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I ran 3e from 1st to 22nd. Much easier than my 2e game that went into the 20s. PrC management was a thing. Someone wanted the Lloth-esque PrC in a Dragonlance-based setting. We talked about it and he went Dragon Disciple. I ran into power balance issues with martial vs casters. Came up...

I dislike bespoke powers because that conceit is that GMs will ge the balance right. Balance is hard for professional designers, why do we assume GMs can pull it off? Frameworks like classes should have some semblance of balance but a grab-bag of powers is easily unbalanced. If you don't...

Ah, this is a design approach issue. I do that opposite; I figure out the handful of spells I want them to use before I make the rest of the NPC. If I make a caster specifically for an encounter, I'm choosing spells for the encounter and the NPC is there as a "how/why". Again, class as...

How much time do you spend designing the "boss" encounter of your game arcs? Especially for a boss encounter where you want the boss to escape and show up later? I often spend more than an hour on that, regardless of game system. NPC design and encounter design are the same thing when the...

I run shadowrun right now and HARD YES. I would love a template system for making NPCs instead of every one being utterly bespoke. Classes are frameworks and when you learn to use it as a framework, it makes less work. Look, when making NPCs I follow 3 paths: 1) cool idea for a NPC who will...

Hard disagree. I ran 3e with its hojillion splat books from 1st-22nd level and I could whip up casters in less than an hour. A rogue was like 5 minutes work. The tier4 casters could stress that hour, but I could be a bit lax as they are likely only going to cast 6-8 spells in combat. It was...

Its a nice car. I think they did a good job balancing power and cost. It won't snap your neck back like a Tesla can but 200+ hp gives it a confidence-inspiring amount of power. The size is good and it has a decent amount of cargo. Downsides are visibility isn't awesome (you need the cameras)...

Lots of grandmothers were alive for Pearl Harbor and the ones who weren't grew up in the aftermath of WWII, under the shadow of global thermonuclear war. Duck & cover, kids, then get to your bomb shelter! I grew up on a diet of War Games, The Day After, Red Dawn and a bazillion ww2 movies in...

Oh geez, I forgot about those. I now remember playing an assassin who spoke to some goblinoids using NeutralEvil-ese. I was glad to see them go as a way of communicating between material-plane creatures. Though I did like the idea that Evil people could understand an Infernal but not an Angel.

Alignments are key for certain outsiders in my worldview. I.e. Infernal vs Celestial. An infernal must be Evil and a celestial must be Good, its inherent in what they are. An infernal who ceases to be Evil ceases to be infernal. A celestial who stopped being Good also stopped being a...

I will agree the timeline for construction in d&d is not like in the real world. Just using cantrip Mold Earth to dig foundations in a day or build earthen construction ramps and supports would speed up construction immensely. Its hard to imagine how much effort excavating large areas with...

Pendragon work in seasons, where each "module" is a year. I never played it, but you have to design your campaign around this philosophy, where you campaign in summer, spending fall getting to a wintering position, spend winter maintaining gear & teceuiting, spring getting resupplied/training...

DMs always need a story goal in mind ( "punish players" should never be the goal) and the goal of the opposition. For tribes of small fry, the goal is survivial. The antithesis of kobold and goblin tactics is "fight to the death". Traps and such are not to kill invaders (although that's...

I forgot the penultimate defense of kobolds and goblins. The one that requires the least effort for the most value against medium+ creatures. A tunnel that even small creatures have to squeeze. 1ftx3ft or 1.5ftx1.5ft. Make it a little twisty, no more than a few feet of line of sight. Just a...

I've always used the idea that goblins and kobolds rely on a mix of numbers and a level of cunning. Unless there are exceptional individuals (special variants, class levels, etc) I try to keep the complexity low. Surprisingly, some fairly simple traps with a bit of layering become highly...

I was at the Gencon in Milwaukee getting my 3.0 PHB. I forget which designers signed it.

I like the idea that they don't aerodynamically fly so much as claw their way through the sky. Its less a wing and more a hand. The glassy "membrane" in the earlier art is space- time flexing about their body. I mean, it can't be a psionic effect, as there's no blue bit between their body and...

Think I preferred the "crystal film" wings. It was more surreal. For a dragon that lives in a necrotic environment, that glassy "immune to cosmic decay" look makes sense.

Right, or do elven children take over the parent's shop so the parent can finally stop making chairs and move on to being an alchemist while knowing the kid is in good shape? Or what if elven adults treat elves less than 100yro as disposable? Like, what if elves had MORE kids than the orc...

I didn't say "how many assets" I said "what kind of assets". Quantity is a quality but not the only quality. Will "typical" elven adults have homes that are sparsely furnished but each item is a masterpiece? Will they have eclectic mixes of materials accrued over centuries? Does it look...