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I think this is one place where we diverge in our opinions; I remember making a point earlier in the thread about how having orcs get +2 to Strength and elves +2 to Dexterity isn't sufficient to say that these two expressions of characters are distinct enough to comprise a 'racial' difference...

I don't think your memory is off -- the books do have a lot of information on the non-human 'races' they describe. It's just that those descriptions basically translate to 'this non-human race is basically this specific subculture of humanity'; in the Race of the Wild book, halflings are...

As an aside, let me say that Speak with Animals gets me into more trouble as a DM than any other ability in D&D, because one of my regular players is a former vet tech who honestly believes that animals have human-level intellect while I do not. The main advantage I have in that argument, other...

Except that much if not all of that material would apply just as well if describing humans dwelling in the same environments those other races come from. To take an example from one of the PDFs I just happen to have lying around: So is this describing wild elves? Ghostwise halflings? Gnolls...

That's a very fair point, and worth taking into account. But... Racial issues, probably not, but these are still identifiably human traits; someone might just as easily take issue with your portayal of elvish libertarianism, or depending on how far a player takes the 'childlike wonder' aspect...

Yep, missed opportunities to ruin the game for other players. We definitely need more of that in Organized Play. -- Pauper

Whew..can't believe I got through that whole thread. I have noted a few people making the point that 'race' is a perfectly valid word to use for fantasy gaming, since the various folk being described are differentiated by explicit traits (dwarves are stocky and knowledgable about mining and...

Good list. It also got me thinking that this, like many attempts to define 'iconic' for D&D, is going to end up very different for different players. Good example: if you started playing D&D with Fourth or Fifth Edition, you may well not know or remember where Raven's Bluff is. But if you played...

I agree with you, though I can imagine a few old-school folks naming Suzail, as the capital of Cormyr (i.e.: where many campaigns were actually run in the early Realms). Disagree when it comes to being the 'big city' in Ravenloft, regardless of how you define Ravenloft. If you define it by...

Depends on the creature. Unlike 3E, in 5E there is no general rule on incorporealness -- each creature with an incorporeal-like ability has its own rules for how that functions. In most cases, it's simply reflected in the creatures damage resistances and immunities, and not called out as a...

By the text of the spell, the target would get to make a Wisdom save at the end of its turn -- "At the end of each of its turns, the target can make another Wisdom saving throw. On a success, the spell ends on the target." I'd argue that the spell is still useful even if the target makes the...

Glad to hear that the Keep on the Borderlands Encounter season was so good -- I'm not sure as many people got to play it as should have, though. In our own area, we had so many gamers turned off by the unnecessarily brutal Dark Sun season that preceded it that we stopped running Encounters and...

If you are explicitly going to see Ready Player One to see how they implement the Tomb of Horrors, you're going to be disappointed. There are a small handful of D&D/RPG references in the movie, but they really don't do anything with them other than just use them as references. -- Pauper

I think you'd have to specify a few things about the bonus damage die that would make it not really worth putting in: - The bonus damage die does not itself allow you to roll another d12 if you get a max result on it. Otherwise, you've just created an exploding damage weapon in D&D, which...

It seems to me that the main 'problem' these house rules set out to solve is 'why do I have to spend my action doing this thing that isn't an attack?' The proposed solutions do have the advantage that they reward characters for choosing specific proficient skills, though the fact that they all...

I get that the cryptic hints are somewhat 'newsworthy' as speculation on potential future products, but it's rapidly getting to the point where I'm starting to expect the D&D equivalent of "Half-Life 3 confirmed!" memes any day now. -- Pauper

Don't try to recreate your favorite Third Edition elf rogue in 5E? Count me in with those who thought the longsword has always been 'too good' of a weapon choice. Seriously, though, based on the thread, it doesn't sound like your real issue is with the stats for the longsword, but with the...

Same here -- I used to play a fairly regular weekly Monday night game, a fairly regular weekly Wednesday night game (back when it was called Encounters), a 3-times-a-month Friday night game, and a monthly or even twice-a-month Saturday afternoon game at a different hobby store. Now, for various...

If PF2 can't really do Theater of the Mind, then they're going to have a hard time getting people to put together the kinds of streaming games that are helping to make D&D 5e so popular -- Dice, Camera, Action uses a virtual map, but only to set the place, not with virtual minis or any kind of...

I think those are two different points -- you don't need a two-year playtest to realize that putting out a new hardcover book every 2-3 months is a problematic business model. I do think your comment on the 'lifecycle' of each edition is more relevant to that point, though -- if there's only so...