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For myself, I do tend to offer out misleading info for PCs who flub certain checks (whether trying to tell if someone is lying, trying to gather information and rumors on the street, etc). But I don't hide dice rolls - the players typically know they flubbed the check and their PC has bad...

So, just to be clear... your idea is that it is acceptable for someone to want to play a strong barbarian, an intelligent wizard, or a wise cleric, and have the game mechanically support their ability to do so, but if they want to play a character who is a skilled investigator, you do not feel...

Like I said, it does come down to a certain extent to how much you want to weight player skill vs PC skill. Like with other social skills, it tends to be an area where you can easily marginalize certain PCs because of these sort of expectations. No one expects the fighter's player to physically...

I'm not sure that approach actually implies the lack of Passive Insight. My approach has always been that I might roll against Passive Insight if a PC is being lied to and the player is not suspicious. Basically, a high enough insight means the player gets a 'heads-up' when something is off...

Ok, look, I think it is absolutely true that the complexity level of those powers is an issue, certainly. I don't think that ties into the specific situation being discussed, however. Those abilities do make it easier for the fighter to fulfill their role, even if, in your opinion, they make it...

Well, I've seen some situations that might be an explanation for what he's talking about: Round 1: Fighter runs up and starts smacking an ogre. Ogre swings back, bounces off the fighter's armor. Round 2: Ogre walks away from the fighter and smashes a wizard into jelly. Wizard's Player...

Yeah, that third answer is what I've wanted to see from the beginning.

4E actually, in my experience, is almost more accomadating of such things, either through stunts or terrain effects. The key is to make sure stuff doesn't take PCs by surprise, and is equally available to them. If they enter a room and you describe a slippery floor, and then an enemy shoves a...

No, no it isn't. Improvisation and dynamically adjusting things on the fly can absolutely be a good thing, but is certainly not automatically so. Now, this is definitely something that will vary from one group to the next. But for many groups, the point of having a shared rules system is to...

It used to be rather hard to track them down. But now they have an 'Artifact' option in the Category menu, and I think that gets all of them.

I don't think that's a reasonable accusation to make. There was a pretty solid clamor for more story elements in the 4E books from many people playing the game. There were also plenty of folks who were perfectly happy with the more minimalist approach seen previously. For myself, I don't think...

I've definitely seen folks who have argued for being able to give different explanations for something (Power Source) that has no real in-game mechanical effect. I don't think I've seen anyone argue that the PHB suggests that martial powers are inherently 'superheroic' other than those who tend...

Hidden Stab, an at-will power that Executioner Assasssin's get at level 7. It basically lets you hop out and grab someone, intended to represt putting your knife at their throat and threatening to end them if they don't cooperate. The original version of the power (in playtesting) was way...

The default explanation for the martial power source has always been mundane - it represents skill and training that allows a seasoned warrior to take advantage of the right opportunities in combat to deliver powerful special attacks. (Hence the name Expoits - they exploit the right circumstance...

Well, yeah. That's why I put all those disclaimers in my post warning of those exact downsides. :) 1.5 is probably a good baseline as an easy way to eyeball how much you'll get out of it. It really depends a lot on style of play, and how much you'll adjust your tactics to compensate. Do you...

Against a typical foe, ongoing damage translates to about 1.8 times the base damage, I believe. So ongoing 5 damage will, on average, do about 9 damage to a foe. (I don't think it comes to exactly that, but from what I recall, its close enough to use it as a way to judge the effect of ongoing...

I'd say that (a) Yes, it sounds like a similar design structure to the 4E approach, and (b) I don't imagine it was in any way patterned after it, but simply the sort of parallel design you end up with in similar fields with similar concerns. Also, (c) That it is one element among many, some...

It was in Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. I don't think it was in any of the excerpts, though its picture shows up in a few of the previews.

What are the 'wider uses' you are thinking of? I really don't see anything that isn't pretty cleanly handled by the power, myself. It seems a rather elegant approach to make ti all work without creating an entirely new weapon size system.

1) Yes. 2) I think shortly before Essentials. I think it was announced online - it wasn't explicitly called out in any books, we simply had books show up without the restriction being in them any more. It was changed to prevent people from feeling like that had a bunch of useless items they...