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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6095028" data-attributes="member: 17106">You're right about simple and functional.Here's the thing: most of D&D is not that at all. Vancian spellcasting is unbelievably complicated, especially at high levels. You have dozens of discrete and independent spell slots. Each one you have to make a choice about when memorizing spells, and then when you're choosing to cast a spell, you have to do a mental calculation of what the chances are that you'll need that spell before you rest again are, and what other resources you have. Truly leveraging that system is difficult. Most people shortcut it, either by just casting away and not thinking that much about it or saving spells and not thinking much about it (and thus failing to take full advantage of their abilities in either case). Other people simply opt out. I've been on spell points for years (one pool instead of having to track each spell), and even then I often don't bother to track points or daily uses of things for NPCs.Would I ever advocate a system that tracks as many different possible injuries as a 10th level wizard has spell slots? Definitely not.What amazes me is that people can tolerate doing that kind of calculus for spellcasters (or, in 4e, and even more complicated set of calculations for all characters, who have discrete abilities on different recharge times and healing surges, at a minimum).My theory is this: people get used to things. 4e players either don't leverage the full complexity of the rules, or they've internalized the rules and the conventions of their game to an extent that they don't have to think much about what the chances are they might need a power later. The same is true of caster players for other versions of D&D; they either don't really care how many spells slots they have, or they do, and they've learned to deal with it intuitively. This is a real barrier for beginners, but can be enjoyable for experts.My theory is that the same logic applies to health systems: people are used to hp, but even if a new system did add some complexity, they'd internalize the system and learn to deal with it. That is, if said system was well designed and written.Certainly, that's my experience.</blockquote>

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