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My general rule is PHB only. Anything else, including DMG and MM, is DM discretion only, with a default answer of "no". I also reserve one week to consider a new spell, feat, or prestige class-- I've gotten myself in trouble in the past by making snap decisions without thinking things through. Mike

four hours, give or take two hours (sometimes we just sit around and BS for a couple hours), every week.

Some ideas: - Caves or narrow box canyons. The giants cannot really fight if they have to crawl on hands and knees, or if they're squeezing down the giant-equivalent of a 3-foot-wide passage. The party will have to protect them from dangers during this time. - A region of stifling heat which...

In the immortal words of Gary, from the 1E DMG: "Never give a sucker an even break!" :) Okay, so he was quoting someone else. Seriously, the whole point of all those rules in 3E is to master them and use them effectively. You don't give hints to your opponent in Chess, why do it in D&D? Doing...

FWIW, I meant looking up rules, not adventure notes.

Well, tunnels that are lined with wood will eventually burn out or rot, and likely collapse at some point. Concrete lined tunnels I'd expect to survive more or less intact, as well as unlined tunnels bored out of solid rock. Bridges would probably all be gone. Modern superhighways and...

Is this really true?? If I spend even 5% of my time looking stuff up, I start to feel like I'm stuck in the mud. How about you? How much time do you spend looking up rules, how much time looking up stuff in your notes, and how much just talking "out of your head"? Enquiring minds want to...

B2, X1, X2, D1-3 The Known World, in a big fat FR-style book and two poster-sized trail maps. this time include the Isle of Dawn and Sind. Except redo Ierendi and Atruaghin, they just stick out like a sore thumb. Expand and combine X4/X5 into a mini-campaign. I'd love to see B4 (the Lost...

I discovered one guy when he left his AD&D hardback in plain sight on his desk at work. One day as I arrived at work, two guys were walking ahead of me, talking rather loudly so I overheard their conversation. (really) One was recounting a recent dungeon expedition, complete with references to...

"Whaddaya mean I fried the whole party with the fireball!? Oh well, it was worth it 'cuz I also took out half of this entire level!" "My lightning bolt did what? I hit him with it twice? Cool." "You mean I can try anything I want, even if it's not written on my character sheet?" "I can play...

The cover of the Erol Otus Basic/Expert set. It's got it all... fighter, wizard, dragon, dungeon, subterranean lake, and of course Erol Otus style! I remember when I first realized that the Expert Set had the same picture as Basic, but expanded it, and how cleverly metaphorical that seemed to my...

Yeah, I kind of think of D&D as a board game too. Not in the board/miniatures sense, but in a RULES sense. Everything is so cut and dried and "metagamey". Stuff like levels and classes and experience points are such obvious GAME mechanics. They aren't realistic, they are deliberate meta-game...

It is my understanding that medieval chainmail (not modern) was designed to hang vertically. The rings were designed and arranged so that the effect of gravity would "lock" them together into a semi-rigid plate-like structure. It was nearly impervious to a downward-angled thrust or slash, and...

The rust monster, bulette, and other were originally cheap plastic toys back in the 1970s, probably purchased from a dollar store. Gygax and friends looked at them and said, "cool, we need stats for these guys". You have apparently found the toy that inspired the monster. Let's hope that...

Yeah, probably. :) But what government wouldn't be tempted to try? Also it's not really control, it's more like evolution (or... um, breeding). You're simply selecting only those who are already doing the desired behavior anyway, you're not forcing anyone. Heck even if you did force them, and...

What would the 3E world look like if you took the rules at face value and extrapolated their effects on society. Any rules are fair game, not just magic. I was thinking about the Detect Evil/Good/Law/Chaos spells, for example, and it occurred to me that any government would LOVE to have a...

Just a couple of ideas that I plan to use if/when I ever run 3E again. (I had the same problem in my last campaign) (1) The DMG is off-limits to players at the gaming table. As Gygax used to put it, "any player caught with a DMG or MM at the table is less than worthly of an honorable death!"...

I'd be wary of suggestions for non-combat adventures; if these guys are powergamers you'll just bore them. And a special encounter only works once. My suggestions (some of which others have already suggested): (1) Increase the EL of encounters. Someone said +2 which is a good place to start...

I just noticed the "Damage Cap for Spell" table in the DMG (p.95), and in reading through it, realized that there are no exceptions listed: "For spells that deal damage, use [table 3-23] to determine approximately how much damage a spell should deal." (maybe some of you have been down this path...

Hmmm... looks something like this [1982] D&D Basic D&D Expert (lots of campaigns) AD&D 1E (lots more campaigns) Customized D&D-based homebrew [1985, went to college] Fantasy Hero 1E (lots of games) GURPS Fantasy 2E (lots of games) Traveller Spacemaster (shiver) Star Frontiers Worked on (but...