Goodness, it has been another year. This year I started a Patreon, and for a small-time gaming blog, it does incredibly well thanks to the generosity of friends and readers. Blog traffic both here and over at Tribality bounced back after a fairly dismal 2018, likely the result of the massive growth of D&D fandom and those fans starting to look for other ways to engage.
Posting has slowed down to tw...
2019-11-17 05:13:37 +0000 UTC View PostI'm interested in making your experience of being my patron as interesting and fun as possible. I'm posting content as often as I can, which is less often than I'd like - it would be great to get back up to 3/month, but that's not going to be reliably possible anytime soon.
What kinds of content would you like to see more of in the next 12 months?
I've set this to public; if something about the flavor of my content would get someone to start being a patron, I'd like to hear ...
2019-11-03 15:33:53 +0000 UTC View PostA couple of months ago, cherished reader Jonathan McGee asked me for my thoughts on the 1st-level spell compelled duel. At the time, my answer could be summed up as, “I’m not sure I’ve thought about it at all,” so I told him I would give it some work when I could. Well folks, today’s that day.
Compelled duel is the only straight-up paladin tanking spell. It’s as much of a nod as we get back to the 4e p...
2019-11-01 21:02:46 +0000 UTC View PostIn a recent blog post, Sly Flourish talks about 1st level as the high-water mark for danger in 5e. This sparked a conversation about danger and difficulty levels in 5e more generally. I also follow the excellent Jennifer Scheurle on Twitter, who wrote this article on diff...
2019-10-24 16:45:54 +0000 UTC View Post
In a boffer LARP campaign, it does a lot of good for the wandering-monster gameplay experience if the players have a steady supply of reasons to move around the game site in small groups. That is, it both improves the experience of being a wandering monster (and yes, people playing monsters get to have fun too), and it improves the PC-side experience of encountering them. I’m going to take a few paragraphs to break down the logic here, so if you’re already totally on board with t...
2019-10-07 16:35:05 +0000 UTC View PostOf all the domains that have seen official support in 5e, there are a few ongoing, surprising gaps compared to the 3.5 list of domains and, for that matter, 4e builds. In this case – as if the title of the post didn’t give it away! – I’m talking about a domain of Earth or Stone. Nature, Forge, and Grave all touch on the edges of that general kind of idea, while leaving tons of open space. This post comes at the suggestion of the excellent Tim Baker. Hi, Tim!
In last year’s 4e megathread, I listed a bunch of awesome spell names and concepts that hadn’t been officially brought into 5e. In this post, I’m offering one possible way of converting four of them. This is likely to become an ongoing series.
Summons of Khirad
3rd-level conjuration (warlock)
Casting Time: 1 action
...
This is the conclusion of my series on advancing your background. If you've forgotten what the heck is going on here, go back to Part One.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
The term “sage” typically carries connotations of advanced status – something more ...
2019-08-24 04:23:49 +0000 UTC View PostI’ve been listening to a lot of the Court of Swords podcast lately, so I assume that its recent blood-transfusion stories have a lot to do with where the ideas for these magic items came from. Anyway, over in Twitter I wrote: Since wizards can capture spells from enemy wizards or share them with friendly wizards, it might be really cool if sorcerers could use blood transfusions and magical syringes to gain a rare new spell ...
2019-08-10 05:11:07 +0000 UTC View PostThis post is, in short, absolutely not what I should be working on right now, but I have to get it out of my head and onto your screen before I can make myself work on anything else, so here we are. My friends who have been deeply involved in the Camarilla or NERO have always had a perspective on mega-teams that I haven’t had. This post comes out o...
2019-07-27 05:32:26 +0000 UTC View PostThis is a continuation of the last post. I'm working through more of the Player's Handbook Backgrounds and official variants.
Criminal (Spy)
By surviving one or more tests of loyalty, you rise to positions of influence in a royal or freelance intelligence service. You become a spymaster.
Spymasters sit at the center of ...
2019-07-22 04:37:50 +0000 UTC View PostI’m a bigtime fan of 5e’s introduction of Backgrounds, particularly as a source of skill and tool proficiencies and noncombat features. Even more than (most) classes and subclasses, Backgrounds also suggest a trajectory of your personal story, beyond zero-to-hero. But within that arc, your Background features don’t change. Inspired by skill powers from late-ish 4e (as described in 2019-06-28 15:34:48 +0000 UTC View Post
A few days ago in Twitter, and in a friend’s Discord channel, I posed some questions about how a setting might respond to the existence of charm person and, implicitly, higher-grade mind-control magic. I want to be 100% clear about this: this is a thought experiment, not me telling you that you’re doing it wrong not to dig way into how your setting responds to one condition. In real life, though, we base many, many things on the idea that people aren’t under invisible coercion ...
2019-06-17 03:45:19 +0000 UTC View PostI've released a new PDF of monk subclasses for 5e, through Tribality Publishing. It's available to you for free as Patreon backers. If you've already bought it through DTRPG, I hope you don't mind - your money supported not only me, but also Dave Jumaquio and the good folks of the Tribality team. If it bothers you, let me know and I can PayPal you a couple of bucks.
Enjoy!
2019-06-13 12:47:42 +0000 UTC View PostThis is the story of how, a couple of weeks ago, I had an idea eight years too late for the problem it solves. There's a lot of development history to go into this, though, so bear with me and I'll get to it - or you can skip straight to the Contractor Work header below.
Locks and Traps
First off, if you're not well familiar with boffer LARPing but you're curious enough to read this whole post: locks and traps have been a notable niche of gameplay for decade...
2019-06-02 04:46:34 +0000 UTC View PostI don’t know if this is going to be one of my Unpopular Opinions, but I think it’s easy to look at the warlock Pacts (not Patrons, just Pacts) and expect them to deliver more than the designers seem to have intended. Today I want to talk about the Pact of the Chain, because I think there’s some significant space between what it offers and the archetype it represents. Also, before I really get going, make sure you check out Stands in the Fire’s thoughtful work on 2019-05-25 04:56:24 +0000 UTC View Post
As part of the Seas of Vodari project, I’m creating new spells for nautical adventures. Thinking back to 3.x, I recall a lot of highly-specialized spells that were okay for wizards, but so situational that any Spells Known class can’t justify taking them. My goal, then, is to create sea- and sailing-themed spells that you want to use even in the depths of a dungeon.
Coral Grasp
3rd-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 action