Quote from: Rincewind1;658957Hrm, why? Using surgery mid - combat seemed a bit silly to me . Not to mention my backstory is that my Mage is adventuring to find a cure for his tuberculosis, so I think Heal would be very much IC.

You can use Healing whilst attacking with the feat as it becomes a move action (its a silly, but its in the rules). Plus you reliably restore more HP, without a Mana cost or risk of failing a magic roll.

And you can increase your Healing with further feats in boxes 2 and 3.

I understand what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that this:

Quote from: Bill;658944I want a reasonably free choice of many...

...tends to preclude this:

Quote from: Bill;658944...reasonably balanced feats.

They aren't unrelated. One is the effect of the other.

Quote from: Bill;6589443X dnd does not offer that.

That's because the balanced part is virtually impossible, regardless of approach, with the number of choices D&D 3.x offers across multiple books. You know how you exactly balance lots and lots of options? Make 'em all variations on the same thing (although this is still no guarantee). That's what 4E attempted, and blandness in character powers is one of the chief complaints against it.

Quote from: Skywalker;658964You can use Healing whilst attacking with the feat as it becomes a move action (its a silly, but its in the rules). Plus you reliably restore more HP, without a Mana cost or risk of failing a magic roll.

And you can increase your Healing with further feats in boxes 2 and 3.

I'll ask the GM if he perhaps will wish to houserule this, as it sounds a bit silly. If not, well, I'll think on the matter - on one hand, it's more IC for me to take the healing, on the other...I've so far decided for Drain Life and Rock Skin for my other two spells. Going for a cross between a necromancer, Indiana Jones and Doc Holiday.

A bit silly?

Quote from: Bobloblah;659038I understand what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that this:

...tends to preclude this:

They aren't unrelated. One is the effect of the other.

That's because the balanced part is virtually impossible, regardless of approach, with the number of choices D&D 3.x offers across multiple books. You know how you exactly balance lots and lots of options? Make 'em all variations on the same thing (although this is still no guarantee). That's what 4E attempted, and blandness in character powers is one of the chief complaints against it.

I was talking about feats, not class powers.

Quote from: Skywalker;659090A bit silly?

I don't have the rulebook handy, but it sounds like they screwed up first aid very badly. Easy to fix though.

Quote from: Bill;659105I was talking about feats, not class powers.

Bill, I generally like your posting here, but you're being a little thick. I KNOW you're talking about Feats. Feats are a bunch of abilities a character can choose from that allow a character to do additional interesting things. Know what Powers are? Powers are a bunch of abilities a character can choose from that allow a character to do additional interesting things. The actual differences between the two are mostly immaterial for this conversation (unless you can think of something pertinent?). The reason I brought them up is because they are a bunch of abilities a character can choose from that allow a character to do additional interesting things, and WotC tried really hard to balance them by making most of them simple mechanical variations around a few axiis.

The result? Bland. That's not because WotC is comprised of idiots. That's because the approach they used, which was one of the most surefire methods of achieving balance, leads to the result they got. And if you fail at achieving the desired balance? You get the result Exploderwizard warned about: 500 different abilities, and everyone picks the same 12.

The basic lesson to learn from all this is rather simple. Create an interesting game featuring characters that are defined by what they do in the game world instead of characters that are overly defined by what they can achieve mechanically.

Dragon Age did a great job of this. There are options for making a variety of characters without the entire game becoming about how much shit you can stick to your character.

Quote from: Skywalker;659090A bit silly?

Well, I reserve bloody stupid for special occasions, such as Warhammer 3e .

Quote from: Exploderwizard;659131The basic lesson to learn from all this is rather simple. Create an interesting game featuring characters that are defined by what they do in the game world instead of characters that are overly defined by what they can achieve mechanically.

Dragon Age did a great job of this. There are options for making a variety of characters without the entire game becoming about how much shit you can stick to your character.

I shall report after - action . We'll be playing some of the modules, I suspect - heard it's gonna be the introductionary adventure.

Sounds like I might be able to enjoy this game. I'll have to take a closer look sometime.