Recent content by Night

Wearing the PCs down is really the key to 4th ed play: a party can handle pretty much any sane (even "very hard" XP-wise) encounter without too much trouble, they're built in with a lot of different tools for the task. This gets harder when they have to do three, four, or five in a row without...

I really don't understand why they didn't do it this way in the first place! Free or no, they could simply have linked to the compendium entries. It'd be more useful than it is currently; would make it a lot faster for me to just click and grab and print on my own than going back and pulling...

Good mechanics will prop up roleplaying -- while rules-light systems are tempting since there's no potential stumbling blocks, it can also be harder to wrap your mind around more esoteric concepts without some crutch of support. Good mechanics put everyone on the same wavelength and help with...

Besides all which, the drawback for me of obfuscated rules hiding in multiple books was, well, pretty straightforward -- I couldn't remember all of them, so I wouldn't usually be trying to "pull one over" on players messing up, I'd just screw up from time to time. And that could lead to...

I can see an argument for cost being overblown, but not cast time by and large. Rituals like shadow walk or phantom steed would make much more effective escape tools, to be sure, if the former didn't take an hour to cast -- but they're not supposed to be escape tools, and I don't want to...

I get most of my inspiration, actually, just from discussing the game with my players; hearing things they've come up with, talking about obscure lore info from some forgotten sourcebook they remember, and just bouncing ideas back and forth. It can be a little aggravating when they're all...

Because Map Tool is free and also works quite well (though I'm not knocking Klooge Werks, really; it doesn't really visually appeal to me but it's clearly well put-together). On topic, if you're looking to game online, I would look to virtual tabletops like are being mentioned; wrestling with...

Thing is, Wik, sometimes they do get X and we've just forgotten. I don't think that's a hindrance or costs me any power; on the contrary, it saves me from having quite such a burden of knowing every facet of the rules. I play with a couple of guys who can get a bit into too much rules...

I suppose this isn't quite what you're referring to, but it occurred to me just now that while I've been DMing semi-regular, I haven't actually played in a campaign in a couple of years. Going to bug me, now.

We run in Map Tool online, so there's not really time for more than two or so good encounters in a session (turns just take a bit longer, in my experience). Good advice all around, here -- I'd sort of dismissed minions, since swordmages have some burst, but I suppose that it's pretty short...

Actually, Rechan, you've hit on precisely what I hope to see out of this book (though not necessarily what I expect to): options for wizards that will make the controller role a little more clear cut. I still don't fully understand exactly how they're meant to, well, control beyond having a...

I've been running a long-term campaign in 4E since last summer, and while it's had its ups and downs, despite holding true - or even cheating up a bit - to suggested XP spending on encounters, for the most part things have tended to run pretty easy. The group's not way off ahead of where...

If you want to make something memorable, you really have to look at things from the fantasy perspective and just chuck history out the window entirely; a high-magic setting isn't going to have things like the mana-driven printing press as its first priority; they can already replicate these...

If you haven't already defined precisely what the stolen magical item is, I think a neat way to really keep it at the forefront of your party's mind is to incorporate the relic itself into the dungeon, either by denizens attracted to it -- all manner of possibilities there for something dragons...

I totally forgot about that, actually! It didn't really stick in my mind because it seems like such a broad concept; callback to 3rd ed's Tome of Magic, isn't it?