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Sorry, but this makes no sense. I'm coming at this from the basis of there being no upcasting; if they've got any 1st-level slots left then they can cast Magic Missile but if they're out of 1sts then no MM's for them. Flip side: the spells auto-scale with level. So in effect their low-level...

If 5e had scrapped basic + magic weapons, every DM and their little dog would have immediately added them back in. Net result: the same as current. I suspect the bigger flaws might have been a combination of over-reliance on bounded accuracy (5e-specific) and trying to tighten down the math...

Yes, exactly. The other things that can (but for any given spell don't have to) scale by level are range and duration. For Hold Person it could probably be locked in at two targets and left there.

Maybe that's what this new ability is intended to do - give you the ability to 'dash' whenever you want within the round plus make whatever move you'd get normally on your turn. Otherwise, what's the point?

Man, Shadows must have been nerfed along the editions somewhere. In games I'm used to, 5 Shadows would annihilate any party averaging less than 3rd level without any effort at all and would/could be a significant threat to 4th or even 5th level parties. I DMed a party of 1st-levels who decided...

Indeed, but there's no need to hand them those obvious "best" options on a plate. At least make them work for it. :) Not so sure here - I suspect many of these players don't necessarily care about being in the "useful range"; if they did, they wouldn't intentionally play against type like...

These two statements are in direct contradiction to each other. Strengthening the weaker options while at the same time not weakening the stronger options is power creep, all day long: the average has become more powerful. Put in numbers terms, where higher = stronger: Let's say you've got a...

What if each level had its own AoE damage spell (except 3rd by tradition has two: Fireball and Lightning Bolt) but each of those spells does a different type of damage. If for example you want AoE cold damage you have to use Ice Storm, a 4th level spell; at 5th level there could be an AoE acid...

You misread what I originally said. It's d6 damage per level. Period. Thus, 5th-level wizard gets 5d6, 8th-level gets 8d6, 15th level gets 15d6, etc. This and your other examples also fail to note two things about upcasting (one benefit, one flaw): the flaw is you're using a higher-level...

Where it makes a difference is if you are giving individual xp based on who participated in what and not giving xp to characters who aren't there e.g. because they're dead or stayed behind or don't happen to be in the part of a split party that found some action. In other words, not everyone...

No need to reorient the map, a letter N and an arrow pointing the appropriate way is all it takes. I just finished running a module* that used an iso map for the main dungeon/encounter area. Now granted, the area covered by that map was huge compared to the examples here, but as I couldn't be...

The map needs cardinal directions so as to agree with the (ideal) write-up and boxed text, which has exits and features noted by direction rather than by left-right (left-right is very bad practice) in order to allow for characters coming into the areas from unexpected directions. You're...

Isn't that just pure DM fiat, though? They level when you decide they level?

Yes, but those activities can be a wide variety of things... ...including things that are interesting to the character. That said, I guess the best way to put it is that I give xp for a) adventuring, b) contributing within said adventure, and c) being present in-character at the time. a)...

Better fix would be to just let damage spells auto-scale with level like they did in 1e-2e, and ditch upcasting completely. Fireball: 3rd level spell, does d6* per level based on your caster level. Boom. Simple. Done. * - or d8, if d6 isn't enough.

Nitpicks to an otherwise good presentation: Xp for the golems should be listed with the monster write-up. Just saying 2200 xp for the whole scenario isn't granular enough, as for example it's always possible the PCs will for some reason never meet Za'Gatul (maybe they defeat the golems, take...

No, it's merely one more criticism in a list of them, as shown in the post you quoted. Then perhaps not the best example to pull out?

Been running games fairly regularly since 1984 and playing fairly regularly since 1982.

As nothing overlaps vertically this map could be done top-down just as well, with numeric elevation values given to indicate elevation changes...which this iso map still doesnt tell me! How deep is the shaft from the rug room to the passage? What's the vertical and horizontal on the stairs...

First very quick thought there is that blanket % resistance to all magic should be EA no matter what, while immunities or resistances to certain specific spells or effects or elements should be SA (resistances just one SA no matter how many different things you're resistant to, immunities 1 SA...