Mike Mearls Games

Boss Monsters and Control Spells

Legendary resistance is a cheap hack, jammed into 5e because we didn't have a better solution to the broken control spells that we had to include in the game for tradition's sake.

How's that ...

Making 5e Deadlier

There are many complaints that it’s too hard to die in 5e. I think part of that comes from the weird safety zone that exists at 0 hit points. It takes a while to die. When you're rolling death sa...

OD&D Meets 5e: Dungeon Exploration

Many years ago when I first launched the D&D 5e project, the design team took the time to play every edition of D&D. Our big takeaway from the process was that the core game play of D&D...

Diseases in 5e

The perils of having an above-average Constitution - everyone in my household except me is sick! Even my doughty Shetland Sheepdog is out of sorts. So today, I'm exposing you to my stray thoughts o...

Improved 5e: Monsters with Levels

Hey everyone!

For the past couple of weeks I've been working on a system for 5e monsters that uses level rather than CR. Each creature also has an XP value, so you can build encounters with t...

Some Real Fun Guys

The system reference document for D&D 5e lacks any background or flavor text for monsters. Personally, I love this. It forces me to look at a creature and build a story in my head to explain i...

Improved 5e: Monster Levels

I literally can't think of anything that challenge rating does well.

Let's back things up and think of how a good system for rating monster strength would work. I think it should do the follo...

5e Control Spells are Broken

Last week I wrote about blast spells and how they don't do enough damage. Even worse, they don't scale well. This week, let's take a look at control spells.

Imagine we are playing a game. In ...

Priest Class

Hey all! Here's a PDF for the priest class for my streamlined revision of 5e. A few notes:

• Subclass is replaced with a set of divine blessings, each themed to a type of deity.

  2025-09-05 21:22:21 +0000 UTC View Post

10 Year Flaws: Scaling Spell Damage

One of the things I find fascinating about 5e is how deeply embedded some of its design flaws have become.

Take blast spells as an example. It's been obvious for years that they don't do enou...

More Spell Streamlining

Last week I wrote about streamlining an existing spell to match its vibes. Vibe players and DMs start with the fiction and expect the rules to back up their impressions of how things work. When pla...

Simplified 5e: Curating Spells

Nothing says "Magic!" like halting the game to spend a minute or three or ten looking up a spell and trying to figure out how it works.

Here's the sleep spell from D&D 5.5:

Simplified 5e: Spell Lists

D&D's spell lists are the clearest sign that the game needs an overhaul.

Most editions of D&D are designed with backward compatibility in mind. Each one dutifully takes the prior edit...

Simplified 5e: The Mage

For paid backers, here's some reading material for the weekend: the mage class in all of its stripped down glory. I'll be talking in more detail next week about the class features and how the desig...

Streamlined 5e: Spell Points

Spell slots have been in D&D since the beginning. They've calcified into the game as part of what allegedly makes D&D what it is. I've always found that line of thinking to be odd. There's ...

Streamlined 5e: Spell Philosophy

The process of streamlining a game requires you to do two things.

First, you need to understand the game's core mechanics. You're cutting stuff out. Cut something critical, and the game falls...

Rewriting 5e

A funny thing happened at Gen Con. If you've been following my writing here for a while, you night remember that I took a pass at dramatically simplifying 5e a few months ago. That project has rema...

Death or Glory!

First up, Gen Con was a blast. Easily the busiest I have been at the show in a long time. It's wild to consider how much tabletop gaming, and Gen Con along with it, have grown since I started desig...

Cthulhu and Dungeons in D&D 5e

About a week ago, a project I led called Cthulhu by Torchlight premiered on D&D Beyond. It's always pretty exciting to see a project release into the world. You can buy the book 2025-07-31 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Odyssey Resting Rules

I've never been happy with the resting rules in 5e.

The resting rules are far too generous in how much they allow you to recover. It's far too easy to take on a few encounters, or even just o...

Putting Magic Back into Magic Items

Here's the broom of flying from the SRD:

Broom of Flying

Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)

This wooden broom functions like a mun...

2025-07-26 16:33:23 +0000 UTC View Post

Magic Items in Odyssey

I think AD&D 2nd edition was the last version of D&D to make magic items interesting. I used to love accumulating a janky pile of random tools and figuring out a way to make them work. Late...

Low Level Bestiary

Here's a selection of paid critters to populate your games. There are about a dozen monsters here, including a tier 2 dragon that would destroy a low level party. A few notes:

• Encount...

  2025-07-17 18:21:19 +0000 UTC View Post

Building Encounter Building

Many moons ago, encounter building in D&D consisted of:

• Pick the monster you wanted to use or roll on a random encounter table

• Roll the number of dice indicated on ...

  2025-07-15 15:28:51 +0000 UTC View Post

The Condition of My Conditions

It's time to dive into monster design. Before we can do that, we need to address the elephant in the room about D&D and D&D-likes that use 5e: the game has moved away from a battle of hit p...

Updated Core Rulebook

The core rules for players are done! There's just enough content to make characters and play through to 10th level. I need to flesh out a few more pieces, but the player side is in testable shape.<...

Monster Remodel: Ettin

Last week I wrote about a new approach to monsters. This week, let's put that advice into practice.

This creature is aimed at 5e to allow you to use it at your table ASAP. I need to make some...

Mage Character Class

Here's the mage character class, a revised version of the magic-user. A few notes:

• I've shifted the class to focus heavily on schools of magic. The schools I use are more flavorful th...

  2025-07-03 14:45:43 +0000 UTC View Post

Monster Roles + Psionics

I designed a lot of monsters for 4e. I led Monster Manual 3, along with the revision to the game's math. One of my fondest memories of working on D&D is sitting in Jeremy Crawford's home, worki...

Odyssey Exploration Rules

You might remember that a few weeks back I talked about exploration. Since then I have run a number of games using those ideas. The rules are now fully fleshed out for use at your table.

Hope...