* Please, please, please ! I beg you to stop trying to use reason to demonstrate your/edition X/poster Y take on HP is awesome/stupid/inconsistent/the real D&D !/certainly not part of D&D !/makes better coffee. Also, please stop quoting Gygax, Mearls, or the Holy Bible on this matter. This thread, and many others, show there is no consensus on this subject. We have to admit it, in order to overcome it and stay united. Of course, some posts saying "When I do this, I have that problem", or, even better, "I had a lot of problems with HP (did you ?), but I took this approach and I stopped worrying !" are more than OK, but on this question, your mileage SHALL vary. On a personal note, I stopped worrying when I embraced the abstract and undefined nature of HP... till the last one.
* On the HP front, I hope the designers will keep a Reserve mechanism (Healing Surges, Hit Dice, whatever) to silo "combat" staying power and "adventuring" staying power, with different (or, optionnally, similar) Refresh rules, enabling both Encounter design, and "Adventure" design levels. That could go a long way towards uniting the player base. It's imho one thing 4e got totally wrong : enabling Encounter-based design is cool (for "combat as sport", for cinematic play, for "pemertonian scene-framing",etc.), but mandating it is not (and saying "however, people used clerical healing or CLW wands before, so let's assume everybody heals overnight" is a legitimate CHOICE. See this thread to learn how bad things can go when people are denied their choices). I expect a (mini) chapter in the DMG about refreshing pools, through sim-process time rests, or Cut scenes, Refresh Scenes,...
* About magic and mundane characters/effects/balance : There is an aesthetical choice to be made, between skills as spells (a la 4e Power, focusing on player empowerment) and spells as skills, for instance the Knock spell acting like an Int ? Dex ? check to open locks. As @
Neonchameleon and others' proposal to give reliable-instantaneous healing to the Warlord rubs me the wrong way, I think this empowerment (entitlement ?) plays a big part, and I would rather have both clerical preach/soothing and Bravelord inspiration working like skills than powers...
* The more I read, the more I believe (optional) Hero Points would be a great addition to the game. It would solve so many problems ! For instance, they could protect Heroes against certain death (SoD, lava pools, ...), enabling some effects to actually bypass HP, without being DM fiat or "I win" buttons (and 5e could be the first edition my NPC wizards would cast "Polymorph any Object" aka saveless "Hero to Toad" on a PC without any remorse !). They would also power the bigger SFX (it would dovetail nicely with spells as skills discussed above : spend a Hero Point to get +XX to a SFX check), previously called "Dailies". Having general guidelines, dials, and specific rules about the presence/absence of such points, and their acquisition, would enable great genre customization, and balance classes according to table tastes (Each local game would have to answer : what makes a hero ? the answers could be sim-oriented - wizards study, clerics pray, ... , or cinematic, or campaign specific, or characters goals/emotional state driven,...). I know the game starts to look more than "Cyberen Fantasy Heartbreaker" at this point, but @
mearls record with token pools, some L&L talk about a Fate points module, and the dragon we saw this week give me hope !
* concerning refluffing/reskinning : try building a Bravelord out of a Paldin instead...