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It's probably a lot more accurate to say that "system mastery" is how the marketers of 4th edition decided to tell the designers to retroactively characterize the 3.x design philosophy. The designers fed us a lot of nonsense that no thinking person has any business believing in the early days of...

Spells that do ability damage (rather than inflict a penalty) are generally a bad idea, but I am not too worried about phantasmal assailants. It's a low-level spell and nearly everything has either a good fortitude or a good will. Sure, you could heighten it, but if you're in the market for...

As others said, I think it's a daily. But it is also a power that primarily does damage and needs to be compared to other dailies. In a really large combat with lots of foes, it is amazing. In smaller combats, it is somewhat underwhelming--especially if the bad guys are focused on one of your...

While there are some very clever (and very complex) things you can pull off if multiple characters have guileful switch, it actually has some negative synergy with a lot of warlord powers. Most warlord powers give an ally or all allies a bonus until the start or end of your next turn. If you...

I think you're getting the way things would work wrong. It would be something like: Tactical warlord: Move up to enemy, warlord's favor benefiting the inspiring warlord. Guileful switch with inspiring warlord. Inspiring warlord: Move to flank enemy: inspired belligerence, war of attrition...

What you're missing in this regard is that it can be used out of combat. So, take an hour and heal the whole party without spending surges. Use the power 12 times interspersed with 12 short rests. This is not in-your-face broken like storm of blades but it subverts the entire point of having...

Hardly just a one level dip. Fighter/wizard is what the character is. (And the truly optimized character wouldn't have bothered with any levels of fighter, so it's not as though pure-classing is somehow less optimized). It just happens that taking only one level of fighter is the best way to do...

Put me in the problem of "I don't see a problem with high level no save, no SR spells in principle." Now, there may be problems with particular spells in practice, and I would worry about no save spells (like Otto's Irresistable Dance) more than no save, no SR spells like acid fog. If that is...

Dealing with the last item first: The melee example is actually pretty typical for parties that work together. All the melee character needs to do is have a cleric or wizard in his party who is willing to prep greater magic weapon and cast it on his greatsword. (Bonus points for using a...

Acquire daze immunity and it's flat-out broken but the essential issue is that actions now are more useful than actions in the future--and if the encounter is over this round, then it doesn't matter if you are dazed next round. Anything that enables a front-end nova in the manner discussed...

Quite a difference, but 4th level slots are cheap by level 12 or so and characters don't take attacks when they are in danger of dying that often. So you only need a couple prepared and you can use pearls of power to refresh them for later fights. A small price to pay to completely remove the...

Wizard's damage: about 76. Cleric's damage: about 35 (monsters failing fort saves--pull the other one) Druid's damage: about 26 (monsters failing fort saves--pull the other one) Fighter's damage: 22 by your calculations. But that fighter is not doing his job right. At level 16 or so (which is...

Full attacks were gone from D&D for all of about 3 months. Then martial power came out. Rangers got a boatload of minor actions attacks. Full attack: Minor: Ruffling sting, trade move for another minor: off-hand strike, standard: twin strike Rogues got a few minor action attacks. (Low slash)...

What exact problems are you trying to fix with this suggestion? I don't think attack bonus really is much of a problem. If your character focuses on doing damage with weapons, you make sure not to dilute your BAB. If you don't focus on doing damage with weapons, then by the time you hit level...

I thought I would find both examples ridiculous. I certainly find the first example so ludicrous it is painful to read, let alone imagine participating in a game like that. The second example, on the other hand, seems much more interesting. When I went back and re-read it to be fair, it sounded...

In order: 1. Warlord 2. Warlord 3. Warlord I think I prefer 3.5 to 4th edition but if I were to find a regular 3.5 game, I would be disappointed that I couldn't play a warlord.

For my part, I haven't had any 4e characters die yet. Of course, I also shepherded Living Greyhawk characters to level 18, 16, 15, 13, 9, 4, and 3, Living Arcanis to level 12, played through the first half of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (I moved halfway through the game), and all the...

I think it depends upon the class. Rogues can be pretty close to optimal in the purest sense of your analysis here: no multiclassing, skill training, armor, or weapon feats. Archer rangers benefit a lot from getting greatbow proficiency but can otherwise do fine without multiclassing or more...

I think they mostly hedge out other options for items because a lot of the items they designed for 4th edition are useless junk. My armor gives me a daily power to zap someone with a small amount of damage when they hit me. Who cares? If I have decent daily powers on other items (like dwarven...

Seeing swamps as dark and dismal probably has several sources. First, since swamps are very different depending upon where you are, it is quite possible that the swamps that inspired that view are different from the everglades. Our literary heritage has a lot of england in it, after all, and...