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I also liked the Book of Vile Darkness. On the other hand, the Book of Exalted Deeds was just broken. I let one of my games get hijacked for a little while by it. The mechanics just weren't balanced enough in BoED. It's like they looked at the Book of Vile Darkness Mechanics and tried to...

The oldest drawings of the outer planar wheel that I recall seeing is a very old Dragon magazine article that I believe predated the 1E AD&D players handbook. It was reprinted in the first 'Best of Dragon' I think. So the wheel goes back to at least 1978. There were also throw-away...

Well, I guess that my interest ends at Paragon then. I would say Beowulf is Paragon in the D&D sense, not epic. While he could wrestle with Grendel, it was no walk in the park. And.. in the end, he was mortal. He did die. I do think that epic characters can be impressive without having...

Cool! News to brighten my day. Now I'm even more excited about Pathfinder.

Do they? I hope you're right, but so far I haven't seen any hint of that in the new cosmology. What they posted today made them sound like quasi-elementals, not of the lineage of Norse giants. Maybe when they do the Manual of the Planes things will fit together better for me.

Skill, yes. Comic book strength and dex no. Your fighter should be a formidable swordsmen able to strike critical blows, hamstring the giants or whatnot. He should not dance on his nose or arm wrestle him. And if a giant lands a blow, it should hurt, throw him around, etc. The fighter...

Of course you don't need the Great Wheel. But at least within the Great Wheel you had the mythological origins of the Frost and Fire Giants and the Titans represented in some way. The underpinnings were all there. With the new cosmology, you have none of that in any way. The new cosmology...

And perhaps that is why I've never cared for epic level play in 3E and now it sounds like it might be worse in 4E. It's all too cheesy for my tastes - like Xena dancing on flag poles with Aries. I like the world to stay a dangerous place and high level not meaning comic book superhero...

Mythological roots? You mean back to Norse and Greek mythology? Oh wait, that's all gone now with the destruction of the Great Wheel. Or perhaps something like the story of "Jack the Giant Killer"? Hmn, wait, I don't think Jack was forced to deal with elemental beings. No, whatever these...

Erg, really? What is this game now? Some kind of form of Xena Warrior Princess where the characters are practically godlings/demigods (or at least on a level where they can wrestle with a titan and win). What stupidly large numbers in 3E? Strength modifiers for huge creatures? Or am I...

Based on the Orc monster manual pages, that is what I would assume. You wouldn't have 90% of the tribe being made up of chieftains and Eyes of Gruumsh? Most of the tribe would be 'drudges' and 'warriors' and looking at the orc monster manual pages, those look like minion stat blocks to me...

Our first D&D game was downright odd. The very first encounter was some worms that had come to the surface because of rain. Our dog ate them and got sick. I kid you not. Second encounter was a bridge over a ravine. We were so paranoid after the worms that we went and caught this goat (don't...

True, it may seem like a strange reason to avoid an edition of the game, but on the other hand, it sure is a really strange thing to drop. When I think giants, the first thing I think of are frost giants and fire giants. After that, hill and stone giants. This goes back to the old "Against...

Hey, I used to try and buy as much as I could from our local gaming store even though the prices there were a bit higher than I could get on Amazon or Chapters/Indigo. However, I thought it was always nice to support the local gaming store. Must have spent a fortune in there on minis and 3E...

Um, but take your typical orc tribe. Wading through that mob, some 90% or more of them will die from a singe attack, no matter how small the blade or wound. Clearly there has been no attempt to simulate our objective reality there. Rather, what they've done is simulated a certain type of...

Well, the whole minion thing is kinda cheesy to start with, but I can see what they are trying to do. You need to think in terms of Hong Kong martial arts movies or something like 'Kill Bill'. When the hero faces a large crowd such as in Kill Bill Vol 1, most are just minions - little more...

Nope. My old gaming crowd that moved away a long time ago to the ends of the earth is a cynical bunch and very few of them are planning on paying into a subscription model for DDI. For that matter, some of them missed out entirely on 2E and 3E. However, a few of us have been trying over the...

Excuse me? Just because the person on the other side is a<apply your label>, you can't have a conversation? Most of us on this forum live in pluralistic societies where discussion and debate between different interests is vital to finding the common good. As for words like labour somehow...

I don't think people are objecting to Wizards making money. Rather, they are objecting to tactics that they perceive to be questionable. To use your mechanic analogy, let's say the mechanic hoodwinked you into getting a bunch of repairs you didn't really need. Sure, he has a right to make...

Funny, I never used a single pirated book at all for 3E (and I have a lot of 3E stuff - far too much). The only pirated gaming book I ever used was a photocopied Players Handbook from AD&D (1E) that we relied on when the player who owned the Players Handbook quit the gaming group. We were...