The Pink Dice Chronicles

 Mystra has died, from several forms, several times, taking the weave down a path of uncertainty. But only once has the spell plague been seen, the night of the blue fire, the destruction of so much. It is therefore, incredible, to believe that the spell plague was caused by the death of Mystra, no matter what the sages would have us believe. I have searched the Realms, Candlekeep to Kuo Te Lung, all of Realmspace and some of Greyspace, and there is nothing that tells a reason why the spell plague should have occurred. It is unexplainable with the death of Mystra. Instead I find only one explainable connection to the madness, to the chaos, that makes even a subtle case for causing such destruction. It must be that the Far Realm was allowed in, perhaps just a bit, perhaps for just a moment. The space beyond all that exists bled through. Would it be unexpected for it to burn away at the very fabric of reality? I do not know how it could have been done. The elves might have ways -- their

 Chekov's gun -- a gun seen in the first act will be fired by the end of the third act. It is an interesting literary concept, for entertainment content in general, but what does it mean for the GM? I like to think of the gaming world like a busybox toy for a child -- there are many options of where and how they will interact, but there is a common framework that holds it all together. Game worlds are often the same way. The common framework is the unfolding of events and forces within the game world. Whether the player characters are interacting them directly or not, these worlds threads are changing things. Engaging these threads meaningfully provides both a set of circumstances that may be relevant points of interaction for the player characters and a backdrop to everyone going on in the main story. The main story is always story of the player characters. So what does this all have to do with the player characters? The first answer is a bit more subtle -- foreshadowing. Though t

This table gives the starting gold and magic equipment for a sidekick at any level.   Level Starting Gold Expert Equipment Spellcaster Equipment Warrior Equipment ALL - Leather Armor, One Simple Weapon,  Two Tools Simple Weapon, An Arcane Focus OR Holy Symbol OR Instrument Chainmail, One Simple Weapon, One Martial Weapon, One Martial Weapon or One Shield 1 25 - - - 2 50 - - - 3 70 - - - 4 90 Leather Studded Armor instead of Leather Armor Any uncommon potion Any Armor instead of Chainmail 5 110 Leather Studded Armor instead of Leather Armor Any uncommon potion Any Armor instead of Chainmail 6 130 Leather Studded Armor instead of Leather Armor Any uncommon potion Any Armor instead of Chainmail 7 165 Leather Studded Armor instead of Leather Armor Any uncommon potion Any Armor instead of Chainmail 8 195 Leather Studded Armor instead of Leather Armor Any uncommon potion Any Armor instead of Chainmail 9 220 Leather Studded Armor instead of Leather Armor Any uncommon potion Any Armor instead

 A game I am currently playing in is using a couple of houserules that Pathfinder players will be familiar with adapted to 5E. Given the nature of these rules, I wanted to investigate how much they affect play, in particular, how much they favor melee over ranged attacks vs base 5E. The rules can be summarized as follows: An attacker firing at a target engaged in melee combat (i.e. threatened or threatening a target with a melee weapon) has disadvantage An attacker flanking a target with an ally (i.e. an ally is on the opposite side of the target) gains advantage on their attacks. These rules should not be confused with existing 5E rules: If you're using a ranged attack (Ranged Weapon like a bow, throwing a Melee Weapon with the Thrown ability, using a spell that makes a Ranged Spell Attack), if there is an enemy next to you, you have disadvantage on that attack. Certain feats or class features might negate that penalty, but by default, you the attacker are distracted and suffer di

 Tasha's Cauldron of Everything starts off with a set of optional rules for customizing characters. These rules have drawn a lot of discussion on the internet, so I wanted to do a dedicated post just to address them For reference, we're talking about pages 7 and 8 under "Character Options" in TCoE. As a quick summary, these rules give optional rules for: Adjust racial ability scores, languages, proficiencies, and personalities Making your own lineage (race) Changing skills and subclasses after the game has started Okay, let's address the racial customizations and adjustments first, since this comes first in the text, and is, by far, the most talked about optional rule on the internet. This change adds some interesting dilemmas. In particular, once must assess whether all of the races are still balanced if you can move ability scores wherever you want them. Let's look at some specific extreme examples: Human: +1 to everything Variant Human: Two +1s and a feat M

 I am going to be evaluating "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" for incorporation into my own games. I figured I would go ahead and record this analysis on my blog here so other folks can follow along and glean some useful information from the time I spent. I tried to find an in-depth analysis elsewhere, but at this time none so detailed as this seems to be available. You will not find any of the text in its entirety in this blog. I will be referencing the first printing of the book, so please refer to that as you read along. There are no released errata for the book at the time of writing, although there are errata from other books that affect some of this content. There are 21 spells in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. This includes Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Lightning Lure, and Sword Burst cantrips that were originally published in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. There are 9 spells that allow you to summon creatures of various types. Three spells are notabl