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Seems easy enough to make that rule apply only to NPCs/monsters, though. If you're comfortable with "PCs get special treatment", of course, although I'd argue that because PCs are the only characters who have a player driving them, by definition they're already a special case, so no biggie.

That CustServ ruling on Sleep sounds like yet another thing I'd ignore from them; I haven't seen any justification for why they'd make that ruling, and I'd bet money you could talk to them at a different time and get a different answer from someone else.

The campaign design articles on the Wizards site are pretty good for laying this stuff out. That series is worth checking out. You can see there where the designer lays out lots of cool ideas that he wants to go with eventually -- then draws back and figures out one solid starting town and...

On the other hand, I dare say some people will look at the arguments in this thread regarding "classic" Ravenloft -- that it's a pretty darn hard place to adventure -- and go "Okay, well, then, if they're throwing all that out... sounds like it'll be more fun." As great and atmospheric as...

You gotta love RPGs, where often actually just "gaming" is considered metagaming. :) I agree that whether metagaming is bad *at all* is just a matter of opinion -- I've played in some great game where using and leveraging the mechanics and interesting RP went hand-in-hand. Just depends on what...

For situations like this I really like the "dual-class" treatement, as in I'd usually be willing to just go with a retcon that the character was just using some other skills for a while but is now operating fully as the new class. I've done that with a character in 3.x (the character concept...

Great thread! The way I like to describe minions to those who dislike the idea is: "Things are not minions themselves. PCs of an appropriate power level have the power to treat them as minions." :)

Cute, but The Forge closed that theory area of their forums in, like, 2006, so your jokes are a bit dated. :)

I understand what you're saying, but this kind of thing is what drives me nuts about forums. He's saying it's a flaw in his experience -- therefore it is a flaw in his experience. If he wanted to call it a ferbizzle or a kflumph instead of a flaw, either way, you have to figure out what he meant...

Not to put words in the OP's mouth, but I could totally picture this happening. DM: Cool, new monster, should be fun to see how he works out. Hm, hey, he's got somebody in his mouth! Ooh, bloodied, cool, have to Swallow Whole to see how this goes. I mean, it's a purple worm, swallowing people...

One thing: There's nothing wrong with having multiple days in a row with *no* encounters -- say, for extended travel. If they've had one extended rest, it doesn't matter whether it's a day or a month between fights. I like to go with "quiet - quiet - multiple encounters - quiet", with the idea...

I was thrown by the high-level reagent prices as well, glad it came up. It makes sense that you'd probably brew up a few lower-level versions of whatever item you wanted to use, plus a few of the fancy high-level ones. It'd be kind of a waste to use a "Tarrasque-certified Tanglefoot Bag" against...

Every game "allows" you to change it, in that there's no hired goon with a baseball bat shipped with the rules, ready to smack you if you change something. I think the point people are making about 4e is that it's explicit about how you would change things, and provides a process and some clear...

The thing about crunch-before-flavor is... you can change the flavor. Whether you think the "flavor" of a particular monster is appropriate or silly is pretty much the definition of an opinion, anyway, so yeah, it's not possible to prove that objectively one version has better flavor than...

I'd say increasing the difficulty of the encounters, or making that "one fight a day" into a running fight with several phases, basically stringing several encounters together, would be pretty good options.

Do you think there's any practical difference between "the game design promoting and supporting X" and "doing X on your own"? I dunno, it just sounds to me like you're mocking people for praising the official rules for taking a direction you were using yourself. That's kinda confusing. I may be...

Exactly what I was going to post. :)

Whether the word "metagame" is applicable or not (I think it is), everybody seems okay with "at the table" vs. "away from the table" so I'll go with that phrasing. (Metagaming has a split in usage even in terms of "OOC information", and I think that whether or not your character acts on your...

I'm a little confused because I feel like the original post is really talking about how the abilities are depicted in the fictional game world. I don't think the fact that a halfling could shift a Tarrasque in game terms is the same thing as the halfling literally shoving a gigantic lizard in...

This might be off topic a little, but I think LostSoul will get a kick out of it at least, since it ties into what he's talking about. I'm playing D&D online with some folks last night. We take out some bandits that have been infesting the trade routes. Due to the random treasure drops, we get...