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It really depends on what you want to achieve with the house rules. If your intention is to have more randomness and more fragile characters that recover slower from injuries, then your proposed house rules should work fine. On a personal note, I would not want to play in a campaign with any...

I never used magic items shops in (late) 3e and 4e, because I simply cut out the middle-man and allowed the players to pick whatever magic items they wanted for their PCs within the wealth-by-level guidelines/treasure guidelines. In 3e, whenever the PCs in my games gained a level, the players...

Different strokes, meat, poison, you know the drill. I should have been more precise and said that the CR and encounter balance guidelines assume the players don't have any magic items. I hope the DMG will provide guidance on how to adjust the CR and encounter balance guidelines if the DM...

Right now, I am feeling bitter, jaded and cynical enough to say, don't give out any treasure whatsoever. It just seems kind of pointless to me. Apart from upgrading armor, there really isn't much to spend gold on, and the game assumes that the PCs don't have any magical items, anyway.

Gauntlets of ogre power and belts of giant strength bug me as well, which is why I am probably going to house-rule them as follows: You must have a natural Strength score of 15 or higher to become attuned to gauntlets of ogre power. You must have a natural Strength score of 17 or higher to...

You mean, somewhat ... outlandish? :p

My gaming group got together again last weekend to play a second Basic game (my write-up of our first game is here). Due to the fact that my DM increased the apparent challenge (and most likely, the actual challenge) of each fight, my character, The Sage (see linked thread for explanation), was...

This is probably an uncharitable description, but to me, bounded accuracy means that if, at 1st level, you have a 50% chance of success (1-2 on a d4), at 20th level, your chance of success will have increased by half (1-3 on a d4).

At least for me: 1. Balance 2. Simple and Transparent Math 3. Flexibility 4. Martial Power 5. Epic Destinies 6. Healing Surges 7. Skill Challenges 8. Feat-Based Multiclassing 9. Marking 10. Themes 11. Encounter Powers 12. The Warlord For elaboration, see here.

That's a pretty good idea, actually, and would certainly help The Sage feel more elf-y. Thanks! :)

Oh, I could have cast sacred flame all the time. It's just that I didn't, most of the time, because firing a light crossbow seemed to be the better choice. If the encounter difficulty does go up next session, I expect everyone will want to take a short rest after each fight to spend Hit Dice if...

Actually, looking at the (spoilered) ACs in one of the posts above, the light crossbow would have hit at about the same rate as saving throws would have failed (assuming saving throw bonuses of +0 to +2). Hence, the damage bonus would make the light crossbow the better option most of the time...

Yes, I'm looking forward to trying it out this weekend. :)

I think the Leverage crew is closer to what the PCs actually do, though. :p

That is probably what he modified, because they didn't attack all at once. We faced the two half-orcs first, and killed them fairly quickly. The imp tried to grab the amulet, but The Criminal got it back by casting mage hand and winning an opposed check. The zombies animated, and we ran, but...

If I was facing high-AC opponents (such as hobgoblins) or opponents with cover, I think it would tip the balance in favor of sacred flame. However, at 15 Dex and 15 Wis (+4 bonus to attack rolls and DC 13 saves respectively), I figured the chance of success was pretty even for most opponents...

Higher-level play might indeed be more to my taste. We'll be having a game with level 2 characters soon, most likely involving hobgoblins, nothics and ochre jellies, so we'll also be able to see if using "official" monsters and encounter-building guidelines will improve the experience.

Yes, it could be because we weren't using properly balanced monsters and encounters. However, with 4e, I'd be more comfortable breaking up the monotony of at-will attacks with an encounter power or rwo.

You may be right. The key reason for that was that based on my reading of the rules, I got to add my Dexterity modifier to damage with a light crossbow, but I didn't get to add my Wisdom modifier to damage with sacred flame. That made attacking with the light crossbow almost always the superior...

My DM ran "The Wizard's Amulet", but he adapted part of it. There was a fight against two leucrotta, another against four skeletons, and a final encounter with two orcs followed immediately by five zombies. The adventure was basically a week-long escort mission and the fights came at us one per...