Kane Blaise's page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e5wAUwdmM

^^^Video from WotC bad mouthing previous editions, and saying "4th ed is going to be the same but better!"

A friend and I looked into 3D printers awhile back, they're expensive. "Cheaper and cheaper" perhaps, but still thousands and thousands of dollars.

I'd just change some abilities around (damage types, alignments, "signature powers") or appearances (no, it does not look like a ball of flying eyeballs, I already said it's an octopus with four eyes that shoots magic out of its tentacles!). In my experience, creativity is greater than metagaming the monsters as written. After a few sessions of all modified monsters and a few close calls (what do you mean the large green giant-looking thing is immune to lightning!?!) all of the players I've ever found stop making assumptions, which allows me to start using some monsters right out of the book, but I try to keep things fresh.

I once had an idea for a character (probably a ranger) who specialize in melee but used two crossbows when combat began. He would pull them out and shoot them at opposite sides of a tunnel/hallway/corridor. The bolts would be tied to a net, stopping the enemy while my group got prepped for the fight. Never got around to figuring out the exact numbers for how that would all work (ie how long it would take the monsters to get past my net-wall) but I still love the visual I get when I think of him.

I would start the campaign by making the planewalking a DM plot ability, ie they jump randomly, not having control over their powers yet, as the DM wishes. Then, at later levels they gain access to the feats you've suggested. I wouldn't make them spells, though, just make them feats for everyone.

Tonberries are all about risk vs reward. Offer enough reward and you won't need a reason for the players to stick around mechanically.

My group all share the same group of books (mine), so leveling up takes awhile since the books have to get passed around. For the rest of the party, to kill time, it is not at all uncommon to see some dice gambling between the PCs. I acctually had a player take a prestige class that granted a reroll of one die per day ("good luck" type of a feature) just for gambling with the other PCs.

I believe the key is attacking the player's sanity, not the character's. What makes Mythos monsters... dangerous in fnatasy setting is that they all look similar, yet have different abilities. THat one hits you really hard with it's tentacle. That one turns off your magic. That one teleports. The problem is that looks don't make the Mythos, the fear of the unknown does.

Personally, i prefer a sense of realism in my games - as much as taking into account that it's a world where magic exists - and as such, i rule that there's no cap on falling damage.

Because in real life when you fall your speed just keeps increasing, it's not like there's a thing called terminal velocity or anything...

No matter the object, as long as there is air resistance your will eventually stop speeding up. As long as your going the same speed, your change in speed when you hit the ground will be the same, meaning the force of hitting the ground will be the same.

The game devolves just saved you the time of going through the physics equations and assumed every PC's terminal velocity occurs after falling for 200 ft.

Also, there was a link to an essay on the boards recently. I found it to be a quite fantastic read. The take away points were:

The average human (in real life) is about a level 1 or 2 npc.
Olympic athletes are more akin to level 3 - 4 pcs.
The author read through LOTR and stated Aragon (think that's how you spell it.... been awhile since I've read them) as a level 6 ranger, and Gandolf as about level 10. And they were supposed to be the best of the best in that world.

Would these people die from a 200 ft fall?
Yes.

Should someone who can literally fight a god and walk away die from a 200 foot fall?
In my opinion, no.

Being a Catholic (and a martial artist), and playing DnD for a few years now...

Self-denial in the Catholic sense has nothing to do with self-denial for self-denial's sake. It serves a few purposes, which have already been discussed, but the largest one has been overlooked. To loosely quote (reference I suppose) a History Channel special on Batman "Self-denial is like a muscle; if you don't exercise it from time to time it may not be strong enough when needed" By not allowing ourself something trivial, we understand how it feels to be without and we strengthen our self-control. And this is exactly what martial artists do as well. They deprive themselves comfort while training to strengthen their will, they just do it for shorter periods of time more often.

One mechanical issue based off of the current wording of Shaper of Dreams and Genie Resistances: if I'm reading this correctly, you could, by 20th level, have resist 5 fire, elec, and acid. So which does Shaper of Dreams apply to in that situation?

If you want it to be played by any class, take each class and ask yourself "How would class X handle this situation?" If you can't think of anything for a given class, add in an extra element that is only EASILY accessed by that class (a secret door for a rogue, a clue written in Druidic, etc.)

There was a prestige class in on of the complete books (complete adventurer I want to say) along the lines of "hunter of undead." I played a paladin/ranger/hunter of undead once in a pretty heavily undead campaign and it was a lot of fun. One of the prerequisites for the PrC was that you had to have died, made for interesting role palying.

I would suggest making it so that the character has to fight defensively (full defense action I think it's called) for a round (or two) and if an enemy attacks the player during that round (or two) they then get the bonus. In the movie Holmes just messed around and tried to not get hit (while not always succeeding at that effort) while studying his opponent.

Do you create your own adventures or are you looking for a published adventure for the children? If you're willing to put the work in, just pick any of their favorite (or your favorite) fantasy stories and base a campaign around it. I've made adventures based of the Odyssey, Lord of the Rings, the legend of hercules, and so on. Other possible ideas I can think of off the top of my head include Eragon and Deltora Quest.

(I don't pretend to claim that my adventures were exactly children friendly, but my other suggestions would be much nicer).