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Interesting range of responses so far, a lot of it simulationist. I'm going to look at it from a gamist perspective instead. In brief: succeed 65-70% of the time; have something interesting to do 100% of the time. 1- Trying something and failing is no fun, but always succeeding isn't fun...

I'm getting the impression that feats are the main avenue for character customization in 5e, sort of like powers were in 4e, and that there are going to be a lot of feat slots, most of which will be taken up by default in out-of-the-box builds. I'm imagining feats being used for things as...

I played SoW through the end of the heroic tier before ending the campaign and starting over with WotBS. There are some great set-piece battles in the path--the climax of the second adventure was amazing--but after a year of nothing but combat after combat, I got bored DMing it. The linearity...

My players reminded me that I left out their amazing recovery. Here's what one of them wrote: "It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself... The druid was in the lead, with the artificer, the gremlin/goblin/cat-thing rider, and the goliath pulling up the rear. The druid disappeared as the...

Not exactly. The more dice you roll, the more likely you are to get an average result. To get more swinginess, you have to multiply a single die. Say you're facing a 6 hp opponent. Your chance to one-shot him with a 1d6 damage roll is 1/6. Your chance of one-shotting a 60 hp opponent with 10d6...

Last night's game. (Minor spoilers for WotBS.) The party descended into the valley, evidence of the mad monks' biomancy all around them. The horrid screams of misshapen creatures echoed in the distance. Their destination: a tower they had glimpsed peeking over the treetops. The valley's...

This quote is correct. It does equate to "about" a +4.5 for most DC's. Why? It's not wrong. It's not very precise, true, but it's accurate enough for a single sentence. You say it's poorly written. How would you describe the effect of 2d20 in a single sentence? (And yes, a single sentence is...

To expand on this, the chance of hitting is... DC 1d20 2d20 Equivalent to + 2 95% 99.8% 1.0 3 90% 99.0% 1.8 4 85% 97.8% 2.6 5 80% 96.0% 3.2 6 75% 93.8% 3.8 7 70% 91.0% 4.2 8 65% 87.8% 4.6 9 60% 84.0% 4.8 10 55% 79.8% 5.0...

You can take a story-driven approach to treasure, no worries. For the game's math to work, everyone needs a +1 weapon, +1 armor, and +1 neck slot item by the end of level 5 at a minimum. Hand them out as you see fit. Gold is not important after the first few levels; 4e uses a magic item economy...

Here's another idea. What if we took the "class choice is more important than racial choice which is more important that ability scores" claim literally? Stealing a page from Gamma World 4e: Your class gives you an automatic 17 in an ability score. Your race gives you an automatic 15 in one of...

I like the strong differentiation +4 / -4 to a stat gives, but is that going to leave the halfling rogue who dumps STR with a score of 4? Instead, what about racial minimums and maximums? The designers are already talking about "mortal limits" to ability scores. What if a halfling has a maximum...

To phrase it differently: in 4e, a natural 20 turns a miss into a hit, and a hit into a crit. However, in order to miss with a natural 20 in 4e, you have to be facing a monster more than ten levels higher than you. That almost never happens, because the combat math of 4e doesn't work well if...

I disagree. I'm using an alternate combat "module" in my paragon-tier 4e games where we run interesting, flavorful multi-round combats in less than ten minutes. Each turn takes about 20 seconds; a round takes a few minutes; and combats take less than five rounds. That's in contrast to my normal...

Agreed. I much prefer the big adventures we've been getting lately. And the DM Experience articles are the best things on the site.

That's actually covered in the module. There's a reason for them being involved, and it has to do with spoilers. :angel:

Yes, tell him he can trade two move actions for a real character class. And a swift kick in the rear. :hmm::lol:

I've been trying a new house-rule for improving 4e combat, inspired by @Rechan (I think) and 5e, and it's working really well. I call it "Skirmishes & Set-Pieces." It's a new "combat module" that's meant to supplement standard 4e combat. The great thing about 4e combat is the tactical depth...

I'll just leave this here... image removed by moderator for grandma-unfriendly language ~Umbran (And see the first paragraph of Penny Arcade - In Search Of A Robust Cosmology . 4e is particularly guilty of lazy names, and I say that as a 4e DM.)

Yep, I agree. The dungeon's all stat'd out and ready to use, so it's an easy option, and makes the most sense from a verisimilitude perspective. it's a good way of showing the political tension in town and the social madness that's resulted from such high-profile assassinations. Having the...

Well, I'm converting the 3e adventure rather than running the 4e adventure. And it says that the effect attacks when the heroes enter Eresh, and every morning thereafter. According to the 3e version, once you get hit by the effect, you don't get another chance to save. So I statted it up as a...