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    Natural Bond and Beastmaster

    Natural Bond can do two interesting things: 1) If you lower your effective druid level by taking an advanced animal, Natural Bond can help make up the difference. For example, at 10th Level you could have a Polar Bear with Level -6 instead of Level -9 Modifiers. 2) If you take the Beastmaster...
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    Level Up!

    I do not think many players would make such a statement outright, but you cannot divorce yourself from the knowledge that tackling a challenge will probably result in experience. It's hard to tell exactly how much this is influencing their decisions. Maybe your players really don't care. Maybe...
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    Level Up!

    I've been thinking about the pros and cons of accumulating experience versus being awarded levels, and I am having a hard time thinking up very many pros for the former. To be clear, I simply tell my players to level up when the story makes sense for them to level up and do not deal with...
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    Which feats are "feat tax"?

    It's completely possible to play and enjoy the game without any of this Feat Tax nonsense. However... It gets really boring watching my players pick almost the same exact feats every single time with every character. Sometimes the order is a little different, but dozens and dozens of characters...
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    Player challenging DM authority and competative

    You've got three issues here: Issue 1) Nobody seems to have checked to see what the current Rogue player feels about this situation. If he has no concerns about having an Assassin/Rogue in the party then there is no reason to prevent it from happening. If necessary, sit them both down and talk...
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    Guilty Admissions...

    Hello, my name is Incendax and I... Vigorously defend the rights of powergamers. Can spend two hours agonizing over where to put a single skill point. Sometimes freak out about symmetry like Death the Kid. Cannot understand why people don't just memorise their feats/powers. Rarely make female...
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    "Railroading" is just a pejorative term for...

    My players hate it when I do not railroad them. Any time the game even remotely starts to resemble a sandbox style of game, my players inform me that they felt like they didn't get much accomplished and that the game was directionless. The closest I can get to not railroading them and still keep...
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    Stats Below 8

    If the player wants to portray a character that is somehow less competent than others then he could do that through roleplay without influencing his statistics. He should get no statistical benefit for reducing his stats below the average.
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    Have you ever ripped off an idea & passed it off as your own?

    I rape, steal, and pillage ideas constantly. Sometimes I use them as mere inspiration, and sometimes I drop them in wholesale with only the names changed to protect the innocent. If an idea is great it should not be ignored just because someone else thought of it first, and if your brain is...
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    D&D 4E Rules for Firearms in 4e - what do you use?

    I do not allow any kind of repeating firearm, but I happily allow any form of single shot black powder weapon. An actual example from a game would be... Blunderbuss (Superior Weapon Proficiency) +2 Proficiency Bonus, 5/10 Range, 4d6 damage, High Crit. Standard Action to Reload. I did have one...
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    Monster Cards

    This is really good. I love the first template the most, but the second might be good for conserving ink. I'll have to dig through those files and figure out how to use them.
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    Monster Cards

    Power Cards are pretty worthless to me. I can easily memorize all the powers that my character has and never worry about forgetting my modifiers. However, because I only use a given monster a half dozen times per campaign I tend to have poor retention of monster abilities. I am wondering if...
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    Favorite Change in any D&D edition

    4E Class Balance. I can suddenly play a Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/Barbarian/Monk and not be statistically worthless after about level 8. There was not a single edition before it where this was true, and in earlier editions you couldn't even get past level 8 depending on your race. :D
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    D&D and the magic economy

    Separate the D&D Economy from the Real World Economy. Replace the majority of coins rewarded in the world with Residuum. Perhaps they find the monsters congregating around Residuum crystals that are growing out of the earth, or perhaps they find vials of Residuum in the necromancer's lab, or...
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    Wizards: Musings on the new DDi disaster

    I love the term Apologist. They makes up the backbone of any D&D adventuring party. You've got the Striker, the Leader, the Controller, and the Apologist. :p
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    Plot Hook Problems?

    Earlier in the story I had given the players an out of character nudge in the right direction. This happened when I was setting the story up so that the characters were desperately low on supplies and needed to scavenge for more. Yet, when one player pulled out some everlasting provisions I lost...
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    Plot Hook Problems?

    Just to clarify, you followed a Dark Wanderer that walked to the ends of the earth. No magic item caused the transportation. This is true. I arranged the situation so that the party was supposed to be desperately low on food and water and would see no other options but to stop at the plot point...
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    Plot Hook Problems?

    I'm having a horrible chain reaction in my group where I put a talking portrait in front of the players and they just stuffed it into their bag of holding the moment it started talking to them. To make up for that I set up an interesting plot piece where a naga was imprisoned by narcotic...
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    How to stop player whining? Drama!

    This reminds me of a player that used to be in my games. He was a very old and dear friend to all of the other players, and he loved to roleplay with us, but whenever he was reduced to less than half his total health he would go into a spiral of depression and take everyone else with him. It...
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    Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

    That's a pretty shameless rip of the video game Bloodlines: the Masquerade. :devil:
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