Search results

This being my first campaign, my main strategy for the long timelines is to do it in about half-hour chunks, or to do it podcast-style where I'm listening while doing other things (which is pretty effective).

Ah, good! I did think this story had potential if they didn't phone it in, and it sounds like they saw that, too. Great news. So...maybe best of both worlds? A good lore update AND a decent leader-y fighter?

I am incredibly fond of them using custom elements. D&D at its best inspires tables to do that, and since CR is one of the biggest D&D things around, it's great that they're into that. This is like 15 nerdy middle-aged theater kids, everyone's here to be the most interesting character in the...

But, like, the people who wrote that material, they didn't bother to communicate any ideas about why that might've happened? Anything about what's going on in the minds of the people who did this? One possibly deceased ancient dragon has a vision of another world and just can't resist how super...

And what did the book do with that potential? Anything interesting? Seems like not.

It makes a better joke.

Dragon pets in D&D are either disappointing or overpowered, fite me. I'm happy with a leader-style Fighter. The PDK's have been such, and it's a useful thing to have in the game. And it seems like they did not explain this pact very well, since it still sounds naff. Why do planar scholar...

I especially like them as part of a campaign setting. One of my remarks on Spelljammer and Planescape was that a bunch of little adventures would have shown off the setting a lot better than the bigger adventure we got for each. This adventure, simple as it is, does bear that out. We get a hook...

The Beastlands and the gate-town of Faunel are canonically lousy with talking animals -- former mortals, now divine beasts of wild freedom. No construction necessary, they just dwell in the wilds, and are happy there. I'd typically embrace a talking animal PC. Might be some weird corner cases...

This is a slightly upgraded Orc and Pie. "Adventure" implies a lot of content that isn't there. For what it is, it's fine. Pretty cool map, and a unique little vision encounter. There isn't a lot of room for thematic resonance or compelling character moments or whatever, but it's not aiming for...

Hmm...while I'm perfectly content with a spell slot psion, I wonder if approaching this from another direction would be useful. Spell slots are one way to do power scaling in 5e. The other existing ways are Extra Attack (sometimes in combo with Spellcasting) and Sneak Attack. If we focus on the...

Obvious uses: give your friend an attack spell or healing spell they can pop if they want. Also lets you store a Charm or something if you want to be subtle about your spellcasting. Similar to the artificer's ability to store spells in things.

Absolutely. Pretty sure my newbie player doesn't really get why any of these exceptions occur, and even my more experienced players hit a wall sometimes. I had a fight with a monster that cast darkness and the cleric - an experienced player! - didn't quite get why guiding bolt had disadvantage...

I think in this particular case, the meaning of the proficiency bonus isn't clear. Still too new to have gotten an increase. Which might point to a world where you just don't get proficiency bonus 'till 5th level or something. Not sure that would work, but it's an interesting idea... Yeah...

What @Staffan said, basically. I'd add that Guidance/Bless create a layer of "if you're not using it, you're not really playing optimally, since they stack with advantage!" (especially Guidance -- that spell needs to be at least 1st level, using some resource) that I find particularly annoying...

+1 for Mearls's statement of "role playing games aren't actually games, they're activities."

One of the things I've become convinced of is that we don't need a list of 18 unique skills. D&D 2014 had something called "background proficiency" as an optional rule, very reminiscent of AD&D's Secondary Skills. This is enough. One thing, beyond my class, that I can say "I'm good at this," and...

One of the issues, I think, is that this runs up against how a lot of DMs design their combats. I am probably only going to have like 1-2 encounters before the party does a long rest, I better make them DEADLY! OK, I've got this XP budget to spend on monsters. What's the deadliest monster I can...

Mearls here says something like "It turns out needing two islands to cast a counterspell is a part of why it works," so, yeah, he definitely has learned that the preparation cost matters. While it's a different vibe in D&D than it is in M:TG, I think "stop having fun" effects are ultimately...

Broader. Talking about modularity, and how that lets 3PPs get away with 5e-compatible design that is quite different from 5e and uses some different assumptions. Subclasses were mentioned as one of those spaces where that's not really true: subclasses kind of assume that an underlying class is...