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Crits don't have quite the same impact in 4E as in 3E. Given the numbers, it's unlikely for any one attack to take a PC from positive hp to the negative of their bloodied value. By the time a combat reaches the grind stage, the odds of the monsters critting frequently enough to turn the tide...

Not all change is the same. Grognard capture causes RPGs to grow and expand, but it also causes to core gameplay to remain unchanged. So the "core" rulebook might have very different contents with each iteration, but most of the change is the incorporation of earlier expansions into the core...

I enjoyed this article, too. All four villains have well-developed backgrounds and personalities, ideal for slotting into a campaign. I'm already working on inserting Andred Wormblade into my current game.

Penalties already don't stack with themselves: "Unlike bonuses, penalties don't have types. Penalties add together, unless they're from the same power. If two monsters attack you with the same power and each causes you to take a penalty to a particular roll or score, you don't add the...

Except that when monsters fall down, they're already dead (PH 295). (This same page gives the designers' intention: "Most monsters don't attack combatants who are dying.") If you believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, perhaps you should roll death saves for each fallen...

Not everyone is as willing to experiment with other systems. We still have threads that ask what edition of D&D best fits a given playing style. Perhaps one benefit of edition change is that over time, more and more playing styles will have their eight years in the sun, receiving the benefit...

Player's Handbook, page 58: "If you use a power outside combat, it lasts for 5 minutes unless otherwise noted." By default, Skittering Sneak lasts for at most 5 minutes per day.

I believe that A) someone might support open gaming for ethical reasons. I also believe that B) no matter how much someone enjoys somebody else's support of open gaming, it is unreasonable to assume that this support must continue forever. I don't think that beliefs A and B are inconsistent...

Well, switching forms every round is still a much more fluid implementation of wild shaping than we had in 3E. Anyway, I also think the free shift upon reverting to humanoid form is a nice touch. It's true that even without this free shift, a druid who begins her turn in beast form next to an...

Outside of Irontooth, most of the published encounters seem reasonable in difficulty. If you're routinely getting the better of your PCs while following the standard rules, chances are you're using significantly better tactics. The first thing I would do is identify precisely where your...

My 4E Eberron campaign began with the Eberron conversion of H1, but I had difficulty running it as more than hack-and-slash. We've gone off in a new direction, ostensibly inspired by Firefly: the PCs have gotten their hands on an airship. Unbeknownst to them, I'm find somewhat more inspiration...

I like this idea (although I wouldn't use your specific example). Any mechanical penalty will lead to the problems already mentioned, but role-playing penalties allow plenty of flexibility while being harder to dodge. (Rolling a new character forfeits all your "story assets" in the form of...

Don't forget that you can use the templates from the DMG section on customizing monsters. You can obtain more options for low-level solos by applying two templates to standard monsters. Honestly, I haven't tried this technique, but it's something to consider.

If you scroll back on the news page to July 7, 2007, you'll find an announcement from Rich that includes the following text.

It depends. Should the players try to maximize XP earned per adventure or XP earned per session? IMC, combats run slowly enough that fighting monsters yields less XP per unit time than skill challenges to avoid monsters or quest rewards for completing adventures without having to fight.

I want to echo this point since it worked well in the encounter against a young white dragon that I ran last night. Dragon refusing to budge once next to the fighter == boring. Dragon willing to eat an immediate interrupt basic attack to unleash its fury on the warlock that critted it with...

Actually, I used the Players Roll All the Dice variant in 3E, but I stopped in 4E because of the handful of Immediate Interrupt powers that allow PCs to modify an enemy's attack roll (or the PC's defense score). These powers seemed too weak if the player doesn't know how close the attack roll...

I also wish that every mini had the same quality as a rare, but it seems unlikely without a price increase. We can only hope that the quality of future minis reflects the announced price increase. In trying to predict the value of these future sets, the current starter set seems a much better...

I like the fact that not all the classes have the same degree of dependence on multiple ability scores, although I admit that I may not understand the game balance ramifications. Perhaps the designers intended the wizard to play differently? For most classes, I find myself using a...

We have a sense of how common, uncommon, and rare minis differ, but what will the visible minis in the monster packs be like? I'm optimistic that WotC will take the sensible route and make the visible face of the product attractive, closer to a rare than to a common. I might not spend $15 for...