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I think it's a bit much to claim that comparisons of D&D to LotR are somehow out-of-bounds. Large parts of the original game were lifted wholesale from Tolkien (e.g. all of the PC races that are not named "gnome"). Nearly every effect that Gandalf produces in the books became a D&D spell. While...

I am curious how to have a Skills and no-Skills option exist and still be able to produce game material for both at the same time. Or to have both in play at the same table, even. If being trained provides a numerical bonus of any kind, then DCs should be different when using the Skills option...

"Combat" is a facet of the game that takes up a lot of playing time. "Combat vs undead" is a specific situation, and not at all what I was talking about.

Because they're all being played by real, live people that are engaged in a friendly, cooperative, and fun gaming experience. It doesn't mean that all classes need to be exactly the same. I think that ideally, each player should have the capability to contribute equally to any facet of the game...

History, Athletics, and Endurance seem like they would be appropriate. History for knowing things about what the temple (or others of its kind) were like, and the physical skills for grunt work. Maybe Thievery too. Is there any conflict? Absent any forces trying to prevent the party from their...

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean. "No one wants to be the cleric" is an actual problem that actual people have repeatedly brought up over the years. Divine classes in general are not very popular in the groups that I've played in. I'm trying to think if I've ever seen anyone play a...

Yeah. I rather expect 5e to look a lot like Castles & Crusades, or some other retro-clone that incorporated 3e ideas. Unless they're writing off the players that shunned 3e, in which case I expect it to look like an updated version of 3e that fixes some of the problems.

I would love to see the cleric as the "cloistered" variety, with the paladin taking on the warrior aspect of faith. Having two warrior-priest-type classes in the game is one too many, IMO. It's a strange D&Dism that all religious spellcasters are trained in heavy armor and blunt weapons, and it...

Why do we need that? Personally, I was never a fan of roll-under ability checks. Skills are something that you can improve, at least.

Regardless of whether or not the combat roles are printed in the books, I would hope that the designers have them in mind when making the classes. While the 4e classes were maybe a little too focused - it shouldn't be necessary to split the fighter into two classes to fulfill two different...

WotC converted T1, C1, S1, G1-4 (ongoing), in addition to "re-imagining" G1-4 and S1 as separate super-modules and B2 as the Chaos Scar. Personally, I would be happy if there were no updates or conversions of old material at all in 5e. It reminds me too much of what happened with superhero...

I'm down with reducing it to Standard + minor or just Standard (where what are now minor actions become free actions), but I don't feel that strongly about it. I do think that having the three different actions can slow down combat. But that might have just been a problem specific to 4e...

If we're talking 4e, an average AC for level 15 is 29 (level + 14). Average non-AC defense is 27. Average attack vs AC is +20 (level + 5), vs non-AC is +18. Those are monster numbers, but the PC numbers track pretty closely if you keep your ability scores, equipment, and feats up to date. If...

Pliantreality : a quick google search of Zanzer Tem offered up several 4e conversion ideas on the first page of results.

You said that you've never seen a single character ever fit into the damage dealer, healer, meat-shield, or battlefield control role. If the roles do describe the game, how is that possible? If the roles are wrong and there are lots of different roles, that's an argument to redesign and/or...

Strange. I said, "You've never had a cleric or druid to heal the party?" and your answer is, "I've never had a cleric or a druid lead the party." I don't get it. "Leaders" in 4e are healers, removers of afflictions, and providers of buffs. If you've had a cleric in your party as your healer...

Roles add information, which is always useful. They tell the player what the class is good at, so the player doesn't create a character expecting it to be good at one thing only to be disappointed in actual play. Perhaps more importantly, they tell the designer that this is what the class should...

Races: Human, dwarf, elf, hobbit, goliath I think that covers the physical archtypes pretty well. I suppose you could swap out goliath for half-orc or orc, but... I feel like there should be something new in there. Maybe dragonborn, although that will needlessly antagonize some folks. Classes...

I don't think they can unify the fans. It's not like 2000 when most D&D players had drifted off to other systems or stopped playing altogether. Both 3e/PF and 4e seem to have very active fan bases. And at least some portion of the PF fan base thinks WotC is the devil. That said, when I think of...

1. Too many fiddly rule bits. 2. Requires too much system mastery to build characters. 3. Introduced "feats" to D&D. 4. A chore to DM.