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So a party might go something like this: Fighter / Warlord [Defender / Leader] Fighter / Ranger [Defender / Striker] Rogue / Bard [Striker / Leader] Ranger / Druid [Striker / Controller] Barbarian / Fighter [Striker / Defender] So one guy's a shapeshifter, and one knows a...

Looking over the final rules for hybrid characters, I am struck by their potential in a low-magic swords-and-sorcery campaign, for a couple of reasons: 1. Assuming that most of the PCs will have the martial power source, hybrids give a lot more variety. 2. Hybridization of a martial class...

A Dex/Int rogue makes a lot of sense.

Let's. I like the idea. Works nice for a wudan warrior (mixing martial arts and swordsmanship), a swashbuckler, or a pit fighter. I've also had a notion to do a "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" type thing where the heroes are dangerous even when unarmed. Perhaps the monk multiclass feat...

Dragon will be previewing one of these new builds: Insightful Warlord You lead through careful observation and a knack for predicting your enemies’ actions. In combat, you keep your eyes open and quickly adapt your plan to changing circumstances. You show your allies how to identify enemy...

Agreed, and those would be suitably "controller" versions of the abjurer. Transmutation is a pretty easy fit, too --- change the physical characteristics of the battlefield or your foes. Necromancy is tricky insofar as it seems better suited to the shadow power source, but no reason you...

I suppose the danger is that if the wizard becomes too versatile, he infringes upon someone else's territory. But I'm sure many transmutation and abjuration spells could still fall within the controller role, and there's nothing wrong with, for example, an abjurist wizard build with a secondary...

I like the idea of presenting some wizard options a la the old schools of magic. Summoning and illusion are already covered . . .

You need a certain amount of separation between the different areas to keep them distinct, but that could be accomplished geographically rather than extradimesionally. Which one works better may be a matter of taste. I certainly like the current role of fomorians and cyclopses . . . in earlier...

Indeed.

From the new preview of the Shadowdark, it appears that we now have the Underdark broken up into the classic drow/abberation Underdark; the more psychedelic fairyland Feydark; and the realm of the dead-themed Shadowdark. I like this change for the same reason I like the new elf/eladrin split...

Well put. I'll go a step further and say that the older I get, the more I appreciate being given something small but functional that can immediately be plugged into my game. I mean, why did we have to wait for 4th Edition for a DMG that gives you a nice little town for a base of operations...

To me, it's a question of providing useful tools for a cool game. As an example, I find that the 4th Edition Manual of the Planes meets that need better than the 1st Edition Manual of the Planes. MoP 1.0 has more "variation," I suppose --- more planes, certainly --- but for my purposes, it...

See, this to me is what is meant by "pointless symmetry": * Paraelemental Plane of Ooze (between Earth and Water) * Paraelemental Plane of Ice (between Water and Air) * Paraelemental Plane of Smoke (between Air and Fire) * Paraelemental Plane of Magma (between Fire and Earth)...

I like the concepts, not the names. Similarly, I like good ideas, whether they are inspired by a need for symmetry or not. From a design standpoint, the decision was made to make the Shadowdark and Feywild geared toward lower-level characters --- your first taste of planar travel --- but I...

Agreed. While I think the Feydark is a stronger concept when it's focused on a few key elements, rather than being as diverse as the regular Underdark (with drow and aboliths and abberations and whatnot), that doesn't mean the Feydark had to be physically smaller.

Check out that preview from Underdark on today's DDI. Glowing fungi, crazy gnomes, mushrooms who walk like men, one-eyed purple giants. Love it. So much cooler than drow / mind flayers / etc. I would run an all-Feydark campaign in a heartbeat. Especially with an all-gnome party . . ...

I think the trick is to give players something that tastes like werewolf or robot or shapeshifter without throwing game balance out the window. Make them different, but not better. I can play a shifter with some lycanthropic traits at 1st level, but he's not going to have all the perks of...

Here I thought it was an effort to keep the PHB under 500 pages.