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The barbarian's party was all ranged (the aforementioned storm sorc/tempest cleric, Astarion as a Sharpshooter with dual hand crossbows, and Gale for CC and utility), so friendly fire wasn't a big concern except when there were NPCs I wanted to keep alive. And of course you can always just toss...

I concur on the power of martial damage builds in BG3. This power rests almost entirely on the -5/+10 feats and on Tavern Brawler*, which BG3 took from "niche feat for grapple specialists" to "the most powerful combat feat in the game." The removal of multiclassing restrictions and the changes...

I prefer live-action... when it's done right. If this show had a budget like "Game of Thrones," I'd be all for it. But it doesn't and won't. Moreover, as someone else pointed out, making this an animated show would mean they could hire the original voice actors.

5E made a big effort to strip out as many stackable bonuses as possible, especially from attacks, AC, and save bonuses/DCs. This both streamlined the rules and kept attack and defense values within a controlled range (more or less), which in turn made each monster usable over a wider span of PC...

Depends on how good the natural armor is, and what manufactured armors I'm proficient in and can afford. After all, the human body has plenty of armor built in. Your skull is a helmet; your ribcage is a breastplate; your subcutaneous fat is an all-over gambeson. Doesn't stop us from...

Green-Flame Blade, definitely. Booming Blade... eh, I guess. I've always found it bizarre and impossible to visualize -- what the heck is "booming energy?" And why does it only hurt you if you move 5 feet or more? It wouldn't bug me as much if it weren't one of the only two weapon cantrips...

Not... necessarily. Trademark doesn't work the same as copyright. At least in principle, the idea of trademark law is that it's a way for a company to identify itself in the marketplace. To infringe on a trademark, you have to create confusion between your product and that of the trademark...

Maybe so, but do you really think TenCent is that publisher? I can certainly think of companies I'd prefer to see handling the D&D IP, but as @Staffan observed, the intersection of that set of companies with the set of companies that could actually afford it is null.

All these points are spot on, but especially the last one. It hits on something that was enormously, incredibly important in medieval (and modern) warfare but that hasn't been modeled in D&D since the TSR days: Morale. Battle is terrifying. It takes a lot of discipline to stand your ground in...

Jgsugden's issue was that monsters died before doing anything. I don't see how this is addressed by scaling down all numbers except monster damage. It does increase the chance that the party dies before doing anything, but I don't think that's an improvement.

To me this is not a problem with the 5E rules but with adventure design, particularly adventure design that is too heavily informed by video games: Making every single monster and NPC in the game "CR appropriate." I don't know what level your party is, but if you could upcast sleep to 3rd, you...

It's the highest power of 2 that factors into the number, plus one. Or, equivalently, it's 1 plus the number of zeroes at the end if you write the number in binary. I'm not sure what the purpose is, but it's sorta binary-adjacent?

It's the signature mechanic of the Bhaal cultists. As far as I know, nobody else uses it.

I'm gonna guess monk, since that's the class that lets you fight effectively without gear at low level, and it tends to be a natural fit for Astarion even if you don't respec him. (That said, you can switch off between "camp clothes" and "adventuring clothes" -- the Astarion in the image could...

Sweet. Just subscribed. I've been a fan of Mearls's work since Iron Heroes; eager to see where he goes from here.

Well, there's no doubt that RTD is back -- with all the good and bad that comes with that. The third special was a typical Davies finale, complete with overstuffed plot and a painful and ill-explained deus ex machina. (Also, why did 15 appear with shirt and tie and underwear but not trousers? I...

I thought Moffat's first season and his last two seasons were his best. The first season was basically an extended Moffat episode, and it worked the same way as his stand-alone episodes, with intricate callbacks and timey-wimey tricks coming together for the finale. But he was already...

Yes. Before taking the helm, he wrote "42," "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood," "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," and "The Power of Three." He was also head writer on "Torchwood." Outside the Whoniverse, he created and wrote "Broadchurch" and worked on a number of other shows. It's certainly not as...

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say he was promoted above his proper level. He may not have been as good at crafting an emotionally satisfying arc as Russell T. Davies, and it took him a while to figure out how to adjust his plotting to work at season scale, but he still delivered some...

I was not impressed with "Star Beast," but "Wild Blue Yonder" knocked it out of the park IMO. I'm sure I will spot any number of plot holes when I stop to think about it later, but it was exciting and full of wild ideas and unexpected twists, and served it all up with a great big helping of...