Mystic Basilisk

A common element of Old School Role-Playing (OSR) is the hexcrawl, where characters explore a map split up into discrete six mile hexes, each with some number of features. The idea is that this format creates an easy way for a DM to run a "sandbox" where the characters travel from hex to hex, encountering whatever is there. But how do you determine whether the characters encounter anything? A six-mile-wide hex is quite large, encompassing around 31 square miles. As anyone who has been hiking even once can tell you, that's a lot of area. That encompasses entire national parks, entire towns or cities in some cases. The chance of your characters encountering a particular ancient temple somewhere in this area is likely quite minuscule. Many DMs simply ignore this problem. Much of the point of the hexcrawl is so that characters can explore and encounter things with regularity. As such, upon travelling through the new hex they have a 100% chance of encountering the hex'...

With the release of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, the game's ability scores have become almost entirely vestigial. That is, more and more they serve minimal function in meaningfully differentiating characters. A number of factors have contributed to this. Almost all of them stem from a shift in ability scores' purpose in the game, from descriptive to prescriptive. In the latest edition of the game, Fifth Edition, the shrinking of level-based bonuses (representing training and experience), to achieve the game's intended "bounded accuracy," made ability scores perhaps more important than ever before. In a game where a +1 bonus can be very important, where a fighter's attack bonus barely increases relative to previous editions (an average of +5 at level 1 to +11 to +14 at level 20, compared to D&D 3.5 where from levels 1 to 20 it often spanned between +4 and +35 or more). As a result, ability scores matter more than ever in 5e. Yet they also matter ...

Sword and shield? Two swords? One big sword? A spear? A bow? Sword and dagger? It's often a topic of contentious debate which fighting style is best. In Dungeons and Dragons it's possible to offer a bit more objective analysis. In the real world, spears often reigned supreme, for their simplicity, leverage, and reach. But D&D does not do a particularly good job representing those things. Certainly there are rules for reach, for simple weapons versus martial weapons. But most fighting classes can use all of the martial weapons, and reach simply allows one to attack opponents further than 5 feet away, rather than giving the wielder the valuable first strike such a weapon would really afford. Let's say you're making a fighter in D&D 5th Edition. Which fighting style should you choose? Unlike previous editions of the game, where two-weapon fighting was rather weak (unless you were a rogue) and two-handed weapons reigned supreme, the different fighting styles are...