Recent content by Fanaelialae

I refer at creatures at or below half hp as bloodied. I use minions and solos from Flee Mortals, and elites from Level Up. All of them work great.

I would narrow each wizard's focus. There was a great Dragon magazine article back in the day wherein wizards built their spell lists based on the spells they'd already chosen. I think they were called Paths? For example, in order to learn Scorching Ray, a wizard might first have to learn...

I agree. Even going back to OD&D, a high level fighter (say 9th level) could reasonably expect to take on a pack of wolves or multiple bears singlehandedly in melee combat and kill them all (assuming they didn't flee), without any explicit magical aid. That's not something a person could...

Monk and Wizard. I'm a software dev who studied martial arts when I was younger, so I guess that fits.

Lots of good ideas in this thread. I have offer quite a few additional classes in my games. Most of those are taken from 3pp and then rewritten until I'm completely satisfied with them. The only two of my own design are the Blood Witch (a mix of monk, warlock, and vampire, designed for a solo...

By this reasoning, none of us can really RP an adventurer in a fantasy world. The character is clearly nothing more than an "ordinary modern person in a mask". I enjoy the challenge of playing a race with an unusual outlook. Do I do a perfect job? Probably not. Do I have fun with it (and are...

Sure. There were a number of modern campaigns where we were all human. Those campaigns had no issues with species. There was a goblin campaign that I played in where we were all goblins. Although there were several sub-species of goblins so we weren't all the same. That campaign kind of broke...

My recommendation for challenging a party that employs such tactics is to use AoE damage. Fireball, damaging auras, sweeping attacks, etc. If an enemy can drop 3 characters with one attack/action (or even no action in the case of auras) that's a really strong move, even if the healer can get...

I'm not following your math here. Standard 4 person party. 2 PCs downed every turn. One healer (I'll be generous and assume the healer won't be targeted unless all other party members are downed first). I'll also assume side initiative, since that way downed party members won't have their turns...

In the classic (2e) definition of True Neutral, as keepers of the balance, I'd say a Neutral character could commit any act as long as it furthered the cause of balance. In order to perform a "neutral" evil-act, there would need to be an imbalance in the favor of good. They can't just perform...

Sure. I've played in quite a few thematic campaigns that didn't have humans.

It's a good idea, but if their deliberations are adding an extra hour (give or take) to encounters, then asking them to complete it while you set up is... ambitious. IME, the best option is to have a conversation with them like they're adults (this is assuming they're adults; I really haven't...

If they're spending a lot of time deliberating, then that's at least one of your bottlenecks. Either reduce the time they deliberate, or accept that your combats will run long. A simple, straight-forward approach would be to simply talk to your players. Something like, "Hey guys, the combats...

The first thing, IMO, is to figure out where your bottleneck is. Are the players deliberating a long time on their turns? Is the DM spending a long time considering their tactics on the monsters' turns? Once you know what the table is spending lots of time on, you can takes steps to address it...