In 3rd Edition (and probably older editions) there were combat actions that anyone could try to do; disarm, trip, bull rush (ie, pushing), sunder, grapple, etc. Given that trying any of these things usually let your opponent make a free attack, you did so at a penalty, and the creature’s size, number of legs, Strength, […]
While two out of three is normally a pretty good ratio of success, the part that I did not like was the one that mattered the most to me: Despite owning Players Option: Combat & Tactics for many years, I never used the rules on facing. Actually I never used most of the rules, though if I did […]
Full article can be found here. Clerics & DomainsThough I liked how 3rd Edition made it easier for clerics to be the heal-bot by swapping out spells for healing magic on a whim, I did not like how being Good required you to channel positive energy, while evil required negative energy (which made it harder […]
Nothing mechanical, but it sounds like they are still using quite a bit of monster design from 4th Edition. Strength in NumbersIn 3rd Edition an orc was CR 1/2, which meant that you would want to throw like, two of them at a 1st-level party as part of their balanced encounter. Given the unreliable nature […]
A bolt of lightning many times larger than it should be hammers into Autochthon, sending it careening down the mountain, over the cliffs, and into the now-tranquil seas. A dragon, specifically the blue dragon that they saw before going into Moradin’s fortress. Thankfully its attention is focused on Autocthon, and it does not notice them. It […]
My preference in creating monsters is often close to what Mearls describes here; I start out with flavor material and then design mechanics that serve what I envision the monster doing. Rarely I think of a neat mechanic and work backwards to create something to serve that, though I guess it could make sense for […]
With what we have seen of backgrounds and themes the more I read about these design goals, the more I wonder if D&D would just be better served as a point buy-like system in the vein of Dresden Files, Exalted, Shadowrun, etc, where you accrue XP and spend it on things or increase existing things. Plenty […]
Another encounter with owlbears? At least, to a point, it indicates that they are paying attention. I never really liked the whole “a wizard did it” treatment. Not just because I have no seen magic that let a wizard fuse two things together–which could be pretty awesome–but because it also seems lazy. Even so I like […]
In a nutshell I basically agree with everything that Rodney says, here. A few players in my group, including myself, were already negatively criticizing the pointless number-scaling in 4th Edition for quite awhile. After all if the characters gain bonuses at a set rate, and the monsters and skill DC’s get increased at a set […]
For everyone arriving through reddit, here is a more up to date playtest report. We started late while waiting for Randy so I did not do much to inject any kind of plot, and we treated it like a delve night: they arrived at the ravine, I described the area, drew out the cave entrances […]
Points of Light 