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First and foremost, "equal level" encounters are generally *really* easy for experienced players. In the campaigns I play in, we almost never fight battles less than 2 levels above our average party level, because there's just no challenge otherwise. Given the fact that the zombies were...

Luckily, I am interested in playing a more subtle spellcaster. If I thought I could get away with it, I wouldn't use any direct damage spells... I'm not sure that's really feasible, though. Sometimes you just gotta blow crap up. Please let me know if I'm wrong. I'm wish PS on this... it...

I'm going to be playing in a new campaign that's using the Arcana Unearthed/Evolved magic system and spellcasting classes. I really like the system and I want to play a Magister. I don't have any experience playing them, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them. Tips, tricks...

I think monte carlo is definitely the way to go here. No need to come up with every single possible character.... just generate 100,000 random characters and average their point buy values. You'll get essentially the same answer, which is what my friend did. I could do the same in C++/C# if...

Friend of mine has a Master's Degree in math and works at The Mathworks. He whipped the following monte carlo algorithm in MATLAB: function [ppc, P, A, S] = points_versus_4d6(n) P = 0; A = 0; PV = [(1:14)-8 8 10 13 16]; S = zeros(n, 6); while A < n r = ceil(6*rand(6, 4)); r2...

Prequel - we switch between various rolling methods (never straight 4d6, usually multiple sets, rerolling some dice, etc) and point buy. And in fact, I have a house rules thread discussing alternate ability score generation methods. Player: "I want to play a dashing, flashy swashbuckler"...

A friend of mine is starting a new campaign, and we're trying to figure out a good way to generate ability scores. 4d6 is too random and point-buy favors some classes over others and encourages min-maxing. We were thinking about some kind of per-class per-ability score variable point-buy, for...

If you use a battle mat for fights, you really shouldn't remove attacks of opportunity. They force players not to move willy-nilly through a battle field, and add a lot of strategy to the game. They also balance many actions, like grappling, spellcasting, etc. and add a lot of danger to large...

The whole point is getting hits on people who hit you. You don't really *want* to get hit more, you just want to be able to attack back when you are. I mean, ideally you'd never get hit, then your regular attacks would eventually take the guy(s) down. However, that's rarely the case. What...

I think it's cool in concept, but doesn't really work well in practice. Straight spellcasters get hit with a serious nerf stick. Sure, you can now cast fireballs and use cure serious wounds... but your 5th level fireball now does 3d6 with a range of 30' with a 20' radius. This is what we in...

The only time EL gives different XP is when there's a huge disparity in relative level between the PCs and the NPCs. Generally, in these cases, the DM has to make a judgement call as to how difficult the encounter actually was. 64 CR1 monsters could be really hard for a level 10 group, or it...

Death attack the guy on guard, maybe he hears the guys, maybe he makes the fort save. Regardless, he makes enough noise for the rest of the party to roll a listen check DC 5 (not including -10 penalty for sleeping) if he's unarmored, DC 0 if he's armored. Since you're the DM, you should be...

I have to agree that the scout is kinda sub-par. The big kick in the nuts is the fact that they can't use the skirmish ability with ranged weapons from further than 30' away. How crappy is that? 30' is practically sitting on top of the enemy when you're outside (unless you're in dense forest...

It's not an area 'cause you can choose to not affect some people in the area. But yeah, they really should just say "affects any number of targets of your choice in a 15' radius". -The Souljourner

Spellthief might work... I haven't looked at that class very closely yet (one of the drawbacks of buying 4 D&D books at once... hard to get in-depth knowledge of any one very quickly). Pinotage - that's a good idea. I had been thinking that maybe just a specialist wizard who takes non-standard...

It's just odd that the number of uses per day is not in the description, only in the chart. Usually they have it in both places. I generally skim the chart to get an idea of the abilities and then read the description, since that's usually where the meat of the rules are. Anyway, sorry for...

I'm thinking about my next character, and want to play an arcane spellcaster. However, I don't want to play the bog-standard magic missile and fireball wizard. I want interesting abilities that are useful in and out of combat, but without the cookie cutter feel of a generic wizard. I was...

The monk player is screwing himself. Monks are melee fighters and need all the strength they can get. You wouldn't play a fighter with 10 strength would you? In fact, monks need strength MORE than fighters, because they don't get full BAB. The halfling thief needs to bump his strength as...

Gah, did I miss something obvious? I read the description fairly thoroughly looking for a limitation, but probably didn't look too closely at the chart. I'm at work, so instead of saying "read the chart" could you instead say "it says 1/day/level in their class chart" or whatever? That...

It's a cold spell, it does 5d6, he gets +1 per die of damage done by a cold spell, therefor he gets +5 damage to this spell. He's better at casting the spell, not just better at the cold part. Especially for an already sub-par spell, I'd say give him the full bonus. -The Souljourner