D&D 5E D&D Next playtest post mortem by Mike Mearls and Rodney Thompson. From seven years ago.

[Campbell]

I find one way to make all martial characters more compelling is to take bard expertise away from Bards and instead give it to everyone who isn't a full caster. If spell casters are going to have utility spells they can use in place of skills they should not be on par with other characters when it comes to baseline skills.

 

[payn]

Though don't forget that 4e healing surges were also a limit on how much healing you could get in one day, so they weren't quite as robust as they appear.

I think this highlights where the next big battle of D&D is going. Do you have an adventuring day, or do you just have encounters? There is a "why not both?" approach going on in 5E/PF2, but it seems only fulfilling to a few character/class types and causes some gameplay issues amongst them.

 

[Laurefindel]

I'm of the opinion that 4E and 5E have unnecessarily high HP counts. I think that if every PC had hit points within a range of like 20 to 35 for the entirety of their careers it would make creating balanced challenges easier. Granted, this would need to be coupled with reworked rules for hitting 0 HP and dying... but I'd rather that then trying to grind down PCs that have 100 HP or more every fight. But that's just my feeling on the matter and I know is not close to being a widespread opinion.

Yeah, what kills level 12+ for me isn't the abilities of even the spells. It's the grinding of hp. And I know, 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day... But that's not gonna happen regularly with me, especially not at high levels when combat take more time and dedication and brain-juice on both players and DM side.

 

[MwaO]

Though don't forget that 4e healing surges were also a limit on how much healing you could get in one day, so they weren't quite as robust as they appear.

Also, treasure troves are insanely high amounts of gold post level 4 and there's no default spot to spend gold except on healing potions.
30000 gold —11-16 average treasure trove = 600 potions of healing...
To use 2nd wind as a specific example, 2nd wind is almost always an emergency healing option that no one wants to do in expert 4e games. Because it means not having a way to get pulled back up if healing runs out+it means having spent your standard action in a way where you're not taking something off the board.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Though don't forget that 4e healing surges were also a limit on how much healing you could get in one day, so they weren't quite as robust as they appear.

Heh heh... well I know personally I never once was able to challenge my players enough in a single day to ever have any character run the risk of running out of healing surges... so at least for my games that was never a roadblock the players ever had to worry about.

And that's the problem... too many disparate playstyles to make either system overall better than the other. We will find proponents on both sides.

 

[Retreater]

Not to completely turn this into a discussion of 4e, but I found that the D&D Encounters format (though artificial) was a good way to balance challenges. You simply didn't get to renew healing surges or daily powers (the equivalent of taking a long rest) until you completed the chapter. So you'd have to go through 3 encounters before you could take a rest.
I think that Level Up does something similar by saying you need to go back to a safe place to get a full heal.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Though don't forget that 4e healing surges were also a limit on how much healing you could get in one day, so they weren't quite as robust as they appear.

I agree. I would put 3 HD at 1st level and then 1HD per odd level... in doing so you limited the healing (you can like in 4e you could still have heal as if you spent a HD) to limit your adventuring day.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm of the opinion that 4E and 5E have unnecessarily high HP counts. I think that if every PC had hit points within a range of like 20 to 35 for the entirety of their careers it would make creating balanced challenges easier. Granted, this would need to be coupled with reworked rules for hitting 0 HP and dying... but I'd rather that then trying to grind down PCs that have 100 HP or more every fight. But that's just my feeling on the matter and I know is not close to being a widespread opinion.

I think all WotC hps are too high, I do think 35 is too low but I want 100hps to be end game 'omg you have a lot of hp' not every 11th level warrior

 

[Steampunkette]

ooof
Mike mentions catching up to older editions rules by specifically mentioning Psionics.

WAIT.

Does this mean we'll see One D&D's Psionics soon? That there will be Psionics in the new PHB?!

 

[DEFCON 1]

WAIT.

Does this mean we'll see One D&D's Psionics soon? That there will be Psionics in the new PHB?!

Yes. Mike's talk in 2015 was all coded to let us know that 9 years later psionics would become a core part of D&D when the game got refreshed. The fact that his coded talk also seemed to indicate he knew he wasn't going to be working on it then was very prescient of him.