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A niche is when there is a situation and everyone looks at you to solve it. If you can hide in forests and there are no forests, there is no niche. If whenever the situation comes up, you can locate object, that is your niche. A character might have several niches. They are dependent on...

Obviously it doesn't. Otherwise the voting would be meaningless. It's also incredible hard to describe what "class" means in RPGs. The only pertinant answer is the type of character you play. Classes are the primary answer, when asked: "What character do you play?" That doesn't actually lead to...

Yes. Good points. There is also a question of rules control. Is the GM in control or are the rules public. The Alchemist in the OP is public: Anyone can know and determine how many potions are available. If it were dependent on certain ingredients, not so much.

From what the article says, I gues "in a duel" is a special condition. Once the "in a duel" condition occurs you do ten rounds of combat. And if you are in a duel the outside world matters not (cf. "as their armies clash around them".) You cannot hit the giants during that time. Such a rule...

That is not so. You can certainly use higher level spell slots than you need to. Some spells get better, but you can use the others that way, too.

While the criteria you offer for a good game are useful, what you are saying about rules-heavy and rules-light, frankly, doesn't make sense. That is because there are no such games in absolute terms. You can only observe that a game has more or less extensive rules than another gamer. The terms...

When you put it that way, it is somewhat confusing.

There is a fantasy novel called Havenstar by Glenda Noramly that is all about magic maps. It's technically not the maps that are magic, but the ink: When an appropriately detailed map is made with colored ink, the map will keep chaning as the area it represents changes. It also shows passers-by...

Though it never was part of the playtests but only mentioned in a blog post, I liked the first concept for scrolls: You need to expend an appropriate spell slot to use a scroll.

It's pretty simple: "Write something unexpected." Then, it might not be well regarded depending on content, but people will not think they are wasting their time there. More often than not L&L is summarizing and explaining things that were revealed before or can be deducted easily. Don't do that.

If there is a problem in naming the Alignments, it's that some of them are called "good", which obviously makes them better than the others. There is a quite good approach to alignments in D&D, in D&D 4e in fact, even though it's not called alignment. That is the commandments of the gods in the...

Especially if several items need to be retrieved, it is quite motivating, if some of them are easily at hand. "We need a sword that slew a dragon? Well, I guess mine will do then." Or maybe work with a bit of metaphor: "That's an axe, my friend. Not a sword." - "Ay, but do you think them...

The criticism that odd ability scores are useless is absolutely valid. A solution would have been to make them useful. Like basing extra languages on odd Int and extra AC on odd Dex.

Also I'd argue that players need to know how to GM for quality play. RPGs are a team effort. You don't have to fill every position with the same fervor and competence, but you have to understand the basics.

Another option would be to work on overlap: If you have skill and tool proficiency, consider yourself an expert.

Overall good points. Replacement could be an option

I'm not actually suggesting using items, but something like Boons in 4e. That would be skills or abilities that are gained like treasure. Boons were introduced in 4e as a means of reward in campaigns with little magic items.

I agree with you on the last part. What remains to be shown is whether a prestige CLASS is the optimal way to achieve it. As I noted before, progress in class does not conform to the flow of the narrative. Unless you level up, whenever a story is over. So with the standard way of earning XP...

While subclasses and feats can offer customisation, they do not provide another aspect that prestige classes were supposed to have. (In the end, prestige classes didn't do it either.) That is, tying a character to the world. - "The Web Wardens are pretty impressed with you, they want to teach...

They always did. It's called the Barbarian.