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European-style "colonists" might make pretty good "barbarian" sea raiders. Rolling in on ships, taking slaves and demanding precious metals. Possibly after sending in a series of traders or religious types who conveniently scout the area; or disgorging settlers who non-nonchalantly set up...

Being plants, do they eat and drink like more traditional humanoids? Speak normally? One presumes the answer is yes to all of these by default, but you might want to clarify in the descriptive text. It's the sort of thing I might wonder about anyway.

Was not intended as a pejorative. About half my family comes from the area 😜 (and in the not-so-distant past). In addition to serving at times as mercenaries or the Tsars' police force as well as being repressed and mistreated by the government, the cossacks had a penchant for settlements that...

Non-horse based pastoralists (herding cultures) have also done pretty well for themselves from time to time. For instance the Bedouin, the Maasai, the Picts /Scots (arguably mixed pastoralist/agricultural depending on location); what we call the Classic Greeks started out this way as well. And...

They also beat the crap out of the Islamic heartland to such an extent that succeeding people in the region have never fully recovered to this day (relative to others); Razing Baghdad and other cities, slaughtering MILLIONS because they dared to fight back, and destroying world-reknowned...

Horse archery didn't begin or end with the Mongols. The Mongol empire held on little more than two centures; didn't conquer fortifications with horse archers (although their armies heavily featured horse archers - something like 60% depending on era and location). Predecessors and successors...

Yeah, that's a myth. Horse archers were great at skirmishing, raids, harassment, and annoying the enemy until they foolishly broke formation. They were worthless at taking or holding fortifications, outclassed by unmounted archers, and could only really function in open terrain (not...

Perhaps I was unclear in the post - these clues are either placed in a larger description full of other details; or what the players glean from a successful skill check (e.g. perception or investigation). The players then need to describe how they search and what they do to uncover specifics...

Not really, IMX; if you get rid of those it tends to result in PCs carrying chests or even wagons full of torches and oil. Kinda like the whole crates full of arrows thing. That said, I think it's fun to play up / dramatize the dimness of "dim light". "There's a grunt from the shadows and a...

There kinda is an established procedure? Secret doors are precisely what passive perception is for. On rare occasion if I feel it's more fun to let the PCs have a chance to find or not find a secret door, I'll roll randomly behind the screen using the highest perception bonus for passive...

The presence and function of war in games I run varies quite a bit. Most often it's either a set of background obstacles or a story arc - something that takes a few sessions before the plot moves onward. That said, it's pretty easy to adapt warfare into a set of concrete encounters and/or...

Here's one for you: I seem to recall a room in Castle Greyhawk with a number of narrow, cylindrical shafts in it. When the PCs in all probability try to investigate they become magically compelled to throw their most prized magical item down one of the shafts, where it is irrevocably...

The word is context dependent. It could potentially mean anything supernatural in one context...e.g. "This Anti-Magic field shuts down anything that's magic(al)". But in other circumstances it can be used specifically to describe spellcraft or item enchantments...e.g. "I am skilled at magic".

I would tend to encourage people to play stupid characters. And autistic characters. And ADHD characters. And characters with low-status or high-status backgrounds. And socially inept characters. And in-crowd characters. And characters with all sorts of personal challenges. Roleplaying is...

I had to go with cleric. Not because it's a bad class - but because there's only a very few ways that I personally know how to roleplay an individual focused on faith without it starting to feel incredibly samey; with maybe slightly different window dressing.

Thing about giants is - they have huge achilles' heels. arhm

Yes. In my particular parlance a "deific force" being a diffuse primal, mystical, spiritual, symbolic and/or elemental concept that has deific or god-equivalent powers. Consider: A cleric devoted to something like "Love", the Jedi and "The Force", a religion revolving around spirits existing...

Feel free to look it up yourself. I provided the reference. I'll presume you know or are capable of looking up how square brackets are used in quotations in the English language if that's a point of confusion.

It literally says straight out in the PHB that that's exactly how they get their powers, kid. As I mentioned in the post you quoted. PHB, p64 under heading Power of Nature, 1st paragraph: "Druids revere nature above all, gaining their spells and other magical powers either through the force of...

That is all true, but I'm not entirely certain what point you are trying to make? Eberron - Somewhat distant or vague deities, but still clerics, druids, and obviously divine magical effects. Example: The Undying. Dark Sun - There are elemental powers that grant divine magic. Druids get their...