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The early marketing work on a product line revision is almost always damage control, unless the existing product line variants have gone terribly stale. Your old revisions (and off-shoots) are essentially at war with your new prospective product and your customer base is going to instinctively...

The trick is that the critical first 10% of the process is filtering out the signal from the noise. Actually, it seems like they are going to go ahead full-steam and give everyone short of the Wizard the Expertise Dice to handle weapon attack damage-scaling. They just aren't handing out...

I wonder if that means the Rogue loses expertise, or if he just loses whatever Mearls means by "combat maneuvers." I liked the Rogue's movement, skill mastery, and saving throw expertise mechanics. - Marty Lund

Well, the LG-only Paladin is explicitly not in the cards: The whole "champion of the moral cause instead of the deity" thing works, but not the requirement to champion Good specifically. Bane's going to have Paladins, and they are going to eat babies and kick puppies as a matter of doctrine...

We went around that mulberry bush already a few months ago. The response from WotC was this: http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/05/18/paladin_design_goals Their big bullet points: 1. The paladin is a champion of a divine calling. 2. A paladin can see and smite evil. 3. A paladin is...

Politeness is not permitting vigorous or passionate criticism of ideas, systems, and arguments spill over into attacks and poor treatment of people. It's not coddling bad ideas by holding back criticism. That's just terrible post-modern conflict-avoidance behavior that stifles debate. I'm...

If you don't own at least 6d20 as a DM you're doing something wrong. ;) On top of that, to-hit rolls are binary greater than or equals comparisons. You don't have to tally dice results - just hits and misses. It's a much faster process for macro combat, speaking as someone that plays war-games...

When it gets to that point, just use the Average Damage bestiary listing for the monsters. If a goblin does "Hit: 2 (1d6 -1) bludgeoning damage" then just roll a bunch of d20s at once, and multiple the hits by the damage. Done. - Marty Lund

I think it is going to be different on a case-by-case basis for the classes, but that concern has to be paramount. "How am I not the Fighter?" is a question that needs to be answered* when critiquing those classes. The Rogue and the Fighter share something important in common - their shticks...

Expertise Dice are a nice mechanic for classes that have little or no alternative sources of power outside of their martial expertise and a heavy emphasis on physical training. This is why the Rogue, Fighter, and Monk all match up very well with the Expertise system. Once you start channeling...

No. What you have proposed is a Fighter with bolted-on extras to be the "Paladin" in this edition. "Silliness" is a polite way of putting it. Taking most (if not everything) the Fighter gets and then getting MOAR for being a Paladin is unbalanced - greased skids straight to Munchkin Land...

Frankly, the game has ALWAYS been divided that way. Pre 4E D&D simply interpreted this to mean that non-casters (IE - "grogs") were not allowed to have nice things, period. Now grogs have something nice, and the impulse to grind it down into something mundane and marginal that "everyone should...

Nah, I think that's just the territory where Maneuvers should get expanded to create better combat styles - weapon-class specific maneuvers or benefits to maneuvers. If anything needs to get bolted onto the Fighter at this point it is something that let's him break the pattern of "I hit it with...

It also reduces or removes the need to mechanically alter a lower-level monster into a higher-level minion like 4E did. In a system that levels primarily on damage escalation instead of To-Hit/HP this takes care of itself organically without the need for modification. That level of simplicity is...

I think they are on the right track at least as far as the need for a reliable, generic damage scaling mechanic for martial characters. The ability to convert into maneuvers should reflect the aptitude of the class. The expertise system should be unique to Martial characters only. Any class that...

I have to agree - Realms is a Train-wreck of a setting to build on. The only reason to tie it to Core is to try and leverage the novels. Grey hawk and Blackmoor are much simpler and more traditional foundations for a Core brand, but they don't have a useful existing product base. Krynn has a...

So, I take it you're for making sure there's no overlap on the Sorcerer, Wizard, or Cleric spell lists, right? I understand the desire for diversity, but there's a value in simplicity too - especially in the core. It makes for cleaner balance and easier pick-up-and-play functionality just for...

See, I think that's not entirely accurate. Fighting Men have been saddled with the Simulationist weighting since the war-game days before D&D. When Magicians got introduced the dedication to Simulationist elements went right out the window because, hey, MAGIC. With the narrative onus to...

I actually brought up the idea of certain maneuvers "occupying" or "exhausting" expertise dice the other day. A static effect, like a Stance, could knock out one or more expertise dice until the Stance ends. A Limited Expression power would knock out one or more expertise dice until a Short...

Oh, I don't think the DR should be a mechanic for enemies in general. Yes, a heavily fortified monster will just have higher AC and HP. Maybe an elite / solo / recurring villain template could use those DR mechanics like players, but if it isn't built to last more than 1 scene like a Player...