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My condolences to all involved - speaking of whom, may I suggest to move Stephan Radney-MacFarland's name into the OP? Rob Heinsoo's departure comes as a heavy blow to me, as his contribution to 4E was decisive. I have taken this occasion to write him a tribute on Enworld here, since the way...

Rob Heinsoo was WotC‘ most talented RPG designer, next to Jonathan Tweet who left WotC the year before. After having co-designed with Tweet the best produced and best designed WotC game of all times - Dreamblade -, Heinsoo went on to design two games for WotC by himself – Inn Fighting and Three...

Re: Demon Lords. There's a pretty good 10-page article by James Jacobs in Pathfinder #18. It doesn't give any stats beyond a CR (usually somewhere around 30) but it's very rich in flavour, as is to be expected given the author. I don't know when the full book is due to release, or how many plan...

That's the party line. As Scot Rouse once put it, there's some negative perceptions surrounding 4E products and their marketing. These perceptions are wrong so we (WotC) have to change them. Apparently people like Scot and yourself have never heard about the causal theory of perception...

I've made neither of those claims.

One of the most harmful, edition-wars-stirring, things to happen during the pre-release time of 4E was the claim that 4E rendered 3.5 obsolete. And you know who made that statement? It sure wasn't fans on the net who hadn't seen the game yet. It was two types of people: designers and...

A couple of people providing high quality feedback were indeed shouted down during the open playtest at paizo.com; some of these people, namely those otherwise frequenting the GamingDen forum, were also vocal about that fact. What isn't true, however, is that all posters providing negative...

Ah, the conundrum why Paizo can get away with marketing moves that WotC can't. Here's the answer. It's not product marketing, it's customer relations. Listen to any podcast featuring Erik Mona. And then (re)read Dan Noonan's old "The clouds are moving, 4E is coming, and you fans can do...

Thanks for your review, Merric. It's quite solid, though I think you could have mentioned the somewhat odd design choice to rescale the moathouse in the 4E version so it's only 2 thirds of its original size (check the battle map). A key thing I agree with your review on is that it's a pity the...

Just to say that this is my favourite review of the book to date, because it's both informative and is highly entertaining to read. (Favourite part: "[Some NPC] trades child slaves for the serpentfolk living nearby. They’re stored in barrels, shipped down the river to Loudwater, and there Zark...

Thank you.

Holy water, 25 gp for a flask, 2d4 dmg. Admittedly, 50% miss chance over and above hitting the allip's touch AC (15 in 3.5, 14 in Pathfinder). You don't need to be a paladin to throw these flasks, you know. But I guess throwing holy molotov coctails and bathing your weapons in holy water go...

Good example. (And by the way, I agree on the flavour. See, in terms of flavour, I liked the new allip, though it doesn't quite compare with the reflavoured annis hag.) So here's the Naga's special attack: Poison (Ex) Bite, level 7, save Fort DC 19, frequency 1 round (10), effect 1 Con...

"Wisdom 0 means that a creature is lapsed into a deep sleep filled with nightmares, helpless." (Rules Compendium, p.6) Given this, "deadly" strikes me as an odd choice of words here, slightly aggravated by the use of large font and bolded capitals. Say, how about someone running the numbers on...

I don't have my copy of Dungeon 124 in my current flat either, so for all I know it may be more than CR 1. Not that it even makes that much of a difference when a CR 1 spider swarm (MM, page 237-238), though presumably causing less damage than the acid beetles (still 1d6, plus 1d3 Strength...

You said it yourself. The allip was a design aberration. No one is arguing over that point. The huge question is why design aberrations are bad for the game. And why Paizo has taken this stance. Compare and contrast: [/FONT] Well, Erik, I hope that your designers also got rid of the beetle...

I'd like to alert you to the context of the quote you provided, and direct you to this site: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/encounter-design.html A: Most level appropriate encounters deplete 1/4 of the party resources. B: A level appropriate adventuring day consists of 4 of those...

I agree with the wording of this statement. You, sir, have hit the nail on its head. For your statement abstracts from the skill of the players controlling those characters. That's why the CR system is, and always will remain, such a crude tool for constructing well-balanced encounters. And no...

Mearls' attitude towards the OGL is hard to track over the years. Around 2005, when he got hired by WotC, it became much harder to see his take on the OGL as to its being a good thing for the gaming community or not. Starting off slightly earlier, here's his famous proposal of an OGL Wiki...

And that's a good thing to do. No doubt the 4E rust monster (or the one we saw in the 2006 make over by WotC) is a good thing too - for people who want to avoid the 15 minute adventuring day at all costs. But it's controversial now as much as it was in 2006 whether this means that all monsters...