So I absolutely understand that you're all chomping at the bit to see the D&D Player's Handbook review, but alas, 'tis a mighty tome and a beast of a read.  I've thoroughly skimmed it and read approximately the first third of the book in depth and, to quench your thirst for opinions, in lieu of a proper review for now I will say it's excellent.  It's simple, clear, and presents a large amount of variety and is absolutely worth getting.  I may even make it mandatory that each player in games I run have one.  That having been said, on to what this article is really about!

The D&D Basic Rules (which can be found here) were a major hit.  They present all the rules a player needs to create a simple character that's playable in a session of D&D and the good folks at WotC even made them absolutely FREE!  It's a brilliant idea and a wonderful way for prospective fans or those who're just curious about tabletop RPG's in general to poke their noses in, get their feet wet and see what all the hubbub is about without spending a cent.

Following the success of the Basic Rules PDF release (which, as of 8/12/2014, has been updated from it's 0.1 version) they have now released the Dungeon Master's Basic Rules v0.1 which  is essentially a 100% free mini Dungeon Master's Guide.  I just finished reading through it and it is coooool!  And with that, we're gonna break it down right now so you can get an idea of what's so cool about it.

Monsters

The monsters section is, I feel, one of the most looked-forward-to things they've released since the limited release of the Player's Handbook this past week.  Up until now, there has been very limited information on monsters that weren't part of the play test.  Now, quick disclaimer, it is noted that these rules are a work in progress, and as both the Monster Manual and the Dungeon Master's Guide have not been released yet (expected releases are in October and November of 2014 respectively) changes can still be made.  That being said, these can be expected to be very close to the expected results, if not 100% the final product.

The beginning of this section opens with a rundown on monster-based terminology.  Some of these things are very simple, such as size categories spanning "Tiny" (which can occupy a space of 2.5" x 2.5") all the way up to the largest size "Gargantuan" (which occupies 20" x 20" or larger).

They then go into "Type" which covers what kind of creatures will exist in the world, hitting all the expected categories with verbal elaboration of a small paragraph apiece.  I learned a few new things, one of which was that Ogres and Trolls are also technically under the "Giants" category.

After hitting other small things such as movement types, how hit points are dealt with, special traits (Innate Spellcasting, Spellcasting), etc, they did talk about Challenge Rating (CR) and it helped me understand a deal about it. (Note: this does include some info that was included after the monsters were actually listed, but I wanted to put it all together)

Challenge Rating: "A monster's challenge rating tells you how great a threat a monster is.  An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to it's level without suffering any deaths."

So, monsters all have a CR number in their individual description.  This number goes from 0, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and then 1-30.  This means that, ideally, a party of four adventurers should be able to take on one monster of that CR.  An example is an Adult Red Dragon, which is a CR17.  This means that a normal sized party of 4 level 17 adventurers should be able to take one on and reasonably expect to tackle it without character deaths.

CR also factors into encounter building (this is the portion where they specifically make note of these rules being a work in progress).  They recommend building encounters in 4 steps:

1. Note Encounter Difficulty Thresholds - Using the Encounter Difficulty XP Per Character table.

The table has character levels (1-20) running down the left side, with 4 columns labeled with difficulties (easy, medium, hard and deadly).  Each column has a suggested XP amount which is equal to approximately how much "XP-worth" of monster will give a character of a given level an easy, medium, hard or deadly time.

An example is level 1.  Easy = 25 xp, Medium = 50 xp, Hard = 75 xp, Deadly = 100 xp.  So, a monster worth 25 or less xp should be easy for a single level 1 character to deal with.  In contrast, a monster worth 100 xp or more would almost definitely kill them.

2. Add Up Encounter XP - Total the XP values of each enemy in the encounter to get the encounter's XP value.

3. Adjust Encounter XP based on the Number of Monsters - (This is an interesting one) - Based on the number of monsters in the encounter, multiply the encounter's XP by the matching multiplier from the Encounter XP Multipliers table.  Note: This doesn't change the actual XP award for the encounter, it simply helps to show the real difficulty.

1 Monster - no multiplier, 2 = x1.5, 3-6 = x2, 7-10 = x2.5, 11-14 = x3, 15+ = x4

4. Compare the Encounter XP Value to Party Encounter Difficulties -  So, you get the levels for your party and find the recommended XP value for however difficult of an encounter you'd like to build.  (For example, if you want a medium encounter for 4 level 1 characters, your target is 200, because medium for one Level 1 character is 50).  You then add up the XP values of each monster you've selected for your encounter, multiply that by the appropriate multiplier, and see how they compare.  If it's too hard or too easy, adjust accordingly.

It's a relatively simple system when you see the charts and gives a good guideline for building meat-grinders to throw the adventurers into.  They do make a point of noting that these are merely guidelines.  When you play, you'll gauge how your players handle certain things and you'll get a feel for just how to challenge them appropriately.

The Monsters Themselves

The monsters themselves are well done and varied.  They look easy enough to run and many come replete with some cool features.  Each monster has it's AC (and in parenthesis what their AC is coming from), their HP and Speed.  This is followed by their 6 ability scores and modifiers, any skills / senses they have, languages, and their CR.  After that, it's just simple abilities (like the Goblin's nimble escape) and then their Actions, which are made up of their attacks, followed by a sentence or two of flavor.

In comparison to 4th ed, these are very tight, no more powers that won't get used!  The attacks are simply that, attacks.  The amount to hit, range, amount of targets and damage.  This makes monsters much easier to manage, as they're all organized the same way.

The monsters also run the gamut of levels (or CR's), from less than 1 - 17.  This makes me think the Monster Manual ought to be jam-packed with some big baddies!  Also included are stats for NPC's such as Commoners, Knights, Guards, Acolytes, etc.
Magic Items

The last portion covers Magic Items very briefly with a few examples.  We get a look at +1 Armor and Weapons, which very simply add +1 to your AC and +1 to attack and damage rolls respectively.  The other items, however, were a deal more interesting.

There are items now, such as the Amulet of Health.  This item, in past editions, has awarded additional HP or the ability to heal a small amount, etc.  Now, it very simply replaces your constitution score.  It states that when you're wearing the item, your Constitution score becomes 19, but if your Constitution is higher than that, it has no effect.

This, to me, is a very interesting way of dealing with items like this.  It stops a player from over-stacking items of a certain type to push beyond certain boundaries and helps maintain an even balance.  One issue with some past editions were numbers getting out of control.  This edition shows evidence of things being reigned in, for the better, in my opinion.

One aspect I noticed related to Magic Items, also, was the idea of attunement.  Certain items will state that they require attunement to use.  To do it, you take a short rest and concentrate on the item, and they make an explicit note that it cannot be the same rest it takes to identify the item and what it does.  The concentration period must be uninterrupted.  An item can only be attuned to one person at a time and you can only be attuned to up to 3 items at once.  Also you can only attune to one item per short rest.  Attunement ends if you've been more than 100 feet away from the item for 24 hours or if you die.

Conclusion (or TL:DR):

This is a great little document, coming in at 61 pages.  It's choc full of monsters, some solid rules for them, and good encounter guidelines, as well as a thorough explanation of challenge rating, which was confusing me up until this point.  On top of that, we get our first good peek at magic items which should allow the DM's out there to hand out just a bit more phat loot, and who doesn't like that?!

So recently myself and a few friends have been playing the D&D 5e Starter Set at our local game store, as well as just starting a private game which included our wives, which was a blast.  When getting them set up for the game, we ran into the issue of a brand spanking new player grabbing, of course, the Wizard.

As I looked it over, there were some simple things and some things that, at least to some extent, weren't as clear.  I wanted to take a moment to clear up how spell casting works to help those who may have questions.

1. Spell Levels - Spells have levels ranging from 0-9.  The higher the level, the higher the number.  Note that spell level does *not* correspond to character level.

2.  Spell Slots - This can be something that confuses players but I'll try to make it easy.  The basic idea is that spells take a physical toll on the caster.  The less experienced [read: lower level] the caster is, the weaker their casting ability is, allowing them to only cast a certain amount of spells per day.  The higher the spells level, the more taxing it is to cast.  Makes sense, right?

Referencing the D&D 5 Basic Rules (found here) we'll use the level 1 Wizard for ease.  The Wizard leveling chart shows that a level 1 Wizard has two Level-1 slots (Level-0 spells are considered easy enough to not be taxing and as such don't have slots).  This simply means that the Wizard is able to cast two spells at Level-1 power each day (the time period between 8-hour rests).  As the Wizard levels up, he gets more spell slots, for example:

Level 1: Two Level-1 slots
Level 2: Three Level-1 slots
Level 3: Four Level-1 slots, Two Level-2 slots
Etc.

This shows the caster's ability to control more strong magic as they grow in experience.

3.  Spell Preparation - This, I think, can also cause a bit of confusion, mainly because its execution is accomplished mainly through role-play.  Essentially the caster can prepare an amount of spells per day equal to the caster's key attribute modifier + the caster's caster class level (this is to say, if your character decides to level up in another class, like Fighter, the levels they have in Fighter don't count).  So, to show it simply:

Amount of spells able to be prepared each day for a Cleric = Wisdom Modifier + Cleric Level
Amount of spells able to be prepared each day for a Wizard = Intelligence Modifier + Wizard Level

Also, a note worth clarifying, when preparing spells, you're preparing spell *types* not specific spells to be expended.  This means your caster is essentially making mental notes on how to cast X, Y and Z spells.  The spells you have prepared are what you choose from when picking spells to cast that fill your slots.

4.  Spell Casting - Casting the spell itself is easy; you simply read the description of the spell in the rules.

So, to break it down, this is what spell-related actions could look like in a day:
-Your character wakes up
-Your character thinks of spells he likes
-Your character is a level 1 Wizard with 16 Intelligence (giving him a +3 modifier), allowing him to prepare 4 spells he can choose to cast from later.
-Your character can only cast level 1 spells right now so he decides to prepare (make mental note of): Magic Missle, Shield, Mage Armor and Sleep.
-Your character gets in a fight and doesn't want to get hurt too bad, so he casts Mage Armor, a Level-1 spell, using up one of his two available Level-1 spell slots for the day.
-Your character then wants to shoot the bad guy, so he casts Magic Missle, another Level-1 spell, using up his last Level-1 spell slot for the day.
-He now must resort to using the level-0 spells he knows (which he can do as much as he wants because level-0 spells are easy), or get a solid rest in to restore his spell slots.

Easy peasy. :D

Edit: Due to an obscene amount of spam comments, I've disabled comments for this post.

So the head of development on 5th Edition, Mike Mearls, has just released in his latest Legends and Lore article (found here) a bit about a topic near and dear to my heart: Feats.

In 3rd Edition they were at times very strong, but, as the article above mentions, you also needed to string them together, or there were some that were so specific or almost useless that they'd never see the table unless in very obscure circumstances.  In 4th I felt as if feats in general took a backseat, becoming minor advantages.

5th Edition's take on them is a bit along the lines of what I thought in terms of impact.  The only time you can take a feat is as a replacement for an ability score increase when leveling up.  As this is generally a very large power increase, that means that feats need to have a large impact as well, and it appears they do.

The view on them leans (as do other mechanics in the system) heavily towards the RP side of things, making feats things primarily designed for fleshing out a character concept better than the normal classes (or multi-classing) might allow.

In the article, Mike lists every single feat that will be in the Player's Handbook, which I thought was amazing.  Aside from the fact that we just get a clean sneak peak at the entire list, I think the thing I found most intriguing was that the list was small.  Counting the list, it comes in at a tight 42 feats.  To put this in perspective, the feat count in the 3rd edition Player's Handbook was a whopping 119!  4th ed's was also large with 81 feats, meaning that this edition is significantly smaller, but potentially much more impactful than previous editions.

You can see Mike's full list of feats in his post, but I'll list a few of my favorites (or ones that look like other's will really gravitate towards them):

• Actor
• Defensive Duelist
• Dual Wielder
• Dungeon Delver
• Grappler
• Healer
• Inspiring Leader
• Lucky
• Mage Slayer
• Mounted Combatant
• Savage Attacker
• Shield Master
• Skilled
• Spell Sniper
• Tavern Brawler
• War Caster

Hey everyone!  I mentioned a little while ago that I would do a review of the Basic Rules released for D&D 5th Edition once I finished reading them, and I finally finished (what a hefty read!) so here we go!

First things first, if you would like to check out the basic rules for yourself (which you absolutely should), you can find them here.

Wizards of the Coast (the developers of D&D in general) had an interesting time with 4th edition, released back in 2008.  The issue was mainly due to the significant alterations made to what was the traditionally accepted way of doing things [Please note that the bulk of my experience started with 3rd edition].  To my knowledge, the mechanics of old revolved around a few things:

• Leveling up based on a table unique to your class.
• Having your attacks represented as simple, generic equations (like 1d20 + Strength Modifier + any additional special things you may have added, like a Feat bonus).
• Feet-based movement.
• Flavor heavy rules / book text.

So it's been a darn long while since I've posted but I've recently been really pushing myself to do some Dungeon Mastering and, in turn, it's got me thinking about these kinds of things again.  So with that, I'm back! :D

What I'd like to tackle in the article (I'll keep it brief, to the best of my ability) is RPG's and kids, and how darn awesome it can be!

First, for those who don't know, a Role Playing Game is a game where the players take on a specific role, usually of a character they create themselves, but sometimes games will use pre-made character for ease-of-play.  It's the same thing an actor does in a play!  Every person at the table is a player, and has a Player Character (referred to as a PC), all except for one person.  This person is referred to as the Game Master (GM) or, when playing Dungeons & Dragons, the "DM" (but they're the same thing).

The DM is what you would consider the narrator in the story.  They control the world and all the things the players interact with.  Any Non-Player Characters (NPC's), monsters, etc are all played by the DM.  This gives the DM tremendous creative power.  The DM is also the person who governs the rules of the game.  If they feel that a change to the rules would be more fun for all at the table, it's absolutely within their power to change it.  Their role is that of the Storyteller.

So, a Role Playing Game is, at its core, interactive storytelling.  This can be AMAZING for kids, as it allows their imaginations to run wild and it fosters a huge deal of creativity!  They get to imagine themselves as an awesome hero defeating a dragon or hunting for hidden treasure (or doing whatever other kind of story things the DM might come up with).  It's also very social.  It involves playing with your friends (and hopefully a parent or two!) around a table, having a great time (and generally sharing a bunch of awesome snacks lol).  One other thing it does is help with math skills, as the game involves simple addition of dice rolls (which are super fun).

Most RPG's have rule-books that can be quite large, with very detailed rules that the DM can choose whether or not to use (things like rules for if a character ducks behind cover in a fight, or rules about how far a character can go before eating or something like that).  Most of these rules are optional.  If the DM thinks they're too complicated or unnecessary, they can choose to just not use them.  One thing I found, that's great for kids, can be found here:

 https://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/MS_HeroesHesiod.pdf

That is a link to a specially made, self contained, RPG for kids based on Dungeons and Dragons called "The Heroes of Hesiod" and it's for kids 6+!

The rules in it are dead simple and very friendly.  It has fun character cards the players can cut out, and a few little monsters.  They get to go into Adventurer Training against some young monsters (like a little dragon).  They get to move their characters around the room and try to defeat the monsters, so they can be strong enough to defend the village when they grow up!

It's a well put together little game for kids and I highly encourage anyone interested who has kids to give this a shot.  There's a ton of fun to be had and there's no other game like it.  Happy adventuring!