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The traditional cleric is really a gish with a different spell list. Unlike the paladin, who has a strong melee-first combat approach, the cleric should be spending some rounds of combat casting spells and other rounds of combat swinging away with a mace. Of course, some clerics will prefer...

Point 4 is all about "The class should be recognizable to anyone who has played D&D." As the article notes, D&D is unusual in putting its primary divine caster in armor and handing him a mace. Point 4 recognizes that particular D&Dism and makes it a core part of the class. If you take a...

The critical unanswered question here is: "What's a Feat?". If feats are like 4e feats (i.e. small, fiddly bits of customization) then giving a dozen of them to each character sounds like a pain, whether they are packaged into themes or not. Simplifying character creation is not sufficient...

I think this is wrong in the details (alignment restrictions limit too much, as LG is just one example of a paladin), but right in the general concept. The paladin's commitment is the key story element that distinguishes a paladin from a fighter-cleric. Of course, the commitment (or oath, or...

That's a reasonable view, but my campaign would be better served by a system where players don't need to "invest in the system" in order to play effective characters. As a DM, I really want my PCs to be balanced against one another, even though some of my players know the system and others...

I haven't seen enough to really evaluate how well "themes as feat bundles" will work, but I can speak to the experience of some of my players. I have seen a number of players who want/need the mechanical advantages of feats (if not too complicated), but who find the process of picking feats...

I am wary of too many abilities that specifically target evil because the usefulness of these powers is very campaign dependent. In some games, pretty much everything the PCs fight or confront is properly "evil" -- in the alignment sense. In other games, true "evil" is special, unusual, and...

I think it's important to have a method for (1) providing class abilities to monsters and (2) increasing the power of monsters. It would be nice if that method was less complicated than the 3.x method of performing PC character creation for some NPC. The problem with just adding class levels...

The action economy is the central problem with henchmen and followers because an extra action (even by a weaker character) is an extremely powerful ability. Animal companions, along with summoned monsters, have the problem that -- if they get their own actions -- they need to be almost...

Seeing the wall from far away is a feature of the existing systems being criticized. Most parties can tell that they are going to run out of healing surges / cleric magic / CLW wand charges well before it happens. The question isn't whether you can see it coming. The question is whether it's...

Putting aside the question of whether "hitting the wall" is part of D&D, it would be nice to see a hit point / healing system that didn't feature it. In a way, 3e played without CLW wands has something of this effect. At the beginning of the day, clerics have less useful spell slots to burn...

Morale should always be a guideline. If a DM thinks they understand what's going on inside the minds of the monsters better than the morale die says (or is allowed to say), the DM's decision is always going to overrule the morale die. It's a rule like "orcs are found in communities of 20-100"...

I'm a big fan of fewer actions. As a player, I like having minor actions -- it creates a more complicated and interesting resource management problem. But the benefit isn't worth the cost. Although I enjoy spending my minor action in combat, I don't enjoy waiting for everyone else to...

Oh, come on. 4e absolutely teaches people to focus fire. Just because focusing fire didn't originate in 4e doesn't mean that 4e doesn't teach it. My 3rd grade teacher definitely taught multiplication. I am confident that she was not the first to do so. -KS

New blog entry on morale checks: http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/04/13/run_away! The entry makes an interesting point. There is real value to the game providing an (optional) objective mechanic to decide whether the monsters should run away or surrender. -KS

For most campaigns, the level of tactical detail will depend on the encounter. However, as a general guideline, I think the best solution is the encounter with the minimum overhead necessary to prevent player confusion. If there's a lot of moving around, miniatures or tokens are useful, but...

I understand the reason for trying to get away from the yo-yo. For all the abstraction of hit points, terms like "hit", "damage" and (even more so) "cure critical wounds" all strongly suggest that hit points are physical damage. There are enough DMs who describe hit points as physical damage...

Don't we need to see how D&DN works first? Could you have figured out the tools we needed for 4e before seeing how classes, powers, items and feats work? -KS

In 3.x and 4e, PCs could end up with a large number of temporary buff spells and effects that could be difficult to track. What are the designers considering to prevent buffs from becoming a major tracking headache? -KS

What I really like about this blog post is the idea that picking a background and a theme are choices that matter to almost every player. The problem with skills and feats is that they can be too fiddly -- they matter, but only if you care about the fiddly bits of the game system. A...