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If we go down that route, why have stats for anything ever? The DM can always handwave away the printed rules; having situations in which the DM needs to do so on account of the printed rules being nonsensical indicates bad rules. What happens when the PCs then attempt to push the monsters...

1: Take the advancement paths for HP, defenses, attack bonus, and damage, and normalize them. (Re-enable 1/2 level as bonus damage from Saga, say.) 2: Enable trade-offs. Defenders can boost HP, Strikers attack bonus and damage, Controllers mostly damage, and the like. 3: Grow minions as...

Hmm. This kind of rule would definitely promote the creation of lobotomized dragon farms.

Indeed. Remember; contrary to what you see on television, you need to untie your sacrifices (and generally give them some form of weapon) before you can kill them and gain a bonus for your dark masters.

...Hmm. I dunno. As a Miniscule object, the top hat has a +12 bonus to attacks and defense. That can be a little unbalanced. I'd worry about a player that was seeking that kind of naked combat advantage in a game that supposed to be about superheroic adventures. (And yes, you actually can...

OK. I, as a character, know how well most kobolds fight. I know how well I fight without said magic sword. I know that if I use the sword, I will be better at fighting by a given amount. I know that if I pass this sword to my companions, they will gain an exactly-equivalent bonus from the...

Much of the source material does not include people who can call upon the dark things that dwell beyond the stars and make your brain dribble out your ears with a glance. In the traditional representations of swordfighting you reference, your weapon is both your hit points and your attack...

All right, allow me to settle this debate once and for all. There is our shared consensus of how the world should be. Fighters should stab things effectively, wizards should harness the powers of magic, evil rotty magic doesn't work well against undead and shiny divine magic does, and so...

Ah, yes. The Plot Thread of the Cursed Item. Once upon a time, a character came upon a cursed item. Shortly after discovering its nature, the player took the item to the local blacksmith and had it destroyed. The end. Or: Once upon a time, a character came upon a cursed item. Shortly...

Is this more or less heroic than killing enemies and gaining a boon from nameless entities from beyond the stars? For better or worse, there is no assumption of good and morally-upright PC behavior in 4E.

A tip for those interested in civil discussion: "This is what the rule actually says." and "This is what (it is obvious to me) that the rule actually means." are not logically equivalent statements. If you say the first while meaning the second, it is recommended that you add the Humpty-Dumpty...

The short version is that things that effect the bits of the world represented by rules should themselves have rules wrapped around them. The even shorter version is that this is the Air Bud defense; the rule explicitly state that the sale price of an item is 20% market value, whether it's a...

Antiquities and art aren't tools, they're luxuries. Magic items aren't just the tools by which adventurers earn their bread, they are the tools by which they avoid death. A better metaphor would be precision machine tools. A lathe that can produce intricate aircraft parts down to hundredths...

The pattern described here is my biggest problem with 4E rules. The designers had a clear idea of how they wanted the world to work, but completely failed to write rules that actually brought that idea to life. The Credible Threat rule (or non-rule) fails to address the underlying issue of...

Huh. Can't an eladrin teleport 0 squares, since they maintain line of sight to themselves? Even blinded, no effect can obscure a square's line of sight to itself, based on the way the sighting lines from corners are drawn. So, if you try the blindfold deal, he can just teleport into his own...

Ah. For me, those two concepts are pretty much identical, barring specific special-case and special-purpose exceptions. Well, since we're defining terms; a rule is something that produces consistent results. A rule that requires the DM to constantly use his discretion is a bad rule, and...

I'm not seeing a whole lot of "Yes, that is an unreasonable situation that would never come up in play." or "No, that's a reasonable situation, but the rules can't handle players attacking mobs unless the DM puts a red circle around their feet." or even "The rules don't need to cover the...

*coughs politely* Look, pick a paradigm. Either throw on arbitrary restrictions hither and yon in the name of balance, fun, or whatever, or run the rules straight. But don't try to claim that engineering a fight to gain a "when you defeat an enemy" effect doesn't make sense, and inspiring...

Well, yes, but the rules don't say that, is the problem. I'll cheerfully call Oberani here; the fact that the credible threat rule can be ignored when needed doesn't make it a good rule, and fact highlights its badness as a rule. I would much prefer the game developers acknowledge that the...

OK. Let us ponder the following scenarios: 1: A warlock is attacked by a group of four giant rats. He curses and kills them, one by one, gaining a bonus on each rat death. 2: A warlock is attacked by a group of eight giant rats. He curses and kills four, knocks four unconscious, ties them...