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Tricksy Hobbitses!

I didn't buy into 3.5, so I figure it's about time for me to buy core books again. It doesn't hurt that a friend has offered to DM :)

Buh? In 3.x, they each die at -10, and have a 10% chance to stabilize each round, so no difference between the two there. In 4e, the barbarian dies at -AReallyBigNumber... but the bleeding out mechanic is completely divorced from hit points. So other than "being chewed on while unconscious"...

Depending on how you do it, this is a point-buy system (or at least, a very very simplistic one with little mechanical depth -- either each level of fighter gives you lots of options, there are a lot of things named fighter with relatively few options, or each level of fighter gives you very few...

I don't care how many classes there are. What I want is to be able to sketch out really quickly the "build" of a character in a few words. In first edition, you could say "LG Male Dwarven Fighter 12" and you had most of the character done -- maybe five minutes of additional work, and then choose...

Maybe it's my 1984 group-think, but I don't think that's as paradoxical as it sounds. John Snow has parsed it appropriately, I think, but my take on it was: "There are feats/powers/monster facets to do X" "It's bad to make X a default ability to anyone who can do 'X precursor'". He happened...

This is cool stuff. One warning for those who think that this is descriptive: Do not be fooled! Any and every ranked descriptive system can be turned trivially into a math heavy crunchy system. Beware! :) I had fooled around with the thought (I like it when my players take noncombat skills...

I love this place. :D

It's true, it does. That doesn't make it wrong, though -- and it might convince me to run gestalt for once in my life. It would also let you definitively balance like-against-like, saying that each party needs (or rather, benefits from having) a Defender, Leader, Striker, and Controller... ...

Read the whole post, it's good for you :) Class levels, as a term of art, balanced against each other in combat. Profession levels, as a term of art, balanced against each other out of combat. You could use schticks from each in either situation, but I've no objection to a potter wizard or an...

Just saying, is all. :)

Something similar to this was sort of my hope, too -- class levels, balanced against each other in combat, and profession levels, balanced against each other out of combat. Because if your bard is actually a carpenter, or your ranger a sailor, the rules aren't helping :) It'd be too big a...

I must be really unable to express myself today -- I agree completely with this post in its entirety. It's happened to me, too ;)

(snipped because I'm snippy?) -- Again, for what it's worth, I agree completely. I just feel like you're misrepresenting 4th edition's goals (and so do a few other posters here). As for the initiative thing -- I didn't realize that it was a houserule, but apparently familiars and animal...

If you decide "Why's it gotta be black?" turn to page 97. If you decide "Dungeons and _____?", turn to page 150. Choose your own snark! :)

I actually take more fault with this footnote than the rest of the post. It suggests that I've taken away a very different message from the conversations in which "Make it up!" has been a reply than you have. Balance, in the service of the protagonists, is a very plot-centric, player-involved...

Nothing was fetch, which is pretty rad. Nothing was cool either. :(

Good stuff is good stuff no matter the wrapper -- I'll buy Monte's stuff at $9.00, even if I'll never use it, because he's probably worth $9.00 of entertainment just to read. Does that make me sick?

I see where you're coming from, but this is a game with Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma characteristics. It has a Diplomacy score which (currently) can tell the DM how to play his characters, but can't be turned back on the players. If D&D divorced the personality-shaping aspects of the...

So then, this is your real complaint. Yay! :) I think you're wrong. In fact, I don't understand why "This is an orc archer, here are the tricks orcish archers play, and the equipment that they use." is worse than "this is an orc." Moreover, since we want monsters to be page aligned, and the...