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I’ve been hankering for a homebrew campaign, and I’ve got a few ideas to add a new spin on the old classics. Gygax and Arneson put campaign-inspired flair into many classes as they appeared, and I think it’d be fun if every class had a bit of flair. Potential rules details which I may have...

Hey, tuxedoraptor! Like MoutonRustique advises, D&D is a very good game and you can trust it 99% of the time. And that problematic 1% is easy enough to deal with. In fact I wrote a blog post with my 7 advisories to new 4e DMs, as well as a short discussion on where 4e fits into D&D's entre of...

I ruled Int to be retroactive in my 3.x days, no biggie, made things simpler for anyone making dragons, higher-level NPCs, or higher-level PCs. Also I just like to have the option of having max ranks in a minimum number of skills, rather than odd ranks in this or that skill. Int is probably not...

You're right, that was a total brain fart on my part. My distaste for themes is based on things already mentioned: Another package of doohickeys for new players, one more axis of optimization for veterans, and no clear necessity to bring them in.

Laugh XP for this, I had no idea. :D Interesting, I know themes became pretty popular but I felt like they were an unnecessary addition to the chargen process from day 1. The best-written ones are those that grant class skills to players who want to play a pious fighter or whatever, and as a DM...

Definitely core over 'essentials.' (What a misnomer that is, it's even missing an important non-combat part of the game!) For pretty much all the reasons Tony mentions -- core design is consistent, which frees me up as DM from having to worry that too many or too few encounters per day will...

There's always the option to play an unlucky PC into an early grave, then reroll. :D Some DMs don't like the idea that a player might intentionally play badly, but it's all part of the creative process of rolling stats: Sometimes the player is inspired to create a character they might not have...

I've been out of d20 -- at least in its 3.x form -- for a few years, but I think you've hit all the big systemic problems. I'm sure if I read thru my 3.5 books I could find a couple more, like Str being the default melee attack stat and that niggly +2(?) charge bonus that becomes increasingly...

Who knows why D&D's conventional dragons turned out the way they did, right? I often imagine early game writers rolling dice to determine things like number of hit dice, age categories, spell levels, etc.. ;) So much of tradition is inconsistent and arbitrary, which is a big part of why I've no...

Special Snowflake Option: Whatever fits best into the game's level-structure. With 4e, that'd be say, two categories per tier so there's always an age category within level-range of the party, and another above-epic-level category for those special campaign-finale dragons. So a total of 7...

My apologies, I have nothing on-topic to say, but if you read LotR Tolkien does include a very simple and completely appropriate explanation why the eagles don't just fly the Ring to Mount Doom. It's just Jackson chose to completely omit that explanation, for whatever reason. :/

I and a few gamers I know have stuck with 4e, or transitioned to other games. One of them was loving 2e last time I talked to her. Which, coincidentally, was my first edition and introduction to tabletop role playing. I found that 3e was less fun to read but more fun to play than 2e, and that 4e...

+1 to all of the replies you've gotten so far. Tell your problematic 'friend' that he's sucking the fun out of everyone's game; if he's truly your friend, he cares about the group's fun and will change his behavior. If he doesn't change his behavior, he's not your friend. An additional aside...

You're not alone. I have zero interest in anything D&D until its sails are readjusted to send it in a less nostalgiac direction. Whether that direction is a U-turn back to the 4e style, or perhaps an entirely new heading, WotC may well catch my interest again. But I've owned and played three...

Indeed. Certain members here are twisting 4e into strange knots and squinting very hard at 5e for the sake of this edition war.

Gotta say, monsters are one of the big reasons I've stuck with 4e. The variety of levels and abilities, clear levels vs. fuzzy CR-math, simple encounter guidelines, clear creation-by-level guidelines vs. wonky tack-a-CR-on-afterward guidelines, and the minion/standard/elite/solo roles...this...

How many rules do the players need to know? None. Neither does the DM. My gf's kids DM for us, and they know no rules. But it tends to help if everyone knows something. Also add me to the list of gamers who read the DMG mere months after starting D&D. In my case it was because I wanted to DM...

I like elegant and consistent mechanics that commit to a goal. So I love 4e's original AEDU structure, for creating a consistent commitment to PC-PC balance, tactical gameplay, and interesting character options. I also love 3e's a la carte style multiclassing -- in concept, if not completely in...

2e demonstrates an amazing attention to fluff. The monster culture & ecology entries, the settings, the writing of setting fluff in in-game vernacular (in the case of Planescape) -- these are all things that add a lot of style value, and sadly haven't been emphasized since 2e. I myself equate...