I use Microsoft Word to create most of my characters. Calculations? Form-fillable sheets? Nah. Good old word-processing. I’m not really much of a stylist. Anyway, one or two people asked about the templates I used to create the pregenerated characters I’ve been posting. I don’t really have templates, but I can share with you the basic word files if you want to fiddle with them. … Continue reading Character Sheets!
I wrote an article a last month on techniques used to begin an adventure. I’ve just been reading an Organised Play adventure that commits one of the cardinal sins of such adventures: It allows the players to say “No, we don’t want to play this adventure.” Huh? Why the hell is it giving them the option? I hate weak beginnings like that to an adventure. … Continue reading Scripted “In Medias Res” – More thoughts on the beginning of adventures
Mike Mearls had a surprise for me (and lots of other D&D players) this morning: his latest Unearthed Arcana column presented the 5E take on one of the more popular concepts of 3E: Prestige Classes. It also introduced a new type of magic item, so for a six-page PDF, there’s quite a lot of content. I really like the idea and implementation of runes, and … Continue reading Runes and Things: A few thoughts on Prestige Classes
Including monster statistics – stat blocks – in adventures is a challenge. The earliest adventures – the Giant adventures by Gary Gygax – listed the name of the monster and its hit points and nothing else. It’s a little hard to tell if this was an aesthetic choice or one born from the fact that the rules were still somewhat in flux (the AD&D Monster … Continue reading A Short History of Monster Stat Blocks
One of the most-loved features of 3rd edition D&D was its introduction of Prestige Classes. The concept has been toyed with back in the very early days of original D&D: having a class that could be entered only by fulfilling prerequisites in other classes first; the original Bard worked like that and, later, the Thief-Acrobat. In 2E, the major new mechanic for customising classes was … Continue reading 5E House Rules: Converting the Shifter prestige class
I’m very sympathetic to the people who want more D&D releases. I own a lot of D&D books, and I’ve gained great pleasure from them, especially some of the odder releases such as Weapons of Legacy and Magic of Incarnum. I gain great delight from seeing the interesting places the game can go. However, this is tempered by my experiences in seeing how broken the … Continue reading More on the D&D release schedule: Seeking the Middle Ground
There’s been a lot of discussion recently on a series of tweets by Mike Mearls on challenges as a publisher of producing Dungeons & Dragons. My own experiences with 5E are unusual mainly because I was responsible for converting the Book of Lost Spells by Necromancer Games into 5E (in addition to all the games I’ve been running). So, speaking as a developer… It’s hard … Continue reading On the slow release schedule of Dungeons & Dragons
I’ve seen a bit of confusion about exactly how many attacks a character can make on his or her turn, as well as how some spells or abilities interact with the attack action. This article will attempt to clarify those matters. The most important thing to know is this: The Attack action allows you to make an attack, but not all attacks require the Attack … Continue reading Attacks, the Attack Action and Extra Attacks
There are a number of special rules attached to D&D 5E spell-casting that may not immediately be apparent when reading through the Player’s Handbook. This article looks at a few of those things. Somatic Components Most spells have a somatic component, which is to say, they require hand movements. The rules in 5E state that you need one hand free to cast these spells. If … Continue reading D&D 5E Spellcasting in Combat – Clarifications and Restrictions
A recent question was asked on Facebook about why AD&D dragons had so few hit points. In fact, the original D&D dragons had even fewer hit points but, compared to PCs, they were god-like creatures. The history of dragon statistics in D&D displays the changing balance between players and monsters. The game began in 1974 with all characters rolling d6 for hit dice. Although we … Continue reading The Original Dragons of Dungeons & Dragons
