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That's an interesting point, and one that will definitely be interesting to see evolve over time. So far, I think that a challenge over PDF sales has been largely balanced by a very active organized play system that gets players into to the stores, but I can definitely see how it could become a...

WotC has always insisted on being different from the rest of the gaming publishers, so I'm not surprised that they aren't immediately embracing PDFs. Starting with the OGL, it was pretty obvious that they never wanted themselves or the brand to be restricted to the game itself, so they have...

I would have to disagree with this only because I see this and a great many other choices they have made thus far as not making any decisions at all. The more I see of this rollout, the more I have to wonder how much faith they actually had in the core books doing well. No PDFs is just one...

How long that holds up is going to be the key. If WotC doesn't put anything at all out to fill the void after the initial release, players and DMs will end up reaching out to other systems and other companies to fill the hole. Since it sounds like they aren't planning on a whole lot of active...

That's not a safe assumption. Players will switch to a point, but getting them to actively invest in a system takes more than an eager DM, as 4E showed quite clearly, especially when they have already invested heavily in some other system. 4E did a great job of winning over DMs, but without an...

Fully getting players away from Pathfinder is going to be a tough sell, I think. I can see a lot of PF players playing, or at least following, both, but Paizo has a solid following for good reason, and WotC is going to have it's hands full just competing with what Paizo's current and upcoming...

One thing I tend to do is if they have rolls that high is just tell them that the stats in the monster manual represent the typical stats of that creature, but exceptions do exist, and I rarely follow the listed stats 100%, so the numbers listed may not be entirely accurate, and occasionally the...

This is the last formal count I could find; I listed all the classic classes, there are more votes beyond that rogue, but it's gets pretty sparse for cohesive support at that point. Oracle, Barbarian, Ranger, and Sorcerer are all noted as being generally more flavorful as cleric, fighter, and...

I personally love the concept at least of knowledge checks for monster. In actual play, the effects vary. As a DM, I generally don't give specific stat block info for any but the most common of creatures, but giving some idea of the types of abilities and defenses a creature has is valid, and...

The only way you are ever going to get true balance between the fighter and the wizard is to throw out both classes as traditionally understood in D&D terms and start over from scratch. Just be prepared for a massive backlash if people don't like the rewrite, ala 4E. It's interesting, though...

I wouldn't be so quick to call that overreacting. A lot of 4E's difficulties came when people saw the full details of what was or was not being done in FR. As the most familiar setting to many people, the lack of substantial support was very discouraging then, and it will be discouraging again...

Paizo's approach very clearly and very visibly doesn't rely on the rules as the centerpiece. While their products do support PFS and vice versa to a large degree, at least one major line, the APs, aren't used by PFS at all, and most of the supporting lines are timed to support the APs primarily...

I think the biggest problem that 3E hed with rules taking center stage was the rise of organized play. The core books themselves didn't do anything more to encourage rules over story telling, but by successfully introducing a new environment to play D&D in, via organized play, WotC opened up a...

I believe that the point he was making was that casting Guidance when trying to be stealthy would give the stealth roll a disadvantage because the spell has both verbal and somatic components that work against the concept of stealth. Casting guidance will not automatically grant disadvantage...

The playtest is one thing; most people expect a product at that stage to have rough edges. A formally launched product is something else entirely. A lot of folks are waiting for the DMG to get the full feel for the system. That is going to be when the true test hits. At that point, I suspect a...

WotC has more wiggle room than they did with 4E, that much is true. They also have a lot more pressure on them this time around to avoid another perceived failure. There's less hostility this time simply because most people will just walk away and ignore the brand if they don't like what they...

No, it won't lead to a golden age. It can support the brand long enough for WotC to have a crack at expanding the brand into other markets and products, but that is the best it is likely to do. It's still the same basic core system every other previous edition has had, not to mention all the OSR...

From what I've seen, I have to say that overall, they seem to have come up with a solid game. Supported properly, I can see it competing easily with PF as it seems to address many of the concerns people have with that system. I do not, however, see it removing PF or any of the other OGL/OSR...

That's easy. Make a character that simply chooses to lump all magic users into one pot, and have them believe that clerics and druids are simply delusional fools and/or charlatans who are manipulating the same sources of energy that arcane casters are and don't want to admit it. Be prepared to...

I doubt it will push Paizo into a new strategy because they probably already planned for this eventuality. Even if people stop buying the core rules, there is still the APs, companion lines, novels, and everything else that Paizo has going on. In short, they have already achieved something with...