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Here's also a custom leader/soldier Azer I made for a session recently: The general idea with this guy is to keep the hell Hounds close so that they can benefit from the greater chance of recharging their fire breath and keeping the PCs close to include them in the AoE.

As promised, here are some examples of existing 5E monster abilities I've identified as helping to act in combat roles. I'd already been looking at these so I could have abilities to bolt onto existing statblocks as needed to quickly customize monsters. Controller Grave Bolt. Ranged Spell...

I was checking out the new monster statblocks for Vecna: Eve of Ruin last night and, to my surprise, discovered that my favorite new monster was a chandelier. I was initially looking for the hertilod, a new monster of the Astral Plane that I'd seen interesting artwork for. Upon looking at the...

Fun fact I noticed recently: Keyleth, which is the name of one of the PCs from the start of Critical Role, is given as one of the sample female elf names in the 4E PHB.

I know the 4E couatl's entry had a small sidebar stating that it could shift between the material plane and the Astral Sea with a short ritual, but it wasn't part of the statblock for the monster itself. In general the non-combat capabilities of 4E monsters were left up to DM fiat. I'll admit I...

Has anyone ever ran or been in a skill challenge in 5E? I haven't done it myself, but when I played in a Dragonlance campaign the DM ran a skill challenge to infiltrate a fort seized by the Red Dragon Army. I've also seen a number of 3rd party products that used skill challenges.

I can't help but miss the concise way game mechanics were displayed in 4E. They felt more like they were designed to be used in play without slowing the game down to parse the rules text. For example, compare the official write-up of Divine Sense and the 4E-inspired way I abbreviated it on my...

I just listened to an interview with Rob Heinsoo, lead designer on 4E and 13th Age, on episode 191 of the Mastering Dungeons podcast, which included his thoughts on 4E itself. I thought some of you may find it interesting: Dave Noonan identified problems with D&D that 4E should be designed to...

4E had hints about other places beyond the Nentir Vale all the time, but maps of the rest of the world didn't show up until the Conquest of Nerath boardgames, which subsequent magazine articles expanded upon in a segment called Nerathi Legends. IIRC a gazetteer was planned but was never...

There's an article explaining creature roles on D&D Beyond now. I wonder what the reception will be to this awesome "new" concept?

I don't roll and use the average for most monsters, but if I want some to be minions I use the lowest possible result, and if I want one to be a boss I use the maximum possible result.

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely aspects of 5E where the DM is expected to do a lot of the heavy lifting. The designers have at least been pretty generous with monsters, for example, and for the most part over time the monster abilities have gotten more interesting. In contrast, being a...

My read is that 5E gives a decent amount of material for DMs and a frustratingly small amount to players, possibly because it's mostly DMs who buy the books, not players. As for player-facing design space, I think Baldur's Gate 3 demonstrated that creating more magic items was Larian's answer...

The chromatics were fine, but the metallics have needed more distinct visual designs for a long time now since three of them are brown with similar body shapes.

I'm curious if the crafting rules are just going to be the ones from Xanathar's or something more elaborate.

I find it interesting that the conflict where the Rod of Seven Parts was first used is now referred to as a war between primordials and the gods. It seems the 2E War of Law and Chaos has been combined with the 4E Dawn War. We've also been getting a lot of references to the primordials lately...

An idea I'm going with in increasing player options is giving out magic items with built-in feats or features from other subclasses, amongst other things. IMO it's the easiest player-facing part of 5E to mod, if you introduce something that doesn't work you can just give them another magic item...

I decided to try and brainstorm how to make the most Warlord-like Fighter using features in official 5E. The answer was basically to take the Banneret (that's right, not Battle Master) archetype and be in a long-running Dragonlance campaign that lets you be in multiple knightly orders at once...

In light of Pathfinder 2E putting out a playtest for a Warlord-like class, the Commander, I can't help but wonder why such a wildly popular class concept has not been introduced to 5E. A number of abilities in the spirit of the Warlord are available throughout 5E, including the Battle Master...