War Caster vs. Resilient (CON)

Comparing the War Caster and Resilient (CON) feats to determine which one gives a bigger boost to maintaining concentration on a spell.

Simple Trap System

Traps can be fun. A great myth is that traps need to be carefully curated to be worth anything. While curated traps are wonderful, even simple traps can be great. Here's a simple system for running fun and impactful traps at your table: Download the PDF via DM's Guild Elements of a Good Trap For … Continue reading Simple Trap System →

Shield Master Unleashed

Can we rewrite the Shield Master feat to fix its fiddly action economy?

Artificer Teardown

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 →

Lucky Feat: RAW vs. RAI

After last's week post calculating the success odds for the Lucky feat, some folks who run the Lucky feat a little differently asked me to run the odds on that iteration. Since this homerule is popularly employed, including by D&D Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford, we're running the odds and evaluating the comparison.

Feeling Lucky?

Analyzing the benefits of the various luck-driven abilities in 5th Edition D&D: Lucky feat, Diviner's Portent dice, and the Halfling Lucky racial feature. How do they stack up?

271 Ways Contagion Got Nerfed

The Player's Handbook errata released in November 2018 patched a gap between RAW and RAI by inflicting the poisoned condition. We're exploring the impact and duration of the poison effect with an updated odds calculator.

Flesh to Stone Spell Odds

Flesh to Stone is a 6th level transmutation spell that has new mechanics from prior editions. Instead of instantly petrifying the target in ye olde "save or die" fashion, the target is restrained on the first failed save, and only petrified if they lose a “best of 5” save mechanic. Let’s examine how often its successful.

Contagion Spell Odds

Contagion is a necromancy spell that requires an attack roll and a "best of 5" save mechanic to inflict a disease. Is this a good spell? Check your odds against the whole gamut of monsters.

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.