Aaron The Pedantic

Stop Pretending Harry Potter Magic Doesn't Suck Attack Cantrips are, by far, one of the most ill conceived leftovers from 4e's combat focused design. Truly, there is no real need for them in Fifth Edition. Nearly everything that could be looked at as a gap in design that necessitates these free damage tossers is addressed by some other aspect of the game. Here's why attack cantrips rustle all of my jimmies... They Belittle Mundane Attackers First thing's first. Your level1 caster doesn't expend any resources at all when they use a cantrip.  Anyone who uses ranged weaponry is suddenly at a disadvantage if they're tracking ammunition.  If you aren't tracking ammunition, there are many knockdown effects that follow, as demonstrated here:  Youtube: Why Resources Matter in D&D .  What about the melee attacker who decides to throw a weapon?  Are they expected to track THAT ammunition?  Yes?  Why?  Why is it that arrows are expected to be infinite, b...

 THE QUESTION HATH BEEN RAISED!  The answer shall be found.  Hopefully. As anyone familiar with my blogging, my tweets, or my videos will know: I am mostly an amalgamation of a ton of incomplete thoughts.  Occasionally, those thoughts find something that makes sense, then they spit it out for others to see it and revise as needed.  Here's what I've got for magic items right now. 1. Risk vs. Reward This should be no surprise, especially to fans of old school gaming.  One of the things that really lights our fire for gaming is the desire to have to make difficult choices, and to see the ramifications of those choices.  This is the essence of role-playing (as opposed to telling a story/acting).  Here's your situation, what do you do?  Magic items have the capacity to introduce risk vs. reward in two ways.  Earning the magic item can be an exercise in risk vs. reward, and using the magic item can be an exercise in risk vs. reward. Perhaps th...

  Why, Aaron, what an overly clickbait title you have, right? Reaction rolls.  If you've come across this blog, the likelihood that you know not only what reaction rolls are but also exactly how to use them is staggeringly high.  For the sake of everyone else, this is the idea. If you're unsure how a creature is going to react to the player characters, you roll two six-sided dice.  The higher the result of the roll, the more favorable they are to helping the player characters.  It uses a bell curve, so typically 7-9 is your fairly neutral average.  This is the chart from back in the early days. It may not be a surprise to anyone, but I don't use this chart exactly as it's written.  While I see the purpose of multiple rolls, I favor a single one, and I use it more than just for monsters. 2-5 Extreme hostility 6-7 Somewhat hostile 8-9 Neutral 10-11 Favorable 12 Helpful One may ask, "but Aaron!  This is completely random!  Why can't we consider ...

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THIS RAMBLING IS SPEAKING WITH THE ASSUMPTION THAT YOU ARE PLAYING IN A SETTING THAT IS EITHER HUMANOCENTRIC OR VERY MIXED.  IF YOUR SETTING HAS ANOTHER RACE THAT'S THE MOST COMMON, SUBSTITUTE THAT FOR WHAT I'M SAYING HERE. I think there are a few reasons why people ultimately decide that they wish to play a nonhuman. 1. It sounds cool. 2. It looks cool. 3. It makes me better at something. #2, I don't really give a shit about.  There's nothing to really opine on.  You like how it looks? Awesome, go for it. Numbers 1 and 3 are where the real meat and potatoes are. It sounds cool, sure.  Why does it sound cool?  Is it because the lore surrounding the race is intriguing?  Perhaps there's a compelling history surrounding this race that strikes you as being fertile ground for a neat backstory?   Unless there are actual implications in the game world that come with being the race that you've chosen, this is little more than set dress...

(Art by Satoshi Kamanaka https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X0xnL) Battles with enormous creatures should be epic, yes? Some of the most exhilarating fights in cinema, literature, and video games have been arduous, grueling battles between our heroes and these cowering Titans who obliterate entire buildings without even meaning to. Typically, in TTRPGs,  these combats are scarcely differentiated from combats with medium sized creatures that have massive amounts of hit points. Sure, there are size categories that have certain implications, and there are often hard hitting attacks or special abilities. But there's a lot of potential for greatness here that I believe isn't being capitalized on. For the sake of our purposes here, I'm going to be speaking in terms of 5e D&D mechanics, simply because it's incredibly easy to pare down to OSR standards, but is more widely understood. TIP ONE: PARTITIONING HP My first tip is to take that big ol' HP pool and b...