Great thread.
Regarding no consequences for bad/no tactics...
Meta gaming aside (even if your character would use superior tactics from a roleplaying perspective) there can be a tendancy to over-focus on optimizing your every act in combat, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. I often see this happen in 4E at LFR games, which are often combat focused, and encourage tactical efficiency because everyone wants to finish before midnight, or such.
However, I would argue that 4E does provide some support for a just-do-it style of combat:
1. While 4E combat tactics do punish you for mistakes, it does it slower then before, so you have time (and narrative support) for making adjustments in play. The hit point scheme and more/faster-combat rounds in the same amount of time both contribute to this.
2. Just-doing-it often works. The actual accumulative result of all the combat effects means that taking action, even crazy or instinctive decisions, can work out for the best, and are always better than overthink paralysis. Damn the torpedoes is a valid approach in 4E combat.
The net result is that some of the most fun, memorable combats happen when the PCs screw up.
Regarding hit points And All That...
I go with the Schrödinger's Hit Points school of thought. I know this is a tired, sore subject, so real quick:
1. Hit points tell you something about your character's state and how close that state is to change. Normal, Bloodied, or Dying, and how close or far you are to any of those conditions. That's ALL hit points (in any existing edition of D&D) do! Anything else, including anything like 'damage', physical or otherwise, is simply narrative. For 4E, in particular, this means
any imaginable effect (not already specified in the rules, i.e.: slowed, dazed, etc.) that degrades your character's ability to hold up his or her end of a fight is rolled up into a single generic effect called
damage.
2. In 4E, hit points are an immediate/encounter resource; healing surges are a daily resource, and carefully managed ongoing surge losses make for great long term effects, in addition to diseases and such. The example of skill challenges or other story-driven events that incur surge losses are a great example. Plus, DM's don't have allow extended rests according to any clock; rope trick is a 12th level ritual in 4E for a good reason.
There are weakness to this way of thinking, and this will always be a pivot point for many D&D players, but this works for some of us!
Regarding samey powers and use out of combat...
Anecdotally:
1. In 4E, rogues get a power (martial exploit) that allows them to switch places with an ally on their turn once per encounter called King's Castle. My LFR swordmage has an encounter power called Dimensional Warp that does almost the
exact same thing. Aside from small differences like doing damage and range, the main differences are in use. Both are situational encounter powers, and its those situations that make them so different. The rogues are setting up flanks or other forms of combat advantage with it, while I'm rescuing 'squishies' or tagging in or out with another defender. I'm playing a blink-elf for the flava!
2. Speaking of Dimensional Warp, there was this time (outside of combat, but not at band camp!) when a less-than-athletic
squishy ally fell into a deep pit, and had trouble getting out (no
Life Alert I guess). Whose your buddy with the arcane teleportation spell and a decent athletics check? That's right, your
blink-elf buddy. Let's see a rogue try that.
