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In about a month's time, my group will begin the Tomb of Horrors 4e super-adventure and I was wondering if anyone has any advice, suggestions, dos or don'ts. The party consists of just three characters and I have already adjusted all the encounters accordingly. Thanks.

This kind of brings up the old character-advancement-without-experience-rewards thing, which is something that I do (mostly). I can see this element as an optional rule too, or the whole experience points system being modular.

Oh boy. Think of all those old adventures in so many back-issues of Dungeon magazine. eBay is going to be on fire! Oh, an opportunity, for sure. Indeed. I imagine there will be an optional rule like the Pathfinder one, where you can have slow/regular/fast character progression by awarding...

Ganging up on a single target is good tactics and happens anyway, at least with parties that think about things. Spreading the party's damage output over several targets will prolong the fight and make things harder and more dangerous. I concede that being surprised may well mean that the...

Well, this comes down to play styles and having players that game the system. For me and my group, we would absolutely prefer to do the former (a series of skill checks to hide and get the drop on the guard) even if it makes no difference mechanics-wise. The story is the thing. I agree (and have...

Re the surprise rules (and sorry to keep banging on about this but it is such a simple rule that seems to work well and I don't like the idea of them doing away with it - what does "many people" mean anyway?), you could even incorporate things like elven perception by messing about with the...

Oh wait. Maybe the dislike of the -20 initiative thing is because some people can't handle maths with negative numbers.

How so? New combatants joining an ongoing fight are not going to be surprised but it makes no difference anyway because the fight is already ongoing and initiative has little relevance by that point. Is that not the point of surprise?

If I understand it right (from almost nothing other than the comment in this L&L article), the argument against the surprise rules is that players don't like the -20 initiative having effect right through the encounter. I don't understand that at all. Initiative rolls only really make any...

There is a comment in the latest Legends and Lore article that people are "happy at how much of an adventure they could play through in a short time" and I will attest to that also. This throws up an interesting problem: if players are able to play more over a given period of time, does that not...

Legends and Lore (25 June 2012) - Playtest Update Mike Mearls has posted the latest Legends and Lore article and it is an update on the playtest, including some interesting information from the surveys. I mean, apparently "many people don't like the surprise rules" - What is wrong with you people!?

Optional rule. I am seeing a lot of things along the lines of "couldn't we do this instead?" or "wouldn't this work better?" and almost every time the answer should be "make it an optional rule/module".

A little bit Devil's advocate here but we should bear in mind that the rules we have at the moment are minimal and basic. They should be looked upon as the core rules, on top of which any number of optional rules can be added. So the basic assumption by D&D Next is that wizards in armour are...

We should look at what has been happening with magic weapons (and magic items in general) in 4e. We were initially given a vast array of the things, plenty of them in the PHBs and two full hardback volumes too (the AV books), and they were nothing special - just lots of general items, most of...

Really like the sound of this. It addresses a personal gripe that I have had with D&D for a long time. Looking forward to seeing more (when we get to see more character progression rules, probably). I can't see how established players can complain about "too much maths" - time was when we had...

Excellent report! Well written, in short staccato sentences that capture the excitement and thrill of the game. Sounds like you had a really good experience with the playtest rules. Be sure to fill in that survey and feed that back to the Wizards. For my group, RL commitments mean our own...

Precisely. All this talk about probabilities and averages but those averages are only valid over time; there is no average result of a single die roll - each result , 1 through 20, is equally probable. So having two throws of the dice is clearly desirable. [And I really need to change my sig line.]

Something came up in our game the other night that I would like some opinions on. Here's the situation: most of the party is standing in a doorway, looking into a large room that is dimly lit. A gnoll enemy is at the far side of the room. The party's rogue wants to shoot her crossbow at the...

Setting the Pace, in the Legends and Lore column, discusses release schedules of past editions. He doesn't reach any hard-and-fast conclusions but this is interesting: "Complexity stands as perhaps the biggest argument against a rapid release schedule. One of the things R&D must consider is what...

Nope. I love this format too. The 4e Rules Compendium is a great book and I too would love to see all the books released in a similar format.