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I've always preferred monsters on the scale of dragons to be named NPCs (even if non sentient) with their own unique attributes. Unfortunately, their mere color carries so much baggage that I literally cannot use them without spending half the time they're around repeatedly explaining that...

Not repeating myself unnecessarily is not the same thing as backing away from something. Even in this thread, ardent defenders of rolling for stats have agreed that strict adherence to stat rolls should be mitigated by "common sense." Well, that's bad news for new players who don't have the...

This is an indictment of rolling for stats, not a defense. Literally nothing I could say, no pretentious turn of phrase, could cut more deeply than a casual statement from a fan of rolling for stats to the effect that only an unreasonable lack of common sense could possibly lead one to roll for...

Nah, I'm objectively right here. There's no conceivable way that "playstyle" can justify this. That word is not a magical aegis that makes bad game design not count. Game mechanics have to support each other. If they work at cross purposes, nothing about "playstyle" will make the problem...

Leaving aside the other issues in your post: The overall power level of the game is a separate concern from inter-character balance. The former is a matter of what power level makes for a fun game, the latter is a matter of what fairness makes for a fun game.

I react so negatively to rolling for ability scores (and hit dice for the same reason) that its hard to even summarize. Its like people who drive 45 miles per hour on a 65 mile per hour interstate, for no reason except that they feel like it. Their decisions affect other people in a small but...

Actually, there are 4e at will powers with knockdown, but the damage is incredibly low relative to other at will powers. For example, our level 2 fighter in the current game I'm running has the following at will attack options: +8 v ac, 1d12+5, reroll 1s and 2s on damage +10 v ac, 1d12+8...

Not really. A mid level 4e character has 4 encounter attack powers. Some might be a little niche, but encounter powers are usually fairly broad in application. Further, you'll probably end up picking one at will power for damage, and one for special circumstances you expect to see frequently...

I'll continue running 4e for the foreseeable future. I'm not stopping an ongoing campaign because of an edition release. Once 5e comes out, I'll borrow someone else's books, if I can find anyone who owns it. I'll read it, and see what I think. I'm not particularly optimistic. For every good...

Welp, I'm out. I'll check back in when either the game is released, or a serious and substantive amount of material is released, so that it can be evaluated on its own merits. And I'll check once or twice for replies to recent comments I've made. But no involvement in new threads. Mearl's is...

Yes. No. "Giving it a try" with an RPG typically involves investing a significant amount of time and energy. I don't have that much of it for gaming. So I will not be trying out a game that I have good reason to think that I will not like. I will, at least, borrow the books and read them...

*double post due to lag*

Its fairly unlikely that I'll be going to 5e. To do so, they'd have to give me examples of things I could do in 5e that I can't do in 4e. It doesn't have to be something like "Play a [race] [class] [background]," where that combination isn't very worthwhile in 4e. It could be something like...

I think its ok to use spell names to imply a world. I just think they've done a terrible job at it. The implied characters don't have any character. You can add character, but that's kind of a stupid way to go about things. The whole point of implied character is that its supposed to imply...

I work occasionally in a game store. I can verify that these players exist in large quantities. You're right that there's an odd mixture of pride and shame in them. They're clearly proud at their skill in exploiting the system to make a character that either the other PCs, or the DM, cannot...

...not to mention, D&D spells have never been so situational that preparing the wrong spells really made you "useless" for the day, unless the DM was intentionally making a point to have an entire day of monsters immune to a particular attack, AND you were obsessed with that particular attack...

An RPG is literally the last plausible place to use the "perfect imbalance" concept described in the video. Literally the absolute least. Notice at the end where he described how you need 1: Choices to counter each other 2: Players to have the freedom to switch between the various choices in...

The five minute workday is a DM/player issue the same way that eating three meals a day is a personal choice. You can choose how you deal with hunger, but you can't choose whether you deal with hunger.

There are some philosophers who have argued that the reason the world has to suck is to give us something to do. We'd all go soft if it weren't for things like hunger and leukemia. These things empower us to reach our potential as actualized human beings, by giving us something to use our...

So the official stated opinion of the designers of 5e is that the game does not support adventuring days in which the players engage in a single, simple fight that isn't an epic, lengthy, knock down brawl. Good to know, I guess. I'm six sessions into a 4e game. Every game session I've run so...