&D General 70% Of Games End At Lvl 7?

    I actually left one out- it's seven groups. I play in three and run four. The first one I play in is every other Friday, but we miss about one session in three for one reason or another. This one I (and a couple of the other players) play online; we use Discord for scheduling and Google Meet...
  13. the Jester

    D&D General 70% Of Games End At Lvl 7?

    I'll just say that, while evidence and many peoples' anecdotes seem to support this, my own experience varies pretty far from it. I'm currently running and playing in about six groups, two of which are in the teens level-wise, and one of which is just relaunching after finishing up with my...
  14. the Jester

    D&D 5E (2024) So what's going on with the October book?

    Oh man, the PS adventure was pretty bad, but I couldn't even finish reading the SJ one. So I guess I can't say which was worse... but neither one was good.
  15. the Jester

    History Rhymes: Another Gygax Lawsuit

    I hate it for both the bait and switch and its (IMHO) awful content. When it first came out, I thought some of it was at least funny, and tried to run it; and it was pretty unusably bad. It put its jokes ahead of being a good adventure, far far ahead, and it suffered terribly for it. But...
Top