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Exactly. 5E was clearly designed around the RAW simple initiative system. Creating a new initiative system that adds extra costs for using certain types of actions vs. others is pretty much guaranteed to cause imbalances. It would be like suddenly changing football by saying incomplete passes...

I don't know if that was a consideration when the 5E rules were finalized, but I really appreciate this. Whenever I tried to play a druid in 3.x, I never could come up with a good RP reason for the druid to be summoning actual beasts to help him in fights. The beasts would be killed, just so the...

One possibility is to factor what you do this turn in when you next act, not what you plan to do. Action: d8 Bonus Action : d6 Move: d4 Reaction: d4 Roll initiative normally for first round. After you've completed your turn in the round, roll a number of dice based on what you already did...

Interesting. I've had the Midgard Heroes PDF for some time now, but never really read through it. I've always been disappointed that dragonborn felt like half-orcs with dragon blood. Their breath weapon is underwhelming, and overall just never inspired me much. Looking at the dragonkin, I...

For those who ran LMoP, one good idea is to use Gundren (or other NPCs met during that adventure) to bring the PCs to Red Larch. One of the weakest elements of PotA is the very beginning: the missing delegation. None of my players cared, as they didn't know any of the delegates. Make Gundren one...

Gladius, your condescension toward those who disagree with your "truth" is really getting tedious. Get a day job.

"Imagined" is a bit condescending, don't you think? Folks should be able to respectfully disagree with one another.

You make a good point, but a very narrow one, in part because paladins have many more spell slots for smites than fighters have action surges and most combats last more than one round. Below 17th level, the fighter can nova one round. All but the lowest level paladins can nova multiple rounds in...

Just curious, how do those numbers compare at 8th level, no feats? I've seen multiple paladins, but our highest-level character is just 12th (and the BM is only 7th), and I don't allow feats. In those middle levels (5-10), the paladins seem to have a far greater ability to nova than a fighter...

I'd suggest only requiring any components with a gold piece cost, which sounds similar to what you're thinking. IMO, you're right in not wanting to allow the book to bypass component costs for certain powerful spells.

After learning about the book's indexing system:A character can spend time to study the book, to memorise its indexing pattern. Making an arcana check for every 8 hours spent studying. DC starts at 35 and goes down by 2 for every check made (DC cannot be shared between characters). The DC...

The situation: Grol has something the Black Spider wants: Gundren and the map. In the middle of negotiations with the Spider's representative, his base is attacked by adventurers after Gundren. Grol now has two parties wanting what he has, and can attempt to play them off of each other. What...

We've used them in my group since LMoP came out and they are a big hit. Our hero points are different from the DMG, however. -Each PC gets 2 hero points at the beginning of each session, usable only by that PC. They don't roll over, so use or lose. -The GM also awards community hero points for...

I was going to suggest allowing smiting only once per turn, but I like your idea much better. Paladins can still smack down certain creatures, but with your fix, divine smite would no longer be the most used (by far) ability of the paladin.

Another idea for current activity: engaged in a ritual or religious observance

Geas doesn't prevent the target from acting against the geas, it just says "each time the target acts in a manner directly counter to the geas", the target takes 5d10 psychic damage. It takes such damage only once per day. I would rule that attempting to remove the geas qualifies, so the target...

I love this idea. I also wonder if this approach would also mitigate the TSR-era problem of splitting the customer base with different settings? The mechanics book would be shared across all the different campaign worlds, just as the base books are. In addition, the mechanics book could include...

One stray thought on the above is to integrate information from the designer into the maze as clues. Perhaps his dead lover was fond of certain flowers that he puts on her grave each year. That flower is woven into the maze at certain points, showing safe areas or the path out. Similarly, the...

Not sure how I'd describe my games. A bit high fantasy, a lot of combat, only a few NPCs, but I put a lot of effort into making them memorable. Most of all, I want the campaign world to be affected by the characters and vice versa. I also don't want a high body count, but the risk of death and...

No question - I loved the Known World map when it came out. It was functional and reminded me somewhat of the mono-color maps put out by Judges Guild that I liked so much (and still like). Nowadays I prefer the more understated, muted-color maps put out by WOTC, but nothing wrong if someone...