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Page 27 of the PHB says "twice normal for the weapon used per four levels of the Thief", but I agree that's vague. I started playing 1e not long before the 2e books came out, and there, they specified "the weapon's standard damage is multiplied....then strength and magical weapon bonuses are...

I never really understood the hate for ranged sneak attack- it's called being a sniper and people have done it historically for a very long time. I was happy when they changed it for 5e, though I still run into people who seem to think that ranged sneak attack is hard to pull off for some reason.

The arguments I've gotten into with people who claim that their Thieves were unstoppable backstabbing machines when I drag out all the ways the rules basically say you might as well cross the ability off your character sheet if the DM is a stickler about the rules. And really, it's way safer to...

Something I just remembered, and I don't recall if it was mentioned (I'm too lazy to go back through the whole thread) is what happens if a multi-classed character comes back as a human.

I remember a chance encounter with a group of ancient powergamers back in the day where all of their characters were dual-classed humans who started as Monks and then became Magic-Users, which they believed "fixed" the weaknesses of being a Magic-User. Don't ask me how that worked in practice...

For a long time, I used 4d6 drop lowest, rerolling any 1's, just to get the scores of 3-6 (pre-racial modifiers) off the table. It seemed to work out just fine, though I did once have a guy from a "power gaming" group make a character at my table and stare at an array with a 17, a 16, and...

I believe the only exception to Wands being spell storage devices were the Eternal Wands from the Magic Item Compendium, which functioned a set number of times per day instead of being charged. Every other unusual Wand pre-3e became a Rod, so the Wand of Wonder was a Rod of Wonder in 3e.

Ah, thank you!

I ❤️ Tales of the Valiant

There was a spell to recharge magic items in an issue of Dragon, my DM ported it into his 2e game. Sadly, I can't recall which issue it was in, and there's a lot of them. I miss Dragon magazine.

At the risk of further derailing the conversation, the 5e Feats are a step in a better direction, mostly. The weak passive bonus type Feats at least grant a stat improvement, and the good Feats have multiple abilities packaged together. Granted, you get less of them, but taking a Feat in 5e...

Ah, Feats. A wonderful bit of design. "Let's create special features that aren't tied to a character class, that you can use to customize your character." We'd seen some of this with a few NWP's like Blind Fighting, the Style Feats in Complete Fighter, and the crazy combat techniques found in...

The last time a character was reincarnated in a game I was running, I had a long chat with the player about their expectations and concerns. While in the old days, having your character transmogrified against your will was common, some people react badly to it, and when you consider that, for a...

AD&D xp charts are just mind-boggling. I remember the 2e DMG attempted to explain how they were derived, with it's class creation rules, but then immediately pointed out you cannot create the existing classes using them! The numbers seem completely arbitrary to me, and stray from their pattern...

When you consider that the difference between a 17 Dex and an 18 Dex feels like an entire level of ability for a Thief with regards to their Thieving skills, yeah, losing a few points of Dexterity is a big deal. And at 10, the penalties would make you feel like you've gone down 2-3 levels (on...

I think this looks pretty good, if I were to play an AD&D game again, this might make me consider a Wizard, and that's pretty good considering how miserable an experience playing AD&D Wizards was for me in the past. I assume that having done this, Illusionist is next for revision? If so, I'd...

So there was a discussion on the Tales of the Valiant Discord server today about Reincarnation that I felt was pretty relevant. For the most part, with the distinct separation of Lineage (what you are) and Heritage (how you grew up), and the disassociation of ability scores from either, ToV's...

The cat has both achieved and not achieved Nirvana, until it is observed.

Another victim of the algorithm pitching Dungeons & Discourse.