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Wait, what? "Players have to budget their resources over 6-8 encounters" is a terrible idea, as a long rest resets everything. Are you that much against extended resource management? I'd argue that non-gritty rests are a bigger problem than the 6-8 encounter combo.

If your reading results in the text being deeply flawed, have you considered you are reading it wrong? If common/uncommon/rare/very rare/legendary actually also reflected how common the item is to be found, and not just its power level, wouldn't that erase the deep flaw? Like, winged boots...

I'll start with a toy model. The PCs do 100 damage per round. Monsters have 100 HP, and do 30 damage per round. You fight 3 monsters. If the PCs lose initiative, the PCs take 90 + 60 + 30 = 180 damage. To "win" initiative, they have to all 3 beat the initiative of the monster they chose to...

I honestly think starting with an unoptimized poorly played Rogue is a good first step. Short sword, melee attack, no advantage, but does have a (otherwise not helping) ally enabling sneak attack. Then add in minor optimization. Dual wielding rapiers, uses uncanny dodge. See how many...

Yes, but that is a flaw of assumption! Sure, they are strong, but some of them are common. I mean, lets take D&D. Lets remove all weapons. What is the value of a greatsword? It adds 6 damage per attack to every melee PC! That is a crazy strong item. Or remove shields. What is the value...

People constantly repeat this. There are trap monsters (monsters with "save or die" abilities). There are monsters whose CR is off by like 1 point. And dragons are often under-CR'd by up to 2. And the encounter building rules don't handle "hetrogeneous" groups well (like, a pile of CR 1/8...

I'd avoid using it. I found it was a seriously 3e inspired price list, and 5e isn't 3e. As noted, static bonuses are super cheap. What more, shields cost the same as armor, despite the by design lower rarity of shields over armor in 5e. In addition, a bunch of stuff is priced by "what would...

I'm puzzled. What do you think a "character" is? Maybe you are using some narrow definition I am not. To be clear: from my perspective, a novel (not even an RPG novel) has characters. I am using "character" in the story-writing or story-understanding perspective. A character can do things...

Yes, they can be making their moves when they are not interacting with the PCs? Are you saying that DMs spending prep time away from a table is unexpected? If we steal a page from Dungeon World with its Fronts/Dangers/Dooms, we can even give it a mechanical framework if that helps. But it...

If a DM wants to have a "plot" and doesn't want to railroad, the DM has no direct control over the actions of the PCs. But the DM legitimately has control over the BBEG's plans. They can even arrange for certain things to happen, like the BBEG makes a particular mistake, without taking away...

I mean, I'd just have the BBEG run for it if the players have built a fortress and are nearly unkillable within it. Retreat and regroup.

No, that is just droid metal skin.

So a 14 constitution Rogue has 16*2 + 16*5 + 3 = 115 HP. 109 is low for a 16th level Rogue, especially one with no feats. I'll assume Dual Wielding feat with two rapiers and 20 dex. Studded is 18 AC. So its attack routine is 1d8+5 1d8 (14), and has 2 chances to land 28 damage sneak attack...

I mean.. for most CR ranges, you can punt on the DMG table and just use: HP/30 + DPR/12 + (AC-10)/4 + ATK_STAT_BONUS/4 minus 4. Feed fomerian into that. 149 HP/30 = 5 59 DPR/12 = 5 (14 AC-10)/4 = 1 ATK_STAT (6 and 2 average 4) / 4 = 1 5+5+1+1-4 = 8 CR That is pretty much the DMG table. The...

The business card guy makes claims far stronger than his stats demonstrate. I'd even say dishonestly. His analysis of how the DMG rules work doesn't reflect actually using the DMG rules, but a common misunderstanding of how to use them. (Ie, the idea that the HP column for CR 3 means that...

Sure. But if boosting a secondary/tertiary to 20 is the "simple" solution, then either building a fighter is complex to be not-incompetent, or high level fighters aren't good because the feats they get are not better than a tertiary stat boost. The point is that handing out feats doesn't make...

Sure. Except you should treat Dual Classing as a distinct rule system referred to by the Bard system. AD&D isn't a cohesive set of rules. It is a mixture of whatever rules people writing the game actually played with and rules they thought would be cool so added them to the rulebook. This...

A L 20 fighter, L 20 wizard, and L 20 rogue are not equal. So there is no set of stats that is equal to a level 20 PC, as there is more than one level 20 PC. They are not far off, but are not equal. And the CR 11 remorhaz is about as close to those level 20 PCs as the level 20 PCs are to each...

Thinking about https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/ratings_and_levels.html again. I'd be tempted to merge Solo and Elite. Elite(X) means "X times harder". They get (X-1) paragon actions. During a Paragon action, you can move half your movement speed and do about half a...

What do you want your gameplay loop to look like? You can make D&D very lethal and get a playable game. Like, take D&D, and whenever you take damage you get to roll one hit die and add your con bonus. If it is under the damage done, you are dying. If it is over the damage done, you lose that...