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I like this, though I think that it may not be applicable in all situations. Sometimes a "bad thing happens" would be appropriate, as in the examples you gave, and sometimes I think more of a "moving away from overall success" would be more appropriate, as in a diplomatic encounter. (Although...

Agreed. Let's not forget that the lawful-stupid paladin who insists on constantly berating his fellow party members, getting them into trouble by charging pell-mell at every foe, and generally acting superior in and out of character is just as much a dick as the thief who steals from and...

I'm intrigued by this idea, mainly because I like the idea of a spectrum of success and failure rather than a binary you succeed/you fail, which constantly drives me crazy. What this makes me think of is a system in which certain tasks have a point value that has to be hit before the effect is...

TrippyHippy: I think the problem people have with going abilities-only is that it gets too general. You say "in the real world, we don't need to list our skills in numerical form," and obvious that's true. But I do know that as a trained guitar player, my manual dexterity is higher than average...

@Crazy Jerome : Good points all around, thanks. It's true that part of the problem in 4e comes from the huge point spread in skills, and I do really, really hope that 5e closes the gap between trained/untrained (or however they want to do it) characters. That way a DC 10 Sneak could be automatic...

I'm kind of stuck on the emphasis on auto-successes we've been hearing about from playtests/seminars/etc. There was a playtest report somewhere that said, in effect, "Our rogue's Sneak skill was higher than the kobolds' Perceptions, so he snuck around without making a single roll!" Does this...

Say what you want about the man, Wayne Reynolds does the BEST gnolls. The ones on the updated 4e DM's screen make me feel all tingly.

This. I just ran into this in my game; the PCs camped out mid-dungeon (though I did intend/expect them to at this point) and I made some wandering monster rolls. I kept rolling for Yes Monsters, so I threw a couple encounters at them, thinking I was wearing down their resources and showing them...

+1 to the compound-name dislike, with the addition that I'm sick of it being prevalent in personal names as well. I'm really tired of every single NPC in a published product being named Korvus Winterblight or Dargor Hammerfast or whatever. Not everybody should have a last name made up of two...

Wow, I have to start looking at the chain bookstores. There's a lot I could pick up to fill out my 4e collection. I love my FLGS, but he ain't one for discounting, so I really hope I can find somewhere that's liquidating... EDIT: If anybody sees this happening at an American chain store...

Thanks for all this. You're awesome, and I would give you more XP but I have to spread it around, whatever that means. Much appreciated!

I chose Warlock, because I really don't like my mechanical choices to have flavor forced upon 'em. I'd love to be able to play an arcane blaster who's not a cool, edgy demon-worshipper.

I completely agree, and I would actually argue that the rogue is restricted to one concept in later versions, especially 4e. The argument is basically that over the editions, rogue skills (aka thief skills) got simplified more and more until in 4e there's just one skill called "Thievery." With...

Immensely, and reminded me of some favorite stories that I need to re-read. Is the whole thing with the Mouser casting the death spell in his prequel origin story? That's where I remember it being (but I could be very wrong which is why I ask) and if so, it's interesting that he almost steps...

That's right! I'd forgotten all about his origin story. Is there an example from literature of a character who leans a little more towards the arcane side? I can't think of one off the top of my head... maybe someone from Vance?

I'd love to see the old playstyle you describe come back, but I recognize that that's purely a personal preference. I think that in such a game, the DM has a responsibility to remind players that their choices might have bad consequences, like "Are you sure you want to use burning hands on this...

I think it might be worth it to try to identify what the designers of 5e might mean by "DM empowerment." My sense from the playtest reports, seminars, etc. is that they're more or less talking about a framework and set of advice in which to give out small bonuses and penalties situationally, and...

What exactly did the Gray Mouser have in terms of magic? (This is an honest question born of it being years since I last read the F&tGM stories.) I remember him grounding himself with a wire to avoid getting zapped in "Ill-Met in Lankhmar" but that's about it, so I'm remembering him more as a...

1. If I ever get over to visit my friends in Asheville, I'll be shopping at Wyvern's Tale (or whatever the name ends up being) out of principle. 2. The real wyvernstale.com is pretty awesome.

I'm all for moving rogues/thieves back towards a skill-focused class. Back in my 2e days I played thieves almost exclusively, but with 3e (and even more in 4e, as codified in the Striker role) the rogue seemed to become a class that was all about doing max damage by fiddling with the stealth...