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If you ever end up hating D&D because it went too mainstream, the old D&D you knew and loved is...on DMs Guild. It's increasingly offered via Print-On-Demand. And what's even better is that they can't ever take back the SRD, so except for 4e, people are still making content for that old-tymie game.

I'm talking about the claim that DMs who run games where you don't level up quickly are a problem. It's not that running big dungeon complexes like Greyhawk Ruins or Temple of Elemental Evil are characteristically different from a modern WotC storybook adventure and break down if the characters...

A small dungeon where I narrate that the hallways are so long that it takes you weeks to go from one room to the next does not at all feel the same as a large dungeon with many rooms. If all you're doing is opening up monster closets and slaughtering the inhabitants, sure. It gets boring after...

I've been told it's neither the mechanics nor the theme/flavor, so I'm having a difficult time figuring out what people even mean.

Why is this a problem? Leveling up too fast means you're done with a tier of monsters before the DM has really gotten going. One of my biggest beefs with 5e is how fast you level up. One day, you leave home and wet your blade on a kobold for the first time. A year later, you are the mightiest...

That's kind of my point. The issue is that if going from 15th to 16th level is boring, it's not the XP chart or the character widgets. It's the adventure itself.

So the beef here is the subclasses aren't transformative enough?

This is "solution in search of a problem" thinking. D&D isn't a game that you "win" by getting to level 20. If WotC wants a campaign that goes to level 20, they should write one that has a compelling reason to go that high. Pulling the lever in the skinner box isn't what makes a TTRPG fun. If...

Tbh, I don't see how the monk is any more thematically pigeonholed than the Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue, or Paladin.

Stunning Strike should be a Way of the Open Hand power. Every subclass should get an iconic 5th-level ability.

Just finished up Goetzmann's Exploration & Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West. It's a somewhat dry, but thorough overview that is exactly what the title says. Goetzmann does a really good job bringing clarity to the mindset of various actors at various...

Where do Barbarians struggle compared to other martial classes? Offensively? Defensively? In my experienced, they are nothing less than a character sheet of raw butt-kicking. They don't need a buff.

Based on last night's experience, one of a monk's greatest weaknesses is that he is rather powerless against a Death Tyrant beholder when his allies immediately flee for the exits and leave him behind.

You change a lot of variables, which will make this hard to rebalance and confusing to remember. A lot of this could be accomplished by simply having short rest abilities recharge whenever initiative is rolled.

I'm picturing something like this: Level 3: Deflect Blow: When you Dodge on your turn, you study your opponents and can counterattack them more easily. Until the start of your next turn, when an enemy hits you with a melee attack, as a reaction, spend a ki point to do one of the following...

"Hey man, if you don't like the game, I won't have my feelings hurt if you ditch it. We don't have to like all the same stuff."

I guess I need more context, then. Because I'm thinking of a system where every magic item in the DMG (and inevitable expansions) has a list of ingredients in the PHB, and players are constantly trying to scavenge what they need to get something. And, since you never know if you'll get exactly...

Collect-a-thons aren't even fun in video games, where you have a computer to do the boring tallying for you and pop up a notification or highlight one of your innumerable recipes when you can finally craft a Level 42 Venom Axe of Striking. Sure, you can do something like add specific relics as...

If a DM grants an extra spell slot to a multiclassed character via some sort of item or magical blessing, it's up to the DM to decide how to apply that within the context of multiclassing, since there's no RAW for that. Presumably, any DM who creates such a special item already has in mind how...

You didn't get the extra spell slots from a magic item. You got them from multiclassing. "As if you were a single-classed member of that class" does not mean "as if you were a single-classed member of that class, but also gaining the benefits of multiclassing." They explicitly include a...