For my character two sections were mostly equal, one was about 50% larger. My neighbor's sheet had a lot more empty space and the ratios looked a little different (but I didn't study it).Would it be breaking NDA to indicate if those 3 areas were about equal in size?
I was thinking something much more simple. You don't put "Cure X Wounds" on the spell list. Instead, 1st-level Clerics get their spell slots, and one use of "Cure Light Wounds" per day. As they go up in levels, they get more spell slots, and more Cures. If you want more healing, spend feats on it or pick the healing domain (or both).
That way, Clerics don't get under pressure to play the healbot. I'd argue that for most parties, an active cleric with buffs and save-or-dies is more effective anyway.
Doesn't this require something like Healing Surges to be effective?
If your "typical" party (ftr, mage. rogue, Non healbot cleric) has 1 CLW a day then the day is going to be VERY short.
Surely, either SOMEBODY heals, EVERYBODY heals, or parties return home as soon as they get more than very mildly injured. I don't see any plausible alternatives.
My point? I'm kind of a 3.5 grognard who drifted away from WotC, but if D&D Next is something I like, I'll go back to it (assuming I get back into a group again). And I think that there's a large percentage of people who left 4E who can be won back if the game is really cool. How much, I'm not sure - although, I know that there will be some people who can't be switched from 3.5/Pathfinder just as there may not be people who'll switch from 4E to D&D Next.
I'll reserve final judgement till I see actual mechanics, but this really concerns me that WotC is throwing out the 4e baby with the bath water.
Interesting thoughts, Thanks!
I think for certain things like healing they would be better off just developing separate standalone rules modules that groups can use instead of making some patchwork that no one will like.
You want to go whole hog on 4e style surges, use this module. If you want old school lethality and make healing a matter of magic and bed rest, use this module.
I can think of several ways I could make it work so I don't think its an impossible design challenge.
IMO if I don't like the fundamental rules that the game is built on, it doesn't matter what I add to it. The "Ability scores as saves" and "Opposing rolls" really soured me, and I have the feeling it would take a lot of work to tear those out of the system.As die-hard 4E players I would encourage you to not judge the game by its playtest. The optional modules should bring you back to the 4E style that you enjoy, however that style has to be built upon something, namely the game we saw at the con.
And even though I played 4E up until about 6 months ago (when our group fizzled out), I always felt it was missing something. But, I still had a lot of fun 'cause of the group I was in (and our main DM is excellent).
So, [speculation] Clerics have to choose between casting healing spells or being a contributor to the fight? [/speculation] If that's the case, yeah, that's something from older editions that doesn't need to come back again. (I expect no confirmation or denile here, of course).
Worse yet, I have a feeling that a modular game is going to cause MORE gaps in the community, rather than less. With the groups splitting into 50 groups based on their own personal group of modules they like instead of the 4 or 5 groups that exist now based around editions.
Do you mind if I ask which of the following you mean by "killed dead?"couple of minor points I saw mentioned I thought I could say a bit more about.
One was on Races: I played human and dwarf. I thought the mechanics for the dwarf were fine/no big change. I really liked the mechanics for the human. The other races abilities were also cool from what I saw of their sheets.
Another was lethality: The first game no one died but we had multiple characters dropped and I liked the death mechanic. The second game my buddy got killed DEAD in one "very lucky" hobgoblin axe swing and another player's character got beat down as well and then saw the death mechanic used to its ultimate conclusion![]()
Exactly, Cadfan. I loved the character rules diversity in 3.5, & often found myself stymied in groups. The irony was that despite being the one drawing the most attention for pushing group 'allowed rules' boundaries, I'm not a great optimizer & tended to end up w/ comparatively weak - which is to say, average powered - characters compared to the rest of the party who weren't drawing DM agro.
It took me months of cajoling, logical analysis, & offers of 1-on-1 PvP play-testing to finally get a DM to allow a warlock character into a group (they can do magic every round? OP! OP! OP!). Am I going to have to go through that again to be allowed to play a non-basic anything?![]()