Recent content by Distracted DM

  1. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    After some searching for curiosity's sake, I found this homebrew, btw. Might be time to make a thread to brainstorm around how to bring back classic vancian prepared spellcasting. Or look and see if there are more ideas. Rather than extra slots.. maybe the answer is in character level-based...
  2. Distracted DM

    Player skill vs character skill?

    That's very setting-dependent- how widespread such knowledge is, communication between towns, etc.
  3. Distracted DM

    Player skill vs character skill?

    I think a mix of both approaches fits best. Players already take a lot of metaknowledge with them into the game, whether they're thinking about it or not. They know a troll will die by fire or acid even if their character doesn't (unless you change it up, don't use the word troll, etc). Some...
  4. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    That's very cool and very intense. I definitely do the "living world in my head" thing, but I've never gotten my ADHD nailed down enough to be so heavily organized as that. I'm just very comfortable with improv and remembering the right things at the right time, so I can reference/incorporate...
  5. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    Well I started making a living off of it after I left my law job post-COVID, so the time commitment makes sense when it's your primary income 😅 But before that, twice per week was about right for me ever since I was a kid, with a few speedbumps here and there.
  6. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    With WIS -1 at least they have a tiny to small chance of saving for most levels of play. But INT -5, like most bestial foes, means that they're just screwed once you start giving PCs INT-targeting effects. And something like Hold Monster is using a higher-level spell slot, even higher if you...
  7. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    And some of us run 3-6 games/week 😅 Tasha's Mind Whip, though.. that was one of the things that made me stop allowing every 1pp in without checking it first. It trivialized a bunch of tier 3 encounters in late-game Night Below, because 5e monsters weren't designed with INT-targeting features...
  8. Distracted DM

    D&D 5E (2024) Homunculus Servant, Conjure Constructs, Deryan's Helpful Homunculi have class restrictions that make no sense

    If you want to skip the centuries of picking up the pieces of what was lost after Rome, sure, we’re better off now than we were millennia ago. But many, many fantasy tropes, what I was talking about, are post-post apocalyptic worlds. Lord of the Rings, Conan, Moorcock, Arthurian Myth, ASoIaF...
  9. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    ... If you entirely skip its 70% magic resistance, sure 😅
  10. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    I almost want to make vancian for 5e again and incentivize it somehow ... But I feel like any reasonable incentives would never be strong enough to make it worth taking over the existing system. There must be existing work others have done in that line for 5e homebrew. But again I can't imagine...
  11. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    Is this right? I don't remember most 2e combats lasting very long either. 3e I remember being longer.
  12. Distracted DM

    D&D 5E (2024) Homunculus Servant, Conjure Constructs, Deryan's Helpful Homunculi have class restrictions that make no sense

    Yeah I'm still thinking of artificers as actual item creators, like in 3e where they were just really good at creating real magic items. They got the feats included with their class as well as reserve xp to create them. I think that's why they anchored themselves in my mind as The Magic Item...
  13. Distracted DM

    D&D 5E (2024) Homunculus Servant, Conjure Constructs, Deryan's Helpful Homunculi have class restrictions that make no sense

    Regarding "artificers would fit into most settings," is there a magic item creation conflict of identity? A setting may be: magic is everywhere, artificers fit in, magic item creation is common enough to justify it. Forgotten realms and eberron are big callouts for this, they have very common...
  14. Distracted DM

    D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

    We can figure out plenty of workarounds to make control spells not "ruin" it, so we know what that looks like, but they're just band-aids on the core system, not fixes. Cuz a proper fix would require a lot more work.
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