Fridgemagnet

Although for some monsters, eating your party for lunch would be just wonderful But seriously, I'm at least with you in that I don't think combat snacking should be implemented. Outside of combat, I'm really not sure what the best thing to do is. Maybe the occasional magic sandwich that is actually just a fancy potion (masquerading as food), but it still looks like long-duration buff territory. Whether or not that is bad is not a discussion I want to get too involved in.

From what we've seen of pre-production, I actually don't think HP potions are a good idea. Health seems to be something fairly difficult to recover without resting, I would prefer to have just stamina potions and buffs. Drugs/Alcohol could add something to the game, as they did in the Fallout series, but I don't see them as a necessity. Permanent potions are a nice idea, but I prefer other methods of getting a permanent stat increase thematically. As for explosive/poison potions, they could be fun for a rogue type character, but I just wouldn't end up using them.

I prefer not to have static damage, it makes the game feel too predetermined, and just seems unrealistic to me. 1d8, 2d8 etc. Works better mechanically as rolls are weighted towards the centre (as others have said earlier) and that just feels like the most accurate system for dice rolls to me. However, it is unclear to people not experienced with cRPGs, and representing something like 1-7 as 2d4-1 can be a bit clunky. For clarity, I like x-y damage over xdy (Or, more accurately, xd(y/x) damage), but I think it should be representing a system which weights rolls towards the middle, mechanically. Alternatively, a system which ties your roll to hit directly to how much damage you deal could also be interesting. It's been done before in a lot of d10 based systems (White Wolf comes to mind), but that might just be over-complicating things.