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My take on the philosophy that motivated it is that it could be summed up as follows: "Attributes don't actually represent anything--every defender should have a strong melee basic attack. Therefore we will give swordmages a feat that lets them ignore strength and still have a good melee basic...

Looking at typical characters, it looks to me like, at 1st level, except for the lowest AC characters such as leather armored warlocks and unarmored non-staff wizards, the character's strongest NAD is usually between equal to AC and two points behind (Though it could be as many as five points...

I don't know that the designers did take this into account. For all that 4th edition is supposed to be mathematically balanced, there are a lot of mathematical oddities (skill challenges being the most egregious example). AC defenses will potentially improve by 15 (level) 6 (masterwork--or 2...

Best encounter: Curiously, all of the contenders are from an LFR mod: Impiltur 1-1. The players were going to attack a goblin encampment but there is no real reason to start the encounter with the players in the "place your characters here" box. So I drew out what was visible of the encounter...

Playing 4th edition is about your character getting kicked in the NADs repeatedly. Don't expect the bad guys to ever miss. That way you will be pleasantly surprised the 1 time in 5 or so that the do miss. If you expect them to ever miss, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

I would be hesitant about targetting Shadowbane Stalker with a cloistered cleric multiclass. I played a shadowbane inquisitor for a while in a friend's high level game. Like you, I was going for a witch hunter feel, though with a little more lawful and a little more good than Frankthedm's...

Hoping that the beast won't be able to pursue, eh? And how often does that work out :) I predict a show-down with the beast sooner or later.

I for one would like to know when and why simulationism became wrongbadfun. I for one rather enjoy the playstyle. I would think that whether or not the players' idea fits with the world is system independent. Either it is possible to make items or it is not. Either it requires special...

Heh. PHB scrying rituals are barely any cheaper than raise dead and all have such ridiculously short durations that you are highly unlikely to learn anything worthwhile anyway. Seriously. They are utter and complete garbage and the only use they have is sucking resources out of any players who...

For my part, at least, this is most definitely NOT a desire for published adventures. It is a desire for information about the non-combat abilities of various monsters. Published adventures work fairly well but they have a definite play style. You go to room A2, listen at the door, kick it...

One thing that is important to note is that the paradigm shift to only having rules for what monsters can do in combat and minimal rules for what they can do outside of combat makes it much more difficult to run certain kinds of games. (And, BTW, if anyone thinks for one moment that even 10% of...

Awesome story hour--the pictures add a lot.

Fireball and arrow slits is an interesting question--mostly because, if you follow the rules as written, it may enable fireball to bypass the normal line of effect rules. The line of effect rules require a one square foot opening in the five foot square--a total of 144 square inches. On the...

You'd have a point if the default situation were having only one at-will power. But any character of any race already gets the hammer and the screwdriver. The third at-will is usually like getting a small prybar after you already have a hammer and a flathead screwdriver--yeah, the prybar is...

It depends. 3rd edition had a more generous point buy system (in 3rd edition, for instance, I created a fighter/barbarian with Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10 and even though I did not end up taking the Combat Expertise, etc feats that I had initially planned to take, I did not...

Obviously, the stated speeds assume that the creatures are running diagonally. They also confirm what was obvious from the first designer comments about 4th edition: The designers neither value nor desire that any aspect of the rules model or simulate real physics or economics. Simulationist...

The problem with Tactician's Armor is that it only comes in heavy armor varieties. Since tactical warlords major in Int, they usually have equal or better armor class with fewer feat expenditures by using Hide armor. Thus tactician's armor is not a no-brainer for a warlord. I would suggest a...

I think this is a mistake. They can release all of the new at-wills they want and humans will still not become noticeably more attractive unless they collapse the design buckets and start putting good utility at-wills in the at-will attack power slot. If you had to pick between, for instance...

concurring in part, dissenting in part. In 3rd edition, human was a good default race. That is not necessarily the same as saying that they were overpowered, however. Every character had their niche in 3rd edition and level adjustments kept the use of odd monster races to a minimum. Thus...

Sooner or later nearly everyone who uses a weapon takes weapon focus... Combat Expertise is also useful. If none of the ideas sound nice to you, Improved Toughness is a good backup plan. It's not the sexiest feat in the world, but more hit points is never a bad choice.