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I don't think it's possible to have a truly universal game engine. If the mechanics of a given game are supposed to support storytelling or simulate the conventions of a genre, the only way a system could be universal is if it worked with every type of storytelling and supported the conventions...

Considering the spell to remove the hit point loss isn't really that tough to cast, I'm okay with it. The immunities are rough, but the HP total and AC are rather low for a monster of its CR (by the standards we have so far, at least), and it's capital "s" slow. I can see golems as being the...

There's also something to be said about the expanded crit chance when you have advantage. With advantage a 19-20 becomes a 19% chance of a crit, while an 18-20 becomes just shy of a 28% chance. Considering how much advantage there is out there, by high levels this is very likely to happen...

I certainly hope so, considering I'm building a company doing just that. In all due seriousness though, I really doubt digital media will completely overtake the hobby. People like having something tactile in their hands. Miniatures wargaming kind of loses its charm when digitized in any...

I love the varying styles in the book. 3.x and 4e both had a really distinct art style with little variation from the norm. Considering inclusiveness is a theme right now, having the multiple art styles really helps that out imho. I also like the dwarf racial writeup having a woman in the...

Considering the trend with the classes so far, I'm expecting we'll see a single psion class with multiple builds to emulate the differing portrayals of psionics through the editions. One build that uses power points instead of spell slots like a monk using way of the four elements, one that...

I'm kind of okay with this. Most of what I've seen with the game shows a lot of 2e and before peeking through.

I would strongly recommend taking one of the pace penalties out. Having a pace go down by one or even two isn't too bad, when you get to a pace of three or lower problems happen. Wound penalties apply to pace as well as trait rolls, it really sucks getting wounded and being almost unable to...

I'd hardly consider it game breaking. A game I'm running involves a sorceress who really wanted a fox familiar, but apparently sorcerers can't get little mystical animals following them anymore. I gave her a scroll of find familiar and we're calling it a day.

I normally rule that for armor to apply to a flamethrower or something of the like it needs to be thermally sealed in some way. For the rock-people it's really your call, are they fleshy on the inside or completely made of stone?

I actually see many from that list as being a rather idealized adventuring party. Achilles, Ajax and Odysseus all fought on the same side in the Iliad, and had their own strengths. In a lot of ways you have two different fighters along with a clever rogue. Achilles may have gone into a...

I've had this type of experience more than once at my FLGS. I'm typically there picking up a book for WFRP, Savage Worlds, Mutants and Masterminds or some other game and an edition warrior begins criticizing my purchase out of the blue, assuming I'm making a purchase for an edition of D&D...

As somebody who gets paid to write I'm going to disagree with you on this. I have a peer group specifically for the purpose of reviewing my rough drafts, so do many writers with far more notoriety and skill than I can hope to accomplish. If you need public opinion to avoid getting caught up in...

Only if the rogue doesn't fight or interact and the bard doesn't fight or explore. Well, the bard really doesn't fight or explore... Spoony bards...

If the fighter is it's own class, I completely agree. The main issue I wind up seeing with design is what does the fighter do outside of combat. Due to the definition of fighter, it pretty much implies a one-pillar class. There's no class called "explorer" nor is there a class called...

I think the biggest problem is that the fighter encompasses too broad a range of archetypes. It may be the least focused class in the game, it's supposed to cover a non-ranger archer, a non-paladin knight, a non-rogue fencer as well as a man at arms, city guardsman, mercenary swordsman, brute...

Which is where you face the problem that it's just as easy to make a module for a grittier system, there's a group out there where the HP as wounds is just as much a non-starter for those who want a cinematic experience. In short, your statement can be applied to either camp with equal result...

I think this winds up being the main problem with designing a "big tent" type game. No matter what you call the core, you alienate people. Canonizing the abstract HP with everything that can reduce your longevity in combat called "damage" while everything that prolongs it is "healing" turns...

I kind of like the idea of a wound or injury being a status condition, one that doesn't go away easily and is only gained when you suffer some sort of meaningful hit. Imagine if you will: A critical hit, being dropped to zero hit points by a damaging ability or any other special ability that...

I doubt this will wind up making many people happy in the end at all. Regardless of what happens with D&D Next, there are people out there who will vociferously hate it. There are people who have formed their opinions already. I really don't understand why people think the way they play is...