Search results

I like 4E. I can see various elements I would be happy to see make a return from past editions, and other areas where I felt 4E did not go far enough. My current game is running from a solid core of 4E, but with a decent amount of homebrewing involved. So I am certain that WotC could make a...

I wish I had time to really run the numbers here, but one thing I do want to point out: At higher levels, monsters do end up with more powers (and more potent powers), just as players do. But, generally, not to the same degree. Only the most unique solos tend to have anything close to the...

Right. I said in my last post that the problem with Expertise is that they are measured against a group with no options, rather than one with the average options. What I didn't make clear is that there really is no easy way to know what that 'average' group is. Now, in theory, with a balanced...

The changes to monsters definitely changed things, but... in my experience, it meant that you could actually run at-level encounters as average encounters, rather than having them just being speedbumps, and needing Level+2 or Level+3 in order to be a standard encounter (and even higher for...

It's hard to say I'm specifically excited, but mainly just because we don't have a very clear issue of the release schedule - there isn't much to be excited or not about. Am I excited about playing the game itself? Absolutely! That's a completely different thing from anticipating new...

Well, I'm not sure anyone out there was actually arguing that WotC didn't introduce Expertise to try and fix a perceived gap in the system. I've seen people argue that you don't need the feats to remain competitive. My own contention is that the gap they address was not much of an issue in...

And yet, the guidelines in the book do emphasize that obeying laws is a lawful act. How much guidance does it give on what point merits an alignment shift? Look, to give an example I have my own experience with - I played Living Greyhawk. In the game, you could not play an evil character...

I can certainly understand missing these elements. In many ways, I feel that the 4E approach to artifacts has taken their place for me, which takes a similar approach but makes it more focused. So you might have a Regalia of Good that does not say, "You must be Good alignment to use this"...

I see these sort of suggestions a lot and they always seem to miss the point. Most of these arguments happen because they group thought they had a shared understanding of the alignment system (or any other area of the rules). Finding out in the middle of a session partway into the game is where...

It is also worth noting (as I think Dannyalcatraz is getting at here) that 4E's adjustment of alignment involved two things: 1) Removing direct connections between alignment and the game mechanics. 2) Switching from the 9 point system to the 5 point system. The latter is trivial to 'bolt-on'...

It's a fair point, and the group doesn't have to sneak - there has been one point where they intentionally went 'looking for trouble', hoping to find the local bandits who they had a message for. (They instead wandered into a clearing filled with green slime.) But in general, when 'traveling'...

I don't tend to view it as a replacement as much as a supplement. At least as I tend to run it, the skill challenge doesn't replace the 'random encounter' itself, it replaces the 'random chance' element. So if the party is traveling through a dangerous forest, this would be an extended skill...

Currently DMing: Dark Heresy, D&D 4E Ravenloft Currently playing: D&D 3.5 Play By Post, D&D 4E online game Have played in the last year: Deadlands One-shots in the last year: Dragon Age, Gamma World

I definitely enjoyed DA2, and the core concept of the game - as a story more focused on one character's journey, rather than an epic spanning an entire kingdom - was a change of pace I really liked. And the first half of the game was really, really engaging. And the companion characters were...

It's called "Going Ape", involves the "curse of Cihuatlco", the aforementioned undead giant gorilla (or girallon, it looks like), and does seem to fit the jungle adventure drill - though is perhaps a few levels too high, as it is aimed at levels 5 to 7. Here's the link: Going Ape And here's...

Merging the two would be a terrible and pointless idea - they are very different, both thrive on their core theme, and blending those two different elements would only hurt them both.

While not quite the same time, this brings to mind a favorite quote of mine from one of the fellow GMs in the group. "I hate random item/encounter/event tables where rolling 100 is "DM's choice". If I wanted to simply choose, I wouldn't have rolled on the table in the first place!" I agree...

If it happened without warning or ability for PC to react, then yeah. In the same way that, "Hey, while you guys left town, it was hit by a meteor" or "Random mugger killed your family while you were away. Sorry!" If you set this stuff up - and the player knows that 'loggers are moving into...

The 0th level Dungeon is actually a counterpart to a Dragon article for this month: "A Hero’s Choice: Level 0 Rules." No idea how the mechanics will work, but yeah, pretty clearly aimed at addressing those who have asked for such things. :)

Oh yeah. I mean, I'm used to gaming with folks I am already friends with, so reading some of these occasional horror stories is almost hard to believe - that some folks don't have that luxury, and do rely on 'local gaming groups' or other opportunities to get their D&D fix, and that sometimes...