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Heh, my group is a few steps behind yours on that path. If we're very lucky with our scheduling, we might be able to get through Pyramid of Shadows before the third anniversary of the campaign, in February. Though if a TPK happens (and what's left of the Pyramid offers several opportunities for...

As old issues disappear, new issues arise. One is that any effect that can bypass the buffer of "fatigue" hit points and go directly to the "physical" hit points is vastly more powerful and desirable than ones that cannot. If, as you suggest, falling damage bypasses the buffer, then any...

I'm in partial agreement with you here. I don't care much for the idea of going back to a Basic/AD&D split, even if only in name. In particular, the split as you seem to be describing it here could lead to people picking up AD&D books ("I don't need a basic system, that's for newbs...") and...

As I've said elsewhere, I'm all for the death of the +n weapon altogether. I want magic items to be about interesting properties and powers, not math operations. I liked this column a lot better than Cook's first. :)

Alright, his last article left me at best confused, and at worst thinking that he was confused. This one, however? I like it. It's on my wavelength.

Or, as the .5 change has no mechanical impact, you could just change the stat increase timing so that the increases happen half as often, but are a full +1 to the ability modifier. Or, like you say, they could drop automatic stat increases altogether.

You're right, my memory played a trick on me. Should have said "a bit before GenCon" rather than "at GenCon".

A Christmas release (in any year) strikes me as spectacularly unlikely. Any unexpected delays make you miss the holiday season altogether, and launch in the post-holiday window when a significant portion of the potential audience is without disposable income. Following the 4E model of...

While it is indeed hearsay, if it happened to be true they wouldn't be publishing a new system after 3 years. 4E was being worked on for at least 2 years before they announced it, and didn't come out for another year after that. If they are starting up work on 5E with Cook's hiring, then we'd...

Even with the qualifier, I don't see how the situation changes. :confused: If the challenge is about the door, then it's in the range where success and failure are both possible, or it's not a skill challenge. It's entirely possible to set it as an easy, medium, or difficult challenge. If the...

I think that's one sacred cow that might be safe for at least one more edition. Killing it off would definitely be a significant break with the past. I don't think you're wrong, though. While inertia, history, and nostalgia keep it going, there's little mechanical reason to keep on doing it...

While Kzach and I don't see eye to eye on everything, here's an area where we do. While I do like scaling math, I don't want it to be part of the magic system. If I could get WotC to kill one sacred cow for me, +n weapons and their ilk would be one tasty unholy hamburger. There's nothing...

It's a common misconception (which I'm not accusing you of having :) ) that the skill DC for opening a locked door goes up as you level. It doesn't. Any given door has its own level of difficulty to open. It's just that once you're level 20, locked doors of level 1-10 just aren't any more...

For a "savory blend of Oriental intrigue and Halloween terror", there isn't much Halloween on the menu for Dragon. Looks like most of that is over in Dungeon. More support for the Assassin and Monk is welcome, especially unarmed monks.

No, I included multi-class feats (which do not increase defence, and rarely increase damage) in my disagreement with the line of yours that I quoted in my post, which specifically referred only to "eliminating all damage and defence increases from feats, you almost entirely eradicate the...

Really? I don't think so. Power selection, multi-class feats, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies and magic item selection all play roles at least as large in the optimization game, some of them larger.

No, it's not in the Compendium or the Builder yet. There were apparently formatting issues that delayed things. Hopefully the book will go in with October's updates. I don't have a favourite item yet, as I haven't had a chance to look through the book.

Not all at the same time, of course. I'm also willing to wait a while for them. I think there's at least a couple more years of life left in actively supported 4E. I could, and almost did, give you a long and rambling story about how much I like 4E, and how it brought me and several of my...

Like I said in the other thread, nothing in this column really looks like anything other than the existing system. Sure, he refers to ranks instead of your Perception skill modifier, but that's just hiding the math, not changing the system. - Passive perception already exists, and already is...

Because he's not presenting it as "Here's a primer on how 4th Edition perception works, for those who forget or didn't know; Now, how do you feel about it?". He's presenting it as if it's new and different, when what it is is the current system with the serial (or DC...) numbers filed off. If...