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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5708068" data-attributes="member: 54710">Well, I hope that we can all agree on three things with respect to healing surges:1) Healing Surges, in the way they are implemented in 4e (including, for example, the way they interact with non-magical healing and extended rests), have a narrative problem in the sense that they create a narrative problem for a some non-trivial portion of the potential player base who think the 4e system is worse than what came before.2) Healing Surges, in the way they are implemented in 4e, solves some problems with healing (for example, healing proportionate to toughness, allowing new types of healers and removing reliance on wands of CLW), in the sense that some non-trivial portion of the potential player base thinks the 4e system is better than what came before.3) Healing Surges has been discussed at considerable length in another thread.------------------------[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] , I like your idea about having weapon choice have a substantial impact on the choice of effective powers.  I think that's fantastic because (a) weapon choice has a major impact on character feel for martial classes and I like that it has an impact on power choice and (b) it lets PCs look at an enemy and get a sense of what that enemy can do based on its weapons.I'm less sold when it comes to implements.  I know that WotC tries to do this with the PH1 wizard, but I just don't buy the idea that, fictionally, "wand wizards" are somehow a different category from "staff wizards".  There's a bit of an attitude difference I guess, but I'm not sure why those two different wizards are really casting different spells.  I think spell schools are a much better differentiator.  I understand how a Necromancer is different from an Elementalist who is different from an Illusionist.The other change I think is important is that it's important for humanoid monsters to use many of the same powers that PCs get.  There's nothing wrong with DMs writing something strange-and-different, but the standard bandit warrior, the common orc berzerker and a normal hobgoblin warcaster all need to pick at least some of their abilities from the regular Martial and Arcane power lists.  Part of the idea of the power lists is that they have a in-world existence.  Yes, all powers use a standardized mechanical abstraction language, but that doesn't mean that all powers should be unique.  There should be common spells in the world and monsters should use them too.Notably, the list of PC powers should be available to be selected in the monster builder.  Personally, I think it would be nice if you could take a random monster and add a "class" - a simplified iconic class ability and a random selection of powers.-KS</blockquote>

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