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I've been mulling this over for a while, and my hypothesis is this: the designers' use of subclasses shows that they want to reduce the complexity of character building, but the various subsystems in the game show that they don't care so much about complexity of rules. Subclasses are a single...

Saving throws have come up in discussion again, possibly from the recent live playtest and podcast: Basically, the way it worked before 3E. What do people think? I don't think this is the right way to go unless they change a few other things. There's almost no reason to have a good...

This came up when I was thinking about the list of conditions currently in the game. It feels to me like there isn't really a suitable condition for being surprised, or unable to react to things around you - instead this situation is manifested differently under different conditions. The key...

For the first time in a long while I managed to run a little playtest online last night. Down into the Mines of Madness went a pre-generated party of an Elven Ranger, Dwarven Paladin and Elven Wizard. Overall it was good fun, but we had a bit of a headache with the sight and vision rules. See...

I am still puzzled by the option to spend a feat to increase an ability score - I don't see how you can balance a +1 when the nature of that +1 changes according to whether you have an odd or even ability score. If you start with a 16, then it will cost you 4 feats to achieve your maximum...

New packet, new rules! We have: Attack modifier, that applies to weapons you are proficient in Deadly strike, that increases your damage once per turn Multiattack options to deal with mobs Feats that give access to what were maneuvers The attack modifiers are currently scaled *almost* right...

There's a lot of talk about removing ability modifiers from damage, or from attacks, or from combat altogether, and I get the feeling this is because of the potential disparity between optimised and spread-out characters, as well as the scale of said bonuses when compared to other factors that...

We had an L&L on Monday that made the Rogue sound potentially interesting, and threw armour at Wizards! Tuesday was all about Celestials and how to fit everything into various cosmologies! Wednesday was quiet in the art corner. Thursday's Q&A explained that we like races as they are (?)...

The rules for stealth in the current playtest draft feel like they're almost there, but not quite right. In particular the way that the cloak and boots of elvenkind have been implemented leave a few questions as to how exactly the various skills interact in the stealth/perception system. I...

This is a general poll. I'm interested in how you prefer hitpoints to increase as characters increase in level. I've laid out options from previous editions and tried to include other possible ideas that might be common. This is independent of whether Constitution plays a role in HP, of what HP...

This is a general poll. I'm interested in how you prefer hitpoints to increase as characters increase in level. I've laid out options from previous editions and tried to include other possible ideas that might be common. This is independent of whether Constitution plays a role in HP, of what HP...

Here's my suggestion for a Very Simple Fighter, so simple I've not even written any fluff. No dice, no maneuvers, just a basic concept that still allows for some differentiation and occasional tactical decision. Assume the same attack progression as the current playtest. Level Combat...

There have been a number of threads about maneuvers, expertise dice and so on. I do not object to the Fighter and Rogue sharing a combat system, but I do object to their use of maneuvers being so very similar. I propose a slightly different approach, with a shared system, accessed and used...

Time to get a poll up and running. First impressions only, are you heartened or disheartened, or have you no heart at all?

I'm sure many people here are aware that the videogame XCom: Enemy Unknown was released last week and looks to be doing rather well with both critics and fans. It's a remake of the 1994 Microprose classic (also known as UFO Defense), and in efforts to streamline the gameplay they have obviously...

Over on another thread, 3E-style multiclassing is winning the poll, followed by a strong showing for classic multiclassing/4E hybrid classes (which are awfully similar in intent) and then 4E multiclass feats. I think this poll might indicate a division between how people see classes and levels...

I was just reading through the thread about interpretation of rules, which wandered into a discussion of the marketing and reception of different editions. Emerikol provided an interesting description of D&D history in which he posited that Pathfinder was a branching point in the game that has...

I think that the Fighter's Combat Superiority has been generally accepted as a step in the right direction for the class, indeed it may in fact be exactly what everyone has dreamed of for years. However, I have seen the mechanics in play and given the current iteration a great deal of thought...

Right from the start of this playtesting, there was talk of changing the way that spells worked, so that Fireball would no longer gain another 1d6 damage every time you gained a level, but that if you wanted a super Fireball, you would be able to prepare one. Many discussions here took this idea...

I have two suggestions that I think will help the game hit that sweet spot in deadliness, and also clean up something I can see already being a problem. Base Hitpoints The previous playtest used Con score + max HD for initial HP, followed by rolled HD slightly modified by Con for each...