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As a DM this seems pretty straightforward... the only person in the party who's specialized in handling traps isn't fully optimized in it. That says that they aren't really interested in those kinds of challenges, so I'd just use lower DC traps so he could reasonably disarm them, and just give...

The funny thing is, I think it works fine and is reasonably balanced regardless of which interpretation you use. (Whichever one the table agreed on I'd probably make the official interpretation for that campaign.) I think that's true for almost all of the rules bits that aren't written to be...

As far as bracers go, well, with magic items tuned down in power quite a bit (more likely to have encounter powers rather than a flat bonus, like the Gauntlets of Ogre Power), I don't think it's much of a loss to give them up to use a magical shield. But the "meat" of a sword-and-board fighter...

As someone who's run a Croaker type as a cleric in more games than I can remember, seeing the Warlord class in print made me go "Yep, okay, that's what I was going for." :)

Sorry, I disagree. I think that your interpretation is colored by your personal opinion. It's perfectly possible to roleplay with description and dialog while also using the mechanics ... at the same time. It's cool if you don't want to do that, and would rather "just roleplay" and have the...

I think that people just have different takes on how rule systems should operate. I personally really like that much of play isn't heavily influenced by the rules; the thing that matters when you are involved in game play that doesn't involve combat or challenges is the social dynamics at the...

Exactly. If it ever comes up that someone really really wants to use one of their old abilities, I'd use some kind of a stunt mechanic to let them do it. I don't see it as necessary at all, but I'd rather not argue about it. :) How you explain what powers "mean" in the game world affects how...

Man, the whole separation of player vs. character knowledge issue seems like it's showing up in this thread in some really interesting ways. I've been listening to my players' idle talk about what would be really neat to find and seeding that into adventures down the line for a while now...

I think they're hyping up Kobolds to save the Goblin and Orc love for mid-heroic levels. If you feel like it's to many kobolds, though, it's pretty simple to make them some other small, annoying humanoid. :)

Not trying to tell your group how to imagine stuff, of course, but it seems like if you ditched the Fey flavor the Eladrin could fill that gray elf niche pretty well. I figure our group will change any fluff that bugs us, since it's sketchy enough anyway that it's worth tailoring the classes...

To be fair, I did learn something really useful in this thread: that ignore-listed posters don't show up at all any more unless they get quoted. That was confusing at first. :) I'm sure there are people out there who'd rather have 5 pages of exceptions than a general rule of "Don't be stupid...

Hmm, I wonder how much those ratings have to do with the issue where people ordered the books from Amazon and then found out they'd have to wait a long time for them to be back in stock. "I'm mad at Wizards, I'm sitting here on the product page on Amazon... oh hey! Add your opinion? I'll show...

That fight's definately tough if you don't stop them from alerting the caves -- you're basically doing 2 1/2 encounters all together in that situation. I think your call to run and come back later was sound. For comparison, in the thread about the guy who DMed KotS for his 7 year old, said kid...

Good point. Plus, the book only says "sack of rats". If they really wanted to close the loophole, they'd have *listed* every sack of things that isn't considered a credible threat. Sure, the extra 50 page list of bugs, vermin, squirrels, and voles and the like would have driven up the cost of...

If anything, someone new to D&D who's played any MMO may very well show up with an idea of the group role they want to fill, since that's a familiar concept. The tradition of "one defender, one leader, then DPS/crowd control" would guide them pretty quickly to picking a class. Since you see you...

Okay, let's take an example. I forget what the names are in the MM; let's say there's an "Orc Berserker" in the Monster Manual. You can say "This encounter contains one Orc Berserker". That's legal. You can also make a new monster using the rules, and use the GSL to use the word Orc, then make...

Here's how I read Sage Advice and that kind of stuff. "Here's an impartial interpretation of the rules. Feel free to use it if your group wasn't able to come to a consensus on how to interpret the rules." I can see why some people might have a problem with that, and want the TRUE answer, but...

It is interesting how the common usage of "wield" has become "hold" rather than "use" in RPG circles, even though it's incorrect. I blame the CRPGs that won't let you put a weapon in your offhand unless you have some kind of "dual wield" ability. I guess those games could have offered the...

Totally agree. I don't think it's reasonable to spring this on the players without their buy-in. I'm not sure what your goal is with the campaign, but some kind of moral lesson as an "aha! gotcha" kind of thing is probably going to end badly. Now having the *characters* not know, absolutely...

In addition, if you don't want to ponder which powers to take, every class has two builds already listed out. They even choose appropriate feats and skills for those builds if you don't want to make those decisions yourself. Obviously that doesn't help as much if you're starting above 1st...