Search results

WotC get a lot of benefit from other parties "playing nice", so nothing ever gets tested in court. Is "Underdark" part of their product identity, or is it just a generic term that anyone can use? We don't know, and Paizo etc. come up with their own names for it. Paizo ever renamed the Sunless...

The principle applies in most places, but that specific example doesn't. A UK example would be "hoovering the carpet" rather than vacuuming it. Xerox doesn't really apply here either. If "Shopped" means "Photoshopped" then that's maybe the closest we will get to a universal example. The...

You can also have a group of dwarves called Thorin, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Gloin, Dori, Nori, Ori and Kili if you want, but not Balin (and possibly not Oin or Fili either).

When I ran it, we played through Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury first. It was quite easy to include some tie-ins to the Red Hand.

Heroes of Might and Magic has death knights as well. Pathfinder uses Graveknight instead. In some cases, I think it is the name + concept that is copyrightable. I don't think WotC could stop you having a carrion crawler under general copyright law (despite them claiming it as product identity...

Some of the names of the Demon Lords / Princes are public domain, but the way TSR / WotC have depicted them is not. Thus Paizo mentions Demogorgon in passing in relation to Golarion, but doesn't provide a description.

For those of us who started with the Mentzer basic red box, the carrion crawler was quite likely to be the first monster you ever encountered. I'm not sure if the BECMI version had 8 attacks or not, but it was an "interesting" choice for the first encounter to give to a bunch of 1st level PCs...

All the monster names in the Iron Heroes Bestiary are Product Identity. One of those monsters names is "Dragon". I get unreasonably annoyed whenever I think of that. (And yes, I do know that you can't actually succeed in claiming Dragon as product identity.)

Taking the first part of it in isolation (not sure if you meant it that way), the idea that dragons come in different colours is not a D&D ism. The Mabinogion includes a fight between a red dragon and a white dragon, but they didn't have breath weapons. The red dragon won, hence that's the one...

That's a good point. Does it say anything like this in the DMG? Because it should. You could, in theory, treat everything like this and not bother with "skills" at all. Write down a few broad "interests" and apply proficiency when your DM thinks it is appropriate. Of course, you'll get the...

I think the difference is that if you are calling for a roll then there is presumably some pressure to the situation? So it's a novice failing at something very easy 10% of the time, when under pressure. Which is more reasonable. (Assuming I've understood correctly what you mean by "not...

For my own fantasy heartbreaker, I'm not currently using skill points - you just pick some skills to be trained in (I think that's what Star Wars Saga edition did). And whilst the Rogue entry might say something like "pick any 8 skills from the following list" (there are all kinds of rogues...

I also like that you can get extra class skills, through the use of traits. I wasn't sad to see the back of skill synergy, although for some reason you still get +1 AC when fighting defensively / using full defence if you have 3 ranks in Acrobatics. Maybe they just missed that one.

We play Pathfinder, and mostly play adventure paths, so we play from 1st level to around 16th / 17th level. So they end when the publisher (usually Paizo) wants them to end. Paizo's published adventure paths do include a "Continuing the Adventure" section at the end of the final installment, but...

In our current campaign, the party were each been given a magic item which allows them to contact their patron (a very knowledgeable dragon) and ask one question each level. (Retail value is nil, since it is personal to each member.) They are now 13th level, so with 4 characters they could have...

It's never come up - we tend to "sign up" for complete campaigns, and whilst in theory someone could get bored with a character and want to try a new one, in practice it has never happened. What I think would happen was if a character was retiring from adventuring then they might leave behind...

I agree with you about a living world. (Also, I don't know why some DMs seem to think having chests the PCs can't open, secret doors they can't find, lore and history they don't know, and cool items they can't identify or use, makes for a better game experience. ) However, I do think it is...

I'm not Snarf, but my answer might depend on what your definition of binge watching is. My wife and I rarely have time to sit down and watch TV together, so when we do we tend to watch 3 or 4 episodes of something in an evening. Then we'll watch another 4 episodes the next time we can manage...

I wonder why they introduced tool proficiencies. It seems like the kind of design choice that I'd make after a few glasses of wine, only to realise the next day that it was an extra complication that wasn't really achieving anything you couldn't already do with the basic skill system...

We once had a campaign where one player had a ferret (or similar) as an animal companion that was trained to steal shiny items; basically it would start to loot fallen foes during combat, so it's owner would be effectively skimming a few gold pieces out of the party treasure each time. I was...