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I am clearly on the side of making social skills matter and that the mechanics should effect the outcome. That said, I would love to come up with some ways where player skill can also count in social situations. In combat, player skill primarily comes into play for positioning and selection of...

I think ideally the DM would know the "reality" of the situation, independant of the PCs. BEFORE the players make their choice, the DM knows if bandits will jump anyone on the low road or high road that day. Or alternatively, will know there is an x% chance of attack. In sandbox play, the DM...

I'm not familar with the definitions but I think I see what you mean if my example was "mechanistic play". But how can you have dramatic play within a sandbox? If the DM decides something happens because it would be more fun/dramatic (e.g., no matter what path the PCs take, they stumble on the...

This is what I most equate with a sandbox. The DM must move the parts of the world forward as if the PCs didn't exist until the PCs interact with the part. So, if the PCs decide to head into a valley, the DM has already determined how the activities of the valley will occur if the PCs didn't...

I think the tension here is the desire to both reward player skill and character skill in most significant encounters, whether combat or non-combat. In combat situations, the dividing line seems to be less contentious. Players are allowed to use their full skill in the form of "tactics" --...

"Natural spellcasters" is worrisome. I'm curious how they are going to handle the Sorcerer anyway. Innate arcane magic seems anti-athas. The horror was that arcane magic was created by mortals. Now, in general I am ok with the dragonborn background. My only complaint is it sounds a little...

This is ok, but still feels a little artificial to me. Some small advantage (e.g., surprise round) or disadvantage (e.g., everyone loses a healing surge) can be useful but likely doesn't really make a difference. If the combat turns from Level + 3 to level + 5 (likely to kill a PC or TPK)...

Just got the DMG2, and was reading over the skill challenge section. Personally, I think skill challenges can be fantastic if handled well, and I think the DMG2 has great advice on getting more from this often demonized 4e mechanic. I like Stalker’s Obsidian system better than the official...

Good point, but I feel like there are enough powerful status effect only (or mostly status effect, low damage) powers out there now to make this worthwhile in a bunch of cases. I haven't been able to comb the compendium yet, though. Any others besides twin strike come to mind?

I did a once through of Arcane Power, and saw the cool new options for the Bard that wants to multiclass: * Combat Virtuoso (feat that lets you use Cha as attack stat for multi class powers) * Multiclass mastery (feat) * some good new base multiclass feats * lots of other arcane class feats...

I'm not sure about too powerful, but I don't like the fact that sorcerers get an at will ranged burst and a bunch of other ranged bursts too (mostly from arcane power). Just steps on the controllers toes too much. The close powers are fine.

Hmm. Didn't know it showed up like that. My browser was crashing, so wrote it in Word and cut and pasted into the forum then changed the font to white... How do I fix? Many thanks...

I just got my copy of Arcane Power today, so I’d thought I’d throw in my 2 cents from a quick read: Stuff I love: *Tomes and the during encounter switching out of spells (I thought this should have been a part of all Wizards from the beginning) * New warlock pact * Sorcerer spell sources...

I actually like that this one takes 10min and lasts a long time (maybe too long...). As others have said, it preserves the value of other abilities. If you want to be able to instantly understand a Mindflayer that you run into out of the blue, you take the language! This ritual is great if...

This is my biggest gripe about many published skill challenges (besides the mechanics but that is taken care of by Obsidian) -- the penalty for failure is often an appropriate level fight that earns you more experience than beating the skill challenge! Bad design. Combat vs. no-combat is often...

I could see a crafty player using heal in this situation, but I would probably only allow 1 use of it for the whole group. Uses I would accept include (but not limited to): * I use heal to see how badly he is injured and if he can withstand another tongue pull, wrist slashing, etc. Assuming...

I echo Starships if ship time is going to be high. Otherwise, I think the Era books are very well done and have a lot of use across Eras. In every book, there are new feats and talents that are era-independant. Here are some other non-Era specific things that are pretty useful: Old...

Besides the reskinning are you going to follow n1 pretty close? - charmed cultists in the church, bar, etc? - Naga behind it all? - etc? To make it not obvious, I think you need to come up with a plausible decoy. Have the charmed halfing clan be secretive and gruff for 2 reasons like 1) a...

There are a lot of potential advantages but haven't done enough mixing yet to have a bunch of concrete examples. Besides the mutliclass feat bonuses themselves, doesn't the Bard also get access to: 1) multiple sets of class feats? 2) the ability to cherry pick multiclass swap powers...

I wholeheartedly agree with this, and thought the same thing when looking over the new 4e mods. http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/244799-old-school-modules-space.html Non-encounter space (e.g., neither a combat or skill-heavy area) can still be interesting by changing the...