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Half ongoing damage sounds OK, but doubling damage is probably too much. I'd maybe add 50% instead. My personal house rule is that action points can be spend for a re-roll as well as for an additional action. This means dailies go off maybe 75-85% of the time rather than 50%-60%. I've found...

Well they get racial ability score modifiers in the official rules, just nothing else. I would have included the racial features even if I hadn't misread the rules, though. Otherwise you might as well ignore race completely, which is boring.

PC rangers can't easily do extra damage to enemies in the backfield because they can only make the closest enemy their quarry. I want to retain the flavor of that. That's the reason for the "extra damage against enemies who are closer than any other" qualifier. I prefer to keep the "closer...

No, sorry. The 3.5 NPCs are PCs, basically, and therefore very complex. Part of my inspiration for this project is that 4E NPCs are simplified, and their stats are mostly determined by race, class and level.

I got a request to make the content available via the OGL, so I added licensing information to the book (version 1.0.3). There are no substantive changes, so if you don't care about licensing, don't bother to download this version.

Now that I've been playing around with NPCs for a while, I've noticed that several class features are tedious to keep track of for NPCs, especially for strikers. I am toying with the idea of simplifying certain class features to reduce in-combat bookkeeping while retaining the flavor of the...

I think this is the core of your problem right here. If you re-think what Int means so that it isn't a role-playing hindrance, then the problem will go away. I don't force my PCs with low Int to play stupid. I consider Int to measure "mental agility" and facility with knowledge skills rather...

In my experience, making an NPC with the full PC rules is overkill. Either they won't live long enough to use all their powers and you are wasting effort, or you are giving them too many powers and will overwhelm the PCs. I recommend using the "Creating NPCs" rules from DMG p. 187-188. You...

I usually tell the players that the monsters they are facing are minions, but occasionally I don't if there is a good story reason. In one adventure, the PCs were hunting down a demon cult, and there was a raving old woman that was the leader of the cultists and escaped from them earlier in the...

I was specifically responding to Starfox's suggestion that you can swap an encounter attack spell for an daily attack spell. That is clearly forbidden by the Mnemonic Staff, because encounter attack spells are not in your spellbook. Switching an encounter utility for a daily attack is ambiguous...

OK, I released version 1.0.2. It has two cosmetic changes and one minor change to the stat blocks. 1) I fixed the -1/+1 Level links so they are appropriately disabled at levels 1 and 30. 2) I noted that including racial features is a house rule, so that folks can remove them if they want. 3)...

It does specify a "power in your spellbook". Encounter attack powers are not in your spellbook, only daily attack and utility powers.

I missed this. I will fix it in the next update. Guh. I just re-read the "Creating NPCs" rules, and yes, it isn't RAW that NPCs get racial features. I just assumed they did, because all the monsters do. I will note it under the house rules section. As CapnZapp said, the NPCs would lose all...

I released version 1.0.1, which fixes half-elves and puts the range indicators back in. I now have icons for both range and usage (at-will/encounter/daily). The current format is: ○ [M] Wrathful Thunder (standard) ✦ Thunder, Weapon +6 vs. AC; 1d10 + 4 thunder damage, and the target is dazed...

Guh. The Half-Elves are there, but the Half-Elf file has all the Elf NPCs at the top as well. I will see about fixing this (the bug is that the text "Elf" appears within "Half-Elf"). I will also see about putting the range markers back in. I want to keep the at-will/encounter/daily icons, so I...

OK folks, I released version 1.0, which covers levels 1-30. With all the race/build combinations, that's 12,000 characters. I edited the original post to reflect the new version. Other than going up to level 30, there are two major changes in this version: 1) I added some notes speculating on...

I think 4E encourages specialization. The game is all about teamwork, and team of specialists is going to do better than a group of generalists. A generalist in a group of specialists will be mediocre compared to everything else. For ability scores, I aim to have 18 in a character's primary...

Regarding house rule #2: The dramatic twist rule shouldn't involve a die roll. If the intent of the rule is to let the players get "unstuck" in the storyline, then a failed roll means they will still be stuck. Personally, I'd make the twist automatic, but have it cost the players something. I...

I agree with you on the glass cannon effect, except that I think it can be desirable at times. For example, adding a 4th level Orc Infernal Pact Warlock to a group of orc raiders might make a nice mini-boss, especially if your big bad for an adventure is an Elite Warlock class template I think...

A commonly suggestion for speeding up combat is to have attacks always inflict max damage, with double max damage for crits. That has the same net effect of what you are suggesting, but requires fewer changes to other rules (e.g. you can leave all the healing rules the same). There are some...