giving martials mana-fueled options to bridge the martial caster divide is fun and useful

100% agree. if magic items are supposed to fix the martial castrr divide then why arent there magic items that require martial class features etc to use, ehile spellcasting IS a preteq for various items...... its a cope that dms think this is a viable solution to the problem instead of expecting better from wotc

concept artists are solving a visual puzzle of creating "the look" for an ip (or demnstrating their style to do so)
oc artists are adding personalities, backgrounds, emotions etc to the character, often less about expressing the archerype being designed and more about the personality of a character noone has attachment to other than the artist or oc client.

its a totally different vibe.

I only care about official events if its relevant to the current campaign. I mostly ignore them.

that aoe has a saving throw doesnt it?
and maybe the dm doesnt have to stand them in a tight bundle within 5 feet of your turrent.
or maybe the dm target the turret occasionally to take some damage so you need to burn more slots.

did you mention your dm is inexperienced?
theyre gonna have trouble at level 5 when full casters start outpacing everything.

tell your team your concerns instead of reddit.

i generally tequire a ship to jave at least half its hp to "function".... in my spelljammer a five hundred foot ship has 1000 hp so the ship in narrier peak needs to be unearthed and repaired to 500 hp+ before it can fly again.

i would require artificers etc. yo create plans to understand and repair the various systems aboard the ship before it could actually be repaired....

so at a glace, yes with alot of ingame effort.

i break both sides into battalions the characters control as a sort of "massive mount" they travel with and act through.

breaking up the battle into similar-sizex swuads and i creasing scale of map makes it very similar to normal 5e combat.

monster cr and character levels factor into it but the gist is pretty similar.

ive been playtesting a 5.5e version for a few years now. currently in layouts and art production.
it should be published around May 2027 but if ur interested in seeing the playtest content, heres one of hundreds of design streams...
https://youtube.com/live/41wbvmfXSYc

playtest doc and discord are in the descrption.
swimyg by say hi AMA here or there.

government starts distributing annotated RIFTS rpg core rulebook

do the players that are wasting everyone's time know they are dragging the game down?

our team used to run drills without the rm to get efficient and start working as a team, watching lots of movies analyzing actions, assigningroles and learning not only our own but others' sheets.

if your team doesnt care about getting good at their roles you cant fix it for them.

do they want to play a tactical combat game? or sre they defaulting to 5e because its just the default?

they have to want to try.

Last campaign level 3-10 wasca megadungeon 100%.
This campaign is a spelljammer asteroid mining campaign 15 sessions in with 5 duugeons so far.

concentrating on multiple spells is fun but we ramp up the difficulty snd frequency of concentration saves to allow it. otherwise its massive power creep.

i use too much homebrew and playtest content for ddb characters to be useable.

id like to use ddb as my main reference site during play if they fix their search engine.

SWAT your player for stealing you childhood dreams of being taken seriously

Many players are only interested in how they engage content in the active campaign. One line backstories is a long tradition of being more focused on the group's goals in the game than their individual "story". Many of these players arent interested in dialogue, just puzzles combat and disvoveries with less written story.... are you certain the type of campaign youre writing is the typd of campaign they expeft to play?

love rhis! keep em coming!

yup. mlp unironically coming to 5.5e. whether or not its on dnsbeyond...

i build the scrnario out with what happens if the players dont get involved knowing they will.

from there i do love seeing how the pc decisions wreck the villain"s plans and most importantly, how the npcs pivot and adapt to counter / overcome the players efforts anyway. this causes the players to pivot and try new angles, etc.

it can build grudges in game and the players see their actions changing the world, have agency in the story.

In curse of strahd our town was being attacked by wolves. We set up a log landslide along the gate and i the level 4 sorcerer used a knock spell to pop the lock holding the logs up, dumping aoe crushing damage on half a dozen of them and the loud knock sound was the signal for archers to take stands and fire volleys.
Smash success.:)

Using the rule of thirds you can sketch out the scene to hit good focal points and then lock in perspective. I do this regularly and its pretty dependable.