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Sure; this is probably not something you'd want to do to a monster with a vicious aura! Leave that one to the ranged PCs.

After some good discussions on these forums and elsewhere, I decided to put my thoughts about skills in 4th Edition into a pair of blog posts. The first post has my thoughts about passive skill use and rewarding skill training. I'll use almost any skill in a "passive" manner to hand out bonus...

I don't know of an actual rule, but I'll tell you what I do when I'm creating monsters in MapTool. I use "damage notches" of 25%. So, 100% of "expected" damage, 75%, 125% and 150%. The "expected damage by level" amount is assigned to single-target at-will attacks for my monsters. That's the...

It's not necessarily a knock on your MapTool skills. I'm pretty handy with MapTool, but I have yet to bother with vision blocking layers, lighting and line of sight. I do use fog of war, but I use it manually, in much the same way that you might cover parts of a physical battle map with paper...

I'd say that if you hit with an attack that knocks a mounted target prone and also lets you make a follow up MBA as a free action, that you finish resolving the original attack first (which includes the effects of being knocked prone) and then make the MBA. So in this case, yes, the mounted...

I've been pretty lucky to not have too many groups trying extended rests in silly places. It's pretty much impossible in a setting like Living Forgotten Realms, of course, but my Friday night group has never been unrealistic about finding a good spot to rest in almost a year and a half of gaming...

Excellent point. In a home game, I would indeed try to keep this information handy. I already know that Sir Stabsalot is trained in Dungeoneering, so I'll give him that bonus info, etc. I've mainly used it so far in organized play (D&D Encounters, Living Forgotten Realms) where I don't know...

After some interesting discussions in threads here on EN World, I decided to put my thoughts about using skills passively in D&D 4th Edition into a blog post. The summary version: I'll use lots of different skills passively, not just Perception and Insight I use this to give out minor...

To make us sad.

Gotcha. So it's problem players, then. That's too bad. They don't sound like the kind of players I'd enjoy having at my table. Good luck!

Well, that's my interpretation of things from reading the 4e books and playing and running the game, but I freely admit that I could be wrong.

It sounds like your style of game is such that the rules are set out and the players try to warp them. You then propose house rules to fix the problems, and you fully expect the players to try to warp those, too. I don't know whether this is a battle you can win, but I'd suggest not fighting it...

As I said, I see absolutely no problem with a DM running things in a more "old school" way that challenges PLAYER skill rather than CHARACTER skill in social situations (or trap finding or whatever). If you have an NPC who is lying to the party and this NPC is the world's greatest liar and you...

It's worth a shot, but even as a MapTool evangelist I'm a little dubious. I worry that despite everyone's best efforts, the one person who's not at the table will feel like they're missing out. I use MapTool for a regular online game where all of my players are spread out around the world, and...

This touches on a design decision of 4e (and I think 3e, too, though I'm a new-timer and can't be sure) that's different from older editions of D&D; character skill can exceed player skill in social areas as well as in physical/magical areas. As I understand things, an older edition PC would...

Sure, I think that's fair. If it's not the kind of thing the PC would have a realistic chance to do, I'd probably demand a check (though perhaps with a bonus for chutzpah - I like chutzpah in my PCs).

It's the same general approach. I just don't bother with the numbers. Trained = passive success at minor tasks. Not trained = no passive success at minor tasks. This also means that the 8 intelligence fighter who's trained in history is going to automatically know some things that the 20...

How does this work when an NPC actually does lie to a PC? I'm gathering that this can still happen. Is it just about player skill here? "The deranged wizard says, 'Your companion never came to my tower; I've never heard of the man.' " The player then either says, "I don't believe him," or, "I...

I don't track XP any more; the whole party levels up when it's time to level up. So no worries there. And I respect that you disagree with my philosophy, but I have absolutely no problem with players who constantly think of cool and creative things getting to DO those cool and creative things...

Sure. I was just pointing out that I don't care what the actual passive value of the skill is, just whether the PC is trained or not. If your idiot barbarian with 8 intelligence is somehow trained in history, there are still cases where I'll give him a pass just because the player chose to...