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This is true. The move toward at-will abilities and encounter-based resources is something that, I believe, has grown in the design community based on years of playing 3e. If there are similarities, I'm sure it's simply a case of parallel development. And frankly, if 4e looks like Monte's house...

I don't think the PH has rules for that, but I imagine it'll show up if/when we do assassin-style rogue maneuvers.

The DM is NOT handwaving it. He's using the guidelines for DCs, defenses, modifiers, damage, and other factors by level that are in the DMG. The thing is, we CAN make this a rule as a maneuver or feat. We just didn't have room in the first book. It's a cool maneuver for a monster with a...

It's a unique ability for that bugbear. It isn't part of the core grapple rules for a couple reasons. The big one is that it would be really annoying if the PCs (or a big monster) could do that in every fight. It's tempting to make it a core rule, or put that rule into grapple, but here's why...

I want to make one thing clear: there aren't hard coded rules for a PC who wants to gain a monster's power, but there is enough info in the DMG on the system as a whole that the DM can adapt one (with a little work, mainly eyeballing things to make sure that you don't cause any unexpected...

You can give NPCs gear, it's just that gear should come out of the treasure you've put into the adventure, not some extra funds that emerge from the ether. So, if there's a +3 longsword in the dungeon, you can either stick it in a dusty treasure chest or hand it to the 13th level NPC fighter...

Weapons and armor do matter for NPCs and monsters that use gear, IIRC. I think we did a pass on the MM to make sure that the critters were using armor and gear from the PH. Thus, if a monster is described as wearing chain and it somehow loses that armor, you know how much to reduce his AC. The...

The chart/formulas for all the monster numbers by level are a guide. They are not rules, in the sense that a 19th level monster must have an AC from 31 to 34. They're a starting point. Some DMs will just crank the numbers out and be happy without delving into the system math. The system works...

A pointless death is a little harder, if by pointless you mean random. It's much harder for a monster to simple one shot a PC, unless it is a lot higher level than the PC. IME, PCs get in trouble or die in 4e when I throw a tough fight at them or when they make really, really bad moves. In the...

We haven't had any players die in the playtests, thank goodness. Otherwise, we'd have all sorts of lawsuits on our hands. More seriously, characters have died in playtests. I've killed a few myself. However, the playtests that are posted are from peoples' home games. If characters aren't dying...

You know, I really have to do a better job of editing my blog entries. I wince every time I see my horrid grammar and grade school spelling quoted on a message board.

The key is that, in most cases, magic items give more options, rather than improvements to existing options. Strictly speaking, the fighter with no items is less powerful than the fighter with a ton of items, yet if the campaign tends toward few or no items, the game still functions fine. For...

Yup, that's pretty much the intent. We went out of our way to embrace transparency in the rules, to better help DMs understand how magic items interact with PCs, how they interact with the system math, and what happens when you start to change things. It's also why items have a level as a guide...

Yeah, I see the world pre-cataclysm as a 3e world. That definitely played a role. I also wanted a campaign setting that would support lots of epic, paragon, and heroic tier adventures. A lot of the secrets are things you can uncover at heroic tier and that point you in the direction of a story...

;) Sorry, been too busy to check the boards lately. In a nutshell: the gods of humanity are a little miffed that mortals have started using forms of magic other than divine. They band together and back a theocracy that tries to conquer the entire world. An alliance of wizards, led by an...

This is what I'm doing, after a few false starts: http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/ I've started with Ray Winninger's first Dungeoncraft article, and going through one or two a week to slowly build a campaign world from scratch. It's been a lot of fun. Even as an experienced...

We talked a lot about using an existing town, but a couple of things came up: 1. When we do classic stuff, we want to do it right. It'd be a bit of a bummer if you got the Keep, but none of the Borderlands, so to speak. With space an issue, we didn't want to deliver what felt like only half an...

The drow poison is really techy, but that is intentional. The drider (and the drow I designed to go with it) all used the same poison mechanic. Their poisons stacked with each other. It would be crazy to run every poison this way, but in play it was a lot of fun for my group. With the drow...

There's a riddle in H1. Also, there's a secret room that you can find only by piecing together a few clues (or seriously dumb luck/thoroughness). No skill checks, just good, old fashioned brain processing power.

This is what I get for confiding in cartoon characters. I can only pray that Jabberjaw takes the secrets of 4e he carries to the grave.