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My solutions for group checks has reduced the # of folks who roll when they clearly have no other reason than they might get lucky with the dice: Searching, Foraging, Knowledge, etc. I only count the highest success. Any other successes are just concurring or duplicating effort. If failures...

Sounds like Level Up's initiative. The DM decides, based on the encounter, what ability score is used for Initiative. If you're chatting and someone attacks, Charisma. If there's a hidden ambush, Wisdom. And so on. Now having used this in actual play, I'll admit I often deferred to Dexterity...

I primarily alter monsters, but here's a few things I've gone with for grittier games currently or in the past: Replace Death Saves with Vitality points (your starting HP and what damage your body can actually take, only increases if your CON score increases or take a HP increasing feat), much...

I have to mock it. Ravenloft was penned as a gothic horror setting where parties can pop into the nightmarish and circular "prisons" (domains) of really evil beings. Most of Barovia's denizens are soulless shadow shades created by the Land to torture Strahd as he rules over nothing real and...

A few thoughts. One, since Roger Moore didn't write the Greyhawk setting, I'd imagine he didn't want to tread on Gygax/Kuntz's original work too much. However, WOTC is not so bound. Moore's concern seemed to be that any new races for players make sense for how Greyhawk was written (e.g. a derro...

I've been having a blast running Fantasy Age / Dragon Age, which use the same concepts as D&D (e.g. skills, proficiency bonus, ability score modifiers, hit points) but replaces the d20 with a 3d6 roll. It's been a good chance of pace until I see what happens in 2024. Also thumbs up to Level Up...

So we deviated from 5E ruleset for the current campaign to play a Dragon Age campaign (see video game reference), so I'm not sure this counts but here's some weird stuff from last session: While exploring a castle (adapting a Castle Xyntillan OSR mega adventure to our campaign, highly recommend...

I've shared this before, an alternate list of objectives for a D&D battle to keep things fresh. I got this years ago from the Internet, so I didn't invent these, just cleaned them up a little. While not mechanics, these can trigger use of mechanics you rarely see, or might get folks to come up...

Yep on the last bit. AD&D 2E Monster Manual Volume 1 (1989) and the reprint in 1993, under Orcs: Elite orcs, or orogs, are a race of great orcs, possibly mixed with ogre blood. Intelligence was "High" (10-12) versus the typical Orc of 8-9, and they tended bigger, stronger and better armed...

I too wanted a 5E break with similar mechanics. Currently using Fantasy Age (FAGE) 2nd Edition and its predecessor (Dragon Age) for rules on poison and traps that didn't make it to the more generic FAGE. It's a 3d6 system with familiarity for D&D players as one basically replaces the d20 roll...

This blog is a bit dated (2015), but it analyzes a single Hackmaster combat session and concludes that fears almost kept them away from a system that made combat dynamic and exciting. It's worth a read, albeit a small sample size that isn't analyzed at higher levels where players generally have...

Hardness/weapon/spell immunity. I like the idea you need a +3 weapon or adamantine to effectively do anything to an iron golem or a demon lord. Makes monsters more like a puzzle rather than big bags of hit points to be whittled down, encouraging creativity imo. E.g., prior edition, player used...

Thanks all! Some good stuff to begin looking into!

Looking to craft a network of lost dwarven towns, forts and crossroads during a portion of our campaign wherein the party is tracking clues to follow someone through a vast network of a dwarven empire long ago overrun, connected once by a massive underground road system. If familiar with Dragon...

If a player specifically has abilities to talk to animals, etc., then we're going to have a lot more animals in my flavor descriptions. Otherwise, I like the "Bits of..." series of flavor text (100 or so for a terrain type) which often incorporate mundane animals (sometimes they're simply...

OOTA. Glabbagool. High level of cool traveling with a sentient gelatinous cube.

Way back in the original day, traps: (1) Gave the thief (rogue) a chance to have the spotlight. Only thieves could disable traps, which were often deadly enough that not bringing a thief to the dungeon was a risky proposition. Since rogues stunk (mostly) at combat, you'd see many parties with...