More on what has changed since the Dungeons & Dragons playtest

On Equipment: Playing Cards are now an item instead of the more generic Gaming Set. Potions of Healing are described as being red. Spellbook is not described as a magic focus, but this might just be a difference between the full game and the basic game. Tinderbox now specifies that lighting more challenging fires takes 1 minute, instead of at least as long as a … Continue reading More on what has changed since the Dungeons & Dragons playtest

Changes from the D&D Playtest: The Starter Set Fighter

Mike Mearls has posted on twitter the full character sheet of one of the Starter Set fighters. So, what has changed from the playtest? Here’s a list… Proficiency Bonus: In the playtest it went from +1 to +6. In the full game, it starts at +2 (and presumably goes to +6). The change to +3 happens at level 5. (Previously levels 1-2 were +1, levels … Continue reading Changes from the D&D Playtest: The Starter Set Fighter

The Casting Time of Spells in D&D

One of the thornier issues in AD&D is on when a spell resolves in the round. There are – in general – two schools of thought on the subject. The first believes that spell-casting starts at the very beginning of the round and concludes in the segment described in its casting time. Thus, Magic Missile always resolves in the first segment of the round, and … Continue reading The Casting Time of Spells in D&D

The Development of AD&D Initiative

A recent conversation made me interested in why AD&D initiative works as it does. Or at least, why the description is so darn complicated. In doing so, I went back to Chainmail, which has two initiative systems. The first is for regular mass battles. They work like this: Both sides make an initiative roll on d6, with the winner of the die-roll choosing to move … Continue reading The Development of AD&D Initiative

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set Wilderness Map notes

Yesterday, Mike Mearls previewed the map that is in the upcoming D&D Starter Set. For those who bought the Neverwinter Campaign Setting book – surely one of the best campaign supplements ever published – the map should be strangely familiar… Although the artwork, by Mike Schley, is unchanged, the labels on the map have changed. Here are a summary of the changes: Labels that have … Continue reading Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set Wilderness Map notes

Armour Class in 3rd Edition – a first look

After entering in 129 Armour Classes from the SRD into my spreadsheet, I’d gotten as far as “G”, so I realised there were a *lot* of monsters in the core D&D 3E monster manual! However, it was about the same number of monsters I’d added as part of the Monstrous Compendium Annual, so I decided to create some charts from the information so far. It … Continue reading Armour Class in 3rd Edition – a first look

Monstrous Compendium Annual, Volume 1 – Armour Class analysis

This isn’t a very good analysis, and is not particularly deep, but seeing as I had the book sitting on my hard-drive, I decided to have a look at the Armour Classes of creatures within… Here’s the count of Armour Classes of each number. It’s a bit odd seeing the spikes on AC 6 and AC 0, mucking up what would otherwise be a nicely-shaped … Continue reading Monstrous Compendium Annual, Volume 1 – Armour Class analysis

A look at Armour Class in original D&D and First Edition AD&D

Armour Class is one of the more unusual of Dungeon & Dragons mechanics. As far as I am aware, it is a system first used in naval miniatures games, particularly by Fletcher Pratt and Jane’s Fighting Ships. Dave Arneson designed a naval game himself which used it, and from there it passed into Dungeons & Dragons. You’ll find no actual mention of the numeric Armour … Continue reading A look at Armour Class in original D&D and First Edition AD&D

More on the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set

Mike Mearls has enlightened us a little more about the contents of the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. And there’s a big surprise for people buying the set: No character creation rules are in the D&D Starter Set! Well, that’s not what I expected – or had inferred based on his previous posts. Mike has clarified that the Starter Set is aimed at Dungeon Masters, … Continue reading More on the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set

D&D 5E Releases: The Big Three

The three big releases at the end of the year are, of course, the three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. They’re not all coming out at once, but instead are being released in a staggered format. This is not particularly surprising given their cost! At US$49.95 each, I expect a number of cash-strapped players will be going to discount sites like Amazon … Continue reading D&D 5E Releases: The Big Three