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You know, we can save a LOT of time if we just reduce the DMG to "figure it out yourself". Encounter balance? Figure it out yourself. Treasure distribution? Figure it out yourself. World building? Figure it out yourself. Monster creation? Figure it out yourself. Campaign management? Figure it...

Fine. Let's remove the encounter building guides (and the treasure guides too while we're at it) and let DMs learn it the old fashioned way. They should have a good idea after their sixth ruined campaign...

If you're optimized, yes. Which is part of the issue. CR is training wheels. Removing it is giving a kid a new bicycle and telling them to learn how to ride it themselves while running the Tour de France.

I dunno. I remember a starter module in 2e that did that and I cheated like a b@stard to avoid the tpk. So I guess my learning curve was it doesn't matter as long as I was willing to pull my punches. I'm sure that's the lesson we want to teach new DMs.

This has always been an issue of psionics being shunted off to the "optional" side of D&D. D&D wants to have Psionic effects (telepathy, telekinesis, mind reading) but people either complain about it being too "sci-fi" or not fitting D&D's fantasy concept (artificer has the same problem) so the...

Obviously that is the best scenario. The problem is that it's hard to teach the skill needed to eyeball challenges because that's something learned and if the DM is expected to learn without guidance, they will either learn it wrong or become frustrated with failure and quit.

Gonna disagree on this. I will gladly agree 2e psionics were fairly unique since there is only two levels of power (science and devotion) and it has a lot of mechanics not seen in 2e spells (power score, crit failure, psionic combat). Even the 3.0e psion felt far more different than 3e casters...

You still aren't addressing how a DM determines strength relative to size. I'm making a dungeon for third level PCs. Can I put an ogre in room one without a TPK? How about two? What about a troll? What about a troll and six goblins? What about a mummy? A drider? A shambling mound? Id rather...

Of course, then you are giving the DM absolutely NO guidance on how to build encounters. How many orcs are appropriate for a low-level party? 10? 100? What about bugbears or gnolls? What about giants? I guess the DM could "figure it out" via the Guess and TPK method. Then again, if you think...

Wouldn't read too much into it. UltraPro used to make playmats with every module and sourcebook key art on it. They also did wall scrolls, character folios and even card sleeves.

As have I in 2e. Which is why I can't help but roll my eyes when people talk about about OS Lethality. It's lethal for maybe four levels and then PCs build up enough clout that not every fight is a fail state. By 10+ level, they only fear archfiends and Gods.

I find it just the opposite. Bring up the notion that encounters should be balanced here and people will look at you like you asked for the children's menu and crayons.

True, but if that was the whole problem, then we solved for it 30+ years ago with BECMI.

Players like buttons to press. I don't think the genie's going back into the bottle. I can't imagine D&D returning to a world where the fighter, ranger, barbarian, paladin, and rogue have nothing more interesting to do than attack each turn.

The difference is narrative vs location-based play. A dungeon is location-based play: you're goal it to explore the dungeon and achieve some goal (loot all the treasure, find all the kidnapped villagers, disrupt the cultists, slay the dragon, etc). Generally, encounters are structured by rooms...

..." Too the same extent" is doing A LOT of heavy lifting there. It was harder to nova because classes outside the wizard (and lesser extent cleric) couldn't. There was no action surge, divine smites, no bardic inspiration, no rage. The closest thing to a nova was dropping your highest level...

They key here is that classes can pick and choose freely enough that once the PC picks Crusader, he isn't locked of picking priest or invoker abilities. At least some of them.

I think part of the problem is D&D's resource management is locked to "dungeon" style of play. The PCs are far away from home, in hostile territory, facing multiple hostile encounters in a short period. Resource management breaks down when the PCs aren't in hostile territory (such as urban...

The problem with "not designing for a role" is that you can design a class that has no role. Or fills roles it's not intended to. Personally, I think it would be more interesting to have fewer classes, but they can fill ANY role. For example, the Warrior class is good at martial skills but...

I want to hone in on this element for a moment. I think part of the tragic element of ADEU was the fact that essentially, each power (other than at wills) was Vancian. You knew X abilities and you can use them each exactly 1 time before recharge. Fire and forget. Star Wars Saga did the same...