D&D 5th Edition: Cool Report from DDXP
Just a quick post to point you guys to a cool write-up of early playtesting of D&D 5th Edition over here: Geek’s Dream Girl: First Glimpses at the New Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Sounds like fun.
Month: January 2012
Heroes Against Darkness: Development Update
Now that the alpha rules of Heroes Against Darkness have been publically released for a few weeks, it’s a good time to let you guys know what I’m working on at the moment and what I’m thinking about working on. Stuff I’m Working On: Filling Out the Martial Powers As I mentioned in this blog […]
RPG Round-Up: How Many Pages of Spells!?
Just for laughs, here’s a list of the number of pages of each edition of various RPGs that are dedicated to spells compared to the total number of pages in each system’s Player’s Guide. D&D Systems System Pages of Spells Player’s Guide Pages Notes Basic D&D 4 64 Combined Player’s and DM’s Guide Expert […]
Mechanics of Attack Bonus progression in D&D and Heroes Against Darkness
One of the areas of D&D that has changed in most editions is the way that the game deals with the gradual improvements to a character’s abilities over time. Each of the editions has some mechanism to reflect each character’s skill improvement as they gain levels. In the earliest editions, this is achieved through predefined […]
Omit Needless Powers*
* With apologies to Strunk & White… The current Alpha version (v0.189) of Heroes Against Darkness represents each of the improved attack powers as their own separate power. Generally, these improved versions of the powers then slot into the class’s power list every 4th level (or so). For example, the Warrior’s Melee Attack is superceded […]
Who’s Heroes Against Darkness Designed For?
Before we get started, I’d like to note that these are my personal opinions and D&D and its various editions. I don’t want to start an edition war. Edition warriors are invited to do battle at one of the many forums dedicated to their passions. Who indeed… Our playing group has been largely stable for […]
Making D&D 5th Edition Modular:Part III Combat and HP
The first post in this series gave an overview of the core elements of D&D, while part II looked at progression and balancing modular elements. When designing features for role-playing games or videogames, one of the major considerations is the magnitude (Pop! Pop!) of the additional work that the proposed feature places on the entire […]
Making D&D 5th Edition Modular: Part II
The previous post in this series looked at a few of the underlying concepts of a unified modular D&D system, and also some of the disparate mechanics that would need to be reconciled in the new system:• Core Mechanic (d20)• Ability Score Bonuses (Ability Score – 10 / 2)• Gradual improvement (+1 per level mechanics) […]
Making D&D 5th Edition Modular: Part I
All of the role-playing blogs are weighing in with their thoughts, suggestions, demands and (sometimes) their denunciation of WotC’s plans for the new edition of D&D. So today I’m going to look at what would be involved in making a unified and modular version of Dungeons & Dragons, with elements that can be bought in […]
Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition coming
Wizards have just announced that they’re working on a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, and they’re putting it into an extensive playtest. NY Times: Players Roll the Dice for Dungeons & Dragons Remake Wizards: Charting the Course for D&D My goal for Heroes Against Darkness is to strip D&D 4th Edition down to its […]