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Counterpoint: counterspell is overpowered and leads to boring game-play. Often the best tactical option is to just counterspell everything; it's an easy decision to make, and by eliminating enemy spells before they happen, counterspell also eliminates future interesting decisions. So maybe...

Can you make the "Prefix" required when posting new threads?

Promises, promises...

Also, I am trying not to go to sleep because then I would have to wake up on time and do things tomorrow, and making a list of fresh/salt creatures sounds like the perfect waste of time to me. Freshwater only: Bullywug (I'm assuming an amphibian's permeable skin is just as sensitive to salt as...

A freshwater fish put in saltwater should suffer dehydration as the water leaves its body; a saltwater fish in freshwater will absorb water until it explodes. (Well, its cells explode, which is not as spectacular.) According to teh interwebz, it is a matter of minutes before the fish dies. I...

Counterpoint: The spectral weapon is clearly a spell effect -- not a creature -- but who says you can't fight back? For example, can the weapon move through solid objects? The rules don't say that it can't, but most DMs would be kinda surprised if a player directed the weapon to go straight...

The other balancing factor to consider, is that true strike works with high-level spells. When you are planning on popping off a level 5 witch bolt or chromatic orb it can be worthwhile to give up a round of combat, in order to get advantage on that attack. In other words you waste a round...

I like this, but I wouldn't use force damage; that seems weird to me. I'd just make it damage of the same type, with the flavor being that you're just hitting in a more vulnerable place because of your exceptional aim. Also, some hits don't result in any damage at all (it's rare, but it...

Uh, how is this character wielding a two-handed sword with only one arm? The 5E rules don't have any way to do that. So it sounds like you're already into house-rules territory. How deep in do you want go? Anyway, Str/Cha-based sorcadin is a fantastic build and possibly overpowered. Multiclass...

My advice is to always pick the option that makes things more interesting. - Being in debt to the elven ambassador sounds great, especially if he asks them for a favor that puts them at odds with some other faction, one they wouldn't have tangled with otherwise. - What is ArKay's reputation...

"Captain Fork in the Eye" is possibly the best NPC name I've ever heard.

In my last campaign, MonsterTown, the bank was run directly by the church of Tiamat.

To open an account, you must accept a geas spell that you won't attempt to swindle the bank or rob it. Leomund's tiny hut is actually super useful as a vault door. Detect thoughts, possibly as a medallion of thoughts, could be pretty useful too. Maybe hire a mind flayer or a doppelganger for...

"Sahaguin sneak aboard your ship during the night" can actually be an interesting and challenging adventure for 1st-level characters. Also: HOLY CRAP, www.adventurelookup.com is incredible!

As a public service, for anyone looking to homebrew more fine-grained proficiency levels, I went and made a sheet of fractional proficiency bonus by level. 5e already has rules for half-proficiency and double-proficiency. I added a column for one-and-a-half-proficiency, which gives a nice...

Another product I love, from some of the same people (including, of course, Shawn Merwin) is the Tactical Map Adventure Atlas. I really wish there were a print option for this. I would slip it into the folder with the Tactical Maps, and that folder would become the "Fourth Core Book" for me.

+1 for Dragon Heist: Forgotten Tales. That is some primo top-shelf adventure supplement right there. Waterdeep: City Encounters is by the same crew, plus some others (including Shawn Merwin, who is everywhere), and is also excellent.

Lost Mine of Phandelver has a lot going for it. In particular, it's not a novel, it's a module, so the writers can make up any protagonists they want. It has a slightly problematic dark elf antagonist, but D&D is going to have to find some way to deal with that baggage eventually anyway...

Here's another way to look at this whole issue. During game play, some skills see a LOT more use than others. I rarely see Animal Handling checks in play. They happen, sure, but not that often. Ditto for Performance, Medicine, maybe Nature. Conversely, :):):):)ing PERCEPTION is rolled like...

I used quest XP for Princes of the Apocalypse and it worked very well, except for some weird issues involving the setup of that adventure (it's very easy to out-level the early sidequests). I'm also planning to use quest XP for Curse of Strahd if I ever get to run that module. The most fun XP...