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  1. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    Further, the randomizer doesn't (and shouldn't) care whether a given player is playing her Nature Cleric or her Fighter or her Magic-User at the time a party going shopping; it just spits out what it spits out and there's either something(s) useful there or there isn't. For adventure treasure...
  2. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    In-character it makes a lot of sense that they'd go for the most practical items first. Hard to complain about that. And IME if they've got the spare cash they often will buy interesting items. If those items turn out to be useful, that's good; and if they don't they're still much lighter to...
  3. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    That's fine with me, as I usually never know which characters will be in a given adventure anyway there's always going to be some extra unused items even if I try to curate ahead of time. That, and treasury is always divided to value here anyway; thus if there's (numbers conveniently set to...
  4. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    You need to a) randomize what's available at any given time and b) limit the number; this to reflect the idea that what comes on the market isn't predictable and there isn't that much of it. Not sure how you hand out magic items in the adventures you run, but if you use any sort of random...
  5. Lanefan

    D&D General Edition Experience - Updated Survey Results (Updated October 2025)

    They can if there's a way to have a poll thread that has comments shut off while the poll remains open to vote on.
  6. Lanefan

    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    It can be a bit of both. Look at how real-world people approach their careers. Some people let their professions define them 24 hours a day, others are only their profession during working hours and at other times are something else (e.g. someone's a dentist during the day but when not in the...
  7. Lanefan

    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    Agreed, though personally I do it the other way round - the "Adventuring" piece is assumed unless "Stay-at-home" is noted. :)
  8. Lanefan

    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    For me, the overarching problem with that "particular narrow experience" approach is that every time I or the table wanted to do something different I'd have to buy and we'd all have to learn a whole new system. No thanks. It would also be very difficult to vary from that narrow experience...
  9. Lanefan

    What Do You Think Of As "Modern TTRPG Mechanics"?

    Agreed. Thing is, homebrewers gonna homebrew no matter what design is put in front of them, and there's a whole lot of homebrewers out there. Thus, IMO this is something RPG designers in particular need to keep top-of-mind at all times: how can we keep our shiny new system flexible enough to...
  10. Lanefan

    What rpg system would you use for a 60+ session fantasy campaign?

    Which, now I think on it, makes me wonder why the OP framed the question around a 60-session span (or any limited-number span) rather than simply asking what's the best system for a campaign whose duration is open-ended i.e. it'll keep going as long as everyone's willing to keep at it.
  11. Lanefan

    D&D 5E (2024) What should the 15th Class be?

    In total, yes; but the martial side and the caster side would each have to be weaker than their single-class counterparts such that the total of the two parts is roughly the same strength as the dedicated classes. To clarify: You have a pure Fighter. You have a pure Wizard. You have a third...
  12. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    I think @GobHag is proposing that each character would have two classes - one social, the other combat, mix and match - and that there'd be solid mechanics to support both (i.e. way more in-depth social mechanics than we have now). Personally I'd likely never play this, but it's a very...
  13. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    In both 1e and 2e they do a lot more than just artillery; by 3e Evoker (the blaster option) had become one of the weaker Wizard options. The designers did this knowing full well people would play them anyway, as caster players tend to love their blast spells. The problem with buffing other...
  14. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    Hmmm. Interesting. You have: Zealot - spreading beliefs by any means necessary Noble #1 - ingratiating and using social structure to advantage (I'd rename this one 'Diplomat' as I've a different Noble below) Meek - blends into the crowd and uses that anonymity to gather information Some...
  15. Lanefan

    D&D 5E (2024) What should the 15th Class be?

    It would sort of have to be, wouldn't it? If a single-class martial or a single-class caster has a power level of 1 then the martial power plus the caster power of a half-caster should in the name of balance also add up to about 1. Otherwise, why would anyone play just a martial or just a...
  16. Lanefan

    D&D General Edition Experience - Updated Survey Results (Updated October 2025)

    Or maybe ask if it's possible to post just the poll by itself, without comments.
  17. Lanefan

    D&D General Edition Experience - Updated Survey Results (Updated October 2025)

    For just my own character, no. As DM or as player trying to mentally map the positions of everyone in the battle relative to each other, very much yes. The very few times I've ever tried totm gaming it inevitably broke down into arguments over specific positioning.
  18. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    I'm doing it now. At low levels it was great - I saw loads of spells get cast that never otherwise saw the light of day. At high levels they've tended to fall back on the usual standby spells, though. Where it's really made a difference is that where a high-ish level MU with 33 spell points...
  19. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    If psionics are to be something that expands in scope as you level up as do spells then yes, the same problems will likely arise. I'm used to psionic systems where you (by random chance) get what you get if anything and that's it forever; your psionic abilities are 99% locked in. I have a hard...
  20. Lanefan

    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    RPGs are different than any other category of game and yet they're still games. Casting limits are gamist-first, I won't dispute that. Thing is, what other not-too-complicated mechanism can you use to make it such that the casters don't render non-casters obsolete within the first half-hour of...
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