Search results

You might not have passed your own reading comprehension check there. The rule explicitly allows for an improvised weapon (e.g., a shield), to the extent that it is similar to an actual weapon (e.g., focuses impact on a flange or rim like a mace), to be treated as such for its damage die and...

I have found the opposite to be true, actually. Rerolling initiative every round has generally been to the party's benefit, despite some "exciting" moments. It creates unpredictability, which the player characters (being more versatile) can take advantage of better than typical NPCs. This has...

Because I'd give him more than one of them. More precisely, I would give him a bite and a rend, followed next round by two rends, continuing until the grapple was broken. Half damage even on a save is much more scary, especially if you make it a strength save so the rogue with evasion doesn't...

Oh I'm sorry, is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour?

A few people have now told you that they perceive similarities between a shield (used to hit someone) and a flanged mace. We all (I think) agree that a shield doesn't look like a mace, but in the context of hitting people with things some of us consider a shield to functionally resemble a mace...

It certainly seems to be true that all of the concepts in the book are expressed in D&D terms, without adding any significant new sub-systems of game mechanics to expand D&D with "Magic flavor." However, despite D&D players collectively asking for updates to D&D settings like Planescape and Dark...

I'd make Joan a barbarian, path of the ancestral guardian. Instead of ancestor spirits, call them angels. Instead of rage, call it "Holy Spirit." The whole thing with Joan was that she had no training in combat, it just came to her through divine inspiration.

First off, Conan has transcended the fiction of Howard and become a legend expressed and interpreted by multiple creators across just about every type of media. He's totally mythological. Second, while I understand the appeal of giving Conan the Barbarian at least one level of the barbarian...

We primarily use the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop, which has an amazing combat tracker built into it. Actually, you could say the entire program is built around the combat tracker. One of the 5e ruleset options you can toggle is "reroll initiative every round," and we recently decided to...

No, Frog, I don't think I'm making a house rule for shields. The rule for Improvised Weapons is that "An object that bears no resemblance to a weapon deals 1d4 damage (the DM assigns a damage type appropriate to the object)." I tried to explain, in those three paragraphs, how I conclude that the...

By the magic of setting up the Orcus joke, that's how.

You're spot-on, obviously. This is nothing but a cross-promotion product to boost YouTube and Twitch streaming advert/sub revenue and collect Magic and D&D players into one marketing pool to shake down for e-sport development. It's clearly not designed to give D&D players something they've been...

If a hexed creature dies, and the hex is not moved to another target, and the creature's corpse is animated as a zombie, does the hex apply to the zombie? My answer would be no, since the undead thing is a separate and distinct creature from the dead creature from which it was created. Does...

Well, that's just wrong. Greyhawk set out a world shaped by religious and political conflict from a wargamer perspective. Dragonlance is a setting defined by the Lakhesis/Paladine conflict, which informs every aspect of the world. Mystara is a totally gonzo "this is here, that is there, don't...

Ok, Max, so what's the rule for a 3-way opposed ability check? I mean, if the "ability contest" rule doesn't apply, then what does? What would you call it? Unless you can provide a specific rule for that situation, the general rule (everyone makes their ability checks, high adjusted roll wins)...

A club, mace, greatclub, or maul is, essentially, just a blunt heavy object that you can hit someone with. A club is the most basic, a weapon anyone can pick up and use. A mace has flanges to concentrate the kinetic energy into a smaller point of impact, requiring a little skill to use right. A...

I think it is more likely that they are saying it requires more than one and using two as the standard, exemplary reference. It might be accurate to say that the presentation of the rule assumes two, but nowhere does it say that a skill contest requires exactly two contestants, and no more...

Sure, it's also the smallest increment of falling damage. A shortsword or a scimitar is a light finesse weapon, and a spear is a simple weapon that almost any character can use at level 1. As an improvised weapon, a shield lacks any weapon properties other than that damage die, and it will...

You didn't ask me, but I'm gonna give you some advice anyway, since you said you were going to be running your first 5e game here soon. Forget "RAW" and "RAI" as concepts in your first session, and for a few after that, too. They'll poison your thinking. Be flexible and adaptive, because you...

Max, come on man. Those are guidelines for playing a game, not Holy Writ and Scripture. The use of a two-person contest as an example doesn't mean, or even imply, that there can only ever be two people in the contest. The very phrasing of it: "Sometimes, this thing happens," implies that "other...