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I'm pretty sure a Ranger was included in one of the playtests we've read about. A non-casting arcane character could definitely work. The Soulknife is a non-casting (okay, non-manifesting) psionic character, and there's a non-casting Paladin variant that's still obviously divine-powered. Nah...

Yeah, I could definitely live without a 4e Sorcerer for exactly these reasons. Still, they have been saying things like "there is still a distinction between the Wizard and Sorcerer" and "every 3e class will eventually be in 4e", so maybe they'll find some use for the class. Hey, did we ever...

Fluff is generally a waste of column inches, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm getting the feeling that 4e is going to be more fluff-adorned than 3e due to a concerted effort to spiff the game up for the benefit of wholly new and inexperienced customers. They can't just tell those folks...

I really don't like game mechanics based on the four classical elements. Or, for that matter, on what "the ancients thought". That'd still make about as much sense as a "water wizard" power as firing gouts of water with a bunch of nails in 'em. That was an awesome movie. Hell, two opposing...

They basically should have been using the word "species" from the beginning. The fact that it wasn't fluffy enough for Tolkien's prose ain't a good reason not to use it. It's the one word the English language has which most accurately expresses the idea they're trying to convey, and that's...

Kids absolutely get better cartoons these days than they did when I was a kid. I can't really watch stuff like Avatar and such for long, because they're still way too blatantly for children for me to tolerate, but they definitely seem to be smarter and better animated than the vast majority of...

I think it sounds like they're playing up the Fighter's weapon specialization angle more than ever before, in 4e. All that talk about Fighters who use different weapons being able to do completely different kinds of stuff suggests to me that we'll see a lot of Iron-Heroes-style weapon-specific...

I love how you can cite Conan as an example of half the classes in the PHB, and be completely correct in all cases. Dude was multiclassed all over the place, and didn't have a single stat under 14. What Japanese knives have to with this, white man? Hell, you're still right. I can't help but...

Most of the people I game with are actually couples, and I've never seen any problems stemming from a GM giving / not giving / being seen as giving preferential treatment to a boyfriend or wife or whatever. ...But then that might have a lot to do with the fact that these people are all gamers...

I think you misunderstand my reasoning. I wasn't so much suggesting those particular sources of inspiration because they were the only (or the most D&D-appropriate) mythical sources for mental powers (although, really, no matter how wizardly you might think their supposed effects are, the whole...

I'd expect a water-focused wizard to use water. You could have some ice in there, sure, but also steam and fog and high-pressure geysers. You sure wouldn't have acid.

I figure the poor bastard who provided the corpse made quite a sacrifice. But seriously, I don't really see why animate dead (or the equivalent) reallly needs to be permanent by default. I think a mage armor-like duration is plenty reasonable. That's . . . pretty weird. I always just figured...

Yeah, exactly. It's hard to imagine a combination of spell themes that sounds more pointless and illogical. Two categories of direct damage spells, using "energy" types with absolutely no connection whatsoever? And not even the quasi-connection of opposite energy types? Even a fire-and-ice...

I pretty much always want magic to be a science. Because, if it was real, it would be.

Yeah, this is what I'm hoping for, too. If these schools of magic and like clerical domains rather than Tom of Battle disciplines, I will be completely happy. A nice, modular, adaptable system that encourages players or DMs to come up with their own schools of magic would be extremely awesome.

I don't think anyone's objection to that style of psychic flavor is that the idea or tone is too new, but rather that its trappings don't really have a place alongside fantasy tropes. Uri Geller wasn't a character from 1970s fantasy novels; he was a character from 1970s talk shows. But by...

This is a damned good point. Here's hoping that the mechanical traits of these schools of magic (or whatever they are) will be just as modular as the default gods' domains.

No, but it's annoying to run into the "implied setting" right there in the Wizard's class features. More to the point, though, I'm a little bit concerned about things that aren't really fixable by renaming. For example, it sounds like Emerald Frost spells include both cold-based and acid-based...

They sound like typical fantasy fare, to me. But I'm still not too happy about them. I don't like the idea of the core rules hooking class abilities into prestige-class-like, campaign-setting-specific fluff. Of course, I can ignore that stuff as easily as I've been ignoring the Tome of Battle...

If they're really the size of the classic crystal ball, they'll certainly be a pain in the ass to hold in the middle of combat (especially if you're fumbling around with a staff or giant book in your other hand). Here's hoping they've got finger holes like a bowling ball. Seriously, though, I...