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Well, that's the thing. Some people think of combat like a hockey game. Some want to be able to cast Wall of Stone and enclose our goal, or to sneak into the dormitory of the opposing team and murder them in their sleep, or bribe the referee. Now, a sufficently-rule-robust 4E won't prevent...

*descends from Mount Celestia, pulls out sparkling glowy briefcase* "It is interesting that you would make this argument. You see, implicit in the very idea of law is the idea of hierarchy; that within different spheres, different authorities hold sway. While it is true that within the mortal...

You know, I think that a party of five defenders would be awesome. Simply make sure that everyone is in everyone else's zone of control and you've got a five-man phalanx that will not go down. It would be highly weak against artillery, but I expect that defenders will end up being the new...

Eh. Wight refers specifically to a man; a wight wolf makes about as much sense as a zombie ghost. Now a ghost ghost from the Even More Beyond, that makes sense.

There was nothing in the 3.XE rules against making up a monster, or against copy-pasting arbitrary bonuses and penalties. You can make up a Favored of the Abyss (Ex) power that gives a succubus +10 to Bluff, Disguise, and Diplomacy, and permanent Mind Blank in 3.XE; more to your point, you can...

No it isn't. They don't have that ability in their stat block, so they can't do it. And yes, as pointed out, given that detect magic is known to be trivial (a function of a skill), and given that elites/heroes are not incredibly rare (top percentiles, but not one-in-a-million), we still get...

"Make up an element of the universe" is very distinct from "Make up a plot point". 'The king has been mind-controlled' is a plot point. 'Succubus', 'Charm Person', and 'authority figure with a poor will save' are universe-elements. You can't address a plot point without authorial authority...

Define 'legitimate authority'. The principle of authority and law is to serve the public trust. Doing this requires equality and a sense of fairness and justice. The Arbiter's failure to recuse himself from this situation on account of conflict of interest (or even explain his actions) means...

I've seen representations of Gandalf that had Bard levels, and as far as I'm concerned, any character that stares down a Balor shouting "You shall not pass!" just cast Heroism, regardless of what it says on his sheet. Apropos of nothing, Bard/Swordsage/Jade Phoenix Mage can be reflavored into...

"Didn't happen" is distinctly different from "Couldn't happen". One of the classic examples of epic (in the D&D4.0 sense) heroes, Hercules, demonstrated in his twelfth labor exactly what the relationship between epic heroes and the immutable separation of of life and death should be...

Like I said before, monarchy qua monarchy isn't evil, and democracy qua democracy isn't good. You can have a good and just king, who voluntarily limits the scope of his authority and rules fairly and without undue preference, and you can have a soceity in which 80% cheerfully repeatedly vote to...

Eh, I'd say that feudalism is evil contingent on human nature. When you can not only trivially root out corruption, but literally call down a good and wise angel from the heavens and explain "Look, we had to kill the previous king a bit on account of the slavery and the wars and all. Can you...

Here's the thing: considered by whom? In D&D, there are absolute, observable answers to moral questions. You can determine whether or not a given action egregiously violates the dignity of sentient beings by having a paladin do it, then check the paladin for his powers. That being said, one...

Fighter: "Sorc, detect magic on her, if you please." Sorceror: "Uh, yeah. Magic. Strong magic. Necromancy. Hey..." Fighter: "OK, so tell us about this curse thing. What happens if someone jumps off a cliff, kills you on the way down, and then dies on impact? Does the curse die with him?"...

Well, that's the thing. You don't fight a cold war at all with a nation-state that's let you know that they will cheerfully respond to any provocation with carpet-bombing and work up from there; you either keep things diplomatic at almost any cost, or make damn sure you strike first. That...

Why does this have to be the case? How do kings with conventional medieval armies in the tens of thousands treat each other? How do baronets from three dominions over treat the kings? That's how kings should treat with a 10th-level magic-using party and a 20th-level magic-using party...

I'd just like to ask the people considering the PCs violent thugs to, when they visualise the PCs, include tanks, close air support, ICBMs, a large chemical arsenal, powered armor, and the like to their visualization. Again, PCs past a certain level aren't criminals, they're four-man rogue...

I agree with this approach with the proviso that there should be endgame scenarios besides "The king's endless stream of resources that appeared as soon as you started opposing him wear you down." If you start with a list of what the king has, what he can reasonably allocate to stopping the...

As I said, it depends. If you have a large population of civic-minded adventurers, the value of murderous cutthroats who mostly kill demons and orcs drops dramatically. On the other hand, I see little reason to assume a sufficient population of civic adventurers. Most of all, I see no reason...

"OK. McBard, you head down to Swadia and the Nord Kingdom. See if you can't stir up some good old-fashioned hatred of Vaygers, here. And don't forget to lay the blood libel on thick for the Nords; if we can get a natural border skirmish to blow up naturally, we won't have to engineer one...