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It's wonky. I don't like the shape shift becoming the defining ability of the class. If you take that away, though, there's not much to differentiate it from a Nature Cleric.

I could probably be talked into going either way. My gut is to put with the Fighter, but that might just be because the current presentation in the Barbarian has them mechanically associated, but it feels forced.

Very well aware of that. I loved the Berserker class from the 2E "Complete Viking" book. One of my favorite characters, ever. That's not what the 5E Barbarian (or the 3E Barbarian, before it) is, though. The totems aren't flavored as driving the rage or being a side effect of it. They're just...

Still not sure whether you're talking real-life experience or at the game table.

Pretty solid, over all. I think there's room for tinkering with it, but I like to tinker. I haven't seen a Champion in play, but keep hearing that they're a bit weak.

Hate the Barbarian as a stand-alone class. Make the Berserker a Fighter sub-class. Toss the totem stuff to either Druid or Ranger (probably Ranger), depending on exact flavor desired -- some work may be needed to disentangle totem and rage, but they shouldn't have been related, to begin with...

I wouldn't say I hate Clerics. It just seems like it's built as a combination of homage to an archetype that no longer fits with the other default game assumptions and to fill a certain mechanical role. One of the biggest turn-offs, to me, in 4E was that the four roles were made explicit. I...

The martial weapon proficiency bothers me a lot less than the heavy armor. I'd still rather see something like "simple weapons, plus one martial weapon". I know that most PCs would really ever use one or two martial weapons, anyway, so there's minimal in-play difference. It's just much more...

I had to go look it up. I did not actually realize that Tempest got heavy armor and martial weapon proficiency. I pulled it out as something I just assumed did not have those (like Knowledge and Trickery -- which I just went back and checked). I'm still not able to fully wrap my mind around how...

Jokes are not allowed. We don't play these games to have fun.

Definitely. In one myth, when a werewolf died, they became a vampire. In another, a murderer would rise as a vampire unless buried correctly. Excommunication could do the trick, too. The stake could vary between yew, rosewood, and mountain ask (or "other"). It might kill them, paralyze them, or...

My main complaints about the Cleric are as they have been since 3E and losing the 2E Priest class: 1) Too much access to heavy armor -- I get that the Cleric is supposed to be militant, and I appreciate that WotC removed heavy armor as default for Clerics in 5E. I still would have limited access...

There are different versions of the vampire folklore -- I did a 10 page paper on it for a high school class (awesome). Dracula, for instance, didn't actually take damage from the sun. He was just (vaguely) weaker. So, the change actually makes Strahd more like Dracula, who is the archetypal...

Yeah. I expected to be "old man" not "normal".

OK. This is going to sound like I'm attacking, but I'm not. I'm genuinely trying to figure out where the line is. So, if I spend time in the shower thinking about how to screw over my players, that's prep? Does that include the dozens of campaigns that I've pondered without actually running...

Very cool. I prefer the nWoD (Requiem, et al), and Mage: the Awakening, in particular, so it's a bit of a bummer that it talks about it being for Vampire: the Masquerade. Since the domain name is WorldOfDarkness and the moniker is "Storytellers Vault", I'm assuming that they're just leading with...

Oh, yes. This just bit me with Curse of Strahd. I'd forgotten about the "Events" section in the back of each chapter. And, this is why I've skipped many of the 5E adventures. After trying to convert Tyranny of Dragons to Eberron (or anywhere that isn't the Realms), I realized that it would...

In general, I'd say that's no prep. I consider myself a "wing it" GM, most of the time. It doesn't bother me one iota to whip out the Monster Manual. Sometimes, I do actually create a custom/modified monster. That's the exception, though, not the rule and doesn't make me any less a "wing it" GM...

D&D 5E, published adventures.

I definitely think the "who" is as important as the "what". Most of the best games* I've been in were 75% winged and I'm not sure the other 25% was ever written down. But.... I've got a player -- he prefers to play, but can be talked into GMing -- who does a fabulous job at running modules. Very...