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Basically, the far realm is the Dungeon Dimension from Terry Pratchett's books

4e has a reputation, even among its defenders, for being mechanically pretty kickass but somewhat weak on the flavor. I won't, for the most part, dispute that, especially for early books. Reading spell or monster lists in previous editions was often much more engaging and evocative than 4e's "2...

encounters are technically 5 minutes, but I find it more helpful to think of them as scenes. Ifa party stops for a quick breather between fights, thats a scene. It doesn't matter whether its 3 minutes, 5 minutes or 15 minutes, if they aren't sleeping, and nothing is happening except for them...

Say Yes to everything is more or less the theme, yes. And remember that many monsters will have some rules surrounding what does and does not work on them which attempt to simulate aspects of their powerset or physiology. Elemental creatures are all resistant or immune to the relevent element...

3 PCs is Definitely enough. A striker, a defender and a leader, and you're good to go. Just hold off on using too many minions (a few per fight is okay) until the party is somewhat higher level, because taking them down sans controller could be tricky early on. But for virtually everything else...

You're also 4th level. I'd be interested to see whether this stays true in paragon and epic tiers, as those are the levels at which the "magic item christmas tree" tends to become most extreme, IME.

But that is exactly what happens now. Magic items give potent "bonuses" that, since they are accounted for by monster defenses, are in no way bonuses at all. They are mandatory. A level 30 character without magic items is vastly weaker relative to his enemies than is a level 1 character. I'd...

One of the stated goals of 4e was to minimize or do away with the magic item christmas tree (the idea that each pc should/will accumulate dozens and dozens of magic items) as well as the related concept of items being as crucial to a character's performance as the abilities of the character...

I wonder if the shift away from generic, to the point names to strangely-specific portmanteaus and orginal names has anything to do with trademarking, specifically, it would be very difficult to trademark "fireball" or "fighter" or "dwarf", but names like "tide of iron" or "swordmage" or...

Fighters are just a great, great class. They are iconic, yet can be easily flavored to fit a huge number of concepts. They're powerful, but not (usually) broken. They are fantastic at performing their role. They are easy and intuitive to build and play, but offer tremendous tactical depth such...

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page (subscriber only link) So...basically one article just salvaged the Warlocks as strikers. They have their backstab feat. They have a brutal curse feat. They have a feat to get prime shot against cursed targets and a feat to make prime shot...

every time I've played with rituals in a game that dealtn with their cost RAW, they've seen little to no use. every time I've played in a game in which some mechanic has been houseruled to allow for limited, but free, use of rituals (ritual or action points, sacrificing dailies or surges...

Way back when I first played D&D, I was 11 and 2nd edition had just come out. The internet didn't exist, the only people I knew with any interest in D&D were me and my friends, and none of us had ever seen the game played before. We had NO idea what we were doing, we just thought the books...

In 4e, I'd probably just run it as a skill challenge with athletics, acrobatics, intimidate and insight as the primary skills.

[quteo]Rituals need to have an affect on the game. This is a philosophical change more than anything. 4e's main way of doing anything is via encounters (mostly combat encounters) and rituals are inherently isolated from encounters, so you don't ever need to use a ritual for anything, so anything...

QFT. Why do I like using D&D to run and play in story-driven games? Because it is fun. More fun, for me and my friends telling the sort of stories we want to tell, than Storyteller or WHFRP or Fantasycraft or any of the other games we've tried. The idea that some justification beyond that...

I agree 100% with this. Just buying stuff with gold seems mundane, anachronistic, and at odds with the way the paragon and epic tiers should "feel". Yes, powerful magic items, fortresses and kingdoms, incredibly status and world-changing power, all of these should be available to players at high...

Stacking save penalties, aka orbizards. Blatantly, inarguably broken.

Right, but while every stat keys to at least one defense, Intelligence and Dexterity key to two--reflex and AC. And while Con only keys to one defense, it also keys to hp and surges. I've played several con-locks and wizards, and the advantage of an attack stat that also gives you 4 extra...

I don't think it is, at least from a game balance perspective. The "best" attack stats in the game are Intelligence (which governs AC, reflex, and all knowledge skills), Dextrerity (which governs AC, Reflex, Initiative, Stealth, Thievery and Acrobatics) and Constitution (which governs starting...