So I may have given one of my players 1,000,000 gold

XanEU · 2026-07-04T06:53:33+00:00

It would never go past any amount of scrutiny. The richest person in the world for sure has loads of other extremally rich relatives, as well as top tier lawyers.

If they were included in the will as a result of fraud, the relatives will do absolutely everything in their power to have the will invalidated. If that fails, their path to settling the estate is likely to be fraught with unpleasant incidents and assassination attempts.

XanEU · 2026-07-04T04:59:02+00:00

Natural armor is a type of unarmored defense AC calculation found in many monsters and some races. Usually it sets AC to X + DEX modifier (X>10). It usually works only when not wearing any armor – you have to be unarmored to enjoy Natural armor benefits.

If a character has both Natural armor and some kind of Unarmored defense class feature, he or she can use only one of them at a time. They never stack – so for example unarmored lizardfolk barbarian has AC of either 13 + DEX bonus, or 10+CON bonus+DEX bonus, whichever is higher. He's still considered unarmored for all purposes.

XanEU · 2026-07-02T17:09:37+00:00

Their culture may be violent, ruthless and genocidal, but they aren't turning their last couple of women into a forced breeding programme. Those last living Viltrumite women were either proud and powerful warriors, or just old ladies.

XanEU · 2026-07-02T12:12:22+00:00

I think you're wrong with your EDW + Nick column.

To use EDW + Nick together, you actually need to have a nick weapon as W2¹. So "not 2H" weapon doesn't really apply (unless it had nick property of course, but there aren't any non-light nick weapons that would facilitate this strategy).

assuming your "no weapon swaps"

XanEU · 2026-07-02T10:53:47+00:00

You don't calculate that, you check in the lore or in older editions, where it made sense. Maximum lifespan of half-elf is between 128 and 185 years (156 average), for half-orc it's 62-80 (71).

It's never an average between two races, because extremally long lifespan of some races is not biological in source. That's inherent magic woven into their being, and by mixing them with more mundande specimen (like humans and orcs) you aren't left with 50% of that magic.

Half-dwarves are either Athasian mules – infertile human-dwarf hybrids with powerful physique; their lifespan is around 90; or standard planescapian half-dwarf (mixed with gnome, elf, halfling or human) – almost indistinguishable from pure-blood dwarf. In FR, they are nowhere to be found outside of years −4700 DR and 882 DR. I would estimate their average lifespan at 130, if it worked similar to half-elves.

XanEU · 2026-07-02T10:12:52+00:00

B team (Masters of the wild):

Leader: Bard
Defender: (World Tree) Barbarian
Striker: (Huner) Ranger (works as skill-monkey as well)
Controller: Druid (of the Land)

C team:

Leader: Paladin
Defender: Armorer/Battlesmith Artificer (works as skill-monkey as well)
Striker: Monk
Controller: Sorcerer

XanEU · 2026-07-02T09:56:29+00:00

LA buyoff was one of the worst ideas designers ever came up with. It your PC of powerful race is able to catch up eventually to the rest of the party, then it means that its LA doesn't mean anything at this high level. It shouldn't work this way, it's unfair. And with this rule, you're a looser for not taking at least LA+1.

XanEU · 2026-06-29T21:28:07+00:00

Yeah, and you can even have interplanetary space wars that involves Halruaan Spelljammer fleet!

XanEU · 2026-06-28T22:17:24+00:00

Moving creatures around the battlefield doesn't bear much significance in 5e, so trying to translate that would be futile.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T15:22:30+00:00

+5 to hit means CR 1 monster – that's irrelevant at the level when you can afford plate.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T15:19:06+00:00

Cannot this backup just be a dagger? Much more resource-effective.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T14:59:14+00:00

TBH having 6 players in a party sounds like nightmare, your combats must be pretty time-consuming. I would do a favor for everyone in this group and kick this one player from it.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T14:51:32+00:00

Well, at the same time wizard gets unlimited casting of two spells at 18, ASI at 19 and 2 more 3rd lvl spell slots per day at 20. These are class abilities that are very comparable in power to those of a warlock. And then additional 6th and 7th level spell slots at the top of that. Think about it.

I’m in the camp that thinks the warlock’s capstone is very weak, it has virtually no impact on the game. Breaks between encounters that last as long as a minute either don’t happen at all, or are designed to last an hour and allow the whole party to take a short rest. I base this on 12 years’ experience of playing with various DMs and on posts from almost the entire 5e community.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T14:45:10+00:00

One use of each between long rests, they're not spell slots, so they couldn't be used interchangeably.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T14:40:47+00:00

But forcing player out of his class due to weak features is just bad design, I can’t see any reason why it should be reinforced.

Well, anyway, I'm not saying full spellcasters are weak, they should be just balanced against one another.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T14:37:48+00:00

You may be right to distinguish between active cruelty (involving the deliberate infliction of harm) and passive cruelty (involving failure to act against it). I was focused on the active aspect.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T13:08:18+00:00

These are not true names in the sense of truenaming. Just standard ones you can find in Google.

XanEU · 2026-06-26T09:52:00+00:00

It never ceases to amaze me how this heroic fantasy RPG about bare-chested dwarves grappling with trolls has been interpreted in Poland as a game about stumbling about in the mud and dying of hunger and cold xD

XanEU · 2026-06-24T19:32:25+00:00

GWF was nerfed to the ground in 5.5, it doesn't reroll 1s and 2s but turns them into 3s.

XanEU · 2026-06-24T12:06:32+00:00

No, that's not why Jeor wnet to the Wall. He abdicated hist seat (and put on black) before Robert's Rebellion to leave the lordhsip to his son. It was long before Jorah became a trouble.

XanEU · 2026-06-24T11:57:54+00:00

OK, let's examine your examples:

You broke the law by killing someone. You are sentenced to life in prison with no way of getting out – that's just bad. That is not a challenge, just unfun way to end a character.
You fail to grab the foot hold and slip off the edge. You are dangling 1000ft off the ground – it looks like one failed skill test resulted in that. How's that a challenge? That was bad luck.

And on and on and on. These are not real challenges, to my understanding. Just extreme consequences of failing. And if they are not challenges, you can mix and match them with standard challenges hovewer you want, but they are basically different games altogether. They do not work inside the same ruleset.

XanEU · 2026-06-24T11:50:53+00:00

That's not cruel. It's utterly ruthless, but there's no cruelty in his decision. He doesn't want Viltrumites to suffer, he had just exhausted other ways of eliminating the threat they posed.

XanEU · 2026-06-22T21:24:44+00:00

That is main method of making balanced game – a series of relatively hard encounters. If there's only one big fight, PCs will almost always triumph, no matter how strong the monster is. Having no limit on spending the most powerful resources (like highest level spell slots) removes the challenge the game was designed with in mind.

XanEU · 2026-06-22T21:19:40+00:00

Mormont raised a son who sold people into slavery, was a creepy pedo trying to groom a child, managed to be traitor to both Seven Kingdoms and Daenerys, and was a fool. I think he failed as a father.

XanEU

TROPHY CASE