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If it's available to anybody via feats, it isn't racial flavor, now is it? You can sorta-kinda simulate race flavor text by saying, "All kobolds like to take dodge and mobility" or something, but that's not the same as having a creature that is really and honestly unique, that has a power that...

Exactly -- that can only go so far until it becomes monster-of-the-week, "What kind of wacky guardian beast do we see THIS time?" It's easier to build plots and such when you can fill many different roles -- and show off many unique and interesting powers! -- while staying in the same general...

"Annnnd Shinesman Gray!" That's true, but the word actually just means "pikeman" (or more generally, "spear-man"). By the way, what's with this thing about "ten variants"? NOTHING has ever suggested anything like that many -- it looks like most creatures will have between 1 and 4 statblocks...

Eh, not really. Wade-Giles translation was developed by two Brits. It's not perfect, but it was adequate. The Pinyin system was created for two reasons. First, it was an attempt to standardize pronunciations among the many Chinese dialects themselves -- to get all the many Chinese groups to...

Okay, first, "muzzle velocity" of a bullet or arrow does matter, but in an atmosphere drag is an important factor -- so a falling projectile will be moving slower than it was when it was fired simply due to losing energy to the air around it. Second, you can catch an arrow in real life, but...

Actually that's more an artifact of the chinese accent, where P and B are virtually the same letter (the only difference even in English is only whether you "puff" the letter -- which is called a 'plosive' in linguist circles); similarly R and L are the same sound (somewhere halfway between the...

Tiefling is "teef-ling" as has been stated several times. (It comes from a german word meaning "little dark one" or some such thing, so that's not really arguable.) Eladrin is more flexible; I've been known to say "EL-a-drin" and "eh-LAD-rin" with equal frequency. I think the first is more...

I believe falling damage has been MAJORLY overhauled in the edition change. A high level character has a better chance of surviving a fall, but only within some pretty belivable limits. That is to say, for example a sixty foot fall would have a good chance of killing you unless you have some...

The dragonlance gnomes are one of the things that has done so much damage to gnomes in the general mind. Because they're nothing but screwups and humor characters in DL, a lot of people see gnomes in general as funny screwups, which leads to the "bah, who wants gnomes?" point of view. No...

It won't be a chart. From what Noonan has said, it sounds like monster races will be just like PC races -- you get a list of up-front abilities and a list of feat or power options that become available as you level up. They won't necessarily get as much writeup, but they will probably get a...

Hehehe. Yeah, Paracelsus is a LITTLE further back than Runequest. :D Actually he borrowed the names too -- salamander as the fire-lizard comes from as far back as Babylonian times (sam-anderun, ancient Persian for "fire within"), at least 500 BC and probably many centuries before THAT...

It is. Legend of Mana just borrowed Paracelsus' names for the four elemental creatures.

Aren't Gnomes one of the nine confirmed (by Mike Mearles IIRC) player races in the MM appendix? The others were Bugbears, Warforged, Shifters, Changelings/Dopplegangers (a changeling is a player-run dopple, not a different thing), Minotaurs, and three others I can't recall just now -- and the...

In the last week, so much info has come out that I can't remember where I saw half of it anymore -- but I know I heard in one of the reviews that Grapple and Bull Rush are for everyone, but trip, disarm, and sunder are powers.

The whole confusion comes from the early monster statblock releases, which listed things like "STR 16 (+6)". These led some people to decide that a +0 modifier was a score of 4. But the other half of the readers were saying all along -- No, the +6 is a +3 ability modifier plus a +3 level bonus...

Ugh, QFT. I don't know about myself being untrustworthy, but one of my players likes to use books as coasters for his drink and dog-ear pages to keep track of important spots. There's no way I'm lending him my brand-new PHB! I think you've misunderstood what he said. He said that sometimes...

I can't help it. I heard this line in the voice of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. "Worst. DM. EVER."

That's funny because every review I've read from finally-ungagged playtesters has said kind of the same thing: "The players' end changes a little, but MAN things are easier on the DM!" A strong example would be Massaworm's review from over at AintItCool news...

"You fight like a milkmaid!" "How appropriate; you fight like a cow."

I questioned WotC_Shoe on using an odd order-of-attributes in his blog post, and he replied with an interesting tidbit!