5e Grognard

Working for UPS, I fully expected for the blog to "shut down" for the month, like it often does this time of year. With the overtime that I accumulate this month usually involves me going to work, coming home, and going to bed. Life has a way of throwing unexpected twists your way. One week ago, shortly after punching in to work, I got dizzy and my heart was racing. I had trouble catching my breath. This resulted in an ambulance ride and a couple days in the hospital. The official verdict was a pulmonary embolism with deep vein thrombosis. For those of you that don't speak doctor, a blood clot had developed in my leg. Part had broken off and moved, blocking the artery to my lungs. Being generally young and in overall good health, I showed none of the warning signs, and overall the cause has my doctors stumped. Now that I'm on blood thinners, they can't run the tests that would determine if this is the result of something genetic. At least until they determine th...

Moved to my new blog here .

So work is getting into a somewhat manageable level, for now. With Christmas around the corner, things at UPS tend to get a bit hectic, so I'll try to get some updates in while I can. I'm still behind in posting some play reports. We had a flurry of playing going on a few months ago. Game prep took some time away from the blog as well, as it should be! This blog pretty much is a Downtime Activity for me as a DM. This session we return to using Basic Fantasy Role Playing's Adventure Anthology One. You can download AAO and a bunch of other free adventures on Basic Fantasy's  download page . While they use BFRP rules, they are very easily converted to 5e, and have a nice old-school feel that I like. This time I used the Deathcrypt of Khaldun, by Scott A. Murray. Again we played this awhile ago, so many of the details are fuzzy, but I do remember this as a great session and a nice little adventure. After the near-TPK of our group during the capture of Iong, they decide...

Reviews are something new to me here at the blog. Those that follow me on Google+  know that I often share posts from other blogs that I read. I try to help turn up the volume, so to speak, on things that I find useful. Not that this item needs much help, as a Platinum Best Seller on the DM's Guild, many of you are already aware of it. I haven't had the chance to use  Nerzugal's Dungeon Master Toolkit yet, but I have a feeling that it is something that will see a lot of use at my table, though some parts more than others. The first section, of random tables, I will probably use the most. The random encounter table is brilliant. A d100 table with some evocative results, like "Find the lost crown of a local bullywug king. Made from a large seashell". Mixed in with several customizable results such as "Medium Difficulty Monster Encounter". I'm also a big fan of the Random Item Enchantments tables. Eight d100 tables of magical effects for magi...

I am quite pleased to share with you En5ider Monstrous Managerie: Fearsome Critters . This is my first freelance gaming credit and I'm very excited about it! For those of you that don't support En5ider, I highly recommend it. Great gaming content every month for only a few dollars.

Wow, over two months since my last blog post. Work has seriously taken a turn for the worse, with overtime taking over my free time. I'll pick back up with another play report. I've gone through some Dragon Magazines recently, but there has been few things to convert for several issues. This is from an older session, so I'll be lacking on some of the details. In our previous game, the party had tracked down the goblin Iong to Cahill Abbey . Iong had incurred some hefty gambling debts and the group was there to collect the bounty. Speaking of our group, they are all 5th level and consist of: Ash.  She's a fire genasi valor bard with the entertainer background. Tulgasora.  Originally a half orc  bull totem  barbarian with the  bounty hunter  background. Since there are no orcs on Eska, but my son liked the half orc mechanics, we reskinned him as a "savage hobgoblin", and not from one of the organized troops. Pyric.   Aasimar   celestial ...

For a variety of reasons, we haven't had a chance to sit down and play D&D at all until recently. Looking back, I see my last play report was in February. I'm sure we played once or twice shortly after that, but I didn't get a report posted. Scheduling provided the biggest setback. Our weekends have been busy. The next biggest competitor for our time has been Magic: The Gathering. My one son was looking around online and "discovered" Magic. Wanted to spend some of his allowance on getting some cards. His brother and sister had been into Pokemon, but it never really interested him. Much to his surprise, I pulled a box of Magic cards out of the closet that I had nearly forgotten about. It has been over 12 years since I last played. I have over 20 decks built and ready to go, as well as a bunch of extra cards and several "idea" decks that are nothing more than a general theme put into a pile. Magic swept through our household, with 1 on 1, 3 player an...

Reviews is something I haven't done at all that much here at 5eGrognard. Today I decided to change that. Part of the reason is because of the success I've had with the DM's Guild products I've released. Considering it's stuff that I would've put out for free here on the blog anyway, I'm so thankful for all of you that have decided to actually pay on these Pay What You Want products. From the beginning I've said I would never cash out this money. I will use it all as store credit over at the DM's Guild and at DriveThruRPG and support others doing the same as myself. Unfortunately I have a bad habit of downloading more stuff than I will ever read or use. I've been trying to stem the tide a bit and focus a bit more. Also, a recent slump in actual gaming has cooled any actual use of products. All of this has changed recently with the start of a new campaign, this time set in my world of Eska . Since taking such a long break in gaming that I did...

I'm excited to announce a major update to  Bazaar of the Bizarre: Archer's Best Friend ! Expanded from 8 to 23 pages with over 20 new items and lots of new artwork. I scoured Deviant Art  and found some great artists that I was able to work with that I feel really helps bring this to life. If you've already downloaded this, go back and get the update! Please check out my DMs Guild titles! Airs of Ages Past , Nine magical harps from the Forgotten Realms By Magic Masked , Nine magical masks from the Forgotten Realms Bazaar of the Bizarre: Rings that Do Weird Things , Twenty-one magical rings Grognard’s Grimoire: Sorcerers , Player’s options for the sorcerer class.

In a new party that we started playing my one son is playing an aasimar sorcerer. The version of the aasimar that we are using is a mixture of write ups from two sources, which I took bits and pieces of each and put them together in a way I liked. None of the content below is my original work, but taken from http://that70sgame.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/aasimars-and-sub-races/ http://daedaluswing.wikidot.com/planetouched and used by me in my game. I'm just posting this version since I will be referencing it in future play reports. Aasimar Aasimars are humans with a significant amount of celestial or other good outsider blood in their ancestry. While not always benevolent, aasimars are more inclined toward acts of kindness rather than evil, and they gravitate toward faiths or organizations associated with celestials. Aasimar heritage can lie dormant for generations, only to appear suddenly in the child of two apparently human parents. Most societies interpret aasimar bir...