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You could probably run the original AD&D version converting on the fly. It definitely focuses on testing the players rather than the characters, so there's never really been a lot of dice rolling there. There's actually a new print version that came out last year. If you don't have copies of...

Hmmmm, yeah, better hope he knows the rules :) Cheers! Kinak

Short Version: They're lawyers and they think they're well inside the bounds, so it's just down to whether WotC wants to sue them. They've also hired other lawyers to doublecheck their work, which I strongly recommend for anyone trying to do something like this. Cheers! Kinak

Yeah, TSR would definitely have ended up a different place if it had been helmed by a steadier hand. I was just trying to say you don't automatically get a steady hand with corporate leadership. A lot of dreamers are terrible at business, true, but even S&P 500 companies that can afford big...

Unfortunately, it's not so clear cut as that. It's not as though Gygax was a masterful businessman, but TSR didn't collapse until after a decade of being run by business outsiders. And most of the terrible decisions we're mocking them for (Dragon Dice, Spellfire, Blood War, the movie rights...

That's a good call, I hadn't considered that. On a related note, they posted a Player's Guide today. Cheers! Kinak

Yeah. I know my players wouldn't be happy until that got released, but none of them want to play 5e, so it's a moot point. I'd have actually liked a bit more of that, honestly. We might still see some alternate resources squirreled away, though :) Cheers! Kinak

They seem very leery to modify anything in the class charts. So subclasses only go in the designated subclass slots. It keeps things cleaner, which is laudable, but means nobody gets to opt out of spellcasting. I'd be inclined to ask why spellcasting isn't a subclass for rangers and paladins...

Interesting, I'll have to look it up. I should also pick up Achtung! Cthulhu at some point, on principle. Still, after 33 years and seven editions, I'd find it hard to get worked up about changes unless they were comically bad. And I say that having spent more on CoC over the years than, say...

I'm not sure how much of the problem is honestly in the speed of edition changes as it is in the magnitude of those changes. Call of Cthulhu, for example, could release a new edition every year and it wouldn't matter because the old material could be used without noticeable changes. I'd...

I'm pretty sure it doesn't: "spells that inflict damage that is not modified by caster level are not affected by this feat." That said, it might be worth checking with your GM. If a player asked me if they could get an extra ray at 15th with an intensified admonishing ray, I'd allow it...

I've run campaigns without gods (even without casters) before. It can work out fine. No Gods This was a story set at the beginning of the world. People had some suspicions they were put there for a reason, but nobody really knew. The story covered the first gods arising and their conflicts. In...

Yeah, most of my players couldn't do the calculations fast enough for combat to keep flowing. But they're also self-aware enough to realize that, so we'd never have a problem. But we also discourage in-combat summoning, shapeshifting, and eidolons/companions for the same reason. You mean...

This is one of those places where I realize different people look at the world completely differently. For me, that's just how I look at numbers. Any string of three or more digits is going to get turned into a simple math puzzle. So my first thought on seeing objections was "Have you never...

I think your observations point to it being more of a druid thing that a high-level thing. My experience definitely agrees with that. One of our major table rules is "you're solely responsible for keeping your combat rounds a reasonable length." Which, in practice, means no eidolons/companions...

The flip side of the question is "why would you bother playing a melee cleric or druid when you could just play a fighter?" It depends a lot on the group. Some people will give you a really hard time if your character isn't perfectly optimized. Often, it doesn't even matter if they're right...

Sounds like you're doing great so far! As far as rules, I tend to delay explanations for a anything that isn't immediately visible on the character sheet. When someone tries to use a combat maneuver, I tell them how it works. When someone asks about casting in melee, I explain casting...

For what it's worth, there's a "Character Builds and Optimization" forum here. You might get a better answer than mine there. You've identified the only ways to increase your critical range in the core books. For now, you'd need to go keen because you won't qualify for improved critical until...

But then you run into the problem with 3e bards: one player's class decision means everyone else has to do extra work. If the simple characters in the group need to keep track of what the tactical characters are doing, we've negated the point of separating complexity on a...

Ecology of the X articles! Seriously. Those were awesome. Also setting bits, articles about gaming, monsters, optional rules, reviews (yeah, I'm an old-timer), character portraits, cut-out minis, previews of upcoming content, articles about deities and demon lords, discussions of recent or...