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I think D&D needs to support wizards that prepare spells ahead of time, but I don't think preparing spells is what makes a character into a wizard. At a minimum, most fictional wizards aren't shown preparing spells (unless the fiction is trying to represent D&D). Personally, I would be one of...

I like this article because it breaks out play-style from character type. A choice of spell system is really one of play style. Folks who want to play Vancian casters want to do so because it adds an interesting strategic challenge in being able to anticipate the spell needs for the day and to...

This is type of thing best handled on a spell-by-spell basis. A spell like fireball is probably best as a daily ability, so you just want more powerful fireballs when prepared at higher levels. A spell like Burning Hands works as a daily ability at 1st level, but it's kind of lame to have a...

Really? Anyway, I hate to resort to math on this, but if a hill giant is twice the height of a human with 8-10 times a human's mass, then it's hard to see a hill giant eating more than 20-30 pounds of food in a sitting. Yes, that's a whole suckling pig eaten by a single giant, but it's a long...

Also, classes could be given different recharge systems without necessarily using the same mechanics. For example, wizards could be given specific spells that, when prepared, operate as at-will or per-encounter abilities, but fighters could have an optional rule where they get fewer combat...

Speaking just for myself, I'd like to see exploration rules focused on (1) how long it takes to explore an area (whether dungeon or wilderness), (2) the likelihood of being detected while exploring and (3) ways for organized communities of monsters respond to intruders. Obviously, these would...

Flawed multiclassing rules have been part of D&D for nearly as long as armor class. That having been said, I think there is something to be said for classic AD&D style multi-classing. Conceptually, AD&D multiclass characters are wildly unbalanced. But in practice, I always found that the...

I agree that classes shouldn't have specializations that cause their effectiveness to be too narrowly tied to a specific opponent. I think the designers recognize that this was a problem with many editions of D&D, and we probably won't see the 1-3e style of favored enemy in D&DN. That said, it...

I too need to spread xp. I think I agree with the majority view in this thread that the article captures the intent of the original Yuan-Ti, but I think your version is more interesting than the standard "more snake is more powerful" interpretation of the race. If WotC was to create a new...

IMO, this is the key flaw in the 4e math. Yes, you could own lower level opponents (and, similarly, it was hard as hell to fighter higher level opponents) but the DM advice was to adjust monster roles and levels to compensate. That compensation process took down the whole system for some...

This is an excellent point. Yes, there is some usefulness to being able to tweak the power level of 1st level characters (and 0-level characters are a useful module for some campaigns), but setting the lethality rate is a more important adjustment to move a campaign between the heroic-style and...

That makes sense -- could easily happen. -KS

I don't see why. Totally flat math implies that there is zero improvement of to hit scores as characters level. Why is that a plus? There's a reason to hit scores went up in previous editions of D&D -- getting better is fun. What's important is that the math goes up slowly enough that low...

The monsters obviously have guidelines to go along with them. They just aren't done with them yet (or are ready to share). The designers have also said that +X items will run from +1 to +3. Likewise, the class document shows that to hit modifiers do go up with level. It's just rate of...

I think the strength of 4e boss fights (i.e. long set pieces, whether against a solo or just a dangerous set of interesting monsters) is that monsters get dangerous and cinematic abilities that contribute a lot to the story of the combat. A good combat will shift back-and-forth between the...

I'd be curious to see how the numbers change if you raise or lower the number of encounters and compare that to DM recommendations. How rare is failure if the adventure only lasts four encounters? How rare is success if the adventure is 7 or 8 encounters? Likewise, it would be interesting to...

If you mean a 5th level fighter, 6th level cleric gets the class abilities of a 5th level fighter and a 6th level cleric (with the higher magic and weapon attack modifier), then yes, I think that's very likely. I think the issues mostly come from splashing one level of a class. For example, if...

I don't want to rain on your analysis, but with bounded accuracy, the 3E CR rule of "two levels up, twice as powerful" probably isn't an accurate reflection of D&DN. (Putting aside for the moment the question of whether it was ever true in 3.x...) Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see...

True, but choosing a scheme gives the rogue a 2nd background. Each scheme is tied to the background it grants. (The thief scheme gives the thief background and the thug scheme gives the thug background.) Thus, the obvious speculation about what other backgrounds could be associated with...

Well, I don't have a problem with martial classes sharing the CS feature, so I would expect to see a warlord's at-will ability be a lesser version of fighter CS that are primarily given to allies (not unlike the fighter's defend ability). As far as encounter abilities, I agree that warlords...