Adding a sentient magic item? Be careful!

Armoured man looking at sword. Photo by Imad Clicks via Pexels

Intelligent swords have been the stuff of fable, and in D&D since the start. I thought it would be cool, but I wish I'd known this before I started...

A Brief History of Time

What units of time are used in D&D? Sounds a simple question, but it turns out I was thirty years out of date. So here's a review across the editions.

Revising Lockpicking in D&D?

Revised lock-picking rules for D&D 5e. In an earlier post, I lamented how trivial picking a lock felt in a session. I've explored alternatives and rules; time to come up with a proposal. So here you are.

All the differences in the Barbarian classes in the D&D 5e variants

A detailed comparison of the Barbarian class in D&D 2014 edition, D&D 2024 edition, Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E

The Evolution of D&D 5th Edition – part 2B Overall Structure of 2024 PHB

Following my previous post comparing the structure of the PHB from 2014 D&D, Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E, this looks at the structure of the new 2024 Players Handbook

The Evolution of D&D 5th Edition – part 2 Overall Structure

The second post in my series comparing the different editions of D&D 5E and its successors. This compares the overall structure of the different players' handbooks.

The Evolution of D&D 5th Edition – part 1 Introductions and Character Origins

There are several successors looking to build on the 2014 edition of D&D #5E - the 2024 edition (#OneDnD), Tales of the Valiant #TOV from @KoboldPress, and Level Up! #A5E from @enpublishingrpg. This starts a comparison.

RPGaDay 18 – Favourite Game System: The War Machine Mass Combat System

The Companion Set of the BECMI D&D boxed sets contained rules for Mass Combat, called The War Machine, which are still the best set of mass combat rules to fit into D&D which I’ve come across.

Weapon Mastery across the editions

I have fond memories of Weapon Mastery from the BECMI Master Player’s Guide. Now there are three pretenders to "next D&D 5e" and each introduce something similar.

Alternate Systems – a quick update

A quick update of a few systems: the Pathfinder Humble Bundle, Kobold Press's Project Black Flag and DM Dave's Helkara