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If you look at a new game system, say a class and level based system, and the first thing you want to do is chop off 1/3 of the progression and water down the beginning levels because they are too powerful, you're probably better off going with a different game than trying to re-engineer that...

Keep looking and you will find more - they're called Utility Powers. At any given level many of them are related to combat in some way but there's almost always one that isn't. They're usually something like darkvision for 5 minutes or a bonus to a certain skill for one roll or a movement boost...

I'm fine with the book containing new builds - there ought to be a necromancy option for the essentials mage. There ought to be something for wizards. I think a "Dark Blast" build for Sorcerer would be good. I think a Blackguard build for paladin is fine and there ought to be an avenger build...

I'd be fine if they want to market Essentials as the "starter classes" and Core as "advanced" classes as long as they settle the multiclassing, paragon path, epic destiny, and feat compatibility/crossover questions. Once those wrinkles are ironed out in a book people can actually buy then they...

Among published games I will second both Godlike and Underground as non "anything goes" super-settings. Godlike is low-powered supers in WW2 and typically a hero will have only a few aspects of a power. In fact there is a specific list of what's not possible in the game universe, things like...

Old Basic Box had 7 character classes. New Basic has 4 + 4 races or 4 classes X 4 races so it is better there in a sense, but equipment and powers are very limited so it's not as great a change as it could be. 81 Basic set had 69 counting by type where Dragon = 1 entry. If we go by individual...

This is what's known as a "sandbox". Many people like them, obviously some people don't. A lack of named NPC's didn't matter to me then and it doesn't matter now - if someone asks, you make one up. I think today's 13 year old can pull it off just fine. You think Mearls opinion on this might have...

Keep doesn't really have blanks - maybe you're thinking of B1 In Search of the Unknown. Keep has a statted out base area, a nice wilderness/area map, and a dungeon broken dowen into bite-sized chunks all in one area. It's actually a very good beginner module and many people did start with it...

I kept seeing this on boards and blogs so I went through and counted powers & errata in the errata documents and just under 10% of the PHB 1 powers have been touched by errata. So it's not as massive a change as some people think. Even then, some of that is just wording changes to clarify...

Oh come on, just reskin it: A lightning bolt shoots down out of the sky striking the body of your fallen comrade as a booming voice rumbles TIME TO GET BACK IN THE GAME, SON! ON YOUR FEET! There, see, problem solved! :)

That's a good point. Maybe it's balanced by having to share actions with the animal. I think when you get into (for example)the powers that do 3W or 4W it's going to start looking pretty good throwing 3d12 than say a 3d6 +2 like a similar thief attack would. It's probably not that big a...

The weapon damage boost looks new to me. Do we have another class where you just flat do more damage with certain weapons? Rogues and Rangers have the feats to boost their bonus damage and there are feats to boost damage with particular weapons but it's a pretty nice bump that a staff goes from...

The new red box covers only levels 1-2, does not include rules for generating a character in the manner of other 4E books, does not give players a real list of equipment or magic items, contains 1 level's worth of dungeon (83 box had Keep on the Borderlands - an actual adventure module), and has...

-> This is important - it is the major benefit of having a published setting BUT... -> This is true as far as changes made during an ongoing campaign but when starting up a new campaign this can be a hidden benefit. Look at the existing metaplot and then pick a point where things are going to...

I didn't mention 3E but if they weren't called skill challenges nor were they described in detail it doesn't sound like it's "not strictly true" - it sounds like they didn't exist in 3E either as a concept presented in the rules. That matters. I'm not disagreeing that you can make them work...

That's great if you started playing Basic D&D in 1990. For those of us who started 10 or 12 years earlier there was no skill system.

Skill challenges are a mechanical construct of 4E. BECMI and 1E had no skill system for anyone but the thief, so mechanically you aren't going to run traps as skill challenges approaching anything like 4E. Back when it was usually a 1-shot skill roll for the thief on the simple stuff like poison...

Is this really new information? I think most of us that were playing back then were aware of it. I imagine people who hated it in TSR game lines mention it because they hated it in TSR game lines, regardless of the existence of other products doing the same thing. I don't know that I would say...

This is what I was trying to say. The powerful stuff was Fighters-only, at least for a while. I don't know, Champions has been around for almost 30 years and has been beaten on by stat-geeks probably more than D&D and most players seem to think it works just fine. Point-systems are abusable...

I can't remember the exact quote, but Gary Gygax said in a thread over on Dragonsfoot that the reason clerics were only given blunt weapon proficiencies was a balance issue. The idea may have eventually been altered in order to become a balancing tool, but one can say with absolute certainty...