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Tag Archives: D&D

D&D – How many editions are there? (2021)

11 Comments Posted by Ronny on June 26, 2021

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a game where players sit around a table and roll dice. They create characters and go on adventures led by a dungeon master (DM), who controls non-player characters (NPCs), monsters and events in the world.

DnD Editions

How many D&D editions are there?

I have listed here the major editions. For any edition there may be multiple printings and different covers. There are also many variations and supplements. For most editions there were three core books; a Player’s Handbook, a Dungeon Master’s Guide and a Monster Manuel.

D&D 0.0

0.0 – Original Dungeons and Dragons (OD&D) 1974
A small box set of three booklets. The original game had only three classes (Cleric, Fighter, Magic User). Cleric spells up to 5th level, Magic user spells up to 6th level. Every attack except for certain monster abilities did 1d6 damage if it hit.

D&D 0.5

0.5 – Basic Dungeons & Dragons (BD&D) 1977
Playing a Race meant playing a class. For example a Dwarf used only the Dwarf Class. The first Basic Set was available as a 48-page stand-alone rulebook, or as part of a boxed set, which was packaged in a larger box that included a set of polyhedral dice and supplemental materials.

D&D 1.0

1.0 – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) 1978
The most popular version of older edition D&D. Bonuses for characteristics roughly go up to +4 and are capped at 18 except for exceptional strength. Characters select a race and a class. Non-human race can multi class which involves splitting experience between multiple classes. Non-humans were generally limited to a max level (often low).

D&D 2.0

2.0 – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (AD&D 2 or 2nd Ed) 1989
Still basically AD&D 1st Edition but the rules have been reorganized and rewritten for clarity. Introduced THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0). Some content like half-orc, demons, and assassins were removed or changed due to media pressure. Character customization was expanded by using non-weapon proficiencies as a skill system and by allowing characters to take kits that confer various benefits. Combat has been redesigned.

D&D 3.0

3.0 – Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition (D&D 3 or 3E) 2000
The first edition created by Wizards of the Coast, 3rd Edition took the idea of Skill and Powers and developed a cleaner system for customizing characters by designing the classes so a level of one class can stack on top of another class. A single level chart was introduced and at each level a character could take a new class or add another level of a class they already had.
In addition feats were added to allow characters to further customize their abilities. A true skill system was introduced and integrated into the game. The underlying d20 system worked by rolling equal to or higher than a target number and adding various bonus.

D&D 3.5

3.5 – Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 (Revised 3rd Edition or D&D 3.5) 2003
This edition featured only small changes to the core game (and was mostly-but-not-entirely compatible with books written for 3rd Edition), but had its own extensive line of supplements which magnified the role of feats, prestige classes, and multiclassing in character customization.

D&D 4.0

4.0 – Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (D&D 4E) 2008
This edition is a completely new game with only a few game mechanics carried over from the 3rd Edition. It has a simple set of core rules and defines all character and monster abilities as exceptions which are described in standard terms. Higher level combat has been simplified, and class has been designed to have specific roles in combat. Every classes has a diverse set of combat options to use.

D&D 5.0

5.0 – Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5E) 2014 The current edition of D&D.
Skills, weapons, items, saving throws, and other things that characters are trained in now all use a single proficiency bonus that increases as character level increases. Multiple defense values have been removed, returning to a single defense value of armor class and using more traditional saving throws. Saving throws are reworked to be situational checks based on the six core abilities instead of generic d20 rolls. Feats are now optional features that can be taken instead of ability score increases
The “advantage/disadvantage” mechanic was introduced, streamlining conditional and situational modifiers to a simpler mechanic: rolling two d20s for a situation and taking the higher of the two for “advantage” and the lower of the two for “disadvantage” and canceling each other out when more than one apply.

Reference Material D&D, dungeons and Dragons

D&D 5E – My House Rules

8 Comments Posted by Ronny on June 23, 2021

House Rules

Below are the house rules I use when I run a 5th Edition D&D game.

1) Inspiration
You can wait until the d20 is cast to decide if you’re going to use your inspiration to roll the second die to get advantage.

2) Initiative Order
On the first round only – On your turn you can change your initiative to one less than another character which has a lower initiative.
Clarification: This will change your initiative to that lower number for the rest of the encounter.

3) Passive Perception
I very seldom use it.
Clarification: If it is something you would probably notice, you notice it. If it is something you might not notice, I have you make a Perception check.

4) Changing weapons
Attacking with a weapon includes drawing the weapon.
Clarification: If you have a weapon in your hand and want to change to a different weapon you can use “interact with one object” to sheath the weapon you are holding and then draw and attack with a different weapon.

5) Secret Doors
If you are searching for a secret door and there is one, you will automatically find it.
Clarification: This also means that if there is some kind of trap there, you will activate it. You have to say where and how you are searching. Saying “I am always searching for secret doors” is not allowed. Sometimes I may require you to make an investigation check to determine how to open it.

6) Invisible Creatures
If a creature can’t be detected by using any of your senses then you can only guess at its location.
Clarification: If you can notice some clue as to its location you must succeed in a Perception check to locate it. You can make this check with advantage if you use the Search action. If it has taken the Hide action your Perception check will be against its Stealth check.

7) Attacking unseen creature
You only get advantage on attack against a creature that can’t see you if you can see the creature.

8) Magic Spells – Components
V – Verbal: It must be spoken in a clear voice that could normally be heard 20 feet away. It cannot be whispered.
S – Somatic: You cannot cast a spell that requires a somatic component if your hands are bound or tied together.
M – Material: 1) A spellcasting focus must be presented boldly. 2) It is assumed that you stocked up on material components with no listed value during your downtime. 3) For a material component with a listed value under 100gp you can assume that your character acquired it during your down time and you can simply deduct its value from your character sheet at the time you cast the spell. 4) For more valuable components you must have procured the item and have it listed on your character sheet.

9) Magic Spells – Area of Effect
A creature is considered to be in the area of effect if the center of the square it occupies is wholly inside the defined area.
Clarification: You can aim your AoE any way you want, but if it just touches the center the creature’s square it is unaffected. So if a 5 ft. wide “line” AoE runs horizontally or vertically between two 5 ft. squares, it won’t effect creatures on either side.

—LINKS TO MY OTHER HOUSE RULES—
1) Falling
2) Falling Times & Distance
3) Falling Objects
4) Detecting & Identifying Magic
5) Underwater
6) Playing on a 1″=10′ Grid
7) Learning New Languages

House Rules D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, House Rules

D&D 5E – Learning New Languages (House Rule)

2 Comments Posted by Ronny on June 17, 2021

Thr One Ring

For learning new languages without having to spend down time.

1) You can become proficient in a new language by having another character spend a few hours per day training you in a language that they are proficient in.
2) You can only learn one new language at a time.
3) The teacher can only teach one student each day.
4) It will take 125 days of in-game play minus your intelligence score to learn the language.
5) You must pay the teacher a minimum of 2 gp per day of training.
6) If you have had one or more days of training but are not yet proficient in the new language, the DM may allow you to attempt to read, write, speak or understand a short phrase or sentence of ten words or less in the new language. This will require an intelligence check. The DC of the check is the number of your training days remaining divided by 4. A natural 1 on the check will be an automatic fail.
7) The maximum number of new languages you can learn this way is equal to your Intelligence modifier.
8) If your intelligence score is 11 or lower, you can learn one new language this way, but you will only become proficient in speaking the language, you will not be able to read or write it.

House Rules D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, House Rules

D&D 5E – Character Wealth per Level

5 Comments Posted by Ronny on March 2, 2021

If a character doesn’t start at level 1, what should they start with in terms of gold and magic items?

Whenever a PC dies and the player rolls up a new character, I always have the new character start at the same level as the rest of the party. The same goes whenever a new player joins an existing game. So when they roll up their new higher level character I have them start with their first level inventory and any appropriate equipment based on their class and level. I also give them magic items similar in power to the items the other PCs have.

However, sometimes it is not that easy. That is when I use the following.

Starting Gold:

I give them gold based on their level. They start with their level 1 gold based on their class, and then add the following gold based on their starting level.

Level	Gold
1	0
2	376
3	751
4	1,504
5	2,632
6	16,267
7	29,902
8	43,537
9	57,172
10	70,807
11	84,442
12	156,842
13	229,242
14	301,642
15	374,042
16	446,442
17	518,842
18	1,190,892
19	1,862,942
20	2,534,992

They spend from this to equip their character. They can spend as much of their gold on magic items as they choose up to the limit shown below.

Magic Items:

I use this for Magic Item Prices:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XAiXpOfz9cMWt1RTBicmpmUDg/view

Note that this is for newly created characters only.
Your character gets 2 points for each character level. You can buy magic items from the provided list (I often modify the list based on the campaign) based on the chart below.

Rarity	Cost
Common	2 points
Uncommon	4 points
Rare	8 points
Very Rare	16 points
Legendary	36 points

You can’t have more than one of any non-consumable magic item. For every combat item you get, you must get at least one noncombat item before selecting another combat item.

Example: If you are 8th level you will have 16 points to spend. You can get 1 very rare, or 2 rare, or 8 common, or 1 rare and 1 uncommon and 2 common magic items, or any other combination that adds up to 16. Half or more must be noncombat items.

House Rules D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, House Rules, Magic, Magic Items, player character

D&D 5E – Printer’s Key

4 Comments Posted by Ronny on December 17, 2020

How do I know if I have the first printing on the Monster Manual or a later printing?

If I go to my local game store to buy a new copy of the Monster Manual (or the Player’s Hand book or …) because my copy is worn out, I want to make sure that I get the latest printing so it will contain all of the latest updates and reversions. But when I get there how do I know which printing of the book is on the shelf?

One way that usually works on D&D books, and most others, is to look for the printer’s key, also known as the number line. You can typically find it on the second or third page just under the ISBN number.

The example shown above on the left is a first edition. The printer’s key is:
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Numbers are removed with subsequent printings, so if “1” is seen then the book is the first printing of that edition. If it is the second printing then the “1” is removed, meaning that the lowest number seen will be “2”.

In the example images above the one on the right is the 11th printing.

Reference Material Books, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Reference

D&D 5E – Playing on a 1 Square=10′ Grid

8 Comments Posted by Ronny on March 19, 2020

How to Play on a 1 inch = 10 feet square grid.

I am the DM for a table top “Storm King’s Thunder” campaign. The final battle map is drawn in the book with one square = 10 feet. I usually draw the map on my battlemat with each 1 inch square = 5 feet. But this is such a large playing field that it won’t fit on my table at that scale so I am drawing it with 1 inch = 10 feet. I have occasionally done this before, but adjusting movements and attacks have always been a hassle. In anticipation of a large complicated battle I came up with this set of house rules.

To play with miniatures on a square grid where each square on the grid represents 10 feet:

Scale
Start with the rules in Variant: Playing on a Grid (PHB, page 192). Change “Each square on the grid represents 5 feet” to “Each (one inch) square on the grid represents 10 feet.”

Creature Size
For game purposes, creature sizes and speeds don’t change and if they have a 5 ft. reach they can attack creatures in adjacent squares even though creatures in adjacent squares are considered to be 10 ft. apart for all other purposes.
– Gargantuan Creatures
These each occupy a 2 inch square (four 1 inch squares).
– Large or Huge Creatures
These each occupy a single 1 inch square.
– Medium and Small Creatures
You can have more than one medium or small creature in one square. (I recommend flat, one inch diameter, tokens rather than minis. If there is more than one creature in a square you can stack them.)
A medium or small creature occupies one 1 inch square. Up to 4 creatures of this size can occupy a single square, but they are each considered occupying the entire square. If there is more than one such creature in a square they are considered to be 5 feet apart from each other.
A single medium or small creature can not be attacked by more than 8 medium or small creatures (or 4 large or larger creatures) with 5 ft. melee attacks.
– Tiny Creatures
You can stack 16 tiny creatures in one square. They are considered to be 2 1/2 ft. apart. You can have a combination of tiny and medium or small creatures. There can be a maximum of: 1 medium or small and 12 tiny, 2 medium or small and 8 tiny, or 3 medium or small and 4 tiny.

Movement
Speed and movement doesn’t change, but you can’t move into a square if you don’t have enough movement left (10 feet).
Example: If your move rate is 25 feet, you can only move 2 squares (25 ft. rounded down = 20 ft.), but if you dash you can move 5 squares (25 ft. x 2 = 50 ft.).
Medium or small creatures can move through, but not stop in, a square occupied by a Gargantuan or Huge creature but it can’t move through a square occupied by a Large creature.
Medium or small creatures can move through, or stop in if they choose to, a square occupied by fewer than 4 medium or small creatures, regardless if the occupying creatures are hostile or not. If it is occupied by 4 non-hostile creatures you can move through it but you can not stop in it.

Ranges and areas of effect:
All ranges and areas of effect are rounded down to a multiple of 10 feet (minimum of 10 feet).
Some examples: All melee attacks with a range of 5 feet will have a range of 10 ft. (or, rather, they are treated as if they were actually only 5 ft. away.) So you can attack a creature in an adjacent square with your short sword, or you could attack it with your long bow without disadvantage because, for everything other than 5 ft. melee attacks, it is 10 ft. away. For the same reason an attack on a prone creature in an adjacent square is with advantage if you make a 5 ft. melee attack (it’s 5 ft. away), but it is with a disadvantage if it is made with range weapon (it’s 10 ft. away). A blowgun’s range changes from (25/100) to (20/100). The spell Word of Recall‘s range changes from 5 ft. to 10 ft. The spell Lightning Bolt will form a line 10 ft. wide instead of 5 ft. The Gust of Wind spell will push a creature 10 ft. instead of 15 ft.

Opportunity Attacks
Your 5 ft. reach becomes 10 ft. in regard to creatures in adjacent squares. So if a hostile creature moves out of an adjacent 10 ft. square you can make an opportunity attack against it. But if it moves from within the same square you are in to an adjacent square you can not (because it will still be within range).

House Rules, Optional rules combat rules, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, House Rules

D&D 5E – Fillable Monster Cards

9 Comments Posted by Ronny on February 21, 2020

Download your free fillable cards HERE.

Top Dog Games makes an excellent set of monster cards that they call “Stat Trackers”. I bought a set and I love them. They come with several blank cards that you can fill in by hand and you can buy more. You can find their site HERE.

And you can find then on Amazon HERE.

I made a PDF form-fillable version and I thought I would share. There are three cards on one 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet.

I filled in One card as an example (a Guardian Naga doesn’t really have a swim and fly speed). On the original cards the Monster name is repeated at the top and turned upside down so it can be seen by the players when you fold the card and hang it on your DM screen. I’m not doing that so I made it a blank area where I can draw or insert an image of the monster. Even if I was using it as intended, I don’t always want the players to know the name of the monster, so I could put the image upside down if I wanted to do that.
I made the bottom two large text areas as editable text areas so you can change all, or any part of the text to bold, italic, underline, or a different color, or change its size. Also, the ability modifier is calculated for you when you fill in the ability score.

Enjoy.

Playing Aids D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Monster Card, Monsters

D&D 5E – Revised Character Sheets are Coming

2 Comments Posted by Ronny on October 23, 2019

This is the first of my newly revised Character Sheets. This one 4 pages and is for Clerics only. You can download it HERE.

UPDATE: The new character sheets are available now. For the most recent auto-calculate Character Sheets click HERE.

I will be posting all of the new character sheets in another post as soon as I have them ready.

It is well past time for an update to my form fillable character sheets. (You can find that version HERE.) They are in need of several minor changes and fixes but they have always had a couple of major flaws that the new ones are addressing. The biggest problem is that they have a single sheet for all spellcasters to use for tracking their spells. In trying to handle all classes it doesn’t do a very good job for any specific class. Also, each different class has different things that need to be tracked (such as KI points for Monks or Rages for Barbarians). The other problem is that it doesn’t handle multiclass characters well.
To fix those problems and others I am in the process of creating a separate character sheet for each character class and another one for multiclass characters.

I will be creating a new “Filling in the 5E Character Sheet Box by Box” post for the new character sheets (you can find the existing one HERE.) In the mean time, if you are going to be trying out the Cleric sheet, here are a few changes you need to know about:

You can’t enter your characters speed directly on page 1. You must go to page 2 and enter the base speed under “Race”. This speed will be displayed in the box labelled “speed” on page 1. Under that box is a grey rectangle where you can enter any adjustments to the base speed.
Also page 2 is where you do your armor class calculations. Put a check by No Armor, Light Armor, Medium Armor or Heavy Armor and enter the armor class adjustment that your specific armor provides. Your base Armor Class will be calculated. If you are using a shield, put a check there and your shield will be added to the total armor class. That will be shown on page 1. Under the shield you can list a couple of protective items and their boost to your armor class. These will also be added to the AC that shows on page 1. On each type of armor (or no armor) you can add any magical or miscellaneous adjustments.
I have added a grey rectangle beside each ability’s saving throw where you can enter modifiers that will be applied to those.
I darkened the grey ability names (STR, Dex, etc.) so they could be more easily read and added a grey rectangle next to them where modifiers could be added at Proficiencies, Passive Perception and Initiative modifier.
I added a place to enter your current Initiative next to Inspiration. Don’t confuse this with the box labelled Initiative that is next to the box for speed. That box is for your Initiative modifier.
I added a permanent “coin purse” to the “Other Equipment” list. This will calculate the weight of all of the coins you enter in the “Treasure” box. 50 coins = 1 pound.
I added a check box (actually a circle) for each line of equipment. Only items that are checked will be used to calculate the “Total Weight Carried”. That should make it easier to track items you have but are not carrying, or perhaps they are inside a bag of holding.
The biggest change is on Page 4. This page will be different for each Class. It will calculate Spell Slots, Cantrips Known, Spells Prepared, Spell Save DC, Spell Attack Modifier and other things for other classes. I am no longer trying to provide room for spell descriptions. These are best handled with spell cards, or in some cases a printed spell book (refer to my posts HERE and HERE.) I have tried to leave enough room for more than just the spell name. What I would do is enter a symbol to indicate if the spell is (C) concentration, (R) ritual, or sometimes (T) casting time. There is also room to indicate which book the spell is found in if it isn’t from the PHB. For the Cleric and some others, when you get to higher levels there may not be enough room to list all available spells, but there should be enough room to list all of the spells you might want to use. Please let me know if this becomes a problem.

For those of you who are interested, please give this a hard palytest. Try to break it. Let me know if something doesn’t work, needs improvement or if you just have a question. Thank you.

I will try to get the rest of these finished and posted as quickly as I can.

Playing Aids character sheet, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, player character

D&D 5E – DM Screen – French Version

2 Comments Posted by Ronny on October 20, 2019

Download your free copy here.

Many thanks to Charles Ballerait for providing us with this beautiful French language version of my DM screen. He did mine one better by adding a 4th page with rules for Madness.

Playing Aids, Reference Material D&D, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Reference