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Can you expand upon this? I'm not sure what archetype the rogue class by itself represents. Many rogue-type characters from fiction have at least a modest amount of combat training, and so I would represent them as RogX/FtrY. That is, a rogue who can fight well. A "pure rogue" would be, I...

As I've said elsewhere, Sam resists the lure of the Ring because he knows his place in the world. He is a simple gardener and that's all he wants to be, so the Ring's lure of power has no hold over him. His lack of ambition, rather than immense willpower, is his salvation. It is rather an...

"Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. The thing in the coffin writhed, and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions...

There are some references to "iron stakes," such as used to mark boundaries of plots of land. But the issue as I see it is this: 1) If the fundamental property that makes the stake effective is its wooden-ness, then you have players thinking that arrows with the heads removed will be more...

Because the rogue's training is to hit the kidneys, the lungs, an artery, or any of a number of vital areas that present themselves as targets. He's an opportunist. A typical human has numerous weak spots, any one of which might be exposed. If the vampire only has to protect his heart (in...

Going off topic, but this is something I've always wondered -- why did D&D come to embrace the importance of the wood? Of the various vampire legends, some did require a wooden stake and some did not. But most stakes would be made of wood in a pre-industrial period, so if the tradition was...

True. Backstab was nice when it happened, but it wasn't all the time. I played a lot of B/X, so there was none of that ridiculous exceptional strength, and no Power Attack. As a result, the fighter's damage output wasn't much higher than everybody else's. He was consistent, reliable, and had...

I always viewed this as the reason why not all game worlds would be run by wizards. In BD&D, 1E, and 2E, wizards were supposed to have a much higher mortality rate than fighters. Yes, wizards can achieve phenomenal cosmic power, but it's an exceedingly perilous path and most who attempt it...

There were prequels? My original comment was on the Stormtroopers in the first Star Wars movie. What they did in other works is of no consequence to how they were presented in that movie. There is a way to have "Main character vs. mooks" that presents the mooks as a credible threat, and a...

We were talking about Star Wars. That's a series of 3 movies released between 1977 and 1983.

Do you do this for NPCs and humanoids as well, or just for PCs?

That sounds very insulting. Is that how you meant it? Boromir is the greatest hero of Gondor, a skilled warrior and veteran of many battles. The scene in LotR builds him up without diminishing the Uruk-Hai. He engages them one or two at a time and constantly retreats, calling for help. They...

The real sticking point for me on making 1st-level PCs tougher is the 1-HD humanoids. I can see wanting 1st-level PCs to be able to defeat wolves, dire rats, and things that you would expect an armed and armored veteran medieval footman to be able to defeat. But hobgoblins? You have a race of...

I'm equally a player and DM (voted player here) and I like fragile 1st-level characters. Accounting for the level of damage faced in each system, BECMI is a bit too fragile for me and 3E is about right (3E has much tougher PCs and somewhat higher damage faced). But, character creation in BECMI...

In 3.5, a non-elite-array orc warrior (17 Str) with a greataxe would do 1d12+4 damage, crits for 15-48. An elite array orc barbarian with Power Attack does 1d12+10, crits for 33-66. So, for this to no longer be lethal, they need to tone down crits. Maybe "minions" can't crit, or maybe...

Fine, I've reread it. Moldvay p. B6. "When starting out, each character rolls one hit die, using the type of die given for the character class... As an option, the DM may allow a player to roll again if the player has rolled a 1 or 2 for the number of hit points at first level only." Mentzer...

Unearthed Arcana, a splatbook, is seen as a "1.5" edition by some because it introduced such drastic changes. It was not officially a new edition. The "Players' Option" series in 2E are considered "2.5" by many because they changed the game so much. They were not officially a new edition. The...

What I'm saying is that certain non-core materials for 3.5 changed the game so drastically that they were almost a new edition. Not officially, but in terms of how different they made the game.

Aside from the barbarian's rage, per-encounter abilities are not a part of core 3.5. And even rage is more like "X/day" -- when it lasts the duration of an encounter, as it nearly always does, defining it as "per encounter" is meaningless. The new material with per-encounter abilities for...

Humans' most notable traits are that they are ambitious and will breed with anything that moves, right? I think my gaming group in grad school had that one pretty much covered.