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The brown bear is really not that good of an animal companion. The ape is rather superior in every way that counts, especially because it's got a natural reach of 10' and it's Large which allows it to have a +12 grapple check. The ape has, in fact, identical BAB, strength, size, and thus grapple...

Minor nitpick: Rogues are by default already proficient with rapiers and unless we're talking PF, he can't even take Weapon Finesse at this level due to his lack of BAB. This ought to lead to your Rogue being even weaker than you thought, as there's not really that many good feats for him to...

I don't see anybody here saying the game should be turned into a DPR calculation. In fact, I've seen quite a few people say explicitly the opposite. And given that 4e (that oh so infamous nasty piece of balanced disaster that it was) didn't even use DPR as a metric for balance, well, this...

It's kind of funny, isn't it? In these kinds of discussions when a Rogue's disadvantages are brought up against undead and whatnot, people say you should buy potions, wands, scrolls, and all that jazz. But when you say you'd like to play a Rogue stocked up on magic items, people say the magic...

Possibly the game would be less frustrating for them if they realized there are only 6 kinds of chess pieces... ;)

Ah, you want a classless, diceless game set in a hard science near-future version of the real world where characters have little power to change anything? No, of course that's not what you meant. Perhaps this discussion would go better if people could stop using needlessly divisive edition war...

People can have a dislike for something or have a different preference without "crying like a baby" about it. At the end of the day we're still talking about an elf pretend-game; letting all undead be immune to sneak attacks is not evidence of rugged manliness. I'd also like to point out that...

Zombies as we know them are a modern invention anyway, invented just a few years before D&D was created. And mythological golems are animated with a special inscription in their head so they really should have a vulnerable spot. The "flesh golem" is really just Frankenstein's monster and that...

One could do worse than borrow some of Iron Heroes' stunt mechanics and incorporate it into class abilities and items. Say, every monster ability has one or more keywords. And then one could temporarily suppress certain keywords by making successful checks. For instance, a ghost is incorporeal...

I'd like to expand a little on this. Rogues (or Thieves if you prefer) are sometimes called the "skill monkey" class. This is wrong. They are not skill monkeys. A "skill" in D&D/RPG context is a trained ability that can be learned by anyone. What Rogues actually used to have were unique class...

Minor nitpick: this is not quite true. Looking at the Monster Vault, a level 20 minion hits for like 14 damage. A level 6 ogre deals 2d10+6, and 4d10+4 once per encounter with half damage on a miss. I understand what you really meant and I also understand that the narrative-ish approach to...

Of course. I never claimed otherwise. When I start a post with "if you ask me", it's a sign that I'm stating my personal opinion. Apologies if anyone thought I was making a statement about objective reality. I did, however, make an objective statement when I said that the Skill Focus feat falls...

A +3 bonus to a cross-class skill is a fairly poor excuse for a real "cunning archer and survivalist", if you ask me. Where is spot, listen, move silently, hide, use rope, or any of the mobility feats (your survivalist can surely swim and climb trees)? Also, the bonus from the skill focus feat...

I remember similar words being said about paragon paths. And about prestige classes. And about kits. In my experience it's never really worked out all that well. Worse, now that DDI has created precedent for an online character builder (because can they really offer a D&D with less online...

First, that is not how saving throws work in Next. Second, what you describe is a 55/45 split, not 50/50. As to the article, I find it perplexing that it claims that "spellcasters have never been eager to engage in melee" and that to reflect this they use a concentration/disruption rule...

This argument only works when you consider the saving throw from the perspective of a player. From a DM/NPC/monster perspective it doesn't really work anymore. The notion that players like maximal control over their characters is an argument in favor of a "players roll all the dice" design, not...

He doesn't say that, though? He says it's a shifty or slippery goal, but not impossible to achieve. Agreed that his examples are bad. To me, the change in saving throws is less elegant than it was in 4e. Although Next's method might be slightly easier to calculate on your sheet I find it more...

The "everything is core" thing is mostly an ENworld meme that refuses to die. The three PHBs, three Monster Manuals, and two DMGs are all listed as "core" on both the cover and on WotC's product page. Books like Martial Power or Adventurer's Vault are instead listed as Rules Supplements...

The Warlock and Sorcerer prototypes were pulled very quickly so I'm not convinced those prototypes are indicative of their final versions. While whatever we say isn't entirely made up (I never said otherwise), it's sufficiently made up that we're basically discussing hypotheticals. This will be...

The Bard is still not a full caster. And as for the Warlock and/or Sorcerer, I'm not going to discuss hypotheticals with you. When we see them in their final version I will gladly take them into account in my opinion re: whether spells or feats should be rated at a higher priority. But right...