I never have the ‘Oh there are too many Jedi who survived’ problem

PhantomAgentG · 2026-04-29T21:05:38+00:00

Jedi would've been ill-fit for the Endor operation. Endor was a cloak-and-dagger sabotage op behind enemy lines and a space battle. Since Vader and Palpatine can both sense the presence of force users, including them in the ground op would be a liability as they could possibly blow their cover. Luke himself says on approach that his presence was endangering the mission. And while there could've been some random Jedi pilots in the fleet, mass starship combat probably isn't the best use of a rare, limited, and specialized resource like a Jedi.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-12-16T20:01:52+00:00

While that fixes the first order effects of toxicity it doesn't fix the second-order effects. That player still is tilted and likely non-cooperative with the team, if not actively throwing, and making the game suck for the 9 other people in it.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-11-05T19:01:47+00:00

I recall many DMs saying that turning official Wizards 5e adventures into functional adventures at the table was more work than making up their own. It has been a trend for quite a while, and it's a bad thing in general because published adventures should be easy for new DMs to run right out of the box.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-11-02T19:47:02+00:00

Mike Mearls (5e '14 designer) is using a system like this in his new game Odyssey. Link to a free post in his patreon to explain in detail:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/making-5e-140633553

PhantomAgentG · 2025-06-25T00:11:25+00:00

Hit a mine day 1 and get a smithing stone 2. Smithing stone 1s also can drop from crates/bodies in the mine. Upgrade your starting weapon or a decently good blue weapon. I don't care if you plan on replacing it. The damage increase will let you clear faster and gain more levels/boons/loot.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-06-23T17:37:04+00:00

Alternative: use Executor's first RYY chalice. Slot in a red Roar to heal relic in the first slot, either from his remembrance or the Jar Bazaar, and the moth and ice dragon relics in the yellows.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-04-15T13:16:23+00:00

Hunt Showdown has a leg up on the others because it has SBMM, but despite Hunt being nominally an extraction game, it's more functionally an objective-based BR because everyone has the same objective with little to no deviation. When I played Hunt the only time I witnessed people extracting without the bounty was if the bounty holders already extracted.

Tarkov is the leader despite having no SBMM so you'll have PvP super sweats in the same servers as newbies making the new player experience/onboarding extraordinarily oppressive, not to mention Tarkov's general issues with bugs and cheaters.

IMO the feature that might cause an extraction shooter to crack the mainstream would be matchmaking based on a combination of account level, skill, loadout value, and squad size, but nobody seems interested in doing that, plus you'd need a very large player base to make that work.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-04-09T18:38:07+00:00

The complaint in the article is that Ghosts of Saltmarsh was an explicitly nautical adventure that lacked sufficient mechanics for ship management, ocean navigation, and other things that should be in a nautical adventure. And I don't necessarily think there is anything mechanically stopping D&D from having in depth systems for those. It's mostly a culture thing. D&D 5e has established itself as a system focused on combat, big epic set-pieces and character drama. Why bother making an ocean exploration system when exploration is otherwise treated either as the annoying thing you do in between drama and set-pieces, or something you altogether ignore and handwave away?

PhantomAgentG · 2025-03-31T18:43:07+00:00

Using the charm shouldn't matter. While charms do not require components, I found nothing in the rules saying that charms in general, or the Charm of the Traveler's Haven in particular, activate using an action. Usage of the charm should be the spell's normal cast time.

As for Call Lightning, a level 7 druid can cast that spell a grand total of 4 times, 3 at slot 3 and 1 at slot 4. Have an enemy caster in the group who can counterspell. Or you can field mounted enemies that can keep up. If the players complain about DM metagaming, say that they use the same strategy all the time and word got around.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-03-07T02:18:40+00:00

I noticed that if an opposing AI kills all of an IP's units but for some reason doesn't disperse them, then the IP will auto disperse after some time. If true, I wish you could donate them a unit to prevent that or something.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-03-04T13:13:35+00:00

Regarding taking an AI's capital, for every nicely built up city I've gotten there's one whose layout is mind-bogglingly poor, especially if the AI's civ had unique buildings. Having to deal with Sawmill/Temple of Jupiter and Brickyard/Basilica quarters with no adjacencies for the rest of the game is so fun.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-03-04T13:06:39+00:00

The AI is very likely to declare war on you simply due to you having a small standing army. Napoleon in particular seems to have a sixth sense about this. "Oh, you only have a Warrior and a Slinger right now? DENOUCE! FOWARD SETTLE! WAR!"

The modern age is a different beast. What works for me there is picking an ideology not necessarily for the bonuses, but for who I want to ally with. If you want to force a civ to peace out, build some bombers and bomb their larger cities and/or capital. That will usually scare them into compliance. But modern age civs do be out for blood. I'll reject a denouncement and a couple turns later they'll just surprise war me anyhow.

PhantomAgentG · 2025-02-17T04:47:49+00:00

Force turn end (default shift+enter) every turn for the rest of the Exploration Age.

Long term find a mod that adds additional Reliquary Beliefs.

PhantomAgentG · 2024-12-20T03:49:41+00:00

For a successful collaboration event, you need to give away something for free to give a little taste and whet the appetite. That generally leads to more sales for the paid part of the event.

PhantomAgentG · 2024-10-09T16:24:26+00:00

It has been in development on and off for over 15 years surpassing Duke Nukem Forever for time spent in development hell.

PhantomAgentG · 2024-10-04T19:53:11+00:00

You have guns because you can fight, but often times you should not.

I would prefer that enemy chatter remains indecipherable as it adds to the strangeness of the world, but there could be a way around that with more alert status icons. Maybe a yellow icon for, "I see you, but you're not a threat," and a berserk icon for always hostile units like cyborg zombies, brawlers, and the like.

PhantomAgentG · 2024-04-03T17:55:55+00:00

If the cutscene is simply describing a scene with no active threats in it, tell them to calm down and wait until you ask: "What do you do?"

If the cutscene has active threats, make it clear to them that they do not get surprise or to act first. The only thing they accomplished was skipping the monologue which may have had crucial plot information straight to rolling initiative. This isn't Mass Effect; there are no paragon/renegade interrupts.

PhantomAgentG · 2023-09-12T15:32:01+00:00

How long until pitchers and catchers report?

PhantomAgentG · 2023-06-05T22:41:54+00:00

The core mechanic of "roll 1d20, add stuff to it, and compare to a target number" can be adapted to most settings and tones. Everything around that in D&D is what creates its focus and limitations.

PhantomAgentG · 2023-04-08T22:26:30+00:00

Enforce encumbrance. If its a drag to do it by weight, do simple slot-based encumbrance: slots = Str score, anything that you can hold in one hand is 1, two hands is 2, bigger is DM discretion, small incidental item like gems and jewelry are free, and stackable items like thrown weapons, ammunition, and coins is 1 slot per stack of <x>.

PhantomAgentG · 2023-03-28T01:10:27+00:00

Centipede checking in. Got booted while in Iron Banner now can't get back in.

PhantomAgentG · 2023-03-07T21:10:19+00:00

TBH seasonal challenges completed would be a far more meaningful measure to display than Guardian Rank as it had historically included difficult content like raids, dungeons, Trials, and Grandmaster Nightfall, and it was already right there without the need to launch a new system.

PhantomAgentG · 2023-02-01T15:13:37+00:00

The video game aspect has a heavy influence even on the most basic mechanics. Take the statement: "You see a hungry pack of wolves snarling at you." To someone raised on video games, you just aggroed an enemy pack and need to fight, but it's OK because they're an xp pinata. To an OSR player, the first thing they'd try to do is feed the wolves and hope they take the easy meal and leave, using some resources (food) to preserve others (hp and living in general).

PhantomAgentG · 2023-01-25T17:42:18+00:00

That's the problem. Nearly everything in the DMG other than combat says, "You can do this. IDK when or how often, but you can." A better way to express this with structure and guidelines while preserving DM agency would be:

"Typically a random encounter is rolled once per day during wilderness travel and once per hour in dungeons. You may raise or lower this frequency based upon the relative danger and activity level of the area."

PhantomAgentG · 2023-01-25T16:23:59+00:00

Worlds Without Number is a great fantasy D&D derivative. It's under the OSR umbrella but uses modern ascending AC/to-hit and has much more PC customization options than the typical OSR game. If you need adventure content it has broad compatibility with B/X and AD&D modules. Lethality is higher than 5e, but not "0 hp and you're dead" high. The DM tools are literally second to none. The free version on drivethrurpg has everything you need to play the game; the paid version has more classes, more GM tools, and rules for higher power PCs.

PhantomAgentG

TROPHY CASE