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May 21, 2012 -- 7:33AM, The_Jester wrote:

This new version of "Hit Dice" is just randomized Healing Surges. You have a limited number of Healing Surges Hit Dice per day and you can spend them to regain hitpoints. But if you rest overnight regain all your Healing Surges Hit Dice.

I have a feeling, hit dice still mean hit dice.  You get a new hit die with a new level.  That hit die increaes your hit points.  It is also used to describe monster hit dice.  And you can spend those hit dice to replenish hp during short rests

So unlike saving throws, which chose to use the term to mean something completely different from prior editions, "hit dice" will still mean what traditional hit dice did, and they serve as a self-healing mechanic.

May 21, 2012 -- 7:33AM, The_Jester wrote:

The 1st-level fighter with 10 hitpoints fights a giant spider and is reduced to -1 hitpoint at the end of the fight but his allies stabilize him and he rests, rolling a Hit Dice/Healing Surge.

This contradicts what the article says:

"If the spider drops the fighter, it lands a deadly attack.... At this point, there's a chance that the fighter will have a lasting scar, and he or she needs magic to get back into the fight in the short term"

So, it sounds like healing back from unconsciousness needs magic, or a long rest.  I think this does address the problems many had with healing surges. 

May 21, 2012 -- 7:33AM, The_Jester wrote:

In past editions, spell effects only targeted creatures with a certain number of Hit Dice. You needed X number of HD to resist a sleep spell or avoid the full effects of colour spray. Returning to tie them to HD might be fun, making them still effective at high levels but only against injured creatures. 

Agreed, and this may have been what Rob Schwalb was implying when he talked of hp threshholds for save-or-suck effects.  So, if traditional sleep only effected 4 HD of creatures, Next Sleep might effect 20 hp of creatures (which is about the average for 4 HD).  Cloudkill traditionally killed all creatures under 5th level?  Next Cloudkill kills anybody under 25 hp. 

Also interesting would be if the rules allowed PCs (or anybody with self-healing) to immediately use a HD of healing to boost their hp above a threshhold.

So let's say your fighter is knocked down to 20 hp and the NPC wizard casts cloudkill on you.  It hits your defense -- or you fail a save -- and would normally die at this point.  But wait!  You instead spend a HD of self-healing, roll a 6 on your d10.  Instead of regaining hp, you are instead treated momentarily as if you had 26 hp, and the spell does not kill you.

May 21, 2012 -- 8:01AM, frothsof wrote:

May 21, 2012 -- 7:55AM, SleepsInTraffic wrote:

I'm not losing.  In fact to me this system seems like pure win.  It allows so much flexability that everyone can make it into the system they want.

quite the contrary, you simply lose all credibility. you moan about 4e 24/7 and then call its mechanics "pure win" the second they call it something else. so yes, you have lost, maybe more than anybody

Actually I only moan about certain parts of 4e and even then not much, mainly because I like the system.  I represent the rules people failed to read or properly comprehend, but for the most part I think 4e is a fairly solid system.  I in fact have a few games of 4e going.  There are some massive improvements to the system in 4e, take a look at charging and grapple in older editions, 4e made vast improvements to some things.  However there are some flaws.  For the most part I am just taking the concerns of my 1st-3rd ed playing friends, that refuse 4e in it's entirety, and because of 4e (they directly note it as their reason) new editions almost entirely, and voicing them.  I take their concerns and voice them because if they think this way others must as well.  Often I find support for what I am saying, and so I say it.