The new Sage

[francisca]

skip was doomed when he suggested using common sence over rules in a recent dragon.

Common sence? Yeah, well, this is the guy who tried to tell us that "drinking" and "swallowing" were not the same thing, with regards to potions.

Does that sound like common sense? :\ Not unless it is a new definition of the term I am not familiar with. But the again, I confuse common sense and practicality quite often.

I've pretty well skipped the column since then, as 99.99% of it is not needed at my table, and my players seem content with my rulings on the other 0.01%.

Skip does have a unique place in the history of D&D, is a bright guy, and very polite (at least in my one encounter with him). Hence, I think he deserves a measure of respect and kudos for what he has brought to the game. Having said that, I'm happy to see a new persepective being brought to the column.

I'll reserve judgment on Collins, in the capacity as the Sage, until I've read a few columns.

Skip, I wish you the best.

 

[Knight Otu]

What formula?

People make mistakes. There was this guy who was unable to find tieflings in the Monster Manual, until pointed to the Planetouched section. The same guy also searched for the fomorian giant. Even when pointed out that it is in the MM2, he didn't find it. Until he was told not to look under Giant, but under F. Recently, he claimed that advancing undead by the fighter class is a bad choice, since Undead always use the bad BAB progression.
He posts under the name Piratecat on these boards.
Tiefling thread; Fomorian thread; Undead BAB thread.

Dwarves, if given a -2 Dex instead of Cha, should get a +4 Con because Con's not that powerful...

Let us check that house rule article, where this is from:

Instead of the dwarf's traditional -2 penalty to Charisma, give the dwarves ...1 an equivalent -2 penalty. ...2 Of course, a penalty to Dexterity is harsher than a penalty to Charisma, so you might consider offsetting this by increasing the dwarf's Constitution modifier to +4. While this seems like a big adjustment, a good Constitution doesn't make a character nearly as potent as a high Strength or Dexterity.

1 Left out a few words concerning how many dwarves might be affected by the change.
2 Left out a "fluff" explanation about the change.

Now, there are things by Andy Collins where I go "hu?" (Steel Predators are naturallydeaf, but talk?). But there are also things by other designers where I go "hu?", including Monte Cook (So, at first level, I have to decide which will be the spell I will be well known by in the future? - Signature Spell feat from AU).