Fastball Special

D&D's new Giant Barbarian has massive talent, but it shouldn't be the only one who can do a fastball special.

mXc Traps

5 traps inspired by Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (mXC) a/k/a Takeshi's Castle.

5 Skill D&D

Why have 18 skills when you can have FIVE?

We’re giving D&D players more agency over the narrative implementation of their skillsets by streamlining a bloated system and highlighting a popular variant rule.

Expertise Skill Hack

5th Edition D&D has a skill problem. It lies in a feature called expertise, which allows you to add your proficiency bonus twice when using a skill. Let's see what problems this causes and I'll give you a simple hack to fix them!

Passive Skills vs. Reliable Talent

Reliable Talent makes all your skills passive. In order to see what you're really getting from this class feature, you need to find out what skills already function passively, and what skills only function actively. We'll examine passive skill treatment in the rules and analyze where each skill should fall.

Running for High Perception Characters

Player Characters with high perception bonuses can be a bane to DMs who are unequipped to deal with them. Let's explore the odds and different ways to manage high perception. High Perception Characters As arguably the most useful skill, Wisdom (Perception) is a natural proficiency investment for any character. This is especially true for skill-monkey … Continue reading Running for High Perception Characters →

Grappling with Grappling

Grappling is a D&D mechanic that has evolved from many maligned paragraphs of text to a simple skill contest. Let's look at where the current iteration stands, and what can be done to improve grappling in your D&D game.

How Minotaurs Caused the Shield Master Rule Reversal

Dungeons & Dragon’s May 2018 Unearthed Arcana updated the Minotaur race. With three years since the original release, the improvements in the race design can tell us a lot about what lessons the Wizards of the Coast D&D team learned in that time.