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And that, in a nutshell, is why there never will be consensus about healing. A campaign where "the world provides consequences for PC actions" actually can mean exactly opposite things to different DMs. A campaign where the PCs can be asked to endure even 2 grueling days of fighting in a row...

There is no one way of running healing that will work for every popular style of campaigning. Not only do I suspect every style of healing is sub-optimal for less than 49% of the campaigns, I suspect every style of healing is suboptimal for every campaign some of the time. There is no magic...

Remathilis, I agree with your ranking, and the idea that scouting characters should feel martialy competent. In 3e terms, as I say we have one single large concept, with clusters of points on the continuum. The clusters very roughly live on the continuum like this: * Fighter, Paladin *...

Oh, I agree in spades. As a practical matter the Rangers, Barbarian, Paladins also earn their bread with fighting competence. It is just not fun to play a brave non-Fighter who is destined to get smacked around. So even if the designers hold true to this vision of the "dumb fighter" as the...

What you are describing here sounds very close to a Swashbuckler with access to scouting/trap skills.

I agree with the gist of your argument. Fighter and Rogue are both mundane "skillful guy" classes, and it is more useful to think of them as variants of a larger single concept. By thinking of them as truly separate identities, they end up fighting each other for niche space, thereby...

IMO the first is partially correct: it became much more difficult to create viable solo enemies in 3e than other editions. (There are many potential pros and cons in terms of encounter design in every edition, really.) As for you second point, no, quite the opposite -- magic outpaced skills...

It is primarily a question of pacing. 3e made a conscious choice to make each "action" (round) more significant by means of cranking up the offensive potential of all classes. For Fighters, that meant criticals, "double-specialization", power attack, Animal buffs, useful weapon options, etc...

I applaud the idea of customizing, but not starting with the pieces assembled into a working car is really darn hard on non-experts in gaming. How about we just call our working example car "Core"? Would that be okay?

I do not think it is important that Feats be combat only -- that degree of inflexibility is not necessary to bake into the system, but I agree it is a good philosophical starting point for Core. It is desirable to ditch any assumption in the foundation of the system that non-combat factors can...

The way out: the default should be class abilities key to character level rather than class level. Therefore: * A Fighter9/Paladin1 can Smite Evil once per day for +Cha/+10. * A Fighter9/Wizard1 can cast 5 Magic Missiles with his 1st level spell slot. * A Wizard5/Fighter5 can cast a 10d6...

And reasonably played PCs are going to choke on the idea that 1st level wannabe is going to get a share of...anything. I do agree that with platoons of PCs handy and lots of attrition, a lot of the odd rules in early editions work well enough. But as the game was put into the hands of groups...

In the example I provided, my PC would be in an 8ish level party. So he would have 8th level Fighter HPs (good!). But as he progresses along his new career direction he has the abilities of a low level Thief. From the perspective of the other PCs in the party, he is sandbagging in the most...

Every player bringing multiple ready PCs to the gaming table does help resolve some "peculiarities" of the earlier edition rules. I never played in a gaming group that did not strongly desire to move away from that direction for many reasons. It brings up questions like "If I have 3 PCs can I...

That was a completely bizarre system that (IME) most DMs just said N-O-! to. Can you imagine actually playing this one through? Suppose I was a human who went through 8 levels of Fighter. I then tell my friends "Hey, I want to try something different!" and start progressing as a Thief...

Chain shirt is still a horrific monstrosity that should not exist except as a rare magical special item. Ditch it. The ceiling for light armor should be +2! The value of a thin bit of chain is zero against many kinds of weapons. That is why mail was always, always, always worn over some...

That reasoning does not always work because without some kind of guidelines even the NPCs and random mooks can "do what they want to do" as the default. I want to play a young Robin Hood type, on a career path to become the best archer in all the Isles? Well, every Dex build uses a bow just...

Or not at all -- depends on the campaign. Is the dwarf fighter really going to delve into that dangerous dungeon all alone, while his friends are hitting the books?

Yes, that could work. And it has all the advantages and fewer of the disadvantages of the 1e/2e multiclassing. In a sense, 3e eventually went in that direction with its PrCs and blended base classes, only without any hard restriction. On the downside, there were a dizzying array of...

Incorrect. In the "sweet spot" of levels most popular among DMs, the xp vs. level progression was roughly exponential. If one always played every PC from 0 XP, there was an initial higher attrition because of the longer time to see your 2nd levels. Once you survived that (or were simply...