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In 3e, saving throws auto-failing on a 1 was not in the rules. Depending on who you talk to, it was deliberately omitted. Skip Williams, however, decreed in the FAQ that a natural 1 auto-failed on a saving throw, based on pretty much nothing but that being the way he liked it. This became...

I contemplated that, but quickly realized that wouldn't have a point: this is the sort of thing that's going to be taken care of when time isn't of the essence, which means that unless you're only going to give a limited number of opportunities to make the check or penalties on failure, adding a...

I'm about to use the Binder class from Tome of Magic in a new campaign I'm running, and I'm curious as to what common house rules are out there for this class. My reading of the class leads me to two opinions: The power-jump in gaining the ability to bind multiple vestiges needs to be made more...

Personally, I think balancing classes on an encounter-by-encounter basis is a big step in the right direction. Prior to 3e, classes and races were often explicitly balanced on an "over the lifetime of the PC, on average" basis. (E.g., better to be an elf at 5th level, but better to be a human...

Er, says who? The various classes have varying degrees of reliance on magic items built into them. It's enough of a stretch for us to say that the classes are balanced on their own, given the standard wealth-per-level assumptions, but we can live with that. Assuming that you can make change...

I think the skill system is underutilized, so I like the idea of skill-folding. There are a large number of skills that hardly anyone takes (other than as a prestige class prereq or as a sacrifice to fluff up a character concept). Giving more skill points might help, but more likely it would...

It really doesn't matter where the word comes from, calling someone a psychometabolist is going to throw me right out of the traditional fantasy frame of thought. For me, and indeed, for many, the base idea of psionics isn't the problem--dress it up as magic and ritual like the Deryni and I'm...

Another way of stating this is that WOTC's design philosophy is moving away from a "balanced on average" style of design. 3e tried (with varying degrees of success) to get away from the idea that if a class or race is overpowered at low level and underpowered at high level (or vice versa), that...

The 3e game designers appear to over-value abilities which cannot easily be taken away. The Monk class is as under-powered as it is because a monk is very independent of magic items--sure, like all classes, they do better with items, but unlike other classes, their effectiveness does not take a...

The BBEG speech is a staple of the genre, albeit unfortunately one that doesn't stand up to too much IG logic--after all, once the PCs have come upon the BBEG, their logical next step would be to attack immediately before he has time to summon guards, activate traps or otherwise decrease their...

I've heard this explanation since the beginning, and it's always perplexed me. Of all the things for playtesters to rise up en masse and demand, a restriction on how PCs can multiclass with the paladin and monk classes seems a bit improbable. I've always thought it a bit more likely that one...

Considering how quickly the other racial deities got booted, I'm surprised by the amount of love (or at least, lack of hate) for Moradin. Is he just gliding under the radar or is there something less objectionable about him than the others?

Monte's comments struck me as similar to the line of thought that must have led to the Binder from Tome of Magic. Essentially, each vestige gives the Binder a set of abilities, some of which are always-on, some of which are usable every 5 rounds (i.e., once in a short combat, twice in a major...

It's all about the social contract. I can easily imagine a campaign where the GM would set out this scenario, not allow research to work (because it gives him more scope for surprises) and then get very frustrated at the players for not playing along. "Hey, I gave you the plot hook to the...

Setting up a scenario so that players need to leave other PCs to die at the very start of an encounter may be realistic, but it's also setting a tone that may come back to haunt you.

Not only would I call it fair, I think it's a good idea to hit the players with it while their characters are so low level, before they learn bad habits and at a point when it's clear that they have no chance. There are many ways of running a campaign world. If you're going to have an organic...

If this is a campaign where only an idiot pulls an obvious lever, then this is fair. If this is a campaign where the GM expects players to follow his lead, investigate clues and jump at plot hooks, then this was a really stupid thing for him to do. I have played in campaigns where half the fun...

As has been noted above, the issue of fairness is based somewhat on context and the implicit social contract of the group. Fair or not, I would expect that, assuming the players continue to play with this GM, an intelligent group of PCs will now modify their playing styles. I would expect to...

I think so, too, but for a different reason. You can play an RPGA module at 2am at a con with an inexperienced GM and have a decent time. You can also play an RPGA module with a group of experienced players and a talented GM and end up with a four-hour enjoyable experience that you will...

Part of the problem is that, without the game becoming radically divergent from 3e, I'm not sure how you can sell it as a brand new edition. (Conversely, I think people are sufficiently happy wth 3e as to reject changes of the magnitude of the 2e->3e change.) Personally, I'd be surprised to...