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For those that like them, Skill Challenges offer a way to resolve a scenario that is not combat based, but is also more dependent on the abilities of the character then they are on the ability of the ideas player, particularly when it is not possible or reasonable to resolve the problem by...

I actually like that idea. Just make it known to the players in advance. How to justify: Gargoyles are a creation of a god, Art and Architecture. Random destruction of priceless works of art has caused the god of Art to take measures to protect the art. Smashing statues in an area that is...

Some meta-type questions about the way your constructing encounters. 1) Do you skew towards hordes of Minions or towards smaller numbers of beefy attackers (ie, 2 or 3 monsters a few levels above the PC's for better durability)? 2) Are you primarily using monsters that only have single...

I am unsure. I had 3 players yesterday. The pool of possible players is 7. I will run with only 3 to prevent a campaign from ending via stagnation. The players who were present were on board, mostly because of the expected lack of healing going forward. The amusing bit to me is that Grgnaw...

My current group is at about level 17 and they are in the Frost Spire portion of Revenge of the Giants. I try to run my game so that if any 3 show up, I will run it (though I try to scale encounters to avoid TPK). The party's cleric is going to be unavailable for a long while. Lacking...

My own personal belief that the moment that the DM has to balance encounters around the presence or absence of a single player, that a problem exists. It is entirely possible to design encounters to negate mounted charging attacks. Narrow tunnels unsuitable for a mount within an indoor...

I think that it is kind of a non-problem. My first consideration is that this game is largely fantasy fulfillment. There is something to be said for gradual empowerment of characters, but as long as the characters improve noticably as they increase in level, that won't be missing from the...

As far as domain management, I think an optimal starting point for this would be the Birthright Ruleset. Start from that and modify the mechanics to better fit the d20 mechanics of 3rd / 4th / 5th edition. The only difficult part would be coming up with balanced target DC's. As for the mass...

Actually I did download and look at the playtest. I did not actually run it or play as a PC. Also, I am not so much curious about the 'is this like 4th or like 1st or like 2nd'. I am much more curious about how much of an impact an absent character would have on a per encounter basis. -...

Ok, that answers a few questions with respect to their intent. This does make me optimistic that I will be satisfied with the way monsters are handled. The one thing that is easy to overlook about minions is that resolving them requires very few dice rolls. The DM and the players generally...

I have a D&D group that has 5 players. One of my table rules for running a game is what I call my 'Rule of 3'. This rule is as follows: I will run the game if I can get 3 of you to show up. Any less and there is not going to be a game. This rule serves the following effects. - The game can...

At the moment, I think that I am more likely to join a game as a PC than a DM for 5th Edition. There are too many things about the ruleset that I am paranoid about (I have not tried the playtest). I would need the following things present at least in a Rules Module form if not in the core...

In and of them selves, there is nothing wrong with managing encounters as either the 'one big encounter + 15 min adventuring day' vs the 'unending attrition with 8 encounters per day. This is mostly something managed by the Dm's with the way they run encounter creation. The problem is that it...

I think your fixated on the wrong detail with respect to the DC examples. One of the issues with 4th edition is that weak monsters lost utility too quickly due to the rate at which the attack bonus and armour class values increased. This also affected skill DC's and it made it tricky to adapt...

The problem with designing this kind of subsystem is that the desired effects are generally going to be 'incomparable' to the basic elements of attack bonus and damage. A bonus to hit and a bonus to damage are generally comparable. You can run some calculations to determine that +X to hit...

A 'Try almost anything' attitude has more to do with the DM and the players at the table than it does the formatting of the ruleset. It requires a player who is inclined to improvise in the first place, and it requires a DM who is inclined to say yes even if the improvised action can torpedo...

Not pleased with it at all The apparent implementation of the fighter is not an implementation that I like at all, especially considering how barebones / minimalist the basic ruleset seems to be. The fighter as written right now is basically able to make attack rolls using his weapon. And not...

With 4th edition, I have not had too many problems with running with 3 players. I think there are two things you need to be careful with when you only have 3 plaeyrs. - Any attack that will stun or daze is magnified. At 5 players, you lose 20% of combat effectivness of the group. At 3...

Good comic today. Clearly having Xykon force RedCloak to lose his eye because of the misplaced phylactery has caused RedCloak to become a great deal more ruthless and committed to attaining his own goal. It also re-enforces one of Red Cloaks more important character traits. Also, Pwned! END...

I actually like the way the game plays in 4th edition with 5 players, but I have found that if I limit my games to only happening when everyone can show up, it means my games only happen about once every 6 weeks on average, hence the rule of 3. I think 5th Edition should make a habit of...