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If you have 9th level spell slots, you can choose to cast either 9th level Wizard or Cleric spells - the limitation comes from how many you're able to prepare. With single-class, you get 21 different spells at top level, given the current distribution that's enough for 1 every level and some...

Daggers can be kept viable by means other than doing a trivial amount less damage at high levels though - there can be specific enchantments or maneuvers that work with them, they already use dexterity instead of strength. Why would you ever use a large sword when you can have a free hand, or...

For sure more effort should be made to make every ability relevant to *something* used by each character - more than just skills. I would have gone for a formula, but wanted 10-11 at the centre (since the mea of 3d6 is 10.5). Another idea would be widening the brackets as you move further away...

There's a lot of talk about removing ability modifiers from damage, or from attacks, or from combat altogether, and I get the feeling this is because of the potential disparity between optimised and spread-out characters, as well as the scale of said bonuses when compared to other factors that...

Hm, a tough question. My first thought was to weigh strength and weapon choice equally, and have them modulated by skill. Consider a master and an apprentice swordsman of equal strength - the master knows his weapon better, and knows his own strength better and so gets better use of both...

I completely agree with this - there are many ways in which physical combat can inflict the vast array of status conditions available to us, but there are few ways that allow control over the movement and actions of other parties. I would love to see a list of maneuvers that allow the fighter...

Well they've taken a step towards compatible spellcasters already with the current iteration of how spells are prepared and cast. Imagine there is a single spell progression chart for all classes. Now consider that the number of spells you can prepare is 1 + your class level. If you are an 18th...

You've really never come across this? This was my first character build - I wanted a gish character, so I went with an Eladrin Fighter who multiclassed as much as possible into Wizard. By epic levels, I could mark everything on the battlefield for a few rounds in a row through careful use of...

I'm not sure on the matter of using bonuses for to hit and damage, or just one, or neither, but I think there's an elegance to having Str associated with some weapons and Dex with others, whether that be through said bonuses or via ability requirements. To prevent Dex becoming an uber-stat there...

No - the problem there is that the Fighter won't cut you down, he's nowhere near you. He's fireballed you and your friends across a room, just as the Wizard can do, but you, with all your bows, feel intimidated by one use of magic and not the other. Really any non-melee marking doesn't work for...

My main gripe with the fighter in all recent iterations is the emphasis on round-by-round resources. I understand that the traditional fighter, in many people's minds, was someone who could keep swinging his sword all day, and in many cases was simple enough to play in a way that meant you only...

This - prevents stacking, thematic, perfect.

Interesting point about 3E rogues and their many dice for sneak attack. I think that works because the important thing about the rogue is that their damage comes almost entirely from sneaky sneaky. Currently it feels like the fighter, master of arms, doesn't care whether he uses a dagger or...

I think it's a great call to remove perception, or spot and listen as skills. Skills are adding to ability checks, and there are some ability checks that we never use skills for: strength for breaking down a door or lifting a portcullis, dexterity to catch something thrown to you, intelligence...

The trick with all of this is to find the right scale over which something will increase during the course of 20 levels. With accuracy, I think we've hit the right track with 0-5, and it would be nice to see skills come into line with that rather than the silly skill die. With damage we have...

They certainly need scaling down, but they're not on the d20 axis, so they needn't be 0-5. Down with damage, down with hitpoints!

I would love to see this followed up, there's definitely an elegance in balancing training and natural ability - attributes with skills or bonuses. It's also not hard to imagine a module which treats weapon proficiencies the same as skills either, so you can have different attack modifiers with...

Well you do concede that there are creatures and circumstances that wouldn't result in the forced movement caused by Taunt. Would you really rather just give the DM fiat to overrule the power when they felt it appropriate? Surely it's just easier to have the outcome give some options, such as...

I haven't read through all the tricks, but I will say I'm unimpressed to see the return of non-physical, non-magical forced movement. Taunt returns to the 4E design in that respect, when to me it feels odd that no matter the circumstance, a creature would be forced to use its own movement to get...

I was never a fan of expertise dice, and although I give them some credit for switching to a d6 progression for martial damage dice, my complaints my sound particularly bitter. Martial damage dice and martial extra damage are an exceptionally ugly way to achieve the simple aim of increasing the...