Recent content by ltbaxter

If I could point out something fairly obvious... I find as both a player and DM that a mixed group of foes is far more interesting. The key reasons are variety and strategy. If I'm facing 5 identical foes there no tactics at all. Attack the closest one to me, flank if you can. If you're facing a...

Definitely 'A', there's nothing about the Ettin's action that prevents the character from continuing to move. WotC gave a response on a similar action, a character charging a creature with an Immediate Interrupt of shift when foes moves adjacent. If you have enough movement left to still reach...

In 4e, to sheathe a weapon is now just a minor action (same as drawing a weapon), no longer a move action (yay!) (pg 289 PHB) Drinking a potion, dropping prone, picking up an item, are all minor actions. Less actions provoke OA now - ranged and area attacks while adjacent to an enemy...

The main problem is that it lets one character expand into a second role far too easily. Scorching burst or thunderwave at-will = controller in a box, instant minion-slayer. Sacred flame = at will healing ability Twin strike - striker like damage levels at will Eyebite at-will for any...

Almost - it's equivalent subject to the constraint that you can't have more than one stat less than 10. That's actually the main reason WotC seems to have done it this way. What would min-maxers love to do? Have a bunch of 18's and one or two stats that were as low as possible. With Totoro's...

Sure can't hurt to try! Scaling back will be important to party survival. That can be done with numbers of monsters or look in other threads for a "semi-" (demi-?) monster which is meant to be one-half of a standard / double power of a minion, at 1/2 xp instead of 1/4. Some encounters would...

Thanks for posting this! The results make complete sense now that I think about it. With 2 successes consistently needed for each 1 failure allowed, an individual probability of success of 0.67 means that the number of 'batches' of 2-for-1 is irrelevant, and that's the p value for which you see...

I'm aware of that, that doesn't change any one of my examples. The paladin will frequently be battling one foe that choose to stay engaged with him, while he would like to influence another foe to attack him. (Can I say "draw aggro" without opening up a new can of worms?!) Well, I can't rule...

Hmm, not a fan of the 'fix' at all. Sadly, it was designed with an exploit in mind and how to prevent it, not with how the power *should* work. Some realistic examples of a paladin trying to play according to character, not trying to exploit the rules, let's see how this fix applies: 1) Tough...

Thanks for the feedback. Some good points here. Excellent idea. My initial reaction was that if traps about, players better get used to leading off an encounter with Insight, similar to how now 'search for traps' starts off potential trap encounters. Any skill that's a "must do first" takes...

The more I see on these skill challenges, the more confused I am. I think what you did is interesting, and would work fine, but there's a few aspects to this challenge - and to the one presented recently by Wizards, that bother me. First and foremost, there's the use of a skill that there is...

No, I think they're going for a *far* more uniform approach that will scale over all levels. As you note now, base chance to hit is going to be 50%. I think it's going to stay that way the entire time, with some latitude to focus on AC or damage but it'll shift things a few 5%, not a lot. At...

Very good post, and some very good points. I would disagree with a few, or make some comments. "In traditional old D&D (up through 3rd edition), battles were basically won by attrition." Hmmm.. more so than in 4e, but not overall. At early levels, each hit could take you down. You had almost...

I made up the sheet, no template. I'm just using MS Word. The 'Graphics' were pasted in via screen capture from the pregenerated character PDF's. The font I used is 'Maiandra GD' which is a rather close fit. It comes with Office Professional 2003 (or Premium 2000), or Publisher 98/2000. It would...

Incorporating new information from the new Warlords Dragon preview and some helpful feedback from posters above, I've updated the Character Sheet concept for a Dragonborn Warlord. Here are the changes: - Specified 24 hp 12 bloodied - Leading the Attack: +2 bonus for one ally (not all) - Leading...