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I had to rework a few monsters yesterday for a dungeon. The CR 2 ogre wasn't enough of a challenge. I wanted a CR 4 or CR 5 ogre. I ended up adding Stentch to the creature. It makes sense in my head because they're ogres that are working for a sea hag. I also revised the standard bugbear to...

It looks like you made up your mind on what you want to do. Another way to look at this group is to put the paladin and monk as the defensive line which allows the ranged attackers and healer to move about the battle field. At higher levels the monk is not indented as a high DPR build, in my...

I've thought of several different ways to approach this Thunderbeast shaman. It all depends on where you want your character to go. My first thought is to take at least one level of Barbarian to get the Unarmored Defense feature. After that you decided if you want your character to be more of...

I agree that some spells have good specific language. The confusing text is the "subsequent turn." My original interpretation was that a subsequent turn can occur any time after the turn that just happened, which makes a lot of sense. However, is a character using turns after combat is...

Rules as written it can be confusing, and based on posts by Mearles, I feel the intent is that the spell ends if there is no target to move the spell to when the last enemy drops to zero HP. Why is there such a long duration on the spell? The rest of the spell is used for role-play purposes...

It's been awhile since I've looked at or played Mage: The Ascension, but it may be an idea to consider. The characters have a number of d10s available for them to roll. At game start this was between two and three. Near the end of the story of the character it might have 7 or 10, depending on...

Defcon 1 has a good point, but if you want to balance the creatures you're combining the CR system only cares about four factors: damage per round, attack bonus, effective hit points, and AC. When you mix a couple different features together consider how those features affect the four...

I run an eight hour game minus a lunch break. I don't plan out how many encounters occur in the game, but when I setup the potential encounters I total the XP to find out if it's the recommended amount for a days worth with the given character levels. My players tend not to take a long rest...

In my game the DMG recommended XP for an adventuring day is between 15 to 18 rounds of combat with the level 8 to 10 characters. When I setup an analysis of any particular class to determine their combat effectiveness I set it up for 10 rounds of combat. You game most likely is different than...

I've done a lot of analysis of damage output from class to class, but not range vs melee. I cannot recall anything that would indicate the melee is lagging behind the range combat. What examples do you have that makes you feel this way? One thing I did notice about ranged combatants is that...

What's is interesting is that some games are played on a grid and thus in increments of 5-ft. Some games are not played on a grid. If a weapon can be used to attack a creature that is at distance and the creature is at a distance of 5-ft then the weapon can be used against that creature. If...

I agree that the bonus to hit with magic items in the game can make the game much easier and thus potentially more boring for the players. I'm not sure if there is an easy way to resolve the bonus to hit. The idea of more damage but no increase in to hit shortens combat time significantly...

It seems most responses are on the look out for builds that are on the upper end of damage output. I don't have a problem with them in my game so much. I do caution to allow players to play a build that is very sub par. In my opinion the Wild Mage Sorcerer and Elemental monk should be...

I'm going to recommend looking at the magic items in the DMG, Princes of the Apocalypse, or other books that might have them listed. I enjoy generating the extra stuff on the magic items in my game. Most of the inspiration comes from page 142 and 143 of the DMG. Basing the ring abilities off...

My take on the stealth / hiding of NPCs is that they work together setting up an ambush. If the NPCs have time to setup and reset their position, i.e. repetitively hiding, then they can use the passive stealth score. If they have assistance from an ally NPC then they have their passive stealth...

I'm running into a similar problem with the sorcerer in my game. The player is a 3.5 sorcerer player who feels like the sorcerer was set as a second class caster compared to the wizard. Regardless of some arguments to the contrary the player feels this to be true. What I've tested so far for...

These are some good points regarding heavily armored characters having a difficult time rowing. There is a paladin in the team. I would think she may not be able to increase the speed significantly because of the armor based on this idea. I like the idea of increasing the speed with an...

I deleted some of the intro, but kept the stuff I felt was relevant. In my experience the Barbarian class increases the capability of the team by about 1 character. The standard calcs for this teams capabilities are: Easy = 500 XP, Medium = 1000 XP, Hard = 1500 XP, Deadly = 2000 XP, Daily...

I'm not sure I want to go into detail on this thread. I would suggest starting a new thread. With that said, a one sentence description of a well built monster follows. A well built monster gives an obvious role of that creature with obvious synergies between attacks/features listed in the...

I didn't read beyond the first page of the thread, but this is the question I had come to mind after reading the first page of data. What I understood from the first few posts was that the players used a lot of the resources, and some very significant encounter changing resources, during this...