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The errata was necessary for normal darkness to work properly. As originally written, anyone standing in normal darkness suffered from the Blinded condition and so couldn't even see distant light sources. This would have meant (e.g.) that stars couldn't be seen at night, torches would be...

I think there's room to thread the needle and refashion classes on something similar to the 5e Warlock chassis without ending up with 4e. One could probably end up closer to Star Wars Saga Edition, which managed to have the classes on identical chassis without the same level of pushback that 4e...

I agree with much of this, but I emphatically disagree that a design critique necessarily involves comparing something to its own design goals. I think it's perfectly valid to critique something based on the purposes of the end users. So while a bare "I don't like it" isn't a useful design...

The more I look into various dictionaries, the more conflicting information I'm seeing about what "critique" actually means. It feels a little surreal, since I thought I had a good understanding of the word. Most dictionaries seem to restrict "critique" to a detailed analysis, so a bare "I...

(Bold emphasis added.) I don't follow the bolded claim. How do subjective personal opinions of an RPG fail to qualify as design criticism? When I express my opinion of a game's design aren't I critiquing criticizing that design, by definition? Edit: interestingly, the dictionary definitions of...

Wasn't your original claim that without the risk of permanent character death, there would be no permanent consequences at all? Isn't failure itself still meaningful if it has permanent consequences?

How does later bringing the royal family back to life fix the failure? The royal family has been gone in the interim. Isn't that an unfixed permanent consequences for failure?

Thanks for clarifying. What other types of solutions do you have in mind that are able to retroactively correct consequences from past failures? I understand how high-level spells (or political influence, or even, in some cases, simply tons of cash) can change the current situation, but I'm...

Ok, I'm confused. I thought your entire point was that without the possibility of permanent character death, no consequences of any sort will ever be permanent because one could just wait to high level and use high-level resources and/or get a god to retroactively fix all the past consequences...

Thanks for elaborating! At my table we expect everyone to be proactive about helping to make sure that the tool doesn't break. So, deliberately doing the opposite would indeed be, let's say, problematic. :) Similarly, testing borderline cases to see if someone tells you to stop (rather than...

For my part, there are always enough simultaneous plots going on that failing at any one (or more than one) of them isn't a campaign-ending hard loss. The outcome of failure might indeed be tragic and irreversible, but the game doesn't stop because there's still so much to do! (Including dealing...

Personally speaking, testing limits is not condoned at my table unless we're explicitly doing a playtest. In actual play we're trying to use the system (including any houserules) as a tool, not deliberately test that tool to see where it fails. The idea that players would deliberately test the...

(Edit: accidentally quoted more people than I intended. My apologies.) Doesn't that only work if both (a) all problems resulting from failure have possible solutions AND (b) those solutions can be found faster than new problems crop up? If either condition isn't met you end up with a non-zero...

(Emphasis in final sentence added.) It's possible to go beyond just highlighting the Ranger saving the party from passive hazards. Instead, let the party turn those hazards to their advantage. This can be as simple as letting the players opt to freely ambush any encounters instead of avoiding...

Good catch. I had mistakenly thought that the Githyanki racial medium armor proficiency included shield proficiency.

My experience is the opposite. My players tend to try to talk to everything first unless they already know the creatures are hostile, in which case they set up an ambush.

So, when you hit zero you curse, put a hit die in the swear jar pop-up healing jar, and get back up?

I'd suggest a Githyanki melee Wizard. The character will start with a 20 STR and 18 INT. Optimal would be to go Quarterstaff and Shield, with PAM as the 4th level feat. Take Booming Blade or Greenflame Blade, and Haste. Usual combat round (after Haste is up) will be to cast a leveled spell or...

It's even better than that... note the "engaging" and "pointlessly" in addition to "flail".

Mirage Arcane is the true army killer in 5e. Any army that fits within a square mile and stays there for more than ten minutes (and lacks access to Dispel Magic) can be effectively imprisoned in an adamantine structure for 10 days, which could easily be a death sentence unless they're packing a...