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As I see it, I fall on the more traditional side of gaming. In my homebrew, I strive to create an internally consistent, relatively dark world that conforms to a lot of the assumptions of western european society broadly between the medieval period and the early reformation era. (No firearms...

I don't know. A lot of those "vulnerabilities" are so situational that I end up saying, "great, it's 'vulnerable' to cold, so it's slowed--and this makes a difference to me how? It doesn't need to move quickly to keep beating me in the face." If radiant damage dazes the target, save ends, that's...

I usually saw it cast after the attack roll but before damage was rolled. That said, even with your interpretation, it is still pretty easy to cast it just before the attack whenever a character is in the danger zone. Your interpretation preserves the risk of death from hp damage due to critical...

Agreed. I was referring to 3.0 haste in 3.5 which is what you get with the belt of battle and the celerity spells. That once per day greatness is often too much--it results in too much front-loading and makes combat come down to initiative rolls far too frequently. More to the point, however...

Disintegrate is hardly comparable to giving a fighter, barbarian or paladin touch attacks. You see, disintegrate really does 5d6 damage for an average of 17.5; it's kind of a glorified magic missile that doesn't automatically hit and is primarily useful for eliminating force cages and walls of...

I agree with this. Mass aid is a good spell but is not IMO broken--the reason for this is mostly because Aid is not a good 2nd level spell. It would be average as a first level spell. The big difference with mass resist energy is that resist energy is one of the best 2nd level spells. That's why...

Look at where the damage is going and what the damage is being done to. Cloudkill does its worst against weak creatures--creatures that would challenge the 9th level wizard generally just take some con damage which is dangerous but not usually a one-shot. Even those creatures that do have to...

Revivify is pretty close to being overpowered, but it worked out ok in our age of worms campaign. Just remember that it has expensive material components (not as much as the other raise dead type spells but it isn't free). Also, in my list of spells that absolutely need to be banned, I realized...

In general, I don't think that "tome of battle characters can do it too" is a good defense. Tome of Battle itself is rather broken. More to the point, the mechanics of the game fall apart whenever characters and NPCs have attacks that will easily one-shot opponents of similar power on a roll of...

Yeah, I'm actually going off the card text since I'm not on DDI. Still, my general view is that bloodied is a state that you want to avoid whenever possible so I don't rate that part of the power very highly--certainly increased accuracy (and decreased damage vis a vis holy strike) is not worth...

Hmm. I would say, "No D&D edition has ever jumped the shark before psionics was released." 4th edition may be cutting it pretty close though if they are waiting till next year to release psionics.

It varies by class. Cleric: With PHB heroes and gaze of defiance, laser clerics have enough at-will powers to choose between. Balanced clerics have plenty as well. Strength clerics, however, are stuck with righteous brand and priest's shield. Another good at will choice is needed. Fighter...

Save or dies are not necessarily bad. In 3.x, they can add variability and excitement to the game. Being in an aura or an area effect that does 10 damage every round and getting hit for 15 damage while you slowly bleed hp off the bad guys is somewhat predictable but it is not necessarily more...

The ones I remember: Paladin: Rhino's rush--double damage is never a good idea Find the gap--nothing should ever make melee attacks into touch attacks. It is very bad juju when you can power attack for max, smite evil and spirited charge/rhino's rush. Level 12 characters end up dealing near 100...

Yes it works. And "fixing" it will be more trouble than it is worth. Consider a few standard readied actions. 1. "I ready an action to charge the first enemy I see within my charge range." 2. "I ready an action to use Rain of blows when the warlord says "go."" 3. "I ready an action to use...

Well that is the question, isn't it? Does Commune actually solve the problem or is a D&D world with ambiguity in the divine realm like a world where everyone arbitrarily hops on one foot every third wednesday of the month between 7:00 and 7:30? The test case was proposed that you would just...

I would argue that it is essential to figure this out when you design the setting, regardless of whether or not the players figure it out. (Most especially if the point of having it in the game is to explore the difference between polytheists and monotheists). If you want to have a coherent...

You have a funny idea of quirks--some of these are flat-out wrong and others don't strike me as quirky at all. I didn't house rule very many of these--my house rules were focused in other places. Sure there is. The expected wealth by level guidelines tell you how much magical bling the PCs are...

Double post

My vote for best 5 character party: warlords. It's a high complexity party concept but as long as you're in melee you're likely to end up with everyone going twice in the key round--three times if action points are included (and those actions will be 2-3 times as effective as normal due to the...