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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5997053" data-attributes="member: 7006">But isn't the fact that CS dice are every encounter and Channel Divinity every day kind of nitpicking?  They're both a small resource you use to power some ability.  If we wanted, we could just replace the CS dice with the Barbarian's Rages (if we assume for the moment they work as they have in the past-- a couple rages per day) and the mechanics are pretty much are exactly like Channel Divinity.  Barbarians/Clerics have a finite number of Rages/Channels per day with which to power an ability.  You use the Rage/Channel and you get to either do more damage (Rage via higher STR) or recover from some damage (Channel via healing)  What's the big difference in mechanics here?  I don't really see any.  It's all just which way the numbers go.However, it's the STORY about what is happening that really sets the two apart.  It's the fact that one story is all about "going into a berserker rage and swinging a massive weapon" that is layered on top of moving some numbers upwards versus "using positive energy from the gods to knit bones and close wounds" that is layered on top of moving some numbers downward.  THAT'S where the difference comes in.  And the fact that they both have the same mechanic for the number of uses and when they can be used is secondary.If anything... 4E taught us that.  It showed us that if you relegate the story down to single line of italicized fluff text near the top of a power block and the rest is nothing but game mechanics... something gets lost.  And it doesn't matter how well the mechanics work or how individual or unique those mechanics are... if the story does not have a place of prominence, the game just does not seem to work as well.</blockquote>

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