The Gaming Den

Part of the 'wimpy but powerful wizards' trope is that they can make big explosions. But if the attributes used for different types of magic were tradition-based, that wouldn't be a problem. That said, that sort of a change might be beyond the scope of this revision. If Charisma and Willpower were c...

Sigma, I thought you did praying mantis kung fu.

Cham, what exactly do you think Frank is advocating?

Starting at 3rd level you carry a bunch of iron coffins in an extradimensional space and rock out with your creepy at-will SoD. Everything else is really just gravy, but blink gives you a decent defense. At 5th level you are never ever surprised again. At 6th level you get greater teleport at will (...

Maj: it's not American privilege, because there are apparently Americans who are ignorant of it. Otherwise it wouldn't be an issue. Similarly, knowing how to answer math questions about how many points a person is getting in a particular sport is not American privilege (or white privilege), because ...

You're right that it's a bit too ridiculous to have bagheera belting out 'With cat-like tread!'. And Revive the Flesh is important. But I'd still give them Missing Voice over Supernatural Senses. First, Eyes of Night already gives you the most common use of Supernatural Senses (see in darkness). Sec...

Trail of Tears into Depths of Despair Nice. I like that better, regardless of the debate over the appropriateness of "Trail of Tears". [hr] What do you folks think about giving Bagheera more Orphic sorceries? [*]Touch of Night (Lure of Darkness; already had this) [*]Eyes of Night, Cloak o...

Legend has pioneered a way of mapping out area effects on a grid in a straightforward, simple fashion: Lines are determined as follows: »» Step 1. If the line originates from a square, the source of the effect chooses that square. If the line originates from a creature, the source of the effect choo...

They have steadily brought spell casting tracks into line with other tracks. At this point, a character that tacks on a casting track is only moderately better than one that did not. That's a pretty big accomplishment for a D20-universe game. Consider adding the Shaman track to any character: [*]At ...

A tenth level rogue relying on Tome prestige classes...

Ghoul Rogue 3/Ghoul Paragon 2/Boatman of the River Styx 5.


If you want to go all silly and optimal, you make it a cannibal halfling.

A. Cook ground red chiles and minced garlic in olive oil at very low heat.

B. Cook spaghetti noodles.

Combine A and B with salt and (optional) Parmesan cheese.

It goes with something like Orvieto Abboccato or maybe a Riesling.

I would just make the specialization BE the background, and always be fixed at 2 ranks. That way you don't get into weirdness with people trying to pick specializations that all pour into the same background and stuff. It's also good as a player to simply have lots of backgrounds that are maybe sim...

It seems like the consensus is roughly that specialization should come with some kind of background, rather than vice-versa. That accomplishes one goal (slightly increased verisimilitude), but without getting rid of a subsystem. Therefore, specializations should come with two ranks in an associated ...

D&d is all about trap options; don't bother disallowing useless feats unless you want to take out all the Tiger Claws and Toughnesses.

On the other end, Sudden Quicken will be very popular with the casters.

Is your best-case situation that characters have various combat skill specializations with absolutely no justifications at all? If that really bothers you then take's Frank's suggestion and treat specializations as being equivalent to some free Background ranks you can then explain things with. You...

You don't want characters having to take backgrounds that benefit combat skills, and you don't want to allow characters to use off-the-wall justifications for applying backgrounds to combat skills. But you maintain that characters will default to using combat skills, and that bonuses to them from sp...

Backgrounds already come with big opportunity costs. Consider background (hellmouths) Vs background (bowling). One lets you find and investigate portals. One lets you chat with bowlers. If the bowling background also helps you bash heads in, the opportunity cost is less.

If players are expected to take specializations like artisan (carpentry), why do you think that they won't go after +2 to artisan (tagging), medicine (identify street drugs), and rigging (spinning rims), or combat (bowling ball), athletics (bowling), and expression (victory dance)?

Having Backgrounds effectively grant specializations would cause people to spend all or almost all their backgrounds on getting "useful" specializations. Having specializations generate backgrounds would give people a bunch of backgrounds in ninjitsu and archaeology. -Username17 It sounds...

If you don't want people to be boned because their marksman chose to put those last 3 points in 'stamp collector' or 'truck driver' instead of 'army sniper' or 'weekend hunter', just give them enough extra background ranks to get the same benefit as they would have had from free specializations.

Nice, but it's pretty confusing to denominate wish economy goods in deflated gp values. Consider using a different set of (wish economy) currencies. You could also denominate gem economy items (that is, most lesser magic items) in onyx stones or something as well as gp to make the transition clear,...

For the 'Patience' issue: [*] Add 'doesn't get sick' to basic Fortitude or Clout. [*] Add 'doesn't eat or breathe' to advanced Fortitude (or just Indomitability). [*] Move Sensory Damper to Fortitude, replacing Patience. [*] Chasing Storms basic level comes with water breathing. [*] Add methods of l...

Nice, but it's pretty confusing to denominate wish economy goods in deflated gp values. Consider using a different set of (wish economy) currencies. You could also denominate gem economy items (that is, most lesser magic items) in onyx stones or something as well as gp to make the transition clear, ...

So Catharz, a Background is a knowledge skill, and exposition skill, a qualification rating of sorts... but compared to a well defined "active" skill like Combat, when, if ever, does it take the place of an Agility+Combat roll? What specifically are you doing or not doing if you have JUST...

That is an interesting idea. But people really like Specializations. Not a day goes by when some gamer doesn't look at the combat skill and say "But I want to be a fencer" and specializations let people do that without dice pools getting out of hand. I guess I'm just not certain what you ...