d20 Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Neitherworld Stories

October 13, 2006

d20 Tweaking: Dragons

This thread over at EN World is commenting on a recent article at the Wizard’s web site by David Noonan. The bit that I found interesting about the article – and the thread – was the belief that dragons-as-sorcerers is too complex and doesn’t fit the concept of dragon’s well. While I like the draconic connection to the sorcerer class,...

October 10, 2006

d20 Tweaking: The Hexblade

The Hexblade is a base character class introduced in the Complete Warrior. The basic idea of the class is a primarily martial character with some arcane abilities – most notably the ability to call down a curse on its foes. I like the concept. Unfortunately, I really dislike the execution. His supplementary powers are of very limited use. The curse...

October 6, 2006

More from the “Campaign Ideas I’ll Probably Never Use” file

Another D&D campaign setting idea, this one combines Fallout and the Underdark: An eon ago, there was the Cataclysm. We only have the stories to tell us what happened. Some say that wizards probed too deeply into the nature of magic and that something in the nature of the world simply snapped. Others say that there was a war in...

October 2, 2006

The Ultimate

So what is the ultimate d20 gaming accessory? Jon, alongside whom I play with in Jeff’s game, has these nifty plastic frame thingamjigs that you can place on a battlemap. They are the outlines of effects of various radii. They are extremely useful when you don’t want to have to figure out the size of an effect in the middle...

October 2, 2006

I always hated being the banker in Monopoly…

EN World has been pushing this Fantasy Money thing hard, billing it as the ultimate gaming accessory. Essentially, fantasy money is a bunch of bills in denominations like 5cp or 100gp or whatever. It is Monopoly money for D&D. This strikes me as the worst idea ever. Part of it is that I don’t like to worry about piddly sums...

September 29, 2006

Fortune in the Middle

I’ve been thinking a lot about the skill-based spellcasting method for d20 that I discussed in an earlier post – in particular, the manner in which I suggested applying metamagic in the comments. This amounts to a sort of hybrid fortune in the middle mechanic. The idea is that you’d declare the spell, roll the dice, and depending upon the...

July 28, 2006

d20 Magic System Musings…

Spellcasting in d20 bugs me for a number of reasons: Spell knowledge is all-or-nothing. If you know a spell, you can cast it without error. If you don’t know a spell, you just can’t cast it. There is no looking up spells you don’t know in ancient grimoires. Moreover, you can’t be in the process of learning a spell and...

April 28, 2006

I be a DM

So, last night I ran my first-ever d20 game. It is a campaign I’ve been planning to run for my housemates and unofficial household members for awhile now. I think it went well. I framed it around a small trade caravan – as it seemed a good way of keeping the PCs together and forming a bond between them. I...

April 17, 2006

d20 Tweaking: Hacking Classes

So, in the game I am about to begin running, I have four players. One of them had a solid concept. He was toying with playing a Ranger, but didn’t see his character as a spellcaster (much less a divine spellcaster). I showed him the Scout class. He was hooked. Another wanted to play a tinker-type character with some spellcasting....

February 7, 2006

D20 tweaking: Part I

I enjoy playing with D20/OGL rules. They make an interesting toolset, and D20 is as close to an object-oriented game system as I think we have come. On the other hand, to paraphrase something I read recently, I find the D20 rules-tweaking potential to be more fun than the actual gameplay. That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy playing...

Tag: d20