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I started building (but never played) a battle master fighter / rogue with a whip and shield combo combined with the dueling fighting style and the shield master feat. He has better AC than a polearm fighter, his base damage-per-attack isn't horrible, he gets to use maneuvers and sneak attack at...

Nah. Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master are kind of crazy. I can't say I've looked at the high-level ramifications of this change, but I'm entertaining changing the -5/+10 option those feats grant to a once/round thing. Both of those feats are a lot less curve-shattering if the fighter isn't...

That's a pity. Really. While some are better than others, the AL adventures are pretty good. The nit-picky arguments that seem to consume the message boards aren't (in my experience) anywhere near as prevalent in actual play.

"I don't know exactly what this means", at a home table, is fairly easily remedied by having a chat between player and DM. If both can agree to an interpretation, issue solved. If they can't it's useful to have somewhere to turn for clarification. Issues can usually be dealt with before they...

Adventurers League. That's why.

Lucky - You can effectively give yourself advantage or force disadvantage on an enemy three times per day, and you get to wait until after you or the enemy rolls the dice to use it. Potentially the best feat in the game. Polearm Master - have a free bonus action attack (bonk + full mods) with...

Doesn't that get maddening on your turn? If you don't know who's dazed, slowed, immobilized, or whatever, how are you able to have team monster take any actions without a dozen interruptions/do-overs? I get having the players track weird status effects (when I'm DMing, monsters under oddball...

By adding a damage roll and stat mod (aside - INT only, or INT/WIS/CHA?), you've made that a bit too powerful for a minor action. You might remove the damage and create an Improved Whatever This Power Is Called feat for this race that also causes the power to inflict stat mod psychic damage on...

Be sure to scale that up at Paragon and Epic. INT, WIS, or CHA +3/+4 at levels 11/21 if you're using inherent bonuses, or adjust the whole thing to +3/+6/+9 if not. Since racials can't benefit from Expertise and are neither weapon or implement attacks, you want to make sure they stay competitive.

That's exactly what spike damage is. Look at the Duergar Scout (as seen in a recent season of Encounters versus characters levels 1-3), a level 4 lurker. A crit from a hidden scout would do 37 damage to a single target up to 20 squares away. That's instant dead-10-death to a lot of first...

Somewhere along the line someone thought it was a good idea to have lurkers be the guys dealing absurd spike damage. The Doppelganger Infiltrator is my favorite example. I'm not a fan - this is "Orc with a greataxe and a lucky crit = instant character death" material.

Multiple Attacks - it's actually well-defined. http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/glossary.aspx?id=121 A melee attack against multiple opponents counts as multiple attacks. Swordmages - yeah, they're a pain for DMs. They have high defenses and provide significant battlefield...

Feats are why you'd use a non-magical implement. You can't benefit from Rod Expertise/Focus unless you're actually wielding a rod.

This is the first season they've officially opened Encounters up beyond Essentials-only. That's a bit of an important point, though - it wasn't Hybrids (specifically) that were disallowed. Anything pre-Essentials or not directly related to the current release (Heroes of Shadow, Heroes of the...

Not allowed at organized play events? They're fully kosher for LFR, and even the current Encounters season allows them.

We did - team monster HP totals were cut in half and their damage output was increased by around 50%. They go down faster, but they hit harder. This did speed up combat, but it caused some interesting issues. Ranged strikers (and enemy artillery) became outrageously deadly. Leaders became...

I'm another voice in the "it's too swingy" chorus. Particularly at low heroic, it's a recipe for TPK. It also mucks about with healing - if critters are consistently hitting harder than someone's surge value, for example, Second Wind is a whole lot less useful. I've been wanting to try a...

That was probably Gritty Sergeant, used to score proficiency with the rapier without burning a feat slot. That's a staple of most optimized thief builds. No background provides a rider to a basic attack.

That's an impressive run for two people! You did luck out, here; regen shouldn't work once you're below zero hp. From the Compendium's glossary definition of regeneration: "Heal Each Turn: If you have regeneration and at least 1 hit point, you regain a specified number of hit points at the...

That was a screw-up. The buff you mention only adds damage to melee attacks, not burst attacks. Personal accounts: I've run through the Lair twice, now. For the first run our group had Breaching Armor; the intent was to pop through the false door straight in to the final fight. Two nasty...