Category Archives: DMing

Inflicted (Beta Version)

I’ve compiled the entire inflicted class into one convenient, excellently-formatted document. You can download it here. A few notes from the field: Pounce moved from L14 to L15. When I looked at everything together, L15 was a dead level with … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | Comments Off on Inflicted (Beta Version)

Creating a Monster: Evolutions

I’ve expressed a lot of love for “here are X options; pick Y of them” features. They weren’t terribly common in 3E and they were absent entirely in 4E, but Pathfinder has a fair number of them, and I used … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | Comments Off on Creating a Monster: Evolutions

Creating a Monster: Monstrous Source

Yet again, feature names are proving to be the bane of my existence. I have no good idea for what to call the inflicted’s subclass options. Every class has its own name for its subclass, from the cleric’s divine domains … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | 1 Comment

Creating a Monster: Monstrous Form

The features in the last post don’t have a lot of points of divergence. There’s some that matter, like the condition immunities, and some that don’t, like whether an inflicted uses a slam or claws, but it’s still all mostly … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | Comments Off on Creating a Monster: Monstrous Form

Creating a Monster: Meet the Inflicted

The main problem I’m having in designing a class around monsters is deciding what features the class should have. One nice thing about class design in 5E is that I can give only some features to the class at large … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | 2 Comments

Creating a Monster: Class Design Basics

5E is ripe for custom, homebrew add-ons. New material is coming out so rarely, it stands to reason that players themselves would feel a need to add the things they want into the system. The DMs Guild gives those players … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | Comments Off on Creating a Monster: Class Design Basics

Creating a Monster: Points of Divergence

I intended to have this post closer to the original one on the Warlock Problem, but I really wanted to get that post uploaded on the correct day. Such are the hazards of linear time. It’s not a secret that … Continue reading

Posted in Game Design, House Rules | Tagged | Comments Off on Creating a Monster: Points of Divergence

Session 13.5

I’m not saying I invented the term “Session Zero”. I don’t have the data to support that statement. I can say that I referred to sessions by number early in my career, and that my post about Session Zero predates, … Continue reading

Posted in DMing | Comments Off on Session 13.5

March of Madness: Honorable Mentions

Several demon lords didn’t make it into 5E, and now that I’ve looked into them I see why. 5E’s demon lords aren’t necessarily fun or interesting, but they’re all at least somewhat active. They have goals, usually some form of … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged | Comments Off on March of Madness: Honorable Mentions

March of Madness: Demogorgon

Demogorgon is the big bad of big bads. As the self-styled Prince of Demons, he’s been making life difficult for players for more then thirty years. From what I can tell, he is one of the three most powerful monsters … Continue reading

Posted in DMing, Gaming Systems | Tagged | Comments Off on March of Madness: Demogorgon