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Wait a minute! If one PC happens to be invisible/hiding and hanging in the back undetected, doesn't that mean the rest of the party can bust down the front door, and then declare they all get a free Surprise Round by virtue of their one party member who is an undetected threat? The logic has...

Sounds like a terrible ruling. Without some kind of means to coordinate the attack, the cultists are surprised as well. If there was some channel of communication, it is possible the PCs would detect it and spoil the ambush for both cultists and Wyverns.

If you like Wounds that have meaning, you should use an explicit Wound System where the DM can dial in how lingering effects will be. Hoping that the HP system will give you that as a side effect is foolish -- sometimes this worked out well and sometimes it worked completely terribly. The...

I would suggest "4d6 by cards without replacement", as having many of the positive features of rolling while keeping the amount of luck boxed in. 1) Pull out the A(1)-2-3-4-5-6 cards (24 total) from a standard deck of playing cards 2) Deal into six piles of four cards 3) Reveal "in order"...

Your imaginary evidence may be compelling to you, but I am predisposed to believe actual evidence is more informative. I can imagine all kinds of stuff when playing checkers, too; such does not change the fundamental nature of the game.

Where are the modules where my PC could gain a significant amount of XP by political intrigue, seducing ladies, and finding the farm boy's lost puppy, etc.? Can someone name even one?

I think that is rather biased way of framing the debate. I never really consider nonlethal damage to weigh heavily on the question of the nature of HP, because I just thought of them as a much needed replacement for vomit-inducing ancient subsystems (dragon subdual and brawling). At a...

It is not a logical necessity that the party must be of a particular composition, or they should not be allowed be fun. Baking such into the system is a design flaw.

I am not a fan of DoaM melee attacks, because IMO it dilutes flavor and adds complexity in a manner I do not find compelling. That said, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such a thing. A DoaM attack can be viewed as a novel kind of Area of Effect that targets a 5' square that has a...

Are you suggesting that Rocky training montages were not the norm? Regardless, I do admire the ideas you have here. But IMNSHO the DM should be given tools to dial in the right amount of this stuff directly. Hoping to gain these advantages indirectly via side effects of the healing system...

Whether it is a challenging problem or a stupidly tedious slog or a cakewalk depended on how many clerical spell slots the party had on hand. Since the person writing the adventure module cannot predict such things, it just gets dropped unceremoniously into the DM's lap to make corrections on...

I would suggest, looking back at the original wargaming context, that the meaning of a "hit" was just an effort that produced very noteworthy results. Since "1 unit" attacking might represent "100 soldiers, armed to the teeth, whacking away for 10 minutes" the idea that a "miss" resulted in...

Not completely unreasonable. The bigger and stronger will more easily make saves, so the small/young should flee against an obviously bigger foe.

A javelin is just a variant of short spear that happens to be light and balanced enough for throwing well. Light infantry use all kinds of spears, including short and light ones. IIRC, Julius Caesar hid light infantry in tall grass and enticed the opposing cavalry to attempt a flanking attack...

Every skill system ever created has small or large (or huge) "corner cases" where this can be a problem (.e.g. In BRP, the greatest horseman in the realm might have a 98% Riding skill. Does s/he really fall when jumping a small barrier 2% of the time?) IMO the best general answer is the GM/DM...

Your is a rational argument. IMO the idea of "soul draining" is a poetic one, that seems to be inspired by the idea that too much contact with certain undead, such as that vampire, is draining more than a little blood <nudge nudge wink wink>. But we still do not really KNOW what that means...

When Gary wrote in the 1e DMG that perhaps a PC could create a Ring of Wizardry by combining the magical ability of a scroll to hold spells with a very expensive ring appropriate to become a permanent item via means of a Wish, we must presume he was not trying to give spectacularly stupid DM...

When you put it that way, it makes more sense that such would be protective of a "brush with the utter grave" then when, say, your PC is lit on fire. Translated literally, "extra vigor" does actually mean "additional life energy". What could be more appropriate than that?

I believe that the once in a blue moon buying of non-minor items in pre-3e was far from rare. In long running campaigns, the PCs were going to pile up astounding amounts of gold. It made sense for a wizard to make a fair deal on acquiring/creating an item for gold and "a little favor" or...

The shopping minigame is a logical result of the piles of gold the PCs acquire in most long running D&D campaigns of every edition. The question is whether rules of the game make any sense to the players. The different editions took different approaches, but pretending the game is not there...