This Handbook from Wizards Community Forums was posted October 2014 has since been deleted. There were a lot of great optimization guides and handbooks that were also lost when all the information on the forums was deleted. Fortunately, I pulled ...

Prestige classes were introduced in third edition as a further means of individualizing a character. A recent Unearthered Arcana article introduced playtest material for us to create Prestige Classes for D&D 5th Edition. I’m working with one of my players who ...

I’m taking a week off from the history of the Ranger class to talk about encounter design, an under-appreciated art within the broader work of game-running. Tabletop games, like video games, have long had a concept of a “boss fight,” ...

I love the aboleth. As a villain for aquatic campaigns there are few better, but when building up to an epic invasion or major climax there are few creatures easily accessible to the DM. Below is the protoaboleth, a Challenge ...

Fantasy and Science Fiction will always be different sides of the same coin. They are like twin siblings, different yet the same. They often share similar morals, heroic characters, exotic locations, non-human races, terrifying monsters, and indulge in activities that ...

I have been reading Wizard of the Coast’s new D&D Book: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide (SCAG), and overall I really like it. It’s a nice addition to my growing collection of 5th edition books. To be honest, when I first ...

Last week on the Campaign Trail I looked at what support is available to run a Dragonlance campaign in fifth edition. Since launch, Wizards of the Coast has been very focused on supporting storylines set in the Forgotten Realms. For ...

This time in History of the Classes, we’re wandering some distance afield of Dungeons & Dragons itself. Dungeon World and 13th Age both look to the dungeon-crawling action of D&D as their spiritual ancestor, though, and they both have a ...

This article was referenced recently on the Talking TableTop podcast and originally appeared on www.gameschangelives.com. I’ve overhauled the original 4th ed version for 5th edition to showcase the many ways skills, tool kits, spells, and even backgrounds can be used ...

In almost any D&D or fantasy campaign, the roleplaying will eventually come around to the topic of food. Characters must eat and taverns and inns have to make a living. It’s also not surprising that players want to have conversations ...