Recent content by Irda Ranger

I’ll weigh in on the were-rats and say how I’d handle it. I have a similar situation in my own campaign now. The situation in my campaign is that in the adventure just completed the PCs learned there’s a certain nobleman who’s a pretender and has murdered and replaced the true nobleman. So the...

Cool discussion. Unfortunately I run my games online (play by post and chat), so I really can't comment. I can say it's about 3 months per adventure, and I level the PCs up 2 levels between adventures, but I don't know what that translates to in table time.

Advancement is 100% milestone-based. If you complete the quest without killing a single monster, that's still completing the quest. Why kill goblins? It's not like XP or pretend-gold-pieces are actually worth anything. It's all a game. You're either having fun or you're not. Back up and sit...

I've set up a group on Ryver (a Slack clone) specifically for this. We have in-character and out-of-character forums. A little private EN World just for our group. It's great.

I haven't run into this issue. Everyone has Backgrounds and they're tied into the setting. They from somewhere. They have goals that aren't related to what the group is doing. The down-time between adventures is perfect for that. Moreover, see the post above about "You don't find adventure...

Okay, sorry if my Reply seemed snarky too then.

Yeah, that's a valid approach as the "hero blood" explanation exists within the shared fiction. It's not my preferred approach, but it "works".

That's probably the best approach for APs as-published. Nice. But the in-game time doesn't really line up with real-world time, right? Like you can hand-waive away a month-long ship journey, but then spend four sessions in a haunted castle that's only 48 hours of game time. How do you reconcile...

Ooooooorrrrrr ... you could use the rules I posted in the OP. They bring the game part of the game and the story part of the game back into alignment. Ooooooorrrrrr ... you could use the rules I posted in the OP. Because it's both. It's a role-playing game. As in you inhabit the role of a hero...

Right, this wouldn't work with the big campaign books that WotC has published. So far the only one of those I've run was Curse of Strahd, but I ran it using a more standard advancement. If I ever run Curse of Strahd again though, I might re-write it to be more like what I'm describing. Strahd...

I'm not actually trying to change the pace of individual adventures or how healing works. 1) I want months or years, not three days. 2) Ugh, more details and bookkeeping. No one got time for that. 3) Narratively, "Next Spring" is fine. I don't need my players saying "Sorry, I can't go on an...

I love the WoT, but that part actually bothered me. It was sort of hand-waived away that the protagonists were all Ta'veren / chosen by the Light / agents of the Pattern, or whatever. But people progressed in skill in weird ways. Like Matt went from unassuming farmboy to quarterstaff super-ninja...

That's literally what it would be like if you followed the logic of the published adventures! It's a trope that if you seek out the Sage of Shadowdale that he's an old man, but in Rise of Tiamat-world he could be 25. As currently published, D&D does a better job modeling the level advancement...

I've run and played a couple 5E campaigns now, and one thing that bothers me a bit (and this bothered me in 3E too) is how quickly players advance through the levels relative to the passage of time within the campaign world. At standard number of encounters per day or per adventure, and using...

Lately my favorite Bladelock is a Tomelock with Shillelagh and Green Flame Blade. Add a fighter dip for Medium Armor and Shields and you're golden.