The blog has been quiet for a few weeks, but not because there’s been no activity here at Oak of Honor. I have acquired a new game, Chivalry & Sorcery, and have been working through the rulebook. It’s right up my street, in that it drinks deep from the well of medieval history to nourish… Continue reading Oak of Honor – Updates
Author: Ian
Armor rarity in D&D 5e
While writing an earlier post I noticed some oddities in the distribution of magic armor types in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) magic item tables. To summarise, the cheapest armor types in each weight category (padded, hide and ring mail armor) are never enchanted. The next cheapest types (leather, chain shirt, scale, chainmail) appear at… Continue reading Armor rarity in D&D 5e
Weapons in D&D 5e
I have seen a few discussion threads about homebrew weapons, often with a homebrewer asking whether their new weapon is balanced or appropriate. I also saw yesterday a thread where a GM was asking for inspiration to make a wider selection of weapons than a narrow range that their group seemed to have settled into.… Continue reading Weapons in D&D 5e
Magic items by character level in D&D 5e
Last month I posted one piece about magic item distribution and another about level advancement. Here, I’m going to bring them together and see what they mean for magic items by level. I confess that this feels a bit redundant because since the earlier posts I’ve acquired the official 5e book Xanathar’s Guide to Everything,… Continue reading Magic items by character level in D&D 5e
Medieval London street names
I’ve recently been in an online discussion about street names in medieval England. I decided to look at my map of medieval London and contribute some notes, but it’s going to take a little work and I might want to refer back to it in future. If I just leave it in the comments of… Continue reading Medieval London street names
Experience and character advancement in D&D 5e
If you look at the table for level advancement by experience points, in the DnD 5e Player’s Handbook (PHB) p15, you can see that not only do you need more experience points for each level, but that the additional number needed to progress from one level to the next increases as your level gets higher.… Continue reading Experience and character advancement in D&D 5e
Magic items in the D&D 5e DMG
I’ve seen some people in my various DnD Facebook groups confused about magic item distribution in 5e. And I realized that, although there is information in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) such as item rarity and function, and tables for randomly generating items found in loot hoards, the thinking behind item design and distribution isn’t… Continue reading Magic items in the D&D 5e DMG
School of Adventure – Year Five prologue
Following on from the mayhem of the Year Four adventure, I narrated a ticking-off that our Lunar house team got back at school for attacking the team from the Farseer house. To be fair, the Farseer team also got a ticking off for starting the dirty tricks. Anyway, I didn’t make a big deal of… Continue reading School of Adventure – Year Five prologue
School of Adventure—School Rivalry (Year Four part 2)
I did a brief outline of the first leg of the Year 4 adventure in my last post, along with the outbreak of Player vs Player hostility that featured then. The PvP has stopped once dealt with, so I will let that episode recede into the past. The mission is to escort a wagonload of… Continue reading School of Adventure—School Rivalry (Year Four part 2)
The estates of Galthamar: Gobelins
This estate description is part of a short series of posts on the people and society of my homebrew setting, Galthamar. Edit note: I’ve tweaked my Galthamar race posts, especially this and the Elther one, to reduce the amount of appearance prejudice. I once included this theme because it felt true to Galthamar’s inspirations in… Continue reading The estates of Galthamar: Gobelins