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Back in December, I wrote about The Dark Sun Mystic. After D&D head gurus Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford commented that the Mystic subclass (teased in Unearthed Arcana) needed a major overhaul, I wanted to see if I could fix it myself. No easy task. After countless hours reading, digesting, concepting, charting, comparing, stat-ing, rolling, tinkering, testing, … Continue reading Psion Character Class Release and Build Notes
Only Clerics should move like Bishops. 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons embraces non-Euclidean movement. That means it's agnostic as to lateral vs. diagonal movements in gridded combat. Such a system sacrifices a little realism for the benefit of simplification, with no impact to balance. Some DMs and players don't like to sacrifice realism. Thankfully, I'm … Continue reading True (Euclidean) Move Distance
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?
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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