The Gaming Den

I do think you can remove the worst issues with obvious problems like the Flying Archer Problem. An archer that can fly above a DMF and kill him without fear of reprisal is the system working as intended, and any system in which they could not would be verisimilitude breaking to an unacceptable deg...

Signed. Psychic Housecats, playable golems, and playable vampires, can all afford to wait for a while. They don't really need to, though. Even if settings in which they are common can wait, the MM can have templates for making small, low HD creatures into PC races (which give different ways of makin...

Is it safe to say the D&D barbarian was mainly influenced by Conan? Having read the Conan stories by Howard, I think the rage mechanic doesn't properly represent what Conan does... Action Points do. Heck, all of those 4e human feats revolving around bonuses when spending action points (shaking ...

So while I guess it makes a bit of thematic sense to say that if Wizards get to specialize then everyone gets to specialize, it really falls flat on its face when you try to balance things out given that magic is conceptually broad and individual martial shticks are conceptually narrow and that hav...

On Barbarians: The barbarian is entrenched entirely because of Rage; people like the ability in contrast to a more disciplined Fighter. Actually, the function of the class would be more clear if were called Berserker rather than implying that barbaric (i.e. primitive outlanders) peoples all take it....

Rogue: Depends on stealth and surprise for combat rather than direct confrontation. Has a variety of methods of thievery, deception, etc.. Bard: ...I'm not entirely sure what to do with this class. Perhaps a Factotum/wildcard/Charlatan class that has limited access to other classes abilities? Magic-...

Ranger: A wilderness specialist fighter variant class. No base class should be specifically ranged or melee focused. For druidic abilities, the character should become a paladin of a nature god. Paladin: A template for martial classes that grants divine powers in return for severe restrictions (esp....

...the old AD&D DMG advice to allow player characters to play full hit-dice Ogres and Gold Dragons at first level. The only thing I recall the 1e DMG saying about monster PCs was "I hate them, they are objectively bad" (pg21). That page also tacitly assumes that monster characters sta...

Wishlists (up to and including "I wish for a level appropriate sword") are bad design because they a psychologically less rewarding (because the player is given something rather than earning it). This wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that it is a strike against verisimilitude for the...

Instead of hitpoints, just note a damage threshold: if they ever suffer damage equal to or greater than this value, they die; do not track HP loss. For example, if a 1 HD hireling suffers 2 damage, nothing happens. If they suffer 4 or more (approximate average for 1d6), they die. You can generalize ...

Spiritual Entropy(Su): The Bane Knights soul is a churning malestrom of destuction, this ironically provides him with several benefits. Any divination attempts that would reveal or veiw the location of the Bane Knight causes the caster to make Will save (10+1/2 hd+char) or be driven insane permanen...

give me a page scan of that and a product that i can look it up in. Dark Sun Campaign Setting, pages. 31-32. Druids on Athas attach themselves to a particular terrain feature (e.g. a particular oasis) and derive elemental magic based on what they are tied to. This is part of the conceptual shift fr...

It's a matter of whether or not you want tension and risk in tasks like jumping. If you, as a GM, don't work them into the challenges of the game in an engaging manner, you end up with either "roll to see if the game can continue" or "your skills will never matter". Many skill ap...

Ant, I would like to run a new campaign; what game should it be?

So you'd like published ability packs divorced from published role packs... This is a rather weak solution. The gist of my post was "Refluffing is a temporary fix at best, and don't get irritated with people who don't want to do it". Either there should be a generic "My power comes f...

I haven't figured out how I want to handle non-humans yet, I'd recommend 1 of 3 things: *Races are value-neutral templates; i.e. they come with disadvantages that balance out the advantages. For instance, a Dwarf could get +2 to resist poison and being knocked down or back, notes stonework & tr...

Yeah, classes can be far more easily integrated in a setting than races. And not everyone finds the "stepped through a portal, is now the unique snowflake in your setting" character that much fun to GM for. Although it is an effective way of introducing new races; much better than "I...

So, since you appear to have cut out the cleric and the elf (and all demihumans, for that matter), are you supporting the Warrior-Mage concept? ...when you say "Rogue", do you mean it in the Tunnels & Trolls sense, where it means "rogue wizard who operates outside of the academic ...

Well, yes, it'd be nice if a class worked right out of the box, but refluffing is the quickest way to get something approved by most DMs. You point to something that is already published and say you want to flavor it like something else, and your DM will likely accept it over some homebrew you crea...

The fact that no one apparently expressed bewilderment or disappointment after people found out that only Rangers can fight with two weapons showed me that they just plain didn't do playtesting or didn't care. I'm making a new thread about this. Mentzer Basic/Expert/+++ was huge for a very long tim...

I found this on Giant In The Playground. concerning the OP's faux-enlightened stance on those poor peasants who actually believe that character options should mean anything. The poster equivocates this with "needing a specialized class to play a concept", and later posters seem to believe ...

OD&D, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pages 20-24. You get: *How to start a barony (clearing the area) *Population and revenue *Rules for hiring professionals, men-at-arms. *Illustrated guide to costs of stronghold building. Stronghold and domain rules should be a basic part of D&D, ...

I wanted to be a pantheistic cleric, but after nearly a week of trying to convince them that it should be allowed, I gave up. I started as a dwarven cleric of Pharasma. Would that be a animist, or a worshiper of a pantheon? Speaking of animation, we fought a barghest (which we thought was a demon b...

[*]Dexterity - Adds to ranged attack, AC, Reflex defense, Dexterity skills "Missile" is a clearer term than 3e's "ranged". Wizard gets +2 Will, Rogue gets +2 Reflex, Fighter gets +2 AC & Fort Why is "Rogue" considered archetypical to the same level as "Wizard&...

But I digress. D&D has always sucked at letting the world mind it's own business, because of the rapid advance of the heroes. If the heroes decide to travel a bit, when they come back around to dealing with an old problem, any reasonably believable progression of power means the old challenge i...