What works at your table?
Players piloting spellcasters often want to swap out damage types for thematic or mechanical reasons. They might think that a fireball is cooler as an ice explosion. Or, they might want to swap a lightning bolt to fire to keep a troll from regenerating. How can we implement this mechanic in an exciting way for 5e?
Answering the question, "what does my character know about this monster?"
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.
As a follow-up to last week's post comparing the War Caster and Resilient (CON) feats, let's take a look at how the numbers shake out if you're playing a Variant Human or in a campaign where your DM lets you have a free feat at level 1.
Once upon a time, a character came across a shrine deep within an abandoned Dwarven stronghold carved deep into the Iron Mountains. Struck by reverence to the shrine of the lost deity Dumathoin, he knelt and prayed. So his character changed forever. I worked with the player to create a Paladin subclass devoted to the … Continue reading Oath of Secret Knowledge (Paladin)
Examining damage outputs of cantrips vs. crossbows for the new Unearthed Arcana Artificer. It seems crossbows can outscale cantrips, but at what cost?
It happened. On February 28, 2019, The Artificer Revisited was released to much fanfare. What did we get? Let's chew up the crunch. We'll start with the base class mechanics and move into the subclasses next week, when we build a template for how to homebrew an Artificer subclass. Base Class Hit Die (d8). A … Continue reading Artificer Teardown
Among new class options, the Warlord is highly coveted. Especially so among 4th Edition (4e) veterans. In fact, the Warlord is probably the most popular class concept that hasn’t been graced with a playtest treatment via Unearthed Arcana. With no expectations as to when we might see an official Warlord (sub)class, how close can we get with the current options in 5th Edition (5e)?
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.
