Community

Over a month ago, I ran a poll designed to see what the community felt was an appropriate rate of progression for players in three areas: attack bonuses, skill checks, and saving throws. More than a hundred of you responded and now I am going to examine the responses.  You can discuss my evaluation in the comments below or in the related discussion thread. 

ATTACK BONUSES
More than a third of the respondents felt that attack bonuses should not appreciably scale.  However, an equal number felt there should be some scaling.  Of these, there was broad variation, but the median scaling appeared to be about +1 every 3 levels.  That would translate to level-based attack bonuses tapping out at +6 over a 20-level career, which is a slower progression than the slowest class-based...

The players thought they'd be playing the Isle of Dread (above). What they didn't know was that it would be a mash-up with LOST (below) The Isle of Dread (above) doesn't look so different from the island of LOST (below), does it? A green dragon can be found on the Isle of Dread. In my version, the dragon is called "Smokey". Strange creatures dwell on the Isle of Dread. On the LOST Isle of Dread, the pirates were replaced with the Others. On the LOST Isle of Dread the medusa spiders (below) are giant (above)! The only thing LOST lacked was dinosaurs. The LOST Isle of Dread fixes that omission. Even flying creatures have their analogs on LOST, like the Hurley-bird. Mysterious maps of the island are a staple of both LOST (below) and the Isle of Dread (above)

So there are two things

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Please note I am repeating this discussion in the forums at this thread.  Feel free to leave comments below or join us in the discussion thread.

So there's been a lot of discussion about the concept of bounded accuracy -- the notion that there is no assumed improvement in attack rolls, skills, or defenses unless the character devotes character building resources to such improvement.  Thi was not true in any prior edition. I will call this phenomenon "assumed progression" as the term "bounded accuracy" tends to confuse.

In OD&D, BECMI, AD&D, and in 3e, every class got assumed progression in attack rolls and saving throws. In 3e, you also got regular improvement in some Ability scores. In 4e, this was assumed progression was extended to all ability checks (including skill...

About a month ago, Mike Mearls, in a  Legends & Lore article, described the distinction between the Basic, Standard, and Advanced rules. In that article, he listed a variety of potential Advanced rules that might be included with the Standard Rules at initial release. I started a poll and a discussion thread in which I asked people to vote on which Advanced Rules they might use in a game. Although the poll is still open, the results have not changed in more than a week, so I think it is a good time to analyze the results.

Initially, I want to note that this poll is in no way scientific and should be taken for a huge grain of salt.  A litle less than a thousand people responded, which is a relatively small number compared to the 80,000 or so playtesters. Moreover, I have no...

With the latest slew of Legends & Lore articles, we are finally getting a sense of how the game will be organized. There will be a basic, a standard, and an advanced version of the game. The advanced rules are further divided into "modules", which sit atop the standard rules without altering them, "dials", which alter the standard rules in predictable ways, and what I call "variants", which alter the standard rules in fundamental ways. For more than a year, the designers, and Mearls in particular, has been stating that it was too early to speculate about specific presenation of the game while they were still hammering out the details of the game engine. Now that the details of the game engine has been hammered out, let the speculation of presentation begin!

Here is how I would suggest...

In a recent Legends & Lore article, Mike Mearls wrote the following:

"Simplify combat by removing extraneous options. We have 14 options in the rules now. The basic game needs only attack, cast a spell, disengage, hide, hustle, search, and use an item. I'd like the core rules boiled down to about 16 pages, not counting class-specific material."

Getting all the rules condensed to sixteen pages, and having that skeleton be strong enough to support a more advanced version of the game, is a tall order. However, since the playtest was announced, I realize I have been making several suggestions that can help keep the core rules balanced, short, and strong. I have gathered those suggestions here.


INITIATIVE
Abilities need to be relatively equal in utility. This allows you to design classes the rely...

This is the tenth of my ten-part series of articles, in which I look at the Design & Development articles released in the early part of Fourth Edition. This article examines the articles penned by Andy Collins. Please feel free to add comments below, or in the related discussion thread.

Andy Collins was one of the lead designers for Fourth Edition, alongside Heinsoo and Wyatt. At the time of these articles, his title was "system design and development manager".  He co-authored Player's Handbook v.3.5, Races of Eberron, and Dungeon Master's Guide II.

Here are the other articles in the D&D Before series:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford
3. James Wyatt
4. Rob Heinsoo
5. Peter Schaefer and Matthew Sernett
6. Bruce R. Cordell 
7. Chris Sims ...

This is the ninth of my ten-part series of articles, in which I look at the Design & Development articles released in the early part of Fourth Edition. This article examines the articles penned by Stephen Radney-MacFarland. Please feel free to add comments below, or in the related discussion thread.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland worked (uncredited) on the 4e Monster Manual, Players Handbook, and Adventurers Vault 2. He authored a half-dozen of so magazine articles and the Save My Game series of articles from 4e's commencement until the series ended a year ago (which was well after he had been sacked by Wizards and began working for Paizo). But what really shaped this designer was the six years he worked as with the Organized Play group, specifically, Living Greyhawk,...

This is the eighth of my ten-part series of articles, in which I look at the Design & Development articles released in the early part of Fourth Edition. This article examines the articles penned by Richard Baker and Logan Bonner. Please feel free to add comments below, or in the related discussion thread.

Richard Baker is the creator of worlds.  During his 20 year tenure at Wizards, he worked on possibly every major campaign world they created.  In 4e, he is credited with the Manual of the Planes, and the primary world building books for Gamma World, Dark Sun, and Eberron (as well as Martial Power 2). He authored the Nerathi Legends series of Dragon articles, detailing the known world on the Material Plane of 4e's Core World.  He also penned three Realmslore articles. ...