Well, at last the Dungeon Master’s Guide has been released, which allows all of us playing D&D 5E to finally have the full system and start properly evaluating what it is and what it does. My first impressions of the DMG? Pretty favourable. I’ve been spending a lot of time with the system for creating monsters and – in particular – assigning their Challenge Ratings. … Continue reading Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Creation
My AD&D campaign is in trouble. After three years of play, it’s getting towards the stage of being an elderly campaign and – quite frankly – I need a break from it. Yes, I know some AD&D campaigns go for year after year after year and by those standards this campaign has only started, but this particular campaign is feeling tired. There are many reasons … Continue reading The trouble with unbounded accuracy
This Friday, I’m beginning a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign, the first homebrew campaign with the new 5E campaign system. As with my other homebrew campaigns, this will be set in the World of Greyhawk. However, I’m going to run the campaign in an area of the world I haven’t visited before: Onnwal. I’ve already written about a few of my early thoughts for the … Continue reading Starting a new 5E campaign: The Onnwal Rebellion
At the climax of episode 1 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the weary players may see the champion of the enemy, Cyanwrath, come out before them and issue a challenge: Either the defenders of the village send out a champion to defeat him in mortal combat, or he will execute a family that he has captured. As he does so, one of the militia-men … Continue reading An Ethical Dilemma in Dungeons & Dragons – the Cyanwrath Challenge
The original version of Dungeons & Dragons did not have a thief class. It only had three classes: the Fighting Man, the Magic-User and the Cleric. They have expanded on their capabilities greatly over the years. Gary Gygax introduced the thief in the first supplement, Greyhawk, which has very little to do with the actual World of Greyhawk and a lot to do with the … Continue reading Day of the Thief
Animal companions have had a long history in D&D. The Animal Friendship spell was not part of the original game, but was introduced as part of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This spell was usable by low-level druids and high-level rangers, and allowed the caster to permanently gain one or more animals to act as friends or defenders. Exactly what an animal companion could do was … Continue reading The Ranger’s Companion
One of the bigger changes to the game in the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons concerns Armour Class. It’s function hasn’t changed: the better (higher) your Armour Class, the harder you are to hit. When an attack is made, the attacker rolls a 1d20 and adds their attack bonus; if the result equals or exceeds the target’s Armour Class, the target is hit. Although its function in … Continue reading Armour Class in Dungeons & Dragons 5E
I’ve found the rules for Stealth in the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons rather hard to follow. It doesn’t help that I haven’t seen the Player’s Handbook yet, but it seems that it basically just is the rules from the Basic D&D game, so there is little further clarity there. I rather hope Stealth gets a section in the Dungeon Master’s Guide! It doesn’t … Continue reading Being Stealthy in Dungeons & Dragons 5E
One of the suggestions in the new D&D Starter Set is that you work out a Marching Order for your party. This is a pretty simple concept – it’s the formation that you use when moving around – that has seen some development through the history of D&D. In the early years of the game, adventuring parties were often much bigger than they are now. … Continue reading D&D Concepts: Marching Order
Dungeons & Dragons was originally published as “Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures”. The use of miniature figures was mandatory, right? Well, even in the very early days, Gary Gygax was playing the game without miniatures. In fact, there weren’t all that many rules in the early D&D that actually required the use of miniatures; nothing like the … Continue reading Visualising Combat in Dungeons & Dragons
