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It really depends upon the situation. Grapple is an autowin against many spellcasters. If the wizard doesn't have dimension door prepped, he's done for once he's grappled. Likewise, if you grapple that orc barbarian, he's not going to be power attacking with his vorpal greatsword anymore. Now...

I would actually take chainmail proficiency first. I found that, even with a boatload of hit points, AC 13-15 just isn't enough. Also, I would recommend buying the 18 strength straight up. That still leaves enough stats to end up with: Str 18, Con 15, Wis 15 Put the 10, 10, 8, in Dex, Int...

Color spray and fire shroud are the ones I see most often in LFR. However, like Babinro, I like the look of icy rays. It also combine very nicely with the various wizard zone powers. First you immoblize the target. Then you put him in the stinking cloud. So, not only does he not have line of...

One caveat to that. If everyone has an AC and hit points that can handle melee combat and has effective attacks that will not provoke opportunity attacks then you can do without a defender. What you don't want is a situation where three bad guys around a character means that the bad guys get...

I've always played with minis and battlemaps here from 1e to 4e. I prefer it that way, not just for the "I was over there not here" problem, but also because it puts the answer "how many of those orcs can I get with a fireball" in the player's hands and removes the answer to "can I get a flank...

That is certainly a part of it. My goal, after all, was to describe a party that is horribly balanced despite having every role covered. However, choosing weaker builds for most roles is not the reason that the party doesn't work. Party A doesn't work mostly because it has 4 ranged characters...

Probably it's best to first look at why the first party does not work (well). 1. Ensnaring Swordmage, fey-pact warlock, preserving invoker, laser cleric, dark pact warlock. A. Only one character in the first party has any business near melee. Everyone else is relatively low AC and relatively...

Roles are not new to 4th edition. What is new to 4th edition and is, unfortunately, infecting the minds of a lot of players is the idea that roles define what classes are and, by definition, make a balanced party. To illustrate the first point, just take a brief glimpse at the warhorn website...

I'm not advocating the idea that DPR is all that matters. I am arguing that it does matter for leaders, controllers, and defenders as well as strikers. In your case, you took destructive wizardry. Obviously, that's not helping you kill minions--they die if you only deal 1 point to them. But if...

To not be boring, first you need to decide what it is you find boring. Is it doing the same thing every round? Power Attack or Combat Expertise and the subsequent guessing/calculating how much attack bonus you can afford to turn into damage or AC may be all you need. Or you could wield a bastard...

I'm with stalker0. Fluff, no fluff. I'm not particularly bothered. What I want is more items with interesting and useful properties and less items that suffer a four level penalty for the privilege of having a daily ability that no-one in his right mind would prefer to a power jewel or...

In theory, this is true. In practice, the official party roles are some of the most misleading aspects of D&D. For instance, consider these two parties: 1. Ensnaring Swordmage, fey-pact warlock, preserving invoker, laser cleric, dark pact warlock. one defender, two strikers, a controller, and...

Technically, you are correct. Practically however, the publisher may well be on the right side of this one (I haven't read the mod so I can only discuss the general principle). If you want to advance a naga, the three ways that WotC provided that I remember off the top of my head are...

For what you are talking about, I recommend the following: Human cleric. (All the way up--if you want, you can take radiant servant of pelor, or church inquisitor without losing much in the way of the abilities you care about, but you will be fine even if you stick with the base class). Str...

If you don't like 4th edition and want 3.5 with in-print books, Pathfinder may be the thing for you. It's not exactly 3.5 and not exactly finished, but it promises to continue the spirit of the 3.5 rules and have the end result be mostly backwards compatible.

The rules aren't clear. For really effective hiding of large objects, the appropriate skill is probably: Craft: Carpentry or maybe profession: carpenter You'll want boxes with false bottoms, secret compartments hidden in your ship, or both. Depending upon how you are smuggling the items, you...

Planetars are great--even at a mere 14 HD. When my party was finishing the age of worms campaign, we summoned a number of planetars in the final chapter. It was a great way to get access to lots of cleric spells that we couldn't normally cast (our party's healer was a favored soul). Sheltered...

Actually, I'll just point out that there is no way to make a good hexblade. It's right there in the class requirements: non-good. (Ducks and runs)

Exactly. That's why the twin strike numbers are exactly the same for 21 and 22 but lower than they were at 20. If you need a 20 to hit, any hit crits. If you only hit on a 20 because it's a 20 (and 20's always hit), you don't crit. It doesn't matter how high the defense gets after that, you...

Not really. Level 1 ranger. 18 dex. Longbow. Weapon Focus. If we assume a 50% base chance to hit, you get: Twin strike: DPR 9.81875 Careful Strike: DPR 6.35 So, in the range where the game is designed to generally occur, Twin strike does more than 50% more damage. "But wait," you say. "Twin...