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    D&D 5E (2014) The new UA feats are AWESOME for sorcerers.

    Totally agreed. I think the main thing that I wanted to comment on by starting this thread is how the new +spells/+invocations/+sorc points feats seem like they are much better for the classes that already get those features than they are as an expansion of versatility for others. Mostly that...
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    D&D 5E (2014) What Makes an Orc an Orc?

    This is a super interesting and thoughtful answer to the thread's question. My immediate thought is that it needs to be okay for the "the enemy, the other, the unknown" to be acceptable content in D&D, RPGs and fiction in general. Its cool to subvert that otherness some of the time of course...
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    D&D 5E (2014) What Makes an Orc an Orc?

    Regarding @Charlaquin @Helldritch @Crimson Longinus and @Bacon Bits (and others) next level Ability scores tangent: The problem is that common sense and verisimilitude are at odds with gameplay. 10 foot minotaurs stomp 3 foot halflings for sport. But, if that's the case, a game where...
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    D&D 5E (2014) The new UA feats are AWESOME for sorcerers.

    Being half-feats that grant spell slots and spell knowledge pushes Fey Touched and Shadow Touched into power creep territory--especially for spells known casters. That said, they aren't preferable to magical [initiate] in all cases. There are PCs--generally martial ones--that would prefer the...
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    D&D 5E (2014) The new UA feats are AWESOME for sorcerers.

    I couldn't help but lol when I read your viscerally negative reaction. I see the merit of the point, but still :D
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    D&D 5E (2014) The new UA feats are AWESOME for sorcerers.

    The perennial problem with sorcerers has always been a lack of spells known. Lets look at what a 4th level sorcerer gets from the new UA's Fey Touched and Shadow Touched feats (also super thematic, btw). Fey Touched +1 Charisma (i.e. 17-->18 Cha) new 2nd level spell known: misty step (a really...
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    D&D General Help me build a mini-campaign: The Mindflayer Empire returns from the far future

    Maybe this is not your jam, but that setup seems like that would create time paradoxes. Wouldn't it butterfly-effect-to-death the mind flayer empire at the end of time if the mind flayers returned to conquer the present (err... past). Riffing on this idea: maybe there is a fanatical mind...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Ideas For a World of Islands? (+thread)

    I strongly suggest checking out the Malaysian OSR goodness that is A Thousand Thousand Islands, which contains such things as a coastal civilization ruled by crocodiles--not anthropomorphic crocodiles, just crocodiles. Also this: For other inspiration, I would also recommend watching the movie...
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    D&D General A Taxonomy of D&D and other FRPG Settings

    Ya, that's a distinction that I've not seen made before. I think there is a meaningful difference between crunch elements that exist to serve novel fluff, i.e. rules to make wizard magic cause environmental collapse, and fluff elements that exist to serve novel crunch, i.e. in-setting backstory...
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    D&D General A Taxonomy of D&D and other FRPG Settings

    I think there's a question that precedes your premise. What do you want the taxonomy to do? Why is authorial originality / degree of kitchen sink-ness the primary axis of distinction? The way I organize my setting books is by genre and degree of magic, i.e. high fantasy/high magic, sword and...
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    D&D 5E (2014) What do you want in a Dark Sun book (sans psionics)?

    I would like to see a level of setting detail similar to the what Eberron got, but with some kind of novel take. Jump the setting forward to 50 years after 2e's Beyond the Prism Pentad: All the books' main characters except maybe Sadira are dead from old age (because she makes an interesting...
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    D&D 5E (2014) A Simple Flanking Rule, What Do You think?

    It would make combat somewhat slower, but the exception for attacking flanked targets would prevent a 2v2 everyone has advantage vs everyone issue. It might. I didn't want to include a facing component or strain verisimilitude too much, so I picked an arbitrary number.
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    D&D 5E (2014) A Simple Flanking Rule, What Do You think?

    Wow! That was a lot more posts than I expected. Replying to just the ones on the 1st page: It is instead of flanking giving advantage to attackers. Yes, that's true, I included that caveat for this reason: For dragons, giants, and other big solo monsters, flanking would not be an issue...
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    D&D 5E (2014) An Alternative Dark Sun Conversion

    Hey, looks good. I'm still reading, but the thought occurred that it would be quite helpful if you added a table of contents.
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    D&D 5E (2014) A Simple Flanking Rule, What Do You think?

    Thanks for the suggestions, all. I notice that each of the three ideas above make flanked creatures take more damage or get hit more often. I recognize that makes intuitive sense, which is why it's also what the DMG option does. I like flanking as a debuff to the target's outgoing attacks for...
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    D&D 5E (2014) A Simple Flanking Rule, What Do You think?

    The rule: "If a creature is within 5 feet of two hostile creatures of its size or larger, it is flanked. A flanked creature has disadvantage when attacking a target that is not also flanked." My conceptual justification is that flanked creatures would need to invest more effort in being...
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    D&D 5E (2014) [Homebrew] Rebalancing class resource recovery around less encounters (+ thread)

    I feel like the most elegant way to get to a 3-4 encounter/day paradigm with "widely applicable rules" is this: 1.) reduce the amount of time that short rests take--5/10/15 minutes, whatever feels right to you. 2.) give PCs a "long rest pool" of short rest feature uses equal to 2x their normal...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Dark Sun Conversion: Campaign Guide & Monster Manual

    Hey man, I continue to be a fan of your tasteful Darksun nerdlove. I haven't read through all of both docs, but I just thought I'd give you some props for continuing to polish your material. Three thoughts: 1.) What position does your conversion take on the psychic warrior/soul knife/psionics...
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    Class Tiers and Character Builds in a Featless & Multiclassless game

    Yeah, this has been my experience. It feels considerably more limiting to play a martial class without feats/multiclassing than it does to play a full caster. I know that wizards and clerics benefit significantly from warcaster and resilient(Con), but I don't feel like losing those feats...
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