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  1. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2014) Who are the famous characters of D&D

    Honestly I think Critical Role characters had already eclipsed the name recognition amongst current D&D players, and D&D engaged people, of any characters whose fame rested on D&D novels even before they launched an animated series on Amazon. I think liveplays may have a bigger audience than D&D...
  2. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Pulse check on 1D&D excitement level

    Because the skills aren't primarily assigned to abilities from a balance perspective, they're assigned based on what ability the designers anticipated them being paired with most often. Free-form matching of skill with the most suitable ability for the occasion is presented as an optional rule...
  3. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Pulse check on 1D&D excitement level

    Agreed. I don't think any individual design team members want "change for the sake of change", but I think they all want somewhat different things, and ultimately corporate is happy with changing just enough to make people buy new books and couldn't care less about what the changes are. The...
  4. Benjamin Olson

    Picard Season 3

    While I agree that the spoiler-warned subject was well wrapped, and share your concern that it will be trotted out just to be a minor element, it is nice to have something that important get acknowledged outside of its show of origin. Letting things get too nicely wrapped with a bow and never...
  5. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Smite Changes

    I don't follow how your proposed special source of advantage is less "fiddly" than a special source of opportunity attacks, which it sounds like you were advocating. It actually quickly gets more fiddly, since you have to litigate when the advantage would apply, based on what the bow user did on...
  6. Benjamin Olson

    Picard Season 3

    Well, they're now 3 for 3 on great episodes this season, which to my mind already makes it the strongest season of Picard. And it turns out all I needed to really like Raffi's character all this time was for her to get teamed up with Worf.
  7. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General A GM I know has A Player whose characters A Future King,, he's only done 1 adventure and theirs already 2 confirmed problems and 2 more brewing. Ideas

    I mean obviously the guy needs to ditch his small army of bodyguards. That's an absolute no-go for a game oriented towards small skirmish based combat, particularly at lower levels. Royal person wanting to ditch all the well-meaning but intrinsically oppressive minders is a basic fiction trope...
  8. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Smite Changes

    Ranged is just too powerful in 5e. At the very least the archery fighting style should be replaced with something else. I mean there's a reason that target shooting is a sport and target stabbing is not, hitting things at a distance is harder in real life (especially moving targets). I can...
  9. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Monster Optimization 101: Armor Crab

    Yep. Probably not actually a hard fight, but the characters who beat the crabs on initiative spend the opening turns attacking the armor like they would a solo enemy, when in fact it's a bunch of tiny enemies with plate armor AC, that hop apart and swarm everyone, making the AoE that could...
  10. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Smite Changes

    But if you're a conjuration Wizard you can minor conjuration yourself a wand. You can also teleport. I was honestly a little disappointed nobody ever tried to imprison my conjuration wizard.
  11. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Monster Optimization 101: Armor Crab

    Awesome. I think I'm more excited for the possibility of a suit of armor in some old wizard's tower that starts to move, and the players think "oh god, another animated armor" only to discover that it's actually a colony of twelve armor crabs!
  12. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Less (and different) spellcasting?

    So my own 5e clone game has a spell-less class in place of Rangers, a spell-less class in place of Bards, and my priestly class has limited Warlock style spell casting, with ability check based prayers as their primary role. Which is all just to say, that while WotC will never do what you're...
  13. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Monster Optimization 101: Armor Crab

    So is your monster going to have purpose built armor (giant trained war crabs or something), or is it just going to be a species of hermit crab that infest unattended armories?
  14. Benjamin Olson

    D&D Movie/TV The two D&D movie prequel novels are out.

    I'm a little disappointed given that they have one written by a Johnson and one written by a Johnston, that they other two upcomming books in the series aren't written by a Jonson, a Jensen, a Johanson, or a Jones.
  15. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Pulse check on 1D&D excitement level

    It is easy to forget amidst playtests of such vigorous (and needless) class remixing, three or four different takes on inspiration, and that one time they threatened to make critical hits both radically less important and radically more complicated, that it really looks like the core rules are...
  16. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Did Someone Cast Remove Disease?

    I mean, I do like the idea at least of diseases in my D&D. I think their a lot of roleplay potential, and I think having non-magical afflictions is a nice option for DMs weary of the everything is magic all the time vibe of 5e. But that's all the more reason I don't want paladins to be able to...
  17. Benjamin Olson

    D&D Movie/TV D&D Movie Hit or Flop?

    I mean, I don't think it will be a flop by any means, but I can't help but think the marketing budget must be through the roof. Their Led Zeppelin budget alone must be astronomical. So the break even ends up being pretty damned high.
  18. Benjamin Olson

    Picard Season 3

    Which is fair enough. But I think when the timeline of someone's life becomes a key plot point more care should be given to having the actor look like the age you want them to be. That said, they also had to cast someone who reasonably matched specific parents here. That's already a lot of...
  19. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Smite Changes

    I think unarmed attacks being weapon attacks is just horribly tortured rules-legalistic thinking that makes the game byzantine and obtuse to all but its deepest initiates. Now they seem to want to get around the problem by filling the manual with "or unarmed strike" verbiage. They really just...
  20. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Did Someone Cast Remove Disease?

    To clarify, the issue I'm concerned with is less with having a whole party of paladins, and more with a DM thinking sewer sickness (or whatever) is going to be a challenge for the whole party, when, in fact, it is something the single 3rd level paladin is both immune to and can cure in 3 party...
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