Search results

Maybe. A "commoner" of today has a basic math education and so can presumably understand in principle that calculus is performed by manipulating the numbers in certain ways, even if they can't do it themselves. Akin to a D&D commoner understanding that a blacksmith makes a horseshoe by heating...

I might suggest a refinement: the supernatural is that which a D&D commoner does not understand how to do.

Ignorant and superstitious people are by definition those who place the supernatural within their view of nature.

Yeah, there is something intrinsically nerdy about priesthood. And then there are the Jesuits...

Why would that help? What is changing the terminology you use supposed to add to our understanding of the concept? We can ask "What is psionic energy, even?" just as easily.

Okay, seriously, dude, what is your problem? You're hounding me over this one sentence like I said something deeply offensive, and when I tell you point blank that you misread it, you try to tell me that you understand what I wrote better than I do. Take a step back and think about what you're...

Yes, we've all read enough science fiction to know what "psychic energy" is supposed to be in broad strokes. But we've also all read enough fantasy to know what "magic" is supposed to be in broad strokes. And yet here we are.

That's not what I said.

Doesn't that just push the question back a step? What is psychic energy, even?

Ancient Egyptian engineers constructed buildings through techniques learned by rote and tested through trial and error. This is not to say that they weren't clever techniques, but it is why they favored certain shapes like the pyramid. Modern engineers have a much deeper understanding of the...

Magic is its own thing. Attempts to describe it in terms of real-world rational concepts, like "a fifth physical force" or "hacking the source code of the universe" or whatever, are grasping metaphors at best and rapidly become dated as intellectual trends march on. (The universe is not a...

Yes to both.

The reason to give the subclass choice at 1 is to allow definitional subclasses with character-creation features in classes besides the cleric and sorcerer. Getting all subclass features on the same schedule has some obvious upsides, but would require a lot of shuffling of other class features...

Conceptually I'm okay with wizards being a one-stat class. And it's not exactly like Constitution becomes useless to a wizard after this change.

Literally diversify the types of saving throws that characters make such that Constitution is not (predictably) significantly more common than Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma.

Interesting question. I feel like a lot of the ideas for improving D&D that float around here are more along the lines of heavy overhauls, so restricting our consideration to a humbler "5.25" may actually bring us to some unexplored territory. Here are a few of my thoughts: Move the subclass...

Unrealistic, yes, but to be fair, even if that travel took a realistic amount of time it wouldn't be downtime. You can't really buckle down and do work when you're on the road. I'm away from my books so I can't check myself, but if you can take a feat multiple times, the feat will explicitly...

Assuming your DM allows you downtime, it is almost always optimal to use Skilled to pick up actual skills, because you can't officially learn those as a downtime activity like you can learn tool and language proficiencies.

Furthermore, even assuming independence, 0.3^5 is the probability that a group will dislike the bard specifically. The probability that the group will dislike some class is 1-(1-0.3^5)^12, or a respectable 0.029.

Wizards recite complete gibberish through small group skirmish combat, and that seems to work for them. Singing is downright coherent in comparison.