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Very interesting. I agree with your very good post, that the essence of AD&D was to give the players options for interacting with the adventure and setting in different ways, and that the magic-user's approach was supposed to be reliant on magic and magic items. To bounce off this idea a...

If I remember right the magic mirror is a trapped sandestin, and Shimrod discusses them with Madouc. But Shimrod, Murgen, and the others frequently make use of weird extraplanar entities that like the sandestins of Rhialto are completely literal-minded and confused about the material world. I...

He refined his notions of magic again in the Lyonesse trilogy, where the magicians also use both sandestins and spells.

I seem to remember Gary Gygax explaining his decision to incorporate "Vancian" magic in a Dragon column. To paraphrase (with all suitable caveats), he thought it would be more interesting play if wizards had powerful spells even at low levels, but had to choose carefully when to use them, rather...

Just tossing out an idea, although I think it would be too far astray from mainstream 5E: Why not have 4 spellcasting classes that are organized around how they access magic, not the spell lists? For example: Hermetic magician: "wizard-like" mechanics: Pick one list from Arcane, Divine...

It is boring for all spellcasters to have the same mechanics.

This post is mostly about bardic magic. Bards (and rangers) preparing spells: From a lore perspective I would prefer only Wizards, Clerics, and Druids to have access to the full spell list and be able to potentially prepare any spell on that list. I think it would also make sense for all...

My perspective on mundane extraordinary abilities is quite simple. If the Ranger casts hunter's mark, it is an explicitly magical ability that is functionally identical to other spells. The effect can be dispelled, the casting can be interrupted, etc. etc. The Ranger has learned how to cast...

There are some creative class abilities in this packet (Rover! Elusive!) that are very welcome. But why oh why do they keep forcing mundane class abilities into the spellcasting framework? This just makes it harder to develop classes for low-magic settings or classes with unique mechanics that...

The Fool's Gold kickstarter might be worth a mention next week: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hitpointpress/fools-gold-into-the-bellowing-wilds

Hi Teldarian, Thanks for the details! I didn't realize that Ras Nsi came from a novel. Unfortunately, my campaign stalled due to life changes among the players and the demands of a new job. I'm still hoping to run it one of these days... Ben

When I read this subclass, I immediately imagined a team of gloom stalkers entering a region of total darkness, and then bumping into each other and getting confused because they can't see each other! I think the ability is badly worded. Here's how I would rule the L3 ability: A gloom stalker...

For my games, these are the three Masters: Tolkien: give your setting mythical and historical depth Vance: human culture is diverse and comical, human venality is constant and comical Lovecraft: there is no greater fear than the fear of the unknown There are tons of other authors whose works I...

It definitely works, but it also removes some sense of agency. When the party is being stalked by monsters, stealth vs passive perception feels fair. When the party is ambushed by a trap, it seems less fair. There's also the question of what happens after the first trap hits them and they...

Good question. For a while I was just going to drop it, but then I thought of a way to bring it into the storyline without the FR slant. Xen'drik already has frost giants, so no worries about where THEY came from. I'm thinking Mezro was actually a giant city repurposed by the Chultan settlers...

Nice article! The various pelgrane scenes from Dying Earth are always my inspiration for role-playing perytons. Ben

I don't have time to play all the big adventures, so pretty good. If the next hardcover is an Eberron update plus an adventure, even better! I think Curse of Strahd was a pretty good model. All the required rules updates for Eberron could fit easily into an appendix.

I'm putting it on the large island W of Stormreach, which I think is about the right size and climate. Ben

No worries. The only canon FR detail that I checked for this timeline was how long ago the Spellplague happened, and I did make sure that the disappearance of Mezro happened at about the same time. Cheers, Ben

Hi everyone, I've pieced together a geopolitical history of Chult based on snippets of information throughout the book and my own interpolations. Here it is, in hopes that other DMs find it useful. Note that I'm running ToA in Eberron, which is why the timeline ignores any pre-ToA history of...