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Errm, that statement is only really true in 3e, and it's pretty easy to dodge back from it. A star elf fighter/invoker (bladesinger) is complex but still around one focus, but we don't need to allow mixed levels of every class willy nilly going to strange other classes with prereqs while letting...

Yeah, I was very sad to hear 5e would use the 3e leveling mechanic (where a level is your point-buy method of arranging things, and presumably we'll soon see "prestige classes" and similar nonsense). 3e had tons of great things, it streamlined a ton of mechanics, but its level system and means...

This one is easy, and I'm sure you've seen plenty of examples in various stories and media. The actual physics on it isn't even hard. "The bigger they are, the harder the fall" as it is. Trickier, but still possible, especially if you enter in things like it rearing back or simply its center of...

At the end of the day, people have an internal disconnect between "But any old jock can push a guy" and "How can anyone possibly alter reality with strange words; that must take years of training!" Or maybe it takes a black belt of several years to do it consistently, especially with attacks...

Errm, 3rd is pretty darn advanced. For that matter, 1st edition is often more complex than 2nd edition in many cases (try not to look too closely at the brawling chart or the optional "point buy character generation" 2.5 they did), though largely almost the same game. This doesn't really make a...

Design I meant. You're exactly right about its problems and strengths. Creatures are also clearly not balanced around its existence. Granted neither are they necessarily balanced around using gear and spells optimally. Dragons with full defensive buffs and barding easily his an ac that requires...

I guess, at the end of the day, if you want to make the frankly terrible spell that shouldn't exist work better for some reason. Well, more power to you?

I'm sure your argument was otherwise, but yes - you've summed up exactly why a dragon should not learn antimagic field. At least, not until he can prepare it Widen-ed, I suppose. It's hardly the only spell that's not useful for dragons, though. Large creatures can cheerfully use it to full...

It's bigger than a 10-ft. radius, cube complaints to the contrary. Bits of it would be sticking out all the time. _Especially_ when flying, if you want to try to make some call towards realism, as it stretches out its over-hundred feet wingspan. Its claws and mouth in particular end up further...

Your ability to make decisions about damage in real life have very little bearing on a player's ability to make decisions about how their character takes damage. I've seen RPGs where a character might choose to lose a limb as a concession to avoid the potential for a more harmful loss. You...

13th Age's Beholder actually does have rules for knocking out its eye rays when you roll well. I forget if it was 16+ or 18+ but we took out two of them when we fought one.

Well, yes. The adventures I write for myself are about a single page in length, while those I write for other people apparently clock in at several dozen pages. Intended audience and use is a big deal. I barely use full nouns and verbs when I write adventures for myself :)

Well, which is it - the DM is skilled enough to cope with creating descriptions on the fly or can't? Cause the DM _needs_ the box text if they can't, but will very occasionally and rarely screw things up. And if they can cope on the fly, then they paraphrase the box text appropriately and cope.

Read-aloud text vastly improved results at many tables, in my experience with testing having other people run my adventures. It definitely had to be used carefully, but basically I'd get a ton more errors and confusion from encounters that lacked any (all in bullet points, or inferred from the...

You're thinking of Keep on the Shadowfell, I think, which is not the same. Keep on the Borderlands is is the Caves of Chaos from an earlier D&D Next playtest if you saw that. I'll agree with you that KotS was an awful intro adventure for 4e. I'm curious to see what we get for an official...

I suspect that's how my game would have gone if we'd finished the adventure, yep.

My group had a similar problem. We started with the event day, which was fantastic, and everyone was excited to delve into assassinations and Bhaal plots in Baldur's Gate. And then the adventure took a right turn into bland petty arguments between city powers. My players felt like they could...

Yep, there were definitely official sounding meetings at Winter Fantasy. Hopefully public announcements will be forthcoming.

The sad part is that they hid how to do damage too well. I've been used to 1-3 round combats since 4e started, at all levels. For example, last night I ran a combat of a level+1 solo, 3 level standards, and a level hazard that took _exactly_ one round to complete (finishing on the last action...

I haven't had that experience at all, but I'm not sure there's enough data points. We haven't seen many deaths, for example, except against enemies that confuse. As a DM, I can say that I threatened people, but not too seriously (enough they wished for more healing even with a healer, begged...