Recent content by James Gasik

Sunday I used an enemy that, despite only being CR 5, had Lair Actions. The CR calculations made it seem like I could use a trio of them for my game, but really quickly I realized that 2 of them plus the Lair Actions was already pretty tough. Afterwards, discussing the encounter a few...

Another question. Why wouldn't a God want their Cleric to gain more power, especially at the expense of some random magic item?

90's protagonist: "....."

Meanwhile, while the ability to predict the future and ask higher powers proves incapable of cheating at card games, the Wild Mage has a flat 50% chance of choosing the card of his choice....

There's a deity in 2e's Legends & Lore whose priests are granted the power to cast Commune once each day. I rather doubt that they'd be annoyed if said priests actually used that power every day.

Specific subset, ie, the people who want to be "Everyman Fighters". I can't speak to martial players in general because the only real data we have on them is that there were more Fighters made using D&D Beyond than any other class. How many were played and to what level is unknown. Supposedly...

Weapon Masteries come to mind. I have heard people say they are unneeded, slow down or complicate play, or are unnecessary power creep.

The kind of people I'm talking about do not want any superhuman abilities on their Fighter at all. All stop. No jumping 30' into the air, no slashing arrows in mid-flight, no cleaving spell effects in half, nothing they would consider to be "magical".

Perhaps we should take a minute and look at the modern Commune, then? Commune Level 5 Divination (Cleric) Casting Time: 1 minute or Ritual Range: Self Components: V, S, M (incense) Duration: 1 minute You contact a deity or a divine proxy and ask up to three questions that can be answered with...

I think that depends on the God. A Trickster deity might be highly amused by watching their servant exploit the system!

I've found it's often less about what makes sense or would be balanced, and more to do with some people really wanting to play a mostly or completely nonmagical character, often with less "buttons" to press. To be that everyman hero who needs no magic or tricks and wants no magic or tricks...

I wonder about this. I mean, by that logic, you couldn't use divinations on anything with a random effect, be it a Bag of Beans to a Wand of Wonder or jumping in a weird magical pool. There's already limitations placed on many such effects (augury has a failure chance, for one) that I'd be...

I did, which led to a debate about how much time a "moment" is (the DM tried to say it would take my entire round at one point during the "debate"). My character knew about the Balance card since it was drawn by someone else in a previous encounter, so I said I was using the Phylactery before...

What my group ran into was one of them would go down in range of Spirit Guardians, so if their turn came up before they could be healed, automatic failed death save. If it comes up after, you can't just light heal them back up, because you have to take into account the Spirit Guardians damage...

I mean, it's not like Clerics haven't had strong damaging spells in the past (Blade Barrier was always a favorite of mine), and some Priests have had access to powerful Wizard spells since 2e, but Spirit Guardians is kind of a standout, especially if you compare it to Spirit Shroud. I guess if...