domains - feats - monsters - magic items - spells - patrons - and more
See More »I’ve been working for a good while now on unique personality features for each race. The exact implementation of these ideas is left to each DM – maybe you pick two or so of these and the rest from your actual Background, maybe you get additional personality features. The DMG […]
Note the paltry amount of filthy lucre. The piece is “Dragon Slayers and Proud of It,” by Larry Elmore. Last month, I talked about six different approaches to distributing cool treasure in tabletop games. Today I’m looking at the same question from a different angle. Let’s say you’ve figured out what’s […]
I am amused to discover that, just over 24 hours after I posted about feats and feat design (and how the fanbase is calling for more feats), the new Unearthed Arcana does the same. The article opens with a discussion of feat design philosophy, which I think is excellent, and […]
I’ve created a lot of content for 5e in this blog, but only a tiny number of feats. That’s because feat design is one of the hardest things to do well in this edition: far from the wild and woolly, anything-goes atmosphere of 3.x and 4e feats, WotC’s feat list is scanty, […]
In my Aurikesh campaign, all of the characters belong to the Gallant Shields of Chardecum Mercenary Company. This is not very much like the private security companies of the modern day, and not (currently) all that much like the condottieri of Renaissance Italy that are their more direct inspiration. Instead of […]
This is the eighth article in my series on personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws for the PC races of D&D 5e. Along with dragonborn, tieflings are one of the more divisive races of D&D, with plenty of grognards insisting that any races introduced after 1979 or so are right […]
I’ve been doing some hard work on magic item design over in Tribality, and I’ve talked a bit about the two 5e campaigns I play in, so in this post I’m looking at different approaches to magic items in roleplaying games. I’ve identified six so far, which is my justification […]
As part of working on a new manuscript for Tribality Publishing, I decided that I wanted to create some new cleric spells. I’ve already got a handful of new cantrips ready to go, so I wanted these to be 1st-level or higher. I also wanted to explore some divine magic […]
Crown of madness is a spell with excellent theme and, in my view, underwhelming mechanics. In this post, I discuss what I see as the problems, propose an alternate implementation, and explain my reasoning. I have every expectation that this spell has its hardcore supporters, or perhaps just those who oppose […]
In every edition of D&D I’ve played, I’ve spent much more time as a DM than as a PC. I played maybe two sessions of 2e, compared to the hundred-or-so that I ran. I ran considerably more 3.x than 2e, maybe double or so, but also played a good bit […]
