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Yeah, the tools work best with certain patterns of usage. It sounds like you want to print or look at a bunch of contiguous pages and be done. If every individual spell could be cast by only one class (or if spells were printed in multiple places in the rulesbook, but that's a complete...

As a physicist who has gamed mostly with other physicists, I can assure you all that the correct hand-wavey answer to this issue is "boundary conditions" and "to first order" followed by a hard stare. :) Relevant details for the unconvinced might include non-spherical sources...

If Second Wind ever became an issue in one of my games I would make the following one-line houserule: Second Wind cannot heal more damage than you've taken since the last time you used Second Wind. If the fighter uses second wind then punches himself in the face for 3 hp he can use it again to...

From what Mearls says in the video it will actually be somewhat different from Star Wars d20. If I'm interpreting correctly the main effect of wounds is to reduce your ability to sustain hit point (vitality) damage over the long term, but to me it doesn't sound like there is a separate pool of...

I can live with that!

Remember, the dwarf is also getting a +1 to two stats. So if the human is getting +1 to an additional 3 ability scores that is 5 total. Getting +1 to the lowest 5 is, I think, looking more likely.

All true. But trying to reverse-engineer is way more fun than not. :) Edit: Also, the newly-released hill dwarf character has ability scores consistent with the standard array and racial bonuses from the last playtest.

Perhaps it is +1 to the 5 lowest scores? If the standard array is 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 (as per the last playtest) then it would be somewhat surprising if the strength-based fighter from the starter set could have raised that 16 to a 17 but didn't. (For that character I would have started with...

This is probably a wise choice, everyone wants to fight beholders and mind flayers, but I think it reinforces the notion that Basic D&D will be different from whatever rules (if any) are freely/cheaply available for any old third party publisher to use. Between this article and the one from...

I think it's probably possible to create an interesting fusion of the bardic inspiration and spells, and perhaps one that lets the bard choose how much to concentrate on spells proper vs. the various magical or quasi-magical abilities they have long had. For example, suppose one could...

Apparently what rerolling initiative means to people varies a bit. For my 3.5 group it was d20-style initiative (i.e. no speed factors, etc.) that gets rerolled each round. The unpredictability that brought to each round was incredibly enjoyable, but the rolling itself was cumbersome. We...

Good point, where marching order matters it sidesteps much of the issue. Given the potential impact of traps and ambushes that is certainly a positive development.

That does make it less deterministic when building the environment, which is nice. However, the PC with the greatest passive perception check is still the source of all perception for the party in most circumstances. That is, anything a given PC can find the PC with greatest passive perception...

This, pretty much. I would like to XP you, but cannot. The presentation of the rules should explicitly acknowledge the diversity of D&D settings, but the rules themselves should not try to harmonize the cosmologies beyond what is necessary to make the game function. Whether or not Sigil...

Going for a happy medium between 3.5's skill points and 4e's single-stop proficiency might nip this issue in the bud. The first time you take a level in a class (regardless of whether you have other classes already) you get all its proficiencies and can select as many skills as normal...

What if DC did not inherently vary by slot, but some spells could improve the DC for casting in a higher-level slot, just like many currently do with damage? So high-level spells (i.e. high minimum level) would usually have super splashy effects, but the normal DC. Some lower level spells...

I'd like opinions about how spells should be balanced in 5e, treating as given the basic structure where spells automatically increase in power by casting them in a higher level slot. Namely, should we aim for spells that are balanced solely based on what slot they end up using, or should we...

I think the major issue there isn't really the design space as such, but that the +2/+2 feats are incredibly sterile, and even "spiritually" worse than feats which are sterile in only a single way. It almost feels a little insulting they didn't just make a feat that grants +2 to any two...

I mentioned this is in an older thread, but I'd like to see them test a critical hit that grants extra damage equal to maximum possible damage of all rolled dice. Example: A critical hit on an attack that normally does 3d6+5 damage instead does 3d6+5+18 damage. There is never any extra rolling...

Yeah, a crit granting at best an extra 12 damage (and an at-best average of 6.5) is pretty underwhelming. Maximized damage feels better except when you roll high damage and the crit gives almost no marginal improvement. What about the following rule: A crit grants extra damage equal to the...