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Enemies tend to have better AC than other defenses, so using powers besides basic attacks can hit the other defenses and thus be more accurate. Also, many powers provide a benefit to the user like healing, temp HP, free attacks, movement, etc, rather than a penalty to the enemy. Sometimes...

Yeah. Think of it as like the jump ball in basketball or the face off in hockey. Everyone is ready, but somehow one guy still ends up with the ball/puck over the other guy.

I think you'd end up with a lot of pressure to use the same encounter power (possibly throw in another for a combo) repeatedly, or pressure twink out an at will and mostly use that since everything else is a daily resource. Possibly supported by long lasting dailies. You'd lose a ton of variety.

Some of our current PCs backed a military coup of the ruling council and then sat as replacements. Until the general instigating the takeover was killed, at which point they quickly chose to backpedal. Not quite kings, but still pretty good. Most of our characters, especially at high levels...

There's a RTS computer game that works kind of like that. As you blow up important sites for the AI (usually to take over those resources for yourself, or secure a flank), the AI gains progress points that determine how big its attacks are, the size of its reinforcement pool, the tech levels of...

In order for a choice to be meaningful, it has to be informed. If Door B is a terrible idea, there needs to be ways to gathering information such that people can figure out it's bad. Otherwise your fundamental gameplay model amounts to coin flips. Also, IME, it's rather strange to assume that...

Demonskin Adept just lets you pick your resistance. Every encounter. And Demon Soul Bolts is a tasty multi-attack power. The sorcerer is all about static mods, so getting 3 shots on guy turns into huge damage.

The rules update for weapons as implements doesn't change any of the text on 240-241.

We don't see too many. Monsters will sometimes provoke from our wizard and cleric (well, the wizard is gone now) to get into position to pound them more. They'll rarely provoke from our rogue and barbarian - generally only when a ranged guy is pinned down. We provoke against marked enemies...

So the monk has a [something] magic staff. He is proficient with quarterstaff, not staff. Thus he can only use staff as a magic quarterstaff, losing the [something]. Then he can use THAT as an implement, gaining the enhancement bonus for his monk stuff. But the special properties were...

Actually, monks can use quarterstaves as implements. First of all, that's 2 handed only - so no Crashing Wave tech or Starblade Flurry. A magic staff can be used as a quarterstaff, but the properties of the staff don't apply unless you're proficient with the staff implements. So the monk...

Putting powerful adventuring guys in primarily political positions seems like a classic example of promoting people until they're outside their areas of expertise.

When you take Combat Challenge attacks, the fighter will generally be doing more than striker damage. By the time we include the marked penalty, the average non defender's AC is the same as the average fighter's AC. Moreover, defenders tend not to have any advantage on NAD attacks, thus going...

The point you seem to be missing that is that ignoring the fighter's mark assists the fighter in killing the monster. The fighter is sticky not because enemies can't shift+charge away but because doing so can quite expensive since it gets you beat down faster. It can be really dumb; sometimes...

The fighter can already do some nasty damage. By ignoring the fighter's mark, the monster is adding a fair amount of damage to the group. A free attack per round is always nice, and there a number of feats that buff up the Combat Challenge attack. Feats that I'd say are not spectacular...

We generally found that the rigors of adventuring life discouraged those sorts of characters. Our first group had a tiefling paladin with 10 STR. Between his lack of STR, the paladin's lack of Athletics, and his -4 armor penalty, the paladin was perpetually humiliated by low walls, pits, etc...

Well, I think there's significant middle ground between Defenders being useless, and between no one else being in danger. We can reasonably expect the wizard to be in danger some of the time. It can definitely be worth spending the feat to improve defenses - especially if your wizard has...

Yeah, that's why defenders generally try to get into melee with enemies instead of just being slightly in front of their allies. It's also why they have powers like Come and Get It. :) I mean, we should all know by know that screening along a straight line won't usually prevent monsters from...

Jagged is the same level as Vicious. Radiant can add the bonus again every hit - that seems worth the extra 3 levels. Frost is +1 level IIRC, and enables some powerful feat combos.

Rewarding Strike seems similar to Energizing. For the Ardent, I think Ire Strike and Demoralizing Strike would be worth keeping for a while. So far, it seems like a lot of the psionic classes are poorly designed though. Psions and Ardents both seem to want to keep their low level at wills for...