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A simplified version: Once an attack reduces you to zero hit points (or would reduce you below zero hit points), your hit point total becomes zero. Each round, you must make a Fortitude save to stabilize. The DC to stabilize is 10, +1 per 2 points of damage dealt beyond what was necessary to...

My own list from a heavily modified, point-buy d20 homebrew-in-the-works: Also note that there is no Knowledge skill: anyone can use Intelligence to modify any ranks they have in any skill to modify knowledge checks pertinent to that skill (so to answer who won the 1980 World Series, you could...

I think a better way to state what Mallus was trying to get across would be to say: "So you want a character who doesn't come with any plot hooks? Fine. Hopefully you'll understand when the other characters who did come with plot hooks are going to be the ones who get the time in the...

A gather information check. And in all fairness, you present a gross exaggeration. Again, going back to my M&M game, one of the players introduced a new character whose wife was a prosecutor. In one of his earlier adventures, the character's wife was caught in a hostage situation at the court...

Mutants & Masterminds handles this nicely. If the GM makes life tough for you by having a friend or loved one put in danger, you get a hero point (similar to action points, or drama points, or whatever other flavor you're most familiar with) for the complication. It allows you a little extra...

Point the first: I play in a game where three of the 5~7 players actively take turns running story arcs in a shared world. No way that sort of sentiment would work for us. Point the second: Are we really trying to push back the clock to a time when the game actively required the DM keeping the...

Versatility is only power if versatility is rare or expensive to achieve. In 3e, versatility was indeed power, where only spellcasters could actually claim versatility, and non-casters were stuck with much fewer options. In a game like Mutants & Masterminds or even a video game like Final...

While I wish they went further, on the second read-through, an interesting thought occurred to me: Now that armor and implement are stated as being slots on a character, it would be very interesting to see feat or talent trees that let you "trade in" these slots for level- or tier-dependent...

This has been my primary forum since the early days of 3e, back when it was The 3rd Edition. It's still my primary forum, in fact. Mostly focused on D&D, but it has forums for other systems as well.

I'll be picking up the books, even if I only wind up harvesting the rules for crunchy bits to steal for my own nefarious plans. 4e has a good shot of becoming my D&D of choice, but worst case scenario, I take the 4e design team's best ideas for myself and run with them.

My group. I never would've bothered with the game without 'em.

Best superhero RPG on the market, and for my money, my RPG of choice. I'm working on tweaking it into a more open, genre-neutral, toolbox game.

Mutants & Masterminds / True20 (and when it's done, my homebrew d20 Advanced will likely supplant them for me). We don't need no steenking classes. Coming in behind is a pack that includes d20 Modern, Iron Heroes, and maybe Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. EDIT: Saga Edition's simplifications in...

And there's the moral of the story. Right on. Even if I didn't like C&C much myself, listen to this guy. He's speaking with much wisdom.

I'll confess that I absolutely don't understand the "ignorance of the rules makes it more fun" idea. I've been playing Shadowrun with my girlfriend's gaming group down in Baltimore when I go for a visit, and other than the very basic task resolution (roll a number of d6s determined by your...

In my first campaign settings, gnomish tinkerers had a small desert kingdom. They also invented an airship near the end of the game, and offered it to the PCs as a reward for their (much earlier) adventure that saved the city from a drow invasion. The name of the ship? The Misgnomer. A friend...

About all I can say is that the more flexible the character creation system is, the easier it is for me to homebrew in general. Why? Because generally, when I homebrew a D&D setting, I'm not going to be keeping to anything vaguely Tolkein-esque or Gygaxian. I've done the many variants on...

The SIEGE Engine is a spiffy idea for rules-light gaming. It's a simple way to resolve skill checks, and it does its job nicely for the most part (even if it really would benefit from supporting feats to help with niche protection a little better). They get big kudos there. Great idea...

Likely sight-unseen for the PHB, barring some horrendous twist of fate. Potentially sight-unseen for the DMG and MM. Beyond that, it's a big maybe. I've got no problem stocking the core rules for myself so that I can get a game up with folks, but they'll really have to wow me to get me to invest...

Honestly, considering that perception skills (spot/listen) are probably among the most important in the game (being able to avoid being caught flat-footed / grant your enemy combat advantage), I really think it would be balanced to let Charisma modify Will and leave Wisdom to modify Perception...