4E Muscles, BD&D Bones

[pemerton]

However, the six classic scores are so central to D&D, from the very first days of the game, that I'm reluctant to mess with them. I don't know... anyone else want to weigh in? How important are the "classic names" to you?

Given what you're trying to do, I'd be very strongly inclined to keep the classic names.

One of the things I wanted to do in this game was make core combat stats and class abilities mostly independent of ability scores.

Good. It was an error for 4e not to go this way, in my view.

Trying to avoid the need for minor actions, but the cleric may force me to incorporate them.

I'd really do my best to avoid that. Is it a healing=minor thing? If so, does it need an action type at all? Or can it be a standard action - in a faster game, perhaps with a different initiative system, healing as a standard action may be viable. Does the game even need in-combat healing as a mainstay of play?

I lean toward some form cyclic initiative

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I avoid basing anything on the assumption that people are going to be using readied actions. I may have to include readying rules if I go with cyclic initiative, but readying should be something that happens in exceptional cases.

I think Crazy Jerome's post just above, on tails wagging dogs, is a very good one. Initiative is one element in the system's handling of action declaration and resolution. What is the overall goal here?

The Forge stuff on IIEE (Intent, Initiative, Execution, and Effect) gets fairly hard to follow fairly quickly, but Philotomy Jurament says some useful stuff about classic D&D initiative here. He also links to this.

 

[SSquirrel]

I had that system - well, something very similar; yours is even more generous - for about 25 years. It's exactly what I'm trying to get away from, as at higher levels (about 7th-plus) it breaks the game.

I rarely DM, so while I came up w/that version of things several years ago I never have run a game using it, so I defer to your experience. The big issue was that 0 level spells could be cast freely, so I had to say that 0 level 1 pt heal could only be used 3 times on a single person before they were suffused w/healing energy and the 0 level wouldn't work on them anymore. Then again, these day I'm happy in 4E.

The Arcana Evolved system, a hybrid between Vancian and the 3E sorcerer/bard options, works fairly well to emulate a spell point system, while still preserving the best effects of slots. It's main issue here is that it might be a bit more involved than you'd want for this kind of ruleset.

I've been a big fan of AE for many years. DrSpunj combined 3.5 and AE together to make a point buy system out of everything. It was very interesting. DrSpunj's Class Balance Spreadsheet

Again, more involved than is likely desired, but it certainly covers flexibility.

 

[Votan]

The big issue was that 0 level spells could be cast freely, so I had to say that 0 level 1 pt heal could only be used 3 times on a single person before they were suffused w/healing energy and the 0 level wouldn't work on them anymore.

The pathfinder solution was to remove the cure minor wounds spell.