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Moreover, concentration requirement is a killer for damage spells. The powerhouse combat spells tend to be debuff, battlefield control, and action denial. And most of the good ones -- Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Person/Monster, Wall of Force, etc. -- are concentration spells. That's generally...

Just a reminder that you have the power to edit Wikipedia articles if you feel so inclined. :)

You can make enormous changes while preserving backwards compatibility. D&D rules consist of "elements" (spells, feats, equipment, classes, species, etc.) and "systems" (movement rules, resting rules, combat rules, etc.). There are well-defined interfaces through which each system interacts with...

The changes are on par with what we saw in the 3E -> 3.5E transition. It is certainly not 6E. But it absolutely is 5.5E. Substantial changes were made to the existing rules; they did not simply consolidate options from the material already in print.

If it were my campaign, the answer would be yes; there is a genuine eclipse that serves the archmage's requirements. Of course, there will be some... side effects. For example: The archmage did not specify which moon was to produce an eclipse, so rather than moving the existing moon, the...

We are making the switch. Currently we have no plans to import bits of the 2014 rules... but that may change depending on what we encounter, and we will certainly have some house rules, we always do. And I'm with @Belen on usability in DDB, it's a hot mess right now. The search feature has...

I should be more excited about this than I am. Lorwyn is a really cool setting that should lend itself to D&D well. But... eh. Something about 2024e has sapped my enthusiasm for new D&D material.

Yeah, it was called 4E. It didn't go over well, and WotC clearly learned their lesson.

One diamond can power unlimited castings. There's a high one-time investment, but after that, the marginal cost is zero. (Well, zero plus a 9th-level spell slot. In most worlds that would be worth more than the diamond, but not this one.)

Just because somebody brings up a complaint now, doesn't mean it wasn't an issue before. The medusa/gorgon thing bugged me when I first encountered it 37 years ago, and it still bugs me today.

The Clone spell means anyone rich enough to pay for the material components every 50 years or so is essentially immortal, and those who can afford it more often won't even show signs of aging. Transportation is far more advanced than even our world. The Gate spell can move everything from...

While I have no strong feelings on "race" vs. "species," I strongly disagree with this as a general point. The choice of names is a huge part of game design. The exact same mechanic can be super intuitive or utterly incomprehensible depending on what it's named. And where RPG design is...

I would follow Mearls's idea and merge most bonus actions into regular actions. So barbarian rage is an action that also gives you a full round of attacks. Rogues get an extra action each round, which must be Dash, Disengage, or Dodge. Et cetera. This would reduce the design space some. For...

That last item is the key. Combat presents meaningful decisions. Each round, you make choices about where to move, which resources and abilities to use, which opponents to target, which allies to buff or heal, etc. Many of the die rolls in combat could be eliminated and it would still work. For...

Unless I'm misunderstanding the changes, the role of "foes who might become allies or friends" is exactly where NPC orcs are likely to end up when the Monster Manual comes out. Now, if they take it to the point of excising any suggestion of orcs ever being hostile or evil, then I'll be on your...

What is that niche, exactly? I personally find undead make the perfect "kill on sight baddies," because they can fill almost any such role you need them to. They have a ton of mythic resonance, they can show up anywhere from the deep wilderness to the heart of a great city, and they span...

It's more about the "canonical" portrayal of orcs in official material. For most of D&D's history, that version of orcs was not based on Mongols or Romans; it was much more like indigenous tribes in various parts of the world -- or, more precisely, like the stereotypes of those tribes that were...

As far as orcs go, it's not all that hard to replace them as Generic Baddies without replicating their issues. Those issues arise because orcs live in tribal societies that look an awful lot like human societies, and adventurers heading out to kill them and take their stuff looks an awful lot...

The biggest thing right now is just gaining that fifth paladin level. At that point, you have a decently optimized build already: paladin with a 2-level fighter dip for Action Surge. I assume you picked compatible fighting styles? (That is, you can use them both at the same time?) The middling...

Little-known rule: Raising your Strength score above the maximum allows you to go back in time and change your action when you blow an Athletics check.