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I'd suggest letting PCs who solve a puzzle or riddle bypass a challenge, but also have the option for them to get through another way (such as combat, a trap-filled corridor, or some form of sacrifice) if they can't solve it. Perhaps the puzzle activates a teleporter to a secret treasure room...

That wasn't my experience in the campaign I ran from levels 2-12, for several reasons due to my group of players, the PC builds, and the monsters the party faced. The barbarian dominated in damage output, the ranger was second, and the casters were left in the dust. The ClericZilla never...

They can't just clean it up for the sake of streamlining it, because everybody knows they'll once again bog it down with splatbook power creep. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. D&D has already had a massive revamp that was conducted in large part to clean up 2.0/2.5...

Well, it is a secret ritual, and I'm only a 7th-level Grognard, so naturally I'll get some of these things wrong. But I imagine that in a few more editions, the d12 will be as rare as an artifact...

D&D can't be killed. As you would expect of any abomination that emerged from a sea of Gygaxian narrative and the Blackmoor hit location charts, it is one tough beast. Cutting off the head and feeding the corpse to lawyers didn't work, so that should tell you something right there. Weighting...

I hope they'll find a way to cut down on the 2 biggest time-sinks in combat in my experience: 1) Movement Chess. Player counts squares, accounting for diagonals, Tumble, and Haste, tries to see if he can move 60', avoid AOOs, and end up flanking, realizes he doesn't have enough movement, and...

BECMI had paladins and druids as proto-Prestige Classes. A mid-level Fighter could become a Paladin, Knight, or Avenger, or remain a Fighter. There were some modest benefits for Paladin and Avenger, minor ones for Knight, but you kept the Fighter XP table, attack table, and saving throws. Oh...

I would worry about the designers' focus on "Your PC should be able to do something cool in every round of every fight." If "fun" is defined by how much your own PC gets to shine, then you might be resentful at times when you should be happy for your team succeeding due to a teammate's daring...

See my edit above. While you may have meant it tongue-in-cheek, I have met too many players who seem to be ignorant of the concept of a bard, who associate it more with Sir Robin's Minstrel than with Celtic folklore. The Complete Book of Bards from 2E was excellent at showing how the class...

Why would they apply to a bard, either? I don't get it. Is there something un-masculine about singing per se? Or perhaps it is the bards' subject matter of clan lineages and heroic tales? Are Celts just not manly enough, and so "real men" have to mock them? Please explain why there is this...

Average damage depends greatly on whether a party of that level has a bard or not. Inspire Courage is EXTREMELY powerful. Even with only one of the myriad boosting effects out there (such as the swift spell Inspirational Boost), that's +4 to hit and damage at 16th level. It's especially good...

Where I *think* you might be wrong on that is that a standard "encounter" is still going to be something against which the PCs have the advantage. Look at 4 level 1 PCs. An equal-level NPC party should have about a 50% of defeating the PCs, with likely at least one death and quite possibly a...

By my calculations, fewer than 50% of NPCs should survive to advance to each higher level. If you assume 1% of the population is PC-classed, that means level-10 characters are 1-in-100,000 even at a 50% survival rate -- and in fact, it's likely to be less than that. I certainly wouldn't give...

Which boards would these be? I remember reading the early versions of this site and the USENET group rec.games.frp.dnd (I think), where there was great enthusiasm for 3E. There was no 2E anymore. The market had already collapsed. The bloated and unbalanced mess that was 2E/2.5 was dead, none...

Yeah, I'd go with the Intimidate check, which is Cha-based, not Str-based. The Brb can *scare* people, but that doesn't necessarily translate into getting them to do what he wants them to do. A scared person may panic and try to break free and attack him, or may cave in but harbor a grudge and...

Basic-Expert-Companion-Master's. The version of D&D I learned on, starting with the Moldvay "Red Book" of 1981 (the BECM series actually began with the 1983 Mentzer version, which had almost identical rules). Pretty much my favorite version of the game. BECM has TONS of "dead levels" and...

Sometimes you have the pro-4E crowd saying that WotC is just doing what's best for "the hobby." Of course WotC is doing no such thing; it is their obligation to do what's best for WotC.

I'm not interested. I'm specifically referring to the posters who claim that "everyone" will be playing 4E. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but I do feel that I have significant disagreements with the fundamental game design principles behind 4E, at least as far as the designers have...

You know, I loved 3.5, but I don't think I'll be sticking with it. I'll either quit gaming or revert to BECM. While I loved 3.5's flexibility and elegant d20 resolution mechanic, I eventually got sick of the character build optimization, players looking forward more to what abilities they...

And if I could put money on the various predictions that "Everybody is going to 4E no matter what they say on the boards," I would.