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I don't really think thread necromancy is appropriate. Once a discussion is over, isn't it better to start something new rather than rehashing some old issue?

I use normal-sounding names for NPCs, and I think its been working pretty well. For example, the PCs have allied with noble named Demetrius and a bandit named Johann against Count Daniel. People can write stuff down, and don't need to worry about how to spell things, or how to pronounce names...

I don't actually think of light burning undead as being all that common. Vampires seem to the prominent example, but it seems like most undead stick to the dark because they're horror movie monsters and darkness is scary rather than any physical aversion to light.

A few sessions back, I rolled a series of natural 20s against a party of 1st level characters. Three critical hits turned a fairly difficult encounter into a TPK. This was followed up by a string of 5s and 6s when the newly rolled up party ran into the same encounter, and they won in a cakewalk.

This seems to work a lot. I think sometimes the players even like the encounter/event more than they otherwise would have because they 'figured it out' before it happened, and you know you don't have to worry about players questioning the underlying logic of an antagonist's actions. It already...

I answered between 60% and 80%, but I don't think that's correct on further reflection. If I have an 80% chance of successes, then I must have a 20% chance of failure. My group plays 3.5, so it takes ~13 1/3 encounters to gain a level of experience. If we had a 20% chance of TPK with each of...

You only really need the Star Wars Saga Edition Core Rulebook. The supplements are nice enough, but the core book is pretty complete. I think I would describe the Core Rulebook as the source book for the films, and then the rest tend to focus on EU material.

I think that casting a range touch spell does provoke two opportunity attacks, but its a good idea to house rule otherwise. There is nothing about ranged touch spells that would require an additional balancing factor of two opportunity attacks. (Or many additional opportunity attacks, in the...

Talking to the FLGS owner in my area, I learned that 3.5 sales had a spike after 4e came out, as all of the groups who weren't making the switch tried to buy up all the out-of-print stuff they could before it was no longer availible new.

I think the "evilness" of the act depends on what kind of morality you want in your game. If you're playing with a more modern moral system, torturing a prisoner to death would generally be considered a chaotic and evil act, and would probably bring the paladins down on his head. If you're...

Have you looked at the warlock class from Complete Arcane? The warlock is an at-will spellcaster, and might provide some good reference points.

Given that D&D started off as what was essentially a supplement for the Chainmail tactical miniatures game, "a miniature war game that happens to have character creation and advancement" would be a pretty accurate (if simplified) description of the game and it's history.

I actually think that you do add 1/2 your level to your ability score modifiers, and that this essentially replaces base attack bonus and save bonuses, as well as a level bonus to damage rolls we've seen in Star Wars Saga Edition. For example, positioning strike, which was listed in the first...

Did anyone else get the impression that Strength is no longer automatically added to melee damage rolls? As I was reading through the descriptions of Brawny Rogue and Trickster Rogue build suggestions, it seemed like the writer felt the only use for Strength for a Trickster Rogue was to use...

The definition you're normally going to find in dictionaries is "magistrate or government official in ancient Athens or ancient Greece". According to Wikipedia, in gnostic Christianity, archons are "several servants of the Demiurge, the 'creator god', that stood between the human race and a...

I think the most fun class I played was crusader. The card-drawing mechanic during combat was pretty enjoyable (oh man, I really need a crusader's strike!, Come on, come on, yeah!). I also found the warlock class to be pretty fun, and could produce surprisingly mechanically diverse characters...

"Cleric or Druid-zilla". Refers to the high power level of clerics and druids in 3E.

I seem to remember polls on ENWorld that indicated that most groups used point buy -- that certainly matches my experiences with 3E D&D. It sounds like they're making the more commonly used rule the default one, which seems eminently reasonable.

I think it depends a lot on the complexity of the system. When I'm playing µ20, my version of microlite20, a 10 round combat doesn't take all that long, so that's a fine duration for an encounter. When I'm playing 3.5e, with Bo9S and other rules expansions, a 5 round combat would probably be too...

Summon familiar is just worse than Obtain Familiar. They're both more a liability than a boon anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.