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Hey, I may hate alignment, but I love party infighting! OK, not all types of party infighting, but as long as it doesn't lead to tiresome grudges and actual violence and crime, it's almost all good.

From a statement I read around here (sorry, I can't recall the source), there was a suggestion that alignment might tie into some story awards. Perhaps if you take an alignment, there's a system to suggest rewards if you act in accordance with that alignment. Or it could be similar to the...

OK, then what are they trying to simulate? Because if they're trying to simulate the kind of action found in fantasy fiction, there's not a lot of tripping going on there, as I recall. Most of the time, opponents trade numerous blows and only get to trip upon odd occasions or when the...

I do think we may need to rethink what we mean by swingy combat. From the design notes, it seems as though the writers wanted to eliminate encounters that simply resulted in resource management issues (i.e., the explicit equal EL should deplete 25% of resources rule of thumb). This would...

I can sort of see it. Before, after you ran out of spells, all you had were pretty crappy choices, of which there were a multitude. So you had myriad options, none of which were very good, but a number of them. In 4e, it looks as though you'll almost always have at least a couple of options...

Good point, but I should note that I dislike it very much from the other side of the screen. I've occasionally "fought fire with fire" and created Trip and Disarm focused monsters and NPCs to bedevil the party. Can't say I particularly liked the results and I know the players didn't...

Oh, I'd consider the lack of basic trip rules a flaw as well. I think that it's a flaw that currently I am willing to accept as a trade off for rules that promote a table game that I want to see. As others have said, there are several ways I can see to resolve this: 1) Add Trip back to the...

I would be interested in knowing how this would compare with doing the same thing with 1st level PCs in previous editions. How many options would the PCs have in that case in each round?

While I can certainly understand people being annoyed by Trip (and, I suspect, Disarm) being moved from basic combat tactics to special per encounter exploits, I am glad they've gone and done it. While tripping and disarming actions are OK once in a while, I find a diet of them annoys me as a...

I like the idea of characters being able to build up a library of possible rituals to really broaden out their scope. I also like the idea that rituals can be used to introduce plot and worldbuilding magics that have never fit well into D&D. How many D&D novels, adventures and campaign worlds...

You know, 1e and 2e had skill systems. 1e had skills for thieves and released non-weapon proficiencies in the latter part of 1e. Further, I know there were plenty of house-ruled AD&D games with home brewed skill systems. I can't say that I find the argument that skill systems make a system...

I'm not sure I understand some elements of this explanation. 1) In the official Divine Challenge, the marked creature *only* takes damage if it makes an attack other than the paladin (note by the sheet it's not clear this this attack counts if its against an object rather than another...

I agree. I hope the core rules are written in a way that make it clear that DMs are encouraged to use common sense to rule against this kind of abuse. While rules should be written to cover as many situations as reasonably possible, there's no substitute for DM judgment when cases where the...

I don't think this is correct for the cleric. I'm looking at the sheet for Erais the Sunlord, the cleric character from DDXP and he clearly has Ritual Casting under Race and Class Features. It's been speculated that rituals require being trained in the Arcana skill.

My hope is that there are very few ritual examples in the Player's Handbook, if any. I also hope that the rules for the creation of rituals is firmly kept in the DMG. The magic spells and powers given in the PH can be the default that players can have reasonable expectations of. Beyond that...

I definitely think that a +1 to saving throws in 4e is worth quite a lot. From all appearances, you'll be making saves every round that you're affected by a duration effect. Further, failed saves will determine if many effects not only linger, but progress and get worse (petrification, death...

I believe that in the development of 4e, the designers clearly had a vision of fantasy adventure to start with that they were interested in simulating with rules. Third Edition in its magic structure, more or less followed closely to the power progression found in the previous editions of D&D...

I think that for the "zero to hero" stuff, it would be best to keep the character generation rules, but reduce healing surges and powers available. Then parcel out the powers and healing surges as you progress. Something kind of like the module Treasure Hunt. Your characters might start with...

The good thing is that there is plenty of 3e and 3.5e compatible material out there. And, of course, making up your own stuff is half the fun. :) For myself, I'm very glad they're giving the game a thorough overhaul. I hated 3.5e and 2e, as I felt that neither of them was worth the cost of...

If using entirely different modeling systems for character powers is what enables good roleplaying, then systems like GURPS, HERO, the World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, heck pretty much every other RPG in existence must be pretty miserable at enabling roleplaying. Most of them use models of...