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To my mind, this is best modeled by the "You can Take 10 when you're not stressed" mechanic.

You get to play the Misunderstood Outsider without having to be some poncy emo Tiefling who calls himself "Darkshadow Moonchild" and writes bad poetry about how nobody loves him. You can do comical moron, ala Thog, or Tragic Monster, or whatever.

Yes, wussified into a full race, so we don't have to deal with that ugly backstory.

I asked about this on ENworld a few weeks back, when the issue of my using Crucial Advice more than once during a long-term challenge came up in play, and the hivemind consensus was, barring extremely unusual circumstances, the CS was "an encounter" and any encounter power could be used only once.

Uhm.... Amazon.com: forgotten realms novels Amazon.com: warhammer novels Amazon.com: dragonlance novels Amazon.com: greyhawk novels Amazon.com: shadowrun novels I think the prosecution rests... or is it the defense? I lose track...

The SC system sits "outside" the rest of the rules. The DC are determined by the level of the challenge, not by the nature of the beings (if any) involved -- in other words, if the challenge is "Win a riddle contest with a dragon", it can be given to a level 1 party or a level 20 party, and the...

I like skill challenges; my only real complaint is that they aren't well integrated with the rest of the rules. That is, aside from skill bonus feats and a very small number of reroll powers (which work differently within a skill challenge than outside it), there's not much connecting the system...

You could probably do a fairly simple chart of "Base Values" and "bonus per tech level" for a lot of things, though. But that's a different thread. :) Some game systems do come close, though not in core rules -- Dark Champions and Ultimate Skill, for example, go into excruciating detail on just...

That was me with the bannister. And, yes, what you're describing makes my head go all splodey-like. I "get" that hit points are abstract -- they always have been. However, most means of reducing hit points are not. A longsword doesn't scale with level -- if your epic level character is somehow...

I would have. Mostly because I DON'T know much about locks, and I'd like to be able to use cool descriptive terms like "disc tumbler" (whatever that is) when telling the party rogue about the DC 30 lock he's found. Or I'd like to know how tough a non-magical lock could "Reasonably" be in a low...

A ledge of elemental ice... A ledge of searing brass... A ledge on a plane where gravity is randomly variable... I have no problem imagining a DC 40 Acrobatics check ledge. I only have a problem with the idea it becomes a DC 10 ledge if a 1st level PC walks on it.

This is an area where the DMG could have used quite a few more examples. Because, to a lot of DMs, you're NOT giving them every lock in the world -- you're giving them a seemingly arbitrary DC and no tools to help convey the world TO the players in a way which makes it make sense. You seem to be...

Yeah, it might be a good subject for a Dragon article or even some errata. Because, frankly, as I read the DMG, I got the impression that if the PCs encountered a wall at 3rd level and the same wall at 15th level, the climb DC should be increased. (The famous "chart on page 42" seems to feed...

Your DM was, frankly, incompetent. Here's how it worked in the games I was in. Me: My paladin casts detect evil. Is he evil? DM: Sure. Me: "Surrender or die, varlet!" DM: Well, let's see. The guards -- who are not evil, by the way -- move in to disarm you. If you explain you used Detect Evil on...

There's really two debates here: Whether skill granularity is good and whether 3e had balanced DCs for skill checks. I think it's worth noting, though, that 4e also has some balance issues with skill checks, though tilting the other way -- the DCs are set so that every shmuck has a chance, and...

You can set a DC and roll against a skill. There's no roll against "I am the brewing GOD!!!" written on your character sheet at first level -- and that's the point of my entire rant. It boils down to "The DM decides to allow you to succeed" or "The DM doesn't decide to allow you to succeed", and...

Character definition. What's the benefit of ANY skill system? At the most extreme, you could argue there's only one needed skill:"Do Stuff". You can take the feat "Be Real Good At Stuff" for +3. Some games (such as C&C) basically have just Attribute checks, with some Attributes getting a...

There is no room for dabblers or hobbyists, which cuts off a lot of character concepts. Since all non-combat skills have been reduced to "Just write it on your character sheet, it doesn't matter", there's no way to focus on improving those aspects of your character, or competing with them, or...

Our solution is simple -- the DM doesn't let us get away with it. He'll either have an NPC directly address a PC or make sure the challenge requires several skills to succeed, you can't get ALL your successes with one skill.

Well, after several months of actual play with 4e, I keep coming back to the same old refrain:It *PLAYS* a lot better than it READS, and this includes flexibility. Survival horror: Maybe it's different at higher levels, but at heroic tier play (we just hit 5th level), Healing Surges are gold...