QuoteAs a default, we can just embrace the cleric's healing with the understanding that most groups have rolled with that in the past without any real issues.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130218

Thank god.

I fully expect the usual suspects to flip their shit at the notion that 30+ years of D&D wasn't fundamentally in need of fixing.

In fact TCO and others are already whining in the comments just moments after the the article was posted

It warms my little heart it does.

Quote from: Piestrio;629316http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130218

Thank god.

I fully expect the usual suspects to flip their shit at the notion that 30+ years of D&D wasn't fundamentally in need of fixing.

In fact TCO and others are already whining in the comments just moments after the the article was posted

It warms my little heart it does.

"In any case, nothing is set in stone. There are still discussions pending, and we all still have thinking and playing to do, but right now I'm leaning toward this as our best path forward."

This does seem to be a bit hedged, though.  

That being said, the traditional magical healing approach utterly dominates the idea of the healing surge, which disconnects fighting from any sort of injury at all in a lot of cases.

Quote from: Piestrio;629316http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130218

Thank god.

I fully expect the usual suspects to flip their shit at the notion that 30+ years of D&D wasn't fundamentally in need of fixing.

In fact TCO and others are already whining in the comments just moments after the the article was posted

It warms my little heart it does.

I think you need an alternate model for a more S&S or swashbuckler feel where you don't want a cleric in the party though.

Quote from: jibbajibba;629320I think you need an alternate model for a more S&S or swashbuckler feel where you don't want a cleric in the party though.

Sure, but if you want to play D&D you should just play D&D.

Quote from: Piestrio;629321Sure, but if you want to play D&D you should just play D&D.

I have always though one of D&D's strengths was that with a few tweaks it can be used to run a whole gamut of games. Which I guess is why the d20 boom saw so many different variants on the D&D frame.

Am I playing it wrong then?

Quote from: jibbajibba;629327I have always though one of D&D's strengths was that with a few tweaks it can be used to run a whole gamut of games. Which I guess is why the d20 boom saw so many different variants on the D&D frame.

Am I playing it wrong then?

No, but I view D&D quite differently.

When I want to play any given fantasy game I reach for GURPS.

When I want to play Rolemaster I reach for Rolemaster.

When I want to play Runequest I reach for Runequest.

When I want to play L5R I grab L5R.

And when I want to play D&D I reach for D&D.

I don't expect D&D to be rolemaster, or L5R or GURPS.

So when D&D loses healing clerics and vancian casting and the hundred other things that make D&D unique it becomes a product with no real draw, just an empty bucket.

I know it's passe nowadays but I LIKE D&D. I like all the little bits that make it different and unique, all the little bits that it's so fashionable to hate on; vancian casting, armor making you harder to hit, forever increasing hit points, classes, levels, arcane/divine magic, clerical healing, etc....

Without those there is no reason to play D&D. I'd rather play GURPS.

Heh, this reminds me of RPG.net discussion of people trying to figure out how to have an all Fighter party and healing in 2e.

In 2e natural healing was 1 HP a day if doing non-strenuous activity, like traveling (which by foot is still a brisk walk or moderate riding pace), and getting adequate food and rest. Full bed rest was 3 HP a day, with a CON bonus at the end of a week.

When you look at that core rule and think about it, that is a lot of healing for the first few levels. A bunch of fighters could merrily go about, heal while traveling, return, heal, and rapidly head back out again without healing spells. Fast enough to keep the adventures going, slow enough to make low HP actually a strategic as well as a tactical concern.

It is pretty awesome and overlooked, in my opinion.

Quote from: Piestrio;629330No, but I view D&D quite differently.

When I want to play any given fantasy game I reach for GURPS.

When I want to play Rolemaster I reach for Rolemaster.

When I want to play Runequest I reach for Runequest.

When I want to play L5R I grab L5R.

And when I want to play D&D I reach for D&D.

I don't expect D&D to be rolemaster, or L5R or GURPS.

So when D&D loses healing clerics and vancian casting and the hundred other things that make D&D unique it becomes a product with no real draw, just an empty bucket.

I know it's passe nowadays but I LIKE D&D. I like all the little bits that make it different and unique. Without those there is no reason to play D&D. I'd rather play GURPS.

Fair enough. Horses for courses and all that.
I just figure we all know the base D&D engine so well that tweaking it to make it better for musketeers, or pirates, or Newhon is far easier than going out and getting another system.
I really want the system to get out of the way most of the time. D&D suits me for that.
Wasn't that part of the D&D next idea Themes or whatever they were which were a set of rule tweaks you could apply to D&D to give it an alternate flavour? Or am I misremembering?

Cleric healing is fine as long as the amount of healing that a cleric can do as a percentage of total party HPs is pretty low (which CLW healing 1d6 damage and no healing spells at 2nd and 3rd level does jut fine IMHO) as it's relatively hard to recover spells in the field.

"Damn, I guess the game wasn't as fucked up as we advertised it to be in order to sell 4E...."

I was puzzling over similar when I was thinking of ranting about stuff over on Google+.  Mostly, I think it stems from the 'role playing rules as operating systems' mentality, but there is something else to it, I think.  3e and 4e players love to throw the 'nostalgia' accusation around, but I can't see anything but nostalgia in the fevered defense of using those same mechanics in the newer games.  Talk about fear of change, the game that essentially kicked off the OSR movement was primarily a d20 clone.

Perhaps there is a new sanity gripping the industry.  Maybe gamers will stop treating the new version as "D&D OS X".  Mearls might be catching on to the idea that they should be designing games that people want to play featuring mechanics that do what they are intended.

Quote from: Piestrio;629321Sure, but if you want to play D&D you should just play D&D.

I don't know, Piestrio. I've been forced to deal with people not wanting to play a cleric for nigh on thirty years. And there has been a lot of them. If there is anything that 4e did right, it was allowing those people mechanically equivalent but differently flavored options. This is a huge step backwards in my opinion.

Quote from: Raven;629358I don't know, Piestrio. I've been forced to deal with people not wanting to play a cleric for nigh on thirty years. And there has been a lot of them. If there is anything that 4e did right, it was allowing those people mechanically equivalent but differently flavored options. This is a huge step backwards in my opinion.

Then play something else?

I know it sounds harsh but I really don't understand the sentiment that D&D should be a sorta shitty generic fantasy RPG rather than a unique and enjoyable game.

It's not like anyone is forcing anyone to play D&D rather than a game more suited to their tastes.

Let D&D BE D&D. If someone doesn't like it they can find and play a whole world of other games.

I know the bed has already been shit, so to speak, and we can't go back to 1999 but that doesn't mean we have to pile mistake on mistake.

I'm tired of the unspoken assumption that TSR D&D was broken and in need of fixing. Magic needs to be fixed, fighters need to be fixes, healing needs to be fixed, magic items need to be fixed, thieves need to be fixed, classes, XP, monsters, treasure, etc, etc, etc...

fixfixifixfixfixfixfix

Fix it until it doesn't resemble D&D.

I'm just happy to see someone say, "Hey, you know what? Maybe TSR D&D wasn't this huge pile of shit that we thought it was for 13 years"

Quote from: jeff37923;629342"Damn, I guess the game wasn't as fucked up as we advertised it to be in order to sell 4E...."

They've been doing a lot of that lately, haven't they?

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;629366They've been doing a lot of that lately, haven't they?

JG

In a completely unrelated story, they are selling the previous lines in pdf again...

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm...".