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I think one flat mod coming from ability score is fine. The nice thing about flat mods is that they help counteract the swinginess of the d20. Proficiency dice do bring more swing into action resolution, as instead of, say, a 6-25 range for a proficient check with your primary ability at 1st...

I think, unfortunately, the only way you’ll be able to get that is to make a call about what source(s) are available to use, and just say, that’s what we’re using. Save your ideas about characters using material from another sourcebook for another campaign, for this one we’re sticking to just...

Hard to say, because the game I’m currently playing in is extremely inconsistent in both frequency of sessions and length of sessions. But it’s a smaller number than most years, because the DM for our current campaign, a very good friend whom I love to death, is frankly both lazy about prep and...

I make no claims to it being simpler. It just makes how the proficiency mechanic works more obvious, which I consider a significant benefit. Also, while 1d20+7 is obviously simpler than 1d20+2d4+3, the +7 is only written down for the bog-standard ability/skill combinations. I’m a DM who makes...

Yeah, I think the source of a magic user’s powers is meaningful from a story perspective, but there isn’t a clean arcane vs. divine split anymore. If anything, it’s class-by-class.

Yeah, I don’t think Brennan intended for

I think you’re absolutely right. This was clearly meant to be a challenge to get Arnessa and Octis and get out, not a fight to the death. But, the Critical Role cast isn’t exactly used to fights they can’t win, and the fact that obfuscated the secondary goal. And, Matt was more interested in...

I think for now we probably should, as I know people often watch the episodes over multiple sittings. At least wait until Monday when the vod is out to post untagged spoilers, so people who could only watch part of it live don’t have the rest spoiled before they have a chance to finish the episode.

For sure, but it was very helpful in avoiding a TPK in this fight. Ashley may have been rolling cold, but holding the attention of six shadows for that long, in such a low-strength party was invaluable.

Oh, also Bolaire is my favorite character now. I love a good goth boy, but even for me the design felt a little too needlessly edgy for my tastes at first, and Taliesin didnt do enough to win me over in the first few episodes. But, now that we know what the deal is with the mask, and we know a...

I thought so too! Arnessa’s Haste spell did a ton of work there, as did Brennan’s apparent house rule of elves resisting… necrotic damage? Or maybe just the damage of Shadows’ attacks, it’s unclear.

with improved unarmored movement there doesn’t even need to be a hand hold. It allows you to climb up completely sheer vertical surfaces, you just fall if you don’t end your movement on flat ground. A climb speed doesn’t typically allow that (unless you also have spider climb), but it also...

I think it makes it makes proficiency or lack of proficiency very obviously binary. You either roll the extra die (and it’s always the same die) or you don’t. Having flat modifiers encourages writing down the combined ability mod and proficiency bonus (or no proficiency bonus) next to all your...

On another note, this episode did not end with the remaining players split between the Seekers’ and Schemers’ tables, and if anything I fell even less confident in any guesses about what the final table division is going to look like. And we probably won’t know for a while, because it sounds...

For the folks who had found the first few episodes of Campaign 4 to be too much exposition, not enough action, episode 4 is definitely the one to watch for an example of this campaign in full-gear action mode! Without spoiling anything, I will say that the episode opens with combat, which lasts...

I actually love the proficiency die. I Pooh-poohed it back when it first appeared in the D&D Next playtest, because I didn’t like that the random nature of the bonus meant I couldn’t figure out, say, “I have +9 with thieves’ tools, so I can’t fail to pick a DC 10 lock.” But, I was wrong. The...

Well, climbing and parkouring up a vertical surface are pretty different. Climbing implies suspending yourself from the surface, whereas with parkour you’re running on pure momentum.

Definitely a DM judgement call. A climbing speed doesn’t mean you can’t fall, it just means you can move at that speed while climbing instead of using double movement. So, if the Tabaxi monk is scaling a sheer vertical surface with no hand or footholds, I’d be inclined to say they still fall if...

Agreed on all counts.

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure every set of core books has outsold the previous set. The more important question is by how much, and if growth met projections or not.