Recent content by Kurotowa

Thinking about it, if it were me and I were trying to create a mechanical representation of belonging to an elite organization that came with character ability benefits, I wouldn't try to slot it as a subclass. That takes up too much room, and what do you do if the character joins up at higher...

WotC tried that in the run up to Strixhaven, and it really highlighted a lot of the obstacles. Different classes get their subclass features at wildly different levels. Different subclasses get different numbers of features. A non-class specific subclass can't tie into any base class features...

If that's all you're listening to, you need to be expanding your horizons. If you want it close to D&D themed there's Wind Rose, an Italian power folk metal band that leans heavy on dwarf themed songs (both Tolkien and Warhammer varieties). If you want more straight metal I've been greatly...

On the one hand, it's obvious that WotC is really trying to beat the drum on their established IP characters. Especially the ones who had some visibility in the 80s, not the 90s novel line characters. But on the other hand... you're not going to nostalgia bait many people with a character as...

I suppose it's interesting that they're revealing it in a mainstream outlet like the Mirror. At least, as a non-Brit it's my impression that the Mirror is pretty mainstream. Maybe a local could add more detail to that. As for the art itself, well, I'm not saying anything until I see it in...

I'm not sure what's confusing or contradictory about it. 4e and 5e are different editions. They have different design philosophies, different feels, and different play experiences. Sure, there are discrete elements that carry over. So what? It's not like 4e was an anathema where I detest every...

It's been a bit over 30 years since I first played a version of D&D, and I don't know that I can recall a single Wizard PC I've played in that entire time. It's just not for me. And I still didn't like 4e. The one campaign we tried, I had a Paladin. A Paladin of the Raven Queen, in fact, since I...

Please, let's not stray into ascribing motives and putting words into the mouth of the people who disagree with you. No one has said that, no one even suggested that, so to put it forth is just building strawmen. For many of us, we just didn't like how 4e played. It didn't feel satisfying or...

While I bailed on 4e fairly early, I do keep hearing some variation of this from those who stuck with it longer. Even if the design intention wasn't to replicate a video game environment where only certain pre-scripted skill interactions were allowed, it sure seems like a lot of groups fell into...

That's a good point I'd never quite verbalized before. You can see this focus just in the fact that 4e has Encounter based recharge powers and 5e has Short Rest based recharge powers. We can quibble over the ideal length of a Short Rest, or point out that they're functionally fairly similar to...

My usual play group started up a new campaign when 4e launched, went for three or four months, and then collectively agreed it wasn't for us. So we played other games like Pathfinder or Savage World until good word of mouth about 5e lured us back. It's been a long time, so I don't remember the...

The imprecision is a feature, not a bug, for a lot of people. It allows for creative uses of features and spells instead of them only and exactly doing a specific thing. There's also the fact that 4e aggressively removed anything that couldn't easily be defined by its technical terms. No free...

I too really enjoyed the two preview books. It's why I went all-in and preordered the complete Core box set. And maybe I'm an oddball, or maybe Heinsoo is misreading the situation, but I loved the setting changes while finding the mechanics deeply unsatisfying when my group sat down to play it.

Sorcerers have narrative identity, but lack mechanical identity. In 3e they were the spontaneous caster counterpart to the prepared caster Wizard. Now that Wizards are spontaneous casters, but better because they can swap out their spells, all the Sorcerer has is Metamagic. And Metamagic is thin...

For the record, Shifters are one of the new races from Eberron. They started in the 3e campaign book and appear again in Eberron: Rising from the Last War in 5e before going to MotM. The other Eberron original races are Changelings, Kalashtar, and Warforged. Of those four, I actually think...