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Yes, far too much spellcasting and magic in 5e for my taste. It seriously hampers my interest in the system--and has ever since I read the atrocious 'Wonders of Magic' section in the introduction of the PH: "With magic of their own, in the form of spells and magic items, the adventurers might...

Yes, you can attempt to hide without specifically taking the hide action. The hide action allows you to make a stealth check to attempt to hide, but it does not preclude gaining hidden status from another action or situation. Hiding means concealing your presence or (if failing that) your...

I'd say: 1. Jump right in. Start the adventure in media res. Start with a clear goal for the PCs with clear obstacles and baddies. Rescue an NPC from a band of goblins in arduous terrain. Hunt down a dangerous beast. Flee from an orc horde. Find a way through a mysterious forest. Explore a...

I played in a 3e campaign for three sessions which had a different DM for each session. I kid you not. They were friends of friends and I was looking for a game while our group was on hiatus. This other group was then in their 30s, but they exhibited a true cross-section of poor gamer...

There is a difference between being captivating and likable and getting people to do what you want. The D&D Charisma stat is strictly the latter. Even charming scoundrel Han Solo utterly botched an important bluff check. So, don't worry about it.

I chose the "homeless adventurers" option, even though the two choices aren't mutually exclusive. In my understanding, the murderhobo meme started 15+ years ago as a way to describe a certain D&D playstyle. Murderhobos don't have a place in the 'world'. They have no real hometown other than...

I'd say Greyhawk is more pulp fantasy than sword & sorcery, given Gygax's broad scope of influences. You've got tons of faux-medievalism in the nation structure, tons of weird elements on the fringes, and whatever else he thought it fun to include. However, Gygax eschewed meta-plots with Big...

I design settings like these in a similar fashion to standard dungeons. However, rather than dungeon rooms you design dungeon 'areas' that cover dozens or even hundreds of smaller locations. For a dwarven city you can divide it in the Merchant's Ward, the Strong Gates, the Deep Mines, the High...

A couple of points: 1. You're on pretty safe ground if you just go ahead and replace 'see' in the sections on hiding with 'sense'. See is the more natural term and the most common sense involved so they emphasized they, but there's no good reason to negate the use of other senses. If an...

$10000 worth of Dwarf Forge and minis?

Switching weapons is so much worse than that. Going from sword and shield to bow vs. a dragon would take: 1. 1 round to doff your shield + interact with object to clean the kobold blood off your sword. (You don't want to put your sword away with foul monster blood on it do you? Have some...

I think they're mostly fine. I mainly dislike: 1. Having 8+ subclasses, particularly ones based on schools of magic, no 'generalist' wizard and the Evoker being included in Basic. 2. Having wizards gain learned spells on level up. I favor a world where powerful magic secrets must be found in...

I think fighter-types almost need damage boosts to chew through the sheer number of hit points of even low CR beasties. Everything has about x2 the hp of my B/X, 1e, 2e expectations so PCs need to inflict twice as much damage as those editions to keep pace. GWM helps with that. Should it take a...

I'd say the fight in Balin's Tomb from the LotR film is what most players visualize as a standard D&D combat. It takes up nearly 5 minutes of screen time. The climactic duel from the Adventures of Robin Hood (a fight that the hit point mechanic was designed to emulate) takes over 2 minutes. No...

I voted dissatisfied with major tweaks needed, but that's basically my thought on most of the 5e classes so fighters aren't outliers in that regard. Also, about half of my 5e play has been with Basic with the lackluster champion and no feats being the only available options. Major problems are...

If you want MM stats, I submit the nycaloth for consideration. It's an excellent ambusher: darkness, invisibility, blindsight, teleportation, ongoing bleed damage, damage resistances, etc. This nasty piece of work has everything you want. At CR9 it will be a pushover for a party of that level in...

Just give the roc a broken wing and a mean disposition. Done.

Ehh, it's just another thing for players to pick from a list to "define" their self-important min-maxed characters. Players like it for that reason. We DMs like it because we role-play the gods so, really, the PCs are worshiping us--as The Great Gygax, the Giver of Ones and Twenties, intended.

You pretty much have three scenarios in which over-resting might be a problem: 1. Traveling. The aforementioned desert trek, sea voyage and so forth. Having 6-8 encounters a day for 2 weeks straight is a bit ridiculous. And if there is no attrition for 1-2 low to mid difficulty battles a day...

Sometimes the rules, the situation and luck conspire to make a lousy game session for one or more players--through no fault of their own. People play D&D to play D&D after all and sitting around for hours on end without being able to participate can be excruciating. I can't fault the player for...