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I'm also ambivalent to Ravenloft as a setting. Gothic horror, particularly filtered through the old Universal and Hammer films, is fertile ground but it doesn't mesh with D&D's core aesthetic of platemail-wearing fighters, elven archers and so on. You have to take an awful lot of D&D out of D&D...

Oh, I forgot a big one: You have to re-roll any roll in which the die falls on the floor--unless it's a natural 20 on a saving throw needed to save your character's life, then the result stands. Obviously.

Because: 1. The D&D concept of the Christian fighting priest and divine magic doesn't exist in the fantasy stories I want to emulate with D&D. They are thematically inappropriate for me. Healing magic is broken. It is essential, yet routinely boring. Saddling a PC with this onerous duty is just...

That's one of the upsides of internet gaming... My fairly consistent house rules: 1. No xp. Leveling up is by DM fiat based on narrative concerns and/or character achievement along with open communication and player buy-in. I have better things to do then count up xp. I don't like giving out xp...

I suggest a comprehensive reading of the 4E PHB, page 54, the sidebar titled 'Power Sources'. That should clear up any confusion you have.

I don't much care for editions awash in magic as a player or DM (3x, 4e and 5e). I'd hoped 5e would make it easier to run rarer magic games but when like 3/4 of the classes (or whatever) use magic, it takes too much effort to change. Much easier to just grab an OSR. We did low-magic 4e tolerably...

I voted "occasionally". When I play the cellphone use is usually game-related (apps, dice rolls, calculators, rulebooks and whatnots), but I may check/send the occasional email or text if I think it's important--and then only when I'm nowhere near the 'spotlight'. My DMs often do 15-30 minute...

I always liked playing wizards with very low Strength and/or Con scores since the low survivability ups the challenge quite a bit. I had an elf wizard with a 5 Strength and 7 Constitution that was a lot of fun to play, especially since he was really curious and wanted to stick his nose in all...

I've done different things for different campaigns. In my current 5e game, the setting is very much "Points of Light" with the land literally overrun by monsters. Outside of your well-fortified town is the UNKNOWN. Thus, it's very fitting to keep the players and their PCs in the dark about...

If you ask a beholder it would say that it doesn't levitate, but moves the universe around it.

My biggest problem with grid combat when I'm a player is that it doesn't feel like combat--visceral, pulse-pounding, exciting, let's get out the axes and have a throw down, combat. It feels like an artificial, almost prissy exercise in square counting and balletic coordination of game pieces...

Grids are limited by space, resources, artistic ability and physical structure. Gridless is limited by imagination.

Orog Doomdrummer: An orog that raises dead orcs within 300 feet as zombies under his control for as long as he plays. If forced to defend himself the zombies will stand idly by for the round. If the doomdrummer is slain, the zombies instantly wither into desiccated husks.

I don't like 5e's skill system. I wish they were far more optional. Unfortunately, they're intimately tied to the Background system so if you want to ditch skills you have to rewrite or ditch Backgrounds. Tools proficiencies are weird. The Proficiency Bonus progression seems rather lackluster...

I always allow tricks and stunts, but I never go in for shenanigans. I'd add: Smashing the heads of two enemies together to knock them out. Tricking a foe in charging at you, dodging at the last second, and having them end up off a cliff. Attacking a ceiling to cause a cave-in.

A giant demon statue with gems for eyes that animates when you steal them.

You could ditch the cleric restrictions and be just fine. I don't remember any great thematic elements of the setting being about clerics lacking access to spells. I don't think it's an integral element. You could hybrid it a bit and require divine casters to have a holy symbol to serve as a...

28) "Is that my hand in your pocket or are you just mad to see me?"

The hiding rules in 5E could have used a larger sidebar with examples or a greater discussion on implementing stealth in different situations. However, the core rules are explicit (if lacking in clarity). The key points are these: 1. You make a Dex (Stealth) check when you hide, which sets the...

Instantaneous actually means that the effects of the spell cannot be dispelled--"because its magic only lasts for an instant". The magic of the fireball spell lasts only for an instant, but the hit point damage it causes is "normal" and cannot be dispelled (as opposed to the Concentration-based...