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I recall reading about Fey Step (or something like it) almost as soon as they started to have blogs released on 4e. It seems to have been considered a pretty central element of one of the new major races. I have a very, very, very hard time believing that the designers and all playtesters to...

Mirror Image surprised me a bit, since I figured that there wouldn't be any combat useful buffing spells with durations longer than five minutes or so. It is only one hour and has a fairly straightforward effect, but I hope that there aren't too many of these. I am so hoping to never, ever see...

Oh, I am expecting a *lot* of howls of rage and protest in the coming days from primary spellcaster fans in the upcoming months. Most of the other classes will have their scope broadened and have gotten a lot of cool new toys. The wizard class, which was previously hogging damn near all the...

It does strongly encourage the monster to attack the paladin, as it should. As long as they make rules that prevent the "mark and run" stuff, it might not suffer from no save. As to the "mark an ally with a lesser mark to overwrite a greater enemy mark", we'll have to see. Of the marking...

If there aren't ways for rituals to be used by non-spellcasters, I'm definitely house-ruling them in. Just too many fun plot possibilities to restrict their use to wizards and clerics. Where would we be without the innocent little child sneaking into the forbidden library to read out of the...

Huh, you know that I missed that Hunter's Quarry can only be designated to the nearest enemy, not any ol' enemy on the battlefield. I wonder if that was missed in any of the playtests.

I will note that the logical result of "All non-magical combat options should be available to everyone" is that any characters with only non-magical options will never be able to gain qualitative abilities that they did not already have at 1st level. Frankly, I'm all for letting martial...

I believe that the changes to the game in 4e will result in the actual play simulating a fantasy adventure story more often. This will result in some odd deviations in terms of consistency across PCs/NPCs/Monsters. But I believe most of those are due to the source material not having strong...

My preferences also lie with clever, intelligent kobolds, but it's been clear to me for more than a decade now that the majority of D&D writers disagree with that. From novels to computer games to modules, kobolds are most frequently portrayed as yipping, savage dopes. Their stupidity is often...

So 1st level party versus a solo monster results in many PC deaths, possibly one or more TPKs and only once did the solo monster die itself. You know, I"m not really getting this huge, 4e is nerfed vibe here. Especially with the putative lack of resurrection in the Heroic Tier of 4e.

Just as a side point, but I believe that there is a significant chance that there will be rituals available to non-spellcasters. These might very well be tied into skills such as Religion and Arcana, which could allow a highly intelligent fighter who takes a feat to become skilled in Arcana to...

Because encounters with low damage would have a very low risk of death. I believe this method allows each encounter to significantly deplete hit points such that the character can be sweating in each battle. Otherwise, the low damage battles will tend to be cumulative slow grinds that...

It is important to remember that the martial power source is simply the *least* magical of the power sources, not non-magical. So I believe that throughout the power lists at all levels, there will be some abilities that may have a mystical, physics-defying flavor. If the Book of Nine Swords...

Narratively, I don't think there's much to explain. Obviously, the results of those swordsmen and fireballs couldn't have been permanent, crippling injuries that requires long term recuperation. After all, when they started the extended rest, the fighter wasn't impaired beyond the loss of...

I can think of several reasons for requiring the rogue to have Stealth and Thievery. You can decide if they are "good", but they appear to be quite plausible for the game designers. 1) The designers wanted to define the rogue class more tightly than in 3e, where it was skill monkey with Sneak...

It's a fair point. I think that there are several reasons for it: 1) Many criticisms of 4e in the past have been placed in the clear context of competition with 3e. "Why should I switch from 3e?" "Why do they complain about the way 3e does it?" "In 3e, I was able to do X, I don't think 4e...

Since they emphasized in the Sneak Attack article that builds are not in any way constraining, I'm not sure what the problem is. I suppose that if the future releases are using up page count on builds that could be used in other ways, it might be a bit annoying. They appear to be there as...

While the rogue class featured may have several options mandatory (Stealth and Thievery) and possibly have more weapon restrictions, I believe it will still be overall more flexible than the 3.5e rogue. I think this flexibility will come from the ability to customize your character with power...

They look good enough to substitute for the unpainted minis, coins, dice, random rocks and stones we usually use around our game table.

Good Lord, I can't imagine the alignment bickering that will occur if WotC declares that in D&D order is associated with good and disorder with evil. That would piss off the alignment grognards, Planescape fans and untold numbers of armchair ethical philosophers. The only good thing would be...