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The DM is setting the campaign expectations and options, in concert with the players. Remember he has to use the same modules to build his NPC's. The monster manual will have a core rules creature, then say "Use X feat if you are using the feat module." "Use X skills if you are using the...

I think people are forgetting one of the promises made by the designers - an old schooler can sit down and play next to the 4e player at the same table. Here is an example with all of the point calculations in the background: The player is an old schooler who wants to play a melee fighter. He...

You didn't answer my question about hiding the point system in the background and using it to offer discrete options.

Each class would have a cap on how they can allocate build points per level. For example, the caps for each basic class in the core rules could be: Fighter: Gain 6 hp automatically and have 4 BP cap on extra hp, 3 BP cap to increase to hit, 2 BP cap to increase damage, 2 BP cap on skill...

What if the designers calculated BP in the background and presented the options as: you can pick X if you are using module X, Y if you are using module Y, etc.? Somebody has to measure the equivalency of all these abilities. If it isn't you, then it has to be them.

OK, I think the designers have dropped enough hints that we can guess at the basic framework behind 5e: Step 1: DM chooses campaign setting, campaign longevity, and power level The campaign setting is the typical world building exercise that a DM uses to spark his or her imagination. Pre-made...

Trailblazer has come to the conclusion that the PC's should succeed around 70% of the time for the game experience to seem neither too easy nor too hard. 3e is measured against this goal for the following when PC level = monster CR PC attack vs. monster AC PC AC vs. monster attack PC save vs...

Shouldn't there be more than 4 encounters per day if your rules include healing surges and armor as DR? At least at low levels?

When you posted this on the Paizo boards, the response was that changing the 3+mod per day abilities to at-will is too powerful. How about changing them to once per encounter (five minutes)?

I would like to playtest the following to see if it would encourage spell dueling with counterspells: 1) No more ready actions, unless the trigger condition is actual movement Example: If he moves toward me, I blast him with a fireball. 2) Counterspell is now a standard action, but you can...

This is an important concept to understand if you want to DM a balanced campaign. In the AD&D days I assigned the maximum treasure to all the demon and devil lords based on their treasure types in the 1e MM. The total gp divided by the XP rewarded for defeating them came to a ratio of 3.19 (I...

This should be your basis for the Western monk. IMO, the original D&D Monk was based at least partly on this guy: Francis of Assisi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia St. Francis could speak with animals - which is one of the abilities listed for the 1e monk. St. Francis had no worldly...

Thrown Weapons: The wielder applies his Strength modifier to damage dealt by thrown weapons (except for splash weapons). It is possible to throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown (that is, a melee weapon that doesn't have a numeric entry in the Range column on Table: Weapons), and a...

Here's a interpretation of D&D magic from someone who actually read the literature that inspired it (works listed in Appendix N of Gygax's AD&D DMG):

I suggest that the fate points be used in a few simple ways to boost the martial characters: 1 point - reset a used encounter power 4 points - reset a used daily power once per day - add any amount of points in the fate pool to one attack roll or subtract any amount of points from an opponent's...

I also want to do something similar to what you're describing, but I think it will require at least double the time you're willing to invest. At the outset, get a pre-published setting but don't read every detail regarding the geography. Then pick a spot at random and place the PC's in the...

The only way to put the fear of death/drain into players is to make sure the players/PC's know the monster is capable of inflicting the effect on them. There are so many monster and spell books out now that a player probably doesn't know what's going to hit him - he's asked to make a save and...

Tequila Sunrise created a 3e monster creation document that uses 4e roles. This is what I plan to use when I want to convert 4e monsters to 3e.

Here's what Gygax had to say on the subject in the book Living Fantasy:

Average 3.5 damage for 5th level caster: 5 * 3.5 = 17.5. Average TS damage for 5th level caster: 3 * 5 + 5 = 20. Max 3.5 damage for 5th level caster: 5 * 6 = 30. Max TS damage for 5th level caster: 3 * 8 + 5 = 29.