Search results

  1. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Closed Room Puzzles

    Demons are often considered intrinsic to a character. How about demons that you create, but are not you? This requires that the DM really know the PCs well enough to know who they love, who they hate, what they've sacrificed, and what their goals are, and the limits of their morality. Have...
  2. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Closed Room Puzzles

    This puzzle is one-dimensional, primarily based on greed, but you can introduce other "sins" as needed -- sloth, lust, gluttony, etc. For the purposes of this encounter, I would rule that Detect Magic works, but Identify does not. The room is full of "treasure," but no door. Lust might involve...
  3. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Building a better Rogue

    You made me go look. It's even worse than I thought. Thief gets Sneak Attack when they have advantage. They get advantage in all the standard ways, whatever those are. Barring complications, they get advantage when an ally is adjacent to their target The Assassin gets all that plus they get...
  4. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Building a better Rogue

    Neither. I'm just bitter at the existence of the feats that have complicated my life as a DM, and assigning deliberate malice as a motivation of the game designers. :) Because my players have specific combinations of feats and skills, I go through incredible contortions to enable my NPCs to do...
  5. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Building a better Rogue

    It's not a fix. It's RAW. I just translated it into conversational English. :lol:
  6. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Building a better Rogue

    From a simplification perspective, this is admirable. Except for two reasons. 1) They created the Alert feat to nerf Assassins. This is one of those cases where I say that if they wanted to make a kindler gentler DnD, why even bother paying lip service to the Assassin subclass? Unlike all...
  7. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Would you change a monster's hit points mid-fight?

    Never. For any reason. If monsters are too easy, the characters get overconfident. If monsters are too hard, the characters become wary. I'm not sure there's any such thing as "just right." And I can use the emotional outcome of any battle to my advantage in future situations. My...
  8. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) [D&D 5th Edition] Best 50/50 multiclass?

    Warlock/Rogue (combat, exploration) or Warlock/Bard (exploration, social) It isn't that they don't both cover all three pillars, but they're wicked powerful in the two I've listed. However, it does completely depend on related skills, feats, invocations and spells selected. and your GM, of...
  9. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Magic Items You'll Never Give Out

    Invisibility is an "easy" stack. There's much worse/impressive things you can do with an APDL. Depends on what your GM lets you get away with, of course. But crank that imagination up. Way up. Y'know, like to 11. And then pretend no one can tell you're doing it. Because they can't, unless...
  10. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Magic Items You'll Never Give Out

    I can think of only one book-standard item I will never give a PC. In the hands of a capable character, it can wreak havoc on a campaign: Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location Almost all other items have drawbacks, limited range of applications, require an attack roll, run out of...
  11. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Is This Magic Item Overpowered for 5e?

    Seems pretty straightforward. If only one of the rods fails its save, both will end up devoid of magic. If both rods make their saves, they will both remain viable. Initiative matters if you want to know which rod discharged first. Aww, yeah.
  12. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Is This Magic Item Overpowered for 5e?

    Generally speaking, the 5e system is all about second chances and latitude. Consequences in earlier editions of D&D tend to be definitive and merciless.
  13. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Absurdist adventures (Idea me!)

    Here's one: Build a dungeon based entirely around the Demiplane spell. The creators cast the spells, populate each demiplane in turn with nasties, cast another demiplane spell, and move on to the next demiplane. Rinse and repeat. They cast the spells with 5 minutes or less to spare on the...
  14. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) Should Warlock Patrons be able to revoke a Warlock's powers if the Patron is displeased?

    The common thread to me is that everyone wants the rules to tell them how to do things. Those are mechanical issues. The WHY of things is a story issue. I could see a book giving you IDEAS. But direction? Nah. That's where roleplaying comes in. I had this same problem when I was GMing a...
  15. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) How do you interpret the Oath of Ancients?

    Is this some kind of pre-Brazilian reference? Just askin'. :) Anyhow, the way I think about OotA: Your gramma made you a quilt. It's an awesome quilt, with fantastic images, mostly soft and fuzzy, but she did kinda work with whatever she had at hand. Cotton, burlap, wool. And the colors don't...
  16. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) As a DM, can I just say, Screw Paladins :)

    Paladins don't usually have familiars. If that owl isn't his steed, I'm not sure what it's doing there. #ALWAYSconfused
  17. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) I'm sorry. What? I mean, what?

    If a vampire casts Mirror Image, do the duplicate images cast shadows? What happens when you cast Antipathy on yourself, targeting creatures of your own type? Feel free to add your own whatchamawtf items. I found this in a casual search for something similar, but I'd be more interested in...
  18. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) As a DM, can I just say, Screw Paladins :)

    Hmm. I seem to have been doing it wrong all these years. No wonder I'm so depressed.
  19. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) As a DM, can I just say, Screw Paladins :)

    Where's the "Tried too hard for a laugh" button?
  20. merwins

    D&D 5E (2014) As a DM, can I just say, Screw Paladins :)

    Agreed. I might do this a little, in subtle ways, just to keep the players on their toes, but I wouldn't design adventures to eliminate their advantages. When a PC feels overpowered to me, I rely on description to make the "player" more paranoid about what's going on. A character might easily...
Top