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But then we run into what I think of as the Daredevil Problem. He's a dude who fights mobsters and low-rent gadgeteers. He's deliberately not a dude who fights Star-Mangler, Enemy Of All Planets, Devourer Of Suns. Part of the point of Daredevil is that he's just a well-trained person with...

I think this looks great so far, and I'd enjoy seeing more. One question that I don't think I've seen you answer yet - how are you handling levels? Traditionally, superheroes start woth powers well above ordinary people, become more powerful in small increments, then hit a plateau once their bag...

The opponents and obstacles in a 4E game are much more flexible than in previous editions. If a GM is finding that v4.18 PCs are overwhelming everything, it should be easy to increase the threats to match. But I don't think that will be necessary with most groups. Given how carefully the PC...

I used arbitrary math, the game designer's secret weapon! Some abilities were obviously more useful in-game than others, even considering the various ways people play. And some abilities seemed roughly equal in terms of usefulness. So I just decided that Ability X was worth, say, 3 points and...

Again, for my personal satisfaction, I'd rather balance things by how useful they are. But that gets into some swampy design areas - I think 4E is designed with a much different play experience in mind than the kind I generally enjoy. So what's "useful" in my games won't necessarily match up...

Very interesting ideas. Do you think that Sneak Attack is, overall, around 20% less good than Hunter's Quarry and Warlock's Curse? Do you think Rogue Weapon Talent is that useful? I priced it cheap because it only works with li'l bitty weapons that few characters will want to specialize in, and...

Haven't seen it. I've played with the idea, and might take a stab at it later this year. Unless someone beats me to it.

We'll have to disagree on some points - I think significant versatility is fun, and that archetypes are boring. I do like the idea of separating power sources, and my first draft of this did just that. I might return to this in a later version. As for charging the extra CP for wizard abilities...

Thanks for pointing that out - I edited the original to explain how the bonus surges are added. I originally did something similar to what you suggest for healing surges, but I couldn't find a way to balance the high-surge classes with everyone else. If not for the fact that I wanted to be able...

I meant to answer this before. The extra healing surges are accounted for by the Healing and Marking class features. As a side note, this was one of my biggest frustrations. I wanted to divorce healing surges from any other mechanic, so you could make a character with 2 or 20 or whatever, just...

Thanks! I was hoping someone besides me wanted a classless D&D system. Glad you like it. This version was constructed specifically so you could create the PHB classes as nearly as possible. Rogues and wizards will have slightly different weapon selections, and the archery-style ranger will be...

I hadn't come up with a way to do that, short of assigning X points to the various weapon types and letting characters spend them, and pretty soon I was hip-deep in math. Which is fine for some things - I love the HERO system, which is all about being hip-deep in math - but I'm trying to keep...

I've found WIS to be surprisingly useful in a lot of builds. Weirdly enough, in 4E it seems that INT is the dump stat. They do, and you still get bonus surges for your CON modifier. I didn't mention it specifically, but it's assumed. Consider it mentioned. I haven't done enough testing to...

Thanks. I've looked at DrSpunj's system before, and I think it's an impressive piece of work. As for feats, right now I'm not adding rules for buying/selling feats with CP. One of my goals was to replicate the PHB classes, and their treatment of feats made that... problematic. Consider that...

I've been tinkering with ways to remove character classes from D&D - or at least to make them optional - without destroying the balance of the game. The mechanical precision of 4E makes it a more tempting target than previous editions. If anyone's interested, here's the character creation system...

A character who's a dead spot for magic - he can't cast spells, magical effects can't affect him, any magic item he uses is treated as mundane. Enemy spells and arcane abilities would be useless against him, but he also can't use magic to heal himself or enhance his combat abilities, etc.

What were the results? For a high-magic game, the OP's list of ideas look like a lot of fun...

One other adjustment you could make - remove the XP value for monsters and traps and such. Instead of making the PCs' advancement depend on their ability to face encounters that might now be too powerful for them, just decide how many sessions it should take to advance a level, and give the PCs...

I went for "all of the above." I'd rather play in a setting with all those changes than in the standard out-of-the-book D&D. Nuthin' wrong with the standard per se, but it's shopworn. I know how it feels and how it plays - it's comfortable. I'd rather have surprising.

In 20+ years of roleplaying, I've seen maybe two non-D&D systems that use some kind of alignment system. Just about every game gets along without alignment. I suspect the only reason it's in 4E is that it's tradition - it doesn't serve any mechanical purpose so far, and with their good advice on...