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Concentrating mainly on keeping the overall concept, of course. This character has been through rebuilds before. He started life as a sorcerer in the World's Largest Dungeon, then I turned him into a Beguiler when a reincarnation gave me an excuse. Indications are that the campaign will...

Understand that "surrender" is literally treated with one word in the skill entry, in the context of a sentence listing several things an intimidated bloodied enemy might be made to do. There's not any discussion about when it might or might not be appropriate or exactly what surrender means or...

I think the underlying assumption of level-appropriate challenges is going to prove a lot less true for skill challenges than for combat. Sure there are going to be some skill challenges that the DM has set up in advance, but I expect that the vast majority of skill challenges will be a result...

It's been said that 4E emphasizes party optimization. You can still optimize, but you can no longer do so by building your character alone and showing up at the table with an unstoppable killing machine. Instead an optimized group will build their characters to complement each other by using...

I think they'll definitely be Leaders. Artificers in 3E were all about buffing up their comrades. My guesses: Free Ritual Casting Ability to "recharge" the per-day powers of magical items and utilize all implements Clerics as leaders have an emphasis towards giving healing and defense to...

It makes the bad guys surrender. If they're bloodied and if the DM feels that it's an appropriate result. Which is admittedly a lot of "ifs", but it can be a resource saver by allowing the PCs to end a fight that they've already won but that could cost them a few more resources if they have to...

"Should" is a value judgement. There are systems that do such a thing and integrate it deeply into the combat mechanic. Exalted comes most immediately to mind. A PC who stunts will far outperform an equivalent PC who doesn't, and that's just the way players seem to like it. The D&D 4E combat...

So one thing strikes me about this example. What would have happened if the PCs had failed? TPK? Skill challenges need to have reasonable consequences for failure.

I started running 'Keep on the Shadowfell' last Wednesday. The players wanted to do some tracking, and in the absence of rules I set it up as an off-the-cuff skill challenge. (I had to guess on setting DCs.) Basically I just started tossing obstacles in their way until they got 6 successes or...

In third edition, I thought of Familiars as, "that constant aid another to any of your skills". Since familiars share the skill ranks of your PC, they could always do "aid another". I think that sort of thing would work really with with 4E's Ritual casting, where a familiar sitting on the...

I'll echo everyone else and say that you should only roll the dice if you think the results of success/failure would be interesting. If you have the PCs do some sort of Appraise roll and they blow the roll, what does that mean? If it doesn't mean anything other than, "The gem merchant corrects...

I'd like to put together a Witch class that largely mimics the flavor of Terry Pratchett's Diskworld witches. Other sources of inspiration might include Thulsa Doom from the conan movies (for a darker shade of witch), witches from OZ, and the "I put a hex on you" style witches of common...

I am seriously thinking about stealing a page from Shadowrun and having PCs pick free "Background" skills/knowledges during character creation. These would be non-adventuring skills and entirely defined by the players. If they want to take 'saddlemaking' or 'wines of the south country' or...

Goodbye flat damage multipliers. I will miss you and your insane damage potential. Goodbye two-handed power attack combined with ever-increasing ways to garner attack bonus. Goodbye paladin doing a Spirited Charge smite with Rhino's Rush spell and power attacking for -10 hit/+20 dmg. Doing...

No, powers are supposed to scale up to retain some usefulness at all levels. If a 26th level character is using a daily he first got at 5th level to wipe out 26th level minions, that's legit. Presumably dailies he first got at higher levels would do better, but the 5th level one shouldn't be...

And it would make you feel funny to play a daring outlaw who thinks of clever plans if the number next to "Intelligence" on his stat block says 8? Is that the basic problem? Because I think a lot of characters like you're talking about could reasonably have a low intelligence in the very...

Total agreement. This is going to be a great way to do that sort of thing in a meaningful fashion while not particularly unbalancing combat.

A few comments. 1. I'm guessing that there will be some discussion in the DMG on limiting specific rituals to specific power sources, even though that isn't the default rules. The designers know perfectly well that a lot of DMs don't want wizards casting Raise Dead or clerics Floating Disk, so...

Sure, I'm flexible to that possibility. Though they're going to have reason to be very angry with the kobolds after that first ambush. A (hopefully likeable) NPC traveling with them is going to catch a spear to the chest and die (DM's fiat) to impress upon them the seriousness of the situation.

I'm planning to start running 'Keep on the Shadowfell' tomorrow evening, and I want to tweak the plot a little so that it will make more sense for the players. Obviously, don't read this if you're going to be playing in any version of KotS. I don't have the adventure in front of me at the...