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"Reroute power to the phasers, Scotty, we don't need the shields!" This seems like it is easily simulated with the reverse of the Total Defense move from 3e (-4 Attack, +2 AC, IIRC), Total Attack: -4 AC, +2 attack. If no one is attacking you, why not?

Weiley31, I would hope that feats like Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, Great Weapon Master, Fey touched, Warcaster, Spell Sniper... these feats are not available from Backgrounds. I want my players to have Mounted Combat, Chef, Actor, etc. as background feats. But... 5e's feats are weirdly...

I'm okay with the Variant Human retaining its bonus feat - and without restriction. If he wants to be a Variant Human with the Acolyte background, and have Warcaster (VH bonus) and Ritual Caster (background) both, I'm okay with that. He's not getting darkvision or wings or resistances or any...

Dwarves are the miners and smiths of my world(s), including goldsmiths and silversmiths. They excel at engineering on a grand scale. Gnomes, on the other hand, are the jewelers and technologists. They excel at the minute and the intricate. They are the alchemists and artificers...

Why would you not wear a helm? Scale Armor = Leather + Breastplate (AC, not cost) Chain Mail = Leather Brigandine + Breastplate + Helm These values are higher than Core. Is that intentional? What's the difference between Brigandine and Leather Brigandine? I must have missed that...

(Minor Necromancy....) so what did the "final" list end up as? I liked the conversation in this thread, taking categories of armors from around the world and categorizing them into a smallish number of groups, because I tend to get very granular and suddenly I've got 30ish armors on the table...

Well, I was trying to avoid rewriting all the spells. Me personally, I love changing everything about everything. An unofficial sarcasm motto of mine since college has been "it's not a game until we've changed the rules!" But... in practice, no one wants to have to go double-check "how did we...

Lol, I did that research too, read the Trauma Report with the analysis of the 48' fall - except the trauma report said that fall is 100% lethal, not 50% - but I worked from "commoners have 5.5hp", instead of "falls do 1d6 dmg". I ended up with "falls do 1d10 damage, summation. DEX/Acrobatics...

Clever Nick, just a thought (not rebar, the weapons comment): In my karate class, they taught us how to fight a knife wielder (and a club wielder, which was like 90% the same). When we asked about a gun-wielder, the answer was "Give him what he wants. Unless you're willing to die to prevent...

This would be interesting, too. The only damage spells that exist are found on scrolls/tomes/whatever, and you have to actively use/read them. If you have multiples of these after many quests... you can still only have one ready and in your hands. and maybe it takes a full round to use it...

I liked an old 2e idea - implemented for crossbows - which was Armor Piercing: a crossbow ignores 5pts of AC-due-to-armor when fired at a target in short range. That seems like it would be a great buff for the pistol/rifle, while keeping the damage in the same range as the other weapons...

Copied from the 2020 "Five Things I love about SODL" thread: Elegant Initiative Going first in a fight is important. A lot of traditional games get bogged down in who goes when and how many actions a character can take. This game keeps it simple, but still throws in a tactical choice. Players...

New players, in my experience, either have no idea what they've gotten themselves into, or they come with an idea they got from a book/show/movie. Which means they are most likely to end up with either a stereotype/archteype character, or some weird munchkinized multiclass abomination a...

Character Death, when it happens, rarely lasts more than a couple rounds (revivify), or at most a Long Rest (raise dead). With this understanding, maybe we can agree that Character Death in 5e isn't uncommon. PERMANENT character death is very rare, and generally the result of either (a)...

That assumes new people join the game. I've been with the same crew for 20 years - we've added one and lost one in that time.

It's a good question, though. My answer, for my game, comes down to the way I describe things, and the questions players ask. I go to a certain level of trouble to describe the effect of attacks against resistances, immunities, and "non-interactions". For example, a nonmagical weapon doing 0...

House rules actually in play: single page "player's aid", front-and-back, condensed and summarized. Probably a quarter of which is "cool things you can do with a Critical Hit, instead of extra damage". Rules in a word document that I consider "officially part of the campaign" - 20 or so...

The only issue I have is abuse. As I mentioned, in the game where I am a player, the Warlock uses cure wounds. We are 8th level, so that's potentially 8d8+8 healing (4d8+4, twice), every hour-and-12-seconds. Not necessarily in combat - he loves his Form of Dread - but healing the 93hp...

I'm in the "at some point during your round, you've whipped a weapon through the spectral thing - it didn't connect, dodge, or react in any way" camp. Otherwise, I'd feel compelled to give everything "physicality mechanics", and then rules on how other things now can interact with the object...

1) Short Rests in my campaign are an hour, and I generally limit them to "two per Long Rest". There is a Battlemaster/Rogue, Cleric, Rogue, Bard, and Warlock (celestial) in the group. During a short rest, the Rogue usually is scouting, the Bard is playing music, the Battlemaster and Warlock...