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I agree. One of the things I dislike about the hp rules is that dropping below zero can actually be an advantage. If I'm at 2 hp and the cleric only has a d6 or a 1d8+1 to give me, I'd rather take the next 10 point hit and get healed from -8 rather than get healed down and dropped on the next...

Agreed. Adding +2 takes less than a second for some of us, but - for others - its a few seconds, and a few seconds adds up when it happens on every turn. Plus, rolling a second die is a much bigger deal than +2 or -2. It has a greater effect on the outcome and the act of physically grabbing a...

Excellent work. I'm not sure about the details, but I like that they kept the aspect of 4e where con doesn't dominate your total hit points, but has a major impact in how many times you can keep going after having been beaten bloody (before needing to rest). -KS

Oh definitely. I have no interest in playing games where you randomly seek out monsters to kill because they are evil and you are good. I enjoy Diablo 3 as much as the next guy (ok, maybe not quite as much), but I want my tabletop roleplaying time to be a lot more sophisticated. At the same...

But it's a very useful trope. I agree that ethical complexity is a lot more interesting that the ethical simplicity of: "we are good, monsters with stuff are evil." But I don't begrudge people for wanting to play D&D with that ethical simplicity. The scope of D&D would be greatly limited if...

I agree that it would be useful if PCs could make a subset of the range of magic items available to them. But magic item creation is very much a "module" kind of activity. I wouldn't mind if it was included in a "Book of Magic" product in -- say -- the second year of the product cycle. One of...

I suspect schemes are just a way of requiring fewer decisions to make a rogue. If you think about it, "skill selection" is now an optional part of character creation because characters can just get skills from their background (and maybe theme). If rogues are supposed to get "extra skills"...

I like specific cool magic items, but good DM guidance on custom magic items is also important. The key is providing ad hoc guidance that allows DMs to creating a wider range of special magic items, rather than providing a table that is robust enough for PCs to be able to use it as a shopping...

I think I like that in theory. Skills should be an essential part of the rogue niche in a traditional D&D dungeon crawl party. But I have played in a large number of games where exploration and interaction are significantly more important than combat. So I hope that rogues do not dominate...

The key to providing good adventures for D&DN is for WotC to find a way to benefit when third parties write adventures for their game. I would suggest that WotC invest in a PDF store and on-line tools that help with running the adventures (printable maps and tokens, VTT integration, monster...

I think blog entries about the class conceptions should address alignment restrictions. As this thread indicates, a lot of folks feel very strongly about either restricting paladin to lawful good or freeing paladins from that restriction. (I'm in the second camp.) I would have like to see the...

I would hope/expect the code to have a mechanical effect, and I think the Essentials version of the paladin goes in this direction. As a minimal example, I would hope that paladins get some kind of "smite" class ability that is only usable on enemies to the paladin's code/deity. That's not...

Well, yes, the code is what distinguishes a paladin from a fighter/cleric variation. Maybe the 5e design would be cleaner if rangers and paladins were just fighter (or fighter/cleric, or fighter/druid) themes, but I would hope that we don't get too much unwanted complexity from a true paladin...

Apparently, I have to spread some xp around, but this is a really interesting way to re-conceptualize poison. It puts poison into the same category as lycanthropy and mummy rot, as ways of risking the character's life without necessarily having a major effect on that particular combat. I also...

I agree that it would be nice if the books included a couple paragraphs saying how D&DN is a toolbox, DMs and players should work together to decide what type of game they want to play and that you are never doing something wrong if you have fun. That's all good. That said, I think it's a...

It's not obscure, but I'd like to see many of the old AD&D modules adapted for D&DN. I would hope that it's easier to convert to 4e and it would make a nice supplement to new adventures in Dungeon. I'd also like to see a shot at the Battlesystem / Bloodstone Pass and the Birthright styles of...

I like a lot of these ideas, but my fear in this is that the skill bonuses are all going to be too low. On a d20, you're going to see one of the several +0 to +1 characters (10-13 stat, no training) beat the +6 character (18 stat, +2 skill) quite often. Skill can also be a key area for niche...

This is an excellent (if very old) idea. They key is that XP needs to be rewarded for whatever the goal of the game is. The default goal of AD&D/BECMI was collecting treasure, so XP was awarded for that. Players were rewarded for finding clever ways to get the treasure while avoiding...

The most important skill of a DM is the ability to emphasize whatever part of the game is most fun for the group in front of him (or her). A DM can run great NPCs but that is of little value to a group uninterested in role-playing. Likewise, great tactical encounters aren't fun for a party...

I agree that anything like this is going to be "less rules-y" than, say, how spell memorization works for PCs. But the arguments to have "DM guidance rules" for this is similar to the arguments for morale rules: (1) It helps to train new DMs with some well thought out defaults. (2) It helps...