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That's such a third edition mindset. 3E was where you got "the rules are the rules are the rules". 4E is all about, "the rules are the rules until you come up with a better idea". Exception based design!

I don't know. If I could hire and equip 10 extra trained troops for the cost of the magic sword, I think I'm better off with the 10 extra trained troops. At least in the short run, and when it comes to winning battles the short run looms awfully large.

I would give him a free +5 to checks involving "being an exotic weapon merchant" (which would be stat checks for all other characters). At my discretion, he would occasionally get to make rolls that other PCs cannot even attempt because they are not trained exotic weapon merchants. Naturally...

I don't think Belkar needs to leave the comic, but this would have been a good opportunity for him to undergo some character development without losing his "Belkar-ness". I mean, Elan was able to grow as a character without losing his distinct qualities. Why not Belkar? He doesn't have to...

On the other hand, it's a game. Player skill needs to be rewarded somewhere or where's the satisfaction in rolling out the battle?

The ending to this comic left my stomach feeling like somebody slapped a mark of justice on me. (That may be a slight exaggeration.) The Mark of Justice is just magic, but Haley tossing Belkar out of the group was a real landmark moment for both of them. It was Haley finally taking a stand...

How does that in any way contradict the statement that, "The central focus of D&D, mechanically speaking, has always been combat."? Just because you didn't use the mechanics doesn't mean that they aren't the central focus of the game. It's like if some dude pointed at a carrot farm and told...

The DMG's advice on this is to just let the player make up whatever backstory they want for their PC and then make it relevent in play. So if your PC is a former cabinet maker, then you get a big bonus on a perception check to notice a cabinet with a false bottom and you let them build a...

Okay, I think I understand what you've been trying to say in this thread. You're saying that the sweet, sweet temptation of effective combat abilities makes it much more difficult to concentrate on playing a character who survives by being cunning, witty and ingenious. Only by deliberately...

The best argument for creatures knowing is that then the DM doesn't have to attempt a complicated double-think against himself. "They know" makes a much less complicated blanket rule for actually running monsters.

I disagree with your basic approach here. I think Dragonmarks ought to be done as essentially a form of multi-classing. You can a basic feat that gives you the Dragonmark skill as a trained skill (or gives you skill focus if you already have it trained) plus a per-encounter power that's...

Did the fighter use his Second Wind at any point during the fight?

So I have now run two sessions of Keep on the Shadowfell, though between them they probably only amounted to one session for most groups. Due to scheduling issues, we can only play for about 3 hours at a time, and various "life events" meant that there were interruptions during both sessions...

The logical response is, if you're getting to the same end then why complicate the game with multiple paths to get there? The 4E assumption is that game mechanics are completely invisible in the game world. If you want your character to be a great archer, then the game only needs to give you...

This explains why Giants once thought it worthwhile to keep dwarves as slaves. Despite the size difference, dwarves can still cart around the giants' stuff.

Eh, okay. I probably knew that at some point, but when I'm sitting at the table what I have is the printed book in my hand, not the online errata. It's Age of Worms, so I face a constant struggle to figure out how much cheese is too much. This is a brutal module, and if I don't powergame for...

My DM allowed it this past Friday evening, but winced. Given that my paladin PC is doing triple digit damage on charges, I understand why.

Is there any reason a character can't charge through the squares of an ally by declaring an Overrun action (which can specifically be used as part of a charge) and just letting their ally use the "get out of the way" option?

I confess, even though I only had five PCs I still upped the number of minions in that first encounter to 10. I figured that since they were headed into town they were probably going to take an extended rest anyway, so why not let them have some fun fighting off a lot of kobolds? Remember, you...

Back during the 4E previews, I seem to recall an awful lot of nerd rage over an announcment that magic rings would not be usable by heroic tier characters. As I recall, you could wear one ring at paragon tier and two rings at epic. Magic rings were supposed to be 'special' items. Yeah... what...