Common new DM mistakes list...

[Jarrod]

Charisma is not physical attractiveness.

Your ugly half-orc with a negative CHA mod is not "more threatening than the elf rogue over there". He's less threatening. There's just something... bland about him.

 

[Darkness]

Charisma is not physical attractiveness.

It is, among other things. PHB, p.9.

 

[Storm Raven]

Scaring someone is not the same thing as intimidating them. Using the intimidate skill is the act of threatening people into doing what you want. People who are merely frightened by your brawny muscles and loud voice may do what you want, or not. Scared people are unpredicatable that way.

 

[dcollins]

5) A cleric or Paladin doesn't have to worship any one god. S/he can just worship goodness (for Paladins) or anything (for Clerics).

Of course, this is really campaign-specific, so a DM can't really "err" here. If you read the PHB really closely, it actually asserts (for clerics) you must "Choose a deity for your cleric" prior to making any allowance for the DM voiding this requirement. Standard campaign settings like Living Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms all explicitly assert that clerics must choose a deity from that campaign.

 

[Sheng Long Gradilla]

The whole issue of AoOs has a great deal of common mistakes.

One is: You don't provoke AoO when entering a threatened square, you do when you try to move out of one, and the AoO takes place when you have not moved out yet.

Another: The AoO occurs before the character that provoked it finishes the action, not after.

 

[Scion]

The game is balanced around having the proper number of encounters per day. This doesnt mean that you 'have' to have that number, merely the threat of it.

Routinely having too many or too few heavily favors certain types of builds over others, making them seem unbalanced when compared with others.

 

[kenobi65]

One is: You don't provoke AoO when entering a threatened square, you do when you try to move out of one, and the AoO takes place when you have not moved out yet.

And, to build on that:

A 5' step *never* provokes an AoO in and of itself.

And, to build on that one...

- You can only get the free 5' step if you don't otherwise move in your round. If you've already moved, you can't take a 5' step. If you've already taken a 5' step, you can't make a move.

- Regardless of why you'd get more than one attack in a round (high BAB, two-weapon fighting, Rapid Shot, whatever), unless you're spending a full-round action in doing so, you can only make one attack in a round. In other words, you can't move 30' and then swing twice, etc.

 

[Galbard]

9. The balance between CR, XP and Party level only counts if the wealth of the party is also at the right level.

And the characters stats do not differ too much from 25 point-buy stats.

 

[Hypersmurf]

- Regardless* of why you'd get more than one attack in a round (high BAB, two-weapon fighting, Rapid Shot, whatever), unless you're spending a full-round action in doing so, you can only make one attack in a round. In other words, you can't move 30' and then swing twice, etc.

* with certain exceptions, such as Cleave, Greater Manyshot, etc.

-Hyp.

 

[fafhrd]

An addendum to point 6 could be, I believe, that circumstance bonuses resulting from differing sets of conditions also stack.