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  1. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Should you Multiclass?

    The class progression of 5e D&D is often very linear without a lot of choice. Yes you get to choose a subclass, yes you get to choose spells if you're the right type of spellcaster, yes you get to choose feats and for certain subclasses additional features like a Battlemaster's maneuvers, but...
  2. Benjamin Olson

    Deathstalker Gets A Reboot!

    No, it starts with him robbing a dying person who thought he was being saved by him, which establishes that he's edgy and morally neutral more than well enough. Actually, outside of the implications of a couple joke bits, I don't recall the movie having any sexual content at all, which I...
  3. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Rank 5e skills from most useful (1) to least useful (18)

    Well many times a player would want to spend their action attempting to end a battle with intimidation it's because their side is not doing (or not likely to do) so hot, and that obviously is going to be a very difficult DC for obvious narrative reasons. Other times its because the individual...
  4. Benjamin Olson

    Deathstalker Gets A Reboot!

    Just saw the new Deathstalker, and I was pleasantly surprised. It is definitely a B movie made on a small budget with limited ambitions, but within those limitations they basically knocked it out of the park. Strong action comedy script, serviceable acting (which for a cheap action movie is...
  5. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Favorite Creepy Monster To Run?

    It's lore and stat block doesn't really have much to support this so far as I know, but I always felt a Nightwalker that freely slipped between the shadowfell and the prime material plane, or that visited people's dreams, or that only certain people could see, or that could just appear and...
  6. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Player: Gaining influence in d&d

    It seems like you're doing plenty on the money and religion front. Really politics is the other front to attend to. Traditionally old school D&D characters of a certain level often made themselves lords, and I had one in 5e who carved out a little barony for himself and got it populated by...
  7. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2014) "You Can Do 3 Things" - My Nephew's D&D Houserule

    It's not really 5e. They've created their own different game that's better for them. If they keep applying comparable creative energy to abilities and spells as they gain them they will probably keep having a game that works better for them. If they try to mix some stricter adherence to 5e rules...
  8. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Rank 5e skills from most useful (1) to least useful (18)

    I mean, it really depends what your DM tends to call for. I don’t really know how anyone who plays with more than a group or two can meaningfully rank them. Some things are campaign dependent as well. I can only group them based on experience. Basically universally important: Perception: Many...
  9. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Two Simple Ways to Make Combat More Engaging

    Well I don't really think the issues with combat feeling "unengaging" lie all that much with initiative. My main tweak to initiative is just that if the DM is going to have multiple enemies with separate initiatives in a planned battle they should roll intiatives for them in advance, or at least...
  10. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2014) Thoughts on bonus action potions?

    I've basically always played them as a bonus action, including having a DM who's singular house rule was bonus action potions. I find it hard enough to use a hard to find and non-regenerating resource when it doesn't also have a prohibitively expensive action economy cost. As a bonus action...
  11. Benjamin Olson

    D&D General Has 5e become noise?

    It's not just "noise" if you are keen to be able to find lots of different people to play with. A vast number of people joined the hobby with 5e and its a familiar system to far more. You can virtually always get a group together. The question is what value published materials hold. For me...
  12. Benjamin Olson

    D&D 5E (2024) Views on 24 MM/SRD monster mechanics now

    An effort was made to give more creatures a distinctive ability of some sort, and (more importantly) to make distinctive abilities bonus actions they take in addition to their normal attacks, to better highlight these features. In 2014 distinctive features often just never came up in the three...
  13. Benjamin Olson

    Critical Role's Campaign 4 Opens With a Funeral and Plenty of Intrigue

    The first episode seemed like an awesome game for everyone involved but not likely to be something I watch much more of. "Other people playing D&D" is something that has to be at least partially a second screen activity for me or I'm just never going to find the time to get through a whole...
  14. Benjamin Olson

    Tomb of the Lizard King - your experiences?

    And by the dark necromancy of the Lizard King's tomb it is foretold that this thread will rise again every ten years until the end of time...
  15. Benjamin Olson

    What is your "deep" reading of a song with "dumb" lyrics?

    Kiss from a Rose overall as an oddly medieval or Renaissance vibe, both in the intro choral bit and all the talk about flowers and towers and such, so I assumed it was "grave" because throwing in a momento mori into a love song would very much fit that vibe.
  16. Benjamin Olson

    ChatGPT lies then gaslights reporter with fake transcript

    I find the earnestness with which the journalists are astonished by this is the video comical because I assumed everybody already had some (usually less elaborate and extensive) version of this experience with AI one to three years ago, but I suppose a television audience will have lots of...
  17. Benjamin Olson

    Hasbro Opens New Wizards of the Coast Video Game Studio in Montreal to Support D&D Franchise

    I give it a 30% chance of getting a product out before it is shuttered or subsumed into another game studio. I'd go higher, but the fact that the corporate parent also owns a game studio next door all but mandates, by corporate game studio ownership law, their merger as soon as either one slips...
  18. Benjamin Olson

    ToV Other than "It's not made by WotC", what's the elevator pitch for Tales of the Valiant?

    I haven't bought, played, or more than thumbed through a bookstore copy of Tales of the Valiant, but to me the issue is that it seems like it's mostly just 5e with the non-SRD elements getting their serial numbers filed off and some very small and conservative improvements. And, to be clear...
  19. Benjamin Olson

    Server Error Occurred?

    Had this issue most of the day on certain pages of certain threads. Frustratingly that included this very thread discussing the issue!
  20. Benjamin Olson

    Trailer Stranger Things 5

    Well whatever happens it's got all our main characters staring at it in horror and/or wonder a lot.
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