Tag: dungeons & dragons 5th edition (Page 8 of 9)

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide Review

This review originally appeared on neuronphaser.com, and has been moved here for archival purposes.

Dungeon Master’s Guides have to serve so many masters and cover so many topics that it’s almost a failing venture even before you’ve written the first word in regards to making it successful at every facet. That makes them hard to review, too, but in the case of 5th Edition’s entry onto the DMG scene, it’s actually been a pleasure! Taking the shortest path to cover every topic imaginable, this edition’s guide for running the game is chock full of functional advice, sleek mechanics, and an unreal number of random tables, optional rules, and variants that can inspire, inform, or redefine how you run a D&D game. It’s dead sexy to look at, too!

Rating: Content 5/5 and Form 4/5.

Buy the hardcover at Amazon or pick it up digitally at D&D Beyond.

Read on for the full review!

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Pregenerated Characters for Dungeons & Dragons

Here’s an entire folder on Google Drive with pre-generated characters of various levels from all different sources.

  • Most of the folders contain level 1-10 pregens as well as the D&D Starter Set pregens by Wizards of the Coast. These are originally available from their site as well as on DMsGuild (click this link to search all pregens on DMsGuild!).
  • One Thousand Pre-Generated Basic Characters and One Thousand Pre-Generated Commoners by Roger Carbol. (Original source – you might find updated files there!)
  • The Baldur’s Gate characters appear in Jim Zub’s Baldur’s Gate series of comics; character sheet layout redesign by 9bit.
  • Homebrew Level 1 characters by Tim Bannock (that’s me!).

UPDATE! NPC Creatures as Pregens uses the NPC monster stat blocks from Monster Manual and various official WOTC books, plus the DMsGuild releases Adversaries & Allies by Dan Layman-Kennedy and The Complete Book of Allies & Enemies by Scott Holden and adds random art I found through Pinterest to act as pregens in low-level campaigns. The NPCs are generally Challenge 1/8 or 1/4 with 2-3 Hit Dice, making them ideal candidates for a simplified starting character in a level 1-3 adventure. Included are both Google Slides and PDF versions in case you want to fiddle around with the format and make them look prettier or add your own pictures.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook Review

This review originally appeared on neuronphaser.com, and has been moved here for archival purposes.

Even if you don’t like 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons — to which I say, “You, good sir, are crazy-pants” — the Player’s Handbook is a gorgeous piece of work that expertly pulls together the largest swath of playable stuff from editions past, presenting it in as comprehensive and well-curated form as we’ve yet seen. It’s certainly an effort that looks back to D&D’s past with rose-colored glasses, but it adds just enough new stuff and blows off plenty of chaff, creating a much more streamlined approach to the game than we’ve seen in recent editions. It provides more than just token support to the interaction and exploration “pillars of play,” rather than beefing up combat at their expense.

Rating: Content 4/5 and Form 5/5.

Buy the hardcover at Amazon or shop for it on D&D Beyond.

Read on for the full review!

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Skill Challenges in 5e Review

Prolific Dungeon Masters Guild writer and editor R P Davis has released Skill Challenges in 5e as a conversion of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition mechanic to the bounded accuracy of 5th edition. It comes complete with examples and a stat block of sorts. Looking for a structured system for handling complex investigations, challenging social interactions, or simply a way to measure the challenge difficulty of non-combat encounters to award experience points for something other than killing monsters? This is gonna be your jam.

Rating: Content 5/5 and Form 5/5

Pick up Skill Challenges in 5e at DMsGuild today.

Read on for the full review!

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Baby Bestiary Index of Monster Traits and Stats

The Baby Bestiary by Metal Weave Games is a brilliantly inspired two-volume set (as of this writing) of cute and cuddly — and sometimes horrifically dangerous! — monsters that are perfect for rearing in the fantasy roleplaying game of your choice. I’ve created a shared Google Sheet that acts as an index for all of the monsters that appear across both volumes, lists their rearing traits for easy reference, and links to several monster stat blocks for your game of choice, whether it’s Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, Swords & Wizardry, or Pathfinder (1e)! Click below to check out the table.

Here’s the link!

Note that some of the monsters don’t appear in online SRDs, so you’re going to have to go to the official monster book of choice and find the monster or some equivalent. If you have ideas for cool variants and other references, post ’em in the comments below!

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