Here's my take on these suggestions, as someone who's not a fan of 4E at all:
- Combat Advantage: A simple +2 bonus for having combat advantage is easy and simple to keep track of compared of the myriad situational modifiers you could get in previous editions (flanking, prone, flat-footed, higher ground, etc etc etc). It's also easy for things like a rogue's sneak attack. Have combat advantage - can sneak attack.
No. Different situations call for different, and stacking, effects.
- No Rolling to "Confirm" Criticial Hits. Always hated that.
No. It makes no sense if when you need a 20 to hit, every hit is a crit.
- Being able to save against a "save or suck" effect every turn in combat. 3.5 started this with hold person, 4e applied to all such effects. I didn't like the "coin toss" saving throws, but it's still a good idea. Nothing is worse than being nauseated, paralyzed, dazed, or whatever else and being unable to do anything for the entire battle.
No. It turns spells into mere delaying tactics while hit point damage is where the real action is. Yuck, yuck. Hold person was utterly a useless spell in 3.5.
- Standard, Move and Minor Actions: I liked this. No full-round actions. It's simple and straightforward while giving players enough flexibility to do the kinds of things they need to do.
No. Some things realistically take a full round or longer to do.
- No "iterative" attacks. I hated that about 3rd edition. Likewise, monsters only tend to make 1 or 2 attacks also, not claw, claw, bite, wing, wing, tail slap, rake, rend, etc.
No. I really like the way multiple attacks give a sense of what's going on; if you have two weapons, you make two attacks; and of course you can split your attacks as you see fit. Perhaps a matter of taste, but it doesn't slow down combat much and adds verisimilitude IMO.
- AC that scales with attack bonus. I always thought it was ridiculous that characters got way, way better at attacking people, but not better at defending themselves without loading up on magic items.
Agreed. Of course, D20 modern did this first.
- No Rolling for Stats or Hit Points.
No. It should be an option, as it was in 3.x. There can be advantages to working with what you happen to get.
- At-Will Spells and Cantrips. It makes vancian casting much more bearable. I hope my wizard doesn't sit there twiddling his thumbs or pointlessly plinking things with a crossbow during all those rounds of combat where he wants to do something, but doesn't want to waste a good prepared spell. Likewise, cantrips, as the simplest of magic, should be able to be used at-will. Pathfinder likewise saw the value in that.
I can see a case for this.
- Implements: I liked that wands, staffs, etc improved a caster's spells in much the same way that magical weapons improve attacks. It makes much more sense for me for a wand or staff to serve as a focus for a wizard's powers than a spell battery.
A wands of fireballs +1 is not a new (4E-era) idea.
I do agree that things along these lines (but not required) can be cool.
- Spells that required Actions to "Sustain." This is a simple and effective way of balancing alot of the more "overpowered" spells, like fly, and preventing players from stacking too many buffs.
In certain cases it's fine. I would not like to see too much nerfing of (pre-4E) spells, though.
- Alignment is just fluff. No class alignment restrictions. No alignment-based magic. No detect evil. No smite evil. Alignment is there as a way of describing your character's morality, nothing more. There's probably alot of people that disagree with me, but I loved that about 4e.
Agreed, although this is hardly original to 4E.
- Simple, Easy to Read and Use Monster Stat-blocks. This makes the DM's life sooooo much easier.
No and Yes.
No, if it means that monster stats would be dumbed down and/or built in a different way than PCs thus making monsters with actual character class levels hard to pull off as in 4E.
Yes, in that there should be a readable and simple presentation of the most commonly used information, and often that's the only information that will need to be re-printed in modules and such.
Monster and NPC stats need to be "telescoping": There are the simple stats, and then there are the
real stats for when you need to know more about a particular guy (whether he be human or not).
- No Level Drain. Good riddance!
3.x's negative level system was fine.