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Hmm, let's look at World of Warcraft. It was obviously inspired by the success of Diablo, which was originally modeled on Nethack, which incorporates rules from D&D. WoW - Diablo - Nethack - D&D Only four degrees. Funny how everything connects, isn't it?

The fighter, rogue, monk, and swordmage will all gang up on the swordsage and carve him into bits. The fighter takes the plain combat powers, rogue steals the remaining nonmagical parts, monk learns how to turn invisible and teleport through shadows, and swordmage gets flashy blade magic.

I'm betting on something dragon-related. Races of the Dragon and Dragon Magic show that Wizards thinks the players want dragon related stuff. A playable dragonspawn race would both be distinctly new (to showcase the new edition) and have a built-in fan base.

The problem with Scry-Buff-Teleport isn't that scrying is too powerful, and it isn't that teleportation is too powerful, it's that they're too powerful together. So why not just make it impossible to teleport to a location based on scrying it? There are a lot of ways that could work. Perhaps...

Don't forget "sawtail catshark". Absolutely horrible name, whoever came up with it should be fired. Oh wait, that's a real-world fish... I guess we can't fire the designer.

This is my guess as well.

Why assume that the attack bonus can be calculated from the other stats at all? We already know that you can make a new creature by just picking numbers; having to calculate the attack bonus would be an unnecessary complication. The most reasonable assumption is that attack bonus is a basic stat...

I realize it's not as fun as speculating, but I'm going to assume that AC, speed, hit points, attack bonuses, damage, and possibly defenses were all pulled out of a hat (or looked up on a table then tweaked by playtesting). Wizards has said repeatedly that building a new monster will not involve...

It sounds like the warlock has various damage and movement powers, with a bonus for concentrating attacks on a single opponent - definitely a striker.

It's not that hard to imagine. "Cleric" comes from the same root as "clerk". :D

Part of it is a translation problem. Even really flashy moves in anime/wuxia tend to have relatively short names, for example "getsuga tenshou". However, because every syllable in Chinese or Japanese has its own meaning, if you translate it into english you get a mouthful like "Moon-Fang Piercer...

From Rich Baker's blog: It looks like they're going with Book of Nine Swords style move names. I know some people will view it as just extending the sorts of names they use for spells to other classes, and other people will say it's yet more evidence that D&D is becoming Exalted. What do you think?

Traps, hazards, and interesting terrain features will all be part of encounter design. Need to make a fight against three zombies more dangerous? Set it on a rope bridge suspended across a lava-filled chasm that emits choking volcanic gasses!

If basketball had dribbling, would it still be basketball?

This is contradicted by a recent blog entry (Gleemax is down or I'd find it) to the effect that all planar monsters are now high-level, and that a planar gate opening is really scary because it means epic-level monsters will pour out. It seems pretty clear the planes are reserved for level 20+...

The designers have mentioned that traps and environmental dangers will be part of complex encounters, just like monsters. A level 30 trap will be something that can substitute for one monster out of five in an encounter for a level 30 party. That means that all it has to do is be able hinder a...

You're missing XP value. We already know that you can select monsters for an encounter by simply adding up their XPs, and that the value isn't strictly determined by level, so there must be something in the monster entry saying how much XP it is worth.

This one makes me sad. They had a great opportunity to add anime to D&D, but they passed it up and just gave stupid fighters more stuff instead. ;)

This is the single most succinct argument for changing the game I have seen so far. Bravo.

I voted "no", but I have a proposition. Wizards, I will call the PHB/DMG/MM II, III, etc. "core" if you will give us a simple term to refer to just the PHB, DMG, and MM I. Regardless of terminology, I'll almost certainly allow material from any book in games I run.