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I've always though of it from the POV of the party, which explains our disagreement. The proposal in the OP essentially makes the party death spiral start slower, which I think is a good idea as it gives the party a clearer opportunity to retreat before it's too late.

And that some others like to play that way. :)

Front loaded with respect to the progression, yes. It doesn't require them to be tougher than 1st level characters in edition X, which is what the 4e criticism is about.

Static HP does not mean swingy if the game is balanced for it. It just means damage must also be static.

Yeah, it was just a sketch, but I hope level progression is such that if some characters fall a few levels behind others they are still able to contribute.

Why would you limit it to having actions? You are much more likely to die from a fireball if you are unconscious so aren't you spiraling towards death? If you have penalties and you lie down and play dead, is the spiral over?

There is a paragraph in the 3.5 DMG that essentially says that if the party sneaks past a sleeping minotaur to get to the treasure, you probably want to give them the XP. I understand not giving XP for completely skipped encounters in organized play, because that may throw WBL off if you don't...

Assuming your numbers are correct (dangerous jack disagrees), why would the giant use a 8x as heavy sword if it can't swing it? It could swing a 2x human weight one as easily as a human his own sized. In fact, that's what large monsters/characters in 3e do - large weapons are only twice as heavy...

4e has a death spiral, but it's not "bloodied": it's "dying" and it was also there in 3e. You lose all your actions and take a large penalty to AC (helpless is -9 in 3e for Dex 10). Compared to that, -2 to checks is nothing.

If it's expressed in other ways, one of those must be a bonus on strength checks so that they can break out of ropes, arm wrestle, or open stuck doors more easily. But in that case, why not just make it an ability score bonus? Effective strength to move itself around? Yes. Effective strength...

But even if zero is easier to remember there's still negative ten or negative Con or negative bloodied to track.

What extra tracking do you refer to? I don't think there is any in the proposal. Checking if my hit points went under my constitution score is no different from checking if they went below zero.

The definition or the mechanics? The definition may not have changed much in 4e, but the mechanics changed a lot. I don't care if they define HP as representing how good rap artist the character is, as long as the mechanics play out as if HP were related to physical damage to at least the...

Since humans can have a Con bonus, you could argue elves are frailer. Really, no race is more [adjective] than humans in 4e except on average.

I didn't say they should be able to freely choose what they are good at from day to day. School specialization, class features and skill choices may constrain them. I said they should be balanced so that rules out them being superior - how it is achieved is out of this thread's scope. That's...

Regarding the subscription debate from a couple of pages back, I think there is a significant difference in the kinds of subscriptions WOTC and Paizo offer to their customers. Subscribing for access to new content for reduced prices or with perks is great. Having to pay even if you want to just...

That's why "Character options should allow trading skill in one pillar for skill in another." The default for classes should be archetypal if not stereotypical.

I wish short sword killed longsword and took its stuff. Longsword = bastard sword.

The middle two. Each class should be dependent on at least two abilities to do its job, but every low ability should have important consequences to all classes.

My opinion: Every class should be as good when considered across the pillars. Character options should allow trading skill in one pillar for skill in another. The default could look something like the below. 1-5 are how good the class is at the thing; c, e, i are the pillars. Cleric: 4c, 3e...