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See More »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 […]
Shortly after I sold my first article to ENWorld, full of Halloween-themed subclasses, I tried to do something similar with winter-themed subclasses. It didn’t fly, and it was a little while longer before I tried again. The important thing is that the Winter Kin sorcerous origin is something I dreamed […]
This month’s Unearthed Arcana offers playtest support for the new and widely popular (from all that I’ve heard) Curse of Strahd adventure. It is relatively brief – three pages, covering one new subrace that is available to many races, one fighter archetype and one rogue archetype. Let’s go through it and […]
I’ve got a number of things available for purchase or download-with-subscription at this point, and I haven’t really promoted them in this blog as I should. Sure, some of them are linked over in the “Published Work and Reviews” page in the right-side column, but I think a lot of […]
My gaming schedule has given me a lot more chances to see people create new 5e characters lately, including more than a few fighters and paladins. Some of those players set out to be the tankiest tanks that ever tanked, so they pick up the Protection fighting style, and… it […]
The LARP that I play, Eclipse, recently staged an event that genuinely surprised me and did things I had never before seen in the whole medium of boffer LARPing. I had a phenomenal time, and I want to break down what they did and talk about all the different elements […]
It’s been awhile, but I have an ongoing series in this blog where I dig deeper into the non-human races of D&D and give them tables of traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, as additional or replacement options for the personality features of their Backgrounds. We come now to the dragonborn, […]
I wrote the Spirit and Exorcism domains a few months back, and they got me thinking about domains that imply totally dissimilar approaches to religion and spirituality. Here is another, perhaps more suited to sinister gods, such as the Blood of Vol in Eberron, but gods of battle such as […]
I’m introducing a lot of new players to my 5e Aurikesh campaign all at once, so I had to sit down and write out all of the house rules that have accreted in the three-years-and-change that we’ve been playing. This post, then, is to discuss why they exist; if you’ve […]
