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While exploration is one of the Three Pillars of Adventure in 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, the rules provided in the core rulebooks are more abstract than mechanical. Those rules are now on the horizon. Here's news, analysis, and development of 5th Edition Travel rules.
Back in September of 2017, D&D released the Tortle Package on the DM's Guild in conjunction with the Extra Life event to raise money for Children's Miracle Network. Included in this class was a mechanic called Shell Defense. It's broken. Maybe I shouldn't say that. Like many things in D&D, it is situationally good. That in … Continue reading Tortle Shell Defense is Broken
It is a time-honored tradition among Wizards. Preparing Time Stop as your 9th level spell so that you can fill a room with time bombs and watch the whole conflagration go off at once like a mischievous kid on Independence Day. Since playing with time invariably results in breaking laws of physics and fantasy, let's take … Continue reading Can you cast multiple Delayed Blast Fireballs during Time Stop?
In Greek mythology, the Sirens sing a cursed melody. Orpheus guided the Argonauts past the Sirens by playing his lyre to drown their song. Odysseus plugged his crew's ears with wax and ordered himself bound to the mast of his ship while sailing past the Sirens. For adventuring parties who find themselves without a rockin' … Continue reading Items from Mythology: Wax Earplugs
I applaud the folks who have put together automatic character background generators. It's a programming feat at the intersection of smarts and mind-numbing labor. I have tinkered with a few of these github/google sheets generators with moral ambivalence (leaving the discussion of their legality aside), as the owner two copies of Xanathar's Guide to Everything … Continue reading Character Background Generators Miss the Point
I ran a survey asking Dungeons & Dragon's players to rank the feats of 5th Edition into tiers (broken, great, good, average, bad, junk). Check Out the Results! Observations Overall Balance The feats are generally well-balanced. Aside from three usual suspects, no other feat was voted broken. On the other end of the spectrum, only … Continue reading Feat Strength Tiers
When a DM decides to give their players a Level 1 Feat, it's likely to offset the mechanical allure of the Variant Human, and encourage a more diverse cast. Therefore, it's helpful to know what kind of sway Variant Human's mechanics provide before deciding to use such a rule. With over 400 survey responses, here's the … Continue reading Variant Human Feat Impact
Managing character death in Dungeons & Dragons presents different challenges at low and high levels. Success lies in balancing narrative ambitions with mechanical costs. Low Levels The Problem: at low levels, death feels mundane. A low-level character can easily fall to a critical hit or even just a strong roll by the DM. Scores of … Continue reading Dealing with Death
Dungeons & Dragons players are choosing Humans to realize their character concept, when they really want to be playing other races. A study by FiveThirtyEight showed that Humans are by far the most common racial selection, based a sample of online characters made on the online platform D&D Beyond during its first month. This phenomenon can be … Continue reading Should Everyone Get a Feat at Level 1?
What have D&D designers said about the Mystic? In his recent Reddit AMA, Dungeons and Dragon's Creative Director Mike Mearls indicated (4x) that the Mystic needs a conceptual rebuild: "...mystic depends on a deeper revision to give it a clearer identity, driven by settings like Dark Sun and what it would need." "Moving the mystic … Continue reading The Dark Sun Mystic
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