Roll Factory

This episode, we’re continuing our tour of the Saving Throws in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, with the Dexterity Save. A Dexterity or DEX save represents your ability to evade danger, whether from a sprung trap, flying objects, or exploding magical flame. On a success, you’ll dodge out of the way, and reduce the damage you take. If you fail, you’ll get that whole fireball right in the face....

This time on Roll Factory, we’re starting our look at individual Saving Throws in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, starting again at the top of the ability scores with the Strength Save. We're joined by Twitch streamer Nat, AKA MurderVeggie . A Strength Saving throw is something you’ll do when you’re using raw physical force to resist being moved or restrained. If a massive beast hits you with a...

On this episode of Roll Factory, we’re switching from active to reactive, and learning the whys, whens, and hows of Saving Throws in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. We're joined by E.B. Updegraff, CEO and game designer at online video game company Hatchlings . Next time on Roll Factory, we’ll start our look at the individual Saving Throws, beginning with the Strength Save For our past adventur...

This time on Roll Factory, we’re learning about the Proficiency Bonus. It’s the number that separates innate talent from trained skill. Proficiency Bonus is a mechanic that 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons uses to streamline the process of acquiring and using skills. Instead of assigning points to individual skills, your character has a single Proficiency Bonus. If your character is trained (or pr...

In this episode, we conclude our look at the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Ability Scores with Charisma. Charisma represents your character’s ability to successfully interact with and influence others. How your character achieves that influence is open to a lot of interpretation. Depending on how you and your DM envision the character, Charisma can include or exclude eloquence, self-confidence,...

We’re continuing to examine the ability scores on the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition character sheet. This time, with Wisdom. Your Wisdom score represents your character’s intuition, experience, and how attuned they are to the world around them. It’s the Ability you rely on when you’re trying to understand your environment through your senses rather than learned information. Attempts to read b...

Today, our series on Ability Scores shifts focus away from the physical and toward the mental, starting with Intelligence. When it comes to mental acumen, Dungeons & Dragons embraces a distinction between education and experience. Intelligence represents your character’s book learning, while Wisdom represents their street smarts. Just like in life, the line between the two is blurry at best, a...

Our look at the ability scores continues with Constitution. Constitution represents your character's physical heartiness. Like Strength, it includes everything from innate endurance to fantasy CrossFit training, and magical enhancements. Constitution is unique among the 6 ability scores for being exclusively passive. Constitution doesn’t support any skills, and Constitution checks are almost alway...

This time on Roll Factory, we're looking at Dexterity. It’s the ability you'll rely on for sick flips, sneaky stabs, and long-distance arrow delivery. Dexterity represents physical agility. It's the modifier for the skills Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. It encompasses overall nimbleness, hand-eye coordination, and how deft your character is with however many hands they have. Dexterity h...

This time on Roll Factory, our look at the six ability scores begins with the beefy barbarian’s best friend, the Strength score. We're joined by freelance science writer and journalist Bethany Brookshire. She's on Twitter as @beebrookshire . Strength measures your ability to exert physical force, and is the basis for the Athletics skill. It encompasses your character’s innate muscleboundedness, as...

This time, we’re talking about Ability Scores: how they work, why they matter, and why you only need to think about them around every four levels. The 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons character sheet uses the same six abilities the game has used since the earliest editions: Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution represent your character’s physical capacities. Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma repre...

On this episode, we demonstrate the core mechanic of Dungeons & Dragons: the roll of the 20-sided dice. You and your DM will use it to determine the success or failure of practically every action your character takes. These rolls fall into three categories: Attacks, Checks, and Saving Throws. In each case, you roll a d20, then add or subtract the relevant modifier that appears on your characte...

Meet our Mid-Level Dungeon Manager, and learn about our plan to tour the D&D 5e character sheet, one number at a time. Roll Factory is a podcast for new and returning players. And if you’ve ever looked at a character sheet and thought “what the hell do all these numbers mean?” it might be for you, too. In each bite-sized episode, we’ll zoom in on a single feature of the Dungeons and Dragons fi...