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I generally prefer symmetry between PCs and NPCs/monsters, so players rolling both to hit the monster and rolling to keep from being hit by the monster is an interesting idea, but not for me as a GM. Now I seriously dislike "secret" rolls made by the GM for the player, so I'll try to eliminate...

I run 3.5e with a blanket ban on prestige classes. I see the PC classes as already being the top-level 'prestige' classes, not as 'starter' classes to qualify a PC for something better/cheesier. I like - strike that, I love feats and skills, and am wary about 'simplifications' that nerf them...

OK, why? If the party is able to trigger the trap from a safe distance, by mage hand or any other means, then they have solved the trap. Good for them. The only way I can see this as a bad or worthless or ineffective trap is if it's immediately obvious as to how it can be set off at a...

That would move the war out of the "intermediate" category and into what I called a "big" war - conquest in this case.

Coming in with a bit of thread necromancy, I'll note that wars can vary in how "big" they are. The Big Wars are wars of conquest or regime change (and can spiral into wars to expunge a culture or even exterminate a people). Other wars are over lesser causes than a complete change of management...

Which world? My medievaloid fantasy worlds mostly have some variant of feudalism, usually "cleaned up," plus tribal setups in the outlying 'primitive' areas and with other exotic outlying areas away from the centers of PC action having what in the 19th century was called "Oriental despotism."...

Confirming critical hits is something I consider... critical, as otherwise at the extreme every hit becomes a critical hit. But then I'm anti-critical-hit in general, and would either implement a "confirm" rule if the RAW didn't have one, or more likely just say No. Critical. Hits. As it is...

I'm on the cusp between Master and Grandmaster, but I've always considered the "real" grognards to be those who were serious wargamers/miniatures players before D&D. The SPI fans. I don't think I matter anymore, as I haven't bought new stuff since the 3.5e days. A few retro-things, yes, mostly...

Crunchy rules have both advantages and drawbacks. Light rules requiring lots of freeform GM interpretation (or even player decision) have both advantages and drawbacks. Different GMs, players, and groups will prefer different combinations of crunch and freeform as their personal optimum. My...

Not a paradox. Just because a thing has been done doesn't mean that it has been done well. "I can do better than that" may often be false, but it's sometimes true, you can't tell until you try, and trying is not a paradox.

"What is this 'Fifth Edition' of which you speak?" I still run a D&D game because the RPG Police haven't shown up to seize my 3.5e stuff, because I could find players, and because I managed to start a long-running "Brotherhood of Rangers" campaign under 3.5e that has caught fire with the...

I'd do the same in another 3.5e game. In the "Brotherhood of Rangers" game I am trying to keep house rules down to a dull roar, so core feats remain unchanged, while I turn non-core feats into homebrew versions that finesse problems with the prerequisite core feats. E.g. Improved Toughness...

It's not really core-only feats, but rather a removal of the "official" certification from the non-core feats. It happens that I like the concept of feats, if not always the implementations, or the official conception of how feats are supposed to work in general. (E.g. Toughness being a flat...

I run a 3.5e game with every PC being a gestalt-ranger character (fighter-ranger, cleric-ranger, wizard-ranger, etc). No prestige classes, the travel spells are combed out to give a more 'rangerly' feel (so no flight, teleport, etc. And no clerical 'Travel' domain), house rules allowing animal...

I tried to finesse the issue in my Brotherhood of Rangers game (3.5e) by having all the PCs be gestalt-rangers (fighter-ranger gestalt, wizard-ranger gestalt, cleric-ranger gestalt, etc.) None of the PCs were "the party Ranger" because they all were rangers in the wilderness-heavy setting. But...

I try to play the monsters according to their nature. Within that bound, I do try to have them play to win - against opponents who they believe to be much weaker than the PCs actually are. If the monsters had an accurate understanding of how tough the PCs were, their immediate reaction would be...

Working now.

Part of that is inflation. Per Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar's Value From 1913-2025 an item costing $20 in 1980 would be expected to cost $76 today. There's also a distinction to be made between good art and fancy, expensive art. Also between good text layout and attempts at getting...

The "Worlds of design: A pretty high price" thread isn't accepting replies, possibly because of the date of the post being "tomorrow" I get a "We have a server error" message.

The usual 'fix' to a <70% chance for a 'competent skill' was "In routine circumstances, the character gets a big (>30%) bonus." Except somehow that bonus never got applied in practice. And that's why I glommed onto Take 10 as one of the Genuinely Good Ideas of D&D 3.x It solves this and a...