Thammorn's page

Dice rolling concepts for character creation ARE NOT "owned" by WotC. From the beginning of gaming, these conventions have been used by several companies. Within the first couple of years of the original D&D, the exact same conventions were used by Chaosium and Palladium, as well as numerous other products. Since these games predate the creation of WotC by some 15 years, I think a copyright infringement case would be pretty tough to press.

I prefer point buy, but that's because I have one player who can min/max beyond belief, and even point-buy is not infallible. Point buy CONCIEVABLY could have been protected, but other companies have printed the details (INCLUDING Paizo, albeit in the Dragon magazine format) and if no foul was cried then, then again, it would be hard to push the case.

As a side note, I remember when ist edition AD&D's Unearthed Arcana came out. Inside was the notorious "Charcter Generation Method 5," which called for the rolling of anywhere from three to nine dice for each stat, depending on how important it was to the charcter class. Stats could be unbelievable, although the random chance could still play hob.

I think Optional is the way to go with this, and that DOES seem to be the overwhelming opinion. To me, a racial bonus to first level makes the most sense, but probably toned down a bit with the max boost being around 4 hit points. As the one who plays clerics the most in my group, the chance to actually cast something besides a cure is a strong motivation of course, but a lucky hit is still less likely to take a character out. It can still happen, of course (Longbow crits can be extremely treacherous, eh Troy?), but not as a total fluke.

On the flip side, I DO miss the days when some creatures had save or die effects. While some have pointed at this saying that an arbitrary die roll shouldn't kill a character, I'll point out that if you're going to mess with a beholder, you're asking for some pain. Some creatures are just not supposed to be messed with.

Of course, the WotC 4e release notes seem to imply that a group of 1st level characters can take out a baby dragon. EGG must be tumbling in his grave at that thought.

Ugh. The Warlock becoming core in 4e is one of the larger reasons I'm disgusted with Wizards. A rarely-missing missile platform that never runs out of ammo? How the hell does any other class compete with that? What they're doing to D & D is turning it into tabletop WoW. You like that, go to it. I'll be enjoying my rangers and bards over here with the non-munchkins, thank you very much.

Hmmmm, think we could get that Troy Taylor guy to work the "India" sourcebook. I think he's the next breakaway talent in this business.

Really.