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I think keeping the conditions a negotiation between DM and player is good. Obviously, you'd only use these house rules with players you know and trust, so it's okay to be a little more flexible with the rules. I also think having the effects last until the end of the player's next initiative...

Great idea. I'm a fan of anything that shakes up the old settings.

I'm of the opinion that the Tyranny of Dragons storyline, if it resulted in Tiamat's arrival, would irrevocably change the Realms for the worse. Rise of Tiamat mentions that the threat posed by Tiamat and the Cult of the Dragon is so unprecedented that it drove the Lord's Alliance, Harpers, and...

In my experience, if a caster polymorphs him/herself into a t-Rex or a giant ape, the they've traded their casting to add some muscle for a combat encounter. Nothing game-breaking there. If they polymorph one of the warriors in the party, then they've essentially given that warrior an hp buff...

I allow both of them, but strictly enforce the fact that they become those animals for the duration of the spell and expect the player to abide by those limitations.

The spell they should have used in conjunction with their illusory disguises is Nystul's Magic Aura. Not only could it mask the magic aura given off by their disguise, but it could also make them "read" as dwarves for the purposes of the alarm spell.

I did; on the second page.

This is very true. The DIY attitude is alive and well in the OSR and the games that have spun off from it.

For me it's time. I spent most of 2e and 3e making my own stuff - adventures, monsters, class abilities, etc. You name it and I made it myself. My group also had three "main" DMs (myself and two other players) who would routinely rotate campaigns and help keep things fresh. During 4e, I turned...

Nice to see this breakdown as I'm going to be using both as antagonists in an upcoming campaign.

I use them in a way similar to how 3e split Search and Spot checks. Investigation is for noticing fine details, finding a specific item/object in a room, or determing the significance of something. I also use it as a catch-all "detective" skills. Perception is for noticing threats, catching a...

I'm pretty sure this would just cause them to revert to their normal forms with no ill effects.

I've used FR for my two longest running 5e campaigns: ToD and OotA, both heavily modified. Until 5e, I stayed well away from the Realms, but I inherited the ToD game from a friend and decided to try out my first Realms campaign. In both games I pretty much ignored canon and treated the setting...

I'm not 100% sure why I didn't have that issue in 3e - we'd usually have 2-3 combats per session, very few instances of PCs going full nova, and avoided rocket tag combats for the most part. I suspect it's mostly group playstyle as my players tended to be very cautious and conservative with...

The 6-8 med/hard encounters per day (almost always combat encounters, btw) seems to break down with tier 4 adventures. Sure, an assault on a demon lord's stronghold in the Abyss will involve lots of encounters, thus creating the marathon that Flamestrike mentions, but how many demon lords will...

I'm playing a 15th level Rogue/Bard in my friend's Spelljammer campaign. After we captured our fifth spelljamming ship, we started selling the helms and keeping the rest of the ships for Fabricate material. The money we get from selling helms (something like 100-250k gp a pop) is enough for us...

I read the sidebar and I still have an issue with the two archetypes as presented. Names matter, and when the designers use names that have strong connections to real world warriors it matters to me that the mechanics back that up. As is the UA Knight is two concepts in one - mounted warrior and...

I found AC AC 25 a good benchmark for a "high AC" monster. Advantage is trivially easy to get at those levels (Most of the heavy hitters were running around with Foresight or using summoned creatures to Help), and bless was always on hand if things got tough, so I rarely saw players miss even...

I've run two tier 4 5e campaigns: Tyranny of Dragons until 17th lvl and Out of the Abyss to 20th lvl. Both were heavily modified from the book. ToD 1) Main party: Frenzy Barbarian, Ancients Paladin, Trickery Cleric, Light Cleric, Assassin/Hunter. Ancillary party members (provided spell support...

The new UA options are exciting at first glance, but the more I sit down and look them over, the more underwhelmed I am. Lots of rehashed mechanics, feats as subclasses, or just generic abilities. The biggest offenders are the Ancestral Spirit barbarian and Protection cleric, but most of the...