I’ve seen some crazy takes on Sneak Attack, it wouldn’t surprise me if this happened at least once in the entirety of our existence.

Something about rolling a bunch of damage dice without expending resources really makes some people uncomfortable. They see the Paladin and the Sorcerer expending spell slots, the Fighter only having one Action Surge, etc… and come to the conclusion that the Rogue is inherently broken.

How rich are they expected to be? I’ve noticed that wages seem to have gone up from 3.5, with unskilled labor going from 1sp/day to 2sp/day, and skilled labor going from 3sp/day to 1gp/day. If you wanted to retire (for 50 years) comfortably (2gp/day), you’d need 36,535 gp, which I think is a lot more than a low level adventurer would have.

A lv1 character starts with 100/150 GP (IIRC, depending on which class you choose), which is enough to sustain the character for 3+ months with average expenses. That being said, most expenses can be bypassed with magic (Goodberry, Tiny Hut, Create Food and Water), which means that the money can actually sustain the party a lot longer than that, and that’s on top of survival rules (tracking rations, travel hours, etc…) being almost completely nonexistent in 5e. As soon as the character hits lv3-5, they will probably have no compelling reason to go on an adventure anymore, except for the one made up by the player when writing their backstory.

I’ve heard that so long as the small army has a way to deal damage at all, they’ll dominate even high level enemies. Did they change that? I think the whole idea of adventurers makes a lot more sense if they can’t just send a small army to easily deal with a dragon or whatever else they’re worried about.

This was a bit exaggerated on my end: yes, action economy is king in 5e, and still is in 2024. What I meant is: a 2024 Barb can have up to 17 HP at 1st level (12 baseline + 3 from CON modifier + 2 from Tough), which are worth twice as much thanks to Rage granting them resistance to all damage. Wizards will take Spell Initiate and gain a free cast of Shield. Generally speaking, characters have a higher damage output and more resources compared to their 2014 counterpart, which was already high compared to previous editions of DnD. And that’s not taking into account how difficult it is to die in 5e because of the death saving throws rule.

These are not necessarily bad things: people will probably enjoy the higher floor for baseline power, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with forgoing the dungeon crawling origins of DnD in favour of more of a more theatrical/role-playing experience, which has already been pretty much the only way people has played the game for the past few years.
It’s just not something I particularly enjoy or crave for. After a while, playing an overpowered character with near-endless resources in a game that seems designed around the idea of you doing cool shit all the time, it gets old. I prefer grittier experiences, which 5e and especially 2024 are unable to provide.

There’s not enough change to prefer one over the other, IMO. It’s the same game with a few patch notes and some fanmade mods built into the default experience. Some things were streamlined (potions as bonus action and grapples requiring a saving throw, for example), some things were improved (all classes and subclasses being playable right off the bat without the need of extensive homemade reworks), and most of the game was left as is, for better or for worse.

Some changes are nice, some are arguably worse, balance is still wack, and they did nothing to really tackle any of the problems that afflicted the base game ten years ago - martial/caster disparity, mounted combat being completely broken, no clear indication on the power level or recommended price for magic items, etc…

I disliked 2024 because it tipped the scale even more towards “heroic fantasy”, with players being unfathomably rich and strong enough to fight a small army at lv2 already, but it’s not a problem new to 2024: it was already there in 5e, it was just exacerbated in the new edition.

Last night, I killed a city guard, raised it as a zombie, ordered it to cause a fire to the elven city’s great holy tree and then bite a few peasants. In the meantime, I cast Hunger of Hadar over a few dozen civilians.

I was bored.

“I have been accused of being a nasty old sexist-male-Chauvinist-pig, for the wording in D&D isn’t what it should be. There should be more emphasis on the female role, more non-gendered names, and so forth. I thought perhaps these folks were right and considered adding women in the ‘Raping and Pillaging[’] section, in the ‘Whores and Tavern Wenches’ chapter, the special magical part dealing with ‘Hags and Crones’, and thought perhaps of adding an appendix on ‘Medieval Harems, Slave Girls, and Going Viking’. Damn right I am sexist. It doesn’t matter to me if women get paid as much as men, get jobs traditionally male, and shower in the men’s locker room. They can jolly well stay away from wargaming in droves for all I care. I’ve seen many a good wargame and wargamer spoiled thanks to the fair sex. I’ll detail that if anyone wishes.”

From D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to Preserving his Legacy.

If it helps, most people in a game store, and most dnd players, are socially awkward as well.

I used to be very socially awkward as a kid until I went to my local game store to play yugioh. I haven’t played in ages but I’m still happy i did! I’m still socially awkward, but a lot less than before, and I met some people I’m still friends with years later.

IIRC this dungeon was created specifically for dungeon delving, and the mad mage who created it is, as the name implies, batshit crazy, so this one makes sense.

I watched a lot of the “-movie” titles, and this is the only one that made me laugh. The others are an awful mix of crass humour and pop culture references that aged like milk, but Scary Movie 3 is fun today as it was twenty years ago.

We prefer the term “species” nowadays.

Without going into homebrew or Wish territory (as the former is table-dependent and the latter is DM-dependent), Finger of Death creates an undead that is permanently under your command.

Being a 6th level spell, a 20th level caster can cast it six times per day (by spending all their higher level slots casting that spell exclusively), which means that, provided you have a steady supply of humanoids to cast the spell on, you could have six undeads per day, or 180 per month. In a year, that’s 2190 undeads, which is itself a small army. Give it some time, and you’d have a small country following your commands.

At that point there are only two problems: time itself (which can be solved with features that increase your lifespan, such as Boon of Immortality), and other people trying to stop you (which can be solved by using your spell slots to make them regret their decision).

Over the years, nobody has ever guessed my passwords, but four sites I was subscribed to were compromised and my email+password got leaked anyway.

The strongest chain and the weakest link…

I think the modern day approach is to take an incredibly hot person, and give them whatever demon-y fetish (red/blue skin, tail, horns, etc) you’re into.

Have you tried commissioning a fursuit? (A feathersuit?)

Dreamworks just produces mediocre slop with the occasional banger, the Shrek effect got nothing to do with it. They also gave us Kung Fu Panda, How to Train your Dragon, and The Last Wish over the years, which are all great. I’m also a fan of Wild Robot, although I think the third act doesn’t really flow as nicely as the previous ones.

I’ve seen it said that Japanese Animation is so popular because they treated it as an art form and took it seriously for both children’s and adult media, and it’s definitely another window into what the world would be like if the industry in the US stayed on that course from the early 00s

Most of the anime production of the last two decades is generic shonen slop, the fact that it became popular has nothing to do with taking it seriously and it’s not a metric of quality. There’s some good stuff in there amid the bad, but that’s the same for western animation.

Funnily enough, I don’t think even True Resurrection would save you in that case.

The spell resurrects anyone except people who have died of old age, and dying by negative hit points would count as old age IMO. Even if you go ahead and cast it, the spell doesn’t alter your HP in any way, so you’d be resurrected with negative HP and die anyway.

To be fair, I’m not american, and the first thing I thought was “has there been another attempt at Trump’s life?” lol

I think they are referring to the No Kings protest going on in the US right now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/us/politics/no-kings-protests-trump.html

I tried that. The paladin Divine Smite’d me :(

Those are not dragons, those are kobo-

Oh, username checks out.

Haha yeah, that’s definitely the right way to go, but the problem is not wrong expectations. He already DM’d a campaign for me a few years back and I knew what I was getting into. It’s just not his style. I crave for gritty old-school dungeon crawling, while he loves narrative-heavy games where dialogue takes priority and backstories tie heavily with in-game events.

It’s not all bad though, we still have fun, and my group takes turns at DMing - we all get to play what we like eventually, and offers variety in the long run. I would not play tabletop with any other group.