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Well, for one thing different people identify different problems with 3e. But there are some commonly identified. For example, one issue with 3e is that specializing in a skill quickly gives you a much higher skill bonus than not doing so, so pretty quickly any challenge will either be aimed at...

We started an Agents of Edgewatch campaign where we had two rogues, one investigator, one wizard, one archer-ranger, and one fighter that was only occasionally present. That's when I realized that if everyone wants to be in the second rank, everyone is actually in the first rank. I think it...

What about a fighter with Strength 17 and Constitution 16? Are they stronger than a cleric with Strength 18? Is a special class ability really a special ability if only a small portion of members of that class actually have it, subject to a random roll? These two points are bad game design, and...

According to (rather thin) canon, the process that granted the sorcerer-monarchs the ability to grant their templars spells can't be repeated, so the Avangion from Arcane Shadows and Dragon's Crown can't do it (I'm blanking on his name at the moment). I believe that Oronis might be able to since...

The Swedish translation of MERP along with the then-current version of Drakar och Demoner were my first RPGs, which I got for Christmas back when I was a little baby gamer in 1985. MERP was a little more advanced than I was capable of at the time, but it was fascinating. Isn't Against the...

There should also be a "standard DC by level" chart somewhere. This is often used when dealing with something that has an actual level – for example, if you're trying to Recall Knowledge about a creature, the DC would normally be appropriate for that creature's level, +2 for an Uncommon and +5...

I doubt we'll have to worry about "future supplements" – Wizards starting with 4e hasn't been particularly fond of "sub-product lines" the way we had in 2e and 3e. If we get a Dark Sun book, and it seems we will, we'll get a Dark Sun book and then they'll open it up on the DM's guild. Possibly...

Jumping is a bad example for this because this is specified under the Athletics skill, at least in PF2 (I don't know about SF2, but I'm assuming they have the same text). There's a basic Leap action that "lets you jump up to 10 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 15 feet, or up to 15...

You might want to look into Draw Steel. It's not exactly that, but it definitely has a lot of 4e DNA in it. And you get to kick bad guys through walls!

The very first thing that happened in the metaplot was a revolution in one of the city-states, showing that fixing things was possible. Of course, everything didn't immediately become sunshine and roses in Tyr after Kalak's fall, but it was a pretty clear demonstration that change was possible.

The dragon was in the original boxed set, but the sorcerer-monarchs were described as highly powerful defilers/psionicists. The concept that they were proto-dragons was introduced in the novel The Verdant Passage as well as the hardback Dragon Kings which mostly focused on level 20+ stuff but...

I thought Strength of Thousands seemed really interesting, but I kind of lost my taste for PF2 in general before getting around to running it. I did think Fists of the Ruby Phoenix was a really cool idea, until I realized the whole first third is supposed to take place over three days with the...

Game of Thrones spoilers:

This can be a bit setting-dependent. I'm going to get into some spoilers for the Dresden Files series, specifically Proven Guilty. Now, this is specific to how magic works in the Dresdenverse – breaking the laws of magic corrupts you and makes you more likely to break them again in the future...

One side effect of increasing both XP rewards and XP requirements at higher levels is that it effectively reduces the XP cost of things that use XP as a, well, cost. At 13th level, when you potentially get limited wish, the 300 XP cost is 1/43 of a level. At 19th level, the cost is 1/63. Of...

Mind control is a tool, and the degree of evil it is depends on what you use it for. But that doesn't mean it's entirely neutral. A suggestion-type effect that lets you bypass a larger problem (e.g. the Jedi Mind Trick as used by Obi-Wan Kenobi) is fair. The same magic used to make someone tell...

I've had some great use of wall of stone – the best was probably when some villain tried to put a timer on us by opening a water flow that would have drowned some prisoners and I told them Nope. The damage spells, on the other hand, tend to be so-so damage but with fairly big areas, so they're...

Right, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of slow and to a lesser degree fear on my primal sorcerer. But it feels wrong that when you face the Big Boss, you turn to your 1st and 3rd level spells instead of your 5th and 6th level. I like the 13th age solution where incapacitation-type spells...

Note that if you try using an Incapacitation effect on a strong creature, those odds become much, MUCH worse. For the moderate save, you get: 5% chance of having the "normal" effect (which is usually nasty but not overwhelming – for example, paralyze paralyzes you for 1 round). 20% to take a...

The thing I mostly remember from Darwin in the comics was that they tried to put him up against Worldbreaker Hulk, and his power's survival response was to nope out and teleport away. But yeah, Darwin's fate was probably the thing I liked least about the otherwise pretty good X-Men: First Class.