Search results

This is what gets me about multiclassing in 5e. When you already have various ways of being a sneaky person who does magic, or a fighty person who does magic, why do you need to create the option for a fighter/thief or a a fighter/wizard? That's an honest question. I feel like these discussions...

Getting back on topic: I am 100% on board with the idea that there needs to be a sliver of hope for the setting to really work. If burning down the sorcerer kings isn't on the menu, count me out. I think there's a grain of truth to the idea (mentioned somewhere upthread; sorry, Forgotten...

OK. I've explained that I'm neither able nor willing to get into the details of this with you ATM. I will say that the Greek origin of slavery (IIRC from Chios) was a traditional view, based on a throwaway line by a source whose name I forget. I will not defend it, and it is a distraction from...

I won't get into the details with you here, not least because I have no head for details and no access to my old reference resources. In the interest of illumination rather than dispute, I do want to suggest a few points, though. Firstly, the Romans and Greeks absolutely practised chattel...

The fact that the sorcerer still has both spell slots and sorcery points gives me conniptions. I fully expect d&done to keep these and add metamagic points, usable a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus times the phase of the moon.

Sorry for being Captain Pedantry, but this doesn't match at all with what I remember from my (admittedly distant in time) classics degree. Roman slaves were legally 'tools that speak', and the Greeks were traditionally credited with inventing chattel slavery. The actual treatment of these slaves...

I've been following this thread on and off, and felt the (perhaps unwise) need to butt in at this point. The argument above is tantamount to saying that bad design exists, therefore there is no point in critiquing design. I don't buy it. If you go back to 'rulings not rules' B/X D&D, there was...

I think the sort of customisation you're looking for could probably be achieved with class-based arrays (my fighter is good at fighting!) plus a floating bonus or non-combat ability (is my fighter wise, charming, or learned?). As for a rogue having intelligence as their highest score... If being...

Stats are a weird shibboleth at this point, TBH. If WotC had any backbone, they'd trim them down to just the bonuses, and assign those based on class. Everything else is a sort of collective self-deception the community plays on itself.

There's actually no reference to AC in the playtest, that I can find. I'd be (pleasantly) surprised if they actually cut it, but it's possible. The Lancer guys were working for WotC, last I checked.

It's puzzling because it makes no sense that armour designed to stop weapons also stops someone from grappling you. Unless it's covered in spikes or something.

I really like these changes, but I'm puzzled about the way it's implied (but never stated!) that grapples target AC. Could it be that we'll see something like Lancer, where you have 'evasion' (to-hit number, something like prof bonus + dex bonus) and 'armour' (straight damage reduction of...

I voted 7. The crunchiness of 5e depends a lot on how you play and who you play with. If you're just running everything by fiat with new players, it's not rules-light, but it's a manageable 5-6 (for the players, not the DM). If you're playing with a bunch of people who actually care about...

I mean, I think artists have a moral duty to do more than shovel out comforting cliches. Aesthetic variety has value. There's also the old chicken-and-egg problem of not knowing what 'taste' really means in a monoculture. In any case, I think your statement is premised on the assumption that a...

I agree completely with these criticisms. Fortunately, there are a few good adventure writers out there, though most seem to be OSR-adjacent. Actually, Kelsey Dionne is the only person I've seen making 'trad' adventures to the same presentation standards you get in old-school dungeon crawls. I...

The thing that always bothers me about this is that big cities need big hinterlands to feed them, and means of shipping the food. Rome had the whole med, and Egypt in particular, to to supply its needs. What does somewhere like Waterdeep have?

The whole thing with primaris and the Robot Girlyman resurrection is a big missed opportunity, honestly. They could have split the imperium into various factions locked in a civil war, which would let them have both revanchists and revolutionaries locked in a civil war, while doubling down on...

Here's a question: what actually makes an RPG supplement 'good' ? My impression is that for my needs as a DM (and the needs of others who share my opinions), the kinds of materials WotC releases are basically worthless, or at least contain little of use amidst a lot of padding. Clearly, that...

Maybe I'm becoming a grognard, but most of these reviews seem like puff pieces. What I've seen of the new dragon stat blocks is pretty uninspired, and as a DM, more PC races and map sketches I can't use at the table are the last things I need. I know it's too much to expect commercial...

Per the rules, obfuscate works on all 5 senses via mesmerism, but fails if you can't be ignored. I don't know enough about the particular scene to comment. It's a very bad idea to think of most 'actual play' as actual play. It's acting. If you want to learn the rules, there are probably better...