detect magic (trained only)

i suggest a change to the following use of the arcana skill:

sense the presence of magic

(i) change this from "1 minute" to the following entry:

No action required—either you notice something or you don’t. Your DM usually uses your passive Arcana check result. If you want to use the skill actively, you need to take a standard action.

i believe that this change provides characters trained in arcana to be more dynamically involved with encountered magic items and magic effects.

remember, a character who has successfully sensed the presence of magic likely will then want to identify it, which is a separate use of the arcana skill.

here is a thread on the wizards forum discussing this topic:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1165694
the discussion fleshes out the particulars

bane vs kord vs bahamut

bane is the god of war
kord is the god of battle
bahamut is the god of protection

active vs. passive skill checks

in any circumstance where a passive skill check is permitted, if the creature making the skill check instead makes an active skill check, then a d20 result of 9 or less must be valued as 10 because an active skill check result cannot be worse than a corresponding passive skill check result. why? because focusing on something cannot be worse than not focusing on that same something.

for example, some encounters provide for a passive perception check when entering the encounter area. if, for whatever reason, an adventurer with a passive perception check result of 15 (10 plus 5 from skill modifiers) instead chooses--and is able--to make an active perception check, then that active perception check result must be 15 or greater.

EDIT

it has been generously pointed out to me on the wizards forums that since the passive skill check automatically occurs, any active skill check result that is lower than the passive skill check result can be ignored. *smacks forehead*

racial floating stat bonus

gotten from en world forums:

Rechan

Yes. It's one thing I'm looking to combat by allowing a race to have one floating ability score.

evilbob

I liked this idea and have tried it. You end up with a slightly higher power curve (since players are slightly more optimized), but players can play the characters they -want- with less of a "penalty.

The way I did it was to allow one +2 bonus to change to whatever you wanted, but the second one had to stay the same. So a half-elf could be +2 Str and +2 Cha, but not +2 Str and +2 Int, for example. Honestly I think it's pretty reasonable.

Alt Boy!

I assume you give humans two floating scores then?

me likes.

races and favored weapons

in a previous post, i wrote:

"dwarves should specialize in hammers and picks, not hammers and axes (dwarves are a race of miners. what do you use to mine? hammers? yes. picks? yes. axes? a big no.)"

in continuation of this theme, here are some other thoughts:

(i) orcs should specialize in axes, a la dwarves and hammers;
(ii) urgrosh should be an orc weapon; and
(iii) goblinoids should favor scimitars and falchions.