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Personally, I'm a bit stingy when it comes to allowing sneak attacks against an enemy that knows exactly where you are and what you are doing. For me, hiding behind a pillar and sometimes poking out on the left to shoot and sometimes poking out on the right to shoot isn't really a situation...

Thank you for your work on this. Your collation and restatement of the scattered rules is a big help in gaining some clarity about the recurring stealth questions. Could you say a bit more about allies providing cover in your enemies' turns - I don't see where that comes from, or how it would...

Hi Phesic - There are dozens of threads here and on the WotC site, where confusion and disagreement about stealth are quite apparent. Here are a few of the issues I recall coming up in those threads (apologies if I misunderstand or mischaracterize any of these issues): 1. A character needs...

With grapple, the intention was clear, but the execution was complex hard to remember. With stealth, the execution is simple, but the intention (when and how, exactly, may one use stealth to obtain combat advantage) is unclear. Why is there no such thing? You don't "stealth as an action"...

Ending your move in cover or concealment is a prerequisite for attempting to hide using stealth; it does not guarantee success. And in the OP, the move did not end in cover or concealment at all. You can't move into a square that is in plain view of a character and then claim combat advantage /...

vonklaude, I don't think so. You would need total concealment (or invisibility) to be sure of remaining unseen while you move, attack, or perform some other kind of action. (Even then, a high enough perception check could make an adversary aware of you.) Having cover or normal concealment...

Party composition is something that should generally be discussed when the group first comes together, before or during character creation. There needs to be a consensus about whether the party should be more or less balanced, or whether it is more important to have each player play their...

Moving definitely requires a new stealth check if you want to remain unnoticed. And there is a penalty for moving more than 2 squares. ETA: I avoid using terms like "go into stealth" or "un-stealth". In this game, stealth is not a condition; it's not invisibility, and it doesn't have a...

Thanks for the comments. I can see the virtue in simplifying that way, since the two progressions only differ by 4 by 30th level. I guess I just like the conceptual separation - realizing you have to scale the challenges differently if anybody could be hit by them, as opposed to something that...

I think the 4e hitpoint/healing mechanics go a long way to fixing a sort of silliness that has plagued D&D since the very beginning. It's a silliness that has become so familiar, though, that many people take it for granted as being natural and logical. Hit points are (and always have been) an...

The guidelines on page 42 of the DMG certainly have the potential of being a DM's best friend. But the DCs as originally printed seemed too high, especially when combined with the misdesigned skill challenge rules. The corrections issued by WotC, though, seem to swing too far in the other...

This looks like an excellent way to handle stealth and hiding. I don't have the books in front of me, so I can't check every detail for consistency with RAW, but one thing did jump out at me: the ability to become hidden if you pass through a square where you have concealment, rather than ending...

Aren't you being a bit unfair? I'm not threadcrapping. The passage that Pseudopsyche quoted seems to me to give an adequate explanation of the relationship between the Bahamut shrine and the undead. It seems you are stuck on the notion of the shrine controlling the sarcophogi in the sense of...

Did you read the history of the keep at all? The dungeon wasn't "dedicated to Orcus" - it was built by the good guys to guard the rift. Then they died and the bad guys moved in to try to reopen it. The shrine to Bahamut, like most of the areas, was built by the good guys a couple hundred years ago.

I voted yes for everything except "no divine classes at all", and I'd even be willing to give that a go if I thought the DM had a cool concept effectively worked out. The only reason I'd be hesitant is that I think the functionality of the cleric and related classes is a part of what makes D&D...

It's actually mostly explained in the text for the adventure. These were the tombs where the garrison of the keep buried their dead. It's natural that there would be a shrine to Bahamut there, so that interment rites could be performed. The skeletons were later animated under the influence of...

For me, the key to understanding this is to appreciate that the categories of "fiction" and "nonfiction", as presently understood, are a comparatively recent development in human history; they depend on a worldview wherein some kind of objective verification (actual or potential) of reported...

For me, it would depend on the player's wishes. If she really doesn't want to do any play-acting, but just wants to imagine her character like she would if reading a book, then let her describe what she has in mind in third-person terms and roll dice. On the other hand, if she sees roleplaying...

I mostly play single-player games, and I've been trying this out with various PC classes and monster types. Paladin or fighter are very good choices, as are the striker classes. Minions can actually be pretty difficult without a wizard to take out several at a time (or a fighter with cleave)...

It's not true that more complex challenges are easier in general. They are easier if the probability of success on an individual skill check is above a critical value. If the probability of success is around 0.5, then the more complex challenges are much more difficult than the less complex...