# April 3rd, Rule of 3



## gyor (Apr 3, 2012)

Well the rule of three is finally up and its interesting. 

 It appears 4e will have a major influence on 5e along with other editions. Nonmagical and self healing is still in, perhaps confirming the the three types of rest refered to in the 5e info sheet.

Also of important we may see more stuff of a 4e flavour once they're done focusing on the core mechanics, 4 basic classes and 4 basic races.

 This makes me think that the Open Playtest will be just cleric, fighter, wizard, and Rogue with Halfing, Elf, Dwarf, and human at first. After the common classes and races get tested for like


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## Radiating Gnome (Apr 3, 2012)

Here's the link

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rule-of-Three: 04/03/2012)


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## TwinBahamut (Apr 3, 2012)

They continue to realize my worst fears...

A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts. The "we'll just write the variant rules later" approach is not the way to build a modular game. If you want modularity and flexibility, the only way is to build in all the major modules and the needs of those modules into the game from the very beginning.

Also, saying "we're borrowing somethings you like from 4E!" to answer the first question isn't going to be very persuasive when they are outright rejecting (or even completely misunderstanding!) the core tenets of 4E's design with the second question (and elsewhere).

I really hope I'm wrong about all of this, but it is becomingly ever more visible that I'm right the more I read.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 3, 2012)

Healing surge mechanics are in?  Awesome.

I guess I'm out.  That's not the game I want to play, personally.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 3, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts. The "we'll just write the variant rules later" approach is not the way to build a modular game. If you want modularity and flexibility, the only way is to build in all the major modules and the needs of those modules into the game from the very beginning.




That's true of a design made to be kept secret, put into print, and then add supplement for there.  You get locked in to the design, inevitably.

It's not necessarily true of an open playtest document.  You have to start somewhere--and those races and classes in a simple game is as good a place as any, and better than most.  They key being, of course, that the modules need to be developed concurrent with the playtest, while that core can change.


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## Viking Bastard (Apr 3, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Also, saying "we're borrowing somethings you like from 4E!" to answer the first question isn't going to be very persuasive when they are outright rejecting (or even completely misunderstanding!) the core tenets of 4E's design with the second question (and elsewhere).




Oh? What are the core tenets of 4e that they are rejecting/misunderstanding in the second question?


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 3, 2012)

I'm a little nervous about how they're going to do "non-magical healing," since the HP Problem was a big component of why some folks rejected 4e. But they should be aware of that, so we'll see how it goes. 



			
				TwinBahamut said:
			
		

> They continue to realize my worst fears...




Such strum und drang! Such woeful melodrama! 



			
				TwinBahamut said:
			
		

> A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts.




Ah, yes, because OD&D had such difficulty putting in more races and concepts...that's why you don't see much variety in anything based on OD&D!

...wait...

Besides, I think in that context, he's just talking about what they're preparing for the playtest. It makes sense that they'd start with the big iconic character types, and work from there. 



			
				TwinBahamut said:
			
		

> Also, saying "we're borrowing somethings you like from 4E!" to answer the first question isn't going to be very persuasive when they are outright rejecting (or even completely misunderstanding!) the core tenets of 4E's design with the second question (and elsewhere).




He's given quite a list of 4e-style things they're planning on keeping. In fact...



			
				Rodney Thompson said:
			
		

> Here in Rule-of-Three alone, I’ve made mention of themes, martial maneuvers/powers, class parity, monster design, and making it easy for the DM to run the game and to improvise.




And that's just what he's mentioned!

He's also not throwing out the core tenets of 4e's design with that second question. In fact...



			
				Rodney Thompson said:
			
		

> Want to run a game where players are always healed up to full hit points between fights? No problem; we’ve got rules for that.




Which is exactly the encounter-focused game that 4e provides. 

However, to make everyone play that game would be a mistake. 4e's encounter focus is not what everyone wants out of the game. It's not tenable. So 5e needs to have the adventure as the main focus. They're leaving in the option to turn it back to an encounter focus, which is impressive, but that can't be what the game has everyone do.

It sounds to me exactly like he's saying, "We're putting 4e in context with the rest of D&D, and keeping what makes the game better in that context, with the option of turning off that context, if you're a 4e diehard."

I understand 4e diehards might not like that, but right now, there's a lot more people playing D&D who don't play 4e than there are 4e players. So they need to put in that context, if they hope to gather anyone who doesn't like 4e, but likes D&D.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 3, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> Healing surge mechanics are in?  Awesome.
> 
> I guess I'm out.  That's not the game I want to play, personally.




They don't actually say that.  They said they're considering forms of non-magical and self-healing.

Me personally I'm pretty unhappy with the idea of the "core four" design.  I'm not saying it's not D&D, I'm just saying it's a _very_ boring version of D&D.  I realize that these four classes emphasize some of the basic elements of D&D, defense, damage, casting, healing, but it just strikes me as rather mundane.  I realize they said they'll get to the others later, but that sort of design philosophy I've seen in action before, it doesn't produce good results.  My sentiments are the same for the racial "core four", I've no interest in reenacting LOTR, I want a diverse and multifaceted world able to be represented with the "basics", and like with classes, leaving "other races" for later tends to inspire the "they don't matter as much" philosophy, which as I said, is not a good way to produce quality content.


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## Steely_Dan (Apr 3, 2012)

I am very pleased they are going with the 4 base/core of race and class (I'm a big fan of Basic D&D/Moldvay), I would even like the 4 base races to be classes as an option.

I really hope we don't have Martial Powers (or "Powers', period), but would like martial classes to be able to do all sorts of funky stuff (stunts, tricks etc).


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## Knight Templar (Apr 3, 2012)

I'm fine with non-magical healing, in fact I've been using it in my campaigns since the 90s.  At least as far back as 1E the rules have been very specific that only a small part of damage is actual physical wounds.  Much of it is luck, stamina, and skill.  I see no reason hps should heal slowly without magical aid, unless it's specifically a wound (i.e. critical hit in my games.)

The part that DOES worry me is the mention of at-will magic.  The ability to blast off a magic missile every round is very video-gamey, I'm not interested in that.


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## Dragonblade (Apr 3, 2012)

Knight Templar said:


> The part that DOES worry me is the mention of at-will magic.  The ability to blast off a magic missile every round is very video-gamey, I'm not interested in that.




Honestly, the whole daily spell slot resource management mini-game has always felt more video-gamey to me. Its never made sense to me that a mage runs out of magic. I've hated it since 1e. It also causes lots of balance issues. Either you guessed correctly which spells to memorize and the rest of the party is useless. Or you guessed poorly and your caster PC is useless.

I think limited resource magic is ok for big boom spells and world/narrative affecting stuff, but casters should always have some basic magical stuff they can do, including some attacks. Casters should never have to pull out a crossbow.


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## Ahnehnois (Apr 3, 2012)

A lot of dubious assertions in this one. Nothing damning, but I am likewise concerned about nonmagical healing, class balance, and a number of other principles mentioned that have the potential to derail a game.


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## sheadunne (Apr 3, 2012)

This is the first article that has shied me away from 5e, even if only a little. As someone who loves the healer the idea of non-magical healing being standard is a little deflating. It's early yet, so maybe they'll figure out a way to make it work, in a way that doesn't make the cleric just another fighter. It was bad enough with cure wands (3x) and every other class getting as much healing (3x/4x), I don't want that trend carried over into 5e. Bring back the cleric as the primary healer with very very minor healing coming from elsewhere (maybe a con save during a short rest for 1d4 hp or something). I want to love the cleric again.

My pathfinder friends lean toward the 1 on the 1-10 scale for the amount of 4e they want in 5e. I'm on 3 or 4 list myself and it was nice to see a few of those items were in the article. I really hope they can make rituals work.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 3, 2012)

You say video game. I say Harry Potter. Swish and flick, with no spell slots.

Or it's like Avatar: The Last Airbender, where you know a few magic tricks and can do them constantly.

Or it's like Magic: the Gathering. You might not be able to do the same thing over and over (since you can only have 4 of a given card per deck), but you're casting spells every turn.


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## Knight Templar (Apr 3, 2012)

Dragonblade said:


> Honestly, the whole daily spell slot resource management mini-game has always felt more video-gamey to me. Its never made sense to me that a mage runs out of magic. I've hated it since 1e. It also causes lots of balance issues. Either you guessed correctly which spells to memorize and the rest of the party is useless. Or you guessed poorly and your caster PC is useless.
> 
> I think limited resource magic is ok for big boom spells and world/narrative affecting stuff, but casters should always have some basic magical stuff they can do, including some attacks. Casters should never have to pull out a crossbow.




You do have a point there, I've always preferred the spell-point rules.  I actually very rarely use memorization as presented in the Core Rules because it logically doesn't make sense, but I usually have a variant that does the same thing.  In my current campaign one of the ways a wizard can cast a spell (along with alchemy, diabolism, item creation, or anything else a creative player can come up with) is through Astral Runes.

An astral rune is tied to a specific alignment of stars and is good for a specific 24 hour period.  Preparing an astral rune takes 10 minutes per spell level (as per memorization time in 2e) and takes the same amount of time to cast as the spell created.  Thus, mechanically it is identical to standard spell-casting but thematically makes much more sense to me.

Vancian magic gives me something that, as a DM, I feel like I can work with.  Pew-pew magic missile every round magic is something I'd just have to throw in the trash, and players get upset when they can't have something that's in the PHB.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 3, 2012)

shidaku said:
			
		

> I realize they said they'll get to the others later, but that sort of design philosophy I've seen in action before, it doesn't produce good results.




It's kind of a fair cop, right? 3e focused on the "core four," so we had a lot of classes that were "Like X, but sucks more." 

But when you follow the logic, you see there's a few ways they can solve the problem.

So, why could no other class challenge the "core four" in 3e? Party balance -- nothing could, forex, heal remarkably better than the cleric, since the cleric was the "default healer."

4e's solution was roles -- now you can have many "default healers" -- clerics or runepriests or warlords or whatever.

What if 5e's solution is to house the roles in each character? So you don't need a "default healer class" -- ANYONE can be the default healer. Say, use the Heal skill to recover HP. So what if everyone fills all the default roles all on their own? You don't "need a Defender" or "need a Fighter," since your any character can distract opponents and boost their own AC for a turn if they want to. You don't "need a Striker," since every character gets a boost of damage. 

You get class flexibility, you don't have any class design limitations (every character is functional out the gate), you retain teamwork elements (you can heal and defend and strike, but only one at a time, and if you're defending maybe someone else should heal you, and the other two should kill stuff), and you retain the "don't need a cleric" aspect of 4e (and to a certain extent earlier editions). 

So in this way, starting with the core four isn't limiting. It's just a starting point. Get these working right, because they're the most important, and then get the other things to work right.  You avoid the earlier pitfalls that occurred when starting with the core four. 

This also meshes with what Rodney is saying about non-magical healing: everyone will be able to serve as a basic healer. Magical healing might be a bigger spike, but you never NEED someone to play a healer, since even a party consisting entirely of fighters and rogues can function just fine with the Heal skill (or somesuch).


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## Knight Templar (Apr 3, 2012)

They should go back to subclasses.  A ranger is a sub-class of fighter, they can do some things a fighter can't do but they also have some weaknesses a core fighter doesn't.  I liked how in 2e every single class other than fighter, cleric, thief, and magic user was optional.  I think that's the route they're going, 2e with no optional rules was actually an extremely simple game (far simpler than 1e, even simpler than the Rules Cyclopedia version of basic).  However, there were a myriad of optional rules with which a DM could build his house rules and the game could be as complex as the group wanted it to be.

2E Rules!


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## KidSnide (Apr 3, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> They continue to realize my worst fears...
> 
> A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts. The "we'll just write the variant rules later" approach is not the way to build a modular game. If you want modularity and flexibility, the only way is to build in all the major modules and the needs of those modules into the game from the very beginning.




I don't think that's right.  If you want modular add-ons to work right, you need to know what those add-ons could be and how they are supposed to fit in, but you can still experiment with a core without building out an iteration of every module for each iteration of the core.

The real problem is that it takes a lot of time to write a "whole game" and WotC doesn't have the resources to do that dozens of times.  Instead, WotC says that it will concentrate on a core game and let folks playtest that before expanding to every other race and class.  That seems like a great idea to me.  This way, WotC has a chance to receive feedback on the core rules before they have invested so much in them.  I think this greatly increases the chances that they will change the game based on playtester feedback.

Would I prefer playtesting a complete game?  Sure.  I just fear that, once a complete game has been written, there will be too much commitment to too the core assumptions of the game.  I'd like a chance to playtest those core assumptions.

-KS


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## BryonD (Apr 3, 2012)

The text in the OP sounds like really bad news.

The text in the actual article is so vague as to say almost nothing.


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## Dausuul (Apr 3, 2012)

I really, really hope that Rodney is using "healing" loosely here. I like the ability to recover some resources after an encounter--I just dislike 4E's implementation. If the only choice is "Do it 4E-style, with no long-term injury and the word 'healing' plastered all over abilities that are clearly not healing," or "Do it 3E-style, with no resource recovery between fights unless you have a healbot along," I will be an unhappy camper. Can we please, please, please have some other option, like a wound/vit system?



Kamikaze Midget said:


> So, why could no other class challenge the "core four" in 3e? Party balance -- nothing could, forex, heal remarkably better than the cleric, since the cleric was the "default healer."




Your premise is faulty. None of the "core four" in 3E was beyond challenging. The barbarian runs neck and neck with the fighter; the bard edges out the rogue; and none of them can lay a finger on the full casters. The druid is generally accepted as being on par with the cleric. Most folks view the wizard as being stronger than the sorceror, but it's by no means an "out of sight" comparison, especially at lower levels where Quicken Spell doesn't enter the equation.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 3, 2012)

> Your premise is faulty.




That's not my premise, that's me explaining why the idea that worrying first about the "core four" classes isn't really a problem. Folks said it was. The only time I could think of that it was was in 3e, where we had classes like the Swashbuckler ("Like the Fighter, but sucks more"). 

Is there another point at which people think designing the "core four" classes first hurt the game? Certainly pre-3e didn't have that problem (quite the reverse actually, new classes tended to be MORE powerful than before). If 3e didn't have that problem, either, then I guess, well, we've never had that problem? So then the fear is also unfounded in that way?


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## BobTheNob (Apr 3, 2012)

Oh Doom, Oh Gloom! He said the exact things I would expect someone in his position to say.

Well thats it, Im out....

No wait. Im an adult and fully understand that everything he said is reflective of an early stage development where ideas are still on the board. Im not out, its even ridiculous to speculate at this stage. Sheesh, divining that the game is going to suck based on early stage vague references? Really?


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## gyor (Apr 3, 2012)

Actually I prefered 3.x Sorceror with a good prestige class over a wizard, I just liked the flexible casting mechanic better.

As for outside the four cores of class and race, they seem to have a basic idea of how they want to approach each class, its just not nearly fleshed out yet, unlike the core four. The core four allows them to test out the core mechanics and most of thier basic systems like,spellcasting. Once the core system is figured out and tested fleshing out the rest of the classes and races will be easier.


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## KesselZero (Apr 3, 2012)

Still pretty darn excited about the whole adventure-focus-not-encounter-focus thing. He hit the right notes (for me) with the bit about making exploration more meaningful.


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## Dausuul (Apr 3, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> That's not my premise, that's me explaining why the idea that worrying first about the "core four" classes isn't really a problem. Folks said it was. The only time I could think of that it was was in 3e, where we had classes like the Swashbuckler ("Like the Fighter, but sucks more").




Ah, okay. Although that's happened in other editions, too. Think of the specialty priests from 2E's "Complete Priest's Handbook," widely held to be utter weaksauce.

But I agree that it's fine to start with the "basic four" and build on that. We know they're going to have somewhere between 14 and 22 classes in the core PHB, depending on how liberally they interpret "every class that's been in a PHB1," and I'm sure those will get their share of playtesting. But you have to start somewhere.


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## gyor (Apr 3, 2012)

22?

1 Barbarian
2 Bard
3 Cleric
4 fighter
5 wizard
6 Priest
7 Paladin
8 Assassin
9 Rogue
10 Psion
11 Ranger
12 Druid
13 Illusionist
14 Sorceror
15 Monk
16 Warlock
17 Warlord

What classes am I missing to get to 22?


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## Dausuul (Apr 3, 2012)

gyor said:


> 22?
> 
> 1 Barbarian
> 2 Bard
> ...




As I said, it depends on how liberally you interpret "every class":

18 Necromancer
19 Diviner
20 Conjurer
21 Enchanter
22 Invoker
23 Abjurer
24 Transmuter

(I forgot the priest from my own count. What PHB1 did psion appear in?)


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 3, 2012)

I am sure, a psion is not in any PHB1, but there are 7 more wizard variants.


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## Knight Templar (Apr 3, 2012)

Still one short, the psion was never in a true PHB.


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## Steely_Dan (Apr 3, 2012)

gyor said:


> 22?
> 
> 1 Barbarian
> 2 Bard
> ...




Technically Psion has never been a class in a PHB 1.


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## Steely_Dan (Apr 3, 2012)

Dausuul said:


> I forgot the priest from my own count.




Ah, yes, and they mentioned a possible separate Priest class (more castery cleric), did they not?


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## ArmoredSaint (Apr 3, 2012)

My reaction is completely the opposite of that of Mr. TwinBahamut.  I absolutely _love_ what I'm hearing here.

I _love_ that they're focusing on the *core* classes and races of the game.  I love that they're racheting up the lethality of the game.  I love everything I've heard about 5E so far.  It's like they know exactly what I want.  I have genuine hope that they'll finally recapture that old classic atmosphere of the original game that I feel has been somewhat lacking in recent editions.

My excitement for this upcoming edition continues to grow.  I'm elated at this point.

Good stuff!  More, please!


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## mach1.9pants (Apr 3, 2012)

"In the next iteration of the game, though, we’re looking at shifting the focus more to the adventure, as opposed to individual encounters, and that will likely mean that we want to increase the sense of danger, which I think improves the experience during the exploration portions of the game."
This really makes me happy.


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## Essenti (Apr 3, 2012)

MINI-RANT

Mainly posting this because so many people who post on here seem to have a their own definition of what a _modular design_ actually entails:

Modular design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Those of us who regularly use modular design patterns understand the importance of a tight and simple CORE. You design the CORE around the most basic components that are required to achieve the job at the most minimal level while paying very close attention to the interfaces that allow extensible modules to be integrated on top of the CORE. The CORE should function the  same regardless of the modules added on, they are the baseline mechanic that all modules will use at some level. Any add on module can be swapped out for a different module as a drop in replacement and meeting, form fit and function requirements, and should not break the CORE. You modify what the CORE can achieve by adding on modules, but the you don't actually change the CORE.

This CORE that WoTC is talking about is not the _core books_ --it is the basic framework that the core books will use. So many people seem to be assuming that the features they are saying they will support are all going in the CORE. This is most likely NOT the case, and I can understand your fear if that optional stuff was in the CORE, but it is not a robust modular design if all that junk was stuffed into the CORE. The CORE should be as simple as possible, with an elegant and robust interface for adding modules. That is all.

Using the 4/4 in the CORE seems like a solid baseline to me. Saying that 4/4 is all that is going to be in the _core books_, no, no that is just a plain terrible idea. The CORE will be present in the books, but so will various add on modules to extend the game in a great number of directions to support a particular style of play, including other classes ...oh my!

Things like healing surges or whatever non-magical healing they are talking about should not be in the CORE, although I do believe those modules should be in the core rule books. Understand that the CORE and the core rule books are not synonymous. That seems to be the big disconnect here. The CORE will be contained in those books, but those books should contain all the necessary add on modules to extend the type of play to something that feels like  BECMI, 3.5e, 4e, Pathfinder-esque, or some type of hybrid.

/MINI-RANT

Okay... mini-rant complete.  Thank you for your time!


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## FireLance (Apr 3, 2012)

Self-healing and non-magical healing are in? Awesome. 

It's going to be fun to see who will be all dog in a manger about this piece of news.


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## mach1.9pants (Apr 3, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Self-healing and non-magical healing are in? Awesome.
> 
> It's going to be fun to see who will be all dog in a manger about this piece of news.



Well the weird thing is it was always going to be in. Pretty much EVERYTHING is going to be in if they are really trying to 'unite the editions'


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 3, 2012)

Also Assassins!



			
				Dasuul said:
			
		

> But I agree that it's fine to start with the "basic four" and build on that. We know they're going to have somewhere between 14 and 22 classes in the core PHB, depending on how liberally they interpret "every class that's been in a PHB1," and I'm sure those will get their share of playtesting. But you have to start somewhere.




Can't XP ya, but I'm in perfect agreement. I don't think starting with the core four is quite the disaster some other posters seem to think it might be. 



			
				FireLance said:
			
		

> It's going to be fun to see who will be all dog in a manger about this piece of news.




Depends on how they work it. For me, surges aren't great because they weaken they split HP into two halves that only ever partially meet. It's the whole "I'm down to 2 hp, I'm almost dead!....but only in combat. Once we're out of combat, I'm down 4 surges, which sucks, but I've got at least 2 more where that came from. Guess my mortal wound was really more of a bad sprain?"

That disjunction musses too much with my suspension of disbelief for me to think of it as Fun Times.

OTOH, though, you can just translate surges into raw HP pretty easily, and then you get that slow decrease of health gameplay aspect right back.


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## FireLance (Apr 3, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Depends on how they work it. For me, surges aren't great because they weaken they split HP into two halves that only ever partially meet. It's the whole "I'm down to 2 hp, I'm almost dead!....but only in combat. Once we're out of combat, I'm down 4 surges, which sucks, but I've got at least 2 more where that came from. Guess my mortal wound was really more of a bad sprain?"
> 
> That disjunction musses too much with my suspension of disbelief for me to think of it as Fun Times.
> 
> OTOH, though, you can just translate surges into raw HP pretty easily, and then you get that slow decrease of health gameplay aspect right back.



I'm pretty sure that they won't be in the core, although they might be in the core _books_ as an optional module. However, I'm fairly sure that even the suggestion that non-magical healing and self-healing will exist as an option in 5e, and could be used by DMs and players who want them, will be enough to send some posters into frothing heights of rage. Now, all I need is some popcorn.

EDIT: Just to add, I see "I'm down to 2 hp, I'm almost dead!" as "I'm really tired, I won't be able to dodge the next solid hit, and it will kill me" and "I'm down 4 surges, which sucks, but I've got at least 2 more where that came from" as "I'm really pushing myself, now. I've got a bit more in me, but not much more". The more usual criticism of non-magical healing is the idea that you could be dying from a presumably serious injury and then be back on your feet again after a short rest, but even that can be narrated as "I nearly died! And even though I've been bandaged up, it still hurts like the baatezu. But I can't stop now. They're all depending on me. I've got got keep going." I know it doesn't work for all people, but it certainly does work for some. (And these will be ones who will use it in 5e, anyway.)


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 3, 2012)

FireLance said:


> I'm pretty sure that they won't be in the core, although they might be in the core _books_ as an optional module. However, I'm fairly sure that even the suggestion that non-magical healing and self-healing will exist as an option in 5e, and could be used by DMs and players who want them, will be enough to send some posters into frothing heights of rage. Now, all I need is some popcorn.




You think that's bad?  Wait until someone realizes that their 5th level "commoner tier" guy won't be able to do some of the things that someone else's 1st level "heroic tier" guy can do in another campaign.  I think that is underlying a certain amount of the pushback we see already.


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## Mattachine (Apr 4, 2012)

Wowzers.
Considering some of the negative commentary by Mearls and Monte about 4e, I am surprised to find that so many things from 4e might be part of 5e.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 4, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> Wowzers.
> Considering some of the negative commentary by Mearls and Monte about 4e, I am surprised to find that so many things from 4e might be part of 5e.




4e was good science.  Trash talking it makes all the old-editioners feel good about their modern edition hate.  It's lip service, they're not going to throw out what they feel is good design just to appease oldschoolers.

This isn't the "make everyone happy" edition, it's the "lets find some common ground" edition.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 4, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Self-healing and non-magical healing are in? Awesome.
> 
> It's going to be fun to see who will be all dog in a manger about this piece of news.




It's alright with me.  If they decide to try to dress up 4e in old school terms, it will likely do as well as 4e.

Just means more money into Paizo's pockets


----------



## Essenti (Apr 4, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> It's alright with me.  If they decide to try to dress up 4e in old school terms, it will likely do as well as 4e.
> 
> Just means more money into Paizo's pockets




Seems you have your perfect edition already, I'm very happy for you.


----------



## Sunseeker (Apr 4, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> It's alright with me.  If they decide to try to dress up 4e in old school terms, it will likely do as well as 4e.
> 
> Just means more money into Paizo's pockets




If your idea of compromise and uniting the editions is to throw out everything and everyone in the edition you don't like, why are you here?


----------



## kevtar (Apr 4, 2012)

I like healing surges and the way HP are considered in 4e. I also play 1st Edition and like how HP are considered in that edition as well. How can I reconcile the two? Easy, here's Gary's thoughts on HP (DMG, p.34)

Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and
the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.​
So, the interpretation of HP in 4e is very similar to the interpretation of HP from 1e, and they want to continue this trend into 5e by considering the use of surges, non-magical healing and the like?

Ok.


----------



## kevtar (Apr 4, 2012)

I like healing surges and the way HP are considered in 4e. I also play 1st Edition and like how HP are considered in that edition as well. How can I reconcile the two? Easy, here's Gary's thoughts on HP (DMG, p.34)

Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.​
So, the interpretation of HP in 4e is very similar to the interpretation of HP from 1e, and they want to continue this trend into 5e by considering the use of surges, non-magical healing and the like?

Ok.


----------



## Janaxstrus (Apr 4, 2012)

shidaku said:


> If your idea of compromise and uniting the editions is to throw out everything and everyone in the edition you don't like, why are you here?




Everyone?  I have not suggested anyone should leave or not participate, let alone everyone.

I have problems with non-magical "magic" like healing, I have issues with daily/encounter/etc powers, especially when they are non-magic Magic (including the ones in 3.5), and I don't like some of the 4e terms used, especially those overly game-y.  I dislike the overly tactical nature, at the expense of the feel (for me, ymmv)


If too many of those things are in the base system of 5e, it will not be something that appeals to me or the dozen or so people I game with.  If that's the case, we'll continue to take our dollars elsewhere.  I am about 99% sure I am not alone in disliking many of those changes.  


On the other hand, I don't want THAC0 coming back, Non-Weapon Proficiency, Demihuman level limits, CODZilla, PunPun, 18/00 strengths, 20d6 fireballs, or any of that stuff either.  The difference?  They aren't talking about putting the stuff I don't care for from older editions back into the new system.  And if they start talking any of those, I'll be railing against those as well.

I know WotC people frequent these forums, and it would do everyone a disservice if the only feedback they got was people praising everything.  I don't feel that making it known that some of these things are deal breakers is out of line.  Whether the game succeeds or fails, they should at least hear from people what they do and don't like, so they can't claim ignorance.


----------



## Sunseeker (Apr 4, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> Everyone?  I have not suggested anyone should leave or not participate, let alone everyone.
> 
> I have problems with non-magical "magic" like healing, I have issues with daily/encounter/etc powers, especially when they are non-magic Magic (including the ones in 3.5), and I don't like some of the 4e terms used, especially those overly game-y.  I dislike the overly tactical nature, at the expense of the feel (for me, ymmv)
> 
> ...




When you make statements like "well if this is in, I'm out!" that's not critique.  That's the guy who stands around saying "If you don't give me what I want I won't play your game."  Critique is "hey I don't like this feature, here's why, and here's some constructive criticism on the kind of solution I'd like to see".  

I see a lot of comments like "well if they only get praise how will they know what people don't like!"  ALL over game forums.  Rarely do any of these comments come paired with actual critique, they usually come paired with "do what I want or I'm not buying".  Wizards can't market to that audience, they simply can't, because that market doesn't tell them what you _want_ only what you _dont want._


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

kevtar said:


> So, the interpretation of HP in 4e is very similar to the interpretation of HP from 1e, and they want to continue this trend into 5e by considering the use of surges, non-magical healing and the like?
> 
> Ok.



HP themselves, sure.

But the extension of this to include surges doesn't stand up to inspection.
There was nothing comparable to surges in 1E.

And I still don't see that they are ready to blunder again on that front.

There is plenty of space between 4e style surges and simply having "non-magical self healing".  In 3E a fighter can non-magically self heal.  It just takes roughly a week.  It takes a hell of a lot less time than anything "realistic", but it still takes meaningful time.  And it is "non-magical self-healing".  

The fundamental basis of surges as a means of restoring HP is a departure from all prior editions.  HP themselves being comparable is true and it does nothing to address the issue of surges.


----------



## Janaxstrus (Apr 4, 2012)

shidaku said:


> When you make statements like "well if this is in, I'm out!" that's not critique.  That's the guy who stands around saying "If you don't give me what I want I won't play your game."  Critique is "hey I don't like this feature, here's why, and here's some constructive criticism on the kind of solution I'd like to see".
> 
> I see a lot of comments like "well if they only get praise how will they know what people don't like!"  ALL over game forums.  Rarely do any of these comments come paired with actual critique, they usually come paired with "do what I want or I'm not buying".  Wizards can't market to that audience, they simply can't, because that market doesn't tell them what you _want_ only what you _dont want._




You obviously have skipped over my suggestions in many other thread then. (FYI, my "healing is in, I'm out" was in direct reference to the post about giving up on 5e already, aka hyperbole)

Either way, I don't feel the need to justify my participation anymore.  If you find my posts out of line, please report me and move on.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

shidaku said:


> That's the guy who stands around saying "If you don't give me what I want I won't play your game."



I COMPLETELY agree with you that it is critical to provide good justifications and explanations of positions in a manner that can be understood and responded to.

HOWEVER

to be clear it is also true that

Not only "If you don't give me what I want I won't play your game." 

But

If you don't give me something SUPERIOR to what I already have elsewhere I won't play your game.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I COMPLETELY agree with you that it is critical to provide good justifications and explanations of positions in a manner that can be understood and responded to.
> 
> HOWEVER
> 
> ...




Basically.  Critique doesn't work as an ultimatum.  Even if whoever you're critiquing takes your idea and plays with it, there's no guarantee you'll get _exactly_ what you want.  Compromise is the name of the game.



Janaxstrus said:


> You obviously have skipped over my suggestions  in many other thread then. (FYI, my "healing is in, I'm out" was in  direct reference to the post about giving up on 5e already, aka  hyperbole)
> 
> Either way, I don't feel the need to justify my participation anymore.   If you find my posts out of line, please report me and move on.



I'm not going to report you for having an opinion, you're not edition warring and you're not being a jerk, I just think you could give better critique.

Honestly there are SO many threads on here about healing and whatnot, you'll have to direct-link me.  

Also: It's hard to tell something is a reference when you don't mention it's a reference.  Saying "I would prefer this solution I developed over here {link}." is a much better statement than "More money in Paizo's pockets!", how is that a reference to anything other than "Paizo is great!"?


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## Argyle King (Apr 4, 2012)

At first glance I like this:

_" In the next iteration of the game, though, we’re looking at shifting  the focus more to the adventure, as opposed to individual encounters,  and that will likely mean that we want to increase the sense of danger,  which I think improves the experience during the exploration portions of  the game."_

However, when I think about it more, I find myself curious if the Facebook game was a test of some of the 5E ideas.


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Basically.  Critique doesn't work as an ultimatum.  Even if whoever you're critiquing takes your idea and plays with it, there's no guarantee you'll get _exactly_ what you want.  Compromise is the name of the game.



I made no claim to the contrary.

I simply pointed out that critique and ultimatums can be compatible.  
This is particularly true when the ultimatum isn't anything more than simply stated the reality of the situation.


WotC may be required to dance on the head of a needle.  
But *MY* obligation for compromise is ZERO.

WotC wants more fans than they have now.
In order to get that they MUST offer something BETTER than what their missing fan base currently has.  
Yes, they certainly need to keep 4E fans as well.
But if they want to grow then they need to make us want them.
We will play the best game there is.  
Compromise means willingly choosing less than the best.
That is off the table.


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## n00bdragon (Apr 4, 2012)

There's nothing substantive in this Rule of Three. I'm getting kind of tired of the evasive "Oh, we're cooking up something really cool and you'll totally like it but we can't give you any specifics because it's SO EARLY IN THE PROCESS".

No WotC, it is not early in the "process". There is no process going on here whatsoever. Spill some beans and let people honestly criticize what you've done and then fix it. Otherwise it's just going to end up as "Oh, we're cooking up something that's really not as bad as you're making it out to be but we can't fix it now because it's SO LATE IN THE PROCESS."

I've seen it happen to better companies.


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

n00bdragon said:


> There's nothing substantive in this Rule of Three.



THIS is the real truth.

They didn't actually say ANYTHING.


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## FireLance (Apr 4, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> It's alright with me.  If they decide to try to dress up 4e in old school terms, it will likely do as well as 4e.
> 
> Just means more money into Paizo's pockets



There is a difference between "You _can_ play 5e like 4e" and "You _must_ play 5e like 4e". Rejecting 5e on the basis of the latter makes sense to me; rejecting 5e on the basis of the former mystifies me.


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## FireLance (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> THIS is the real truth.
> 
> They didn't actually say ANYTHING.



It said enough to make _me_ happy, and that's _something_.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Apr 4, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> They continue to realize my worst fears...
> 
> A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts.




Are you suggesting they start by designing, say, simulteneously 14 classes and 8 races? 

Trying to do everything at once would seem to me to be a terrible way to go about designing _anything_.


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## Verys Arkon (Apr 4, 2012)

I'll be very interested to see how they balance an "adventure" based game vs an encounter based game. 

The problem with adventure based games in earlier additions were things like:
- only the last combat feels challenging because only then are you low on resources. The rest are trivial. 
- if you do find yourself low on resources, cast rope trick, and blow through the last encounter too
- hoarding rare resources so they never get used, OR
- blowing rare resources in a single encounter, making it a cake-walk. The 5-minute work day.

Encounter-based structure in 4e has some problems too though, particularly healing. However, if the alternative is just to crack out the wand of cure light wounds, where HP=GP, I'd rather skip the wand route. 

I think if WotC had done a better job connecting healing surges with HP, there wouldn't be quite so much angst. If you converted all your surges to their HP equivalent, and then said "an adventurer can only take x damage in a short amount of time before they are too fatigued to avoid serious harm", would that have been better received?

I don't want to have a game where the only healing option is for someone to have to play a cleric. It is restrictive, and I think we've seen that there are several archetypes that involve healing heroes. 

Verys Arkon


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## drothgery (Apr 4, 2012)

Dausuul said:


> Your premise is faulty. None of the "core four" in 3E was beyond challenging. The barbarian runs neck and neck with the fighter; the bard edges out the rogue; and none of them can lay a finger on the full casters. The druid is generally accepted as being on par with the cleric.



The druid is on par with the cleric as a general combatant, or possibly even better; the cleric is a much better healer. The statement in the Rule of Three article that a pre-4e bard or druid was a capable substitute healer was absurd; they were not even close in healing ability in any edition of D&D except 4e (if you consider 4e shamans and Essentials Sentinel Druids as the heirs to pre-4e druids).


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## kevtar (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> HP themselves, sure.
> 
> But the extension of this to include surges doesn't stand up to inspection.
> There was nothing comparable to surges in 1E.
> ...




I disagree with you on your first point. I believe it does stand up to inspection, even though such a thing didn't exist in 1e - but we can disagree and that's cool.

My point in referencing HPs in 1e is that many people seem suspicious of the concept of HP in 4e when it has always been representative of more than damage. However, when healing surges are added to the mix, then some people outright rejected the 4e concept. This wasn't a problem for me, and I guess it comes down to personal interpretation and taste. I don't really see healing surges as a departure from prior editions as much as an enlargement upon the concept. If HP is representative of more than physical damage, then healing surges can be a representation of revivification of more than physical damage.

That said, I'm not 100% stuck on surges. If 5e provides a meaningful way for non-magical healing to occur (hopefully better than the mechanics in previous editions, like your reference to 3.0), then great!. My stance is simply, if the concept of HP is large enough to include physical damage, skill, luck, etc... then "healing" should be large enough to accommodate ways to revive the PC without relying on magical means.


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## FireLance (Apr 4, 2012)

Verys Arkon said:


> I think if WotC had done a better job connecting healing surges with HP, there wouldn't be quite so much angst. If you converted all your surges to their HP equivalent, and then said "an adventurer can only take x damage in a short amount of time before they are too fatigued to avoid serious harm", would that have been better received?



You know, I once considered whether there might be some value in equating 4e's hit points to 3e's massive damage rule. Then, I figured it wouldn't be worth the effort because it wouldn't make a difference.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 4, 2012)

Verys Arkon said:
			
		

> I think if WotC had done a better job connecting healing surges with HP, there wouldn't be quite so much angst. If you converted all your surges to their HP equivalent, and then said "an adventurer can only take x damage in a short amount of time before they are too fatigued to avoid serious harm", would that have been better received?




For me, that last bit -- "before they are too fatigued to avoid serious harm" -- hits my suspension of disbelief upside the face. 

It's unnecessary. Y'know, if the party wants to keep trying to fight a battle after taking a tremendous amount of damage, that's up to them. They've got HP enough to last through 2-3 battles in 4e with this method.

Though leaders in this method do better with powerful daily mechanics rather than middling 2/encounter mechanics, I like it better with that swing in place. 

One thing I do like is the idea of a "surge value" for HP instead of rolling for it, meaning that bigger buffer fighters don't need more spells than wizards to get up to full.


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## Leatherhead (Apr 4, 2012)

I have no idea where you all got "Surges are in" from that article. 

They simply state "non-magical healing" It could be as simple as importing the second wind mechanic from SWSE (the one that didn't require surges). 

All you would need is :
Extended rest regain x hp
short rest: regain y hp
second wind: regain z hp.
Random ability: also regain z hp.

That fills all the requirements they are going for.

Personally, I hate surges because they became a "mana pool" for everyone.


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## MichaelSomething (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> The text in the OP sounds like really bad news.
> 
> The text in the actual article is so vague as to say almost nothing.




Isn't that how all these articles turn out?


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## Lanefan (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> HP themselves, sure.
> 
> But the extension of this to include surges doesn't stand up to inspection.
> There was nothing comparable to surges in 1E.
> ...



When they refer to "non-magical self-healing" they could even be talking about something as simple as a minor means of healing we dreamed up and have been using for many years: if you take damage in a given combat/encounter/situation you can spend a few minutes as soon as the encounter ends to take a breather, have a quick drink, tend to the minor nicks and bruises, and generally patch yourself up a bit - this gets you 1d3 h.p. back (but if you only took 1 point damage that's the most you can get back).  If you're hurt enough to be into body points (about the same as wound points elsewhere) this resting doesn't work for you as you need something more persuasive - either time, or curative magic.

Lanefan


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## YRUSirius (Apr 4, 2012)

Short rest: Heal your hit dice (1W10 for Fighters, 1W4 for Wizards, etc...) x your level.

Limit short rests to 4 times per 24 hours to be effective (fifth short rest won't heal hp anymore).

Deal done.

-YRUSirius


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 4, 2012)

surges are needed. At least the percentage of max hp part. Cure spells were a real game breaker for me at the end of 3rd edition. We actually changed the spell (before 4e was even announced) to restore x class hit dice + y amount of damage healed, as the barbarian was not healed well enough, while a wizard is healed to easily by a certain cure spell. It was illogical that cure light wounds restored the same number of hp for both, although 50 damage might be a light wound for the barbarian, but a rather serious wound for the wizard.

On the other topic: I seriously hope, the 4e style hp remain largely the same, but there should be a treshold when a serious wound is inflicted, that only time or a magical healing spell will cure.


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## Falling Icicle (Apr 4, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> surges are needed. At least the percentage of max hp part.




I wouldn't mind having healing effects heal you for a percentage of your hit points (plus maybe a bonus). That was never the reason I disliked "healing surges".


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## Teataine (Apr 4, 2012)

Here's the thing about HP: for me the suspension of disbelief in relation to HP gets punched in the face the moment the party's fighter can take more physical trauma than an elephant after gaining a few levels.

There is no way hit points can be justified as simply "harm" or "wounds" beyond first level.

In a martial art where you fight with weapons, one hit almost always means "game over". Up to there it's all about stamina, jockeying for position, having the upper ground, pressing an attack vs. falling back, reaction time, reflexes, being able to parry etc. etc. That's the only thing that HP can sensibly represent in my eyes. So I never had a problem with healing surges (and Warlords "shouting your wounds closed") conceptually, even if I don't play 4E. Their mechanical implementation is a different matter, but everyone who dismisses healing surges on the grounds of being "unrealistic" is imo missing how HP work in all editions so far. Gygax himself wrote in the 1st Ed DMG that HP were more than physical health, as quoted way above in this thread.

As for the classes, they clearly said they want to launch the game with "everything that has been in every first PHB ever" so all the stuff from Dragonborn to Assassins to whatever is probably in. "Core" in this context means the basic mechanical framework, not what will be in the game at release.

I think reactions like TwinBahamut's are really insubstantial fears, coupled with a _very_ uncharitable reading of WotC's intentions and articles. 

Anyway, the first playtest will probably be out after PAX, so let's just wait a little longer, yeah?


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## Gundark (Apr 4, 2012)

Wow, at first its " wotc is throwing 4e under the bus!" . Now its "wotc is including 4e stuff , I am out!" 

They can't win.


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## Dausuul (Apr 4, 2012)

My requirements for hit points are:

1. "Hit" means "hit" rather than "miss," "heal" means "heal" rather than "catch your breath," and "damage" means "damage" rather than "tired." Abstraction is one thing, but I'm not on board with any system that requires rewriting the dictionary. If you want hit point recovery that isn't healing, stop using "heal" as a synonym for "regain hit points." A hit that deals damage can be a glancing blow, shallow cut, etc., but anything that's called a "hit" should physically connect and anything that's called "damage" should be some kind of injury, even if only superficial.

2. Long-term damage is possible, and happens from time to time. Furthermore, a mortal wound can be identified as such in the moment; a character who is on the ground dying (negative hit points, making death saves) is _really_ on the ground dying, not in a Schrodinger's Cat state where they are both mortally wounded and merely knocked out until something happens to force them into one state or the other (the warlord yells at them, they die, etc.).

3. It is never a good strategy to wait until somebody's hit points go negative before dropping a healing spell on that person. I see this All. The. Time. in 4E, and it's a major nuisance.

4. Something else that came up in a discussion with a friend this past weekend: PCs should not transition abruptly from "totally fine" to "desperate and staggering." This is something that's happened in all editions, but is especially glaring in 4E: As long as the party's healing surges hold out, they're okay to keep going. The only resources that get expended are daily powers, which make up a relatively small amount of the party's total power. But as soon as the healing surges run low, the party falls off a cliff. I would like a system where that transition is more gradual.


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## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Depends on how they work it. For me, surges aren't great because they weaken they split HP into two halves that only ever partially meet. It's the whole "I'm down to 2 hp, I'm almost dead!....but only in combat. Once we're out of combat, I'm down 4 surges, which sucks, but I've got at least 2 more where that came from. Guess my mortal wound was really more of a bad sprain?"




It was never a "mortal wound".  Because you would _never_ die from _that_ wound, no matter what.  The _next_ wound taken would be a possible mortal wound if it does 2 or more damage.  Also, typically, people take some kind of ill effect from mortal wounds, even before they die or fall unconscious.

2 HP means you are vulnerable to being killed/KO'd by any further damage.  It could just mean that you've lost focus, and your guard is way down.  It doesn't, and has never meant, a "mortal wound".



> That disjunction musses too much with my suspension of disbelief for me to think of it as Fun Times.




It seems like the problem with Healing Surges is only that they're new.  They don't really do anything that HP doesn't already do.  HP is completely nonsensical and very abstract, but it's been around forever, so it's just accepted as a matter of course.



> OTOH, though, you can just translate surges into raw HP pretty easily, and then you get that slow decrease of health gameplay aspect right back.




That eliminates a lot of gameplay and strategic/tactical decisions.  Healing Surges are basically just extra HP, yes, but they take effort to "unlock" in combat, and you still have a max HP, so you can't just spend them all out-of-combat.


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## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

Dausuul said:


> 1. "Hit" means "hit" rather than "miss," "heal" means "heal" rather than "catch your breath," and "damage" means "damage" rather than "tired." Abstraction is one thing, but I'm not on board with any system that requires rewriting the dictionary. If you want hit point recovery that isn't healing, stop using "heal" as a synonym for "regain hit points." A hit that deals damage can be a glancing blow, shallow cut, etc., but anything that's called a "hit" should physically connect and anything that's called "damage" should be some kind of injury, even if only superficial.
> 
> 2. Long-term damage is possible, and happens from time to time.




So to be clear, you want things that have never been a part of any edition of D&D, ever?  That doesn't sound like what 5E is going for.

Gygax himself described HP as largely intangible, with only a few being actual physical damage.

Overall, it seems awfully nit-picky to let a little game jargon get in your way.  Every game "rewrites the dictionary".  That's how jargon works (and every game has jargon).  You take words, and you assign new, specific meanings to them.


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 4, 2012)

dkyle said:


> So to be clear, you want things that have never been a part of any edition of D&D, ever?  That doesn't sound like what 5E is going for.
> 
> Gygax himself described HP as largely intangible, with only a few being actual physical damage.
> 
> Overall, it seems awfully nit-picky to let a little game jargon get in your way.  Every game "rewrites the dictionary".  That's how jargon works (and every game has jargon).  You take words, and you assign new, specific meanings to them.



I agree with you as well as with Dausuul.

Healing should not be called heling if it only restores hp. Cure serious wounds should do more than just replenish some hp. Hitting should mean, that after battle some treatment is needed, even if it is just washing out scratches.

Beeing really hurt means long term damage, that no second wind can restore. Constitution should play the larger part of that in some form. Level based hp should be the more intangible part. Starting class hp could be both.


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## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I agree with you as well as with Dausuul.
> 
> Healing should not be called heling if it only restores hp. Cure serious wounds should do more than just replenish some hp. Hitting should mean, that after battle some treatment is needed, even if it is just washing out scratches.
> 
> Beeing really hurt means long term damage, that no second wind can restore. Constitution should play the larger part of that in some form. Level based hp should be the more intangible part. Starting class hp could be both.




I've suggested before that perhaps we could have a very simple wound system, that works like this:

At half, quarter, and zero HP, a wound is taken.  Each wound is -1 to most rolls.  Wounds are not automatically healed when HP is recovered, and if you've alread taken a wound at a given level, you don't take it again if you go above, and then back down (so only 3 wounds max, ever).  Non-magical HP recovery would exist, but Wound recovery would be only magical, or long-term.

If need be, HP recovery might not be called "healing"; only wound-healing would be "Healing".  But that seems needlessly confusing to me.  "Damage" has always been jargon for "reduce HP".  I'm not sure why "Heal" can't be jargon for "increase HP".


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 4, 2012)

n00bdragon said:


> No WotC, it is not early in the "process". There is no process going on here whatsoever. Spill some beans and let people honestly criticize what you've done and then fix it.




They already have.  Those people are called 'playtesters'.  And they've been doing this 'playtesting' thing for a while now.

Just because you're not currently one of them doesn't mean they don't exist and aren't doing the job.


----------



## UngeheuerLich (Apr 4, 2012)

dkyle said:


> I've suggested before that perhaps we could have a very simple wound system, that works like this:
> 
> At half, quarter, and zero HP, a wound is taken.  Each wound is -1 to most rolls.  Wounds are not automatically healed when HP is recovered, and if you've alread taken a wound at a given level, you don't take it again if you go above, and then back down (so only 3 wounds max, ever).  Non-magical HP recovery would exist, but Wound recovery would be only magical, or long-term.
> 
> If need be, HP recovery might not be called "healing"; only wound-healing would be "Healing".  But that seems needlessly confusing to me.  "Damage" has always been jargon for "reduce HP".  I'm not sure why "Heal" can't be jargon for "increase HP".



No. No -1 at percentage of hp. No death spiral for me. If they would implement this, it was the first thing i ruled out.


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## Jeff Carlsen (Apr 4, 2012)

While this isn't exactly what I'd prefer, it's illustrative of the idea using 4E terms.

You can use a second wind or otherwise recover hit points without magical healing as long as you are not bloodied.

Bloodied characters can only be healed by magic.

Drop below zero, you are wounded, plus any other near death effects. Magical healing can bring you above zero, but only more powerful magic or time can heal your wound.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 4, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No. No -1 at percentage of hp. No death spiral for me. If they would implement this, it was the first thing i ruled out.




Agreed, while I enjoyed Deadlands, wounds worked there because HP worked differently, even targeting worked differently.  D&D can't simply add a wound system, it would need a complete revision to it's health system.  And honestly, I don't think D&D needs to reinvent the wheel at this point.


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## Dausuul (Apr 4, 2012)

dkyle said:


> Gygax himself described HP as largely intangible, with only a few being actual physical damage.




So you are proposing that some of your hit points represent physical state and nothing else, and others of your hit points represent intangibles and nothing else. In other words, a wound/vitality system. I'm perfectly fine with that, it's my preferred system in fact, but on the list of things that have been in D&D, it ain't one.

The way I've seen D&D narrated before 4E, each individual hit point has been a mix--some physical state, some defensive skill, some luck, some divine favor, and so forth. But that means _every hit point incorporates an element of physical state_. If you lose a hit point, you take a wound.

How big a wound is going to vary, since the mix is not the same for everybody. The hit point of a high-level fighter is maybe 90% intangibles and 10% physical, while the hit point of a low-level fighter is 10% intangibles and 90% physical. So when a high-level fighter loses 1 hit point, it's just a scrape, where a low-level fighter losing 1 hit point has taken a minor wound, and an elderly commoner losing 1 hit point is very possibly mortally injured (if that was the only hit point she had). But they've all been wounded.



dkyle said:


> Overall, it seems awfully nit-picky to let a little game jargon get in your way.  Every game "rewrites the dictionary".  That's how jargon works (and every game has jargon).  You take words, and you assign new, specific meanings to them.




There's a difference between using "fire" to describe effects produced by heat (which might not always be a literal open flame), and using it to describe effects produced by sound. The former is a slightly abstracted, stylized version of the English meaning. The latter is rewriting the dictionary.

In 4E, what is described as "healing" is in the majority of cases not healing at all. This, I object to. If it were just a once-in-a-while corner case, that would be one thing, but in 4E it is more common for "healing" to be not-healing than for it to be actual healing:

Clerical powers: Healing.
Healing potion: Healing.
Second wind: Not healing.
Warlord powers: Not healing.
Use of healing surges in a short rest: Not healing.
Recovering all surges/hit points with an extended rest: Not healing.

If it's not healing, then Wizards should change the name to something that fairly approximates what it _is_. If it's "just game jargon," I don't see why anyone objects to this. Those of us who care, will be happy. Those who don't care, aren't affected either way.


----------



## Estlor (Apr 4, 2012)

I don't really understand why there's such a displeasure/disconnect with the Healing Surge as a game mechanism.  Really, it serves to perfectly viable, inherently "D&D" ends.

First, just as hit points are an abstraction of your ability to absorb, dodge, shrug off, or simply withstand physical punishment, a Healing Surge is the abstraction of your ability, be it through adrenaline, inspiration, or just pure force of will to regroup and keep going through punishment.  A distance runner can dig down and push through, but only so many times.  Likewise, an adventurer can grit and bear it, but only so often.

Second, it exists as a form of resource management to challenge players.  Just like spell slots of arrows, the party has only so many Surges in their collective pool to use throughout the day.  It incentivises them to 1) Know when to rest and 2) Make sure the fighter isn't the only one getting pounded on.  And, honestly, anything that promotes the cleric, rogue, or wizard to take a little punishment from time to time is A Good Thing™.

Basically, a fighter with 27 hit points and 5 healing surges is only different than a fighter with 57 hit points and no surge mechanic by the fact that 30 of their 57 hit points need a special action to become available.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 4, 2012)

Estlor said:


> I don't really understand why there's such a displeasure/disconnect with the Healing Surge as a game mechanism. Really, it serves to perfectly viable, inherently "D&D" ends.




Replace "D&D" with "action hero"(preferably with 'last' preceeding it) and its closer to the mark. 

When I think D&D it triggers impressions of smart gameplay leading to success and survival. 

Surges help insure success and survival in cases where players do not wish to burden themselves with the albatross of thought.

Nonmagical healing has always existed, it just takes _time._ Enough time that deciding on combat as a course of action was a meaningful decision. Cheap plentiful healing (magical or otherwise) removes the impact of those decisions.  After all why parley or negotiate when you can steamroll over your foes, stand around for a few minutes and surge right back to full effectiveness? 

If the core mechanics of 5E feature thought as optional I won't be very interested.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Apr 4, 2012)

drothgery said:


> The druid is on par with the cleric as a general combatant, or possibly even better; the cleric is a much better healer. The statement in the Rule of Three article that a pre-4e bard or druid was a capable substitute healer was absurd; they were not even close in healing ability in any edition of D&D except 4e (if you consider 4e shamans and Essentials Sentinel Druids as the heirs to pre-4e druids).




In 3e, anyone able to use a wand of cure light wound was a capable substitute healer.  Even a rogue with a high charisma and a good Use Magic device would do in a pinch!

80% of healing occured between encounter anyway and nothing was more cost efficient than the wand of CLW.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 4, 2012)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> In 3e, anyone able to use a wand of cure light wound was a capable substitute healer.  Even a rogue with a high charisma and a good Use Magic device would do in a pinch!
> 
> 80% of healing occured between encounter anyway and nothing was more cost efficient than the wand of CLW.




Wand of Lesser Vigor is the best, actually.


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## avin (Apr 4, 2012)

> Our priority is the core system, plus our four iconic classes (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard) and four major races (human, elf, dwarf, *halfling*)




That's it! I'm out!!!

In all seriousness... boo, Wotc, boo...


----------



## avin (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Compromise means willingly choosing less than the best.
> That is off the table.




IMO there's no D&D edition that could earn "The Best", including Pathfinder. That's why I'm going to try DDN.


----------



## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

Dausuul said:


> So you are proposing that some of your hit points represent physical state and nothing else, and others of your hit points represent intangibles and nothing else. In other words, a wound/vitality system. I'm perfectly fine with that, it's my preferred system in fact, but on the list of things that have been in D&D, it ain't one.




I'm not proposing anything new there. I'm talking about what Gygax himself said about HP.  There's no "set" number of "physical" hit points.  It's just that they're abstract.  It's fluid which HP represent intangibles, and which represent actual damage.  As they've always been in D&D.



> The way I've seen D&D narrated before 4E, each individual hit point has been a mix--some physical state, some defensive skill, some luck, some divine favor, and so forth. But that means _every hit point incorporates an element of physical state_. If you lose a hit point, you take a wound.




That may be how some prefer to narrate that, but as far as I know, none of that has ever been established by any rules.

To me, it's silly to say that every hit is an insignificant scrape or bruise, then suddenly a hit incapacitates someone.  It's hard to make contact with someone's skin with a weapon, and not do real damage, even if you're _trying_ to avoid hurting them.  Having it happen constantly, by sheer luck or something, when the combatants are trying to kill each other, strikes me as incredibly unrealistic.  Near misses, and non-physically-damaging glances off armor, that require extraordinary effort from the defender, make much more sense to me.

I also find it silly that a character can't get back the 90% of an HP that might represent non-physical damage non-magically simply because 10% of the HP represents a little scrape.  Why is defensive skill, luck, and divine favor inextricably linked to, and limited by, superficial little scrapes and bruises?



> If it's not healing, then Wizards should change the name to something that fairly approximates what it _is_. If it's "just game jargon," I don't see why anyone objects to this. Those of us who care, will be happy. Those who don't care, aren't affected either way.




"Heal" is a simple and evocative term, that has always referred to increasing HP, in some way.  If we have to switch to "recover HP", then we are now using a more cumbersome, less evocative term.  And it has to be applied to _all_ HP recovery, and never using the term "Heal" for HP recovery.  If a Cleric "Heals", while a Warlord "recovers HP", and both are doing the same thing, then you haven't actually gained anything, because "Heal" is still being used to refer to something that does not mean fixing physical damage, since the Warlord can do it too.

The only difference between 4E, and previous editions', use of the term "Heal" was making it consistently a true counter-part to the term "Damage".  Just as "Damage" has always included lose of intangible things keeping us safe, "Heal" now also refers to regaining intangible things keeping us safe.  And by the sounds of it, WotC is wisely keeping that consistency in 5E.


----------



## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No. No -1 at percentage of hp. No death spiral for me. If they would implement this, it was the first thing i ruled out.




Really, a -1 possibly up to -3 is a "death spiral"?  Far more serious status effects get tossed left and right in 3.X and 4E.

I figured it was a little to flavor the Wound as being something physical, and be worth removing, but not enough to be a serious impediment.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 4, 2012)

dkyle said:


> It was never a "mortal wound".  Because you would _never_ die from _that_ wound, no matter what.  The _next_ wound taken would be a possible mortal wound if it does 2 or more damage.  Also, typically, people take some kind of ill effect from mortal wounds, even before they die or fall unconscious.
> 
> 2 HP means you are vulnerable to being killed/KO'd by any further damage.  It could just mean that you've lost focus, and your guard is way down.  It doesn't, and has never meant, a "mortal wound".




You can justify it and excuse it all you want, it still doesn't make it a fun gameplay element for me. The idea of being almost dead one minute and then not actually almost dead in another 10 minutes is Not Fun Times For Me.



			
				dkyle said:
			
		

> It seems like the problem with Healing Surges is only that they're new.  They don't really do anything that HP doesn't already do.  HP is completely nonsensical and very abstract, but it's been around forever, so it's just accepted as a matter of course.




Riiiiight, because I'm deliberately lying about my preferences due to my remarkable and heart-seizing fear of change, not telling the truth about what I like because it's actually what I like. My well known and paralyzing fear of change stops me from changing jobs, changing cities, changing my mind, changing babies, changing my underpants, and making change for people at cash registers. Also, entropy terrifies me and the idea of personal growth drives me insane. Yep, fear of change. Not my actual preferences. Guess you called it.

Let's not try to perform Internet Psychic Psychology here, dude.

They don't do anything HP don't already do? Okay then, _we don't need them_. HP does the job nicely. 



			
				dkyle said:
			
		

> That eliminates a lot of gameplay and strategic/tactical decisions.  Healing Surges are basically just extra HP, yes, but they take effort to "unlock" in combat, and you still have a max HP, so you can't just spend them all out-of-combat.




Those decisions are entirely worthless to my gameplay preferences. I don't want people to have to "unlock" all their resources. I want them to be able to spend all their resources that they have, if that's what they want. I like the feel of a slowly eroding pool of abilities more than the feel of having locked-away secret stashes of life and health that I can't call on unless some jerk in chainamil wants to scream at me (but only twice per every 5 minutes!).

No thanks. 

Again, I do like the concept of a "surge value," and it deserves to stay. And "healing surges" can be implemented in other ways to maintain the feel that I like. So I'm not saying "OMG SURGES NO I AM OUT ICK ALL OF MY WORST FEARS CONFIRMED!" I am saying, "Hmm...a little suspicious of this, but let's see how it plays out."


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## MoxieFu (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> HP themselves, sure.
> 
> But the extension of this to include surges doesn't stand up to inspection.
> There was nothing comparable to surges in 1E.
> ...




"You must spread experience points around bleblah, bluhblah, blobity blah, yadda, yadda, yadda..."


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## Sunseeker (Apr 4, 2012)

dkyle said:


> Really, a -1 possibly up to -3 is a "death spiral"?  Far more serious status effects get tossed left and right in 3.X and 4E.
> 
> I figured it was a little to flavor the Wound as being something physical, and be worth removing, but not enough to be a serious impediment.




Lets spell it out _one more time_.

Hitting less often or not as hard means enemies survive longer, which means enemies hit _more_, which means you take more damage/wounds, which means you hit less/not as hard, making enemies survive longer which means enemies hit more.  See the cycle?

Play Deadlands, it's not that hard to see.  Look at Star Wars Saga and see how easily wound systems are abused, there is literally a build to yell at your enemies until they die, simply; because your yelling inflicts a wound.  This is invariably what wound systems lead to, bypassing HP completly and inflicting wounds.  

Deadlands had a Fate Point system to help mitigate this, you could move hits and their associated damage to less damaged body parts to avoid getting more wounds.  You had 6 different body parts, to you could have 6 wounds(one in each) and still only take a -1 penalty.  But the key was the mitigating system of Fate Points which could be used to avoid a wound entirely.

Without such a system, players will rapidly take wounds, which leads to taking wounds faster, which leads to taking more wounds faster, which leads to death.  Hence, death spiral.  Implement a mitigating system?  Maybe not a death spiral, maybe.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 4, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> If the core mechanics of 5E feature thought as optional I won't be very interested.




Wait, if you treasure thought so much, how much thought do you need to implement options? 

-YRUSirius


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 4, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> Wait, if you treasure thought so much, how much thought do you need to implement options?
> 
> -YRUSirius




I would welcome anything they would like as an added option including KAPOW!-ZOWIE!!  rules with everyone getting fast regenerating stun points.

OTOH if that is the default core assumption I won't be interested.


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## Steely_Dan (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> THIS is the real truth.
> 
> They didn't actually say ANYTHING.






Exactly, it's like Nicholas Cage's reply in _Raising Arizona_ to Cousin Glenn when asked "...how'd you get that damn baby so fast?"

"...well what it comes down to...is who knows who...and over here you have favouritism..."


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## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> You can justify it and excuse it all you want, it still doesn't make it a fun gameplay element for me. The idea of being almost dead one minute and then not actually almost dead in another 10 minutes is Not Fun Times For Me.




Then why do you choose to interpret the rules in a way that isn't fun for you?  "Almost dead" or "mortally wounded" at 2 HP is not in the rules.  You are vulnerable to being killed by subsequent damage, but have not yet taken a mortal wound, or any significantly debilitating injury.  That's very different than in the real world, where if someone is "almost dead" it generally means they've taken a serious injury, are debilitated, and are likely to die if left untreated.  All the rules say is that you go down at 0 HP.  What happens before that time is up to the DM and players.  If you decide on describing events that aren't "fun" for you, then how is that a problem with the rules?  All the rules did was give you the freedom to describe the events how you wanted.

If you want a rules system that mechanically produces situations where a character is "mortally wounded" but not unconscious yet, that's perfectly understandable (and even something I might want), but let's be clear that _no_ edition of DnD has actually provided that.



> Riiiiight, because I'm deliberately lying about my preferences due to my remarkable and heart-seizing fear of change, not telling the truth about what I like because it's actually what I like.




You are seriously misreading me if that's your take-away.  I in no way accused you of lying about your preferences.

All I'm saying is that healing surges and HP are similar abstractions, and similarly disjuncted from reality.  I'm arguing in good faith here, and trying to understand what the difference is besides surges being new, and not something that's been in D&D from the start.



> Let's not try to perform Internet Psychic Psychology here, dude.




Noone's psychoanalyzing you.



> They don't do anything HP don't already do? Okay then, _we don't need them_. HP does the job nicely.




They don't really do anything new in terms of new levels of abstraction.  They obviously do new things in terms of game mechanics.  I thought this was clear by context.



> Those decisions are entirely worthless to my gameplay preferences.




Fair enough.  Just wanted to be clear that gobs of HP, instead of healing surges, is not an acceptable equivalent alternative to me, and why.


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## Caster (Apr 4, 2012)

I just woke up so be kind and this is totally off the top of my caffeine deprived head but what if there was a XP price to be paid for non-magical healing and more widely a way to spend XP's in-game and not simply hoard like like Dragons until you accumulate enough to level-up.

Thoughts?

Dave


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## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Hitting less often or not as hard means enemies survive longer, which means enemies hit _more_, which means you take more damage/wounds, which means you hit less/not as hard, making enemies survive longer which means enemies hit more.  See the cycle?




I fully understand what a death spiral is.  And have played systems with very strong death spirals.

But you seem to think that a -1 penalty Wound system in DnD would transform DnD from a no-death-spiral system into a death spiral system.

A Wound system isn't the only possible source of death spiral.  Any edition of DnD with combatant death or removal from combat is an edition of DnD with a death spiral.  Any edition of DnD with any status effects is an edition of DnD with a death spiral.  3.X and 4E in particular have tons of status effects, often more significant than a small penalty to attack.  My point is that in the context of those sorts of systems, my described Wounds fit right in.

I also disagree with your implication that "death spiral" is inherently a bad thing.  Too much, sure.  But it also means actual consequences, and changing circumstances in battle, which are, I think, good things.



> This is invariably what wound systems lead to, bypassing HP completly and inflicting wounds.




My intent with the system that I described is that it would be impossible to do this.  Wounds happen at specific HP thresholds, period.  They also aren't directly related to KOing or killing someone.  HP does that.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 4, 2012)

dkyle said:
			
		

> Then why do you choose to interpret the rules in a way that isn't fun for you?




Because "2 hp" already has an established meaning in my mind, and I don't see any virtue in changing it for this purpose. I can easily play a game that works very well in which "2 hp" means what I think it means. There's no need to change that interpretation, and no benefit to me for doing so.



			
				dkyle said:
			
		

> All I'm saying is that healing surges and HP are similar abstractions, and similarly disjuncted from reality.




That's part of why I think they should basically be one thing, instead of two different things. 



			
				dkyle said:
			
		

> Just wanted to be clear that gobs of HP, instead of healing surges, is not an acceptable equivalent alternative to me, and why.




I'm unclear as to why, for you. What gameplay elements do you want to preserve?

If it's the "unlockable" nature of surges, doesn't limited healing serve the same purpose? "Okay, I have X hp, but my party has a total of 4 healing powers that each heal me for (X * .25) HP, so some of my HP are functionally in other folks' healing powers."


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 4, 2012)

Whatever else are their virtues and flaws, the 4E healing surge and 4E healing surge value are effectively two separate mechanics that work in tandem in 4E.  There is no inherent reason, however, that you couldn't use either one independently.  In particular, the surge value is merely a relatively clean mechanic for handling proportional healing.


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## dkyle (Apr 4, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Because "2 hp" already has an established meaning in my mind, and I don't see any virtue in changing it for this purpose. I can easily play a game that works very well in which "2 hp" means what I think it means. There's no need to change that interpretation, and no benefit to me for doing so.




Well, I can't argue over it working for you, but I still don't see how "2 hp" could logically mean, in any edition of DnD, what it means to you.  Given how HP works, interpreting any value other than zero as "mortally wounded" seems strange to me.

It also strikes me as strange to ascribe a certain meaning to a number, and then seek out games that justify that meaning.  Does this mean you wouldn't want to play a game where having starting 2 HP is possible?



> I'm unclear as to why, for you. What gameplay elements do you want to preserve?
> 
> If it's the "unlockable" nature of surges, doesn't limited healing serve the same purpose? "Okay, I have X hp, but my party has a total of 4 healing powers that each heal me for (X * .25) HP, so some of my HP are functionally in other folks' healing powers."




Healing surges are a limitation of the target, not the healer.  It's a way for the Defender to have gobs of HP (over the course of the day), but still have "oh no" moments throughout.  Meanwhile the Strikers and Controllers can afford a few "oh no"s, but if the party is lax in their tactics throughout the day, they're liable to run out prematurely.

In the particular example you gave that I initially responded to (just giving those surges worth of healing as a bunch more HP instead), you lose the need for healers to enable surge use, and the tactical decisions they produce in combat.  You also lose the "is it worth spending a surge to top off" strategic decisions after combat.

I understand that you don't like those elements, for you own reasons, but I like those sorts of tactical and strategic decisions.


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

avin said:


> IMO there's no D&D edition that could earn "The Best", including Pathfinder. That's why I'm going to try DDN.



There are two different reasonable interpretations of "the best".
I think the most fitting one for this conversation is "attracts the largest number of fans willing spend money."


But "best *for me as an individual*" is also ok.  But in that case I didn't say I won't "try" DDN.  But if it doesn't turn out to be better in the end, I'll play what is.  I suspect you and I may be together on that, even if what we choose as best for us is not the same game.


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

kevtar said:


> I disagree with you on your first point. I believe it does stand up to inspection, even though such a thing didn't exist in 1e - but we can disagree and that's cool.



It is certainly cool if we disagree.  But you just AGREED.  "such a thing didn't exist in 1E".  



> My point in referencing HPs in 1e is that many people seem suspicious of the concept of HP in 4e when it has always been representative of more than damage. ....



This has been covered more than enough times in the past.
Not only is the point that HP represent more than physical damage accepted, it is greatly embraced by throngs of people who still loathe surges.

Go find a surge thread if you want to see that conversation.


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

FireLance said:


> It said enough to make _me_ happy, and that's _something_.



I suspect what you inferred did more to make you happy than anything they clearly stated.  Maybe I'm wrong.....


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## pauljathome (Apr 4, 2012)

avin said:


> IMO there's no D&D edition that could earn "The Best", including Pathfinder. That's why I'm going to try DDN.




I think that you're in a very small minority with that opinion.

Almost all D&D players that I know of have a strong preference for one particular system. Ie, they have a system that is the "best" by a substantial margin.

They all disagree about WHICH system is the best, of course .

But that is fundamentally the big challenge for 5thEd. It has to be the best for most D&D players. Most pathfinder players have to prefer it, most 4th edition players have to prefer it, most newcomers have to prefer it, etc.

I have no intention of compromising. If DndNext isn't better than Pathfinder in MY opinion then I won't switch so long as I have a choice.


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## Estlor (Apr 4, 2012)

Going back a couple pages for a moment:



ExploderWizard said:


> Surges help insure success and survival in cases where players do not wish to burden themselves with the albatross of thought.




I read this as Healing Surge = Way to keep people who don't want to think about tactics alive.  I disagree.

Healing Surges are a resource just like anything else in the game (powers in 4e, spells in earlier editions, potions, scrolls, etc).  They are a measure of your durability, yes, but if the player of the "Big Dumb Fighter" stands there and tries to soak all the attacks by themselves, the party will very quickly have to look for a safe place to camp or retreat back to town because one PC has run out of surges while the other 4 are still at full.

Healing surges, when properly managed by a complimentary party, are a method of extending the adventuring day.  Plus it shifts the limits of the party healer's ability to keep everyone upright away from how many spells they want to devote to _Cure [Insert Severity Here] Wounds_ to the individual begging for the healing.

It may not be the best answer, but it's an attempt to shift healing out of the hands of the Cleric (or the Bard with a backpack full of wands) and into the hands of many other classes.  Speaking in 4e terms, I've long been in favor of decoupling Utility powers from class so if the party fighter wants to pick up a few healing abilities currently relegated to the warlord, they can do it and play at the healer to a varying degree of success.

If Bob the Warpriest can off-tank, why shouldn't Sir Pointyend the Knight be able to off-heal?

It'll be interesting to see where DDN ends up, knowing it at least started from a "rest budget" to determine what kind of non-Clerical healing was available to a party.


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## BryonD (Apr 4, 2012)

Estlor said:


> I read this as Healing Surge = Way to keep people who don't want to think about tactics alive.  I disagree.
> 
> Healing Surges are a resource just like anything else in the game (powers in 4e, spells in earlier editions, potions, scrolls, etc).



I agree with this.  
Surges are actually pretty cool for a pure tactics game.


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## drothgery (Apr 4, 2012)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> In 3e, anyone able to use a wand of cure light wound was a capable substitute healer.  Even a rogue with a high charisma and a good Use Magic device would do in a pinch!
> 
> 80% of healing occured between encounter anyway and nothing was more cost efficient than the wand of CLW.



Wands of CLW were useless for conditions and ability damage (and non-clerics had very limited access to condition removal spells).


----------



## ExploderWizard (Apr 4, 2012)

Estlor said:


> Going back a couple pages for a moment:
> 
> 
> 
> I read this as Healing Surge = Way to keep people who don't want to think about tactics alive. I disagree.




You read wrong. Healing surges are very tactics oriented. 

Healing surges are a way for people who don't want to think about _strategy _alive, as in operational parameters. Its not so much, '_how_ do we fight this encounter?' as ' _do_ we fight this encounter?'


----------



## kevtar (Apr 4, 2012)

BryonD said:


> It is certainly cool if we disagree.  But you just AGREED.  "such a thing didn't exist in 1E".
> 
> This has been covered more than enough times in the past.
> Not only is the point that HP represent more than physical damage accepted, it is greatly embraced by throngs of people who still loathe surges.
> ...




I agreed with your premise, that surges did not exist in 1e, but not with your claim that surges do not hold up to inspection - that is subjective. I also added that while I'm not opposed to surges, I'm not "married" to them either. I believe non-magical healing has a place in the game, just in more meaningful ways than how they were handled in previous editions.

Short story: In my opinion, the core of the game should assume a type of non-magical healing, and that there should be options for that mechanic that fit into particular styles of play (either surges, short rests, extended rests or otherwise).


----------



## BryonD (Apr 5, 2012)

kevtar said:


> I agreed with your premise, that surges did not exist in 1e, but not with your claim that surges do not hold up to inspection - that is subjective.



Well, "subjective" can get to the point that you can't have a meaningful conversation.
I think if you took a poll of 1,000 reasonable people, the idea that the pure underlying concept of surges is completely new to D&D as of 4E would win overwhelmingly.  I think it is ultimately an objective observation that surges are conceptually new.

And, as much as I personally dislike them, I'd be clear that this specific point does NOTHING to cast dispersion on them.  Being like or not like prior D&D tropes is not a part of the issue of quality.




> I also added that while I'm not opposed to surges, I'm not "married" to them either. I believe non-magical healing has a place in the game, just in more meaningful ways than how they were handled in previous editions.
> 
> Short story: In my opinion, the core of the game should assume a type of non-magical healing, and that there should be options for that mechanic that fit into particular styles of play (either surges, short rests, extended rests or otherwise).



The gulf between 4e-style surges and extended rests is rather vast.

But I think a very important point is that WotC NEEDS to win back a great number of fans.  A fully modular game that offers everything to everyone sounds awesome.  It also sounds quite a bit like a pipe dream.

If we instead talk about the irrelevant comparison of your opinion against mine, then I just have a vastly different taste.  But even on that point I think that the sweet spot of RPGs, the thing they do that nothing else does nearly as well, is the embracing of the narrative heart of roleplaying ("being in the story") and surges are ultimately antithetical to that end.  They support tactical gaming. But there are other media (board games, mini war games, MMOs, etc) that offer competitive or even superior service to that experience.  And I understand that there is a niche of tactical play lovers who still want that pure RPG experience.   But there are not enough of those people.  The heart of an RPG that is the market leading standard bearer of RPGs MUST be aligned with the heart of the things that makes RPGs unique amongst hobbies.  If WotC can make an awesome game for me and also have surges be a plug in for you AND ALSO have the entire game work so that building around the option of that plug in NEVER has any draw against the game experience I have, then awesome.  I don't know how easy it will be for them to build a game better than what I already have with no burden whatsoever.  If they have to start building around options I'm going to actively avoid, the really terribly hard goes up an order of magnitude.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

I never really understood how Wands of CLW made it into the game...

What about freaking healing potions? Most iconic non-spell healing ever.

-YRUSirius


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## Incenjucar (Apr 5, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> I never really understood how Wands of CLW made it into the game...
> 
> What about freaking healing potions? Most iconic non-spell healing ever.
> 
> -YRUSirius




It gets a bit awkward when you have to use the restroom after every encounter because you're chugging potions like Gatorade at the super bowl.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

You mean you don't use those stone portal faces like those in Japan?

-YRUSirius


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## Sunseeker (Apr 5, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> It gets a bit awkward when you have to use the restroom after every encounter because you're chugging potions like Gatorade at the super bowl.




It'd be even more awkward if you lost the HP when you took a leak!


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## Incenjucar (Apr 5, 2012)

shidaku said:


> It'd be even more awkward if you lost the HP when you took a leak!




Which really begs the question: Are HP water soluble or fat soluble?


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## Sunseeker (Apr 5, 2012)

Incenjucar said:


> Which really begs the question: Are HP water soluble or fat soluble?




I'm betting on fat soluble.  Those really skinny rogues and wizards always seem to be lacking it, while Dwarves and Hobbits have it in abundance.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 5, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> You mean you don't use those stone portal faces like those in Japan?




That works fine until you stumble on a cursed one.


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## Andor (Apr 5, 2012)

pauljathome said:


> I think that you're in a very small minority with that opinion.
> 
> Almost all D&D players that I know of have a strong preference for one particular system. Ie, they have a system that is the "best" by a substantial margin.
> 
> ...




The best version of D&D is the one you are playing. If 5e isn't the best song the world has ever heard, but it gets the band back together after they broke over healing surge related artistic differences, then it is the best after all.

6 friends rolling dice and cracking wise around a table is better than two sets of 3 at differetn tables, even if half if them miss Prestige Classes and the other half misses Paragon Paths. 

5e doesn't have to be better than sliced bread, free gold and tiefling hookers all at once. It just has to be fun and not push Nerdrage buttons. 

I personally see nothing to whinge about in this article.


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## Lanefan (Apr 5, 2012)

Dausuul said:


> 2. ... Furthermore, a mortal wound can be identified as such in the moment; a character who is on the ground dying (negative hit points, making death saves) is _really_ on the ground dying, not in a Schrodinger's Cat state where they are both mortally wounded and merely knocked out until something happens to force them into one state or the other (the warlord yells at them, they die, etc.).



That'd be Schrodinger's Wounded Cat, eventually to become Schrodinger's Dying Cat if no help arrives; soon leading to Schrodinger's Dead Cat which is really kinda useless. 



> 3. It is never a good strategy to wait until somebody's hit points go negative before dropping a healing spell on that person. I see this All. The. Time. in 4E, and it's a major nuisance.



Simple way to houserule a fix here: someone who goes below 0 h.p. cannot be cured above 10% of their total until some time (an hour or two) has passed, except by heavy-duty cures e.g. Heal.

Lanefan


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## Lanefan (Apr 5, 2012)

Caster said:


> I just woke up so be kind and this is totally off the top of my caffeine deprived head but what if there was a XP price to be paid for non-magical healing and more widely a way to spend XP's in-game and not simply hoard like like Dragons until you accumulate enough to level-up.
> 
> Thoughts?



Interesting idea but I suspect it'd go over like a lead balloon given the number of people* who didn't like paying XP for spellcasting and-or item creation in 3e - which is somewhat more significant.

* - including me

Also, how do you possibly narrate the idea of losing experience to gain health?

Lan-"I feel better, but I don't remember why"-efan


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## BryonD (Apr 5, 2012)

Andor said:


> 6 friends rolling dice and cracking wise around a table is better than two sets of 3 at differetn tables, even if half if them miss Prestige Classes and the other half misses Paragon Paths.



No offense.  But I hate that argument.  I find it COMPLETELY misses anything remotely relevant to the conversation.

I play with good friends.  I will continue to play with good friends.  We have a great time.

Playing a great game with great friends is better than playing an ok game with great friends.  And even if the difference is just going from 98 to 99 on a scale of 100, we are not talking about my friends here and nothing WotC designs is going to change the friends variable.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

Caster said:


> I just woke up so be kind and this is totally off the top of my caffeine deprived head but what if there was a XP price to be paid for non-magical healing and more widely a way to spend XP's in-game and not simply hoard like like Dragons until you accumulate enough to level-up.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Dave




Why not just gold? -> Healing potions.

I'm hesitant to say this, but... almost every video roleplaying game has tons of healing potions for "non magical" healing. One might even say they took the idea from... D&D? Isn't that something more iconic to D&D than some complex kind of wound/vitality? 

-YRUSirius


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## Mattachine (Apr 5, 2012)

Lots of us don't want to play a video-game style game. Third edition, did this, by the way. I wasn't a fan.


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## avin (Apr 5, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> Lots of us don't want to play a video-game style game. Third edition, did this, by the way. I wasn't a fan.




One could argue AD&D2E is the best "video-game style" D&D, because of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. NWN and TOEE were successful games, but not as aclaimed as the former. Both 2E and 3E had smooth videogamey implementations.

4E, which people accuse of being a MMO or videogamey, is the last successful D&D edition for videogames. It would be horrible to adapt 4E to an MMO, it just won't work... like it or hate it, 4E is a tactical game, far more closer to FF Tactics or any real turn based game than Wow.


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## Andor (Apr 5, 2012)

avin said:


> 4E, which people accuse of being a MMO or videogamey, is the last successful D&D edition for videogames. It would be horrible to adapt 4E to an MMO, it just won't work... like it or hate it, 4E is a tactical game, far more closer to FF Tactics or any real turn based game than Wow.




I believe the point under discussion was that in most crpgs healing potions/plants/foods are plentiful and available at most merchants. Hence between combat healing is plentiful.

On a side note FFT is my favorite videogame, so I'm not sure I grasp your argument. When I first read 4e I thought "Wow. This system would be great for modeling Agrias."


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## avin (Apr 5, 2012)

Andor said:


> I believe the point under discussion was that in most crpgs healing potions/plants/foods are plentiful and available at most merchants. Hence between combat healing is plentiful.




My bad, I miss the first part of discussion. But still, I was just pointing out that (_in some weird way_) AD&D2E was the most videogamey D&D edition 



Andor said:


> On a side note FFT is my favorite videogame, so I'm not sure I grasp your argument. When I first read 4e I thought "Wow. This system would be great for modeling Agrias."




FFT is nice, FF6 is my favorite, tho


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## pemerton (Apr 5, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> For me, that last bit -- "before they are too fatigued to avoid serious harm" -- hits my suspension of disbelief upside the face.



But it's the key to the pacing function of 4e's surges.

(And I personally don't feel the suspension of disbelief issue - if I'm playing a game of heroic figures who can push on through near-impossible odds, and who always have luck on their side, I can handle the fact that some of their pushing on requires a quick rest.)



Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's unnecessary. Y'know, if the party wants to keep trying to fight a battle after taking a tremendous amount of damage, that's up to them. They've got HP enough to last through 2-3 battles in 4e with this method.



Whereas this approach would completely lose the pacing/gameplay aspect of surges - which is that combat tactics include "unlocking" them as an important element, and this creates a dynamic of dependence among the PCs, which in turn creates an experience of team play at the table - which is a significant part of how 4e produces the experience of D&D party play.



Kamikaze Midget said:


> What gameplay elements do you want to preserve?
> 
> If it's the "unlockable" nature of surges, doesn't limited healing serve the same purpose? "Okay, I have X hp, but my party has a total of 4 healing powers that each heal me for (X * .25) HP, so some of my HP are functionally in other folks' healing powers."



Not at all.

In 4e, nearly every combat requires clever, team-dependent play to unlock surges so as to allow the PCs to triumph. In a game in which PCs just have big gobs of hp, the need to unlock surges in combat won't occur until the Nth combat (if we look at 3E and 4e, N is probably equal to something like 4 or 5). Until the Nth combat, the PCs won't be close to running out of hit points, and any healing will take place outside of combat (in order to top up the gradually depleting fuel tank) - which is not dramatic at all, and doesn't produce the party play dynamic that 4e's incombat healing does.

(Or are you suggesting that PCs keep their current hp levels, and 2x/enc healing becomes something like 8x/day healing? Which still doesn't preserve the 4e game play, because it waters down the tactical resource management issue on the healer side, and it also removes the balancing-surge-use-across-all-the-PCs dimension of 4e play.)



Dausuul said:


> "Hit" means "hit" rather than "miss," "heal" means "heal" rather than "catch your breath," and "damage" means "damage" rather than "tired." Abstraction is one thing, but I'm not on board with any system that requires rewriting the dictionary. If you want hit point recovery that isn't healing, stop using "heal" as a synonym for "regain hit points." A hit that deals damage can be a glancing blow, shallow cut, etc., but anything that's called a "hit" should physically connect and anything that's called "damage" should be some kind of injury, even if only superficial.



On this approach, though, how would you model a character _not_ undergoing any physical recovery, but nevertheless - by being comforted, or encouraged, or bullied, or just powerfully self-willed - pushing on and overcoming the shock/pain/physical hindrance?

In 4e this, just as much as physical healing, is modelled by hp recovery. It's an elegant feature, in my view, and it makes room for a smooth handling of effects like shock and fear causing psychic damage without needing to create any sort of separate "morale pool" that then interacts with the "wound" pool.


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## Balesir (Apr 5, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Because "2 hp" already has an established meaning in my mind, and I don't see any virtue in changing it for this purpose. I can easily play a game that works very well in which "2 hp" means what I think it means. There's no need to change that interpretation, and no benefit to me for doing so.



2 hp is "nearly dead"?? I don't see how this can stand up; a magic user starts with 2 hp total - is he slowed down by the heart-lung machine he has to adventure with?? The only hp values with any real meaning in D&D are zero (which has always been there - you are dead, incapacitated or dying) and half-hp (bloodied; came in with 4E but I hear hardly a whisper against it).



ExploderWizard said:


> Healing surges are a way for people who don't want to think about _strategy _alive, as in operational parameters. Its not so much, '_how_ do we fight this encounter?' as ' _do_ we fight this encounter?'



I think you have misidentified your target; this effect does exist in 4E (as well as all previous editions, for a specific approach to play), but it has nothing to do with healing surges.

It has to do with Extended Rests - or, more specifically, the _*recovery*_ of healing surges. Because this is tied to game-world ephemerae rather than system functions, there are only two options: (1) the DM designs to limit rests via fiat plus excuses (excuses optional, strictly speaking), or (2) the "resources" of healing surges and daily powers lose all relevance as they can be recharged arbitrarily.

Having healing surges purely decouples the recovery capacity between encounters from the number of clerics in the party. This I regard as no bad thing.

Making surges (or any type of healing capacity, for that matter) a resource limited only by the game-world conceit of time passing is a major system flaw that has been present since the earliest editions. Kludge "cures", such as expensive healing potions, heavy potions (and heavy money!) with limited carrying capacity and so on have been tried from time to time. But the core problem has never been addressed.

The answer seems to me to ba a mite tricky. Standardising adventure design (so that X amount of "adventure" must be tackled before a long rest or that adventure "stage" is failed and the rewards from it lost, for example) might be one way. Relating the amount of resource recovered to the amount spent before resting might be another - or relating it to the XP earned since the last rest.

Just saying that resource recovery takes more game time, though, is pointless. "Game time" is meaningless in the real world - it gains relevance only via DM fiat - which is the most tedious and dysfunctional "system" I can imagine.



Lanefan said:


> Simple way to houserule a fix here: someone who goes below 0 h.p. cannot be cured above 10% of their total until some time (an hour or two) has passed, except by heavy-duty cures e.g. Heal.



Ding! This has ocurred to me, too. To make a "realistic" (ha, ha - as realistic as D&D has ever been, at any rate) game of 4E all you need to do is declare that a character at zero or less hit points cannot _spend healing surges_. Only surgeless healing magic or potions will help. Job done.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> Lots of us don't want to play a video-game style game. Third edition, did this, by the way. I wasn't a fan.




Then don't play D&D. I'd say every edition plays like a video game. D&D itself is pretty video gamey - like it or not. It was so video gamey (hitpoints, AC...) that the first computer roleplaying games copied the exact gameplay mechanics (not the limitless interactivity).

-YRUSirius


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 5, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Just saying that resource recovery takes more game time, though, is pointless. "Game time" is meaningless in the real world - it gains relevance only via DM fiat - which is the most tedious and dysfunctional "system" I can imagine.




Game time is only meaningless if time passage in the campaign is meaningless. There are concerns involving supplies and the activity of monsters in the area which have meaning. 

If the environment is not reactive then yes, passage of game time is pointless.


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## Andor (Apr 5, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> Then don't play D&D. I'd say every edition plays like a video game. D&D itself is pretty video gamey - like it or not. It was so video gamey (hitpoints, AC...) that the first computer roleplaying games copied the exact gameplay mechanics (not the limitless interactivity).
> 
> -YRUSirius




I think what you actually just said is that most videogames are D&Dey. It's that whole cause-effect thing. 



pemerton said:


> On this approach, though, how would you model a character _not_ undergoing any physical recovery, but nevertheless - by being comforted, or encouraged, or bullied, or just powerfully self-willed - pushing on and overcoming the shock/pain/physical hindrance?




Pre-4e non-physical damage is usually a status effect. Stat damage/drain, stunned, fatigued, shaken. These are not healed with cure spells. 

Non-magical, morale based hp effects were also frequently done through temporary ht points. So the Sarge might give you a pep-talk that get you through the fight, but it doesn't last all day.

I, personally, don't have a problem with the _possibility_ of morale based healing as long as it's not as powerful or prevalent as magic or skill based healing. A feat to 'man up' and do an adrenaline based self heal in combat for a fighter would be fine. Although if it's adrenaline aren't temporary hp a better model? An inspiring speech or presence power that works similarly would also be fine. 

But frankly it makes more sense for that sort of thing to fix status effects (like fatigued/shaken, not so much petrified) than to fix gaping wounds.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

Andor said:


> I think what you actually just said is that most videogames are D&Dey. It's that whole cause-effect thing.




No, what I think I want to say is that D&D was always very gamey. 

-YRUSirius


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## M.L. Martin (Apr 5, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Its not so much, '_how_ do we fight this encounter?' as ' _do_ we fight this encounter?'




  This is the old school mode of thought where actually having to use the combat rules is a black mark on your record, isn't it? 




YRUSirius said:


> I never really understood how Wands of CLW made it into the game...
> 
> What about freaking healing potions? Most iconic non-spell healing ever.
> 
> -YRUSirius




_Wand of cure light wounds_ came about as part of 3E's push to 'rationalize' magic by allowing any spell to be placed in a wand and letting them be crafted reliably and comparatively inexpensively.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

Andor said:


> But frankly it makes more sense for that sort of thing to fix status effects (like fatigued/shaken, not so much petrified) than to fix gaping wounds.



Well, they wouldn't close gaping wounds. The wounds would still be there and bleeding. But a fighter who uses his second wind ability just keeps on fighting (think Boromir).

-YRUSirius


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## Lanefan (Apr 5, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> Why not just gold? -> Healing potions.
> 
> I'm hesitant to say this, but... almost every video roleplaying game has tons of healing potions for "non magical" healing.



Erm...last I checked, potions are a magic item; thus they'd still qualify as magical healing.  Ditto wands of curing, staves of healing, etc.

Non-magical healing is pretty much limited to resting in whatever form and for however long, unless your game allows for things like healing herbs and classes them as non-magical.

Lanefan


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## YRUSirius (Apr 5, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Erm...last I checked, potions are a magic item; thus they'd still qualify as magical healing.  Ditto wands of curing, staves of healing, etc.
> 
> Non-magical healing is pretty much limited to resting in whatever form and for however long, unless your game allows for things like healing herbs and classes them as non-magical.
> 
> Lanefan




Yes, technically they may be "magical" in 3E/4E and in previous editions too. But they could be easily fluffed as non magical (alchemy, herbal lore) means to heal hp. In low magic campaigns they could be herb medicine etc that the old witches brew, etc that give life energy back.

That white kingsweed herb from LOTR might have been kinda magical or not, who cares, it gave them energy back to get them back on the feet and continue adventuring. Gandalf didn't cast healing spells to heal the group, nope, Aragorn gave them "something to chew on", and bang - the fiction can continue.

-YRUSirius


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 5, 2012)

Matthew L. Martin said:


> This is the old school mode of thought where actually having to use the combat rules is a black mark on your record, isn't it?




Not exactly. It does mean that a straight up charge in fight wasn't usually the best _first _option. 

Using the combat rules is best done in situations where you can control things and hopefully do much of the winning before the dice hit the table.


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## Balesir (Apr 5, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> Game time is only meaningless if time passage in the campaign is meaningless. There are concerns involving supplies and the activity of monsters in the area which have meaning.



OK, I'll put it another way: game time is only as meaningful as the players (including the GM) make it - and that is all. Moreover, it is only relevant in the ways that the players want it to be relevant. If that way doesn't specifically feed into the strategic importance of resources and healing then linking healing and resource replenishment to game time won't help add strategic elements.



ExploderWizard said:


> If the environment is not reactive then yes, passage of game time is pointless.



It doesn't have to be just reactive - it has to be specifically set up to demand action constantly as a tension to the time taken to heal. If the tension isn't constant, the game time is, for our purposes, meaningless. To get that tension needs some sort of invented reason for hurry.



Andor said:


> Pre-4e non-physical damage is usually a status effect. Stat damage/drain, stunned, fatigued, shaken. These are not healed with cure spells.



Pre-4E?? Pre-3E there were no such things as stat damage or statuses except 'petrified'. For most of D&D's history, damage, be it physical or non-physical, does = hit points.



Andor said:


> I, personally, don't have a problem with the _possibility_ of morale based healing as long as it's not as powerful or prevalent as magic or skill based healing.



Sigh - back to the old saw of "magic should be more powerful than not-magic" again...



Andor said:


> A feat to 'man up' and do an adrenaline based self heal in combat for a fighter would be fine. Although if it's adrenaline aren't temporary hp a better model?



Aren't all hit points temporary? I'm not looking for a scientific break-down of what the healing does - just an instinctive, non-rational understanding of what it represents.



Andor said:


> But frankly it makes more sense for that sort of thing to fix status effects (like fatigued/shaken, not so much petrified) than to fix gaping wounds.



"Gaping wounds" are things that only dead adventurers and NPCs have in D&D. 

In "real world" terms it doesn't "make sense" that faith healing can close gaping wounds, but in D&D we aren't in the "real world". Who knows what magic is inherent in the body of a Hero?


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## Andor (Apr 6, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Sigh - back to the old saw of "magic should be more powerful than not-magic" again...




When was magic _ever_ not more powerful than not magic? Especially in healing where non-magical healing amounts to bed rest and magic can _bring back the dead._

Never mind power for second. Non-magic has to be _believable_. Magic does not have to corrospond to our real world expreience, it merely has to be imaginable.



Balesir said:


> Aren't all hit points temporary? I'm not looking for a scientific break-down of what the healing does - just an instinctive, non-rational understanding of what it represents.




No, when you are at full hit points you are not going to suddenly be closer to death in 5 minutes. If you are running on pure adrenaline and ignoring a cobra bite, a slashed thigh and a spear through your lung you are going to drop dead when your adrenaline surge/temporary hit points go away. This happens in reality. Often with a posthumous award for valor.

Wounds are wounds. Healing heals them. Temporary points do not heal wounds, they just keep you that much further from death while you have them. Beowulf in the 13th warrior finished the last fight scene on temporary hit points. Then he sat down and died because they were no clerics handy. 



Balesir said:


> "Gaping wounds" are things that only dead adventurers and NPCs have in D&D.
> 
> In "real world" terms it doesn't "make sense" that faith healing can close gaping wounds, but in D&D we aren't in the "real world". Who knows what magic is inherent in the body of a Hero?




Given that this is the same "faith based" power than can cast Earthquake or Flame Strike I completely fail to see what you mean. Clerical magic can accomplish the impossible. Including fixing a boo-boo or stitching your liver back together. The gods don't care if you believe in them or not, they can still squish you or heal you at will.

Hurt adventurers are wounded. I'm with order of the stick on this one.


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## variant (Apr 6, 2012)

It is of my opinion that 4e needs to be completely purged from Dungeons & Dragons before the game design can advance.


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## Essenti (Apr 6, 2012)

variant said:


> It is of my opinion that 4e needs to be completely purged from Dungeons & Dragons before the game design can advance.




With what you posted, there is virtually nothing to discuss, but I assume you want your voice heard, otherwise you would not have posted here. Could you elaborate? Making a blanket negative statement that offers no entry point for discourse could be construed as trolling.

A complete purge appears completely backwards facing to me. Although there is some wisdom to what you've said. However, I don't see why it has to stop with only 4e, we could purge all the way back to 1e or OD&D and claim that the game can't advance until we do so. But I fail see how that will help unify the fractured player base.

There are those of us who actually play every edition of D&D and enjoy playing them all. Not having the necessary modules to add on to make the game feel like 4e would be anathema to the design goals of DDN and would likely engender a new round of edition warring.


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## FireLance (Apr 6, 2012)

variant said:


> It is of my opinion that 4e needs to be completely purged from Dungeons & Dragons before the game design can advance.



The irony of the user name made me snigger.


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## FireLance (Apr 6, 2012)

Anyway, I was just thinking about the hp issue, and thought about a simple approach to model a hp system with the following assumptions:

1. Hit points are composed of physical hit points and intangible hit points (vigor, morale, luck, divine favor, etc.).

2. Physical hit points can only be recovered through magic or time. Intangible hit points can be recovered quickly, through a short rest, being inspired by a warlord, etc.

3. A 1st-level character has only physical hit points (based on Constitution). From 2nd level onward, a character's increases in hit points are solely due to intangible factors.

4. When a character loses hit points, he loses physical and intangible hit points roughly in proportion to his current physical and intangible hit point values, with a bias in favor of losing intangible hit points. For example, if a character has 10 physical hit points and 20 intangible hit points, and he loses 9 hp, he loses 3 physical hp and 6 intangible hp. If he loses 11 hp instead, he loses 3 physical hp and 8 intangible hp.

Now, assuming a typical character has a Constitution of 12 and gains 5 hit points per level after 1st, a character's intangible hit points would have overtaken his physical hit points around level 4 (12 physical, 15 intangible). So, a 4th-level character who has been reduced to less than half his hit points ("bloodied" in 4e) would have lost at least half his intangible hit points, and since his intangible hit points are more than half his total hit points, the intangible hit points lost would be more than one-quarter his total hit points. This means that when a 4th-level character has lost half his total hit points, we can restore one-quarter of his total hit points and quite safely attribute it entirely to the recovery of intangible hit points.

After we have done so, the character now has proportionately more intangible hit points and so will lose proportionately more intangible hit points each time he loses hit points. The next time he drops to half his total normal hit points, we can again restore one-quarter of his total hit points and quite safely attribute it to the recovery of intangible hit points. 

This allows you to set the following relatively simple rule:
At 4th level, a character who is below half his total normal hit points may take a short rest to recover one-quarter his total normal hit points. In combat, he may do the same by spending a standard action to take a second wind (and a warlord or other non-magical "healer" may allow a character to take a second wind without the need to spend any actions). He may do so a total of X times per day (where X is some number which may be dependent on class or Constitution, or may be set by the DM depending on his preferred game style). 

Under this system, an extended rest (or a day's rest) restores 1 hit point (assumed to be physical) and resets the number of times the character can take short rests and second wind actions. This means that while the character is on an adventure, he will normally be operating between 25% and 75% of his full normal hit points without magical healing. He can only recover all his hit points (non-magically) by taking a full rest, which is defined as a week (or more, at the DM's preference) of rest (no strenuous activity, so no adventuring!) in a comfortable environment.

The advantage to this approach is that players only need to track one hit point total while ensuring that non-magical hit point recovery is due to intangible factors.

What happens to characters who drop below 0 hit points and who do not have access to magical healing will depend on the DM and the style of campaign he wishes to run. A DM who wants to run a more realistic campaign may require the character to have a full rest before he can regain any hit points. One who wants to run a more heroic campaign may allow the character to continue adventuring without penalty. A more middle of the road approach could be to allow the character to continue adventuring, but at a penalty to indicate that he is operating at 0 physical hit points. This penalty disappears after he has taken a full rest.


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## pemerton (Apr 6, 2012)

Andor said:


> Pre-4e non-physical damage is usually a status effect. Stat damage/drain, stunned, fatigued, shaken. These are not healed with cure spells.
> 
> Non-magical, morale based hp effects were also frequently done through temporary ht points. So the Sarge might give you a pep-talk that get you through the fight, but it doesn't last all day.



Which editions do you have in mind as "pre-4e"? In AD&D/Basic, one way to take non-physical "damage" was to lose hit points (as Gygax talks about in the DMG).



Balesir said:


> Pre-4E?? Pre-3E there were no such things as stat damage or statuses except 'petrified'. For most of D&D's history, damage, be it physical or non-physical, does = hit points.



This is what I was thinking.



Andor said:


> If you are running on pure adrenaline and ignoring a cobra bite, a slashed thigh and a spear through your lung you are going to drop dead when your adrenaline surge/temporary hit points go away.



My view is that D&D has never had, as part of its combat resolution mechanics, some mechanicism for producing a character who is slowed by a spear through his/her leg, though not actually unconscious and dying. (Contrast Rolemaster, Runequest, Burning Wheel etc.)

So you are describing a scenario that can't arise via the mechanics. It's therefore not an issue that the mechanics (for 4e, or for any other edition) don't tell us how to handle it.

Conversely, for the sorts of injuries that _can_ be produced via the combat resolution mechanics, there is no reason to think that magical healing is per se more powerful. Aragorn was very inspirational, for example, and so was Faramir, though neither was a magician.



Andor said:


> Non-magic has to be _believable_.



Says who? The chase of the three companions after the orcs, their feats at Helm's Deep and on the Pelennor Field, there travel through the Paths of the Dead - believability is not a key element to whether or not these are worth having in my _fantasy_ RPG.



YRUSirius said:


> Well, they wouldn't close gaping wounds. The wounds would still be there and bleeding. But a fighter who uses his second wind ability just keeps on fighting (think Boromir).



Yes.


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## Lanefan (Apr 6, 2012)

Balesir said:


> OK, I'll put it another way: game time is only as meaningful as the players (including the GM) make it - and that is all. Moreover, it is only relevant in the ways that the players want it to be relevant. If that way doesn't specifically feed into the strategic importance of resources and healing then linking healing and resource replenishment to game time won't help add strategic elements.
> 
> It doesn't have to be just reactive - it has to be specifically set up to demand action constantly as a tension to the time taken to heal. If the tension isn't constant, the game time is, for our purposes, meaningless. To get that tension needs some sort of invented reason for hurry.



Whether there's a hurry or not, I still think it's vitally important to track in-game time just on principle.



> Pre-4E?? Pre-3E there were no such things as stat damage or statuses except 'petrified'. For most of D&D's history, damage, be it physical or non-physical, does = hit points.



We-ell, in 1e there were a few things that did what later became defined as ability damage; some examples: Shadows, Ropers, the spell _Ray of Enfeeblement_ all drained Strength; _Feeblemind_ clobbered your Int.; etc.

As for statuses, while not as cut-and-dried as 3e (or 4e); in 1e you could be petrified, paralysed (or held), charmed, unconscious (or asleep), confused, and some other things I forget right now - all usually leading to the more common status of dead.

Lan-"probably feebleminded but not smart enough to realize it"-efan


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## JamesonCourage (Apr 6, 2012)

Estlor said:


> Basically, a fighter with 27 hit points and 5 healing surges is only different than a fighter with 57 hit points and no surge mechanic by the fact that 30 of their 57 hit points need a special action to become available.



I kind of wish this happened at a later point in the game, though. I'm not 100%, but doesn't a Fighter with a 14 Constitution have 29 hit points and 11 surges at 1st level (I could be really, really wrong here)? Isn't that, according to you, equivalent to 106 hit points? That's pretty high level in prior editions.

While they adjusted monster HP and damage to help with this change, it's presentation really hurt the game for a lot of people, I think. There's nothing _wrong_ with having 106 hit points at level 1, but it's really not what many people were expecting out of the Fighter, I think. Especially not the oldschool players, who still roll for HP at level 1.

I've said it before, and I think it's very important to keep in mind: presentation for 5e is the key. If players want a gritter game than 4e gives them (or 3.X, for that matter!), they won't want someone with over 100 hit points at level 1. I hope the designers keep that in mind (especially since they're going for flatter math), or the whole thing might just fizzle out because of it. Even if they go for a game mechanic that works similarly, deflating the numbers will work wonders. As always, play what you like


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## Incenjucar (Apr 6, 2012)

4E could absolutely have used some WotC-designed mods to change the "grit" level. I feel that 4E's relative survival range is a great start, but introducing super-easy-to-apply rules to that survival range in 5E would go a long way.

Assuming they kept healing surges, a blanket reduction of healing surges or surge values would do a lot to up the danger level. Limiting how many healing surges you can use during an encounter or a rest would also do a lot. Slowing how quickly you can regain healing surges would do plenty, as well. Creating situations where you slowly lost your access to healing surges (dungeon floors are uncomfortable, etc) would do a lot.

It's one of those "dials" things WotC likes to go on about.


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## GX.Sigma (Apr 6, 2012)

I really don't understand how people think healing surges are a bonus ability, or that having healing surges means the character basically has more hit points. These people must have never read a 4e book, because that's not what healing surges are.

*Healing surges are a daily limit to the number of times a character can be healed.* The purpose is to make it impossible for a character to be healed indefinitely. In other words, the healing surge mechanic is *objectively a drawback.*

If you have a problem with the Second Wind ability, that's a problem with Second Wind. If you have a problem with healing between encounters, that's a problem with the short rest/encounter resources system. Not a problem with healing surges.

The only thing the surge system does on its own, is to make sure you can't chug potions and use Wand of CLW all day... and doesn't that fix one of the big complaints about 3e? If the infamous wand of CLW used the healing surge mechanic, it would not be too broken, because healing someone drains a daily resource off them. 

But whenever anyone mentions healing surges, the grognards go _overboard_ and yell about how much they hate healing surges, and won't buy 5e if it has healing surges. I think there's a miscommunication here.

_Mod Edit: Clean language is preferred.  ~Umbran_


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## Andor (Apr 6, 2012)

pemerton said:


> My view is that D&D has never had, as part of its combat resolution mechanics, some mechanicism for producing a character who is slowed by a spear through his/her leg, though not actually unconscious and dying. (Contrast Rolemaster, Runequest, Burning Wheel etc.)
> 
> So you are describing a scenario that can't arise via the mechanics. It's therefore not an issue that the mechanics (for 4e, or for any other edition) don't tell us how to handle it.




That's true, no edition of D&D could posibly model this situation. Oh wait, except for this one. Or this one. Or bleeding damage. Or the diehard feat. 

And before someone says "Oh, but that's just 3e, it couldn't happen in 1e, just like they didn't have paralyis (ghouls), or slowing (gorgons) or other status effects." I remind you of the sword of wounding. 

Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not. You are frickin' skewered. There is a spear in your lungs. If you still have 1 hp, then you are sufficiently Ramboed up enough to keep fighting with a spear through your lungs. This is why natural healing in any edition prior to 4th would take weeks to heal that wound. The only way to quickly fix a ruptured lung is Magic. You know, the same stuff that lets you fly, or glow, or walk through lava unharmed. Why is _this_ the sticking point where suddenly spells that can move mountains should suddenly be no more effective than a medieval chiurgeon with his leeches and cauterizing irons? And why should that same chiurgeon be able to get you back on your feet in 5 minutes after you fell off a cliff, got knocked to -9hp and were 5 seconds away from death if he hadn't intervened?


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 6, 2012)

GX.Sigma said:


> The only thing the surge system does on its own, is to make sure you can't chug potions and use Wand of CLW all day... and doesn't that fix one of the big complaints about 3e? If the infamous wand of CLW used the healing surge mechanic, it would not be too broken, because healing someone drains a daily resource off them.
> 
> But whenever anyone mentions healing surges, the grognards go _overboard_ and yell about how much they hate healing surges, and won't buy 5e if it has healing surges. I think there's a miscommunication here.




Healing surges make magical healing mundane. That is largely because of the overabundance of magical healing makes it so. 

A magic potion that merely allows the imbiber to spend a surge is about as magical as a Mountain Dew.

Cheaply available wands, scrolls, and potions are what led to surges. Fix what got broke in 3E to begin with and there is no need of them.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 6, 2012)

Andor said:


> Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not.




No, actually, we cannot.  A great many of us have no interest in serious medieval reenactment with our D&D.  

Until D&D develops a system to determine _where_ you get hit, combined with _what_ you get hit by, and the appropriate resolution mechanics for that, I have no issue with saying a "hit" does not imply you just got run through, even a crit.

Technically speaking, we'd also have to have a system for momentum, velocity and force with every weapon to determine if you _actually_ got run through or if you just got knocked off your feet.

So yeah, I've no interest in turning D&D into a mathematical experiment in medieval combat simulation.



ExploderWizard said:


> Healing surges make magical healing  mundane. That is largely because of the overabundance of magical healing  makes it so.
> 
> A magic potion that merely allows the imbiber to spend a surge is about as magical as a Mountain Dew.
> 
> Cheaply available wands, scrolls, and potions are what led to surges.  Fix what got broke in 3E to begin with and there is no need of  them.




To be fair, healing surges are not _only_ a product of readily available healing magic becoming mundane.  Healing surges are partially a product of a desire for non-traditional party reliance.  Call them "bandages" if you want, maybe even "fate points", but they all represent a similar concept: The party shouldn't _need_ a healer.  

Take LOTR for example(since almost every topic seems to want D&D to reenact it), no healer.  Frodo is the only person to ever get seriously wounded and need a healer, and yes, while it took weeks to heal, the entire party made it from Hobbiton to Mordor with only one need for a healer(13 months if I recall?)  Yet Aragorn fell off a cliff and was seriously injured, but there was no addressing his recovery, he just *recovered!*  How did he do this?  While Aragorn may know a little healing magic, magic is arguably very very very rare by the end of the Third Age, and he probably didn't do it while he was unconscious.  Aragorn self-healed through the sheer power of how awesome he was.  Did Gimli ever go to a healer?  What about Legolas?  I'd put a solid bet on Boromir using his Second Wind at some point before he died...and an Action Point too.

I know, a lot of people prefer "gritty" fantasy where people just _die_...a lot.  But Healing Surges are not entirely a creation of readily available healing magic, they are a direct representation of Heroic Fantasy.  Sure, this is a point a lot of people make about 4e and I'm not about to disagree with them, 4e most definitely captures Heroic Fantasy moreso than any previous edition.  Perhaps this ties in to the abundance of readily available non-human races, people want to play unique, powerful heroes.

I like healing surges in this regard, but when you have like, 54 of them, it does really water down the idea of them making you more heroic.  To this end, I would like to see a massive reduction on healing surges.  Perhaps only say, 4 of them, for anyone, healing for say, 10% of your health.  Healing magic remains the primary source of healing, unconnected with healing surges.  Characters retain Healing Surges for things like Second Wind's, Action Points, Heroic Effort, ect...  All moments that will make your character more feel more awesome.



Let me put it another way: I appreciate the logic of roles, but I play WoW every day, and it can be frustrating when there aren't many tanks of healers playing.  I do not want this same feeling in D&D, and that's why I support Healing Surges.  You should be able to reliably adventure into the unknown without having to sit around in town spamming "LFM!  Need healer for dungeon crawl!"  It works from a gamist perspective, a place for everyone and everyone in their place, but it doesn't really sit well with me for how fantasy adventures should take place.


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## Mattachine (Apr 6, 2012)

In AD&D, the higher level PCs in my game routinely carried around bags of healing potions. Though many campaigns didn't use item creation rules, AD&D had them; potions could be made starting at level 7, scrolls even earlier, and wands at level 11. Casters in my games routinely made potions. Also, as a young DM that used a lot of published modules, I was trained to provide many healing potions as treasure, starting with low level modules.

I can totally understand the dissatisfaction with 4e healing. As a 4e DM, there are times I would like to healing be more difficult. On the other hand, I love the base mechanic, that aside from some really special magic or class feature, you just can't keep healing all day. I would like 5e to keep that mechanic.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 6, 2012)

shidaku said:


> No, actually, we cannot.  A great many of us have no interest in serious medieval reenactment with our D&D.
> 
> Until D&D develops a system to determine _where_ you get hit, combined with _what_ you get hit by, and the appropriate resolution mechanics for that, I have no issue with saying a "hit" does not imply you just got run through, even a crit.
> 
> ...




I certainly have no problem with others not assuming hp loss is primarily physical damage, but surely you can see why some of us ave trouble with this in our own games, and why it was less of an issue for us in previous editions (which had healing rules that appeared to support the notion that damage was largely physical). None of us are arguing for wound charts or granular level HP systems. We just want HP recovery to support HP as physical damage.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 6, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I certainly have no problem with others not assuming hp loss is primarily physical damage, but surely you can see why some of us ave trouble with this in our own games, and why it was less of an issue for us in previous editions (which had healing rules that appeared to support the notion that damage was largely physical). None of us are arguing for wound charts or granular level HP systems. We just want HP recovery to support HP as physical damage.




Better than attempting to say that lance hit bypasses your 300 HP, it would be easier to simply reduce HP by 99%.  I can believably say that lance made you dead when it does 10 damage and you have 9 health.  

Thing is though, any rule that says you gotta sit out for a week to heal is basically more ways to punish non-magical classes.  And if we are to reference the fantasy genre, it is usually _not_ the guy who is accustomed to taking a beating who needs to sit out for a week.  The tough, grizzled fighter who usually takes the brunt of the damage is usually the first one to walk out of the hospital, while the soft, weak wizard who has barely set foot outside his tower will often lay unconscious for months after taking "only a flesh wound".  

Personally, I'd say it'd be a lot easier than developing all sorts of complex damage, healing and weapon rules to simply take whatever HP 5e spits out and divide by 10.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 6, 2012)

shidaku said:


> To be fair, healing surges are not _only_ a product of readily available healing magic becoming mundane. Healing surges are partially a product of a desire for non-traditional party reliance. Call them "bandages" if you want, maybe even "fate points", but they all represent a similar concept: The party shouldn't _need_ a healer.




I have played in games over the years where no one played a healer and it worked fine and we didn't need surges to do it. A Lankhmar campaign with all fighters and thieves won't really have healers anyway. 

Play without a healer works just fine as long as you play smart and don't keep jumping into battle after battle.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 6, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> I have played in games over the years where no one played a healer and it worked fine and we didn't need surges to do it. A Lankhmar campaign with all fighters and thieves won't really have healers anyway.
> 
> Play without a healer works just fine as long as you play smart and don't keep jumping into battle after battle.




As I go on to point out, healing surges play into very fantasy concepts like "second winds".  

Sure, if we play the 15-minute workday, a party doesn't need a healer, but for a lot of settings that just...doesn't work.  

Let me go back to my WoW example for a moment.
I can adventure around the world all day and never need a healer.  While this can take up a lot of my time, the vast majority of it is a 15-minute workday with a huge emphasis on exploration and socialization.  To venture into the dragon's lair?  That I need a healer for.  To fight the giant earth elemental?  Need a healer.  Even if I pull together some of the best melee players in the game, without _some_ form of healing, we're not going to get very far.

Sure, an all-fighter party can "play smart" and be careful, and not fight too much, but I am going to argue that will water down the whole game a lot more than having some self-healing does.  Personally I think dragging around a guy who's only job, whose only capability is to heal you is a lot more genre damaging than any of that!  I really do think that on the whole, any combination of players and classes should be able to succeed without the Holy Trinity(video game term, directly relates here).  I do not think that games need to be specially tailored in order for a healer-less party to succeed.
EX: the damage output of a party of wizards should compensate for their low health and rather easy kills.
-the damage avoidance and survivability of a party of fighters should compensate for their low damage.
-the avoidance and skill of rogue-types should compensate for their lower defenses and moderate damage.

Even if we take the Holy Trinity party design as a baseline, we should be able to reasonably substitute higher damage, higher survivability, and greater ingenuity for a party healer.  

Again, I'm going to reference LOTR, which _so_ many people on this board seem to hold as the epitome of a D&D game.  No party healers.  One instance of needing a healer, constant battle jumping, minimal magic, personal-awesomeness miraculous recovery.  That's what Healing Surges really represent, personal awesomeitude, 4e may have run a little too far with the concept, but the ideal remains a good one, and one exemplified by _many_ books/tv shows/movies/comics dealing with the fantasy genre.

Any party makeup should reliably be able to accomplish the same tasks if they are played to their strengths.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 6, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Again, I'm going to reference LOTR, which _so_ many people on this board seem to hold as the epitome of a D&D game. No party healers. One instance of needing a healer, constant battle jumping, minimal magic, personal-awesomeness miraculous recovery.




One thing the LOTR movies didn't impart well was the passage of time. There were no healers but Frodo took _weeks_ to heal. There wasn't much need of miraculous recovery because there wasn't a whole lot of actual wounding.


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 6, 2012)

Andor said:


> That's true, no edition of D&D could posibly model this situation. Oh wait, except for this one. Or this one. Or bleeding damage. Or the diehard feat.
> 
> And before someone says "Oh, but that's just 3e, it couldn't happen in 1e, just like they didn't have paralyis (ghouls), or slowing (gorgons) or other status effects." I remind you of the sword of wounding.
> 
> Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not. You are frickin' skewered. There is a spear in your lungs. If you still have 1 hp, then you are sufficiently Ramboed up enough to keep fighting with a spear through your lungs. This is why natural healing in any edition prior to 4th would take weeks to heal that wound. The only way to quickly fix a ruptured lung is Magic. You know, the same stuff that lets you fly, or glow, or walk through lava unharmed. Why is _this_ the sticking point where suddenly spells that can move mountains should suddenly be no more effective than a medieval chiurgeon with his leeches and cauterizing irons? And why should that same chiurgeon be able to get you back on your feet in 5 minutes after you fell off a cliff, got knocked to -9hp and were 5 seconds away from death if he hadn't intervened?



No, the Lance through your lungs will reduce you to 0 hp or lower. Only someone who has the diehard feat will be able to fight some more rounds before dying. If noone helps you after the combat you die.

A lance reducing you to 1hp is a blow, that your armor took and maybe broke some of your ribs, but most probably only hurt very much and inflicted some bruises.

If you wore no armor, the lance scratched you seriously, but no deadly wound.
It really could never be a wound that could kill you, as you are still fighting at full capacity.
I would not mind a system, where you could actually receive a wound and have some penalties. But not by just beeing reduced below some percentage.

There could be some massive damage rule which may inflict a wound if you fail some check. And I could imagine a Lance from a charging knight maybe even critting having no problem doing damage above that treshold. Or a lance having an ability that does not do extra damage but forces a safe against beeing impaled when you attack someone with a mounted charge attack.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 6, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> One thing the LOTR movies didn't impart well was the passage of time. There were no healers but Frodo took _weeks_ to heal. There wasn't much need of miraculous recovery because there wasn't a whole lot of actual wounding.




I think I mentioned that earlier on.  Even the books rather glossed over it.  It gives the down and dirty on all the "cool" parts of the story, but then there's a rather casual mention that everyone has to sit around for a week while Frodo gets better.  Realistically, this is what would happen in any game that had long-time recovery, the DM would mention that Bob is seriously injured, and that the party sat around and waited for him to heal, and then next adventure!  It would probably take the same amount of time "Extended Rests" do in IRL time.

Unless of course your party wants to keep going while Bob sits around and does nothing.  But then...sidelining players isn't a game-style that's going to fly very well.


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## pemerton (Apr 6, 2012)

Andor said:


> That's true, no edition of D&D could posibly model this situation. Oh wait, except for this one. Or this one. Or bleeding damage. Or the diehard feat.



There is no modelling of being skewered by a lance in 3E. No permanent injury. No being slowed. No mortal wound mechanic (unless you count the Diehard feat, and then you are still dying in seconds - no recreation of the famous scene(s) from Reservoir Dogs).



Andor said:


> I remind you of the sword of wounding.



Yes. Let's also mention vorpal swords and swords of sharpness. So in this verismilitudinous, physcial-injury-heavy world of AD&D, the only way to cause anyone any injury with a sword is to use one of the most powerful magic weapons in the game.



Andor said:


> Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not. You are frickin' skewered. There is a spear in your lungs.



So why can you still move, breathe, fight, drink a beer, etc? 



Andor said:


> If you still have 1 hp, then you are sufficiently Ramboed up enough to keep fighting with a spear through your lungs. This is why natural healing in any edition prior to 4th would take weeks to heal that wound.



Suppose I'm a 5th level fighter in 3E, with 42 hp. I take 32 hp from a lance crit. I'll heal that back up in a week. Not weeks. One week.

No one recovers from the sorts of wounds you're talking about in one week. (No one "Ramboes" through them, either - you can't manoeuvre properly with a spear through your body, apart from anything else - where is the penalty to AC or DEX?)



Andor said:


> The only way to quickly fix a ruptured lung is Magic.



Naturally healing from the sort of injury you are describing is miraculous. Naturally healing from it in a week is beyond miraculous. It's absurd. That's why, in my view, hit point loss in D&D never corresponds to those sorts of injuries.



Bedrockgames said:


> I certainly have no problem with others not assuming hp loss is primarily physical damage, but surely you can see why some of us ave trouble with this in our own games, and why it was less of an issue for us in previous editions (which had healing rules that appeared to support the notion that damage was largely physical).



In 3E a PC will recover all their hp in around one to two weeks (oddly enough, the higher your CON and bigger your hit die, the longer it takes).

I have suffered comparatively minor physical injuries - sprains, torn soft tissue, very minor breaks. They do not recover in one to two weeks. No one recovers from being (literally) skewered by a medieval weapon in one to two weeks.

The healing times in 3E don't add to any verismilitude or make room for physical injury. The difference between getting my mojo back overnight, and taking a week, is nothing more than a matter of taste. (And desired pacing.)


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## pemerton (Apr 6, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I could imagine a Lance from a charging knight maybe even critting having no problem doing damage above that treshold. Or a lance having an ability that does not do extra damage but forces a safe against beeing impaled when you attack someone with a mounted charge attack.



Games with rules for this already exist. Rolemaster. Runequest. Burning Wheel. And innumerable others.

Turning D&D into that sort of game would fundamentally change the dynamics of combat.

(And having played some of those games, I find it hard to understand where people are coming from who already think that D&D - or pre-4e D&D - is one of them.)


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 6, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Games with rules for this already exist. Rolemaster. Runequest. Burning Wheel. And innumerable others.
> 
> Turning D&D into that sort of game would fundamentally change the dynamics of combat.
> 
> (And having played some of those games, I find it hard to understand where people are coming from who already think that D&D - or pre-4e D&D - is one of them.)



There was a damage treshold for massive damage in 3.x. Correct me if I am wrong.
I usually don´t want death spirals in the game. And if you hadn´t just read this one paragraph, you may have noticed.

A lance that does 20 damage does not impale the 10th level fighter. The 1st level one is dead. If you have some massive damage rule that says: a lance from a charging knight against a charging knight reduces the massive damage treshold to 20 will usually never occur. But those people wanting "realism" in their game are happy.
You could also rule that both knights are coup de cracing each other.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 6, 2012)

GX.Sigma said:


> But whenever anyone mentions healing surges, the grognards go _overboard_ and yell about how much they hate healing surges, and won't buy 5e if it has healing surges. I think there's a miscommunication here.




By the same token, whenever someone mentions getting rid of second wind/healing surges etc, the grogn4rds get all emo as well.

It is one of the fundamental disconnects between the two (or more) camps.  One Wizards will have to find a way to bridge


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## Minigiant (Apr 6, 2012)

ExploderWizard said:


> One thing the LOTR movies didn't impart well was the passage of time. There were no healers but Frodo took _weeks_ to heal. There wasn't much need of miraculous recovery because there wasn't a whole lot of actual wounding.




That is one thing. 
The stereotypical D&D adventure segment is a handful of life threatening combat, exploration, and trap encounter withing a day or two.

Because of this, a character ends a one or two day adventure after facing 10 or more things that would kill a normal person. Did someone use magic to heal the wounds? Did he guzzle a healing potion? Is he standing up with arrowshafts and daggers in his torso? Did all those attacks and spells just graze him? Or did they all miss completely? Or was there a combination of all of the above?

And that point, someone has to provide the reason why the character is not dead. Then determine how long they would be sidelined getting back to 100%.


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 6, 2012)

I believe there is a middle ground, that leaves both grogna4rds happy/unhappy.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 6, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> That is one thing.
> The stereotypical D&D adventure segment is a handful of life threatening combat, exploration, and trap encounter withing a day or two.
> 
> Because of this, a character ends a one or two day adventure after facing 10 or more things that would kill a normal person. Did someone use magic to heal the wounds? Did he guzzle a healing potion? Is he standing up with arrowshafts and daggers in his torso? Did all those attacks and spells just graze him? Or did they all miss completely? Or was there a combination of all of the above?
> ...




The character isn't dead because not enough damage was done to kill him.  The magic/potions questions can easily be answered based on what happened in play. 

Getting back to 100% depends on how wounded the character is and what healing rate the campaign is using.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 6, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I believe there is a middle ground, that leaves both grogna4rds happy/unhappy.




grognards and grogn4rds are different


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 6, 2012)

I wanted to include both


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## YRUSirius (Apr 6, 2012)

shidaku said:


> To this end, I would like to see a massive reduction on healing surges.  Perhaps only say, 4 of them, for anyone, healing for say, 10% of your health.




One of the (more reasonable) d&d next playtest leaks has something like that. 4 short rests that allow healing; 2 'minor' short rests that heal like 1 hp per level and 2 'major' short rests that heal 25% of the total hitpoint. Personally I'd like to see it simplified even more (4-5 short rests per day that heal 25% of total hps or 1 hitdice per level for something feeling more  old school), but this mechanic would practically emulate a simplified healing surge mechanic without calling it so. Pretty sure that we'll see that "work day" rest mechanic in the first official draft. Correct, playtesters? 

-YRUSirius


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## Andor (Apr 6, 2012)

Mechanics that actually model the effects of wounds are described by the words "Death Spiral."

This is because each wound make you less and less effective until you spiral down to defeat like a hair clog circling a drain. Some people like this, many don't.

D&D has never been a death spiral system. You are fine or nearly dead, or dead. There is no attempt by the system to capture the granularity of physical impairment. 

And that's fine because people and wounds are highly unpredictable. A bullet wound from the same gun to the same location to to similarly sized people can cause one to drop dead of shock and the other to get mad. It might do either to the same guy on different days. No system can accurately capture all the variable short of a molecule by molecule sim, and no one wants to roll that many dice.

D&D assumes cinematic wounding. It doesn't matter how hospitalized John McClane should be, he keeps fighting without impairment because it's an action film. All D&D characters are that tough. Similarly even though he has had the crap kicked out of him for three movies John still does not have PTSD or arthritis or _dementia pugilistica_. Likewise your hero gets over being skewered without long-term impairment. Why not? It's fantasy.

That does not mean wounds are morale, or luck, or any other such crap. If they were how would you even know you needed healing? "Better patch me up Durkon I'm feeling unlucky." "Really? 'cause V only has half a torso left." "Nope, I need healing more."

Rider effects like poison or disease call for saving throws. Why on god's green earth do I need to save against typhus because someone _missed_ me with a dirty blade?

The argument presented against magical healing being better than morale based healing seems to be as follows:

"It's absurd that steve could have survived falling off a 300' cliff and being knocked to -1 hp. Since he did, he must not actually have been hurt at all because he hit that mysterious pile of pillows. Therefore he is only lying there unconcious due to malingering and it's makes just as much sense for him to be revived by a shouted pep-talk as for his life to be saved by the same holy power that can raise the dead or open a gate to hell."

And by extension all damage must be purely morale. Even if it was caused by 30 thrown daggers each of which also inflicted poison.

Oddly the same people demanding that wounds must be morale damage because actually getting cut by Orcs with axes would be unrealistic seem to be the same people who thinks it's perfectly reasonably for a Fighter to shove a 10 ton dragon around, or regenerate, or leap 60 feet once, but only once, because that's what his powers do. 

Every game system has different granularity, and different areas of focus. The details of wounds, impairment and healing have never been D&Ds focus. That doesn't mean they don't happen, it means it wasn't a focus. Like watching an old movie if they kiss and fade to grey they just had sex, just because it wasn't shown didn't mean it didn't happen. 

In 4e, at 1/2 hp you are bloodied. Clearly, at this stage you are hurt. But there is no default rider to this effect is there? No -2 to hit from pain, no reduced initiative because you are moving slowly now. It is no more realistic than earlier editions.

"Mundane healing is just as good as magical healing" is a solution in search of a problem. 

The problem is that no one wants to be stuck playing a heal-bot. There are a thousand ways to solve that problem, non of which require that getting stabbed with a sword not actually draw blood, as if D&D were a disney movie.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 6, 2012)

pemerton said:


> No one recovers from the sorts of wounds you're talking about in one week. (No
> 
> I have suffered comparatively minor physical injuries - sprains, torn soft tissue, very minor breaks. They do not recover in one to two weeks. No one recovers from being (literally) skewered by a medieval weapon in one to two weeks.
> 
> The healing times in 3E don't add to any verismilitude or make room for physical injury. The difference between getting my mojo back overnight, and taking a week, is nothing more than a matter of taste. (And desired pacing.)




so the solution is to be even less realistic and hand wave mundane healing? I dont need 100% realism or a healing and damage simulator but I do want a modicum of believability and for HP to represent actual physical damage. If that isnt what your after by all mean play 4e, but I find its approach doesn't work for me.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 6, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> One of the (more reasonable) d&d next playtest leaks has something like that. 4 short rests that allow healing; 2 'minor' short rests that heal like 1 hp per level and 2 'major' short rests that heal 25% of the total hitpoint. Personally I'd like to see it simplified even more (4-5 short rests per day that heal 25% of total hps or 1 hitdice per level for something feeling more  old school), but this mechanic would practically emulate a simplified healing surge mechanic without calling it so. Pretty sure that we'll see that "work day" rest mechanic in the first official draft. Correct, playtesters?
> 
> -YRUSirius




I don't really care for using "short rests" to heal, and that's part of the problem.  It makes the game feel stuttered to squeeze in too many "breaks" in order to "buff up".


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## Gadget (Apr 6, 2012)

Hit points have always been, nothing more or less than, ablative script immunity.  However you choose to rationalise that, as wounds, fatigue, moral, skill or luck is up to you.  But to say any significant portion of it was physical wounds has never made sense.  You've always been able to run a marathon, swim a raging river or wrestle a bear at your full capacity when at 1 hp.  Heaven help you if you take any more 'damage' than that, but the fact remains you're at full capacity until than.  The fact that the game uses terms like 'damage', 'hit', 'healing' to be more evocative and simplify terminology notwithstanding.

I've always thought a grittier add on module somewhat like 4e's disease track would be useful to model wounds for those who want such things;  say once you dropped below 0 h.p. & where brought back through non-divine means you would have a 'would' with some debilitating effects.  But this is kind of beside whole issue of hit points.


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## Kobold Avenger (Apr 6, 2012)

I never liked healing surges, it always felt as being too much of an awkward rule and abstraction about describing the limits a body can take from constant stress and recovery.

But I'm fine with Second Wind and various mundane healing.  Second Wind could just be heal 1d4 per every 2 levels damage, and healing from a "warlord" could just be allies get fast healing 3+ for 3 rounds, though that might be harder to track than just 2d4 or whatever right away.  

Though for magic, I'm quite used to clerics having "channel energy" in Pathfinder as it gets far more use than turning undead ever did.

D&D is also one of those systems where herbal poultices and first aid for some reason have never healed hp.  And I think it's about time that it starts in some edition.  In a previous thread most seem to be in support of a heal skill recovering HP out of combat.


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## pemerton (Apr 7, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I dont need 100% realism or a healing and damage simulator but I do want a modicum of believability and for HP to represent actual physical damage.



The question is - what sort of physical damage are you talking about? Bruises, cuts and scrapes? Or being punctured through the lung by a lance?



Bedrockgames said:


> so the solution is to be even less realistic and hand wave mundane healing?



It's not an issue of more or less realism. No edition of D&D (not even first-ed AD&D, although it has the strictest rules for recovery from negative hp, and for natural healing) requires mundane healing to take anything like a realistic amount of time, nor impose anything like a reaslistic amount of impairment, _if that natural healing meant natural recovery from massive physical injury_ like being impaled through the lung by a spear.

It therefore follows that no edition of D&D has had mechanics that result in PCs suffering such injuries in combat (some magic swords being an exception).

It therefore follows that natural healing has always been recovering one's stamina/mojo, plus recovering from bruises, minor blood loss, grazes, and rather modest cuts and scrapes.

How long should that sort of recovery take? In my view that's mere taste and adventure pacing. (4e says "overnight". BW says mulitple hours, up to a day. 3E says a week or so. Rolemaster generally says a day or two. In BW and RM good CON reduces the time. In 3E it increases it - because you'll have more hp/level with a good CON. In 4e CON is irrelevant.)

A modular set of rules (as D&Dnext apparently aspires to be) will set a dial and explain what are some of the factors that one might have regard to in setting it.



UngeheuerLich said:


> There was a damage treshold for massive damage in 3.x.



In 2nd ed AD&D also, I believe.



UngeheuerLich said:


> A lance that does 20 damage does not impale the 10th level fighter. The 1st level one is dead. If you have some massive damage rule that says: a lance from a charging knight against a charging knight reduces the massive damage treshold to 20 will usually never occur. But those people wanting "realism" in their game are happy.
> You could also rule that both knights are coup de cracing each other.



But what does a "massive damage episode" or "coup de grace" represent in the fiction?

If the PC dies, it is clear enough - the PC was skewered, decapitated, throttled, whatever.

But if the PC survives, then it must be the case that the blow missed, or grazed, or merely stunned, or something of that sort. That is, the in-game intepreration of the hp damage can't be settled without knowing the result of the saving throw against massive damage, or without knowing how many hp the PC has left after the damage is applied.

It will still be the case that no PC who is not dead has ever been skewered by a lance.



UngeheuerLich said:


> I believe there is a middle ground, that leaves both grogna4rds happy/unhappy.



Whereas I am more doubtful about this, because at least some of the "grognards" in this thread want it to be the case that both (i) some hit point loss represents massive wounding and yet (ii) that same hit point loss neither kills nor impairs. Which is to say, they want a game that has all the lack of verisimilitude that drove many RPGers in the 80s to games like RQ, RM, HERO, etc that don't have any such issue.



Andor said:


> D&D assumes cinematic wounding. It doesn't matter how hospitalized John McClane should be, he keeps fighting without impairment because it's an action film. All D&D characters are that tough.



It's a while since I've seen Diehard, but I don't think JMcC gets impaled through the lung with a steel rod.

I have recently reread a number of Conan stories. Conan gets in many fights, but he is never run through. He suffers cuts, abrasions, bruises etc. Not impales or severings or disembowellings.



Andor said:


> That does not mean wounds are morale, or luck, or any other such crap.



I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that "wounds are morale". That doesn't even really make sense.

Some people (including me) are saying that a lot of hit point recovery is morale - that is, drawing on one's mojo so as to push one despite the bruises, cuts, minor blood loss etc.

*TL;DR:* There are two ways of explaining the absence of a death spiral. One is that when PC's lose hit points, they are not taking severe wounds until they die - until then, they are pushing on despite superficial/modest injuries.

The other is that they are being run through, disembowelled, maimed and the like, yet nevertheless suffer no impairment in their performance, and are able to recover from these wounds in a few weeks at most.

Being a fan of verisimilitude in my RPGs, I go for the first approach when I play D&D. And when I want a game with real wounds, I play one. The idea that a person might be disembowelled and yet fight on without impairment, and then walk back home and recover in a week of bedrest, strikes me as too silly for words. And I can't believe that this sort of bizarrely comic theory of hit point loss as being put forward under the banner of "more realistic".


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## Lanefan (Apr 7, 2012)

Andor said:


> "Mundane healing is just as good as magical healing" is a solution in search of a problem.
> 
> The problem is that no one wants to be stuck playing a heal-bot.



I don't mind playing the party healer now and then...I can usually find other ways to help out both in and out of combat; and I know darn well the rest of the party are going to try to keep me alive because I can patch them up.  Win-win, really.

Here's a thought exercise for all:

1. Think about the party/parties you are currently DMing and-or playing in.
2. Ask yourself who is the most valuable character in each party. (equating to MVP on a sports team; whose absence would have the greatest negative impact on the party)
3. Ask yourself why.

Chances are your MVC will be the Cleric* far more often than random chance would dictate.  And I don't see this as a bad thing.

* - yes, even in editions whose numbers do not start with 3.

Example: in the three parties I'm involved in right now, the MVCs would probably be:

A Thief (I DM this group)
A Druid (I play in this one, Druids are excellent healers in our system)
Either of two Clerics (I DM this group; the non-Clerics all seem to think 'Wisdom' is a 4-letter word)

Were it put to player vote the outcome would probably be different in all cases above, as I'm only looking at raw value-to-party and usefulness while ignoring entertainment value, amusement, etc. - the players would likely vote an Illusionist, a Fighter, and a Thief respectively.

Lanefan


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## Argyle King (Apr 7, 2012)

While I don't disagree with Lanefan's general premise, I would say I'd choose having a warlord over a cleric in 4E in just about every situation.  (personal preference)


Even in 4E, leader is (imo) the toughest role to go without.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 7, 2012)

I think nonmagical / martial healing is fine, in general. Poultices, medicines, painkillers, herbs, binding, whatever. All of these work and would be fine for a "nonmagical" source of healing.

Part of what I think narms me about the surges is how it is very other-dependent. I have this bucket of resources sitting off to the side that I can't access unless someone else lets me do it. I'd much rather have control over my own resources. The pacing hits me in the wrong spot, too, how quickly tension evaporates and how much the psychology goes from "Oh no!" to "Oh well."

Fixing any of this doesn't mean that healing can't be nonmagical. Second winds are fine from this perspective, as are uses of the Heal skill. And the surge value is a nice mechanic, even if I am not a fan of when and how you apply that to your HP.


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## Andor (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> It's not an issue of more or less realism. No edition of D&D (not even first-ed AD&D, although it has the strictest rules for recovery from negative hp, and for natural healing) requires mundane healing to take anything like a realistic amount of time, nor impose anything like a reaslistic amount of impairment, _if that natural healing meant natural recovery from massive physical injury_ like being impaled through the lung by a spear.
> 
> It therefore follows that no edition of D&D has had mechanics that result in PCs suffering such injuries in combat (some magic swords being an exception).




Or perhaps it follows that off screen wound care involves prayer based healing rituals that are too slow and disruptable to be used in combat, but which allow for the healing of grevious injuries. Or maybe everyone in D&D knows magical/psionic disciplines that allow flawless wound recovery. But again, not combat usable and therefore not mentioned by the system. Fluff can be written as desired. It does not require chucking out the concept of grevious but sub-lethal damage.

D&D damage is, and always has been abstract. We don't track hit locations, blood loss, scaring, long term impairment or short term impairment.

There are many game systems, as you note, that do. Almost all of us have tried them from time to time. And I can point out one universal truth about these systems. They are all massively less popular than D&D. By orders of magnitude. Gritty realism and medical detail are fine in theory but tend to bog down in play. Look at rolemaster with it's scores of healing spells. Bleh.

For 5e they need to have a few dial settings for the damage/healing systems. Ideally to allow one to dial the resource management from tactical to strategic and the realism from gritty to cinematic. Then we can all complain about how our GMs are using the wrong options, instead of how the system failed us.


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## Argyle King (Apr 7, 2012)

Andor said:


> And I can point out one universal truth about these systems. They are all massively less popular than D&D. By orders of magnitude. Gritty realism and medical detail are fine in theory but tend to bog down in play.




2 things come to mind when I read this.

1) I do not feel it is necessarily true that gritty realism bogs down in play.  While I've had a lot of fun times with D&D; I am pretty comfortable with saying that (imo) the "gritty realism" games I've played bogged down less than a lot of D&D sessions I've had -"by orders of magnitude" in some cases.

2) I'm not sure you can cite the gritty realism as being the primary  reason for a different amount of popularity.  I'm sure it's a factor, but I also believe the brand name of 'D&D' carries weight.  It might not carry quite as much as it has in other eras, but it still does carry weight.  Maybe I'm crazy, but I honestly believe that there are people I know who harshly criticize that I'm a GURPS fan, but would lovingly play the game if I could somehow place a D&D book cover on my Basic Set and lead them to believe they were playing D&D.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

Have to disagree pemerton, taking a week to heal from a heavy blow or wound to the body may not be 100% realistic, but it is more realistic than healing in less than a day through non magical means. I see people assert over and over "no previous edition..." as if 4E healing is exactly in line with what came before. For many people (probably most people) it didn't at all match how damage or healing was handled in the past. No one is suggesring older editions penalized you for wounds (aside from walking around with fewer HP) or dealt with specific types of blows, but it did accomodate the notion that damage was physical and this is why mundane healing took so long (up to a week or more may not accurately model all physical wounds--though it spdoes model many--but it certainoy doesn't model being winded or tired from battle). There is a reason people took issue with healing surges.

I am not asking for impaling rules or hit location, but i am asking that my guy who got trashed with an orc's axe can't just walk it off in minutes to a day. I agree that blow isn't all physical damage, but you cant just ignore the physical damage aspect of HP like 4E does and expect everyone to be happy, then tell them they are just doing it wrong or don't understand when they complain. It might not trouble you, and that is fine, but it absolutely bothers me.


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## pemerton (Apr 7, 2012)

Andor said:


> D&D damage is, and always has been abstract.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Gritty realism and medical detail are fine in theory but tend to bog down in play.



Sure. But how does this show that being critted by a lance in D&D means you've been impaled through the lung? That doesn't sound very abstract for me. That sounds like just the sort of gritty realism that D&D (as you say) avoids.

The consequence of damage being abstract is that it's abstract. Not that it's concrete, but we ignore its concreteness when we come to matters like healing, impairment, etc.

What does abstract damage look like in the fiction? I think Conan in the REH stories (much blood, much exhaustion, no serious injury) and Frodo after being speared by the cave troll.



Andor said:


> Or perhaps it follows that off screen wound care involves prayer based healing rituals that are too slow and disruptable to be used in combat, but which allow for the healing of grevious injuries. Or maybe everyone in D&D knows magical/psionic disciplines that allow flawless wound recovery. But again, not combat usable and therefore not mentioned by the system. Fluff can be written as desired. It does not require chucking out the concept of grevious but sub-lethal damage.



This is the first time I've heard the theory that "natural healing" really isn't natural at all!



Bedrockgames said:


> Have to disagree pemerton, taking a week to heal from a heavy blow or wound to the body may not be 100% realistic, but it is more realistic than healing in less than a day through non magical means.



In my view neither is remotely feasible - no one heals from a broken limb, a torn tendon or ligament, a ruptured lung, etc - in either a day or a week.

Which is why I say that _no hp loss from which a PC recovers, or can recover, naturally (in any edition of D&D) amounts to a wound like that_.

Which is why I further say that all hit point recovery is (i) recovering from bruises, scrapes, etc - like those narrated by REH in the Conan stories (Conan's lips are bloody, he has cuts all over him, but no soft tissue is torn, no bones broken, no major vessels severed); and (ii) is restoration of the mojo necessary to fight on despite such wounds.

And as I said, whether mojo recovery takes a day or a week is a matter of taste and pacing. (In Conan it seems to vary quite a bit, depending on the narrative needs of the author.)



Bedrockgames said:


> I am not asking for impaling rules or hit location, but i am asking that my guy who got trashed with an orc's axe can't just walk it off in minutes to a day. I agree that blow isn't all physical damage, but you cant just ignore the physical damage aspect of HP like 4E does and expect everyone to be happy



Anyone who thinks that their PC gets trashed by an axe, and then is all better in a week, is (as far as I can see) envisaging a PC with regeneration powers far beyond anything human, or even action-movie-heroic.

All that you can recover from in a week is cuts (that don't hit major vessels) and bruises. And the difference between a week and a day, in respect of recovering sufficiently from such injuries that they are just a cosmetic features rather than debilitation, is as I say purely a matter of taste.



Bedrockgames said:


> No one is suggesring older editions penalized you for wounds (aside from walking around with fewer HP) or dealt with specific types of blows, but it did accomodate the notion that damage was physical and this is why mundane healing took so long (up to a week or more may not accurately model all physical wounds--though it spdoes model many--but it certainoy doesn't model being winded or tired from battle).



But one week of healing IS NOT LONG AT ALL! And for those who think that it can't be modelling recovering being tired from battle, I wonder how often they engage in serious exertion! Admittedly I'm not the fittest guy around, but a month or so ago I jogged home from a roleplaying session. The distance is somewhere around 12 km. I was carrying my backpack of books and stuff - I'm going to call it around 10 kg. I was pushing a twin pram carrying around 35 kg of kids. And the temperature was somewhere around or a bit above 30 degrees C.

It wasn't the first time I'd done the trip, but never before with more than 2 of the 3 adverse factors (heavy backpack, pram, and high temperature). I was feeling the effects of the exertion - especially in my shoulders - for at least a week afterwards.

Obviously our fictional PCs are fitter than me, but they also push themselves a lot harder than I do. And (absent magical healing) they don't get all the care and attention that contemporary professional sportspeople and athletes get (who still require multiple days to recover from a game - at least in Australian football, it is considered a marked disadvantage to have to play on a Friday after having played the previous Sunday).



Bedrockgames said:


> I see people assert over and over "no previous edition..." as if 4E healing is exactly in line with what came before.



Well I'm not such a person. 4e has dramatically different pacing rules for both incombat and out-of-combat healing. That's why I play it rather than AD&D or Basic. (Playing 3E is not even on my personal radar.)



Johnny3D3D said:


> Even in 4E, leader is (imo) the toughest role to go without.



Interesting. The group I GM went for 6 or so levels without a leader, but did have two cleric, one warlord and one bard multi-class, and one paladin PC and one dwarf fighter with Comeback Strike.

When PHB3 came out, the ranger (multi-class cleric) was rebuilt as a hybrid ranger-cleric, and since then two of the other three leader multi-class feast have been retrained away.

I have to push the party pretty hard for healing to become an issue as far as quantity is concerned (managing the timing of access to it continues to be an important part of play).


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

Pemerton, i am not persuaded. Your arguments keep addressing my points as if i am arguing for gritty realism, and that is simply not what i am calling for. Nor am i calling for a wounding system. If that was my argument, i could see your points, but given that i am saying i would rather have D&D be more realistic than te quick heals of 4E....You keep setting up my statements against standards of gritty reaism, which strikes me as a bit of a straw man. Is a week enough time to realistically heal from a sword slash? No, but it is realistic enough for me and greatly more realistic than shrugging it off after a battle. Ike I have said before, it provides a nod to realism, whereas the 4E approach (to me) handwaves it completely.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But one week of healing IS NOT LONG AT ALL! And for those who think that it can't be modelling recovering being tired from battle, I wonder how often they engage in serious exertion! Admittedly I'm not the fittest guy around, but a month or so ago I jogged home from a roleplaying session. The distance is somewhere around 12 km. I was carrying my backpack of books and stuff - I'm going to call it around 10 kg. I was pushing a twin pram carrying around 35 kg of kids. And the temperature was somewhere around or a bit above 30 degrees C.
> ).




The difference, at you point out, is conditioning. 

And again, for those who think it is silly to assume HP largely reflects damage that cant be hand waved or walked off, why did previous editions require magic healing to get full hp back, and why was natural healing so slow? Clearly there is an attempt in there to model physical damage (even if it is somewhat abstract and not 100% realistic). Did I treat every ten hp of damage as a lung impalement? No. But if a guy lost half his HP i certainly would describe it as a deep wound. As has been offered, this is far fom perfect realism (especially since the guy with 9 hp recovers hos total faster than the guy with 90 hp). The downside of the simple nature of D&D hp is it has blind spots like this and only serves as a rough approximation. But i prefer that to a complex wound system. As i stated before, realistic enough...week-long mundane heals are more of a nod to realism than second or day long mundane heals. The first is vaguely believable, if medically immposible/unikely in many situations (though having had six surgeries this year, i can say for many deep wounds, one to two weeks is spot on for getting back to normal if you are properly bound---still have a cut, but you are physically back to your old self---depends on the surgery of course). The second is just so jarring, it can only be used to explain hp as mojo and light bruising.


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## SkidAce (Apr 7, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Have to disagree pemerton, taking a week to heal from a heavy blow or wound to the body may not be 100% realistic, but it is more realistic than healing in less than a day through non magical means. I see people assert over and over "no previous edition..." as if 4E healing is exactly in line with what came before. For many people (probably most people) it didn't at all match how damage or healing was handled in the past. No one is suggesring older editions penalized you for wounds (aside from walking around with fewer HP) or dealt with specific types of blows, but it did accomodate the notion that damage was physical and this is why mundane healing took so long (up to a week or more may not accurately model all physical wounds--though it spdoes model many--but it certainoy doesn't model being winded or tired from battle). There is a reason people took issue with healing surges.
> 
> I am not asking for impaling rules or hit location, but i am asking that my guy who got trashed with an orc's axe can't just walk it off in minutes to a day. I agree that blow isn't all physical damage, but you cant just ignore the physical damage aspect of HP like 4E does and expect everyone to be happy, then tell them they are just doing it wrong or don't understand when they complain. It might not trouble you, and that is fine, but it absolutely bothers me.




+1 for truth and clarity. (must spread Xp around before etc etc....)


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## SkidAce (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> In my view neither is remotely feasible - no one heals from a broken limb, a torn tendon or ligament, a ruptured lung, etc - in either a day or a week.




I agree to an extent...but who decided there was a broken limb?  

IMO that's where the problem lies, once we add that into the game, then yes, a week becomes very non-feasible.


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## Mattachine (Apr 7, 2012)

A week of healing is a long time if a typical D&D adventure takes place over 1-2 days, which is the case, and has been the case, for example D&D adventures and published modules since the 1970s.

The game, and mind you _D&D is a game_, wants to keep players engaged. Leaving the scene of an adventure for a week periodically so someone can heal is not engaging to me--yes, the DM can make recovering from wounds "part of the adventure"! I'm not interested in that game--I want to play D&D.


P.S. In earlier editions of D&D, it took longer for non-magical healing to bring someone to full hit points if they had more hit points . . . meaning that natural healing didn't work as well if your PC was tougher. The low level wizard could recover from a near-fatal stab wound faster than the high level fighter who got knocked around some in combat.


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## BryonD (Apr 7, 2012)

Mattachine said:


> ... and mind you _D&D is a game_, wants to keep players engaged.



Right there is the heart and core of the difference.  
When I play D&D it would be a massive disservice to call it "a game (period)".

Yes, game elements are key and central.  But the narrative immersion elements are actually MORE than equal to the simple "game" part of the fun. 

This is a fundamental disconnect in what various groups want from the experience.



> Leaving the scene of an adventure for a week periodically so someone can heal is not engaging to me--yes, the DM can make recovering from wounds "part of the adventure"! I'm not interested in that game--I want to play D&D.



When I read a novel I'm not "playing" along with the characters.  And yet I'm massively engaged if the novel is good.  That concept of being "engaged in a novel" is met and exceeded in a great RPG session.  So, for me, that contradicts and overrides this concern you have expressed in two independent ways.

First, even if I am off-screen, I'm highly engaged in the activities of the other players and characters because not only is all the greatness of an excellent novel there as a minimum, but my character's past actions and future possibilities are closely entwined in the current activity.

The thought of someone being not engaged because their character is down is, frankly, just really sad to me.  I've been told that people will start playing video games or browsing the internet while they wait for their character to come back "into" the game.  To me that is no less than saying that someone has broken out a laptop in the theater during a movie or that they start completely skipping over chapters in a novel they are reading.  The only possible justification is if the movie or book just really sucks.  And because to me the RPG experience is superior to books and novels, then the comment on the game in question is even worse.

Second, if I was reading a great novel and a character was hurt in a battle but the author just declared that they got better though simply because the next piece of action was the next day and they needed to be better, then I'd set aside that book as crap.  If it is wrong in a novel then it is wrong in a great RPG *as I can and do experience it*.

When you start calling the experience "a game (period)" and using that to justify hand waving away narrative continuity then you are tossing aside what is the greatness of the experience to me.  And when you say that engagement requires personal activity at every moment then you are describing a circumstance that falls short of the greatness of the experience to me.

And the "to me" parts are important there.  I completely accept that you may have zero interest in the parts that are so awesome to me.  In the end only a tiny fraction of society is truly interested in TTRPGs in the first place.  So I certainly can't even try to claim right or wrong or some kind of preponderance of opinion.

But I do think that other media can provide what you want but RPGs are pretty much unique in their ability to provide what I want.


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## Andor (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> This is the first time I've heard the theory that "natural healing" really isn't natural at all!




I don't think it's assumed to be low grade magic, I'm suggesting that you can refluff it that way if it helps you come to grips with it. Although I will note that 'natural' healing explicitly assumes competent wound care for the fastest recovery rate so it's natural in the same sense that an ICU is natural.



pemerton said:


> In my view neither is remotely feasible - no one heals from a broken limb, a torn tendon or ligament, a ruptured lung, etc - in either a day or a week.
> 
> Which is why I say that _no hp loss from which a PC recovers, or can recover, naturally (in any edition of D&D) amounts to a wound like that_.
> 
> Which is why I further say that all hit point recovery is (i) recovering from bruises, scrapes, etc - like those narrated by REH in the Conan stories (Conan's lips are bloody, he has cuts all over him, but no soft tissue is torn, no bones broken, no major vessels severed); and (ii) is restoration of the mojo necessary to fight on despite such wounds.




Heals completely? No. Recovers to the point of functionality? I saw an interview once with G. Gordon Liddy. He had been run over by a pickup truck the previous week, and had a broken arm. He had refused a cast because he preferred mobility to a lack of pain and seemed to be getting around just fine. 

The flip side which you are ignoring is that nobody bleeds to death from bruises and scrapes. And yet a D&D character left alone at -1 hp might be dead within the hour, or he might be fine in a week. So was he bleeding out or just bruised? I don't like schroedingers wounds particularly.

Full Hp can mean completely perfect health, or it can mean covered with half-healed wounds, none of with inflict impairment or represent vulnerabilities that make you closer to death. I've come home from work covered in scratches, cuts and bites. The next day I went back. Were those unhealed cuts and bruises hp damage? Was I risking my life if I took one more bite? I doubt it.

I've taken a few hits which would certainly represent hp damage in D&D. Stepping of a rusty screw, slashing my knee open on a nail plate, bitten by a nile monitor - In one case my boss made me go get stitches, the rest of them I just did minimal first aid and kept working. No impairment either way.

OTOH overworked muscles, or a whacked knee, which certainly do NOT represent HP damage in D&D can cripple you for moments or days. 

So perhaps separating status effects and stat damage from HP damage does make sense?


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## pemerton (Apr 7, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> for those who think it is silly to assume HP largely reflects damage that cant be hand waved or walked off, why did previous editions require magic healing to get full hp back



They didn't. Natural healing could return you to full, given enough time. (After a month, I think, in AD&D, anyone returns to full - I'm going from memory here.)



Bedrockgames said:


> why was natural healing so slow? Clearly there is an attempt in there to model physical damage (even if it is somewhat abstract and not 100% realistic).



My contention is that this falls so far short of recovering from something like a ruptured lung or broken limb that it cannot have been intended as a model of that. It's modelling recovery from bruising and light bleeding, in my view.



Bedrockgames said:


> Your arguments keep addressing my points as if i am arguing for gritty realism,
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...





Bedrockgames said:


> if a guy lost half his HP i certainly would describe it as a deep wound. As has been offered, this is far fom perfect realism
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



As I've said, I find the first sufficiently implausible that I favour the second as the interpretation of hp loss (short of death). Mojo, in particular, can also permit pushing on despite moderate bruising and superficial cuts and scrapes - the PC looks beaten up but is unimpeded in performance.

In case it's ambiguous - I find that the second interpretation is the one that gives the greater nod to realism. I can see a nod to realism in pushing on through minor wounds. I can't see any nod to realism in recovering from ruptured organs (as mentioned by another poster above) or even deep wounds after a week of rest.



SkidAce said:


> I agree to an extent...but who decided there was a broken limb?
> 
> IMO that's where the problem lies, once we add that into the game, then yes, a week becomes very non-feasible.



Well, it was suggested upthread (by Andor, at least), that a crit from a charging lance means that the PC's chest has been run through and lung ruptured. I'm not sure if Bedrockgames agrees fully, but the phrase "deep wound" was used just above.

My view is that, _because the healing times are so short_, no amount of hp loss short of death can be reflecting these sorts of traumatic injuries. As I posted above, my model is REH's Conan - who is bruised and bloodied but does not suffer broken bones or the severing of major vessels, let alone rupturing of organs - or Frodo's survival of the blow from the cave troll.



Mattachine said:


> A week of healing is a long time if a typical D&D adventure takes place over 1-2 days, which is the case, and has been the case, for example D&D adventures and published modules since the 1970s.
> 
> The game, and mind you _D&D is a game_, wants to keep players engaged. Leaving the scene of an adventure for a week periodically so someone can heal is not engaging to me--yes, the DM can make recovering from wounds "part of the adventure"! I'm not interested in that game--I want to play D&D.



This is all true. But what does it tell us about the physical consequences of hit point loss? For me, it is a series of reasons to adopt the approach that hit point loss short of death does not represent serious injury. To put it another way - the game's strategy for maintaining engagement is to ensure that, as long as your PC is not dead, s/he is not too badly hurt.

I don't see the game as one in which we assume that PC's have ruptured lungs, broken limbs and the like but just (i) ignore this when it comes to resolving actions, and (ii) pretend that these sorts of injuries can be recovered from in a week or two of rest.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> They didn't. Natural healing could return you to full, given enough time. (After a month, I think, in AD&D, anyone returns to full - I'm going from memory here.)




Mispoke. Meant magic healing can do it immediately, natural healing takes a long time.


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## Argyle King (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Interesting. *The group I GM went for 6 or so levels without a leader, but did have two cleric, one warlord and one bard multi-class, and one paladin PC and one dwarf fighter with Comeback Strike.
> *
> When PHB3 came out, the ranger (multi-class cleric) was rebuilt as a hybrid ranger-cleric, and since then two of the other three leader multi-class feast have been retrained away.
> 
> I have to push the party pretty hard for healing to become an issue as far as quantity is concerned (managing the timing of access to it continues to be an important part of play).




I don't understand... ?


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## pemerton (Apr 7, 2012)

Andor said:


> The flip side which you are ignoring is that nobody bleeds to death from bruises and scrapes. And yet a D&D character left alone at -1 hp might be dead within the hour, or he might be fine in a week. So was he bleeding out or just bruised? I don't like schroedingers wounds particularly.



I think that fortune-in-the-middle resolution is close to inevitable for a coherent application of a plot protection mechanic like hit points. (While Gygax doesn't talk about it in relation to hp, he does for saving throws - you can't know what a saving throw represents, in the fiction, until after the die is rolled and mechanically resolved.)

I mean, if you narrate the bleeding as dying to death through major organ trauma or blood loss, how are you going to explain stabilisation and recovery via natural healing? (No blood transfusions in the D&D world!)

But if you narrate as as something less than that, then you can't explain how the PC died a minute later.

So you have to hold off on the narration of the fiction until the mechanical resolution is completed.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

Pemerton, we disagree and that is fine. If mojo works for you as an explanation, great go with it. For me it doesn't work. Nor does fast mundane heals. It simply isn't conducive to how i understand hp or the game working. 

And my impression is half or more of the people who play D&D feel the same way. For this reason, i cant only see 4E style healing working as a option, not as the default. Lets remeber that is one of the chief complaints leveled against 4E. People can think we are being sillly or illogical (i think we a being neither) but whether that is the case or not, it is a big enough issue that people wont play the new edition if it contains 4e healing.


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## pemerton (Apr 7, 2012)

Johnny3D3D said:


> I don't understand... ?



I thought in technical rolespeak taking a multi-class feat doesn't change your role.

The PCs were a fighter (multi-warlord), a ranger (multi-cleric), a sorcerer (multi-bard) and a wizard (multi-cleric). And a paladin. So no leader, but 4 daily heals from MC feats.

That's quite a way short of what you get from a leader, or even from a hybrid leader, but it nevertheless mostly saw them through.


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 7, 2012)

i agree, that beeing down to negative hp should have consequences. If you can die from beeing at -1, so should you not recover in 5 minutes from those wounds. Schroedinger wounds are something that I´d rather not have n 5e. In 4e, i can accept them and as long as noone questions them there is no problem.


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## Argyle King (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I thought in technical rolespeak taking a multi-class feat doesn't change your role.
> 
> The PCs were a fighter (multi-warlord), a ranger (multi-cleric), a sorcerer (multi-bard) and a wizard (multi-cleric). And a paladin. So no leader, but 4 daily heals from MC feats.
> 
> That's quite a way short of what you get from a leader, or even from a hybrid leader, but it nevertheless mostly saw them through.





I misunderstood your original post.

Actually, I'd say having everyone multi-class into a healing class pretty much covers the healing portion of a leader role well enough to get by.  I wasn't taking into consideration multiclassing (which is odd for me since I usually am someone who multiclasses a lot.)


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I
> 
> I mean, if you narrate the bleeding as dying to death through major organ trauma or blood loss, how are you going to explain stabilisation and recovery via natural healing? (No blood transfusions in the D&D world!)
> 
> .




Again you are applying high levels of realism here most peopoe are willing to gloss over. No one has said they want 100% medically factual modeling of wounds. I haven't said that, at least. What we do want is some minimal nd to realism in regard to recovery time. We want to be able to do what we and probably over half he gaming community does, assume hp damage indicates actual damage to the body that takes time to heal. Some want to describe actual blows, including things like deep wounds and even critical injuries, without a mundane healing creating an inconsistency. None of us are applying granular level realism to this (if we were our characters would being walking around with fistulas, infections and weakened muscles). We just want more than: 1) walking away from battles with only bruises and muscle cramps or 2) recovering from serious blows in a matter of moments. For us your interpretation (2) doesn't work, and number 1 absolutely don't work. And we only ever had this issue with 4E.


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 7, 2012)

Sorry to chime in again:

I don´t know who is "we". But the 4e model to recover from wounds is actually quite nice in play. Really nice to be honest.
But I agree, that there should be some wound systems that allows hp only to be recovered over time or via magical healing. I believe the 4e system has the potential built in. Bloodied, dying and failed death saves could leave you with lasting wounds.


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## Viking Bastard (Apr 7, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> But I agree, that there should be some wound systems that can be recovered only over time or via magical healing. I believe the 4e syste has the potential built in. Bloodied, dying and failed death saves could leave you with lasting wounds.




Personally, I'd just throw a Condition at it.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 7, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Sorry to cime in again:
> 
> I don´t know who is "we". But the 4e model to recover from wounds is actually quite nic in play. Really nice to be honest.
> But I agree, that there should be some wound systems that can be recovered only over time or via magical healing. I believe the 4e syste has the potential built in. Bloodied, dying and failed death saves could leave you with lasting wounds.




I don't dispute that 4e is well designed for what it does. There is also nothing wrong with preferring the 4E approach (some of my best friends are 4E avengers). It is just important to keep in mind it isn't everyone's cup of tea. I like the simplicity of the classic HP and healing system, and it allows me to have the level of realism I want for D&D (my preference for other games and genres is very different). The 4E approach added too much for my tastes (jst in terms of straight mechanics, not talking about realism here), created a pacing and style that doesn't work for me, and produced a number of believability issues given my style of play. So it just isn't for me.


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## n00bdragon (Apr 7, 2012)

This is the worst 14 page topic I've ever seen. There's no discussion. It's just two camps stating their points over and over again as if the other side merely doesn't understand them.

No.

Both sides understand one another and they _do not like what they see_.

One camp wants non-magical people to be normal human beings subject to the limits that normal humans are subject to and vulnerable to the threats of physical injury (or something resembling them) that we can dream up in our mind.

The other throws realism to the wind and desires fantasy action heroes who may not cast spells like a wizard might but are still fueled by some nondescript magical power or narrative device that elevates them above mere mortals into something more resembling a super hero.

These two character types cannot coexist in the same game. The super heroes will either break the mood for the "realistic" medieval adventurers or the derpy Sword Guy will ruin the fun of the superheroes by not contributing to the game in a relevant mechanical way or straight up holding them back.

What gets my undies in a twist is the claim that one style or the other is not D&D. Make no mistake, I believe many of you in this topic are playing D&D wrong in a stupid way that I hate and I would never game at your table, but I'm not about to argue that you're not playing D&D. You're playing a version of it I don't prefer and that I wish WotC would abandon as the old shame. *But even more than that I would rather they pick one or the other and actually try to do a good job of it. If they try to please both sides they'll no doubt succeed in unifying the players of all editions... in hating 5E.*


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 7, 2012)

not sure about that. There may be two or three modules. One with and one without surges.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 7, 2012)

n00bdragon said:


> *But even more than that I would rather they pick one or the other and actually try to do a good job of it. If they try to please both sides they'll no doubt succeed in unifying the players of all editions... in hating 5E.*




I don't believe throwing out one group or the other is going to be the solution here.  I really get the feeling that the majority of people who come on this board are probably the more extreme of the folks who want things their way.  There _is_ room for compromise on this issue, and I believe the vast majority of players will suck it up when it comes to it not being perfect.

The guys who come over here just after their Pathfinder game and make statements saying 5e needs to be objectively better than Pathfinder in order for them to get on board, they're the outliers.  I'd wager most people here would be willing to play a good game in _any_ edition, in any system for that matter.

The idea that there is some sort of dichotomy and that we can only have "The Fighting Man" or Conan is just silly.  There's a middle ground here, Wizards knows it, everyone here knows it(regardless of if they admit to it), and I'm certain Wizards is working hard to make the normies feel cool without feeling like super-powered heroes, but still impart that heroic vibe.


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## BryonD (Apr 7, 2012)

shidaku said:


> I don't believe throwing out one group or the other is going to be the solution here.  I really get the feeling that the majority of people who come on this board are probably the more extreme of the folks who want things their way.  There _is_ room for compromise on this issue, and I believe the vast majority of players will suck it up when it comes to it not being perfect.
> 
> The guys who come over here just after their Pathfinder game and make statements saying 5e needs to be objectively better than Pathfinder in order for them to get on board, they're the outliers.  I'd wager most people here would be willing to play a good game in _any_ edition, in any system for that matter.
> 
> The idea that there is some sort of dichotomy and that we can only have "The Fighting Man" or Conan is just silly.  There's a middle ground here, Wizards knows it, everyone here knows it(regardless of if they admit to it), and I'm certain Wizards is working hard to make the normies feel cool without feeling like super-powered heroes, but still impart that heroic vibe.



If this was true then the "vast majority" would be playing 4E now and 5E conversations would still be a few years out.


Your comment regarding willingness "to play a good game in _any_ edition" is quite true.  It is also quite pointless.  Because the fact that it is true does nothing to mitigate the equal reality of: and given a choice they will choose to play that "good" game in the best system they have available.

In the end you are simply claiming that people will ignore quality when it come to their own personal preferences.  That is silly.


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## BryonD (Apr 7, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Sorry to cime in again:
> 
> I don´t know who is "we". But the 4e model to recover from wounds is actually quite nic in play. Really nice to be honest.
> But I agree, that there should be some wound systems that can be recovered only over time or via magical healing. I believe the 4e syste has the potential built in. Bloodied, dying and failed death saves could leave you with lasting wounds.



I disagree with you in strong terms about the 4E healing system "as-is" being anywhere in the ballpark of nice.  

But I think you have a great thought for fixing it.    If there were *common* ways for wound to be flagged as "harm" and those HP could not be recovered through surges then that has potential to be really cool.  
I'd add some of the damage from crits to the list and I'm sure some other things if I thought about it.

But what you would do would be to create a wound / vitality system, but your entire HP pool could be either wound or vitality HP on a case by case basis.  Surges still work as presented in 4E, but only for qualifying damage.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 7, 2012)

BryonD said:


> If this was true then the "vast majority" would be playing 4E now and 5E conversations would still be a few years out.



I disagree, and I'm not sure how you got this our of my post.  The "vast majority" play multiple systems, within and without the D&D brand.  I'd wager that even amongst it's strongest oppoenents, the number of people who have NEVER EVER EVER NEVER played 4e are small.



> Your comment regarding willingness "to play a good game in _any_ edition" is quite true.  It is also quite pointless.  Because the fact that it is true does nothing to mitigate the equal reality of: and given a choice they will choose to play that "good" game in the best system they have available.
> 
> In the end you are simply claiming that people will ignore quality when it come to their own personal preferences.  That is silly.



That choice is not always available.  There are a finite number of people willing to run games, sometimes you have to suck it up and play an edition you aren't the biggest fan of if you want to play _at all_.   And the "quality" of a game is less dependent upon the system and much more dependent upon the players and the DM.  I'll play _almost_ anything with my friends, because I want to play a game with my friends, which is why I'm in a 3e game right now even though 4e is my preference.

There are a lot of factors that go in to what someone is willing to play.  I'm willing to bet that the number of people who would outrightly turn down playing with their friends/family over a specific edition are few.

You're right at the end though.  People will ignore perceived "quality" if there are other more powerful personal preferences.


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 7, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I disagree with you in strong terms about the 4E healing system "as-is" being anywhere in the ballpark of nice.
> 
> But I think you have a great thought for fixing it.    If there were *common* ways for wound to be flagged as "harm" and those HP could not be recovered through surges then that has potential to be really cool.
> I'd add some of the damage from crits to the list and I'm sure some other things if I thought about it.
> ...



I am always open for good ideas. And I am willing to try them out and look how it works in play. 4e hp do work very well in play, as long as you don´t think too hard about them.

Better than 3.x hp to be honest, where i had to houserule cure spells...

I really could imagine simple hp systems, that try to be a little bit realistic, and don´t make the game a math exercise... (although i have an exam in math, i am not willing to do too much math in my free time)


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## Andor (Apr 7, 2012)

shidaku said:


> I'd wager that even amongst it's strongest oppoenents, the number of people who have NEVER EVER EVER NEVER played 4e are small.




*holds up hand* I've never, ever played 4e. Not due to being unwilling to give it a go I might add. I simply don't know anyone playing it. I'm at Embry-Riddle right now, an engineering university, long a bastion of the hardcore geek set. And at the school I know of at least 2 3.X games, several of the various 40k universe games and a _Battlelords_ game for crying out loud, but no one that I'm aware of is playing 4e and I am a member of the gamers guild there. 

I'd actually quite like to give it a try, but have never had the opportunity.

Now, that having been said, the problem being discussed in this thread is NOT the mechanics of healing in 4e. As has been pointed out, healing surges are a limit to healing, not a source. 

The problem with healing in 4e is the FLUFF. 4e incorporates the somewhat odd notion that all 'power sources' need equal access to and effectiveness in all roles. And therefore we have the Warlord who can yell you back on your feet after you somehow survive swimming a river of lava with -2 hp.

If that healing was fluffed as magic spells, divine grace, healing herbs, alchemical potions or the tears of unicorns then no one would have a problem with it.

However we are all pretty certain that a pep-talk does not outweigh 3rd degree burns. And if you swam a river of lava and got reduced from 145 to -2 hp it was not luck, it was not morale, you got roasted alive and are a hideous husk of burnt flesh clinging to life by sheer determination.

Yes, in reality healing from that would take months in the intensive care unit, and your odds would not be good. But a month of bed rest is less offensive to that violation of veracity than a quick atta-boy and a good nights sleep.

And magical healing? Why wouldn't it work? It's magic after all.


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## BryonD (Apr 7, 2012)

shidaku said:


> I disagree, and I'm not sure how you got this our of my post.  The "vast majority" play multiple systems, within and without the D&D brand.  I'd wager that even amongst it's strongest oppoenents, the number of people who have NEVER EVER EVER NEVER played 4e are small.



I wasn't presuming to count only those people who "NEVER EVER EVER NEVER" play and I'm fairly confident that WotC goal is not looking for making a game that a handful of people play consistently and most everyone else plays as well, but only once in a blue moon.  I presumed that we were talking about an actual effort to make a *really* successful game.  In that context I stand by my response.  If the context is just "NEVER EVER EVER NEVER", then I don't think your comment really means anything worthwhile.



> That choice is not always available.  There are a finite number of people willing to run games, sometimes you have to suck it up and play an edition you aren't the biggest fan of if you want to play _at all_.   And the "quality" of a game is less dependent upon the system and much more dependent upon the players and the DM.  I'll play _almost_ anything with my friends, because I want to play a game with my friends, which is why I'm in a 3e game right now even though 4e is my preference.



And if 4E was more popular, your odds of finding a group would be higher.  That isn't to say they can't be found.  

But if 75% prefer blue groups and 25% prefer red groups then fans of blue who can only find red groups will be vastly less common than fans of red who can only find blue groups.

And, I'll repeat a comment I've made several times lately.  The whole "I play with my friends and that is more important than system" comment is completely lacking in substance.   OF COURSE YOU DO!!  So do I.  
I play with my friends.  I always have.  I always will.  Ten years from now I'm going to be playing RPGs with my friends.  And we will be playing the best system available.  And I expect that pretty much everyone else out there will be also playing with their friends.    WotC can't change that.  WotC doesn't have any reason to even think about how or why they would.  What WotC CAN do is make 5E the best game they can possibly make it so that groups of friends will choose THAT game over other options.  Comments about how to make 5E be a better game are good.  Comments about how it doesn't matter if 5E is better than other options because you play with friends are just so much empty smoke.




> There are a lot of factors that go in to what someone is willing to play.  I'm willing to bet that the number of people who would outrightly turn down playing with their friends/family over a specific edition are few.
> 
> You're right at the end though.  People will ignore perceived "quality" if there are other more powerful personal preferences.



I didn't say they will ignore their idea of quality.  My point is, they won't.  

As a group those friends will pick game they, collectively, find to be the best.


----------



## BryonD (Apr 7, 2012)

UngeheuerLich said:


> 4e hp do work very well in play, as long as you don´t think too hard about them.



4E hp work *perfectly* fine.

It is the surge mechanic for restoring them that fails spectacularly *IF* you have my personal taste and requirement for strong narrative continuity.

I'd also say that "think to hard" is a very loaded phrase.
I don't at all get hung up on "reality".  But I do want a system that is capable of enduring the pressure of being thought about if called upon.  Even you agree that 4E doesn't meet my standard there.


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 8, 2012)

shidaku said:


> I disagree, and I'm not sure how you got this our of my post.  The "vast majority" play multiple systems, within and without the D&D brand.  I'd wager that even amongst it's strongest oppoenents, the number of people who have NEVER EVER EVER NEVER played 4e are small.




Not one of the dozen or so people that play in my various groups have bothered playing.  We read the books and previews and that was enought.



> That choice is not always available.  There are a finite number of people willing to run games, sometimes you have to suck it up and play an edition you aren't the biggest fan of if you want to play _at all_.   And the "quality" of a game is less dependent upon the system and much more dependent upon the players and the DM.  I'll play _almost_ anything with my friends, because I want to play a game with my friends, which is why I'm in a 3e game right now even though 4e is my preference.
> 
> There are a lot of factors that go in to what someone is willing to play.  I'm willing to bet that the number of people who would outrightly turn down playing with their friends/family over a specific edition are few.
> 
> You're right at the end though.  People will ignore perceived "quality" if there are other more powerful personal preferences.




I would personally turn down a game if it was a system I don't like.  I can almost always find a game, or run one.  As such, playing a system I don't find fun isn't worth it.  Heck, we've turned down systems we like, because the campaign wasn't fun.  Why would I play a system I don't find fun to begin with?

I see my friends in other capacities, no need to flounder through a RIFTS game (as an example) just to hang out.


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## pemerton (Apr 8, 2012)

n00bdragon said:


> One camp wants non-magical people to be normal human beings subject to the limits that normal humans are subject to and vulnerable to the threats of physical injury (or something resembling them) that we can dream up in our mind.



I think this is my camp - ie saying that whatever a person can recover from pretty quickly is not a serious wound.



n00bdragon said:


> The other throws realism to the wind and desires fantasy action heroes who may not cast spells like a wizard might but are still fueled by some nondescript magical power or narrative device that elevates them above mere mortals into something more resembling a super hero.[/qupte]I think this must be the camp who say that you can recover from a deep wound or a ruptured lung in a week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 8, 2012)

Pemerton, never meant you said number two was the case, but you offered 1 and 2 as our available options.

Fair enough, you find my approach unrealistic. It looks like we have covered this same ground multiple times in the thread. I find your approach equally unrealistic. Our expectations of realism and pacing appear to be very different.


----------



## JamesonCourage (Apr 8, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Agreed, but it's up for grabs whether or not both sorts of games can be supported by the same mechanics. AD&D and Basic D&D more-or-less did so, I think. 3E did not (in my view - as I understand it, it supports the second sort of game).



This is true if you assume that hits are ruptured lungs. The game supports it no better than 4e. However, if you assume a bad flesh wound that is mostly bruised or deeply scratched (as it wont to happen in fantasy), 3.X comes out ahead of 4e, modeling the wound taking a week or two to heal.



pemerton said:


> Sorry, I have some trouble with levels of realism that (i) exclude anyone pushing on through a fight by drawing on inner reserves, morale etc (ie preculdes martial healing) but (ii) permits recovery from ruptured lungs and deep wounds in a week or two (and sees no impairment from those injuries in the meantime).
> 
> I don't understand the criterion of "realism" here.



You'd think that it'd be clear after these posts by the poster you're replying to:


Bedrockgames said:


> Again you are applying high levels of realism here most peopoe are willing to gloss over. No one has said they want 100% medically factual modeling of wounds. I haven't said that, at least.





Bedrockgames said:


> up to a week or more may not accurately model all physical wounds--though it spdoes model many--but it certainoy doesn't model being winded or tired from battle





Bedrockgames said:


> Your arguments keep addressing my points as if i am arguing for gritty realism, and that is simply not what i am calling for. Nor am i calling for a wounding system. If that was my argument, i could see your points, but given that i am saying i would rather have D&D be more realistic than te quick heals of 4E....You keep setting up my statements against standards of gritty reaism, which strikes me as a bit of a straw man. Is a week enough time to realistically heal from a sword slash? No, but it is realistic enough for me and greatly more realistic than shrugging it off after a battle. Ike I have said before, it provides a nod to realism, whereas the 4E approach (to me) handwaves it completely.





Bedrockgames said:


> Did I treat every ten hp of damage as a lung impalement? No. But if a guy lost half his HP i certainly would describe it as a deep wound. As has been offered, this is far fom perfect realism.
> 
> But i prefer that to a complex wound system. As i stated before, realistic enough...week-long mundane heals are more of a nod to realism than second or day long mundane heals. The first is vaguely believable, if medically immposible/unikely in many situations (though having had six surgeries this year, i can say for many deep wounds, one to two weeks is spot on for getting back to normal if you are properly bound---still have a cut, but you are physically back to your old self---depends on the surgery of course). The second is just so jarring, it can only be used to explain hp as mojo and light bruising.



You'd think that after these replies over the past two pages, it'd be a little clearer by now.



pemerton said:


> Sure, it could be done. Personally I'm not looking for too much of this in D&D (as I've mentioned upthread, there are already many good systems out there that do gritty healing and recovery). But if others want to use it I've got no objection!
> 
> But this would be adding something into D&D that has not been present in the basic combat and healing rules of any edition.



Like healing surges? Pushing people around the battlefield? The AEDU power scheme? That's kind of why I don't find the "it's never been done before in D&D!" argument compelling at all. When 3e came it, it was full of new things that changed how things were done (Fort, Ref, and Will saves, etc.). When 4e came out, it was full of new things that changed how things were done. When 5e comes out, _I expect it to be full of new things that change how things are done_.

Honestly, I'm not advocating for gritty rules in the assumed core rules. Then again, neither is Bedrockgames, from the sounds of it. He just wants slower recovery time, which would allow for exactly the same narrative wounds you use now to be given (bruises, shallow cuts, etc.). And, if you have a healer -be he mundane or otherwise- you can recover faster, too, just as you can now, by pushing through it, healing up wounds, or whatever else makes sense to you and your group. As always, play what you like


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## pemerton (Apr 8, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> You'd think that it'd be clear after these posts by the poster you're replying to
> 
> <snip quotes>
> 
> You'd think that after these replies over the past two pages, it'd be a little clearer by now.



I'm not having any trouble identifying the relevant quotes. I'm having trouble identifying the relevant criterion of "realistic".

If by "realistic" we mean "a certain sort of handwaved action-heroic flavour" - in which deep cuts never impair performance, and heal over a week or so - then that's fine. But if that's what "realism" means, then I find it more irritiating to put up with the repeated comments that 4e is unrealistic, because in 4e lesser injuries can be pushed through on the battlefield, and cease to be a burden on the PC after an overnight rest.

There are different aesthetic preferences in play here, undoubtedly. But I'm not seeing the difference of _realism_.



JamesonCourage said:


> That's kind of why I don't find the "it's never been done before in D&D!" argument compelling at all.



I didn't make an argument. I made an observation.

I do think the observation is relevant, however, because I think the number of innovations in D&Dnext, as far as gritty healing is concerned, are likely to be few. Its mechanical innovations, in my view, are likely to be aimed at enabling it to support (to some extent, at least) multiple existing D&D options, rather than supporting new ones.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 8, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I'm not having any trouble identifying the relevant quotes. I'm having trouble identifying the relevant criterion of "realistic".
> 
> If by "realistic" we mean "a certain sort of handwaved action-heroic flavour" - in which deep cuts never impair performance, and heal over a week or so - then that's fine. But if that's what "realism" means, then I find it more irritiating to put up with the repeated comments that 4e is unrealistic, because in 4e lesser injuries can be pushed through on the battlefield, and cease to be a burden on the PC after an overnight rest.
> 
> s.




Then i dont know what i can say to clarify my position for you. This is something I have been pretty consistent about here on enworld and many posters have no trouble seeing where I am coming from. I have explained I don't want full blown realism, but i do want a level of believability that 4e doesnt supply given my playstyle. For me two to three weeks to recover from a heavy wound is realistic enough, so i can schieve it in any edition prior to 4e. Now if you dont treat hp as anything but mojo or bruises, i can see where you may be coming from. That isn't how i treat hp. And it isn't just surges, it is stuff mundane daily and encounter powers that disrupt believability for me.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 8, 2012)

pemerton said:


> There are different aesthetic preferences in play here, undoubtedly. But I'm not seeing the difference of _realism_.
> 
> I .




because the realism issue only arises if you envision hp as significant physical damage. Once you describe hp loss as things like getting cut by a sword, the 4e approach runs up egregiously against soft expectations of realism. It is striking that characters heal that fast. A week or more to heal it may be a bit hand waved but is real enough that it doesn't create a believability issue for me. We just come from very different core assumptions


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## JamesonCourage (Apr 8, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I'm not having any trouble identifying the relevant quotes. I'm having trouble identifying the relevant criterion of "realistic".
> 
> If by "realistic" we mean "a certain sort of handwaved action-heroic flavour" - in which deep cuts never impair performance, and heal over a week or so - then that's fine. But if that's what "realism" means, then I find it more irritiating to put up with the repeated comments that 4e is unrealistic, because in 4e lesser injuries can be pushed through on the battlefield, and cease to be a burden on the PC after an overnight rest.
> 
> There are different aesthetic preferences in play here, undoubtedly. But I'm not seeing the difference of _realism_.



Then I'd posit that you're missing his point, and I doubt further clarification will easily remedy it.



pemerton said:


> I didn't make an argument. I made an observation.
> 
> I do think the observation is relevant, however, because I think the number of innovations in D&Dnext, as far as gritty healing is concerned, are likely to be few. Its mechanical innovations, in my view, are likely to be aimed at enabling it to support (to some extent, at least) multiple existing D&D options, rather than supporting new ones.



That's probably (and hopefully) true for the majority of its innovations. If they can offer a tactical combat module, however, I'd hope they can offer a "gritty" module, as well. As always, play what you like


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## BryonD (Apr 8, 2012)

pemerton said:


> There are different aesthetic preferences in play here, undoubtedly. But I'm not seeing the difference of _realism_.



I'll just throw in for my own personal preference surges remove the requirement of cause and effect for removal of damage.  That isn't to say they remove the possibility.  

And overnight rest simply doesn't pass a reasonable smell test for recovery time capable of mending any wound that might possibly be received.  Characters in fiction forced to go recover do so REALLY crazy fast.  But even in movies and TV the standard of several days is one of those understood tropes that is agreed upon.  A sort of unspoken author / audience contract for what is acceptable. (And I won't dispute that you can dig up some corner case exception, but the two days in hospital, threes days bedrest, whatever cliche is ubiquitous.)

Surges make wounds vanish in a split second.  "Pushing through" is bogus because the wound is gone.  In both 3E and 4E (and earlier editions as well) a character with 1 HP can push through just as well.  A 4E character with 1 HP can push through.  He can surge or he can not surge and it makes no difference to his ability to do anything.  It just makes the wound go away.  And the wound remains forever gone once a surge is applied.

As a contrast, if surges provided temporary HP that went away in 2 minutes, I'd be cool with that.  They would add in the ability to take another blow or two and keep going, as surges provide, but they wouldn't undermine the cause and effect of eventually needing to HEAL the damage that has happened.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 8, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> Not one of the dozen or so people that play in my various groups have bothered playing.  We read the books and previews and that was enought.



Color me unsurprised.  To be fair, I will from this point on have a hard time taking any critique of 4e from you seriously.  Playing a game is vastly different than reading the books or looking at previews.  





> I would personally turn down a game if it was a system I don't like.  I can almost always find a game, or run one.  As such, playing a system I don't find fun isn't worth it.  Heck, we've turned down systems we like, because the campaign wasn't fun.  Why would I play a system I don't find fun to begin with?
> 
> I see my friends in other capacities, no need to flounder through a RIFTS game (as an example) just to hang out.



I can argue that you can't find a system fun until you play it.  Besides, my other point was that _systems_ rarely determine the "fun factor" of a game.  Can influence, sure, but don't determine.  That sort of thing is usually done by the DM and the players.  In any case, you haven't actually played 4e, I recommend you do if for no other reason than to get an actual feel for the system.  I don't think it's intellectually honest to critique a system(beyond some basic conceptual elements) you've never actually participated in.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 8, 2012)

Andor said:


> *holds up hand* I've never, ever played 4e. Not due to being unwilling to give it a go I might add. I simply don't know anyone playing it. I'm at Embry-Riddle right now, an engineering university, long a bastion of the hardcore geek set. And at the school I know of at least 2 3.X games, several of the various 40k universe games and a _Battlelords_ game for crying out loud, but no one that I'm aware of is playing 4e and I am a member of the gamers guild there.



I don't presume to count people who don't have access.  As I said, the choice of what you get to play is not always in your hands.  Sometimes your buddy has the books for X game, and your friends want to play that game, so you just go along and play it.  



> The problem with healing in 4e is the FLUFF. 4e incorporates the somewhat odd notion that all 'power sources' need equal access to and effectiveness in all roles. And therefore we have the Warlord who can yell you back on your feet after you somehow survive swimming a river of lava with -2 hp.
> 
> If that healing was fluffed as magic spells, divine grace, healing herbs, alchemical potions or the tears of unicorns then no one would have a problem with it.
> 
> ...



I think your example is a little excessive, though to be honest I've never actually seen anyone play a Warlord at any of my 4e games...though we did have a guy fall in lava....he died.  

I agree that the majority of healing should be magic, even if it's a more hippy "magic" of "if I put these plants and muds on your wound you'll get better!" because the magic is actually in the goop and they just know how to use it.   In any case, when I think of magic healing and serious wounds/injuries/conditions, I'm reminded of way back when in the MTG books where they were trying to save Hanna from the Phyrexian plague.  Even the magic they had which could literally alter reality(and that was how it healed you), was reliant on you having the willpower to want to survive.  So the chance for failure to magical healing should exist in some fashion, though I'm not sure on specifics.

Magic shouldn't be perfect, that's the basic idea that leads to magic-over-mundane superiority and makes games much less fun.


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## Andor (Apr 8, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Magic shouldn't be perfect, that's the basic idea that leads to magic-over-mundane superiority and makes games much less fun.




Mmmm.. I suppose it depends on what you mean by perfection. I agree magic should not always be the best tool for the job. For example if the thief has grabbed the gadget of whosniz and is running for the door the wizard can dig into his spell pouch, extract a bit of spiderweb, check the alignment of the sunlight streaming in through the windows and pronounce the words of binding that will freeze the thief in his tracks, or the fighter can punch hin in the face and knock him down. Guess which one is quicker? 

There shoud be things magic cannot do. In D&D arcane magic usually does not heal. In many fictional depictions of magic it cannot effect iron, or create or defeat true love, or alter a bargin struck with a devil. 

There should be times when magic can accomplish the task but it's not the fastest, or easiest, or simplest way to do things. Like a knock spell vs using the key, or using a sending ritual vs hiring a messenger boy. 

And there should be times when magic _is_ the best way, or even only way to do things.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 9, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't want full blown realism
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For me two to three weeks to recover from a heavy wound is realistic enough





Bedrockgames said:


> because the realism issue only arises if you envision hp as significant physical damage. Once you describe hp loss as things like getting cut by a sword, the 4e approach runs up egregiously against soft expectations of realism. It is striking that characters heal that fast. A week or more to heal it may be a bit hand waved but is real enough that it doesn't create a believability issue for me.



From my point of view, I don't see the difference between "less than full blown realism" or "soft expectations of realism", on the one hand, and "not very realistic" on the other.

That's probably why I was one of those who left AD&D for more gritty systems, and who came back to D&D for a system that fully implemented the "mojo" model of hit points, which is the only version that is verisimilitudinous enough for my taste.



JamesonCourage said:


> Then I'd posit that you're missing his point



I don't think I'm missing the point at all. I'm taking the opportunity to contest the received opinion that 4e is unrealistic compared to 3E, by explaining why, from my point of view, the reverse is the case: 4e posits heroic pushing through of superficial wounds, bruises and scrapes, whereas 3E appears to posit superheroic recovery from deep wounds (and perhaps ruptured lungs) in a week or two.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2012)

pemerton said:


> From my point of view, I don't see the difference between "less than full blown realism" or "soft expectations of realism", on the one hand, and "not very realistic" on the other.
> .




I think your position is a bit binary then (things are realistic or not realistic). I think there is a spectrum. Soft expectations of realism is paying some lip service to healing time (one to three weeks to heal massive Hp loss for example). It isn't perfect but it gets at the idea that big wounds take time to heal. Thats is completely evaded in 4e. Natural healing can occur in the course of a day (even in mere moments). There is no lengthy natural heal time. This I would characterize as very unrealistic. You can pick apart the three week heal time and find cases here or there where it may make less sense than inreality, but as I have said it is realistic enough to supply the feel of natural healing. If you disagree,then you disagree. No really a big deal for people to have different opinions on these things.


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## Hussar (Apr 9, 2012)

Hang on, two or three _weeks_ of natural healing?  So, we're not talking about d20 anymore either?  Because 3e certainly doesn't take that long to fully heal.  You get 1hp/level/day without any help at all.  It's pretty unlikely that any character will ever need more than a week to fully recover his HP.

Even AD&D, unless you went into negative hp, didn't require more than about a week to recover your HP.

Now, once you've allowed natural healing to already be pretty softly realistic, how is it such a bad thing to make it more soft?  Or, to put it another way, why does 1 week satisfy you but 1 day doesn't?  

I'm trying to drill down to the core of what you want.  You don't want gritty realism.  Ok, fine, neither do I.  So, what do you gain by slowing HP recovery?  

See, to me, all that happens if you slow down natural healing is that you simply emphasize magical healing.  I can't think of a single time I saw a character fully heal through natural means.  It certainly never happened twice in any campaign I ever played in.  What did happen was that you got your X hp at the beginning of the day, which saved the cleric from hitting you with that extra Cure Light Wounds spell.  

What am I missing?  Why is it better to make magical healing the only realistic way that groups will heal damage in game?


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## Kynn (Apr 9, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> Part of what I think narms me about the surges is how it is very other-dependent. I have this bucket of resources sitting off to the side that I can't access unless someone else lets me do it. I'd much rather have control over my own resources.




Out of combat, you do have full control over your own surges. You can spend as many as you want during a short rest without requiring any healer whatsoever.

It's only in-combat healing that you're restricted to Second Wind as your own self-heal.


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## Lanefan (Apr 9, 2012)

pemerton said:


> In my view neither is remotely feasible - no one heals from a broken limb, a torn tendon or ligament, a ruptured lung, etc - in either a day or a week.
> 
> Which is why I say that _no hp loss from which a PC recovers, or can recover, naturally (in any edition of D&D) amounts to a wound like that_.



And this (in any edition of D&D) is a bug, not a feature.

Magical curing gets around the recovery time - given enough spells, wounds close, tendons heal, etc.  Going from memory, I think in 1e you naturally rest back something like 1 h.p. a week, slightly more if you're in a comfy bed in town.

The answer, which works fine in other systems but for some reason never makes it into D&D, is some sort of vitality (fatigue)/wound (body) point system for hit points.  Fatigue points are the nicks, scratches, fatigue, luck etc. that are relatively easy to patch up via various means.  Body points are real physical damage, harder to cure and very hard to rest back naturally.



> Well I'm not such a person. 4e has dramatically different pacing rules for both incombat and out-of-combat healing.



Very true, and this is one of the things that wrecks it for me as a system I would want to play.  From all I can tell I suspect I am not alone in this view.

Lan-"the game needs some natural h.p. recovery, but not that much"-efan


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## Lanefan (Apr 9, 2012)

Viking Bastard said:


> Personally, I'd just throw a Condition at it.



Well, what are you waiting for?  Roll to hit!

Lan-"what happens if you fumble with a thrown Condition?"-efan


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Hang on, two or three _weeks_ of natural healing?  So, we're not talking about d20 anymore either?  Because 3e certainly doesn't take that long to fully heal.  You get 1hp/level/day without any help at all.  It's pretty unlikely that any character will ever need more than a week to fully recover his HP.
> 
> ?




i was talking about all pre 4 games in general. Even in 3e it depends on the character's total hp and level. A week was quite common but a fifth level barbarian with max hp will take longer than a week. AD&D could easily take longer as well (which is why we said up to 1-3 weeks). 

And yes, my problem with 1 day or less is it is not long enough to satisfy any level of realism for me. A week or more at least gives me the feel of a more real natural healing. Taking a few moments to heal naturally is even worse IMO. i find moments to a day highly disruptive to disbelief (i went to bed hacked up but am fine in the morning). A week or more seems much more reasonable (even if it isn't 100% realistic--it at least rests in a mid zone that is far less disruptive to me). I really don't think this is a very difficult position to appreciate even if one doesn't accept it (just as i can appreciate pemertons point of view though i dont share his conclusion---and i dont need ask questions in order to deconstruct his stance).

I would like to point put, this discussion has happened so much i find it hard to believe anyone is genuinely mystified by this position (i am certainly not mystified by the 4e position).


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## JamesonCourage (Apr 9, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I don't think I'm missing the point at all.



Okay. As always, play what you like


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2012)

Hussar said:


> See, to me, all that happens if you slow down natural healing is that you simply emphasize magical healing.  I can't think of a single time I saw a character fully heal through natural means.  It certainly never happened twice in any campaign I ever played in.  What did happen was that you got your X hp at the beginning of the day, which saved the cleric from hitting you with that extra Cure Light Wounds spell.
> 
> What am I missing?  Why is it better to make magical healing the only realistic way that groups will heal damage in game?




this is simply a matter of preference. Some people enjoy a style of play where the prime consideration is the flow of the game itself and inconvenient issues related to realism are removed or greatly reduced. Of this works for you, i am fine with that. For me there is a serious believability issue with natural healing being instantaneous or nearly so. But magic doesn't present such an issue because the nature of magic is to alter reality. So there is the first issue.

You raise an interesting point that heaing usually ends up falling on magic at a some point anyways. But for me that still ties in to the first point. I dont care if people are ultimately going to resort to magical heaing, what is important is that for instant to one day healing, magic be required because the disruption of disbelief for me is too great to handwave. So for me, the end result is actually not as important as how you get there (though that has serious implications for the end result). Even if most people resort to magical heaping that has built in limits as well and there will be times when your magical healers are killed or knocked ou and unable to heal the party. There will also be parties without magical healers in them ( i have seen this several times). 

And this ties into other issues I have with the 4e system, like mundane dailies and encounter powers. 

If you disagree that is fine. Play what you like. If someone else finds 4e more realistic than 3e or 2e or 1e, that is great. I can see how pemerton may feel that way given his interpretation of HP. For me that just isn't how I see the game and it isn't my experience of it. But it shouldn't be hard for us to understand where the other side is coming from at this stage. Both are coming from reasonable positions, and unless the intent is to keepnasking questions in order to win thw argument in socratic fashion, I don't really see the purpose of hairsplitting here (when my guess is most of us have already asked and answered these questions multiple times in the past).


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## Hussar (Apr 9, 2012)

BRG said:
			
		

> I would like to point put, this discussion has happened so much i find it hard to believe anyone is genuinely mystified by this position (i am certainly not mystified by the 4e position).




Ok, perhaps mystified is the wrong word.  

I just find it such a bizarre point of view that I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around it.  You have no problems with the 10th level character regaining 20 hp/day (with help from a healer) but, any faster than that breaks your SOD?  

Let me turn the question around then.  What does the game gain by slowing down healing?  How is the game enhanced by forcing down time?

See, I look at the idea that HP are part of the resource management game and I get that.  Ok, fine.  But, as it's part of the resource management game, players will take steps to make sure that their resources are maximized.  I've never, ever, seen D&D played without any sort of healer, let alone seen it multiple times.

How does that work?  You get into a single fight and you're down for several days.  Seems like the pacing would be glacially slow in that case.  Unless, of course, you're playing a high RP game with very little combat.  But, then, if you're using D&D for that, you are pretty close to freeforming with a veneer of D&D tropes laid over top.  How can you play D&D without any healing at all?

So, again, what is gained by having slower healing?  Sure, it appeals to a certain sense of verisimilitude, but, again, it's mind boggling to me that you have no problems with a character regaining a hundred hp in a week, but regaining it in a day blows your mind.  Really?  What difference could it possibly make?  Neither is remotely realistic.  What is it about reducing the time to one day that makes it so much harder to believe?

Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?


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## pemerton (Apr 9, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think your position is a bit binary then (things are realistic or not realistic).



That may well be so.



Bedrockgames said:


> Thats is completely evaded in 4e. Natural healing can occur in the course of a day (even in mere moments). There is no lengthy natural heal time. This I would characterize as very unrealistic.



I think we disagree on this - because in my view, in 4e, PCs who aren't dead suffer no serious injuries which might require extended natural healing. They generally suffer comparatively minor, REH-Conan style injuries from which they can push on after a bit of rest.

If you treat hp loss in 4e as serious physical damage then the game makes no sense, I agree. But given that, in 4e, you can take hp loss from seeing a scary wight (Horrific Visage deals psychic damage) I think the game already makes it clear that hp loss is, on the whole, not serious physical damage. (It can be different for NPCs and monsters. They generally have no access to healing, and when it comes to them I cheerfully narrate decapitations, disembowellings, whatever the situation seems to require.)



Lanefan said:


> Going from memory, I think in 1e you naturally rest back something like 1 h.p. a week, slightly more if you're in a comfy bed in town.



From memory it's 1 hp per day plus CON mod per week, and full recovery in a month regardless. I can't remember how much benefit, if any, a comfy bed gives.



Hussar said:


> Hang on, two or three _weeks_ of natural healing?  So, we're not talking about d20 anymore either?  Because 3e certainly doesn't take that long to fully heal.  You get 1hp/level/day without any help at all.  It's pretty unlikely that any character will ever need more than a week to fully recover his HP.
> 
> Even AD&D, unless you went into negative hp, didn't require more than about a week to recover your HP.



AD&D took a bit longer than a week once you got above 1st or 2nd level, but I think in 3E only fighter types will take more than a week (because with their CON mods they're likely to average more than 7 hp per level; this might not be true once even non-fighter types start getting CON-boosting items, but at that point who is using natural healing?).



Hussar said:


> Now, once you've allowed natural healing to already be pretty softly realistic, how is it such a bad thing to make it more soft?  Or, to put it another way, why does 1 week satisfy you but 1 day doesn't?
> 
> I'm trying to drill down to the core of what you want.  You don't want gritty realism.  Ok, fine, neither do I.  So, what do you gain by slowing HP recovery?



I agree with the rhetorical force of these questions. That's why, upthread, I see the issue as one about taste and pacing, rather than about realism/verisimilitude.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2012)

Hussar, i have already attempted to answer your question and given my point of view. You can either accept it or not. But like I said, you have already had all these questions answered multiple times when this quesiton has arisen on previous threads. It just appears to me that the socatic line of questioning is doesn't arise from any real lack of understanding but from an effort to "win" the argument. I could easily ask the same kinds of questions of you or pemerton....ask "why?" enough and every position breaks down under scrutiny. You are free to reject my point of view if you want. But I think it has been fully explained.

If you dont see a difference or distinction between one day and a week or more, then we just have different core assumptions here. Me i think the difference is clear. One day is completely realistic, a week or more is realistic enough for the game and longer than that is approaching gritty realism. There is no reason why I should be okay with one day just becuase I am okay with a week or more.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2012)

pemerton said:


> That may well be so.
> 
> I think we disagree on this - because in my view, in 4e, PCs who aren't dead suffer no serious injuries which might require extended natural healing. They generally suffer comparatively minor, REH-Conan style injuries from which they can push on after a bit of rest.
> 
> If you treat hp loss in 4e as serious physical damage then the game makes no sense, I agree. But given that, in 4e, you can take hp loss from seeing a scary wight (Horrific Visage deals psychic damage) I think the game already makes it clear that hp loss is, on the whole, not serious physical damage. (It can be different for NPCs and monsters. They generally have no access to healing, and when it comes to them I cheerfully narrate decapitations, disembowellings, whatever the situation seems to require.)




I understand, but i find that definition of HP loss highly unsatisfactory. Like I said, we disagree on enough core assumptions that we aren't going to agree on conclusions. You see Hp loss as bruises and mojo, whereas I dont. That may well have been their intent with the edition, It just doesn't make much sense for my understanding of the game (and it forces me to break from how I have been playing it for twen years).


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## Janaxstrus (Apr 9, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Color me unsurprised.  To be fair, I will from this point on have a hard time taking any critique of 4e from you seriously.  Playing a game is vastly different than reading the books or looking at previews.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




You can argue I can't determine how good a system is before playing.  I disagree.  I'm perfectly capable of reading a book and making a decision on whether or not I will find it fun.  If I wanted to play tactical minis, they used to have a game for that until 4e came out and killed it (DDM).  I loved that game, because I played it for what it was, a tactical minis game that I was pretty good at.

I couldn't find a 4e game around here if I wanted, regardless.  The local store got a DM and scheduled games, and 1 person showed up to play.  3.5 and PF is king here.  I've seen it (4e)  played a a local convention, and that was enough.

Intellectually dishonest?  Can I critque a book if I'm not an author?  Can I critque food if I only tasted, but didn't make it?  Can a movie critic take shots an an actor if he's never appeared in a movie?  I've read through the first core book, I've seen it played.  It did nothing for me.  That is enough for me.

The system CERTAINLY impacts the "fun factor".  I don't enjoy going to bars anymore, if my friends are going, I bow out.  Sure, I like my friends, but it's just not something I find fun in my old age.  Same with going to certain movies.  If I don't enjoy the activity or topic, just because my friends are there doesn't make it fun.  If the only chance I had to see them was over a 4e game, it would be one thing.  I'd force myself to go through it, but I have the option of doing other things with them that are fun.  So, in my opinion, the system not only impacts, but is the primary determinant of whether or not I would play.


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## Andor (Apr 9, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?




As I said before, fluff.

You're right. The slowness of non-magical healing almost never comes up (pre-4e) in play. And that's just fine, that's not the purpose of the rules. You are perfectly correct that a heavily wounded high-level character with no access to magical healing is a rarely seen corner case.

What it does do is inform the background. It tells me why the peasant militia with no built in healers and 1 1st level cleric back in town is reluctant to face off with the orcs. It tells me that swords hurt and hurt for days. It tells me that if I'm going to go somewhere where people will be trying to poke me with pointy objects I want to bring someone with healing mojo and not a cheerleader.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How does that work?  You get into a single fight and you're down for several days.  Seems like the pacing would be glacially slow in that case.  Unless, of course, you're playing a high RP game with very little combat.  But, then, if you're using D&D for that, you are pretty close to freeforming with a veneer of D&D tropes laid over top.  How can you play D&D without any healing at all?
> 
> So, again, what is gained by having slower healing?  Sure, it appeals to a certain sense of verisimilitude, but, again, it's mind boggling to me that you have no problems with a character regaining a hundred hp in a week, but regaining it in a day blows your mind.  Really?  What difference could it possibly make?  Neither is remotely realistic.  WA number of publishers were brought on board prior to the first 3.0 releases, and others allowed to work concurrent with a gentlemen's agreement, an agreement based on trusting that WotC and the 3PP would all be satisfied that the OGL would be agreeable to everyone once finalized, and so it seemingly w?
> 
> Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?




To answer the question what is gained: verisimilitude (as you say) and a more realistic pacing. There are also hidden opportunities for adventure and role play whenever characters are laid up. That might not appeal to yu, but it does appeak to plenty of people.  

I already answered the other part but once again yes, one day or less  healing blows my mind and one week or more (you are assuming I am only talking about 3e for some reason) Does not. I would also disagree that neither is remotely realistic. One week or more is vaguely realistic (i even offered my own experience with surgery to show it isnt that much of a stretch---though it is still a stretch---especially if you arent deaing with major issues like broken bones or ruptured organs), one day or less is not remotely realistic.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 9, 2012)

Janaxstrus said:


> You can argue I can't determine how good a system is before playing.  I disagree.  I'm perfectly capable of reading a book and making a decision on whether or not I will find it fun.  If I wanted to play tactical minis, they used to have a game for that until 4e came out and killed it (DDM).  I loved that game, because I played it for what it was, a tactical minis game that I was pretty good at.



While minis are arguable pretty integral to 4e, you could certainly play them without them, as much as dividing feet of older editions to make for squares as multiplying squares by feet to make distance is.  30/5=6 just as much as 6x5=30.  And I still stand by my premise.  Reading a book on soccer, watching it on TV, this will not tell you how you will feel when you play it.  



> I couldn't find a 4e game around here if I wanted, regardless.  The local store got a DM and scheduled games, and 1 person showed up to play.  3.5 and PF is king here.  I've seen it (4e)  played a a local convention, and that was enough.



I have a friend who I'm trying to encourage to play 4e.  Do you know why he hates it?  It's not the system or how it plays, it's because he had a terrible DM, so incredibly terrible that he cannot rationalize all the horridness being JUST the DM, so he partially blames the system.  Seeing one game in action, participating in one game, that's like saying you've been on one bumpy road therefore all roads must be bumpy.  This correlation is not logical.



> Intellectually dishonest?  Can I critque a book if I'm not an author?  Can I critque food if I only tasted, but didn't make it?  Can a movie critic take shots an an actor if he's never appeared in a movie?  I've read through the first core book, I've seen it played.  It did nothing for me.  That is enough for me.



Reading a book is tantamount to playing the system, you are experiencing the material as it was intended to be used, _in a game_.  Personally, _every_ book from every edition(save maybe the Draconomicon) is horridly boring.  Based on just _reading_ the base book for 4e, 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder, 2e and 1e, I would wager I would never play D&D.  I play D&D because my friends sat me down and had me play with them, and I found it to be a ton of fun(I started with 3.5).



> The system CERTAINLY impacts the "fun factor".  I don't enjoy going to bars anymore, if my friends are going, I bow out.  Sure, I like my friends, but it's just not something I find fun in my old age.  Same with going to certain movies.  If I don't enjoy the activity or topic, just because my friends are there doesn't make it fun.  If the only chance I had to see them was over a 4e game, it would be one thing.  I'd force myself to go through it, but I have the option of doing other things with them that are fun.  So, in my opinion, the system not only impacts, but is the primary determinant of whether or not I would play.



Going to a movie, going clubbing, that's the same as playing a system.  What you're doing is reading the menu and telling me the food is terrible.


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

Andor said:


> As I said before, fluff.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What it does do is inform the background. It tells me why the peasant militia with no built in healers and 1 1st level cleric back in town is reluctant to face off with the orcs.



Just to be clear: my view that hp = mojo and ability to push on through comparatively minor REH-Conan-style punishment is confined to PCs. For NPCs, which (in 4e) don't generally have access to healing, it's a different matter. I narrate their defeat in combat however I want! (Minions are the ultimate example of this: their 1 hp doesn't tell us anything about their ingame health, or how much mojo they have. It's a metagame state - any wound they take from a PC will be a decapitation or something similar.)


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## BryonD (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Hang on, two or three _weeks_ of natural healing?  So, we're not talking about d20 anymore either?  Because 3e certainly doesn't take that long to fully heal.  You get 1hp/level/day without any help at all.  It's pretty unlikely that any character will ever need more than a week to fully recover his HP.



I find in my pathfinder games a barbarian (obviously the high end case) can have 13 hp / level.  Avg 8 per level (yes, that is higher than 6.5 avg for a true d12) + 4 (minimum) for Con + 1 per level (favored).  Throw in toughness and some magically increased Con and two weeks is feasible IF you are beat down to right at zero and have no magical healing whatsoever.

So two weeks seems to be the far end exception.  Half that seems pretty typical.  With "pretty typical" ignoring for sake of this specific conversation that magic healing is highly typical.

Strickly speaking, healing up from negatives obviously could take a bit longer just by the math.   And if you were actually knocked unconscious and recover from that alone it can add some days before the recovery starts.  But even I have never seen that case actually happen.   

One week works for me.  

Again, the whole embrace of some true "cause and effect" is the key.  Swap surges to temporary HP so that some cause must bring about removal of wounds and I'm good.


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## BryonD (Apr 10, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Just to be clear: my view that hp = mojo and ability to push on through comparatively minor REH-Conan-style punishment is confined to PCs.



Are you saying this is your view for ALL hp damage for PCs (in 4E)?  
Honest question because I want to understand the context.


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Are you saying this is your view for ALL hp damage for PCs (in 4E)?



Obviously not for fatal damage - but given that fatal damage is identified only when certain extreme conditions are reached (three failed saves OR negative bloodied) the prelude has itself to be narrated in a fairly flexible way. Fatal damage, for PCs, is therefore not going to be disembowelling or severing of limbs - because that can't be narrated in the right way. It's going to be a bruise to the abdomen that (as it turns out) ruptured an internal organ, or a blow to the head that (as it turns out) was more than just glancing.

There are other corner cases too. In my last session, for example, a PC got shot by an assassin with poisoned bolts. The PC - a very tough dwarf - is heavily armoured. I was happy to narrate this as the bolts passing through chinks in the armour, delivering the poison, though not severing any tendons, ligaments or vessels.

There are odd cases for NPCs also. For example, in a couple of fights over the past year the PCs have fought NPC wizards with hundreds of hp (an elite and a solo). In these fights, even many "hits" are narrated as causing the wizard to have to parry a blow, or deflect a magical attack, with his/her staff. I certainly don't narrate it black knight style!, as if the NPC were still standing after taking blow after blow. (Contrast the fight against the dragon having hundred of hit points, where it did in fact withstand hard blow after hard blow. Contrast again the fight against the hobgoblin phalanx (a huge swarm), in which the effects of successful attacks were narrated as sending one or more of the hobgoblin soldiers flying.)

Of guidelines for narrating "damage" in this sort of system, the best I know (and the ones that have influenced me the most) are those in the original HeroWars book (HeroQuest revised uses a different mechanic for resolving extended contests, and so while on the whole a clearer set of guidelines, doesn't give advice for this particular issue).


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## hanez (Apr 10, 2012)

Im not sure about this whole "you have to play it" to judge it thing.  I mean every DM is different, so the variety of play between DMs will  be huge anyways.

Nevertheless the rules make trends, push groups of DMs certain ways.

I saw no way to DM 4e without minis for example, it would just be so against the entire philosophy of the system it wouldnt be a rational thing to do.

The rules value certain things, prioritize certain things, make you super excited to play something vs someting else.  I see no problem with someone reading my favorite editions phb, and sayin, read it and it looked bad.  As long as he is experienced with D&D in general, he probably knows enough to decide whether or not he will like an by the bookish game run in that system.


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## BryonD (Apr 10, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Obviously not for fatal damage ...



Fair enough.
Thanks

I'm completely on board with the flexibility to describe "hits" that cost HP as minor.  I use that quite frequently.  
And if you use that exclusively then you have, imo without question, fully resolved the surge complaint.  

However, for me personally the value of HP as a narrative device come from their complete ambiguity and flexibility.  I also won't hesitate to call a hit a "real" wound if the nature of the event fits.  Obviously I won't cut off an arm in a D&D game.  (excepting extremes not completely unlike those you describe)

It has been a while since I made this point, but I've said before that surges give you a choose your poison situation.  Instantly healing wounds seems to the common theme.  But you can avoid that poison by choosing the poison of never having any (non-fatal) blow actually do true harm.  The characters can go through hundreds of battles and never once receive a wound that actually needs to heal.

I accept that this option is fine for you and I offer no criticism of it.  But I hope you can accept that letting go of that narrative option for actual wounds is not acceptable to me.


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## Hussar (Apr 10, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> To answer the question what is gained: verisimilitude (as you say) and a more realistic pacing. There are also hidden opportunities for adventure and role play whenever characters are laid up. That might not appeal to yu, but it does appeak to plenty of people.
> 
> I already answered the other part but once again yes, one day or less  healing blows my mind and one week or more (you are assuming I am only talking about 3e for some reason) Does not. I would also disagree that neither is remotely realistic. One week or more is vaguely realistic (i even offered my own experience with surgery to show it isnt that much of a stretch---though it is still a stretch---especially if you arent deaing with major issues like broken bones or ruptured organs), one day or less is not remotely realistic.




Yes, but, you're talkng about surgery in a modern day hospital with all the wonders of 21st century medicine.  Do you really think that you would be back on your feet in a week in 1300 AD having undergone the exact same procedure?

Ok, say we accept 1 week.  Why one week though?  Can it be 6 days?  How about 3 days?  Does it absolutely need to be a week?

And, as a side note, achieving this is a relatively easy process.  In my games, PC's recover 100% of their HP after an extended rest.  For you, they recover, say, 10%.  There, done.  A sliding scale dial would satisfy both of us no?

As far as "plenty of people" go, I'm not going to play that game.  I don't try to speak for the masses anymore because I have absolutely no idea what "plenty of people" do in their games.  It's disingenuous to pretend that you do.  You prefer a 1 week healing time.  That's groovy.  As I say, it's a relatively easy thing to resolve.  I don't prefer that.  I prefer a faster healing time because I find down time to be a somewhat rare experience and IMO, forces groups to have someone fall on the cleric grenade to have a healbot in the group.

But, in any case, wouldn't a sliding healing scale, instead of a one size fits all method, resolve all the issues?


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## JamesonCourage (Apr 10, 2012)

Just so we're clear, I'll be expressing this as someone who has played D&D, not my own RPG.



Hussar said:


> I can't think of a single time I saw a character fully heal through natural means.  It certainly never happened twice in any campaign I ever played in.



I have. Literally a couple dozen times. 


Hussar said:


> I've never, ever, seen D&D played without any sort of healer, let alone seen it multiple times.



I have.


Hussar said:


> Unless, of course, you're playing a high RP game with very little combat.  But, then, if you're using D&D for that, you are pretty close to freeforming with a veneer of D&D tropes laid over top.



_This_ greatly amused me. Even if you don't change the rules whatsoever, you're close to freeforming the game? That's actually very funny to me. I know that you and Dannager both strongly believed that D&D was a game about combat, but you lost that poll about about two to one, I think. Most people disagreed. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/309227-d-d-about-combat.html)


Hussar said:


> Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?



Well, it aids in the passage of time. The passage of time allows for more evolution of the setting. The evolution of the setting allows for more interesting scenarios to naturally unfold. Armies may move, kings may die, bandits may get wiped out or raid a town. NPCs will fall in love and get married, PCs will have kids, and so on. Personally, it's why I'm against teleportation magic being used constantly, too (3.X was terrible about this). Not that I'm expecting D&D to change that.

Slower healing, if common, allows for very interesting events to unfold in a timeline that wouldn't be there otherwise. The same is true of mundane travel (especially if the weather slows you down from time to time). The same is applied to taking time to craft things. Anything, really, that allows for events to unfold in the setting naturally can make it very interesting.

Of course, I say this as someone who plays with a rather sandbox approach to the game. If you wanted to, you could take a more dramatist approach and "fudge" things so that "yes, this nation was drafting and arming an army, but nobody noticed it because it's a very, _very_ good secret!" It's not my preferred approach, personally, as that, too, breaks my sense of verisimilitude within the game. But, I understand that a lot of players just roll with it, and have a lot of fun. And, more power to them. That's cool. But slowing things down in-game opens up new narrative paths in my preferred style of game that wouldn't be there otherwise. As always, play what you like


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## Hussar (Apr 10, 2012)

JC said:
			
		

> Well, it aids in the passage of time. The passage of time allows for more evolution of the setting. The evolution of the setting allows for more interesting scenarios to naturally unfold. Armies may move, kings may die, bandits may get wiped out or raid a town. NPCs will fall in love and get married, PCs will have kids, and so on. Personally, it's why I'm against teleportation magic being used constantly, too (3.X was terrible about this). Not that I'm expecting D&D to change that.




No, it really doesn't.  For most groups, there will be no passage of time because they'll just use magical healing to bring people back up to full.  I'm going to stand by the idea that a group with no magical healing in D&D is very, very much an outlier.  I'll stand by that because virtually every single published group of adventurers, whether pregens for modules or whatever, includes a healer.

Going all the way back to tournament modules in AD&D.  There's a reason CLERIC was one of the first three classes.  This is a standard thing in pretty much any edition of D&D.  

So, no, I don't buy the "passage of time" arguement.  For one, you're only talking a few days difference most of the time. It's not like 1 week of healing is the standard, it's the maximum (or near enough).  Most of the time, you're only healing a couple of dozen HP, so, we're talking a few of days vs 1 day at most.  It's not enough time to make any significant difference in the grand scheme of things.



> This greatly amused me. Even if you don't change the rules whatsoever, you're close to freeforming the game? That's actually very funny to me. I know that you and Dannager both strongly believed that D&D was a game about combat, but you lost that poll about about two to one, I think. Most people disagreed. (Is D&D "about" combat?)




Two things.  First off, that poll is a bit... less than scientific.    Secondly, it's not about the game being all about combat.  But, if you have a game that is 90% out of combat, what rules are you actually engaging?  Or, to put it another way, in a game that has virtually no combat, 90% of the game rules are not being used.  Thus, my comment about free-forming.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I've done it and its fun.  But, if I'm not using most of the rules of a game, I'm pretty close to free-forming, or at least a lot closer to freeforming than in a game where I actually use 90% of the rules.

The difference here is, JC, I differentiate between the game and what I play.  I don't pretend that my personal, idiosyncratic approach to D&D is any sort of universal or the way it's meant to be played.  When I talk about D&D, OTOH, I'm talking about what's found between the covers of the books.

Some people find that distinction very, very hard to make.


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I hope you can accept that letting go of that narrative option for actual wounds is not acceptable to me.



Well, I can believe it, insofar as you assert it and I've got no reason to think you're lying or confused about your own preferences.

I have played a lot of a game in which wounding figures prominently - namely, Rolemaster, which has no hp mechanic in the D&D sense (RM concussion hits are a very different thing from D&D hit points; they somewhat resemble RQ's "total hit points" ie damage that has not been allocated as a wound to any particular part of the target's body). In that system, given that PCs fight fairly frequently, magical healing becomes a must for PCs to be able to go on.

At present, I'm enjoying a system which plays quite differently - and, I think, better overall. Much as I love RM, it is a somewhat unstable mix of grittiness and gonzo. 4e unequivocally opts for the gonzo.



BryonD said:


> I also won't hesitate to call a hit a "real" wound if the nature of the event fits.  Obviously I won't cut off an arm in a D&D game.  (excepting extremes not completely unlike those you describe)



I've got not objections to "real wounds", even to PCs. But in my view, the default 4e combat resolution mechanics can't generate them on a PC (unless the PC is killed).

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] takes a different approach - for example, I think on one occasion a PC who was hanging down the side of a bridge, just clinging to the edge, was hit, and he narrated this as a severing of the fingers leading to a fall. Whereas, by default, I would narrate this sort of "hit" as the blow coming so close that the PC involuntarily let go and fell.

In my own game the question of what magic, if any, _can_ heal wounds has come up, when the PCs rescued a group of NPCs who had been beaten up by hobgoblins (and in this sort of freely narrated combat - just me as GM setting up some backstory - wounds are of course fair game). We decided that abilities that can do nothing but restore hit points can't do anything like cure blindness or maimed limbs, let alone regrow severed limbs. The Remove Affliction ritual can, however. (Which produces the unusual result that the best _literal_ healer in the party is the wizard. But what he can't do is restore morale/mojo - that's what the ranger-cleric excels at, but no amount of mojo will let you see once your eyes have been poked out.)


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

hanez said:


> Im not sure about this whole "you have to play it" to judge it thing.



I think that, once you have familiarity with a range of systems, it is possible to make a reasonable judgement of how a game will play from reading its rules.

On the other hand, if you've only ever played one game, or one sort of game, it can be hard to work out what is going on with a very different game. To give a pertinent example - I think if the only RPGs I had known were prior editions of D&D, then I would not have been able to work out, just from reading the 4e rules, how it was meant to play and what the rationale was for some of the key mechanics. (And the designers do know favours by not spelling this sort of stuff out.)


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> it aids in the passage of time. The passage of time allows for more evolution of the setting.





Hussar said:


> I don't buy the "passage of time" arguement.  For one, you're only talking a few days difference most of the time. It's not like 1 week of healing is the standard, it's the maximum (or near enough).  Most of the time, you're only healing a couple of dozen HP, so, we're talking a few of days vs 1 day at most.  It's not enough time to make any significant difference in the grand scheme of things.



I agree with Hussar on this point, and it's part of why I find D&D an odd choice of system for those who want this sort of thing in their games.

In RQ, hp heal at 1d3 per week, and a character who is healing from unconscious to full health is likely to be healing between 10 and 20 hp. Making for healing times of a month or two.

In BW, healing times for wounds any heavier than light are likewise typically a month or more, sometimes up to 6 months, or even close to two years to fully recover from a mortal wound.

In Rolemaster, even magical healing still imposes healing times, which for a bad injury or a series of injuries may well be more than a week, and in some serious cases multiple months. Natural healing is similarly drawn out.

These are the sorts of recovery times that in my view allow for evolution in the setting. (In BW, this is explicitly called out as one function of the recovery rules; another is to oblige players who don't _want_ the setting to evolve to get into the action while carrying wound penalties, which changes the dynamics of play both at the ingame and the metagame level.)



Hussar said:


> But, if you have a game that is 90% out of combat, what rules are you actually engaging?  Or, to put it another way, in a game that has virtually no combat, 90% of the game rules are not being used.



I agree with this. I recently reread the Moldvay Basic Rules - which is often held up as a counterexample to most D&D rules being about combat.

Moldvay has detailed action resolution mechanics for combat (surprise rules, initiative rules, a turn sequence, hit and damage rules, morale rules). It has less detailed action resolution rules for dungeon exploration: for listening at doors, for opening stuck doors, for finding secret doors (but not for opening them, which is left to player ingenuity, at least according to the description of play), for finding and disarming traps, and the like. (Some of these resolution mechanics are also hidden in the spell lists: mystical runes and sigils are a staple of dungeon exploration, for example, but Basic has no "read runes" ability, and instead you have to use the spells Read Magic and/or Read Languages - though Expert also introduces a relevant thief ability.)

It has very simple action resolution mechanics for social conflict - there is a reaction chart, which according to the rules is to be used primarily in framing the scene (are the encountered NCPs/monsters hostile or friendly?), but according to the example of play may also be used to resolve it - in that example, after the PCs make an offer the GM rolls on the chart again to see how that offer is received. There is nothing comparable in these social conflict resolution mechanics to the detail of the combat resolution mechanics, and only one stat pertains to them - CHA - whereas 4 stats pertain to combat resolution - STR, DEX, CON and WIS (for saving throws).

There are basically no resolution mechanics for movement (beyond movement rates - but no rules for chases, for example, nor for climbing if one is not a thief, nor for swimming, nor for riding). The expert rules beef these up a little bit, but there are still no rules for (for example) resolving a race.

If I wanted to play a scenario in which the PCs didn't have to find, listen at or open doors (eg they are in an ordinary building in which the doors are obvious and not especially soundproof), and in which the main mode of action resolution was by talking to people, Moldvay Basic would have little to offer. The only relevant stat is CHA. There are no relevant class abilities. And the only mechanical technique the books gives me is the reaction roll table, which is pretty sparse stuff.

If I was clever at such things I might try to adapt the morale rules to make them (i) integrate better with the reaction rules, and (ii) have applicability outside combat. I haven't tried that myself, and so can't comment on how easy or hard it would be. But as published, I think these rules back up Hussar's assertion. Once you go beyond combat and simple dungeon exploration, you're very close to being on your own.


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## Lanefan (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?



Easy - it gives the plot a chance to move forward while the PCs lick their wounds.

If a party can wade through a particular adventure or dungeon all in one go without having to stop for any great period of time to rest, that dungeon is going to be pretty static except for immediate defensive moves by the occupants.  This makes the DM's job easier but I'm not sure it's enough of a trade-off benefit.  (4e's Keep on the Shadowfell pretty much expects this as written, that you'll plow through the whole dungeon with maybe only one (or two if you're unlucky) extended rests and get to Kalarel right away.)

But if a party is forced to take some significant time off and rest* the whole adventure can change on the fly.  Reinforcements can arrive, or everyone can leave, or the enemy can proactively come after the party, or whatever - in any case, things become much less static; or at least the DM has the opportunity to make it so.

* - or train, or go back to town for supplies, or whatever.

Lan-"extended rest sounds good to me right now"-efan


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## Lanefan (Apr 10, 2012)

shidaku said:


> Going to a movie, going clubbing, that's the same as playing a system.  What you're doing is reading the menu and telling me the food is terrible.



That's how I judge any restaurant I've never been to - I read the menu, and if all the food is listed as having gype in it I don't like e.g. garlic and-or isn't something I'd want to eat in the first place e.g. sushi then I'm not going to eat there, because as far as I'm concerned it's terrible.

Same goes for game systems.  Sure, reading the books might not give you the minutae, but it'll give a pretty good overview of what to expect assuming you've played a few games and know what to look for; and thus a good idea as to whether it's a system you want to play.

Lan-"putting garlic on game books does nothing to improve the flavour"-efan


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## Lanefan (Apr 10, 2012)

pemerton said:


> At present, I'm enjoying a system which plays quite differently - and, I think, better overall. Much as I love RM, it is a somewhat unstable mix of grittiness and gonzo. 4e unequivocally opts for the gonzo.



I've called 4e various things but 'gonzo' has never been one of them; in that to me gonzo means a style of outside-the-box rules-be-damned let's-just-do-it-for-the-laughs gaming that rules-light systems can handle far better than rules-heavy.  I've yet to hear anybody accuse 4e of being rules-light. 



> I've got not objections to "real wounds", even to PCs. But in my view, the default 4e combat resolution mechanics can't generate them on a PC (unless the PC is killed).



This is unfortunate, and supports my lobbying for a BP-FP hit point system.



> The Remove Affliction ritual can [regrow limbs etc.], however. (Which produces the unusual result that the best _literal_ healer in the party is the wizard. But what he can't do is restore morale/mojo - that's what the ranger-cleric excels at, but no amount of mojo will let you see once your eyes have been poked out.)



4e Clerics don't get _Regeneration_ or _Heal_?  That makes no sense...

If Wizards can heal along with everything else they can do then no wonder people are saying they're overpowered.

Lanefan


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## JamesonCourage (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> No, it really doesn't.  For most groups, there will be no passage of time because they'll just use magical healing to bring people back up to full.  I'm going to stand by the idea that a group with no magical healing in D&D is very, very much an outlier.



(This is a reply to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] as well.) Of course it is. I didn't say it wasn't. But, as I said, I _have_ seen people heal naturally dozens of times in D&D (not my RPG), as well as groups with no healers. Just because you haven't (or rarely have) doesn't mean that it holds true for all groups. But, again, I do think it's an outlier; it's just one that does apply to certain groups from time to time, and something that those groups appreciate.



Hussar said:


> So, no, I don't buy the "passage of time" arguement.  For one, you're only talking a few days difference most of the time. It's not like 1 week of healing is the standard, it's the maximum (or near enough).



It really depends on the party makeup, edition, etc. About 6-10 days seemed to be the average in my personal experience, or half that with a lot of bed rest.



Hussar said:


> Most of the time, you're only healing a couple of dozen HP, so, we're talking a few of days vs 1 day at most.  It's not enough time to make any significant difference in the grand scheme of things.



I totally, completely, and utterly disagree with a few days not making a difference in the grand scheme of things. Especially not if they add up over time. I think that alone might highlight just how different our playstyles in this respect are.



Hussar said:


> Two things.  First off, that poll is a bit... less than scientific.



Better than saying "most groups" or "many people" though, right? At least there was a poll on it, with nearly 400 votes.



Hussar said:


> Secondly, it's not about the game being all about combat.  But, if you have a game that is 90% out of combat, what rules are you actually engaging?  Or, to put it another way, in a game that has virtually no combat, 90% of the game rules are not being used.  Thus, my comment about free-forming.



I regularly engaged in the skill rules from 3.X. While they were flawed in a few ways (in my opinion), they were very useful at dealing with out of combat scenarios. Additionally, you can use rules of weather, magic items, exploration, carrying capacity, etc. There are many rules you can still use, and I wouldn't call using those rules "freeforming" any more than I'd call saying "I swing my axe down at him" a type of "freeforming" because you can't model different types of swings. The rules don't cover a "downward axe swing" any differently from any other swing with a weapon, but it's not "freeforming" when say that. When my group rolled Spots, Listens, Crafts, Diplomacy, etc. in 3.5, we did so by engaging the rules.

This did, of course, eventually lead me to making my own RPG rules (originally a set of house rules). I only made these rules because the system's rules weren't covering what I wanted, and I only knew that by engaging them. Your take on "freeforming D&D" by not heavily engaging in combat doesn't resonate with me at all.



Hussar said:


> The difference here is, JC, I differentiate between the game and what I play.  I don't pretend that my personal, idiosyncratic approach to D&D is any sort of universal or the way it's meant to be played.  When I talk about D&D, OTOH, I'm talking about what's found between the covers of the books.
> 
> Some people find that distinction very, very hard to make.



You made this same claim in the "Is D&D 'about' Combat?" thread that I linked. I don't think it holds any more water in this discussion then it did there. As always, play what you like


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Yes, but, you're talkng about surgery in a modern day hospital with all the wonders of 21st century medicine.  Do you really think that you would be back on your feet in a week in 1300 AD having undergone the exact same procedure?
> 
> Ok, say we accept 1 week.  Why one week though?  Can it be 6 days?  How about 3 days?  Does it absolutely need to be a week?
> 
> ...




hey hussar, i am all for optional methods to make everyone happy. Use standard healing at the default and make stuff like surges optional ad ons. I just dont want 4e healing as the core. So long as faster healing isn't in my game, i am fine with it being supplied as an option. 

I just dont buy te other part of the argument where you incrementally try tp equate a week OR MORE to one day or a moment. A week is beoievable enough for me, but just barely. Also it depends on the damage, someimes you heal in less time. 

But like I said you can accept whatever rate you like. If you find an hour, a day or two days believable that is fine. I would rathder see them go back to the ad&d rate of natural healing. 3E i can tolerate (though i have issues with it at times) and 4e just drives me nuts.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Yes, but, you're talkng about surgery in a modern day hospital with all the wonders of 21st century medicine.  Do you really think that you would be back on your feet in a week in 1300 AD having undergone the exact same procedure?
> 
> ?




I dont want to go into the specific details of my surgeries so bear with my vagaries. I had six, and for several of them the chief difference modern medicine offered was sterile envirnment, equipment and antibiotics. Infection is the chief divider for that one, and i agree if we were going for gritty realism many characters would die of blood infections after taking a small amount of damage. But just in terms of getting up and feeing normal after having a deep wound in your body: i was back to normal in about two weeks. In a couple of instances that was without antibiotics. There was still a wound, but in game terms i was back up to full hp. Now, i was just using this because pemerton had been so dismissive of two weeks for deep wounds. Obviously there are surgeries with much longer recovery times (but this was big surgery). So my point was simply that two weeks wasn't crazy.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> As far as "plenty of people" go, I'm not going to play that game.  I don't try to speak for the masses anymore because I have absolutely no idea what "plenty of people" do in their games.  It's disingenuous to pretend that you do.  You prefer a 1 week healing time.  That's groovy.  As I say, it's a relatively easy thing to resolve.  I don't prefer that.  I prefer a faster healing time because I find down time to be a somewhat rare experience and IMO, forces groups to have someone fall on the cleric grenade to have a healbot in the group.
> 
> ?




That is a fair point, but you appear happy to play at game in your posts after this one (you talk about "most groups" on th passage of time discussion). 

On the second part, yes play how you want. I wont  tell you you are wrong for liking faster eaing  (that is one reason i dont some of the efforts ere to argue i am wrong for holding the opposite position). It isn't realistic enough for e, but i can see how another person finds it realistic enough or possibly more realistic. What i dont want is your style of healing as the default. I think baseline D&D healing should be the traditional approach. But they should certainly give scaling options for other preferences.


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## Steely_Dan (Apr 10, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> That's how I judge any restaurant I've never been to - I read the menu, and if all the food is listed as having gype in it I don't like e.g. garlic
> 
> Lan-"putting garlic on game books does nothing to improve the flavour"-efan





Wait, wait, wait...editions aside, you don't like garlic?


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## Steely_Dan (Apr 10, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> I totally, completely, and utterly disagree with a few days not making a difference in the grand scheme of things. Especially not if they add up over time. I think that alone might highlight just how different our playstyles in this respect are.




Exactly, 6 hours of sleep and I'm bouncing (no, please,m can also add some length to the campaign); makes me think of the scene in _Conan the Barbarian_.

I also do not want a 5th Ed character to go from a cook to a god in 10 months of game-time.


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> I've called 4e various things but 'gonzo' has never been one of them; in that to me gonzo means a style of outside-the-box rules-be-damned let's-just-do-it-for-the-laughs gaming that rules-light systems can handle far better than rules-heavy.  I've yet to hear anybody accuse 4e of being rules-light.



By "gonzo" I mean a fantasy setting that mixes Tolkien (humanoids) with Lovecraft (Far Realm) with the classics (mortals vs gods) with all the other accretions that D&D fantasy has taken on over the years. And with the PCs starting as reasonably normal people but ending up as demigod/superhero types.

Most versions of D&D have hints, at least, of this - especially in the setting - and I think 4e is the most thorough going about it, because it brings PC building and action resolution fully into line.

Rolemaster also has very strong hints of this, but its action resolution mechanics aren't quite up to the job, and it also doesn't do demigods quite as well.

Runequest, by way of contrast, is much less gonzo (in this sense), even despite some of its wacky chaos monsters (and its ducks). It has much more emphasis on realistic world building, and on gritty and long-term action resolution that goes with it. 



Lanefan said:


> 4e Clerics don't get _Regeneration_ or _Heal_?  That makes no sense...
> 
> If Wizards can heal along with everything else they can do then no wonder people are saying they're overpowered.



Heal only restores hit points, so (in the context of my game, as described upthread) won't do the job.

There is no regeneration spell or ritual as far as I know. And because the cleric in my game is a hybrid ranger-cleric, he doesn't get automatic access to Ritual Casting (and hasn't taken it as a feat). Hence the MU's status as the best _literal[/] healer. Given the lack of the capacity of the combat rules to deliver wounds short of death, this healing ability doesn't come into play all that often. But he has cured a lycanthrope of his curse, cured an acolyte of her Gibbering Mouther-induced madness, restored the sight (if I'm recalling correctly) to a blinded dwarf, and probably done one or two other heals that I'm forgetting.

Whereas the cleric restores the moral of his comrades in combat (Healing Word, plus a couple of encounter powers that restore hit points and/or permit surge expenditure). But doesn't regenerate limbs, restore sight to the blind, or lift curses.

If we then turn to the best Healing skill in the party, it is actually that of the dwarf fighter, who is the only PC trained in the skill, and has equal second-highest WIS (together with the paladin)._


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## pemerton (Apr 10, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> I also do not want a 5th Ed character to go from a cook to a god in 10 months of game-time.



3E's natural healing rates, in combination with 3E's ease of access to magical healing, are not going to put much of a dent in this. I mean, adding an extra couple of months, or even doubling the time to 20 months, isn't really goint to change the overall absurdity of the time in question. (And 10 months lost to natural healings assumes one or two zero-to-full natural heals per level, an amount which I would be very surprised to learn has ever happened in a 3E campaign that also involved the PCs passing 6th level or so.)

EDIT: The real way to signficantly increase levelling time is _to make the events in the game unfold more slowly_. The trouble with this is, in a system that treats time as a signficant resource (which all editions of D&D prior to 4e do), it is likely to favour those classes - typically, in D&D, the magic-using ones - who can best make use of that time.


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## SkidAce (Apr 10, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Obviously not for fatal damage - but given that fatal damage is identified only when certain extreme conditions are reached (three failed saves OR negative bloodied) the prelude has itself to be narrated in a fairly flexible way. Fatal damage, for PCs, is therefore not going to be disembowelling or severing of limbs - because that can't be narrated in the right way. It's going to be a bruise to the abdomen that (as it turns out) ruptured an internal organ, or a blow to the head that (as it turns out) was more than just glancing.
> 
> There are other corner cases too. In my last session, for example, a PC got shot by an assassin with poisoned bolts. The PC - a very tough dwarf - is heavily armoured. I was happy to narrate this as the bolts passing through chinks in the armour, delivering the poison, though not severing any tendons, ligaments or vessels.
> 
> ...




I agree with this method, and we have been doing this since day one of 1st edition and Basic.  Well said.


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## Cadfan (Apr 10, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I just dont buy te other part of the argument where you incrementally try tp equate a week OR MORE to one day or a moment. A week is beoievable enough for me, but just barely. Also it depends on the damage, someimes you heal in less time.



I believe that you feel this way.  But I suspect that you feel this way because you've been grown accustomed to 3e levels of natural healing, not because there's any qualitative difference.

In a weird way, 3e had a lot of rules that were very important to people even when the very people to whom they were important didn't actually use them.  Like recovering fired arrows, counting them, and keeping track of quiver capacity.  The fact that these rules were in the game made people feel like it was believable.  But the fact that these rules were awful meant that people found workarounds, usually involving magic items or spells that eliminated the need to use the mundane rules.  If you questioned them on this, they'd insist they used these rules... because back at level 2, they counted arrows for a bit, before learning the more advanced Rapid Fire feats and buying a bottomless magical quiver so they didn't keep exhausting their arrows three rounds into combat.  But on a day to day basis, these rules were honored in their absence: they were the catalyst that justified the use of magic to avoid their actual text.

The problem I have is that this process, the process by which terrible rules that work counter to the overall goals of the game ruin your ability to actually play the game until you figure out the super secret workarounds that let you avoid actually using the badly written (but believable!) rules causes, for me, a game context that is itself not believable.  I don't like stocking up on potions.  I don't like stocking up on healing wands.  I don't like identical magical quivers being standard issue for an entire character class.  I don't like any of that.

Difficult non magical healing screws with my ability to run a low magic game because if I want to do very simple things that the game purports to handle (like run your typical published module that includes more than one meaningfully dangerous fight in a single week), I have to use tons of magic from ye olde magic shoppe, or else I need a character designed to fix the problem for me by use of magic.  I don't want those things.  I don't mind slow non magical healing, but I hate all the things that come with it.  And I don't see any solutions forthcoming.


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## Hussar (Apr 10, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Easy - it gives the plot a chance to move forward while the PCs lick their wounds.
> 
> If a party can wade through a particular adventure or dungeon all in one go without having to stop for any great period of time to rest, that dungeon is going to be pretty static except for immediate defensive moves by the occupants.  This makes the DM's job easier but I'm not sure it's enough of a trade-off benefit.  (4e's Keep on the Shadowfell pretty much expects this as written, that you'll plow through the whole dungeon with maybe only one (or two if you're unlucky) extended rests and get to Kalarel right away.)
> 
> ...




That bolded word, right there, is the sticking point for me.  What is "significant"?  Three days?  Seven days?  One day?  The example given was the movement of armies.  An army generally moves 5-10 miles per day, 20 if they're REALLY in a hurry, and certainly not for any extended periods of time.

There's a reason wars can take 100 years.   

Reinforcements suffer the same issue.  Ok, sure, reinforcements arrive.  Now, how did they know to come?  Presumably, messengers had to travel out and make contact.  We're limited to about a 15 mile/day movement for any ground unit not on a road.  Sure, the first batch of reinforcements might come in a day or two.  But after that?  Where are they coming from?  If the baddies have that deep of reinforcements that close, why in heck are they not wiping out the locals?

So on and so forth.

When the difference between 1 day healing and 1 week healing is so insignificant, I'm really not buying the whole "the campaign evolves".  Mostly because 1 week of healing actually occurs so rarely.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 10, 2012)

Cadfan said:


> The problem I have is that this process, the process by which terrible rules that work counter to the overall goals of the game ruin your ability to actually play the game until you figure out the super secret workarounds that let you avoid actually using the badly written (but believable!) rules causes, for me, a game context that is itself not believable. I don't like stocking up on potions. I don't like stocking up on healing wands. I don't like identical magical quivers being standard issue for an entire character class. I don't like any of that.
> 
> Difficult non magical healing screws with my ability to run a low magic game because if I want to do very simple things that the game purports to handle (like run your typical published module that includes more than one meaningfully dangerous fight in a single week), I have to use tons of magic from ye olde magic shoppe, or else I need a character designed to fix the problem for me by use of magic. I don't want those things. I don't mind slow non magical healing, but I hate all the things that come with it. And I don't see any solutions forthcoming.




I'll repeat myself from a thread several weeks ago to state that I think the way out of this is to adapt something like the Burning Wheel resource cycle to D&D.  It wouldn't be an exact match, not only because of mechanics, but because of the things you include/exclude in the cycle.  But basically, BW ties several otherwise unrelated things (practice times, spell research, extended travel, gaining of relativley permanent wealth, social and station expenses, etc.) to a single cycle.  The group can agree to set the frequency of the cycle however they want, but to play within the rules, all of that stuff moves together.  

Time should matter or it shouldn't or somewhere in between.  To the degree it matters, it should actually matter.    I agree with you that illusionism in mechanics is next to useless.  You might as well have a flavor blurb in a sidebar, if that's all the mechanical support you need. Meanwhile, those of us who occasionally like some mechanical support for a slower pace of play are left with something that has to be rewritten.  I'd rather start from nothing than lousy, as at least "nothing" is not embedded into the existing system.


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## Hussar (Apr 10, 2012)

BRG said:
			
		

> What i dont want is your style of healing as the default. I think baseline D&D healing should be the traditional approach. But they should certainly give scaling options for other preferences.




I'd prefer that there is no "default".  If they do set a default, then you wind up with people claiming that the default is better than anything else, simply because it's the default.  I'd much prefer that you have several options, and get to pick the one that applies to your taste.

Isn't that what modular means?


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Cadfan said:


> I believe that you feel this way.  But I suspect that you feel this way because you've been grown accustomed to 3e levels of natural healing, not because there's any qualitative difference.




No. This isn't why actually. Haven't played 3e in ages and it isn't even my prefered edition of D&D (not to mention I usually play other games aside from D&D). 

You may not see a qualitative difference, but I certainly do. The difference is seven days to recover versus 24 hours or less. Huge diffeence there in terms of believability. 

My guess is your primary concern is a gamist one (not in the ron edwards sense but in how we tend to use it here). That is perfectly fine and I can undestand you viewing slow healing as a bad rule if all you want t do is get back "on track" with the scenario. That isn't my primary concern. So slow healing doesn't impede my enjoyment of play.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I'd prefer that there is no "default".  If they do set a default, then you wind up with people claiming that the default is better than anything else, simply because it's the default.  I'd much prefer that you have several options, and get to pick the one that applies to your taste.
> 
> Isn't that what modular means?




By default i mean core system, which they say there will be. The gm and players then choose which modular ad ons to include as available options.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Cadfan said:


> I
> 
> In a weird way, 3e had a lot of rules that were very important to people even when the very people to whom they were important didn't actually use them.  Like recovering fired arrows, counting them, and keeping track of quiver capacity.  The fact that these rules were in the game made people feel like it was believable.  But the fact that these rules were awful meant that people found workarounds, usually involving magic items or spells that eliminated the need to use the mundane rules.  If you questioned them on this, they'd insist they used these rules... because back at level 2, they counted arrows for a bit, before learning the more advanced Rapid Fire feats and buying a bottomless magical quiver so they didn't keep exhausting their arrows three rounds into combat.  But on a day to day basis, these rules were honored in their absence: they were the catalyst that justified the use of magic to avoid their actual text.
> 
> .




First forcing people to track arrows (or money) isnt a bad rule. It may not be a rule you like but there is nothing inherently bad about the mechanic. Second, most people I know track ammunition. I think you are assuming things about the majority of gamers that just arent true.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Cadfan said:


> I
> 
> Difficult non magical healing screws with my ability to run a low magic game because if I want to do very simple things that the game purports to handle (like run your typical published module that includes more than one meaningfully dangerous fight in a single week), I have to use tons of magic from ye olde magic shoppe, or else I need a character designed to fix the problem for me by use of magic.  I don't want those things.  I don't mind slow non magical healing, but I hate all the things that come with it.  And I don't see any solutions forthcoming.




people arent offering solutions because they dont consider it a problem.i run lots of low magic games, and dont mind dealingwith the challenge of healing times when it comes up. Sometimes the part has to recover for a week or two. To finding a town to regroup in and laying up for a week can be an interesting side trek on its own.  

Heck in my other games outside D&D there usually isn't healing magic and natural healing takes a while.  

In short i guess i dont want the physicsof the game world to bend too much to the perceived exepectations of play. A little us fine,which is why i am okay with AD&D natural healing rates.


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## Balesir (Apr 10, 2012)

BryonD said:


> However, for me personally the value of HP as a narrative device come from their complete ambiguity and flexibility.  I also won't hesitate to call a hit a "real" wound if the nature of the event fits.  Obviously I won't cut off an arm in a D&D game.  (excepting extremes not completely unlike those you describe).



I can identify with this to a point,but I have to say that I would solve it by adding (as someone else suggested upthread) "wounds" as conditions of some sort that are, perhaps, saved against weekly, rather than by concocting some rules around the idea that hit points are some sort of bizarre conflation of 'real' wounding as well as morale/mojo/compos mentis/willpower/luck/divine favour and so on.

Under this schema, 'pep talks' and such could return "hit points", but reaching bloodied, receiving a critical hit, reaching 0 hit points or failing a death save would all result in the application of a condition that could be removed only via magical healing or week(s) of (bed) rest.

This is, sort of, a version of the old "fatigue points" and "body points" systems - but I think having wounds as separate "entities" actually works far better. For some real gritty feel, have a roll of "1" on the weekly saving throw to lose the wound add a disease called "infection"...



Lanefan said:


> Easy - it gives the plot a chance to move forward while the PCs lick their wounds.
> 
> If a party can wade through a particular adventure or dungeon all in one go without having to stop for any great period of time to rest, that dungeon is going to be pretty static except for immediate defensive moves by the occupants.  This makes the DM's job easier but I'm not sure it's enough of a trade-off benefit.  (4e's Keep on the Shadowfell pretty much expects this as written, that you'll plow through the whole dungeon with maybe only one (or two if you're unlucky) extended rests and get to Kalarel right away.)
> 
> ...



All of which demonstrates quite clearly what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says - and I am right with him on this one - that it is a perfectly valid pacing preferences issue, and has absolutely zip to do with "realism".


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## Cadfan (Apr 10, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> people arent offering solutions because they dont consider it a problem.i run lots of low magic games, and dont mind dealingwith the challenge of healing times when it comes up. Sometimes the part has to recover for a week or two. To finding a town to regroup in and laying up for a week can be an interesting side trek on its own.



Why do you say "when it comes up"?

"When it comes up" is always.  If there is a fight and a player is struck by a weapon, the issue has come up.  If it is coming up as an exception from regular game play, in order to create variety and an interesting and unique challenge, then you're proving my point.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 10, 2012)

Cadfan said:


> Why do you say "when it comes up"?




Because healing characters are not constantly taking damage. Healing doesn't come up every moment of the game. And my games are all very different so in some natural healing may be a consistent challenge, whereas in others it may not be. In the case of natural healing alone, when it comes up means when the party doesn't have access to magic healing and has to wait in order to recover. 




> "When it comes up" is always. If there is a fight and a player is struck by a weapon, the issue has come up. If it is coming up as an exception from regular game play, in order to create variety and an interesting and unique challenge, then you're proving my point.




It isn't always the same challenge though. Believe it or not some parties will actually press forward when they are hurt very bad. So it doesn't always pose a challenge to the GM trying to get through a scenario. You may want to elaborate on what you mean here because I am having trouble understanding how your point here really connects much to what I said.


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## BryonD (Apr 11, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I have played a lot of a game in which wounding figures prominently - namely, Rolemaster, which has no hp mechanic in the D&D sense (RM concussion hits are a very different thing from D&D hit points; they somewhat resemble RQ's "total hit points" ie damage that has not been allocated as a wound to any particular part of the target's body). In that system, given that PCs fight fairly frequently, magical healing becomes a must for PCs to be able to go on.



I'm cool with more than two buckets.

4E is one bucket labeled "all abstract"
Other games may be "all kinds of specific wounds"

Pre-4E D&D is neither of those two buckets and is yet another class of bucket.


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## BryonD (Apr 11, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I can identify with this to a point,but I have to say that I would solve it by adding (as someone else suggested upthread) "wounds" as conditions of some sort that are, perhaps, saved against weekly, rather than by concocting some rules around the idea that hit points are some sort of bizarre conflation of 'real' wounding as well as morale/mojo/compos mentis/willpower/luck/divine favour and so on.
> 
> Under this schema, 'pep talks' and such could return "hit points", but reaching bloodied, receiving a critical hit, reaching 0 hit points or failing a death save would all result in the application of a condition that could be removed only via magical healing or week(s) of (bed) rest.
> 
> This is, sort of, a version of the old "fatigue points" and "body points" systems - but I think having wounds as separate "entities" actually works far better. For some real gritty feel, have a roll of "1" on the weekly saving throw to lose the wound add a disease called "infection"...



In general terms:

I could endorse something like this.




> All of which demonstrates quite clearly what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says - and I am right with him on this one - that it is a perfectly valid pacing preferences issue, and has absolutely zip to do with "realism".



Meh, "realism" is such a loaded term it is hard to say anything really meaningful with it in this context and really know that you and the person you are talking to is taking it to mean what you intended.

But my aversion to surges really isn't about pacing.  Clearly pacing is tightly interlaced with the concern.  But pacing itself is not it at all.  If the system is such that a fighter can go through 100 battles and (presuming no "fatal" wounds) never once receive a wound that requires actual healing but instead were every single time just so many ouches that get mojoed through, is a fundamental flaw to me.  And there is no mention of pacing in that.  Now, expecting some concept of wounds that require healing to exist obviously does immediately bring pacing issues into the equation.  But those issues only arise ofter the problem has been defined, they are not part of the definition itself.


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## Hussar (Apr 11, 2012)

Well, I wouldn't say 100 fights, but, don't most action heroes get through many, many fights without being wounded in any significant way?  I haven't seen the movies in ages, but, I don't recall Indiana Jones, Han Solo or James Bond spending any significant time healing wounds.  Even in LotR, other than Frodo, who takes any significant wounds that weren't fatal?  LeggyLass, Aragorn, even Gandalf get into fight after fight after fight and never suffer any real wounds (other than dying and being raised, of course ).  Even the hobbits, again, other than Frodo, never really suffer any serious wounds that I recall.  (although, bringing up LotR is effectively Godwinning the thread, so I'm likely going to get proven wrong here)

Taking a step to the left to action TV shows, characters in shows like Buffy or Angel rarely take any serious wounds, despite getting into combat every single episode.  Yes, I do realize that some do, from time to time, like Zander losing an eye, but, those are very much the exception and not the rule.  It becomes a standing joke in the series that Giles gets knocked out yet again in a fight, yet never suffers any lasting injury.

There is a rather lengthy list of action stories where the protagonists get into many, many combats and yet suffer no lasting injury.  Pre-4e HP make this impossible because every injury is lasting - it takes several days to weeks to heal naturally.

Isn't this a problem with the system?


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Well, I wouldn't say 100 fights, but, don't most action heroes get through many, many fights without being wounded in any significant way?  I haven't seen the movies in ages, but, I don't recall Indiana Jones, Han Solo or James Bond spending any significant time healing wounds.  Even in LotR, other than Frodo, who takes any significant wounds that weren't fatal?  LeggyLass, Aragorn, even Gandalf get into fight after fight after fight and never suffer any real wounds (other than dying and being raised, of course ).  Even the hobbits, again, other than Frodo, never really suffer any serious wounds that I recall.  (although, bringing up LotR is effectively Godwinning the thread, so I'm likely going to get proven wrong here)
> 
> Taking a step to the left to action TV shows, characters in shows like Buffy or Angel rarely take any serious wounds, despite getting into combat every single episode.  Yes, I do realize that some do, from time to time, like Zander losing an eye, but, those are very much the exception and not the rule.  It becomes a standing joke in the series that Giles gets knocked out yet again in a fight, yet never suffers any lasting injury.
> 
> ...




Short answer: only if you are trying to simulate certain action movies.

Longer answer: it really depends on what you want the game to do, not everyone runs D&D cinematically---certainly my games when I first started weren't cinematic. But even if you look to cinema for inspiration characters do take time to recover from their injuries (or they plow on with wounds). The recover time is sometimes handwaved a bit (it may be less than in real life but it is usually there).


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## Hussar (Apr 11, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Short answer: only if you are trying to simulate certain action movies.
> 
> Longer answer: it really depends on what you want the game to do, not everyone runs D&D cinematically---certainly my games when I first started weren't cinematic. But even if you look to cinema for inspiration characters do take time to recover from their injuries (or they plow on with wounds). The recover time is sometimes handwaved a bit (it may be less than in real life but it is usually there).




Meh, the characters "plow on" with their injuries because their injuries have no actual effect.  The only time they recover is when the plot needs a bit of down time.

Well, I just provided a handful of examples from classic and modern fantasy of how HP are generally handled in fiction the matches with how HP are described in both 1e and 4e.  Can you provide examples where protagonists take significant wounds that require serious attention before the end of the movie/plot/story?

And, yes, I am aware that there are some.  There's the Conan story where he's crucified and then spends some months in the middle of the story recovering.  So, yes, exceptions exist.  But, that's the thing, they're very much the exception and not the rule.  When John McClane steps on broken glass, he suffers no significant wounds - he limps a little and that's about it.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Meh, the characters "plow on" with their injuries because their injuries have no actual effect.  The only time they recover is when the plot needs a bit of down time.




No the wounds often do impact the character and the fact that they are injured ads to the tension. Yes movies are different from rpgs in that the writer has total contol and can place all elements conveniently where he needs them. 



> Well, I just provided a handful of examples from classic and modern fantasy of how HP are generally handled in fiction the matches with how HP are described in both 1e and 4e.  Can you provide examples where protagonists take significant wounds that require serious attention before the end of the movie/plot/story?
> 
> And, yes, I am aware that there are some.  There's the Conan story where he's crucified and then spends some months in the middle of the story recovering.  So, yes, exceptions exist.  But, that's the thing, they're very much the exception and not the rule.  When John McClane steps on broken glass, he suffers no significant wounds - he limps a little and that's about it.




Excaliber leaps to mind. Conan is pivotal, not an exception. Pretty sure wounds lingered in gladiator but would need to see it again. Would probably need t go over my movie collection and find some examples. 

But ultimately it doesn't matter because I am not simulating movies in my games. I never have.


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## BryonD (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Well, I wouldn't say 100 fights, but, don't most action heroes get through many, many fights without being wounded in any significant way?  I haven't seen the movies in ages, but, I don't recall Indiana Jones, Han Solo or James Bond spending any significant time healing wounds.  Even in LotR, other than Frodo, who takes any significant wounds that weren't fatal?  LeggyLass, Aragorn, even Gandalf get into fight after fight after fight and never suffer any real wounds (other than dying and being raised, of course ).  Even the hobbits, again, other than Frodo, never really suffer any serious wounds that I recall.  (although, bringing up LotR is effectively Godwinning the thread, so I'm likely going to get proven wrong here)
> 
> Taking a step to the left to action TV shows, characters in shows like Buffy or Angel rarely take any serious wounds, despite getting into combat every single episode.  Yes, I do realize that some do, from time to time, like Zander losing an eye, but, those are very much the exception and not the rule.  It becomes a standing joke in the series that Giles gets knocked out yet again in a fight, yet never suffers any lasting injury.
> 
> ...



First I'll point out that less than 24 hours ago you were taking offense at the suggestion that 3E healing take weeks and, as I agreed, it isn't that long.  But now suddenly you are using weeks as an attempt at criticism.  Pick a side.


But beyond that, you've missed the point.
Natural healing is far and away the exception in D&D.  Just as you describe cinematic wounds with lasting effect as the exception.
However they provide the baseline for all cause and effect wound removal to be compared against.  Once you start surging wounds forever gone in the blink of an eye, you have completely changed the fundamental.

Further, in this case I was specifically responding to Pemerton's endorsement of all non-fatal HP loss being "mojo" or the like.  I've got no issue with that being perfect for him.  But I've also presented my reasons for that not working for me.

There is


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## BryonD (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> When John McClane steps on broken glass, he suffers no significant wounds - he limps a little and that's about it.



And at the end of the movie he goes to the hospital.  The WHOLE movie happens in one night.  ANY edition of D&D handles this perfectly well.

But in pre-4E D&D it makes sense for him to be limping because while he isn't actually hampered in any way, his HP are gone and eventually some cause will need to bring about actual healing.  Only in 4E is his capable of wiggling his nose and making the damage he received go completely away forever.  and that doesn't happen in the movie.


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## Hussar (Apr 11, 2012)

BryonD said:


> And at the end of the movie he goes to the hospital.  The WHOLE movie happens in one night.  ANY edition of D&D handles this perfectly well.
> 
> But in pre-4E D&D it makes sense for him to be limping because while he isn't actually hampered in any way, his HP are gone and eventually some cause will need to bring about actual healing.  Only in 4E is his capable of wiggling his nose and making the damage he received go completely away forever.  and that doesn't happen in the movie.




This isn't actually true.  In 4e he'd be down healing surges, just as in earlier editions, he'd be down HP.  Since the entire movie takes place in one night, he cannot take an extended rest, so he cannot recover those healing surges.

However, in 3e, if he's ever knocked unconcious (been so long since I saw the movie I can't remember if he ever is), he's screwed and can never get back up.



			
				BRG said:
			
		

> But ultimately it doesn't matter because I am not simulating movies in my games. I never have.




So, if you are not drawing from genre fiction, just what do you want D&D to do?  Me, I want my game to look like Indiana Jones, or Star Wars or any number of other action movies or novels.  AD&D and 3e style healing does not allow me to do that - none of the genre titles I can think of requires a healbot cleric to patch over wounds.  

So, what exactly do you want out of your D&D?


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:
			
		

> In 4e he'd be down healing surges, just as in earlier editions, he'd be down HP.




That's kind of true, but the difference in tension between "I'm at 2 hp! The next hit could render me unconscious!" and "I'm at 2 healing surges! The next...um...12 hits could render me unconscious, if our leader doesn't heal me!" is pretty dramatic.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> However, in 3e, if he's ever knocked unconcious (been so long since I saw the movie I can't remember if he ever is), he's screwed and can never get back up.




This isn't any different in 4e. If a character drops below 0 hp, he's unconscious, no matter how many surges he has left.

It's sort of as if, in 3e, you had 40 hp, and, every time you took 10 damage, you dropped unconscious and started dying. 30 hp left, but who cares, you're dying. Unless you get healing from somewhere else, you will die, even though you still "kind of" have most of your HP left in the form of surges.

I like 4e's "second wind" mechanic, and that's easy enough to add in to any game without chucking surges into the mix. I'm also fond of the "surge value" concept that stops barbarians from sucking up the cleric's healing. I do like that a cleric is not required in 4e to get the healing done. These are all awesome things that don't depend on the surge mechanic as-is to get them done.


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## Lanefan (Apr 11, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> Wait, wait, wait...editions aside, you don't like garlic?



No, I don't.  Nasty horrible stuff, ruins the taste of anything it gets near and the smell of any room it gets into.

Lan-"I don't think I'm part-Vampire"-efan


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## FireLance (Apr 11, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> This isn't any different in 4e. If a character drops below 0 hp, he's unconscious, no matter how many surges he has left.
> 
> It's sort of as if, in 3e, you had 40 hp, and, every time you took 10 damage, you dropped unconscious and started dying. 30 hp left, but who cares, you're dying. Unless you get healing from somewhere else, you will die, even though you still "kind of" have most of your HP left in the form of surges.



You know, from time to time, I've thought that 4e hit points are kind of like 3e's massive damage threshold. Whereas the 3e rule was something along the lines of: if you take 50 hp of damage from a single source, you must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or die, the 4e approach makes the following changes:

1. The damage threshold increases by level instead of being a flat number.
2. The damage is dealt over a short period of time instead of from a single source.
3. Three failed "saving throws" instead of one.
4. More scope to "recover" hit points and stave off the need to make a saving throw in the first place.

Of course, by this interpretation, 4e characters who fail three death saves die from shock rather than actual wounds.  (Which, I guess, explains why they are still mostly okay if they recover.)


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## Lanefan (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> That bolded word, right there, is the sticking point for me.  What is "significant"?  Three days?  Seven days?  One day?  The example given was the movement of armies.  An army generally moves 5-10 miles per day, 20 if they're REALLY in a hurry, and certainly not for any extended periods of time.



I didn't say anything about armies...

Even a day or two can make a big difference in a world with magic; where such magic can include long-range communication, teleport and other means of fast transport, summoning-gating-etc. effects, and so on.  A week can make a big difference even for mundane types - the dungeon denizens send a messenger bird to their allies 50 miles up the coast on day 1 after your party retreats, by day 6 you could easily have a few boatloads more enemies to fight on your return to the dungeon...



> When the difference between 1 day healing and 1 week healing is so insignificant, I'm really not buying the whole "the campaign evolves".  Mostly because 1 week of healing actually occurs so rarely.



What if it's longer than a week?

Worst (or best) example from my current campaign: my group took about 1/4 of a game *year* to get through Keep on the Shadowfell; they kept finding legitimate reasons to go back to town - a 12-day round trip just in travel, never mind the time spent in town doing whatever - the problem I had was that KotS doesn't lend itself well to on-the-fly advancement unless I let Kalarel succeed and unleash whatever that thing is onto the world, which I didn't want to have happen.

Lan-"and then, after killing Kalarel, some of my party tried to finish what he'd started"-efan


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## Hussar (Apr 11, 2012)

KM said:
			
		

> That's kind of true, but the difference in tension between "I'm at 2 hp! The next hit could render me unconscious!" and "I'm at 2 healing surges! The next...um...12 hits could render me unconscious, if our leader doesn't heal me!" is pretty dramatic.




Now this is a point I hadn't actually considered.  But, let's not forget, a 3e PC's whose down to 2 HP has likely lost 80+% of his HP.  To get the same thing in 4e, you'd have to burn through those healing surges first.

Is the actual issue that the 4e PC's just have SO many HP?  Between your base damage threshold and surges, 4e PC's have hundreds of HP, even at very modest levels.  

Could you achieve the same effect simply by reducing the number of surges?  I've seen people talk about the SWSE second wind mechanic, and, while I've never played that game, it would seem to achieve the same effect.


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## Savage Wombat (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Now this is a point I hadn't actually considered.  But, let's not forget, a 3e PC's whose down to 2 HP has likely lost 80+% of his HP.  To get the same thing in 4e, you'd have to burn through those healing surges first.
> 
> Is the actual issue that the 4e PC's just have SO many HP?  Between your base damage threshold and surges, 4e PC's have hundreds of HP, even at very modest levels.
> 
> Could you achieve the same effect simply by reducing the number of surges?  I've seen people talk about the SWSE second wind mechanic, and, while I've never played that game, it would seem to achieve the same effect.




I've considered this point, but didn't bring it up.  Because it seems to me that, if you're adding healing surges to a character's "total" HP, you have to add the total number of healing spells available to a 3E character (divided by 4 I suppose) to his HP to find his "real total".  

It's another area where the min-maxxer math makes my brain hurt.  Healing surges don't make a character have more HP within the context of a single encounter any more than the presence of the cleric does.  

I'm happy with saying I prefer the older HP mechanic for simplicity, and not try to justify it as realistic or better math.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 11, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, if you are not drawing from genre fiction, just what do you want D&D to do?  Me, I want my game to look like Indiana Jones, or Star Wars or any number of other action movies or novels.  AD&D and 3e style healing does not allow me to do that - none of the genre titles I can think of requires a healbot cleric to patch over wounds.
> 
> So, what exactly do you want out of your D&D?




I take some mild inspiration from genre fiction, just as i take inspiration from history and myth...but i am not attempting to simulate those things because it is a different medium. My interest is not in replicating the physics, pacing and structure of Indiana Jones or Star Wars. Basically i am there to get into character and go through that character's challenges and exploits.


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## pemerton (Apr 11, 2012)

Savage Wombat said:


> if you're adding healing surges to a character's "total" HP, you have to add the total number of healing spells available to a 3E character (divided by 4 I suppose) to his HP to find his "real total".
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Healing surges don't make a character have more HP within the context of a single encounter any more than the presence of the cleric does.



Yes. And it's the pacing of combat encounters that, in my view, tends to contribute importantly to excitement in the game.



BryonD said:


> And at the end of the movie he goes to the hospital.  The WHOLE movie happens in one night.  ANY edition of D&D handles this perfectly well.



Well, seeing as this is the thread in which we get to express our preferences, let me express mine: not every edition of D&D handles this perfectly well, because those editions which are predicated simply on running down a single pool of hit points don't produce drama in the first N encounters (where N is something like 1 to 3 short of the total number of encounters before resting/healing).

The main feature of surges _isn't_ that they recover overnight. That is essentially a pacing convention, which it would be utterly trivial for anyone who otherwise liked 4e to houserule. Just about the simplest houserule I've ever heard, of, in fact. (So simple it's a little odd that there is no sidebar canvassing it.)

The main feature of surges is their interaction with incombat healing, plus the short rest mechanic. (And unlike extended rests, mucking around with short rests while otherwise keeping 4e intact is a lot less trivial.) These produce a pacing of combat encounters in particular, but also of conflicts more generally, that is very different from (at least what I think of as) classic D&D combat-by-attrition.

In my view, the resultant pacing is more exciting.


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## BryonD (Apr 12, 2012)

Hussar said:


> This isn't actually true.  In 4e he'd be down healing surges, just as in earlier editions, he'd be down HP.  Since the entire movie takes place in one night, he cannot take an extended rest, so he cannot recover those healing surges.



The point is that the surges don't just let him press on, they make all signs of the wounds forever go away.
At the end of the movie he doesn't need to recover his ability to make wounds vanish, he actually needs to wounds to be treated.



> However, in 3e, if he's ever knocked unconcious (been so long since I saw the movie I can't remember if he ever is), he's screwed and can never get back up.



If by some means he is knocked unconscious and yet is alone he can recover in 3E.  But it will take a lot of time and his chance of foiling the plot is pretty much sunk.  Which makes sense.

If he is knocked unconscious with bad guys there, they can capture him and wake him up, or just kill him.  Again, this works right in both a hypothetical movie plot and in 3E.


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## Hussar (Apr 12, 2012)

BryonD said:


> The point is that the surges don't just let him press on, they make all signs of the wounds forever go away.
> At the end of the movie he doesn't need to recover his ability to make wounds vanish, he actually needs to wounds to be treated.
> 
> If by some means he is knocked unconscious and yet is alone he can recover in 3E.  But it will take a lot of time and his chance of foiling the plot is pretty much sunk.  Which makes sense.
> ...




No, they don't.  He's down healing surges.  He has less than his maximum hit points until such time as he rests.  IOW, he has to get his wounds treated.  

Now, if you want longer healing periods, again, this is a very simple fix.  You regain X number of surges per day of rest.  There done.  

However, your 3e HP system doesn't allow me to be simply rendered unconscious by a blow (unless we start ruling that for some strange reason, that guy who was just trying to kill me decided to switch to non-lethal damage)  and then recover a few minutes later and continue on.  Just like we see in hundreds of action movies and stories.


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## FireLance (Apr 12, 2012)

BryonD said:


> The point is that the surges don't just let him press on, they make all signs of the wounds forever go away.



I think the problem with the rapid recovery of hit points through non-magical means (gosh, wasn't _that_ a mouthful) is that it's something new in 4e. However, because the rulebook did not go the additional step of suggesting how it should be narrated, there is the tendency for many people to fall back on the narrations which worked in previous editions, in which the rapid recovery of hit points is magical and tied to the disappearance of wounds, and which are obviously no longer adequate.

Hindsight is, of course, 20-20, but who knows how it could have gone if the first player's handbook had a paragraph along the lines of:

"Non-magical recovery from damage, such as from the second wind action, spending healing surges during a short rest, or a warlord's _inspiring word_, restores a character's vigor and fighting spirit, but does not actually heal existing wounds. It provides a character with a pool of vigor points which are functionally identical to hit points instead of actually restoring lost hit points. Nonetheless, for simplicity, you may choose to add vigor points gained in this manner directly to your hit points. However, if you prefer, you could also choose to keep track of them separately."


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 12, 2012)

Hussar said:


> No, they don't.  He's down healing surges.  He has less than his maximum hit points until such time as he rests.  IOW, he has to get his wounds treated.
> 
> Now, if you want longer healing periods, again, this is a very simple fix.  You regain X number of surges per day of rest.  There done.
> 
> However, your 3e HP system doesn't allow me to be simply rendered unconscious by a blow (unless we start ruling that for some strange reason, that guy who was just trying to kill me decided to switch to non-lethal damage)  and then recover a few minutes later and continue on.  Just like we see in hundreds of action movies and stories.




I understand this interpretation of HS (essentially your healing surges represent your physica damage) but that has always seemed a bit odd to me. I also dont believe this was ever the intent behind them (unless i am missing the text where they said so in the phb---totalky possible) but rather was an explanation people offered and stuck with after the fact. I am honestly not sure why i disike hs as wounds so much (i suspect it may have something to do with putting it in the player's court to decide when he is physically damaged--the moment you use a surge you are damaged)...and alot of 4E stuff seems to be after the fact narration (we dont know what happened, when it happened, only after). Which kind of bothers me as well.


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## Balesir (Apr 12, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I understand this interpretation of HS (essentially your healing surges represent your physica damage) but that has always seemed a bit odd to me. I also dont believe this was ever the intent behind them (unless i am missing the text where they said so in the phb---totalky possible) but rather was an explanation people offered and stuck with after the fact. I am honestly not sure why i disike hs as wounds so much (i suspect it may have something to do with putting it in the player's court to decide when he is physically damaged--the moment you use a surge you are damaged)...and alot of 4E stuff seems to be after the fact narration (we dont know what happened, when it happened, only after). Which kind of bothers me as well.



I don't think HS were ever stated in the rules as being "physical damage", no - and I think that was quite intentional. This is an aspect of 4e that I see as revolutionary and quite an epiphany in the design of D&D-type RPGs. It defines the role of the rules as being to determine (only) those aspects of the imagined fiction that must be synchronised among all the players; the rest it leaves to the individual imaginations of those playing to visualise as it suits them.

I think this is briliant, because everyone at the table will, inevitably, have their own visualisation of the imagined events, and these versions will inevitably differ in detail. The designers of 4e simply realised that the function of the rules is to determine how those elements that must be synchronised if play is to remain meaningful will be defined. The written rules furthermore communicate those definitional mechanics to the players, so that they know enough to frame their own visualisation such that it will not conflict with the rules (and thus the synchronised elements of the fiction).

It works on such a clear picture of what is going on at the table that it just makes sense. It falls down when (a) the players (most likely the DM) decides that they want to define different synchronised outcomes from those set out in the rules, and (b) they don't communicate the changes to the rules that they are (unilaterally) making, leading to other players seeing a clash between how they are envisioning the scene and the declared synchronised elements.


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## pemerton (Apr 12, 2012)

BryonD said:


> The point is that the surges don't just let him press on, they make all signs of the wounds forever go away.



By "signs" do you mean physical marks - bruises, cuts etc - or physical impediments?

There is nothing in the 4e rules that suggests either surge expenditure (following a short rest, or the application of some healing power) or surge recovery (following an extended rest) means that all physical marks of injury have gone away. But obviously surge expenditure means that the PC is now able to press on (although pressing on _now _taxes the ability to do so _later_, as surges are a finite resource), and surge recovery means that whatever injuries were sustained are no longer a burden on the PC's ability to press on (in 4e, mojo is recovered with an overnight rest).


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## Hussar (Apr 12, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> /snip
> 
> i suspect it may have something to do with putting it in the player's court to decide when he is physically damaged--the moment you use a surge you are damaged)...and alot of 4E stuff seems to be after the fact narration (we dont know what happened, when it happened, only after). Which kind of bothers me as well.




Sorry, but what?

When you take damage, you take damage.  If you have 50 HP and 10 healing surges and you lose 20 hp, you now have 30 HP and 10 healing surges.  You've taken damage.  Feel free to narrate that however you like.

The next round, you spend a healing surge (from whatever source) and you now have 50 HP and 9 healing surges (note, the numbers I'm using here are wrong, just illustration).  Your total hit points remain exactly the same.  The only difference is that you can now take more hits before dying than you could before.

But, at no point do you have to narrate the damage after the fact.


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## Hussar (Apr 12, 2012)

What I find very funny about all the criticisms of inconsistency with 4e hp is this idea that earlier editions were somehow internally consistent.  That somehow going more abstract with HP has made HP inconsistent.

That's simply not true and it's easy to show.  Take 3 characters.  Character 1 is a 3rd level fighter, character 2 is a 5th level rogue and character 3 is an 8th level wizard.  All three characters have 20 hp.

They all get into the same situation.  A fight with an orc with a greataxe.  The orc wins initiative, rolls a crit and does 29 points of damage to each character.  Each character is now at -9 HP, a hair away from dying.  The orc is vanquished by the character's allies and the character is stablized.  However the party does not have any magical healing, and thus, must rely on natural healing.

Now, all three characters have exactly the same HP, have suffered exactly the same wound and are recovering in exactly the same way - attended bed rest.

The fighter takes 5 days to completely heal (using 3e rules).  The rogue takes 3 days to completely heal.  The wizard takes 2 days to completely heal.

How is this consistent?  All three characters are identical in every way - same HP, same stats, everything.  Yet, the fighter takes twice as long to recover as the wizard?  

Additionally, for you folks that believe so fervently in HP=Meat, what narration would you use for the blow that felled all three PC's?  It has to be a very serious blow from a greataxe that was almost instantly lethal, yet completely recoverable in two days.  Not even so much as a bruise remaining - after all, all the PC's have full HP.  If HP=Meat, then they cannot have any visible effect of damage if they have full HP can they?

I can buy the argument that you don't like the pacing inherent in 4e healing mechanics.  I can buy that 4e's martial healing is wonky.  I can even buy that it's too fiddly.

But consistency?  Really?


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 12, 2012)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Now this is a point I hadn't actually considered. But, let's not forget, a 3e PC's whose down to 2 HP has likely lost 80+% of his HP. To get the same thing in 4e, you'd have to burn through those healing surges first.
> 
> Is the actual issue that the 4e PC's just have SO many HP? Between your base damage threshold and surges, 4e PC's have hundreds of HP, even at very modest levels.




That's not entirely the problem, though it certainly is related. It's a lot like FireLance mentioned: it's kind of a "massive damage save," and it has the same problem that a massive damage effect does, and that is that you can die with ALL THESE HIT POINTS LEFT.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> When you take damage, you take damage. If you have 50 HP and 10 healing surges and you lose 20 hp, you now have 30 HP and 10 healing surges. You've taken damage. Feel free to narrate that however you like.




That's kind of the thing, though, it's hard in 4e to narrate that however you like. If a PC takes enough damage to go down, I can't say, "You get stabbed in the gut with the goblin's knife and fall down, clutching your bleeding wound," because five minutes later, hey boy howdy, you're back up to full HP (even if you're down surges). Clearly, that wasn't a stab to the gut. 

Of course, in the middle of combat, maybe that was a stab to the gut -- you're rolling death saves and could actually die and have no HP left, so the danger is real. But after combat, oh, maybe it wasn't real? That certainly rings false to me.

That's the kind of problems the surge idea creates: this new idea that how you narrate damage has to take into account not just the PC's hp, and how close to death they are, but perhaps the surges, and perhaps not the surges, depending on if they die during combat, or not.

I mean, if surges are meat, then you've got PC's who can die from things that aren't really damage. And if HP is meat since you can die from damage, then surges are magical healing springs inside of people. 

Again, I like a lot of the things that surround surges. Second Wind is boffo. I like the idea of healing 1/4 your HP when you take a "rest" (be it five minutes or overnight). "Rest" values are very useful in healing. 

But the idea of splitting HP into in-encounter and out-of-encounter resources is not what I like. HP are HP are HP.


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## BryonD (Apr 12, 2012)

pemerton said:


> By "signs" do you mean physical marks - bruises, cuts etc - or physical impediments?



Haven't we been down this road like 5 times already?

I mean every mechanical effect of having been harmed.

Burning a surge resource is game mechanically equivalent to burning a CMW spell.  Some other resource may be gone, but the wound itself is mechanically removed.  



> There is nothing in the 4e rules that suggests either surge expenditure (following a short rest, or the application of some healing power) or surge recovery (following an extended rest) means that all physical marks of injury have gone away. But obviously surge expenditure means that the PC is now able to press on (although pressing on now taxes the ability to do so later, as surges are a finite resource), and surge recovery means that whatever injuries were sustained are no longer a burden on the PC's ability to press on (in 4e, mojo is recovered with an overnight rest).



You can roleplay "limping", but your HP are back and wounds will NEVER have any mechanical impact on you ever again.  According to the mechanics they have been removed.

A 4E character with 18 HP gets hit for 10 points damage.  He can press on.  Or he can surge and then press on.  The surge does nothing to change his ability to press on.  

What the surge does is give him back some portion of those 10 HP, undoing the effect of the wound.

I've had players choose to roleplay being marked and/or in discomfort even after healing if they received a high HP damage attack.   That can be cool.  And that is the same as what you are offering here, so again 4E hasn't even offered anything new on that front.

But what 4E HAS done is say that mechanically speaking the wound in gone, without requiring any cause.


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## BryonD (Apr 12, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> If a PC takes enough damage to go down, I can't say, "You get stabbed in the gut with the goblin's knife and fall down, clutching your bleeding wound," because five minutes later, hey boy howdy, you're back up to full HP (even if you're down surges). Clearly, that wasn't a stab to the gut.



I'm happy to be corrected, but my understanding of what pemerton has stated in this thread is that short of "fatal" wounds, HP loss in 4E should pretty much always be bumps and mojo and not "real wounds".


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## BryonD (Apr 12, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How is this consistent?



Easy.



> All three characters are identical in every way - same HP, same stats, everything.



You are wrong right there.

One is a fighter.  One is a wizard.  One is a rogue.
If you completely ignore narrative and focus purely on gamism, then sure, they are identical.  

Narratively speaking the nature of their wounds can be vastly different because the nature of what their HP represent are different.

And it seems to me that anyone who is ok with Come and Get It applying to a guard one day, a mindless skeleton the next, and an ooze the following, should find seeing these HP differences as completely trivial.


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## Andor (Apr 12, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Additionally, for you folks that believe so fervently in HP=Meat, what narration would you use for the blow that felled all three PC's?  It has to be a very serious blow from a greataxe that was almost instantly lethal, yet completely recoverable in two days.  Not even so much as a bruise remaining - after all, all the PC's have full HP.  If HP=Meat, then they cannot have any visible effect of damage if they have full HP can they?




I won't argue that all editions have oddness with HP, although I do think that the non-magical healing of 4e leads to some real oddness, E.G: Lava + peptalk = g2g.

However I disagree that full HP means not even a bruise. Full HP means no damage that brings you closer to death. I've slashed myself open and gotten stitches. Was an open bleeding wound that required medical attention hp damage? I'd say so. That scar didn't completely heal for weeks. Was I down HP that whole time? I don't think so. I was back at work the next day. It twinged occasionally for a day or two, but didn't hinder me in any way. I think I was back to full hp the next morning, or a couple of days at the outside, even though I still bore a visible wound. 

So no, full HP doesn't mean no bruises, or how do you justify any hit meaning actual physical contact under 4es "One nights sleep pays for all" healing system?


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 12, 2012)

BryonD said:
			
		

> I'm happy to be corrected, but my understanding of what pemerton has stated in this thread is that short of "fatal" wounds, HP loss in 4E should pretty much always be bumps and mojo and not "real wounds".




You can go with that, but then it's possible for your characters to go unconscious and die from mojo loss and bumps, since you can die when you're completely full of surges if you forget to spend them or don't have a healer around. 

Which doesn't quite seem right, either.


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## BryonD (Apr 13, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> You can go with that, but then it's possible for your characters to go unconscious and die from mojo loss and bumps, since you can die when you're completely full of surges if you forget to spend them or don't have a healer around.
> 
> Which doesn't quite seem right, either.



Oh, don't get me wrong.  I'm not endorsing that approach at all.  

(Though I'm pretty certain that pemerton would describe the wound that actually put you into negatives as "real".  So it isn't quite that bad.)

In 4E you can solve the fighters make wounds vanish problem by removing wounds or you can solve the no wounds problem by letting fighters make wounds vanish.  Mechanically either way works and you can even bounce back and forth if you want.

I just find both options unacceptable when there are such better options for narrative.


Mostly I was just agreeing with your counter to Hussar and pointing out that (again, to the best of my understanding) even pemerton agrees with you on that.


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## Hussar (Apr 13, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Easy.
> 
> 
> You are wrong right there.
> ...




So, despite the fact that all three are human, have exactly the same stats, their character class is used as an in-game explanation for the weaker (wizard) character healing more than TWICE as fast as the fighter?  And, for some bizarre reason, 1 HP in a fighter is somehow entirely different than 1 HP in a wizard or a rogue.  And that's an argument for consistency?  

You're telling me that you have no problem narrating three identical wounds, doing exactly the same thing to three different characters in completely different ways and that's somehow consistent but 4e isn't?

It would seem to me that if you have no problems using meta-game elements like class and level to explain in game reality, you would see this as trivial.

Unless, of course, your players introduce themselves as, "I'm Bartholomew, the 7th level paladin."  I could see it working then.



			
				BryonD said:
			
		

> Burning a surge resource is game mechanically equivalent to burning a CMW spell. Some other resource may be gone, but the wound itself is mechanically removed.




No, it isn't.  For one, unless you're the cleric, someone else is spending the resources and those resources may be virtually infinite (healing wands) and completely divorced from any specific character.  Surges can never be added to, although there are a few surgeless healing resources.

It's no different than my 100 hp character taking 10 damage.  I have 90 hp left.  My 50 hp, down one surge character, is exactly the same.

Although, that being said, 



			
				KM said:
			
		

> That's not entirely the problem, though it certainly is related. It's a lot like FireLance mentioned: it's kind of a "massive damage save," and it has the same problem that a massive damage effect does, and that is that you can die with ALL THESE HIT POINTS LEFT.




I can sorta see the issue here.  I think it stems from the idea that HP=HP=HP.  All HP are equal.  I'm not sure I agree, but, that's probably because I like the HP as resource that the player can manage mini-game.  

But, yes, I totally recognize that this is an issue.  I'm not sure how you could resolve it to be honest.  And, no, "go back to 3e" is not a solution for me, since it's every bit as unbelievable to me as 4e is to you.

The goal here is to find a system that satisfies both of us.


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## BryonD (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, despite the fact that all three are human, have exactly the same stats, their character class is used as an in-game explanation for the weaker (wizard) character healing more than TWICE as fast as the fighter?



Sure if healing includes both physical wounds and also abstract mojo, then this is completely reasonable.  And I can recall conversation about EXACTLY this issue as early as high school back in the 80s.  

So this isn't even a  new concept or confusing point and neither 3E nor 4E change that.



> No, it isn't.  For one, unless you're the cleric, someone else is spending the resources and those resources may be virtually infinite (healing wands) and completely divorced from any specific character.



So?  That is completely irrelevant.



> Surges can never be added to, although there are a few surgeless healing resources.



So?



> It's no different than my 100 hp character taking 10 damage.  I have 90 hp left.  My 50 hp, down one surge character, is exactly the same.



I think you may have mistyped something here.  I don't follow what you are claiming.


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## Hussar (Apr 13, 2012)

My point wasn't to say 3e bad, 4e good.  Not in the slightest.

My point is that HP are about as internally consistent as the average bowl of lukewarm jello.  

Now, exactly where the inconsistencies lie depends on the edition.  



			
				BryonD said:
			
		

> I think you may have mistyped something here. I don't follow what you are claiming.




Heh, typing too fast.  My 50 HP character has 10 healing surges.  He takes damage and then spends a surge.  So, now he has 50 HP and 9 (or whatever) surges.  His total hit points have been reduced.  Conversely, my 200 HP character takes damage and is now down to 190 HP.  His total hit points have been reduced.

How do surges remove damage?  The difference, as KM points out, is that the second character can only die when he has lost all his HP.  The surge character can die with surges remaining - although no active hit points.  

And this I can see as a sticking point.  I'm not sure how to reconcile that.


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## pemerton (Apr 13, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I think you may have mistyped something here.  I don't follow what you are claiming.



I think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is saying that being 10 hp down from 100 hp (ie 90 hp remaining) in pre-43 is not unlike being at full hp but 1 healing surge down in 4e.

In both cases the PC is slightly closer, at the mechanical level, to being felled by a fatal blow.

And in both cases the PC, in the fiction, has expended some mojo to push through a minor blow, dodge an orc axe, or whatever exactly the narration of the hp loss involved.

Of course there are differences too. The most obvious being that, pre-4e, the PC has full access to his/her mojo at all times (ie no special action required to turn on the hp tap). Whereas in 4e the PC has only limited access to his/her mojo (ie special conditions - either power use, or a short rest - are required to turn on the surge tap).


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## pemerton (Apr 13, 2012)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> But the idea of splitting HP into in-encounter and out-of-encounter resources is not what I like. HP are HP are HP.



Well that's what up for grabs, isn't it?

Hit points are primarily a metagame mechanic, after all, and so the question is "Under what conditions can my PC access his/her hp and therefore keep going?" 4e's answer - that unless the PC gets a brief respite (second wind or short rest), inspiration (ie using a healing power) is required - proudces an interesting game, I think. It is interesting in its mechanical/tactical play - the way incombat healing becomes part of the action economy - and in its story/fictional play - heroes are stronger in teams, for example, where they help one another push on.

Wish is the response to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s query about "how to reconcile it" - 4e has a different theory of mojo from earlier editions. You can't draw on your mojo without a brief respite, or inspiration.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Heh, typing too fast. My 50 HP character has 10 healing surges. He takes damage and then spends a surge. So, now he has 50 HP and 9 (or whatever) surges. His total hit points have been reduced. Conversely, my 200 HP character takes damage and is now down to 190 HP. His total hit points have been reduced.
> 
> How do surges remove damage? The difference, as KM points out, is that the second character can only die when he has lost all his HP. The surge character can die with surges remaining - although no active hit points.
> 
> And this I can see as a sticking point. I'm not sure how to reconcile that.




Somewhere sort of halfway between 3E and 4E would be:

Reduce the number of hit points and surges. This probably needs to be done in any case, so no problem there.
Make death saves not "three strikes and you're out", but "fail the death save, lose a surge--out of surges, you die."
Finally, the "dial" in this system is that each group can decide to cash in a certain amount of surges permanently, to effectively raise their hit points.
That might not be entirely clear, but what it does is take Firelance's observation about surges to its logical conclusion, and then build in the proper spot to change it by playstyle. Consider a few of the places you can set it. We'll change your example character to 30 hit points and 4 surges, each recovering 20% of hit points:

You play like 4E with smaller numbers. Use "optional" 4E-style death saves.
You play sort of like 4E with smaller numbers. Use as written.
You play like a 4E/3E hybrid with a bit smaller numbers and alternate death save mechanic. You cash in all your surges for hit points except a handful, perhaps 2. The character has 30 x 1.4 = 42 hit points and two surges. You don't need the surges to activate healing, can use them for second wind if you want, but if you hit zero hit points and don't have one left, you die on a failed saving throw.
You play a lot like 3E. You cash in all the surges, giving 54 hit points, and you use some optional dying rule, base it on -Con value, or whatever makes sense to you. Healing is all resource-based.
You play like Basic with a bit bigger numbers. You cash in all your surges for hit points. You've got 54 hit points. When they run out, you die. Healing is resource based, and not always readily available.
Those are all very close to balanced with each other, which means that they can be used in the same system together. Where they aren't balanced, you *want* the differences. If I pick "sort of 4E emulation," I want it possible that a character can die with surges left, or I use the new standard that death saves cost a surge until you run out. If I pick one of the emulations closer to 3E, I want a big pool of hit points that the characters are expected to manage, hit points are all hit points.

The only difference in this and a more direct 1E, 3E, 4E approach is that it's easier to see how to change it, while still keeping it balanced. It does constrain the design to more hit points than Basic, but less than 3E/4E at the upper end. Otherwise, it will get out of control quickly.

Lastly, I've roughed this out in a way that makes sense from the 3E and then 4E changes, but the exact same math could be presented to make surges less intrusive. Instead of the default being as above, the default is more like Basic D&D--hit points are hit points, die at zero. Then you provide options for different recovery/death save options, and some of those require you to trade some of those hit points in for surges.

The example character has 54 hit points, but if you go with 4E emulation, he has to trade in 24 of those for surges that can recover 6 points each. (Or perhaps you use a slightly different formula to make this easier.)

BTW, there are some rather obvious options for Save or Die that you can build into that model.


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## Hussar (Apr 13, 2012)

CJ - I cannot posrep you again, but, you deserve LOTS for that idea.  

This is the module I hope I see in 5e.


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## Lanefan (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> However, your 3e HP system doesn't allow me to be simply rendered unconscious by a blow (unless we start ruling that for some strange reason, that guy who was just trying to kill me decided to switch to non-lethal damage)  and then recover a few minutes later and continue on.  Just like we see in hundreds of action movies and stories.



It's not just 3e that has this problem.  The range of physical conditions between fully functional and dead (e.g. unconscious, badly hurt but hanging on, dying but not dead yet, recovering after being knocked out, etc.) has never been handled well by any version of D&D.

There's been many times when, for dramatic reasons, I've wished the game could handle such things; I bent some thought to designing a system for such many years ago but gave up once I realized how much it would bog the game down.


			
				FireLance said:
			
		

> Hindsight is, of course, 20-20, but who knows how it could have gone if the first player's handbook had a paragraph along the lines of:
> 
> "Non-magical recovery from damage, such as from the second wind action, spending healing surges during a short rest, or a warlord's inspiring word, restores a character's vigor and fighting spirit, but does not actually heal existing wounds. It provides a character with a pool of vigor points which are functionally identical to hit points instead of actually restoring lost hit points. Nonetheless, for simplicity, you may choose to add vigor points gained in this manner directly to your hit points. However, if you prefer, you could also choose to keep track of them separately."



In other words, body points/fatigue points with different rules for recovery of each; which I've been lobbying for for years.

Lanefan


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## Lanefan (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, despite the fact that all three are human, have exactly the same stats, their character class is used as an in-game explanation for the weaker (wizard) character healing more than TWICE as fast as the fighter?  And, for some bizarre reason, 1 HP in a fighter is somehow entirely different than 1 HP in a wizard or a rogue.  And that's an argument for consistency?



To me it's an argument for a rather obvious houserule looking for a place to land: that one's natural heal rate is affected not by level, but by some combination of Con. score or bonus and number of h.p. when at full.

Because otherwise, what you're describing *is* ludicrous.

Lanefan


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## Hussar (Apr 13, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> To me it's an argument for a rather obvious houserule looking for a place to land: that one's natural heal rate is affected not by level, but by some combination of Con. score or bonus and number of h.p. when at full.
> 
> Because otherwise, what you're describing *is* ludicrous.
> 
> Lanefan




Heh.  



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> It's not just 3e that has this problem. The range of physical conditions between fully functional and dead (e.g. unconscious, badly hurt but hanging on, dying but not dead yet, recovering after being knocked out, etc.) has never been handled well by any version of D&D.
> 
> There's been many times when, for dramatic reasons, I've wished the game could handle such things; I bent some thought to designing a system for such many years ago but gave up once I realized how much it would bog the game down.




True.  And you'll get no argument from me for that.

And, really, I think you nailed pretty well why HP are still the default for a lot of rpg's and video games.  Yes, they're wonky.  Yes, they're inconsistent.  Yes, they make about as much sense as cardboard hamers.

But, dammit, they're just SOOO easy to use.


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## Balesir (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> How do surges remove damage?  The difference, as KM points out, is that the second character can only die when he has lost all his HP.  The surge character can die with surges remaining - although no active hit points.
> 
> And this I can see as a sticking point.  I'm not sure how to reconcile that.



I really don't have an issue with this, personally.

If a guy walking down the street gets hit by a meteorite, he can be dead with all his spirit/mojo/whatever intact. If you don't get a chance to focus and psyche yourself to grin through the pain, that's what happens. HPs really only account for shock, fatigue (recently shown to be interchangable with fear in combat scenarios), bloodloss, exhaustion and so on, whether directly or via causing openings for a "finishing blow".

As for why all (actually, most) games use HPs; not all do. Mostly I think it's laziness and relying on a known and accepted trope. I'm actually convinced that there's room out there for a simplified "wound" system - like HârnMaster, but without hit locations. Like the HM 'quickstarter' rules, in fact...


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 13, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I
> 
> As for why all (actually, most) games use HPs; not all do. Mostly I think it's laziness and relying on a known and accepted trope. I'm actually convinced that there's room out there for a simplified "wound" system - like HârnMaster, but without hit locations. Like the HM 'quickstarter' rules, in fact...




non HP sysems are quite common. Savage worlds has wounds, WOD has wounds and so do my own games. None of these get into stuff like hit location (which is usually a hard sell to most plaers in my experience). But i dont think hp areva product of laziness. They continue in use and spread to other games because they are simple and allow for a certain style of play (and i am not talking about believability or realism at the moment).


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## Andor (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> CJ - I cannot posrep you again, but, you deserve LOTS for that idea.
> 
> This is the module I hope I see in 5e.




Didn't I propose much the same system about 10 pages ago?


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## Balesir (Apr 13, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> non HP sysems are quite common. Savage worlds has wounds, WOD has wounds and so do my own games. None of these get into stuff like hit location (which is usually a hard sell to most plaers in my experience). But i dont think hp areva product of laziness. They continue in use and spread to other games because they are simple and allow for a certain style of play (and i am not talking about believability or realism at the moment).



I don't know "new" WoD, but "old" WoD had a "health track" that isn't what I mean at all - it's coarse-grained hit points by a different name. Savage worlds I don't know, either, though I'd like to get time to try it!

In general, though, there are systems that use non-HP wounding out there, sure. And if I'm seeking a Sim focussed game, I'll use one of them.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 13, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I don't know "new" WoD, but "old" WoD had a "health track" that isn't what I mean at all - it's coarse-grained hit points by a different name. Savage worlds I don't know, either, though I'd like to get time to try it!
> 
> In general, though, there are systems that use non-HP wounding out there, sure. And if I'm seeking a Sim focussed game, I'll use one of them.




It has been ages since I played OWOD but I am pretty sure the health tracker was different levels of physical damage with accompanying penalties (though it is possible I am thinking of NWOD).  Savage worlds pretty much functions on similar premise. Our games have three stages of wounding (-2, -1, and incapacitated). Now those aren't granular wounding systems (though savage worlds has a chart you roll on that can cause real lasting wounds), but they are death spiral wound systems in my book.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 13, 2012)

Andor said:


> Didn't I propose much the same system about 10 pages ago?




Link or post number?  I went back and read all your posts between replies 151 and 195, which for me is 9-11 pages back from here.  I didn't see anything that seems to fit.  But if there is something, I'd like to read it.  I tend to glaze over at times during "how to fix hit point" discussions, from long exposure, and might have missed something I'd like to read more closely.


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## BryonD (Apr 13, 2012)

Hussar said:


> My point wasn't to say 3e bad, 4e good.  Not in the slightest.
> 
> My point is that HP are about as internally consistent as the average bowl of lukewarm jello.
> 
> Now, exactly where the inconsistencies lie depends on the edition.



Well, I'm not sure if I agree with you or not.  
It depends.  

Not all inconsistencies are created equal.

Pre-4E HP were ambiguous.  They might be meat on second and mojo the next.  And a 100 hp fighter might take 90 points of "meat" damage on day and 90 points of "mojo" damage the next.  Though I'd hasten to add that for me personally I found it valuable to avoid the idea that anyone ever took a great deal of meat damage.  One sword through the heart kills a 19th level fighter just as dead as a shopkeeper.  But the point is that the mechanics didn't require my taste there and could be changed case by case and second by second.

You could certainly label that ambiguity an "inconsistency".  But that inconsistency is *reliable* in serving the needs of the narrative.

And HP in 4E really are no different whatsoever.  Again, HP are the same across editions, it is SURGES that are the issue.  

Once you add surges you can keep the ambiguity, but if you do that you are forced to accept that any meat damage can be blinked away by a fighter.  Or you can solve that by the all damage is mojo option.  Both of these options are problematic for quality narrative.

So, yes, there are inconsistencies both pre and post 4E.  But the pre-4E issues are a narrative feature and the 4E issues are a narrative bug.




> And this I can see as a sticking point. I'm not sure how to reconcile that.



I think having surges provide temporary HP that go away in 5 min, thus getting through the scene but still leaving wounds that demand cause and effect "healing" would be a good start.


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## BryonD (Apr 13, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Hit points are primarily a metagame mechanic, after all, and so the question is "Under what conditions can my PC access his/her hp and therefore keep going?" 4e's answer - that unless the PC gets a brief respite (second wind or short rest), inspiration (ie using a healing power) is required - proudces an interesting game, I think. It is interesting in its mechanical/tactical play -



I absolutely agree there.



> the way incombat healing becomes part of the action economy - and in its story/fictional play - heroes are stronger in teams, for example, where they help one another push on.



This I don't really buy.
I'd agree that these mechanics do PUSH the players into the mold.  But pre-4E you could do that OR you could do other things.

It certainly has not offered anything that was previously lacking as an option.


> 4e has a different theory of mojo from earlier editions. You can't draw on your mojo without a brief respite, or inspiration.



In your assessment, what is the difference between using a surge and regaining your surges?


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## Andor (Apr 13, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Link or post number?  I went back and read all your posts between replies 151 and 195, which for me is 9-11 pages back from here.  I didn't see anything that seems to fit.  But if there is something, I'd like to read it.  I tend to glaze over at times during "how to fix hit point" discussions, from long exposure, and might have missed something I'd like to read more closely.




My bad, it must have been in another thread. And I don't have search so God only knows where.

At any rate it was a discussion about how to balance character with self healing against characters without.

I pointed out that a character with 100hp and another with 70 hp but 50 points of self-healing a day were roughly balanced.

Plus given that 5e seems like it might be balanced around level based damage you could also through DR into the mix as a balancing agent. So a third character with 70 hp and dr 3 might be equivalent as well. That depend on how well the system maths hangs.

For myself the balance between these three balance doesn't need to be perfect, merely "close enough." In fact given the random nature of hits and damage in D&D which of those character will survive longer in a campaign is entirely up the dice.


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## Hussar (Apr 14, 2012)

BryonD said:
			
		

> Once you add surges you can keep the ambiguity, but if you do that you are forced to accept that any meat damage can be blinked away by a fighter. Or you can solve that by the all damage is mojo option. Both of these options are problematic for quality narrative.




Why do you keep insisting this?

Character has lost HP and burns a healing surge.  He's now down a healing surge, thus his HP are not at maximum.  Healing surges do not remove damage, they simply shift it from one set of resources to another.  But, your total are still reduced.

So, why do you insist that using a healing surge removes damage?


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## BryonD (Apr 14, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Why do you keep insisting this?
> 
> Character has lost HP and burns a healing surge.  He's now down a healing surge, thus his HP are not at maximum.  Healing surges do not remove damage, they simply shift it from one set of resources to another.  But, your total are still reduced.
> 
> So, why do you insist that using a healing surge removes damage?



Why are they called "healing" surges?


It is clear to me that this moving of goal posts demonstrates the inability to defend the surge mechanic from a narrative perspective.  

By the model you are describing there is no reason to have these two different resources because they represent the exact same thing.  And you have just moved the flash healing to when the surges come back.

So you have changed a narrative disfunction into a needlessly convoluted narrative disfunction.

When 4E came along surge were advertised and praised for letting the fighter heal himself, thus removing the need for clerics.  After all, a cleric healing spell is "just another resource", so I could say that healing spells don't heal either, they just move the damage to a different set of resources.  

If you look at playing as a mechanical exercise of moving chits from one bucket to another then this works for both cure spells and surges.
If you look at playing as a narrative exercise, then you are just shuffling the issue around.


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## Lanefan (Apr 15, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Character has lost HP and burns a healing surge.  He's now down a healing surge, thus his HP are not at maximum.  Healing surges do not remove damage, they simply shift it from one set of resources to another.  But, your total are still reduced.
> 
> So, why do you insist that using a healing surge removes damage?



Er...because it does?

I may not know 4e from 4H but even I can see you're not making sense here.  If my full h.p. total is 50 and I take 8 damage from something, I'm at 42.  I then burn a healing surge by whatever means and get the 8 points back (i.e. that damage has been removed), so my total is right back where it started: 50.

And if you're trying to imply that unused healing surges count toward my (virtual) h.p. total, that's kind of ludicrous - just as ludicrous as saying in a 1e game that because the Cleric has 6 cures left my h.p. total is somehow a bit higher.

Lan-"my hit point total is never high enough"-efan


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## pemerton (Apr 15, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Why are they called "healing" surges?



Because they restore lost hit points.

"Damage": the removal of hit points.
"Healing": the restoration of hit points.



BryonD said:


> In your assessment, what is the difference between using a surge and regaining your surges?



Mechanically: to use/spend a surge is to draw on a finite resource to restore hit points. It requires either respite (second wind/short rest) or inspiration (a power).

In the fiction: spending a surge is pushing on through hurt/shock/dispiritedness, either because one has had some brief respite, or one has been inspired. In the technical language of this thread, it is mojo.

Mechanically: to regain one's surges is to replenish the above-mentioned finite resource. It requires rest (6 hours, no more than once per day).

In the fiction: having rested for 6 or more hours, one has either recovered from shock, dispiritedness and (relatively minor) hurt, or is able to push on again in spite of them.

So in the fiction there is not necessarily much difference between spending and regaining surges, but they occur at different places in the fiction - one after a brief respite or after being inspired, the other after a longer rest.



BryonD said:


> By the model you are describing there is no reason to have these two different resources because they represent the exact same thing. And you have just moved the flash healing to when the surges come back.
> 
> So you have changed a narrative disfunction into a needlessly convoluted narrative disfunction.



Losing hit points, and spending surges, may well represent the same thing in the fiction. They both represent having to push on, or try and endure, despite shock, dispiritedness, minor hurt, and comparable burdens on a PC's mojo.

Spending a surge, and regaining one's surges, may also represent the same thing in the fiction: having mustered or replenished one's mojo and pushing on.

But the context is different (both mechanical context and fictional context). Hit points are what the PC him-/herself brings to bear. Surge expenditure is what you can do with a brief respite, or with inspiration. (Note that a clerical Healing Word is, like a Bard's Majestic Word or a warlord's Inspiring Word, is on this model a source of inspiration. Divine inspiration - which has been mooted as an element of hit points at least since Gygax's DMG.) And surge recovery is what happens after a longer rest (typically, a sleep).

Whether it's convoluted I'll leave to others to judge. I don't find it needless, though. In play it produces dramatic pacing and reinforces strong (and fairly classic) tropes and themes. (The weakest mechanical component is the extended rest. It should be established on a narrative basis rather than an ingame time basis. The workaround I use is to link availability of extended rests to success or failures in skill challenges, which introduces at least a degree of narratively-determined pacing.)


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## Hussar (Apr 15, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Why are they called "healing" surges?
> 
> 
> It is clear to me that this moving of goal posts demonstrates the inability to defend the surge mechanic from a narrative perspective.
> ...




Realistically, you're right.  Clerical healing spells are just another resource.  However, there are a few key differences:  

1.  You require the presence of a cleric or other healer in order to access those resources which means that the in-game fiction is being dictated by the mechanics.  Either you have a healer, in which case you can continue the adventure relatively quickly, or you don't have a healer and, at least for the context of the given adventure, you probably cannot heal any significant damage.  

2.  The resources are all controlled by one player.  Instead of the entire group having access to this, you have only one player, or at least, controlled by whoever happens to be playing the healer.

3.  Healing can only be performed at very specific times - the healing character's turn and that action means that that character can only do that action and nothing else.  

These differences are more than enough to say that they are not exactly the same from an in play perspective.  However, from a narrative perspective, healing surges represent a resource for that character not for the group.  Being down healing surges means that the character is not at full HP.  Also, since you cannot regain healing surges they are a limited resource, unlike earlier edition healing which are only limited by the amount of healing on hand.  If you have a healing wand, there is effectively very little limit on the amount of healing you can do between regaining resources.

However, being pedantic about the word "healing" is a bit strange.  After all, the meaning is clearly defined by the game.  Trying to redefine the word outside of its game defined meaning and then complaining that the word doesn't mean the right thing is not exactly going to work.


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## Hussar (Apr 15, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Er...because it does?
> 
> I may not know 4e from 4H but even I can see you're not making sense here.  If my full h.p. total is 50 and I take 8 damage from something, I'm at 42.  I then burn a healing surge by whatever means and get the 8 points back (i.e. that damage has been removed), so my total is right back where it started: 50.
> 
> ...




Isn't it?  After all, you potentially have 50+6d8 HP to use.  However, see my answer to BryonD above for more detail on the differences.


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## FireLance (Apr 15, 2012)

Frankly, and IMO, hit point loss has only ever modelled hit point loss perfectly. Even if hit point loss is described as serious injury, it does not seem to have any other mechanical impact.

So, if a 100 hp fighter who has been reduced to 1 hp has sustained no serious, life-threatening, incapacitating injuries (since he is otherwise treated as if he is uninjured), and is only covered with cuts, scratches and bruises, then hit points can be defined as any intangible factor that can keep him from being killed, such as vigor or luck, and can be quickly and easily restored, even through non-magical means.

If a 100 hp fighter who has been reduced to 1 hp has sustained serious injury but is somehow able to ignore it (since he is otherwise treated as if he is uninjured), then hit points can be defined as any intangible factor that allows him to function at (mostly) full effectiveness despite serious injury, such as willpower or determination, and quick, non-magical recovery of hit points simply represents a renewal of those factors, leaving the underlying injuries unchanged.

So, while it might not be a narration you are used to or are comfortable with, I don't think it's fair to say that the narration is dysfunctional or convoluted.


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## Lanefan (Apr 15, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Isn't it?  After all, you potentially have 50+6d8 HP to use.



No, I have 50.  The Cleric has potentially 6d8 to spread around however she chooses, 1d8 at a time, preferably after the fighting's done so she doesn't get interrupted while casting.


			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> 2. The resources are all controlled by one player. Instead of the entire group having access to this, you have only one player, or at least, controlled by whoever happens to be playing the healer.



Assuming there's only one Cleric or other healing class character in the party...

I've never understood why people don't like playing Clerics in pre-3e games.



> 3. Healing can only be performed at very specific times - the healing character's turn and that action means that that character can only do that action and nothing else.



Which sounds like you're trying to heal during combat; which is a waste.  During combat the Cleric has - or should have - things that'll help pile on the smackdown: decent fighting ability, decent AC in most cases, non-curative spells that can help out, etc.; and most of the time should be using these to help put the opponents down as quickly as possible.  Healing comes after.

Lanefan


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## pemerton (Apr 15, 2012)

FireLance said:


> If a 100 hp fighter who has been reduced to 1 hp has sustained serious injury but is somehow able to ignore it (since he is otherwise treated as if he is uninjured), then hit points can be defined as any intangible factor that allows him to function at (mostly) full effectiveness despite serious injury, such as willpower or determination, and quick, non-magical recovery of hit points simply represents a renewal of those factors, leaving the underlying injuries unchanged.
> 
> So, while it might not be a narration you are used to or are comfortable with, I don't think it's fair to say that the narration is dysfunctional or convoluted.



Needless to say, I agree with this.



Lanefan said:


> Which sounds like you're trying to heal during combat; which is a waste.



In 4e, at least, incombat healing is an assumed part of gameplay. (I'm not sure about 3E. I remember very little if any of it in classic D&D.)


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## BryonD (Apr 15, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Because they restore lost hit points.
> 
> "Damage": the removal of hit points.
> "Healing": the restoration of hit points.
> ...



Your definitions contradict each other.

One the on hand you are calling it "damage" but on the other you are very careful to confine it to " hurt/shock/dispiritedness".  

If the intent was as you have adapted them then "healing surges" is a major misnomer and they should instead be called "spirit surges" or "resolve surges".




> Mechanically: to regain one's surges is to replenish the above-mentioned finite resource. It requires rest (6 hours, no more than once per day).
> 
> In the fiction: having rested for 6 or more hours, one has either recovered from shock, dispiritedness and (relatively minor) hurt, or is able to push on again in spite of them.
> 
> ...



Go back and look at the context of this recent conversation.


I said there are two options.  I said you can EITHER require that ALL healing is mojo OR instead you can say that surges flash away real wounds.  Hussar took exception with the "flash away wounds" part.

Now you are defending his point by demanding that wounds can be just mojo.  I agree that you can solve problem set A by introducing problem set B.
What neither of you have offered is a way to solve both problems at the same time.



> Whether it's convoluted I'll leave to others to judge. I don't find it needless, though. In play it produces dramatic pacing and reinforces strong (and fairly classic) tropes and themes. (The weakest mechanical component is the extended rest. It should be established on a narrative basis rather than an ingame time basis. The workaround I use is to link availability of extended rests to success or failures in skill challenges, which introduces at least a degree of narratively-determined pacing.)



No, this mojo-only options isn't what I was calling convoluted.
I was talking about moving actual healing between surge use and surge recovery.


But you added a new point here.  Regarding "pacing, tropes, and themes" I won't dispute that you have those.  But I've always had those and still do.  Plus I have things working the way they should work in a great novel.  So, for me, I'm theoretically gaining something I already have at a price of losing something else that is in the end even more important.  (thought really I find these items to be rather intertwined)


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## BryonD (Apr 15, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Realistically, you're right.  Clerical healing spells are just another resource.  However, there are a few key differences:
> 
> 1.  You require the presence of a cleric or other healer in order to access those resources which means that the in-game fiction is being dictated by the mechanics.  Either you have a healer, in which case you can continue the adventure relatively quickly, or you don't have a healer and, at least for the context of the given adventure, you probably cannot heal any significant damage.
> 
> ...



Right.  You have named three great things about pre-surge style healing for narrative story telling and three problems with pre-surge style healing for gamist expediency.



> These differences are more than enough to say that they are not exactly the same from an in play perspective.  However, from a narrative perspective, healing surges represent a resource for that character not for the group.  Being down healing surges means that the character is not at full HP.



Does it say that in the book anywhere?
I fully understand that being down a surge is less than at full supply (just as being down a CMW would be).  But two 20 HP characters, both currently at 20 HP function exactly the same whether one is down a surge and the other is not.

Whereas if the one down a surge had instead kept that surge and was at 14 HP (or whatever) then a 15 pnt hit would down one guy and not the other.  The two conditions are not equivalent.



> Also, since you cannot regain healing surges they are a limited resource, unlike earlier edition healing which are only limited by the amount of healing on hand.  If you have a healing wand, there is effectively very little limit on the amount of healing you can do between regaining resources.



Again, this is perfectly fine if the gamist issues trump story to you.

I'll still not concede the idea of draining wands of CLW at will.  3E doesn't have  anything to force that to not happen.  But if it is happening in your game then you have a whole different problem to solve, and rules can't fix playstyle.

For narrative based play as long as there is a cause to drive an effect, it is all good.  I'd rather have a cleric burn 50 CLWs from a wand in a row and have the narrative connection of divine healing is why the wounds went away rather than a fighter flashing his wounds away just once.  And since I don't even have the lesser problem, I come out far ahead.



> However, being pedantic about the word "healing" is a bit strange.  After all, the meaning is clearly defined by the game.  Trying to redefine the word outside of its game defined meaning and then complaining that the word doesn't mean the right thing is not exactly going to work.



Yeah.  That's obvious to me.  You are the one that took exception to me describing the use of a healing surge as being "healing".  Recovering surges is not called "healing".


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## BryonD (Apr 15, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Frankly, and IMO, hit point loss has only ever modelled hit point loss perfectly. Even if hit point loss is described as serious injury, it does not seem to have any other mechanical impact.
> 
> So, if a 100 hp fighter who has been reduced to 1 hp has sustained no serious, life-threatening, incapacitating injuries (since he is otherwise treated as if he is uninjured), and is only covered with cuts, scratches and bruises, then hit points can be defined as any intangible factor that can keep him from being killed, such as vigor or luck, and can be quickly and easily restored, even through non-magical means.
> 
> ...



There is the narrative issue I dislike.
There is the convoluted issue.

These are two different issues and nothing in your post touches on either of them.

Under either situation you described, 24 hours later the fighter's wounds are gone even if he is alone and naked in the woods.  There is no cause and effect.  This isn't a big problem for scenario A but the price for that is restricting that only scenario A ever happens.

The convolution only comes in if you say that HP loss is *real* wounds and yet surges don't heal them.  The fighter is still healed 24 hours later, so instead of flashing healed at the second he surges, he flashed healed some time later when his surges came back.  Same narrative problem, only now it is convoluted over when, how and why the wounds went away.


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## FireLance (Apr 15, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Under either situation you described, 24 hours later the fighter's wounds are gone even if he is alone and naked in the woods.  There is no cause and effect.  This isn't a big problem for scenario A but the price for that is restricting that only scenario A ever happens.
> 
> The convolution only comes in if you say that HP loss is *real* wounds and yet surges don't heal them.  The fighter is still healed 24 hours later, so instead of flashing healed at the second he surges, he flashed healed some time later when his surges came back.  Same narrative problem, only now it is convoluted over when, how and why the wounds went away.



Nope, in the second scenario, the wounds are still there. His reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed, though. If you're willing to accept that the fighter can ignore his wounds and press on five minutes after he has been injured, surely he will be able to do even better after eight hours of rest. (And let's not bring infection into it. The pure hit point system has no mechanism for tracking festering wounds, even for a fighter alone in the woods with no healing skills beyond the basics any adventurer should be expected to have.)


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## Balesir (Apr 15, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> It has been ages since I played OWOD but I am pretty sure the health tracker was different levels of physical damage with accompanying penalties (though it is possible I am thinking of NWOD).  Savage worlds pretty much functions on similar premise. Our games have three stages of wounding (-2, -1, and incapacitated). Now those aren't granular wounding systems (though savage worlds has a chart you roll on that can cause real lasting wounds), but they are death spiral wound systems in my book.



Ah, OK - that's not what I'm referring to when I say "wound systems" here, at all. I mean something like HârnMaster, where a character might, theoretically, have hundreds of wounds and not be dead. The chances are high that they would be in danger of dying - through failed shock rolls, infection or bloodloss - but the wounds themselves do not reach any "critical level" where the character dies. There is no resource - call it "wound capacity", "hit points" or whatever - that one more wound will cause you to reach the end of, thus killing the character.


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## Balesir (Apr 15, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Nope, in the second scenario, the wounds are still there. His reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed, though. If you're willing to accept that the fighter can ignore his wounds and press on five minutes after he has been injured, surely he will be able to do even better after eight hours of rest. (And let's not bring infection into it. The pure hit point system has no mechanism for tracking festering wounds, even for a fighter alone in the woods with no healing skills beyond the basics any adventurer should be expected to have.)



I couldn't XP you, but this is getting to the nub, I think.

BryonD's issues seem to revolve around (a) a dogged insistence that only prolonged "natural" healing and divine magic are eligible candidates for causing wounds to heal, and (b) despite having realised that having lost hit points does not necessarily mean a creature has physical injury, still not grasping that a creature with full hit points _might still have physical injuries_.

Hit points represent the mechanical effects (where there are any) of a range of "damage", including but not limited to physical injury, not the presence of such "damage" when it has no mechanical impact.


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## BryonD (Apr 15, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Nope, in the second scenario, the wounds are still there. His reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed, though. If you're willing to accept that the fighter can ignore his wounds and press on five minutes after he has been injured, surely he will be able to do even better after eight hours of rest. (And let's not bring infection into it. The pure hit point system has no mechanism for tracking festering wounds, even for a fighter alone in the woods with no healing skills beyond the basics any adventurer should be expected to have.)



He can ignore his wounds and "press on" five minutes after he receives them and he can ignore his wounds and press on a day later.
No problem.

And if he gets hit again 5 minutes later the effect of being wounded makes him less capable of continuing to press on.  A later strike is more likely to take him out.  With surges the next morning the character in either scenario is back to full capacity.  

There is more than one element of being damaged and you are only attending to one of them.  Your system still fails for the issues you have ignored.  Yes, you can role play still being wounded, but the mechanical behavior of the system, treats this guy exactly the same as a fully healed guy because as far as the system claim he *IS* fully healed.


The 5 minutes after being hit guy is just as good at striking and avoiding as an unwounded guy.  But but there are differences between this guy and a truly unwounded guy in other parts of the system.  In either scenario the guy is just like unwounded guy the next morning.  There are other systems which are superior for handling this situation and therefore the surge options is unacceptable.


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## BryonD (Apr 15, 2012)

Balesir said:


> ByronD's



It is Bryon.



> issues seem to revolve around (a) a dogged insistence that only prolonged "natural" healing and divine magic are eligible candidates for causing wounds to heal, and (b) despite having realised that having lost hit points does not necessarily mean a creature has physical injury, still not grasping that a creature with full hit points _might still have physical injuries_.



I grasp that point.  But I think you fail to grasp that this point has been addressed many times before and there are vastly better systems for modeling he issue.

You can say "this guy is wounded".  But if one model treats the wounded guy as being absolutely in ever way identical to a fully healed guy and just asks you to act otherwise (and to be clear 4E makes no such request, treating the character a truly and fully healed has been the standard position of 4E fans for the past few years of debating this topic) and another system treat a wounded guy as being in some way different than a perfectly healed guy, then it is reasonable to consider the second system to be superior.

The situation you offer starts to go sideways in a hurry anyway.
Say I've got 20 HP and I take 19 pnts damage on day 1.  But on the morning of day 2 I'm back to 20 HP.  Now, you and I agree that I'm still "wounded" from Day 1, but mechanically there is no evidence of this.  Now on Day 2 I take another 19 points of damage.  And on the morning of Day 3 I'm back to mechanically equal to a character who has never been touched.  I take 19 damage on Day 3, and Day 4, and Day 5.  Why is there no cumulative effect?  The answer is: because the system presumes I really AM fully healed every day.

Yes, I can pretend anything I want.  My ability to pretend and you ability to pretend are things we both bring to the table.  A game system brings a mechanical model to the table.  I want a model that does a decent job of getting things correct.




> Hit points represent the mechanical effects (where there are any) of a range of "damage", including but not limited to physical injury, not the presence of such "damage" when it has no mechanical impact.



But one of those effects is the reduced capacity to absorb future wounds.  You are missing that part.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 15, 2012)

It is no use to dispute the benefits, or lack thereof, to various hit point models in regards to pacing (combat, adventure, and otherwise), when one side believes said pacing is important and the other side finds it, at best, a subordinate thing that emerges from whatever hit point model one adapts for other reasons.


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## Balesir (Apr 15, 2012)

BryonD said:


> It is Bryon.



Sorry - noted and corrected.



BryonD said:


> But if one model treats the wounded guy as being absolutely in ever way identical to a fully healed guy and just asks you to act otherwise (and to be clear 4E makes no such request, treating the character a truly and fully healed has been the standard position of 4E fans for the past few years of debating this topic)



I think a key strength of 4e is that it doesn't demand that the guy with any amount of HP be assumed to be either physically wounded or not. That is a world issue, not a system issue. The system need only say - and in 4e does only say - whether the "damage" the character has sustained affects him or her in a mechanically significant way. There is no reason why each player should not decide for themselves whether they envision the character as physically wounded or not - provided only that they acknowledge that any physical (or other) wounding present has no mechanical effect.



BryonD said:


> I want a model that does a decent job of getting things correct.



I don't think there is any such thing as "correct". There are only a plethora of opinions about what is "correct" and what is not. This, among other considerations, is why multiple roleplaying systems exist.



BryonD said:


> But one of those effects is the reduced capacity to absorb future wounds.  You are missing that part.



No - I'm not missing it. There are 4 possible states, here:

1) The creature has physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

2) The creature has physical wounds and does not have a reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

3) The creature does not have any physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

4) The creature does not have any physical wounds and does not have a reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

Creatures (2) and (4) have full hit points (including any healing surges, if used), creatures (1) and (3) don't.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Ah, OK - that's not what I'm referring to when I say "wound systems" here, at all. I mean something like HârnMaster, where a character might, theoretically, have hundreds of wounds and not be dead. The chances are high that they would be in danger of dying - through failed shock rolls, infection or bloodloss - but the wounds themselves do not reach any "critical level" where the character dies. There is no resource - call it "wound capacity", "hit points" or whatever - that one more wound will cause you to reach the end of, thus killing the character.




I see what you mean. I tend to include that in this category, with harn master being on the gritty, granular end of it and something like vampire being on the light end. The key commonality (for me) that makes it a wound system in both cases is that physical damage impacts your performance (so there is an attempt to simulate being hurt). Wheras a game like D&D doesn't really do that.


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## FireLance (Apr 16, 2012)

BryonD said:


> He can ignore his wounds and "press on" five minutes after he receives them and he can ignore his wounds and press on a day later.
> No problem.
> 
> And if he gets hit again 5 minutes later the effect of being wounded makes him less capable of continuing to press on.  A later strike is more likely to take him out.  With surges the next morning the character in either scenario is back to full capacity.
> ...



That is partly an issue with the base hit point system. Apart from the ability to avoid taking or succumbing to future wounds, a character with 1 hp remaining is no different from the same character when he is fully healed. As mentioned in the previous post, you can flavor this one of two ways: either he has taken no serious wounds, or he has taken serious wounds, but is otherwise able to act as if he had not.



> The 5 minutes after being hit guy is just as good at striking and avoiding as an unwounded guy.



The striking bit is due to the base hit point system. Avoiding is only applicable if we define hit points as the ability to avoid serious injury (the first scenario), and if we do so, the character would not have sustained any serious injury in the first place.

Alternatively, it is possible to take a hybrid approach in which hit points can be defined as either the ability to avoid serious wounds or the ability to press on despite them. You can still get a consistent narrative, although once a character is narrated as having taken a number of serious wounds, it is probably more plausible to narrate subsequent "hits" as being minimized or avoided instead of sustained and ignored.



> But but there are differences between this guy and a truly unwounded guy in other parts of the system.



Such as? Apart from the ability to avoid future wounds (the first scenario) or the ability to press on unhindered despite the sum total of the wounds already sustained (the second scenario), I am unable to recall any significant part of the system that treats a character at full hit points and one down to 1 hp any differently.



> In either scenario the guy is just like unwounded guy the next morning.  There are other systems which are superior for handling this situation and therefore the surge options is unacceptable.



Yes, after an extended rest, the character's vigor, luck or whatever it is that allows him to avoid taking a serious wound in the first place are restored (the first scenario) or his reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed (the second scenario). 

As I mentioned in my earlier post, while it might not be an approach you are used to or are comfortable with, I don't think it's fair to say that it is dysfunctional, convoluted or unacceptable.


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## BryonD (Apr 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I think a key strength of 4e is that it doesn't demand that the guy with any amount of HP be assumed to be either physically wounded or not.



Strictly speaking this is true.  But only to the same extent that it is true in prior systems.  However, the 4E surge system dds obligation that force you to choose demands that were previously absent.

If you DO choose to have "physically wounded" then you are required for the naked fighter in the woods to go back to fully charged the next morning despite having been "physically wounded".

Or you can avoid that issue by choosing to forego ever having "physical wounds".

I have freedom to select whatever I want in the system I use with no requirement of choosing one of those restrictions.

Until a couple days ago I was saying those were the only options.  Now suddenly (after years of debates...) a third option is being presented.  That is the option that a character with full hit points and full surges can still be "wounded" and not actually healed.  In this case the model is making zero mechanical distinction whatsoever between a wounded character and fully healed character.  While my gut reaction is to call that "even worse", it si really just shades of unacceptable.



> I don't think there is any such thing as "correct". There are only a plethora of opinions about what is "correct" and what is not. This, among other considerations, is why multiple roleplaying systems exist.



All the options identified are "incorrect" for cause and effect simulation.

I won't dispute that "correct" for gaming is subjective taste.  But there are very clear and significant differences.  


> No - I'm not missing it. There are 4 possible states, here:
> 
> 1) The creature has physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.
> 
> ...



But the problem is 4E *DOES NOT* have these four states.  
I could grab a character sheet up in the middle of a 4E game and show it to you and it would be completely impossible for you to tell if a character was in state (2) or state (4).  They are mechanically indistinguishable.

And even that isn't really saying it right.  It isn't that they are indistinguishable, it is that they are one and the same.


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## BryonD (Apr 16, 2012)

FireLance said:


> That is partly an issue with the base hit point system.



As I have said multiple times now, HP in 4E work for me just as well as they do in other systems.  I'm not trashing HP.  I'm simply drawing out the distinction between the HP issues and the surges issues.



> Such as? Apart from the ability to avoid future wounds (the first scenario) or the ability to press on unhindered despite the sum total of the wounds already sustained (the second scenario), I am unable to recall any significant part of the system that treats a character at full hit points and one down to 1 hp any differently.



A wounded character is less capbale of absorbing more damage before succumbing.  This is a critically important distinction.




> Yes, after an extended rest, the character's vigor, luck or whatever it is that allows him to avoid taking a serious wound in the first place are restored (the first scenario) or his reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed (the second scenario).
> 
> As I mentioned in my earlier post, while it might not be an approach you are used to or are comfortable with, I don't think it's fair to say that it is dysfunctional, convoluted or unacceptable.




And, yet again, you have not addressed the issues that I have actually described as convoluted and unacceptable.


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## Hussar (Apr 16, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Right.  You have named three great things about pre-surge style healing for narrative story telling and three problems with pre-surge style healing for gamist expediency.
> /snip




You call it great for narrative.  I call it differently.  I see it as the mechanics dictating a specific narrative on my game whether I want that narrative or not.  Has nothing to do with gamist expediency and everything to do with flexibility.  You cannot replicate 4e style pacing with 3e style rules without relying on healing wands.  IOW, if I want a faster paced game, I MUST use a specific campaign style - high magic where healing wands are a dime a dozen - in order to get that.  OTOH, if I want earlier edition pacing, I can replicate that easily with 4e surge mechanics.  I wish I had bookmarked Crazy Jerome's post about how to do it, but, it's relatively simple to achieve.



			
				BryonD said:
			
		

> But the problem is 4E *DOES NOT* have these four states.
> I could grab a character sheet up in the middle of a 4E game and show it to you and it would be completely impossible for you to tell if a character was in state (2) or state (4). They are mechanically indistinguishable.
> 
> And even that isn't really saying it right. It isn't that they are indistinguishable, it is that they are one and the same.




You keep repeating this but it's not true.  State 2 characters would be down healing surges.  State 4 characters would not.  Both characters can receive exactly the same damage before running out of HP.  The state 4 character however, can do it more often than the state 2 character since the state 4 character has more healing surges.

It's only because you insist that we ignore healing surges when determining the state of a character.  Two character with the same HP but one with no surges remaining and the other with full surges remaining should not look the same.  The first guy should look like he's been through a meat grinder.


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## BryonD (Apr 16, 2012)

Hussar said:


> You call it great for narrative.  I call it differently.



And yet you've never offered an answer for the lack of cause and effect.



> You keep repeating this but it's not true.  State 2 characters would be down healing surges.  State 4 characters would not.  Both characters can receive exactly the same damage before running out of HP.  The state 4 character however, can do it more often than the state 2 character since the state 4 character has more healing surges.
> 
> It's only because you insist that we ignore healing surges when determining the state of a character.  Two character with the same HP but one with no surges remaining and the other with full surges remaining should not look the same.  The first guy should look like he's been through a meat grinder.



No, you are not following the conversation correctly.

We were talking about characters with all HP and all surges restored.

Again, you can shuffle the deck a variety of ways.  It is just playing whack-a-mole.  Every issue I have can be solved.  But every solution requires a different issue be brought in.  

Several of you have now made efforts to solve issue A and ignore that you bring up issue B.  I point out issue B and you "solve" it by ignoring that you've restored issue A.  You can make any one go away.  You can't make them all go away at once.


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## Hussar (Apr 16, 2012)

What lack of cause and effect?


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## Lanefan (Apr 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> BryonD's issues seem to revolve around ... (b) despite having realised that having lost hit points does not necessarily mean a creature has physical injury, still not grasping that a creature with full hit points _might still have physical injuries_.



I'm not BryonD but in my view this is a game-mechanically impossible state.  Whatever else hit points might claim to represent, they also reflect physical damage.



> Hit points represent the mechanical effects (where there are any) of a range of "damage", including but not limited to physical injury, not the presence of such "damage" when it has no mechanical impact.



Except the direct mechanical impact of physical injury is loss of h.p., pure and simple.  In other words, the presence of such damage *always* has a mechanical impact.

Another way to put it: you can lose h.p. without sustaining actual physical harm but you cannot sustain actual physical harm without losing h.p.

Lanefan


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## Hussar (Apr 16, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> I'm not BryonD but in my view this is a game-mechanically impossible state.  Whatever else hit points might claim to represent, they also reflect physical damage.
> 
> Except the direct mechanical impact of physical injury is loss of h.p., pure and simple.  In other words, the presence of such damage *always* has a mechanical impact.
> 
> ...




Why not?

I whack my knee on the coffee table.  It hurts, it leaves a bruise.  Am I actually down HP?  Is that bruise on my knee going to impact my survivability?

Granted, it might.  Sure, it makes me a bit slower and that next attack I get whacked instead of dodging it, thus, losing a bit more HP.  Maybe.  Or, OTOH, the wound is insignificant, does not impact my ability to fight and I can certainly take physical punishment without loss of HP.

Isn't that what temporary HP and non-lethal damage both represent?  I can get repeatedly punched in the face until I fall down, yet not lose a single HP.


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## FireLance (Apr 16, 2012)

BryonD said:


> .And, yet again, you have not addressed the issues that I have actually described as convoluted and unacceptable.



Well, let me try to address this one.



BryonD said:


> Until a couple days ago I was saying those were the only options.  Now suddenly (after years of debates...) a third option is being presented.  That is the option that a character with full hit points and full surges can still be "wounded" and not actually healed.  In this case the model is making zero mechanical distinction whatsoever between a wounded character and fully healed character.  While my gut reaction is to call that "even worse", it si really just shades of unacceptable.



I think what you are grappling with is the idea that a character could mechanically be at full hit points but be narratively wounded. This has not been an issue previously because the only way to restore hit points quickly was to use magic. However, the fact that the previous narratives for rapid restoration of hit points can no longer be applied to rapid non-magical hit point recovery does not make it illogical. It simply means that a new narrative is needed. Hence, the two scenarios I mentioned where the non-magical recovery of hit points is narrated as either the restoration of the ability to avoid future wounds or the ability to keep going despite having sustained serious wounds. Now, whether you like them or not is a matter of taste, but I don't think it's fair to call them dysfunctional, convoluted or unacceptable.



> And even that isn't really saying it right.  It isn't that they are indistinguishable, it is that they are one and the same.



They are indeed exactly the same mechanically. But the mechanics of making an attack roll are also the same whether the character is participating in an honorable duel, a stealthy assassination, a military skirmish, or trying to eliminate a civilian who is trying to escape genocide. The background and context are needed to tell the full story.


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## pemerton (Apr 16, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I fully understand that being down a surge is less than at full supply (just as being down a CMW would be).  But two 20 HP characters, both currently at 20 HP function exactly the same whether one is down a surge and the other is not.
> 
> Whereas if the one down a surge had instead kept that surge and was at 14 HP (or whatever) then a 15 pnt hit would down one guy and not the other.  The two conditions are not equivalent.



I don't see your point.

Obviously a PC at full hp, and a PC down 14 hp, are not mechanically equivalent. They may or may not be fictionally equivalent, depending how the hp loss was narrated.

But two PCs at full hp, but one down a surge and the other not, are not mechanically equivalent either. Besides corner cases where they would be different (eg surge-sucking monsters or surge-expenditure items/skill checks), there is the fact that one but not the other has the capacity to regain hp by being inpsired or taking a brief respite.

The two PCs with different surges may or may not be fictionally equivalent, depending on how surge expenditure is narrated. (For example, if surges are narrated as heroic effort, one may look more haggard than the other. If the expenditure of the surge was treated as a purely metagame expenditure of a player (not PC) resource, then in the fiction the two may be indistinguishable.)



BryonD said:


> Your definitions contradict each other.
> 
> One the on hand you are calling it "damage" but on the other you are very careful to confine it to " hurt/shock/dispiritedness".
> 
> If the intent was as you have adapted them then "healing surges" is a major misnomer and they should instead be called "spirit surges" or "resolve surges".



Given that I'm putting forward stipulative definitions, there is no contradiction.

As to your suggestion of misnomer: in AD&D an "attack" is in fact many attempts at attack over the course of a minute; in all versions of D&D, I can "save" against an effect and yet still be affected by it (half damage); in 4e, a "miss" can still deliver "damage"; many players of all versions of D&D think that at least some "damage" is mere weakening of resolve (and in 4e this is obvious, given the category of "psychic damage"); in pre-4e versions of D&D "cure light wounds" may be enough to restore a PC on death's door to full health, while "cure critical wounds" may fail to restore a barely injured PC to full health.

These are all technical terms, not terms of ordinary English. Their names are established by tradition, allusive if not fully literal, and in my view at least not actively misleading to those familiar with the systems in question.



BryonD said:


> I said you can EITHER require that ALL healing is mojo OR instead you can say that surges flash away real wounds.  Hussar took exception with the "flash away wounds" part.
> 
> Now you are defending his point by demanding that wounds can be just mojo.  I agree that you can solve problem set A by introducing problem set B.
> What neither of you have offered is a way to solve both problems at the same time.



The "solution" is fairly obvious: the only person who is insisting that a fully-healed fighter (in the sense of full hp and full surges) must be unwounded is you.

On the "mojo" theory of hit point loss, damage may still include mild scrapes and bruises. And I am not obliged to say that a fighter who is fully healed has none of these.

On the "it's not all mojo" theory of hit point loss, damage will include even serious cuts and injuries. But Hussar (or FireLance, or anyone else) is not obliged to say that a fighter who is fully healed has none of those.



BryonD said:


> 24 hours later the fighter's wounds are gone even if he is alone and naked in the woods.  There is no cause and effect.



You keep saying this. But on what basis? Where in the rules does it say that a PC at full hit points and full healing surges is not suffering any wounds?

All we can infer from a PC being at full hp and full surges is that there ability to press on despite wounds is as good as it can be.



BryonD said:


> Regarding "pacing, tropes, and themes" I won't dispute that you have those.  But I've always had those and still do.  Plus I have things working the way they should work in a great novel.  So, for me, I'm theoretically gaining something I already have at a price of losing something else that is in the end even more important.



As far as I'm aware, no one is trying to tell you how to play your game. Nor that you're doing it wrong. Unless I've radically misunderstood you, you're the one trying to tell others that, because their game has healing surges that (i) may be expended to recover hp via inspiration or respite, and (ii) are themselves recovered after a night's sleep, they will have narrative confusion and a lack of cause and effect in their game unless they adopt a "fully mojo" theory of hp.

But for the reasons that FireLance stated, this is not so. Nothing is stopping the participants at the table from describing the fighter, who (mechanically) is fully healed, as suffering various cuts, bruises and even sprains and broken ribs. All the mechanics tell us is that (i) none of those injuries is impeding the character's performance, and (ii) the character is in now way impeded in his/her ability to push on after inspiration or respite.


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## pemerton (Apr 16, 2012)

BryonD said:


> treating the character a truly and fully healed has been the standard position of 4E fans for the past few years of debating this topic





BryonD said:


> Now suddenly (after years of debates...) a third option is being presented.



I don't know where you get these "standard positions" from. And this "third position" has not suddenly sprung from nowhere. For as long as I've been playing 4e and posting about it (ie early 2009) I've made the point that a PC at full hit points and full surges may still, in the fiction, be injured. But those injuries are not impeding his/her performance, nor lessening his/her ability to draw on vigour, determination etc. (I'd be surprised if you can't find it discussed somewhere in the big thread from 18 or so months ago that Mercurius started, about "Why 4e is not as successful as it could be".)

I mean, it's an obvious implication of the 4e mechanics that this is one possible interpretation of hit point and healing surge loss and recovery.



BryonD said:


> But the problem is 4E *DOES NOT* have these four states.
> 
> I could grab a character sheet up in the middle of a 4E game and show it to you and it would be completely impossible for you to tell if a character was in state (2) or state (4).  They are mechanically indistinguishable.
> 
> And even that isn't really saying it right.  It isn't that they are indistinguishable, it is that they are one and the same.



I can pick up an AD&D character sheet and from the sheet, it would be completely impossible for me to tell if a PC is injured or not! All I can tell is that they have lost hit points.

To know whether or not the hit point loss was (i) being cut but pushing on, or (ii) a near miss that simply scratched instead of skewering, or (iii) a total miss that required serious exertion to avoid, I would have to actually be present at the table and follow the narration. Good heavens! Who would have thought that would be relevant to settling the content of a shared narrative space in an RPG?

(Alternatively, a player might note on his/her sheet: cut to forearm. And a 4e player might equally do the same.)



BryonD said:


> You can say "this guy is wounded".  But if one model treats the wounded guy as being absolutely in ever way identical to a fully healed guy and just asks you to act otherwise <snip parantheses> and another system treat a wounded guy as being in some way different than a perfectly healed guy, then it is reasonable to consider the second system to be superior.





BryonD said:


> Yes, I can pretend anything I want.  My ability to pretend and you ability to pretend are things we both bring to the table.  A game system brings a mechanical model to the table.  I want a model that does a decent job of getting things correct.



The issue isn't about "pretending" to be wounded. It's not about "acting otherwise". It's about, whether or not in the shared fiction, a particular character is wounded. This is completely orthogonal to the question of whether or not those wounds have any effect in the action resolution mechanics.

Furthermore, from the fact that the action resolution mechanics for suffering and recovering from the effects of injury don't care about the difference between an injured and an uninjured PC who are both neverthless at full hp and full surges,  it doesn't follow that it is irrelevant to all action resolution.

In an AD&D game, for example, the narration of some hit point loss as a cut, a scratch or a dodge might matter to a subsequent determination of the percentage chance of contracting a disease after rummaging through an otyugh lair. In a 4e game, the narration of the PC as injured or uninjured might matter to the subsequent resolution of a social skill check or skill challenge - a PC who has been narrated as uninjured, for example, might have to make a tricky Bluff check rather than a straightforward Diplomacy check to persuade a monastery to take him/her in as a traveller in need of respite.

Fictional positioning is not solely a matter of what is on the character sheet.



BryonD said:


> But one of those effects is the reduced capacity to absorb future wounds.  You are missing that part.





BryonD said:


> A wounded character is less capbale of absorbing more damage before succumbing.



What is the status of this claim, or of the above-quoted claim about "correctness"?

If you are making it as a claim about game mechanics, than it may be true for some versions of D&D, but is not true for FireLance and Balesir's suggseted version of 4e.

If you are making it as a claim about actual human physiology, than I don't believe it to be correct at all. If I am cut, then provided that I have recovered from any blood loss (eg by drinking some water, eating a bit and resting overnight) my ability to "absorb" future wounds is not impeded at all. If I have a broken toe, or a broken nose, my ability to "absorb" future wounds is not impeded at all. Even a subsequent blow to my face or my foot - which aggravates the existing pain - is one that (on the mooted model) I am able to push through (drawing on my reserves of grit, vigour, determination etc).

(I would add, the whole notion of "absorbing" wounds is one that only has meaning within a certain sort of game model. Real life people take wounds, and thereby become wounded, but they do not "absorb" wounds.)


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## pemerton (Apr 16, 2012)

FireLance said:


> They are indeed exactly the same mechanically. But the mechanics of making an attack roll are also the same whether the character is participating in an honorable duel, a stealthy assassination, a military skirmish, or trying to eliminate a civilian who is trying to escape genocide. The background and context are needed to tell the full story.



Yet another of your posts in this thread that I sadly can't XP!


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## Hussar (Apr 16, 2012)

Just to put a bit of context on how this discussion has been circling around for YEARS, I did a 30 second google search and found this thread from En World,

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/221226-d-d-4th-edition-healing-right.html

right on the first page, discussing this issue in 2008, we have the following quote:



Pale Jackal said:


> Because HP loss doesn't model wounds which impair your fighting efficiency?
> 
> It's abstract, and as long as you're willing to accept HP as a combination of fatigue, morale and actual wounds, it works.  Yes, you have the falling example which is the most grevious offender in this system, IMO, and yes, sometimes you shouldn't heal to full when you've been down to 1 HP...
> 
> But get over it.  =)  HP has always been abstract, unless you play that a 10th level fighter can literally suffer ten times as many sword wounds as a 1st level fighter.  If you do, well, just acknowledge that seeing as how he can suffer ten times the wounds as a normal warrior, he's also capable of fast healing.




So, it's not like there's any sudden change of opinion going on here.

Reading that thread was actually kinda fun.  

The last post in the thread pretty much encapsulates my view though:



kennew142 said:


> It's funny that I was just making this same exact point in another thread. Some folks like their hp to be purely abstract. Others like them to be purely physical. I fall somewhere in the middle. All these styles of play are valid, and it looks like (HP-wise, at least) 4e could be all things to all people.




And, for me, that's the bottom line.  I can replicate earlier D&D style HP with 4e mechanics.  It's doable.  It's been shown to be quite easily done.  What I cannot do is replicate 4e style HP with earlier mechanics.  So, for me, it's a case of one set of mechanics being more versatile than another.  If one set of mechanics supports more playstyles than another set of mechanics, then that first set of mechanics is better.

So, can someone, please, pretty please, show me how I can get 4e style HP's and pacing with 3e mechanics?  I've been asking this over and over again for a couple of weeks now, and no one seems to want to take up the challenge.


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## pemerton (Apr 16, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Just to put a bit of context on how this discussion has been circling around for YEARS, I did a 30 second google search and found this thread from En World




Here's another 2008 post:



Mathew_Freeman said:


> Linking together "hit point damage" and "physical injury" as an automatic assumption is something that I can understand. It's fairly obvious and consistent with D&D throughout the editions.
> 
> However, linking together "regaining hit points" and "injuries disappearing" is an assumption that D&D players in this thread are making - it is not something that is in the rules. It doesn't matter if this assumption is referred to over and over again - it is not in the RAW, nor the RAI.
> 
> Therefore - when a Warlord uses Inspiring Word, all they are doing is the mechanical "regaining hit points" effect, not the "making injuries disappear" effect that is being added on. And as such, when a Warlord uses Inspiring Word they are helping a character continue with the fight, not fixing physical injuries.




Is anyone seriously suggesting that a person might read this post, and then assume that in the poster's game, although healing surge _expenditure_ does not make injuries heal, healing surge _recovery_ does?


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## pemerton (Apr 16, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, can someone, please, pretty please, show me how I can get 4e style HP's and pacing with 3e mechanics?



I can't offer an answer as to how, but I have serious doubts that it can be done.

At least to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in 3E analogous to the incombat use of healing surges in 4e - and this incombat "unlocking" of healing surges is crucial to 4e's pacing. It is a big part of why 4e PCs win combats even though monsters have more hit points. And it makes sure that producing this result requires engaging the situation and the mechanics with some sophistication. (For this reason, at least, easy surgeless healing in 4e is bad design.)


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## Balesir (Apr 16, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I see what you mean. I tend to include that in this category, with harn master being on the gritty, granular end of it and something like vampire being on the light end. The key commonality (for me) that makes it a wound system in both cases is that physical damage impacts your performance (so there is an attempt to simulate being hurt). Wheras a game like D&D doesn't really do that.



Funnily enough, recent research suggestions that wounds in combat seldom cause general performance deterioration - basically, a wound either causes the target to become incapacitated, results in purely mechanical damage that removes or restricts the use of limbs, eyes, etc. or results in no immediate effects on combat performance - have led me to run HM while dispensing with the "Physical Penalty" to skills. In this specific sense, I think D&D may be (albeit unwittingly) more "realistic" than many so-called-realistic RPGs!

The real distinction, to my mind, comes with the out-of-combat effects (i.e. when the adrenaline is no longer "turbocharging" the body) and the recovery mechanisms.



BryonD said:


> Strictly speaking this is true.  But only to the same extent that it is true in prior systems.  However, the 4E surge system dds obligation that force you to choose demands that were previously absent.
> 
> If you DO choose to have "physically wounded" then you are required for the naked fighter in the woods to go back to fully charged the next morning despite having been "physically wounded".



Yes - or you can add a simple houserule that healing surges are recovered only in part and in an amount depending on the comfort and facilities of resting. Why is this any more of an issue than the "unrealistic natural healing" some complained of in earlier editions?



BryonD said:


> Or you can avoid that issue by choosing to forego ever having "physical wounds".



Or you can mix-and-match both views to your own taste - and each individual at the table can do so for themselves, without the need to insist that all others do so in the same way as them. The wounded creature has or does not have physical wounds as suits the viewer's own aesthetic preferences; the only "restriction" is that the mechanics prescribe whether or not the creature is in any way impeded in function by those injuries (or the stress, fatigue, lack of divine grace or whatever is assumed to be the cause of any present or previous loss of hit points).



BryonD said:


> I have freedom to select whatever I want in the system I use with no requirement of choosing one of those restrictions.



Yeah - so do I.



BryonD said:


> I won't dispute that "correct" for gaming is subjective taste.  But there are very clear and significant differences.



There are differences, but I sincerely doubt that either one of us has any real idea what the "real" system is, let alone has the right to dictate what relation any chosen game system should have to the real-world workings of wounding and recovery in all its many facets.



BryonD said:


> But the problem is 4E *DOES NOT* have these four states.
> I could grab a character sheet up in the middle of a 4E game and show it to you and it would be completely impossible for you to tell if a character was in state (2) or state (4).  They are mechanically indistinguishable.VAnd even that isn't really saying it right.  It isn't that they are indistinguishable, it is that they are one and the same.



Of course they are mechanically indistinguishable - that's kind of a "by definition" point. So are a character wearing silk stockings and the same one wearing canvas braies. So is a character who currently basks in the approval of the Duke and one who is an outcast from the kingdom. The fiction, as well as the mechanics, can be important in any roleplaying game. Whether or not some imagined identity exists between physical injury and hit points will have no appreciable impact on that, I imagine.



Lanefan said:


> I'm not BryonD but in my view this is a game-mechanically impossible state.  Whatever else hit points might claim to represent, they also reflect physical damage.



Says who?



Lanefan said:


> Except the direct mechanical impact of physical injury is loss of h.p., pure and simple.  In other words, the presence of such damage *always* has a mechanical impact.



This might be commonly assumed to be true (although there is a matter of degree - does a paper cut cause HP loss?), but the converse is not: the recovery of hit points does not at all necessarily imply the complete healing of a physical wound.



Lanefan said:


> Another way to put it: you can lose h.p. without sustaining actual physical harm but you cannot sustain actual physical harm without losing h.p.



So, in your games, if a character stubs its toe, it loses hit points? If it pulls a muscle, it loses hit points? It gets a paper cut, it loses hit points?

And, more to the point, as mentioned by Hussar, above, if a character still has a bruise but the knock happened a couple of (game-world) days ago, are they really still down HPs??

I can see the attraction of the identity, but I don't think it even holds water, never mind being a mandatory identity in the rules of any edition of D&D (which it manifestly isn't).


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Funnily enough, recent research suggestions that wounds in combat seldom cause general performance deterioration - basically, a wound either causes the target to become incapacitated, results in purely mechanical damage that removes or restricts the use of limbs, eyes, etc. or results in no immediate effects on combat performance - have led me to run HM while dispensing with the "Physical Penalty" to skills. In this specific sense, I think D&D may be (albeit unwittingly) more "realistic" than many so-called-realistic RPGs!
> 
> The real distinction, to my mind, comes with the out-of-combat effects (i.e. when the adrenaline is no longer "turbocharging" the body) and the recovery mechanisms..




Do you have a link?


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## pemerton (Apr 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Of course they are mechanically indistinguishable - that's kind of a "by definition" point. So are a character wearing silk stockings and the same one wearing canvas braies. So is a character who currently basks in the approval of the Duke and one who is an outcast from the kingdom. The fiction, as well as the mechanics, can be important in any roleplaying game.



Exactly.


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## Balesir (Apr 16, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Do you have a link?



Sorry, no - the pickup for me came from a whole string leading from long, rambling threads involving Brian Gleichmann (and his "Age of Heroes" RPG) on rec.games.frp.advocacy to police "use of armed force" reports to military combat study quotes. I don't know of anywhere it's really coherently expressed on the 'net.

P.S. - I should also note that I don't claim anything even vaguely approaching "proof" or even "evidence" for this angle - just sufficient anecdotal backup to make me relaxed about trying it in a game of imaginary reality, which is to say, a minimal amount!


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 16, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Sorry, no - the pickup for me came from a whole string leading from long, rambling threads involving Brian Gleichmann (and his "Age of Heroes" RPG) on rec.games.frp.advocacy to police "use of armed force" reports to military combat study quotes. I don't know of anywhere it's really coherently expressed on the 'net.
> 
> P.S. - I should also note that I don't claim anything even vaguely approaching "proof" or even "evidence" for this angle - just sufficient anecdotal backup to make me relaxed about trying it in a game of imaginary reality, which is to say, a minimal amount!




I was genuinely interested in the link, so not trying to box you in a corner with the link request or anything like that.

My own opinion about real world fighting and in game is that it often boils down to how you want to cut things up and capturing reality at a granular level gets pretty tricky, so you are best off using whatever system "feels real" to you if believaility is something you prize.


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## Libramarian (Apr 16, 2012)

FireLance said:


> Such as? Apart from the ability to avoid future  wounds (the first scenario) or the ability to press on unhindered  despite the sum total of the wounds already sustained (the second  scenario), I am unable to recall any significant part of the system that  treats a character at full hit points and one down to 1 hp any  differently.





BryonD said:


> A wounded character is less capbale of absorbing more damage before succumbing.  This is a critically important distinction.



Yes! Holy moly. Wounded characters are easier to kill. They have less stamina in deadly combat. This is a very vivid and important difference between characters at full HP and characters at low HP.

There's something else going on that is exaggerating the difference in opinion over HP here...

Maybe the "HP have always been completely meta" crowd are used to 4e where HP attrition has practically no consequence on future battles. This hitpoint issue would be interacting with the encounter balance issue.

In AD&D hitpoints don't feel completely abstract and meta. If you're walking around low on hitpoints you actually feel wounded, because getting into a fight is riskier than it would be at full hitpoints.

If you're playing a system where HP loss has little effect on future battle performance, well then yeah you're going to think that the system doesn't treat your character any differently depending on HP.

This is why I said in an earlier thread that by my lights you don't need progressive penalties for HP loss to be a death spiral. It already is one. Losing HP makes it progressively more likely that your character will die -- that's a death spiral. A mechanic without a death spiral would be saving vs. death at the same chance whenever you're hit.


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## FireLance (Apr 16, 2012)

Libramarian said:


> Maybe the "HP have always been completely meta" crowd are used to 4e where HP attrition has practically no consequence on future battles. This hitpoint issue would be interacting with the encounter balance issue.
> 
> In AD&D hitpoints don't feel completely abstract and meta. If you're walking around low on hitpoints you actually feel wounded, because getting into a fight is riskier than it would be at full hitpoints.
> 
> If you're playing a system where HP loss has little effect on future battle performance, well then yeah you're going to think that the system doesn't treat your character any differently depending on HP.



Actually, the key factor that determines whether hit point loss has an impact on future fights is the availability of healing or other ways to restore hit points. That is a completely separate point from whether the restoration of hit points is magical in nature, and can be narrated as wounds healing, or non-magical in nature, and should be narrated as the ability to avoid future wounds, or the ability to press on despite wounds. 

You can have a game where rapid hit point restoration is rare and magical, or a game where rapid hit point restoration is common and magical, or a game where rapid hit point restoration is common and both magical and non-magical. Presumably, you could also have a game where rapid hit point restoration is rare and both magical and non-magical, but I personally have not encountered one yet.


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## Lanefan (Apr 17, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Why not?
> 
> I whack my knee on the coffee table.  It hurts, it leaves a bruise.  Am I actually down HP?  Is that bruise on my knee going to impact my survivability?



Whether or not it impacts your survivability, the bruise leaves you in less than perfect physical condition and thus down (probably only one) h.p.  In a world with magical healing you could be right as rain in no time via spell, potion, whatever; but without magical healing recovery pretty much mirrors the real world, and it might be tomorrow or the next day before that bruise stops bugging you to the point that you can forget about it (i.e. you've recovered the lost h.p.)



> Isn't that what temporary HP and non-lethal damage both represent?  I can get repeatedly punched in the face until I fall down, yet not lose a single HP.



To me, temporary and non-lethal h.p. are still h.p., you just naturally recover them faster.  Once again, this points to a need for a BP-FP system...

Lanefan


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## YRUSirius (Apr 17, 2012)

Does anyone really think that mainstream casuals need anything more complex than hit points? The concept of life points is so easy to grasp and so ingrained in the minds of gamers all over the world (doesn't matter which coloeur), every one can understand them.

If you confront a casual gamer with the 'complex problems' that seem to arise because of those 'problematic' hit points they will just shrug and say: "Man, it's just a game.".

Yeah, it's just a game. Get over it and kill some orcs. 

-YRUSirius


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## Hussar (Apr 18, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Whether or not it impacts your survivability, the bruise leaves you in less than perfect physical condition and thus down (probably only one) h.p.  In a world with magical healing you could be right as rain in no time via spell, potion, whatever; but without magical healing recovery pretty much mirrors the real world, and it might be tomorrow or the next day before that bruise stops bugging you to the point that you can forget about it (i.e. you've recovered the lost h.p.)
> 
> To me, temporary and non-lethal h.p. are still h.p., you just naturally recover them faster.  Once again, this points to a need for a BP-FP system...
> 
> Lanefan




Problem is, I'm a level 1 commoner  (or level 1 magic user).  I have 1 hit point.  I whack my knee on the coffee table and I'm now dead.  Granted, total corner case, but, I'd say that linking any damage to hit points is a very difficult thing to do.

As soon as you start looking at it with any sort of critical eye, it's not hard to see that HP don't stand up to much scrutiny.


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## YRUSirius (Apr 18, 2012)

A level 1 commoner has 1 hit point? And a table does 1 hit point to him if the commoner whacks his knee at it? Wha-wha-what? 

Linking damage to to hit points is pretty easy though, an attack with a dagger can kill a 4 hit point commoner, even a 8 hit point commoner if the attacker get's a lucky critical hit in some editions. Hit points just indicate how many successful attacks a person can withstand before the person goes down. You don't need to know more details for D&D. We are no doctors after all. 

-YRUSirius


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## FireLance (Apr 18, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Problem is, I'm a level 1 commoner  (or level 1 magic user).  I have 1 hit point.  I whack my knee on the coffee table and I'm now dead.  Granted, total corner case, but, I'd say that linking any damage to hit points is a very difficult thing to do.
> 
> As soon as you start looking at it with any sort of critical eye, it's not hard to see that HP don't stand up to much scrutiny.



I think it makes more sense to say that minor cuts and injuries don't even deal 1 hp worth of damage. That's why ordinary people don't die from papercuts and pinpricks even if they are clumsy or unlucky enough to sustain several such minor wounds in rapid succession.

Incidentally, it also means that 4e minions are a lot less fragile than some of their detractors make them out to be. Once we accept that 1 hp of damage is a lot more serious than a cat scratch, we won't have 4e minions dying from housecats. And frankly, if we apply the same logic to earlier editions, we won't have 3e commoners dying from them, either.


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## pemerton (Apr 18, 2012)

FireLance said:


> I think it makes more sense to say that minor cuts and injuries don't even deal 1 hp worth of damage.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> it also means that 4e minions are a lot less fragile than some of their detractors make them out to be. Once we accept that 1 hp of damage is a lot more serious than a cat scratch, we won't have 4e minions dying from housecats.



The whole idea that "minion" is an ingame status that implies vulnerability to housecats is bizarre. Anyone who will only look at hp that way just shouldn't use minions!

A minion's 1 hp is so obviously a metagame status it's hard to see how it could be _more_ obvious - it means nothing more nor less than "any time the action resolution mechanics result in a hit against this monster, it goes down".

I use "minionisation" as a result of a skill check as one way of resolving out-of-combat attacks by the PCs against lone NPCs: if the skill check succeeds and the attack hits, the NPC drops; if the skill check or the attack fails, then the PC is in combat and has to cut through the NPCs hp (with all that that implies, including the possibility of the NPC escaping, or other characters intervening in the fight).

But the "minionisation" doesn't mean that anything special has happened within the fiction. It's just a metagame component of the action resolution mechanics.


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## DEFCON 1 (Apr 18, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I whack my knee on the coffee table and I'm now dead.  Granted, total corner case, but, I'd say that linking any damage to hit points is a very difficult thing to do.




To be fair... the corners of those coffee tables *are* pretty sharp.  ;-)


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## YRUSirius (Apr 18, 2012)

Use common sense, people. A housecat never killed a person to my knowledge. I don't care what the monster manual says about the 'damage' it can do... just use common sense...

And if a 'minion'/'weaksauce monster' gets hit by a fist of a character he get's knocked down in the first round (doesn't mean he's dead). It's the equivalent of John McClane knocking out a minor bad boy on his way to the major bad boy.

-YRUSirius


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## pemerton (Apr 19, 2012)

YRUSirius said:


> Use common sense, people. A housecat never killed a person to my knowledge. I don't care what the monster manual says about the 'damage' it can do... just use common sense...



That's fine, but what's the point of the MM entry then?

I prefer mechanics I can use to "mechanics" that I have to ignore.


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## Balesir (Apr 19, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I prefer mechanics I can use to "mechanics" that I have to ignore.



I can't XP you again, but I'm right with you on this one!

I think the "remedy" is a simple principle, actually:

_"In order to cause hit point damage, a cause has to be conceivably either a killing or a knockout blow. Any other "damage" can be considered to cause conditions, etc. - but if it could not kill or render unconscious, it should never inflict hit point damage."_

Whatever hit points are taken to represent, the only real definite we have about them is that running out of them causes a creature to be dead/dyig/unconscious (and this applies to all editions). So I commend the design principle, above, to you all (designers included)


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## YRUSirius (Apr 19, 2012)

pemerton said:


> That's fine, but what's the point of the MM entry then?




Yeah, exactly. Why does a housecat need statistics? Do you want to see a house cat in a fight? Against what? A mice?

-YRUSirius


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## Andor (Apr 19, 2012)

Hussar said:


> So, can someone, please, pretty please, show me how I can get 4e style HP's and pacing with 3e mechanics?  I've been asking this over and over again for a couple of weeks now, and no one seems to want to take up the challenge.




Step 1: Problem definition.

What do you mean by 4e style HP and pacing?

While I've read 4e, I haven't had a chance to play it, so I need to ask what this means as playstyle effecting game mechanic.


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## Dausuul (Apr 19, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I can't XP you again, but I'm right with you on this one!
> 
> I think the "remedy" is a simple principle, actually:
> 
> _"In order to cause hit point damage, a cause has to be conceivably either a killing or a knockout blow. Any other "damage" can be considered to cause conditions, etc. - but if it could not kill or render unconscious, it should never inflict hit point damage."_



Damn straight. I've been saying this for a long time. Anything that can kill a minion in one hit, can also kill a tyrannosaurus in one hit, if the tyrannosaurus has taken enough of a beating first. So before trotting out the idea that a minion can die walking through a thornbush, consider that the same thornbush can kill a tyrannosaurus, and then ask yourself whether perhaps the problem is not the minion but the thornbush.

There are several issues with the minion mechanic. "Death by thornbush" is not one of them.


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## Hussar (Apr 19, 2012)

Andor said:


> Step 1: Problem definition.
> 
> What do you mean by 4e style HP and pacing?
> 
> While I've read 4e, I haven't had a chance to play it, so I need to ask what this means as playstyle effecting game mechanic.




In 4e, because the PC's regain full hit points after an extended rest (6 hours), the pacing over the longer term is considerably faster.

Additionally, since every class comes with healing surges built in, and you can spend as many healing surges as you with during a short rest, you can have several encounters per day without need for outside healing.  

Thirdly, there are quite a few sources of non-surge healing, either through spells like Cure Light Wounds (grants 1 healing surge value worth of healing, 1/day IIRC) or regeneration and a plethora of sources of bonus HP (feats, powers, etc) and temporary hit points, it's quite possible to have very extended adventuring days without having to worry about the PC's running out of gas.

Fourthly, healing surges can also act as a resource for various effects.  Some magic items cost you a healing surge in order to dump out larger effects, that sort of thing.  And, healing surges can be used as a resource for extended skill challenges - failures could cost healing surges, for example.

Primarily, though, for me, it's the speed.  The fact that I can drop five, six, seven encounters on the group, keep the pressure up, and not have to worry that a lucky die roll is going to mean that the group runs out of gas half way through the scenario.

I can do this with 3e and earlier style hit points, but, it requires healing wands and/or reserve feats.  If I'm going to go that route anyway, I might as well build it directly into the class.


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## Andor (Apr 19, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Primarily, though, for me, it's the speed.  The fact that I can drop five, six, seven encounters on the group, keep the pressure up, and not have to worry that a lucky die roll is going to mean that the group runs out of gas half way through the scenario.
> 
> I can do this with 3e and earlier style hit points, but, it requires healing wands and/or reserve feats.  If I'm going to go that route anyway, I might as well build it directly into the class.




I think you mean character, not class. Building unlimited non-combat healing into a class is pretty easy, for example you could rule that the dragon Shamans 1/2 hp total limit on Hp regeneration only applies in combat. Outside of combat a healing skill check might allow it to take you back to full. Or one of the Binder vestiges grants unlimited healing, metered out at once per 5 rounds.

If you want to build it into characters however, there are the Reserve HP rules from unearthed Arcana. You might also glance at the damage conversion rules.

By not hard coding healing into the system, but handling it on a case by case basis, 3e lets you throttle it however the GM pleases. For example by allowing classes (like Binder or Dragon Shaman or Crusader) with effectively unlimited healing you can get that "keep it rolling" feel you like from 4e, or you could give the party a magic item or NPC with some slow but powerful healing effects. Ring of regeneration, a wand of cure light wounds that regenerates a charge an hour, whatever you want.

4e is actually more restrictive, since surgeless heals are harder to come by although you can roll right along until the surges run out. 

Combining these options in different proportions can let you set the dials quite precisely, although the fact that 3e ties healing much more strongly to the class than the character does mean you need to get your players on board with your goals. Or you can adopt the rules to account for their preferences. for example if they are prone to lightly armoured sneaky types with little healing, then the Reserve HP rules and cheap wands of CLW will keep them going. If they want dramatic armour clad types who can slug it out all day the damage conversion rules with a Crusader or Dragon shaman would be ... potent. If they are perfectly happy with a regular cleric in the group then reserve feats, as you note, fix the problem.


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## pemerton (Apr 19, 2012)

[MENTION=1879]Andor[/MENTION], the feature of 4e pacing that is most important for me is not the operational pacing that Hussar talks about, but the incombat pacing.

4e combat is characterised, among other things, by making incombat healing a crucial part of play. Which is both part of the mechanics - accessing your surges within the constraints of the action economy - and part of the fiction - will this PC be able to surge back before being overwhelmd by the tide of combat?

To the best of my knowledge, this can't be done with 3E, but my knowledge of 3E doesn't include some of the later stuff like incarnum, ToM, Bo9S, etc.


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## Andor (Apr 20, 2012)

pemerton said:


> To the best of my knowledge, this can't be done with 3E, but my knowledge of 3E doesn't include some of the later stuff like incarnum, ToM, Bo9S, etc.




Well, I can't speak to your play experience, but I've always found in combat healing to be crucial in D&D in every edition I've played.

And this was a problem, because for most of D&D history there was only one source of in combat healing, the cleric. And as that was so critical, the cleric often had little chance to do much else. I'm sure you're familiar with the problems and discussions about this. Oh, there were potions, and later wands of healing, but those are expensive, and wands still demand a healing-type character to use, so problem not solved.

Late in 3e we saw some attempts to shift the healing burden away from the Cleric by giving out some healing to other classes like the Crusader (Bo9s) and Dragon shaman, etc. The damage conversion I linked to above is another fix along that vein although it does not provide in combat healing, it does make it likely that when someone drops, they will merely be down and not out. 

4e moves the burden of healing, in part, to the individual character. Everyone gets a second wind. The leaders also got healing as minor actions so that they could be active characters rather than mere heal-bots.

You could always back-patch those into 3e of course. Giving everyone a second wind power usable once a combat wouldn't be hard. Nor would changing the casting time of heal spells to swift actions. But it would have to be a matter of house rules, the only way to make RAW 3e move the healing burden onto the individual players is by handing out a liberal number of healing potions.


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## Hussar (Apr 20, 2012)

I see what you're saying Andor, but, the problem is, you've simply shifted from needing one class to needing two or three classes.  If healing is limited to specific classes, then every group will have a very strong need for one of those classes.  I want to build HP recovery into character, not class, for exactly this reason.  

I don't want the game to tell me that if I want to have any sort of high pacing, I must have one of the following classes.

Same goes with items.  Again, if we're going to go that route, you've just made low magic campaigns a lost dream.  It's hardly a low magic campaign if every encounter is followed by inappropriate touching with magic sticks.  

So, while I totally agree that you can resolve the issue this way, and this is pretty much exactly how we DID resolve the issue in 3e, it's a patch, not a solution.  

See, the thing is, you can very, very easily shift 4e's healing system to match other editions.  I've lost the link to [MENTION=29358]Crazy[/MENTION]Jerome 's post where he makes a fantastic system for doing it, but, it's really not that difficult to adapt without forcing DM's to make any changes to their game world.


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## pemerton (Apr 20, 2012)

Andor said:


> Well, I can't speak to your play experience, but I've always found in combat healing to be crucial in D&D in every edition I've played.



OK. Different from me. I don't have much 3E experience, but in B/X and AD&D my experience was the same as that which [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] posted recently in one of these hp/healing threads: clerical healing, potions etc were deployed _after_ the fighting, not during it. (I think in part this is because doing those things in a battle was tricky - clerical spells in AD&D have long casting times, and so can easily be interrupted. It was also suggested by the example of play in Moldvay Basic - fight first, heal later.)



Andor said:


> I'm sure you're familiar with the problems and discussions about this.



Yep.

What's interesting about 4e - at least as it plays at my table - is that there is a mix of action types for healing abilities and powers. Second wind is standard, but minor for dwarves; most leader healing powers are minor, but some are standard, or are riders on standard action attacks; etc.

Then, these abilities are distributed over the PCs - second wind requires an action from the character, or from another character using Heal; different PCs have different healing powers (in my game, the ranger-cleric has several, as does the paladin, and the wizard has one "aura of charm" type power that grants temp hp to all allies).

And these abilities have different resource costs: encounter, daily, daily item (in the unerrata-ed rules, a PC can only use a limited number of daily item powers per day), etc.

Which means that the tactical considerations become more intricate, and the potential story contexts richer (different variations on last-minute recovery, heroic efforts, trading off helping your teammates vs pressing the attack, etc).



Andor said:


> You could always back-patch those into 3e of course. Giving everyone a second wind power usable once a combat wouldn't be hard. Nor would changing the casting time of heal spells to swift actions.



Certainly AD&D or B/X would need a lot of houseruling to produce anything like this. And I think that even 3E might need a bit more than what you suggest - eg attack powers with healing riders (ie in the fiction, attacks that produce heroic resurgence of one's allies) I think are not a part of 3E as written, are they?


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## Andor (Apr 20, 2012)

pemerton said:


> And I think that even 3E might need a bit more than what you suggest - eg attack powers with healing riders (ie in the fiction, attacks that produce heroic resurgence of one's allies) I think are not a part of 3E as written, are they?




Sure are.  The Bo9S has the Devoted Spirit discipline which is free only for the Crusader, but the Bo9S gives pretty free access to the maneuver system  for any character by paying with feats. There is a series of strikes that grant healing in that school, and also a stance I think. You can see the whole maneuver list for free here courtesy of WotC. The crusader class also has an interesting damage mechanic built into it where incoming damage up to a certain amount (basically 5 per 4 levels) went into a pool and didn't actually hit you until the end of your turn, and in the mean time it gave you bonuses to hit and damage. "Go on, hit me."


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 20, 2012)

Hussar said:


> See, the thing is, you can very, very easily shift 4e's healing system to match other editions. I've lost the link to @Crazy Jerome 's post where he makes a fantastic system for doing it, but, it's really not that difficult to adapt without forcing DM's to make any changes to their game world.




You can adapt 4E to 3E easily.  It's actually a bit harder to do it for AD&D or BECMI, though I could probably match those if I put my mind to it.  It's been so long since I've played either, I'd miss something though.  Anyway, there are several ways to do this to have 4E healing emulate 3E, but the common denominator is that tie the number of surges not to the character but the outside resource--the CLW spell, a wand, a potion, etc.  Then simply regulate those resources similar to how you would in 3E.  (Naturally, the numbers are a bit different, since using a surge will do more than a typical 3E CLW wand charge.)  

Depending upon how pure you want this solution, you can then decide whether or not to keep second wind, maybe change warlord "healing" to some temp hit point mechanic to compensate, etc.  The pure solution would be to simply throw the warlord out and/or replace all of his healing options with something else, and have no healing but from rest, clerical-type magic, and items that do the same--e.g. healing potions.  For a moderately pure version that keeps some of the nice fixes from 4E, do that, but keep second wind, and do not allow magic items in a lower tier to affect characters of a higher tier--i.e. no heroic potion will do much for a paragon tier character.

But as I said at the first, as long as you sever the tie between character and surge, then repace it with surges from resources, you are most of the way to some form of 3E healing.


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## Lanefan (Apr 20, 2012)

pemerton said:


> OK. Different from me. I don't have much 3E experience, but in B/X and AD&D my experience was the same as that which [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] posted recently in one of these hp/healing threads: clerical healing, potions etc were deployed _after_ the fighting, not during it. (I think in part this is because doing those things in a battle was tricky - clerical spells in AD&D have long casting times, and so can easily be interrupted. It was also suggested by the example of play in Moldvay Basic - fight first, heal later.)



Yep; and I'm now wondering when that standard changed - when healing during combat became the normal expectation rather than the uncommon exception.



> What's interesting about 4e - at least as it plays at my table - is that there is a mix of action types for healing abilities and powers. Second wind is standard, but minor for dwarves; most leader healing powers are minor, but some are standard, or are riders on standard action attacks; etc.
> 
> Then, these abilities are distributed over the PCs - second wind requires an action from the character, or from another character using Heal; different PCs have different healing powers (in my game, the ranger-cleric has several, as does the paladin, and the wizard has one "aura of charm" type power that grants temp hp to all allies).
> 
> ...



Which is all fine, I suppose; as long as one doesn't care about classes maintaining what once were their niches.  Consider this:

The broad-brush class niches used to be:

Fighters kill
Thieves sneak
Magic-users blast
Clerics heal

Now, they seem to be something like:

Fighters defend
Thieves kill
Wizards blast
Clerics - well, they do whatever they can

No wonder nobody likes to play 'em any more.

Lan-"that said, there's still a place for the odd very rare and highly expensive magic item that gives healing to non-Clerics"-efan


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## pemerton (Apr 20, 2012)

Andor said:


> The Bo9S has the Devoted Spirit discipline which is free only for the Crusader, but the Bo9S gives pretty free access to the maneuver system  for any character by paying with feats. There is a series of strikes that grant healing in that school, and also a stance I think. You can see the whole maneuver list for free here courtesy of WotC.



This is where my above-mentioned ignorance of ToB comes into play! Thanks for the link. The stance seems to be "Aura of Triumph".



Andor said:


> The crusader class also has an interesting damage mechanic built into it where incoming damage up to a certain amount (basically 5 per 4 levels) went into a pool and didn't actually hit you until the end of your turn, and in the mean time it gave you bonuses to hit and damage. "Go on, hit me."



Cool.

The closest I've seen to this sort of "Go on, hit me" in my 4e game is the dwarf fighter deliberately staying bloodied so that he is able, if necessary, to use the Bloodied Retribution attack (his biggest damage single-target strike) that he has access to via his dwarven thrower artefact.

Question: are there many 3E players who don't like 4e but don't object to ToB?


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## pemerton (Apr 20, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> The broad-brush class niches used to be:
> 
> Fighters kill
> Thieves sneak
> ...



I agree that the game has changed, but I think your account of the 4e roles is a bit narrow.

In my game:

*the dwarf polearm fighter-cleric exercises close-range battlefield control - basically, nothing can get past him, and once he's in melee with an enemy it is almost impossible for them to escape; he also has one or two healing abilities, and is the only PC with Heal skill trained;

*the paladin defends, in the sense of taking on the biggest foe(s) and soaking up damage and dishing it out (through various bits and pieces he has become the third-highest damage dealer in the party, after the two strikers); he also does quite a bit of healing, and is the party diplomat;

*the archer-ranger shoots things, only very rarely gets into melee, and heals; he also has one or two "cleric calls down the divine radiance of the god" attacks; he is the stealthiest PC, the scout, the guide etc;

*the sorcerer is the biggest damage dealer hands down, with a host of bursts, blasts and the like; he is very mobile in combat, but spends quite a bit of time in melee (using close attacks); he is fairly stealthy (as a drow he brings his own darkness) and very bluff-y (the trickster of the group); he is also the only PC trained in Thievery (via monk multi-class - besides Thievery it also gives him a 1x/enc flurry of blows - he sucks his enemies in via his Cyclone Vortex, then beats them all up with his ninja skills!);

*the wizard is the lowest damage dealer in the party, but has some big control effects (a Bigby's Hand, Wall of Fire, Twist of Space (1x/enc teleport enemies), Thunderwave (at will push enemies); overall the weakest PC in combat, but the party ritualist and scholar.​
If I compare this to B/X or AD&D, the paladin feels like a fighter/cleric or a paladin, the wizard feels like a diviner/sage with some combat ability also, the sorcerer feels like a blasting wizard (but perhaps a bit blastier than is easy to achieve in those systems, I think) with a bit of thief multi-class, and the ranger feels like an archery specialist ranger from UA, but without the followers or MU spells (and not much like a classic ranger/cleric, because his only cleric-y features are the healing and a little bit of radiant damage).

The fighter is the only one that I feel really couldn't be pulled off in that system, because there is nothing in classic D&D that models the combination of forced movement and lockdown that he brings to the table.


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## Andor (Apr 20, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> But as I said at the first, as long as you sever the tie between character and surge, then repace it with surges from resources, you are most of the way to some form of 3E healing.




Why cut the surge from the character? 3e already has the Reserve Point option. Why not bump it up to about the 4e value and then say that all healing draws from your own pool. Run of out reserve points and (most) healis don't work. Then hand out second winds. Now you have the distributed healing, after fight rest healing, _and_ the daily throttle.


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## Andor (Apr 20, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Question: are there many 3E players who don't like 4e but don't object to ToB?




I don't know, but it would be an interesting poll. I'd guess yes. Most people I know love ToB, I've heard fewer praise 4e.

Basically ToB (along with Star Wars Saga) was the test bed for a lot of the 4e ideas. But they weren't quite as radical, didn't lock everyone into the AEDU economy, and didn't chuck fluff out the airlock so (from what I can tell) they were much more widely accepted.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 20, 2012)

Andor said:


> I don't know, but it would be an interesting poll. I'd guess yes. Most people I know love ToB, I've heard fewer praise 4e.
> 
> Basically ToB (along with Star Wars Saga) was the test bed for a lot of the 4e ideas. But they weren't quite as radical, didn't lock everyone into the AEDU economy, and didn't chuck fluff out the airlock so (from what I can tell) they were much more widely accepted.




When star wars saga came out I very strongly disliked it personally, but about half of my group did seem to like it.


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## pemerton (Apr 20, 2012)

Andor said:


> didn't chuck fluff out the airlock



That's a bit provocative! I'm one of those who thinks 4e has the best and most coherent fiction of any version of D&D - and that it makes that fiction relevant to the positioning of the PCs in the game as well as any other version of D&D does. Although I would say that what counts as salient fiction has changed a bit - from my point of view, it's less minutiae, more myth & history.

EDIT: In the recent MM poll on the WotC site, I voted the 4e MM as my favourite D&D monster book. The idea that it doesn't give you the story elements you need to run monsters has, as far as I'm concerned, no basis in reality. (Obviously I know that others feel differently, but to be honest I'm not sure that all of them have actually read the entries closely and extracted the fiction from them - including the significant amounts of fiction that are encoded in the mechanics.)


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## Andor (Apr 20, 2012)

pemerton said:


> That's a bit provocative!
> 
> EDIT: In the recent MM poll on the WotC site, I voted the 4e MM as my favourite D&D monster book. The idea that it doesn't give you the story elements you need to run monsters has, as far as I'm concerned, no basis in reality.




I was talking specifically about actions, not monsters, races, settings or any other bits of fluff in 4e. I thought that would have been clear from the topic of discussion. None of the fluff in 4e is bad, except for the AEDU actions where the fluff is (IMHO) marginal and occasionally completely impenetrable. Come and Get it, etc. 

Every martial action in the game has what amounts to the same fluff "You hit him with a weapon" but wildly different effects for damage, movement, status infliction, etc, etc. A lot of it seems ... pretty arbitrary to me. 

This is only a problem for Martial characters, but it's a pretty big problem. But that comment was not intended as a stab at 4e's writing in general, nor was it meant provocatively. It was only commentary on the relationship between the exploratory mechanics of late 3e/SWSE and their evolution into 4e. I might have skipped the aside, but it seemed relevant somehow.


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## Balesir (Apr 20, 2012)

Andor said:


> None of the fluff in 4e is bad, except for the AEDU actions where the fluff is (IMHO) marginal and occasionally completely impenetrable. Come and Get it, etc.
> 
> Every martial action in the game has what amounts to the same fluff "You hit him with a weapon" but wildly different effects for damage, movement, status infliction, etc, etc. A lot of it seems ... pretty arbitrary to me.



This relates, I think, to a discussion I've been having on the WotC boards.

I think there is a fundamental divide around the point, actually - although my own preferences relate specifically to the type of game I seek from D&D, as opposed to the type of game I seek from certain other RPGs. I agree that 4e approaches powers by giving a clear, specific definition of what the power *does*, and a vague guideline concerning what the power _looks like_. I *love* this - I much, _much_ prefer it to the general approach in earlier editions, which had a tendency to be the exact opposite: to give clear, precise definition of what the power (spell, feat, whatever) *looked like*, but only vague guidelines concerning its mechanical _effects_ in the game.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 20, 2012)

Andor said:


> Why cut the surge from the character? 3e already has the Reserve Point option. Why not bump it up to about the 4e value and then say that all healing draws from your own pool. Run of out reserve points and (most) healis don't work. Then hand out second winds. Now you have the distributed healing, after fight rest healing, _and_ the daily throttle.




Because the question I was addressing was how to use 4E mechanics, mostly, but make healing work largely like 3E does. But certainly, if you wanted something more in the middle, you could do any number of things. 

What Hussar was referring to is that people keep objecting to healing surges on the grounds that they limit the amount of healing that the character can receive--"Why can't my guy drink a healing potion when out of surges, like in earlier versions!" Well, if that is truly ones' objection, then my answer, since oh about month one of the 4E launch, has been to make some kind of change like I have listed above. It's trivially easy and obvious for anyone that paid the slightest bit of attention to how 4E healing actually works. And unlike a ton of house rules, doing so will change the game in the expected manner, with little to no side effects. (That part might not be so obvious.)

It is, of course, possible that people have complained about this aspect of 4E when their real gripe hides elsewhere. If people don't know the system well enough to state their real gripe, there isn't much that can be done.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> This relates, I think, to a discussion I've been having on the WotC boards.
> 
> I think there is a fundamental divide around the point, actually - although my own preferences relate specifically to the type of game I seek from D&D, as opposed to the type of game I seek from certain other RPGs. I agree that 4e approaches powers by giving a clear, specific definition of what the power *does*, and a vague guideline concerning what the power _looks like_. I *love* this - I much, _much_ prefer it to the general approach in earlier editions, which had a tendency to be the exact opposite: to give clear, precise definition of what the power (spell, feat, whatever) *looked like*, but only vague guidelines concerning its mechanical _effects_ in the game.




This actually helps clarify some of my dislike of 4e. I have to admit I like having the flavor component consistent and fully explained. I think they even did a bit of this in pathfinder if I recall and it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.


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## BryonD (Apr 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I think there is a fundamental divide around the point, actually - although my own preferences relate specifically to the type of game I seek from D&D, as opposed to the type of game I seek from certain other RPGs. I agree that 4e approaches powers by giving a clear, specific definition of what the power *does*, and a vague guideline concerning what the power _looks like_. I *love* this - I much, _much_ prefer it to the general approach in earlier editions, which had a tendency to be the exact opposite: to give clear, precise definition of what the power (spell, feat, whatever) *looked like*, but only vague guidelines concerning its mechanical _effects_ in the game.



Pre 4E your character is capable of being a cause and you then find out what effect is the result when that cause interacts with their surrounding.

In 4E your character is capable of producing effects and the cause is shoehorned on.

The details are more complex and it goes well beyond this but....
This description is both accurate and very much in line with the overall conclusion that 4E is highly gamist and prior versions were simulationist.


I also continue to find it amusing how it has become so in vogue with the 4E niche to praise 4E in terms of being unique and completely different than prior versions.  A few short months ago any slight hint that 4E was a different game than prior versions was a mortal sin and insult of the lowest form.  Now 5E is coming along with a proclaimed goal of bringing back lost fans and suddenly everyone is expected to understand the scared value of 4E being some kind of paragon of gaming evolution.  
And to be clear, IMO 3E is just as different from pre-3E and 4E is from all prior editions.  It isn't the reality of the distinctions that is an issue to me.  A completely different game that was also great would be awesome.  But the reversal from "that which may not be said" to "sacred truth" is amusing to me.


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## Andor (Apr 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I agree that 4e approaches powers by giving a clear, specific definition of what the power *does*, and a vague guideline concerning what the power _looks like_. I *love* this - I much, _much_ prefer it to the general approach in earlier editions, which had a tendency to be the exact opposite: to give clear, precise definition of what the power (spell, feat, whatever) *looked like*, but only vague guidelines concerning its mechanical _effects_ in the game.




I'm trying to understand this, and not really groking it. Could you give me an example of a pre-4e action or effect where the fluff was detailed but the mechanics vague?


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## BryonD (Apr 21, 2012)

Andor said:


> I'm trying to understand this, and not really groking it. Could you give me an example of a pre-4e action or effect where the fluff was detailed but the mechanics vague?



I'm not claiming to speak for him.

But here is how I see it.
In 4E you can use Come and Get It.  
The mindless skeleton WILL come at you.
The guard WILL come at you.
The ooze WILL come at you.

The mechanical result is set by the game system.  How the character made this result happen is created after "this result happened" is a fact.

I will agree that it isn't great choice of words to suggest the "mechanics" are vague.  But there isn't nearly so clear a mandate on results for many areas of 3E (or other pre-4e).  You can use Bluff and there are mechanics there.  You can use intimidate.  You could trip.  You could grapple.  You could come up with some other plan.  Then the DM makes some degree of judgment.  Then you see how it worked out.

In pre-4e you control the narrative and find out what happens.
In 4E you control what happens and then figure out a narrative.


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## Balesir (Apr 21, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Pre 4E your character is capable of being a cause and you then find out what effect is the result when that cause interacts with their surrounding.



Although this picture might be attractive aesthetically, I think it has fundamental flaws. The problem is that there is nothing for the "cause" to have effect _on_. The only "effect" being generated is on the minds of those playing; the effect of the pre-4e rules is that the players have a picture of what has happened supplied, but no clear idea of its implications. The 4e model, on the other hand, makes clear how the actions done have affected those in the world, and the implications of those actions for the future actions of the characters, while leaving the "picture in the head" element purely to the participants.

This works immediately for those pursuing "gamist" aims (i.e. players using their own intelligence to direct their characters in ways designed to overcome in-game challenges that are inimical or indifferent to them). It does not work so well, immediately, for those who seek more subtlety and occlusion in the implications being generated. But, then, I don't think the "paint a picture" systems did that any better - the implications were merely put into the "too difficult" tray and left as an exercise for the reader (i.e., generally, the DM). This can work out in the end if the DM can produce results that satisfy the aesthetic desires of the players - the DM as "entertainer", in effect. It can also work if the GM and the players collude (which is to say actually communicate, not have the players merely assent or dissent on the GM's decisions) to produce outcomes that suit them all. But, in no sense is there a pre-set "reality" which is being explored (a common belief, I find); if anything, what is being explored are the overlaps and dissonances in the players' imaginations.



BryonD said:


> I also continue to find it amusing how it has become so in vogue with the 4E niche to praise 4E in terms of being unique and completely different than prior versions.  A few short months ago any slight hint that 4E was a different game than prior versions was a mortal sin and insult of the lowest form.



You may be right in general, but I don't think I have ever contended that 4e is "the same" as older editions. Indeed, the differences are why I much prefer it to older editions. I may have said it can *do* some things that fans of older editions have claimed that it can't - but I think that's rather different.



Andor said:


> I'm trying to understand this, and not really groking it. Could you give me an example of a pre-4e action or effect where the fluff was detailed but the mechanics vague?



Sure. Take, for a start, the "Phantasmal Forces" spell in pre-4e. It gives a lovely description of what it looks like - how many humanoid figures, what volume in space and so on - but not one word about how this might affect the world or NPCs in it. Does the lack of smell and sound mean disbelief is almost a certainty? Suppose an illusionary bridge is set over a real chasm; how do creatures that know there was no bridge there last week respond? Does a creature that tries to cross the "bridge" get a reflex save to avoid the pit, much as a character might do if the floor gave way in a pit trap? None of this is even mentioned.

Example 2: Charm Person. The target "treats you as a trusted friend" - what does that mean? If you attack their other friends, does it mean they will join you in attacking them? Or will they attack you to subdue you and stop you hitting friends (as you are obviously affected by inimical magic)? And what happens after the spell ends? Does the target know it was charmed? Or does it rationalise what it did while under the effect of the spell? Again, we get a nice, evocative description of what being under a charm spell _feels like_, but nothing in terms of what actual effects it can have on the world.

For me, what is missing - and what will always be supplied in some form - is a model that describes how the effects described in the spells (and it is, almost always, spells) play out in the world. One poster on WotC's forum, for example, has experience with hypnotherapy. When DMing, they use their experience there as a model for what Charm Person will do. All DMs who have the spell turn up in their game will, necessarily, come up with some sort of model - be it detailed and carefully thought out or rough and quickly thrown together. If subtle and occluded implications are to be a part of the game, I would much rather see these models actually detailed (or at least discussed) in the system document. Leaving them up to the GM is, to me, just lazy design - putting it into the "too difficult" tray. In the earliest editions, this is forgivable - the authors themselves were only just exploring the ground - but in a modern ruleset it's just shoddy, in my view.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Example 2: Charm Person. The target "treats you as a trusted friend" - what does that mean? If you attack their other friends, does it mean they will join you in attacking them? Or will they attack you to subdue you and stop you hitting friends (as you are obviously affected by inimical magic)? And what happens after the spell ends? Does the target know it was charmed? Or does it rationalise what it did while under the effect of the spell? Again, we get a nice, evocative description of what being under a charm spell _feels like_, but nothing in terms of what actual effects it can have on the world.
> view.




For me (both as player and as Gm the charm person entry gives just enough. It makes clear the person isn't under the users comman, but simply views the person as a trusted ally. What that translates into will be highly situationally dependant and dependant on the NpC's personality. This is exaclty the kind of spell you want in the GM's court for interpetation and i don't think additional mechanica (beyond those described for the saving through) would be helpful. The only part I agree with here is some additional description of what the after effects may be would be helpful (but that isn't strictly mechanical). 

More info can be good. What I don't want is turning a highly open ended spell like charm person into something with highky specific mechanical effects that end up confining the spell to a bonus on the battlefield or something that doesn't really follow from the concept itself but is just created to establish a consistent combat use. 

The other half of this is too much info is equally bad because you need to read a page of spell description before casting anything (as a Gm this can be a pain until you have memorized the spells).

Don't take this as a snipe or anything Belasir, I am just curious, but this seems like an odd criticism of pre 4e editions. Since those had pretty robust descriptions of what the spells did flavorwise, whereas 4e had much shorter entries that usually supplies highly specific mechanical effects. It sounds like you are just asking for a more comprehension explanation of the spell, and if anything, 4e leaves a lot of that for the Gm and largely limits itself to the combat grid effect (not entirely but that appears to be the focus of spells under the character power entries). Pre 4e spells could be anywhere from half a column to a page or so.


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## Andor (Apr 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Sure. Take, for a start, the "Phantasmal Forces" spell in pre-4e. It gives a lovely description of what it looks like - how many humanoid figures, what volume in space and so on - but not one word about how this might affect the world or NPCs in it. Does the lack of smell and sound mean disbelief is almost a certainty? Suppose an illusionary bridge is set over a real chasm; how do creatures that know there was no bridge there last week respond? Does a creature that tries to cross the "bridge" get a reflex save to avoid the pit, much as a character might do if the floor gave way in a pit trap? None of this is even mentioned.
> 
> Example 2: Charm Person. The target "treats you as a trusted friend" - what does that mean? If you attack their other friends, does it mean they will join you in attacking them? Or will they attack you to subdue you and stop you hitting friends (as you are obviously affected by inimical magic)? And what happens after the spell ends? Does the target know it was charmed? Or does it rationalise what it did while under the effect of the spell? Again, we get a nice, evocative description of what being under a charm spell _feels like_, but nothing in terms of what actual effects it can have on the world.
> 
> For me, what is missing - and what will always be supplied in some form - is a model that describes how the effects described in the spells (and it is, almost always, spells) play out in the world. One poster on WotC's forum, for example, has experience with hypnotherapy. When DMing, they use their experience there as a model for what Charm Person will do. All DMs who have the spell turn up in their game will, necessarily, come up with some sort of model - be it detailed and carefully thought out or rough and quickly thrown together. If subtle and occluded implications are to be a part of the game, I would much rather see these models actually detailed (or at least discussed) in the system document. Leaving them up to the GM is, to me, just lazy design - putting it into the "too difficult" tray. In the earliest editions, this is forgivable - the authors themselves were only just exploring the ground - but in a modern ruleset it's just shoddy, in my view.




Ahh. I see what you mean, but I disagree with you about cause and effect. 4e did not solve the issue of vagueness that you dislike by providing specific, concrete instructions, it did it by excluding most of the effects in the first place. Now admittedly I am only working from the PHB here, as I own no other 4e books, but I'll note that neither of the spells you mentioned are in it, although they have been in the PHB of every previous edition as best I can recall. Now you do have a couple of Rituals that perform much the same function as Phantasmal Forces, but they _also_ provide exactly zero explanation for how a person should react when seeing a bridge appear overnight. 

Furthermore I don't see the same perfect clarity you see, instead I note that the Insight skill gives you a chance to notice illusory effects, but doesn't tell you what that means. Individual illusion effects _might_ tell you what happens if someone makes his Insight check but not all do. Mirror Image for example is an illusion, but provides no guidence for what happens if you spot the illusion. Worse (from my point of view) are powers which claim to be illusory in the fluff, but do not use the keyword, apparently because it would be too difficult to explain what the effect of an Insight check would be. (I'm looking at "Crown of Madness" on p[age 134.)

So I don't think what you're seeing is a virtue of superior design, but the laziness of game designers who don't want to make GMs have to make judgement calls and so skirt the issue entirely. (Or tried to, but failed in my examples.)

What you see as a weakness, I see as a strength in earlier editions. "Charm Person" is vague because it covers an impossibly broad range of options, people and situations. Cast "Charm Person" on a friendless street kid and he'll follow you to the ends of the Earth like 'Short-Round' tagging along with Indiana Jones, cast it on a Paladin guarding a sacred artifact and he might feel sad as he strikes you down, but mere friendship will not sway him from the demands of duty. It's roleplaying, and it's why I came to the table in the first place.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

Andor said:


> So I don't think what you're seeing is a virtue of superior design, but the laziness of game designers who don't want to make GMs have to make judgement calls and so skirt the issue entirely. (Or tried to, but failed in my examples.)
> 
> What you see as a weakness, I see as a strength in earlier editions. "Charm Person" is vague because it covers an impossibly broad range of options, people and situations. Cast "Charm Person" on a friendless street kid and he'll follow you to the ends of the Earth like 'Short-Round' tagging along with Indiana Jones, cast it on a Paladin guarding a sacred artifact and he might feel sad as he strikes you down, but mere friendship will not sway him from the demands of duty. It's roleplaying, and it's why I came to the table in the first place.




Have to spread xp around so can't give you any for this (i think I will give it to Belasir since he is so darn consistent even if I disagree with him on most things). But this is exaclty how I feel.

Edit: Apparently I can't give XP to Belasir either.


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## Hussar (Apr 21, 2012)

BryonD said:


> /snip
> 
> In pre-4e you control the narrative and find out what happens.
> In 4E you control what happens and then figure out a narrative.




I disagree with this.  

In pre-4e, you are controlled by a pre-defined narrative that you, as a player, are not permitted to change.  The DM can change it, of course, but, the player's actions are pre-defined and the player cannot vary that definition on his own.

In 4e, you control what happens and then figure out a narrative.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> What you see as a weakness, I see as a strength in earlier editions. "Charm Person" is vague because it covers an impossibly broad range of options, people and situations. Cast "Charm Person" on a friendless street kid and he'll follow you to the ends of the Earth like 'Short-Round' tagging along with Indiana Jones, cast it on a Paladin guarding a sacred artifact and he might feel sad as he strikes you down, but mere friendship will not sway him from the demands of duty. It's roleplaying, and it's why I came to the table in the first place.




Well, its a strength depending on what you're playing.  If you're playing at an organized play table where you don't know the Dm or the players, then this degree of vagueness is very, very bad.  One table might agree with you, the next might not.  There's no consistency.

Now, if I, as DM, interpret Charm person in a way that you disagree with, what recourse do you have?  I know what has happened at every table I've ever seen - the game grinds to a halt as the DM and the player hash things out and try to find a solution to the vagueness.

While I realize this is a preference thing, I much, much prefer to have things defined in a way that prevents games coming to a crashing halt.  If that means that Phantasmal Force goes away, so be it.  The game running smoothly is far more important to me than playing amateur game designer.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I disagree with this.
> 
> In pre-4e, you are controlled by a pre-defined narrative that you, as a player, are not permitted to change.  The DM can change it, of course, but, the player's actions are pre-defined and the player cannot vary that definition on his own.
> 
> In 4e, you control what happens and then figure out a narrative.




If I follow what you guys are saying, ths explains a lot for me. Personally I don't want that kind of narrative control in the hands of the players (most especially when I am myself a player--as a gm I am more comfortable adjusting to the preferences of the group).


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## Hussar (Apr 21, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> If I follow what you guys are saying, ths explains a lot for me. Personally I don't want that kind of narrative control in the hands of the players (most especially when I am myself a player--as a gm I am more comfortable adjusting to the preferences of the group).




Now that's fair.

I've become more and more comfortable handing more and more control over to the players as I've gotten older.  Makes the game a lot more fun to DM, for me, when the players can challenge me in unexpected ways.  If the players are limited to what their characters can do, it's not too difficult to predict what most players are going to do.  OTOH, if the players can actually rewrite the scenario a little, it leads to better experiences all the way around.  As a player, I can directly impose what I want in the game onto everyone else, just like a DM does, although to a much reduced degree.  As a DM, the players get to directly tell me what kind of game they want without me having to play pin the tail on the preference.  Again, totally for me.  NOT trying to say this is universal.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Now that's fair.
> 
> I've become more and more comfortable handing more and more control over to the players as I've gotten older.  Makes the game a lot more fun to DM, for me, when the players can challenge me in unexpected ways.  If the players are limited to what their characters can do, it's not too difficult to predict what most players are going to do.  OTOH, if the players can actually rewrite the scenario a little, it leads to better experiences all the way around.  As a player, I can directly impose what I want in the game onto everyone else, just like a DM does, although to a much reduced degree.  As a DM, the players get to directly tell me what kind of game they want without me having to play pin the tail on the preference.  Again, totally for me.  NOT trying to say this is universal.




I can see how some might like that. But for me it is very important to feel like I am interacting with a concrete setting and when the players can intrude into the narrative through means usually reserved for the GM i find it disrupts this for me. What I do want is total freedom on the part of the players to try to do anything that is reasonable.


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## pemerton (Apr 21, 2012)

Andor said:


> Every martial action in the game has what amounts to the same fluff "You hit him with a weapon" but wildly different effects for damage, movement, status infliction, etc, etc. A lot of it seems ... pretty arbitrary to me.



Within the fiction it is arbitrary - a reflection of luck, coincidence, the timing really coming together, etc. So the fighter is always trying to wrongfoot and befuddle his/her opponents, the archer is always trying to shoot them full of holes etc. And some of the time it works to a greater or lesser extent.

But the mechanics aren't arbitrary at the metagame level. They allow players of martial PCs to have a comparable impact on the game to players of mages. Think of it as a very intricate and pedantic system of fate points (for bonus damage, extra biff, etc) to which only the players of martial PCs have access.


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## pemerton (Apr 21, 2012)

BryonD said:


> A few short months ago any slight hint that 4E was a different game than prior versions was a mortal sin and insult of the lowest form.



Who have you got in mind?

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] has never said that 4e played the same as 3E or classic D&D. Nor have I - since 2009, when I started playing 4e, I've repeatedly explained how it was _because_ of 4e that I started GMing D&D again.

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has frequently, and for far more than "a few short months", posted about the difference he finds between 4e and 3E - eg 4e let's him run his "chosen of Kord" PC with the blessed gruel spoon.

It's not the big _gotcha_ you seem to think it is to find people saying that 4e plays differently from 3E.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Who have you got in mind?
> 
> [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] has never said that 4e played the same as 3E or classic D&D. Nor have I - since 2009, when I started playing 4e, I've repeatedly explained how it was _because_ of 4e that I started GMing D&D again.
> 
> ...




Those posters might not have, but bryond does have a point that matches my recollection of these boards.


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## Balesir (Apr 21, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> For me (both as player and as Gm the charm person entry gives just enough. It makes clear the person isn't under the users comman, but simply views the person as a trusted ally. What that translates into will be highly situationally dependant and dependant on the NpC's personality. This is exaclty the kind of spell you want in the GM's court for interpetation and i don't think additional mechanica (beyond those described for the saving through) would be helpful.



I agree that such a spell will be situational and dependant on the target's personality, if it is included in the system (which I'll come back to later), but how often do GMs have this sort of thing plotted out in advance for every monster and NPC? My experience would suggest the answer is "seldom". In which case it becomes essentially arbitrary, and the "concrete setting" you mention in reply to Hussar is actually just an illusion.



Bedrockgames said:


> More info can be good. What I don't want is turning a highly open ended spell like charm person into something with highky specific mechanical effects that end up confining the spell to a bonus on the battlefield or something that doesn't really follow from the concept itself but is just created to establish a consistent combat use.
> 
> The other half of this is too much info is equally bad because you need to read a page of spell description before casting anything (as a Gm this can be a pain until you have memorized the spells).



I mostly agree, here - but I'll get into details in my reply to Andor, below.



Bedrockgames said:


> Don't take this as a snipe or anything Belasir, I am just curious, but this seems like an odd criticism of pre 4e editions. Since those had pretty robust descriptions of what the spells did flavorwise, whereas 4e had much shorter entries that usually supplies highly specific mechanical effects. It sounds like you are just asking for a more comprehension explanation of the spell, and if anything, 4e leaves a lot of that for the Gm and largely limits itself to the combat grid effect (not entirely but that appears to be the focus of spells under the character power entries). Pre 4e spells could be anywhere from half a column to a page or so.



Not taken as a snipe - no worries.

I'm really not after descriptions of what the effects are in terms of flavour; I'm after a systemic model that can be applied to convery player actions to game effect. This should be as elegant and simple as possible, but, if it's not possible, I would honestly prefer that the effects be left out of the game (which is what 4e did, in several cases).



Andor said:


> Ahh. I see what you mean, but I disagree with you about cause and effect. 4e did not solve the issue of vagueness that you dislike by providing specific, concrete instructions, it did it by excluding most of the effects in the first place. Now admittedly I am only working from the PHB here, as I own no other 4e books, but I'll note that neither of the spells you mentioned are in it, although they have been in the PHB of every previous edition as best I can recall.



There are actually effects that are reminiscent in later books, but nothing so flexible, I agree.



Andor said:


> Now you do have a couple of Rituals that perform much the same function as Phantasmal Forces, but they _also_ provide exactly zero explanation for how a person should react when seeing a bridge appear overnight.



This is true, also, but Rituals perform a rather different role in the system to powers in any case. They tend to be used in Skill Challenges, where the systemic measure of the "effect" they have is whether or not they provide a "success" in the skill challenge. That is far from a perfect system for non-combat encounters and events, but it is at least more than any previous edition offered in the published material.



Andor said:


> Furthermore I don't see the same perfect clarity you see, instead I note that the Insight skill gives you a chance to notice illusory effects, but doesn't tell you what that means. Individual illusion effects _might_ tell you what happens if someone makes his Insight check but not all do. Mirror Image for example is an illusion, but provides no guidence for what happens if you spot the illusion. Worse (from my point of view) are powers which claim to be illusory in the fluff, but do not use the keyword, apparently because it would be too difficult to explain what the effect of an Insight check would be. (I'm looking at "Crown of Madness" on p[age 134.)



The active effect of "Crown of Madness" is a Charm, so "recognising" the illusion has no effect at all; it is merely a side-effect of the spell that might, for example, allow another caster to identify what the target is being affected by. This seems obvious, to me, but even if it did not the overall rule that "the fluff text is not rules text" would make it clear that there is no systemic effect from the illusory "crown".



Andor said:


> So I don't think what you're seeing is a virtue of superior design, but the laziness of game designers who don't want to make GMs have to make judgement calls and so skirt the issue entirely. (Or tried to, but failed in my examples.)



I actually agree that it's deliberate avoidance (I wouldn't say "laziness", at this point, because there are many issues) by the designers. I *would* say that leaving it to the GM to invent a system/model is laziness, in this day and age, but "skirting the issue" I see as forgivable because constructing a good system would be a big challenge.

In an ideal world, what I would want to see is a system that covered the areas of mental influence and deception simply, elegantly and well. It has been managed for combat - even though it has taken years of work to perfect the D&D model in this area. Would it be a big job? Sure - that's why I'm prepared to pay someone to do it through buying their product(s)!



Andor said:


> What you see as a weakness, I see as a strength in earlier editions. "Charm Person" is vague because it covers an impossibly broad range of options, people and situations.



A simple push, pull or slide in combat can cover a whole range of uses and implications. It can be used to push an enemy over a cliff, to hurl them into an inimical spell effect, to line them up for a nasty attack, to bunch them up for a trapping effect, to move them away from a vulnerable ally, to move them such that they hinder another enemy's intended actions, to put them into a disadvantageous combat situation or a whole host of other indirect outcomes, many of which are situational and dependant on the intentions of the target or others in the encounter. But these implications can all be catered for because a solid system is in place to describe the environment and participants in a combat encounter. Put a similar system in place (and make it elegant and simple!) to describe and govern the social and explorational encounters, and I can see effects such as "Charm Person" and "Phantasmal Forces" being quite easy to define in system terms for use in such a game.

The core problem, to me, seems to be that defining something in "system terms" when you don't have a system to cover the aspects of play that an element relates to is more than a mite tricky!

Make a system for the mental realm - with attributes and so on as for combat - and I can see great game play arising. Give that street kid a longing for affection (that works a bit like a Vulnerability, maybe?) that boosts the effectiveness of the Charm. Give that Paladin an Oath attribute (like a feat or something) that must be overcome before the Charm will affect the subject of the oath - maybe working like Resistance, or additional "hit points" to be overcome before the Oath will be compromised.

I've been working up some ideas in this area, but it's hard to get it right. If someone comes up with a good stab in published form, I'll gladly buy it!


----------



## Balesir (Apr 21, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Those posters might not have, but bryond does have a point that matches my recollection of these boards.



I actually agree, but since the comment was made in a reply to me I felt somewhat "tarred with the same brush" and so felt the need to respond.


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## Bedrockgames (Apr 21, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I actually agree, but since the comment was made in a reply to me I felt somewhat "tarred with the same brush" and so felt the need to respond.




You have been one of the more consistent posters on the board IMO. You don't shift the goal post in these kinds of discussions as far as I have noticed.


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## Balesir (Apr 21, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> You have been one of the more consistent posters on the board IMO. You don't shift the goal post in these kinds of discussions as far as I have noticed.



Thank you - I take that as a great compliment!

I would have said so in an XP comment, but it seems I cannot currently XP you, Andor, pemerton or Hussar! I think I must have been too prolific, of late...


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## Andor (Apr 22, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Make a system for the mental realm - with attributes and so on as for combat - and I can see great game play arising. Give that street kid a longing for affection (that works a bit like a Vulnerability, maybe?) that boosts the effectiveness of the Charm. Give that Paladin an Oath attribute (like a feat or something) that must be overcome before the Charm will affect the subject of the oath - maybe working like Resistance, or additional "hit points" to be overcome before the Oath will be compromised.
> 
> I've been working up some ideas in this area, but it's hard to get it right. If someone comes up with a good stab in published form, I'll gladly buy it!




There are sysytems that work like this. Herowars/heroquest for example. They tend to be highly narrativist systems. In fact in that system you could run an entire encounter while mixing magical, physical, emotional and social conflicts into the same event. The flipside of that is that you never know what actually happened until the final resolution. It's like 4e HP squared in that effect. When Joe took 8 points from the badguys AP pool in turn 4 was that a sword to the leg, or a reminder of a childhood friendship that brought a tear to his eye? You don't know until it's over and you match the narrative to the game effects. It is an extremely elegant system. Personally I find it lacks something in flavor however.

In the original RuneQuest game the different magical systems of Glorantha had very different mechanical implementations. In HeroWars they have the same distinct fluff, but all have the exact same universal resolution mechanics. The palpable, meaningful differences between spirit magic and mystisicm from the old days is gone, remembered only as a bit of handwaving. 

We're drifting into the "What D&D isn't" thread here, I think. D&D has never had, nor attempted to have elegant or sophisticated social conflict rules. That has always been the purview of the GM. And in point of fact no matter what system you are playing or what the rules are it will always be the purview of the GM. The only way around that is troupe style play combined with social mechanics that also apply to the PCs. And you will not find a whole hell of a lot of D&D players, in my experience, who are not going to have a problem with the GM telling them how their character _has_ to act. 

Different games have different social contracts between the players and GM. In something like a World of Darkness game, or Heroquest it is perfectly legitimate for a GM to tell someone their character has fallen in love, or had a fight with their spouse. The system has rules for it, and encourages that sort of social conflict.

D&D on the other hand has always had a sort of gentlemens agreement that while the GM might try to kill you at any second (which results in a lot of PCs who act like paranoid PTSD survivors who never, ever sit with their backs to a door) it is also a given that he does not tell you what your character must think or feel about any given situation. He might tell you your characters actions will look very odd to other people in the world, but your actions are your own even if they lead to you getting eaten by a grue.


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## Lanefan (Apr 22, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Well, its a strength depending on what you're playing.  If you're playing at an organized play table where you don't know the Dm or the players, then this degree of vagueness is very, very bad.  One table might agree with you, the next might not.  There's no consistency.



True, but let's not design the game to suit the needs of organized play; as it is (I believe) greatly in the minority vs. either play among friends or long-term campaign play.



> Now, if I, as DM, interpret Charm person in a way that you disagree with, what recourse do you have?  I know what has happened at every table I've ever seen - the game grinds to a halt as the DM and the player hash things out and try to find a solution to the vagueness.



However, with the exception of organized play, this conflict only needs to happen once per table per issue; and probably will regardless of what the written rules might say.



> While I realize this is a preference thing, I much, much prefer to have things defined in a way that prevents games coming to a crashing halt.  If that means that Phantasmal Force goes away, so be it.  The game running smoothly is far more important to me than playing amateur game designer.



I read this as saying quite explicitly: if it doesn't have defined borders, it shouldn't be in the game.

If that is not what you mean, please clarify.

If that is what you mean, I feel sorry for your players; as one of the true beauties of the game is that sometimes the only border is the limit of your imagination.  Illusions are one such time.

Lan-"imagination has few rules, and all of them are breakable"-efan


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## pemerton (Apr 22, 2012)

Andor said:


> There are sysytems that work like this. Herowars/heroquest for example. They tend to be highly narrativist systems. In fact in that system you could run an entire encounter while mixing magical, physical, emotional and social conflicts into the same event. The flipside of that is that you never know what actually happened until the final resolution. It's like 4e HP squared in that effect. When Joe took 8 points from the badguys AP pool in turn 4 was that a sword to the leg, or a reminder of a childhood friendship that brought a tear to his eye? You don't know until it's over and you match the narrative to the game effects. It is an extremely elegant system. Personally I find it lacks something in flavor however.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Very interesting post!

4e _does_ have social conflict rules, namely, skill challenges. And they raise the same considerations in adjudication that you mention for HeroWars/Quest. I think it is important to try to fill in some of the narration as the scene unfolds - if you leave it _all_ until after the event, the players have got no basis on which to bring their abilities to bear on the scene. But you need to maintain enough flexibility to allow room for the scene to develop to whatever its culmination ends up being.

On the scope of GM narration of PC emotional responses, I'm fairly careful in this regard, but occasionally the only way to adjudicate a power usage or a skill check failure is to take some modest steps into this terrain.

I would be surprised if D&Dnext goes as far as 4e in these respects, given the general hostility to skill challenges, and to 4e's fortune-in-the-middle resolution.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 22, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Who have you got in mind?
> 
> @Balesir has never said that 4e played the same as 3E or classic D&D. Nor have I - since 2009, when I started playing 4e, I've repeatedly explained how it was _because_ of 4e that I started GMing D&D again.
> 
> ...




I think if someone goes back and looks, they will find that there were many instances that amounted to "4E is not D&D", and this was rejected, usually along the lines that someone was stilling doing the activities of D&D they always had. Then an argument might start about "what is D&D," and it will be clear that there is no agreement. 

I play 4E the same way I played D&D all along. 4E and BECMI happen to do that better than anything else--because they are somewhat different but not completely different.


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## pemerton (Apr 22, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I play 4E the same way I played D&D all along. 4E and BECMI happen to do that better than anything else--because they are somewhat different but not completely different.



Would you agree that this can be true, without it being the case that 4e is no different from 3E? Or even stronger, that what you've said - in virtue of the "do better" component - entails that 4e _is_ different from 3E?


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## Hussar (Apr 22, 2012)

On the noting differences tangent:  I'll admit to possibly giving the goalposts a nudge from time to time.    OTOH, for me, what it usually comes down to is someone saying something like, "4e does X completely differently than what came before."  to which I reply, "well, no, it really doesn't because of this and that."  In other words, I'll say that 4e is the same as what came before and I'll say it's different from what came before, depending on what we're talking about.

What I generally see is, "4e is bad because it's different than what came before" but, if you say, "4e is good because it's different" then everyone jumps up and tells me that 4e is no different than what came before.  IOW, 4e is only allowed to be different from what came before if that difference can be cast in a negative light.  At no point can any of the differences ever be considered a positive.

-----



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> I read this as saying quite explicitly: if it doesn't have defined borders, it shouldn't be in the game.
> 
> If that is not what you mean, please clarify.
> 
> ...




Well, no.  I have no problems with going beyond the borders, but, the problem comes when the borders are so vague that no one at the table has a baseline to work from.  If I create an illusion of X, is it believable or not?  Well, it might be, it might not.  It totally depends on DM fiat.  So, the spell goes from being virtually useless, to being over powered, and everything in between.

Which just makes it harder to run the game.

I know that the biggest shift in play for me, going from 2e to 3e, is spending a fraction of the time in arguments.  It was a regular thing for the game to come to a screeching halt in 2e IME.  Something came up virtually every session.  In 3e, the issues because much, much more corner case and came up once in a while, if at all.

This was one of the best improvements 3e brought to the game.  I finally got a ruleset that worked out of the box.  I've been a 3e proponent far, far longer than I've liked the 4e ruleset and there's a bunch of reasons for that.  But, the biggest reason is that the 3e system defines in very concrete terms how things are supposed to work.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 22, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Would you agree that this can be true, without it being the case that 4e is no different from 3E? Or even stronger, that what you've said - in virtue of the "do better" component - entails that 4e _is_ different from 3E?




Certainly. And that is also true of 3E compared to earlier editions, despite some of the claims people have made. The only way that 3E is "just like early D&D, only cleaned up and better" is if you had a certain slant on D&D in the earlier versions, which 3E has now done a better job handling. 

The problem in this discussion (and really from the launch of 3E, and maybe even 2E) is that apparently some people have a rather constricted view of what D&D can do, should do, can do well, has done well, most people have so used it, etc. (This is the root of the mistaken, "if you had played it in the old days, you wouldn't believe X" comments.) Others have wider views. Furthermore, those with the wider views are not always consistent with each other, or equally wide. It is quite clear that some of those with the more narrow views *do not believe those of us with the wider views*. They think we are mistaken, lying, remembering D&D through rose-colored memories, caught up in nostalgia, changed preferenes without realizing it, etc. I think they are provincial--with all the flaws and charms that entails.  It brings to mind Tolkiens' comments to his critics in that later edition of LotR. 

It's also true that if you drew a Venn diagram of what each edition did well, and then what it did adequately, and then what it did relatively poorly ... you'd have an unholy mess of a diagram, but I digress.  Those differences in results are differences in the various systems. It would, however, take a Venn diagram (or maybe several) to do such a comparison justice. There is a line drawn through the editions, where one can roughly trace the evolution of the game, but it is a line drawn by a sidewinder rattlesnake crawling through snow after pulling a 72 hour shift, while hopped up on LSD. You can follow it, but it doesn't always go anywhere consistent. 

This is why I can, for example, make a comparison between 4E and BECMI and be perfectly serious. For others, this will sound like I'm saying that an apple and a truck are alike because they both happen to be red. There are parts of BECMI that I took advantage of, not least because of my preferences in fantasy stories, that are not something that everyone appreciates. 

And through it all lurks the dispute on the importance or lack thereof of immersion. There just really is no getting around that, anymore than we could conduct trade between the various English-speaking nations while pretending there was not difference in currency. If acknowledged, it can be coped with, but it has to be acknowledged, from both sides, for there to be clear results. So far, that has not happened.


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## Lanefan (Apr 22, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I know that the biggest shift in play for me, going from 2e to 3e, is spending a fraction of the time in arguments.  It was a regular thing for the game to come to a screeching halt in 2e IME.  Something came up virtually every session.  In 3e, the issues because much, much more corner case and came up once in a while, if at all.
> 
> This was one of the best improvements 3e brought to the game.  I finally got a ruleset that worked out of the box.  I've been a 3e proponent far, far longer than I've liked the 4e ruleset and there's a bunch of reasons for that.  But, the biggest reason is that the 3e system defines in very concrete terms how things are supposed to work.



Difference in style, perhaps; as when I jumped from playing 1e to 3e I found 3e to be bogged down in rules, while at the same time various things (Illusions, I'm looking at you and failing my save) had been so reduced as to be - well, not completely useless, but nowhere near as much fun.

That, and taking away bouncing lightning bolts, expanding fireballs, etc. - the risk was removed in favour of nice simple rules. (caveat: 2e may be to blame for some of these changes, but I first saw them in 3e)

Yet there were still arguments, I'd say just as many as in 1e.  Only difference was they were arguments about rules interactions rather than arguments about what the rules should be; and I prefer the latter because out of those arguments you and your table slowly build your own game rather than just quibble about what someone else built.

Lanefan


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## Sunseeker (Apr 22, 2012)

Lanefan said:


> Difference in style, perhaps; as when I jumped from playing 1e to 3e I found 3e to be bogged down in rules, while at the same time various things (Illusions, I'm looking at you and failing my save) had been so reduced as to be - well, not completely useless, but nowhere near as much fun.
> 
> That, and taking away bouncing lightning bolts, expanding fireballs, etc. - the risk was removed in favour of nice simple rules. (caveat: 2e may be to blame for some of these changes, but I first saw them in 3e)
> 
> ...




Personally I've found arguments about rules highly situational.  In one game I played in which almost everyone was VERY well versed on the rules, there were rarely arguments about how A interacted with B.  There were some creative discussions on how A or B should be interpreted though, even in a rules-heavy system(3e and 4e).  Other games tended to have more rules arguments when there was only one rules lawyer, and often because that guy had a different idea of how A interacted with B than the DM.

Some tables with very low rules familiarity didn't have arguments because _nobody_ at the table knew well enough, so we usually just made something up on the fly.

I don't think systems are prone to generating arguments so much as the people at the table are.  Some people are just argumentative.  Some aren't.


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## Zireael (Apr 22, 2012)

> > The  way I've seen D&D narrated before 4E, each individual hit point has  been a mix--some physical state, some defensive skill, some luck, some  divine favor, and so forth. But that means _every hit point incorporates an element of physical state_. If you lose a hit point, you take a wound.
> 
> 
> 
> That may be how some prefer to narrate that, but as far as I know, none of that has ever been established by any rules.




Well, that's a fair point, but it's a role-playing game. Why does everything have to be set in stone instead of people using their imagination?

----------------
The idea somebody had earlier - the one with spending XP on non-magical healing (other than resting) is a good idea.

----------------------


> Pre-4e non-physical  damage is usually a status effect. Stat damage/drain, stunned, fatigued,  shaken. These are not healed with cure spells.
> 
> Non-magical, morale based hp effects were also frequently done through  temporary ht points. So the Sarge might give you a pep-talk that get you  through the fight, but it doesn't last all day.
> 
> ...




Yeah, but if it was clearly stated that hp are not only and/or not always "gaping wounds", then the situation would be solved.

-----------------
Oh, and I can't xp Firelance, even though his post on pg. 10 just hit the bull's eye!

---------------


> I like healing surges in this regard, but when you have like, 54 of  them, it does really water down the idea of them making you more heroic.   To this end, I would like to see a massive reduction on healing  surges.  Perhaps only say, 4 of them, for anyone, healing for say, 10%  of your health.  Healing magic remains the primary source of healing,  unconnected with healing surges.  Characters retain Healing Surges for  things like Second Wind's, Action Points, Heroic Effort, ect...  All  moments that will make your character more feel more awesome.




That's a brilliant idea.

-------------------------


> But what does a "massive damage episode" or "coup de grace" represent in the fiction?
> 
> If the PC dies, it is clear enough - the PC was skewered, decapitated, throttled, whatever.
> 
> ...




Or the lance/whatever might have missed the critical organs. Or a friendly cleric/whomever patched the guy using bandages and/or stitches before he died. Lots of ways to explain this.

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Have read only up to page 12 of the thread. More to be (hopefully) added tomorrow.


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## Balesir (Apr 23, 2012)

Andor said:


> There are sysytems that work like this. Herowars/heroquest for example. They tend to be highly narrativist systems. In fact in that system you could run an entire encounter while mixing magical, physical, emotional and social conflicts into the same event. The flipside of that is that you never know what actually happened until the final resolution. It's like 4e HP squared in that effect. When Joe took 8 points from the badguys AP pool in turn 4 was that a sword to the leg, or a reminder of a childhood friendship that brought a tear to his eye? You don't know until it's over and you match the narrative to the game effects. It is an extremely elegant system. Personally I find it lacks something in flavor however.
> 
> In the original RuneQuest game the different magical systems of Glorantha had very different mechanical implementations. In HeroWars they have the same distinct fluff, but all have the exact same universal resolution mechanics. The palpable, meaningful differences between spirit magic and mystisicm from the old days is gone, remembered only as a bit of handwaving.



Yes, I've played both HQ and RQ a fair degree, and, perhaps, more similarly to what I am thinking of for D&D, Pendragon (Greg Stafford's Arthurian roleplaying game - if you haven't tried it, run, don't walk, to your FLGS and beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy!).

My point would be that HQ handles the matter from a conflict resolution (as opposed to task resolution) angle and with a game generally aimed at addressing the mythic themes of Glorantha, rather than seeking emergent stories more indirectly via play immediately focussed on other things, as D&D tends to do.

I actually see several systems that address non-physical and non-combat conflict from a conflict resolution, non-Gamist angle; Burning Wheel is perhaps closest to what I'm seeking, but even that is not quite as "strategic" as I would really like to see. Several other "usual suspects" - PrimeTime Adventures, Universalis, Sorceror - also cover the gound. Another "close, but not quite" would be Call of Cthulhu. But, I see a gap in the "market" for a gamist game (which I think D&D is naturally constituted to handle well, due to its ties to level, XP and hit points, not to mention "Vancian" type casting and so on) that is set up to handle "tactical" social and exploratory conflict well.



Andor said:


> We're drifting into the "What D&D isn't" thread here, I think. D&D has never had, nor attempted to have elegant or sophisticated social conflict rules. That has always been the purview of the GM. And in point of fact no matter what system you are playing or what the rules are it will always be the purview of the GM. The only way around that is troupe style play combined with social mechanics that also apply to the PCs. And you will not find a whole hell of a lot of D&D players, in my experience, who are not going to have a problem with the GM telling them how their character _has_ to act.



D&D has not done this historically, I agree. But, as I say above, I think the style of game that the D&D combat system quite naturally (to me) trends towards - character resource and positional management to overcome in-game challenges - could be extended quite coherently and smoothly to cover social and exploration challenges in the same vein. Rather than a complete departure - as with, say, switching to a classless game or moving to a non-hit point based damage system - adding 'tactical' systems for non-combat play would seem like a natural extension, to me.



Andor said:


> Different games have different social contracts between the players and GM. In something like a World of Darkness game, or Heroquest it is perfectly legitimate for a GM to tell someone their character has fallen in love, or had a fight with their spouse. The system has rules for it, and encourages that sort of social conflict.
> 
> D&D on the other hand has always had a sort of gentlemens agreement that while the GM might try to kill you at any second (which results in a lot of PCs who act like paranoid PTSD survivors who never, ever sit with their backs to a door) it is also a given that he does not tell you what your character must think or feel about any given situation. He might tell you your characters actions will look very odd to other people in the world, but your actions are your own even if they lead to you getting eaten by a grue.



Yes, this was why I mentioned Pendragon, and why I am looking for a system specifically *unlike* HQ and similar. The idea is not that the player character is forced to any specific behaviour _unless the player signs up for that restriction first_. In Pendragon, no knight has to have an extreme Trait (which might be "Chaste", "Proud", "Merciful" or the like) - but if the player chooses to pursue one such, and achieves it, then the character may be restricted by that trait in some situations. Why would the player choose to pursue such an extreme Trait? Because there are benefits to having them, of course!

This is the sort of general tenor I have in mind. A player might choose to take certain character limitations or leave their character vulnerable in the social realm in order to gain tools with which to better overcome certain other social challenges. Social interaction thereby becomes a game all of its own, as engaging - and in quite a similar way - to the game involved when combat challenges are to be overcome.


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## BryonD (Apr 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Who have you got in mind?



Are you honestly claiming the whole "4E doesn't feel like D&D wars" didn't happen?


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## BryonD (Apr 24, 2012)

Hussar said:


> I disagree with this.
> 
> In pre-4e, you are controlled by a pre-defined narrative that you, as a player, are not permitted to change.  The DM can change it, of course, but, the player's actions are pre-defined and the player cannot vary that definition on his own.
> 
> In 4e, you control what happens and then figure out a narrative.



Ok, since you quoted my "In 4e..." part word for word, I'll just accept that we agree there.

I completely reject your description of pre-3e.  But we have also established that there are such radical differences between numerous aspects of our play experience that I'll just write it off as that.

The idea that the player's actions are in any way predefined in 3E is simply boggling to me.  

We agree that in 4E you backfit the narrative on the mechanics.  For the story building experience I want, that is a fatal flaw.  The mechanics should be a slave to and always react to the narrative.  The narrative should never look to the mechanics.  IMO.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 24, 2012)

BryonD said:


> We agree that in 4E you backfit the narrative on the mechanics.  For the story building experience I want, that is a fatal flaw.  The mechanics should be a slave to and always react to the narrative.  The narrative should never look to the mechanics.  IMO.




It seems more like in such a system the mechanics would simply preemptively tell you "no you can't" and so you adjust your approach ahead of time because you know you'll never be able to climb that tree or jump over that gorge.  Can mechanics even exist in such a system, if your narrative needs Jim to jump a gorge, then Jim jumps the gorge, regardless of if the mechanics say they could or couldn't.  In a highly narrative approach, you don't really need mechanics, players win if the story needs them to win, players lose if the story needs them to lose.  It's like replaying LOTR.  Aragorn can't die, he can't even leave the rails.

When a narrative is being generated as the game progresses, I think there's some level of give and take.  The mechanics tell you if you can or cannot do what you want to do.  The narrative outlines what you'd like to do.  Between them lies what actually happens.  You may want to jump that 100ft chasm, but there's no way you jump check will succeed, so instead you attempt to throw a grappling hook to the other side.  Mechanics MUST have a say in what happens, either pre or post, otherwise the mechanics might as well not be there at all.


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## Balesir (Apr 25, 2012)

BryonD said:


> The narrative should never look to the mechanics.  IMO.



I would put it a little differently to [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION]: because RPGs are a shared imaginary series of happenings, mechanics _will_ *always* determine the narrative absolutely - it's just that the mechanics might not be what they seem to be.

The mechanics in use are what determines the outcome of game events in play. What may be printed on some piece of paper is irrelevant; if the DM's aesthetic sense is what determines whether an action succeeds or fails, then that _*is*_ the system.

I sometimes think that half (or more) of the confusion arising in discussions of what mechanics/system is good/bad arise due to a failure to understand this simple point. If a system is there in writing _but you are not using it to determine what happens in play_, then that is *not the system in use*. Some other "system" (obviously) is.


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## Hussar (Apr 25, 2012)

BryonD said:
			
		

> The idea that the player's actions are in any way predefined in 3E is simply boggling to me.




Why?

How do you pick a lock in 3e?  The mechanics tell you EXACTLY what you need and how you do it, down to how long it takes to pick a lock.

How far can your character jump in 3e?  The mechanics tell you EXACTLY how far your character can jump and there is nothing the character can do (barring magic which is allowed to break the rules) to change that.

How can you knock someone prone in 3e?  The mechanics tell you EXACTLY the only way in which you can knock someone prone (again, barring magic which is allowed to break the rules) and you may not knock someone prone in any other way.

The entire POINT of process based simulation mechanics is to pre-define how your character interacts with the game world.  That's not a flaw, it's a strength.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 25, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I would put it a little differently to @shidaku : because RPGs are a shared imaginary series of happenings, mechanics _will_ *always* determine the narrative absolutely - it's just that the mechanics might not be what they seem to be.
> 
> The mechanics in use are what determines the outcome of game events in play. What may be printed on some piece of paper is irrelevant; if the DM's aesthetic sense is what determines whether an action succeeds or fails, then that _*is*_ the system.
> 
> I sometimes think that half (or more) of the confusion arising in discussions of what mechanics/system is good/bad arise due to a failure to understand this simple point. If a system is there in writing _but you are not using it to determine what happens in play_, then that is *not the system in use*. Some other "system" (obviously) is.




A big piece of the other half might be failure to understand indirection in a particular context.  When I was younger, I never could understand how so many otherwise capable people could study the C programming language and get so mixed up with pointers.  But as I've aged, and seen the number of people who confuse "the model" with "the thing being modeled"--over and over again, I've started to understand it more.  And it isn't even limited to particular things, like games.  I caught myself making the same kind of error in some new (to me) stuff that I did a few years ago.  It's almost as if these kind of things are something that has to be relearned in each field, with only the pattern itself showing up to clue you in that you might be going down the same old rathole.


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## BryonD (Apr 26, 2012)

Hussar said:


> Why?
> 
> How do you pick a lock in 3e?  The mechanics tell you EXACTLY what you need and how you do it, down to how long it takes to pick a lock.



You and I already had a detailed conversation abotu how you could EASILY pick locks with a spoon in 3E if that was established as part of the character.



> How far can your character jump in 3e?  The mechanics tell you EXACTLY how far your character can jump and there is nothing the character can do (barring magic which is allowed to break the rules) to change that.



And here you seem to be missing the point.

This is a GOOD thing and is exactly what I was saying.  What the rules DON'T do is tell you TO JUMP.  You describe your action and then the rules model the result.  You pick the cause and then the game tells you the effect.



> How can you knock someone prone in 3e?  The mechanics tell you EXACTLY the only way in which you can knock someone prone (again, barring magic which is allowed to break the rules) and you may not knock someone prone in any other way.
> 
> The entire POINT of process based simulation mechanics is to pre-define how your character interacts with the game world.  That's not a flaw, it's a strength.



Again you are missing the point.  These are all examples of you pick the cause and the rules then figure out the effect.  I love that.

In 4E you look at your powers and pick an effect.  You use Come And Get It on a skeleton, it moves.  You use Come And Get It on a guard, he moves.  You use Come And Get It on an ooze, it moves.  The EFFECT is established.  You look at a list of potential EFFECTS and then you go back and think of narrative justification.

In 4E you pick and effect and then think of a cause.  (The ooze will move....  and...  umm... HERE is why)  [aka "pop quiz gaming"]

In pre-4E you pick a cause and the rules tell you the effect.  (I jump.  You go....  THIS far)



EDIT: and interestingly enough, this is YET ANOTHER example of something that 4E fans spent the past several years PRAISING but now want to obfuscate.


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## Hussar (Apr 26, 2012)

BryonD said:
			
		

> EDIT: and interestingly enough, this is YET ANOTHER example of something that 4E fans spent the past several years PRAISING but now want to obfuscate.




Eh what obfuscation?  I AGREED with you.  You characterize it in a negative way, but, essentially, I completely agree with your interpretation of how 4e works.  So, who's obfuscating.

And, no, BryonD, you cannot "easily" open a lock with a spoon in 3e.  Not unless you reject the rules or really, REALLY bend the idea of "improvised tools".

Look, we agree here.  3e dictates to you how things will happen.  That's the whole point.  That's where the strength lies.  You want to do X, the rules tell you how you will do X.  If you cannot, for some reason, do X in the manner the rules prescribe, then you cannot do X.  End of story.

I cannot trip someone by having them stumble in a hole in 3e.  I simply cannot do that because 3e does not give me, the player, the ability to effect that in the game world.  4e does.  4e allows me to take a stance beyond actor stance.  

Now, this is not a good or a bad thing.  It's simply different.  I find it greatly liberating to not be entirely tied to the prescribed actions dictated to me by the rules.  But, I'm also casting that in a fairly negative light because I don't actually like playing that way.  It is not to my preference.  You wouldn't characterize it that way because it fits with what you want.  The reverse is true for how 4e works as well.  

It's not a case of one set is better than another.  It is a case that they are different and allow different things.


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## pemerton (Apr 26, 2012)

BryonD said:


> Are you honestly claiming the whole "4E doesn't feel like D&D wars" didn't happen?



You said "A few short months ago any slight hint that 4E was a different game than prior versions was a mortal sin and insult of the lowest form".

Saying that 4e feels like D&D doesn't imply that 4e doesn't differ from 3E (nor, for that matter, any other). Games can mechanically differ and still have the same feel.

Indeed, this is the whole underpinning rationale of WotC's D&Dnext design.

There's also the point that not everyone - certainly not everyone you replied to in this thread - has treated the slightest hint of difference as mortal sin. I, for one, have reapeatedly posted since 2009 that 4e brought me back to D&D. If you want me to explain (again) how its differences from 3E and 2nd ed AD&D did this, I'd be happy to follow up with another post.


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## Crazy Jerome (Apr 26, 2012)

BryonD said:


> EDIT: and interestingly enough, this is YET ANOTHER example of something that 4E fans spent the past several years PRAISING but now want to obfuscate.




I'm going to take this opportunity to go on record to say that I think you are entirely incorrect here, but that I see no particular use in arguing the point.


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## BryonD (Apr 26, 2012)

pemerton said:


> You said "A few short months ago any slight hint that 4E was a different game than prior versions was a mortal sin and insult of the lowest form".
> 
> Saying that 4e feels like D&D doesn't imply that 4e doesn't differ from 3E (nor, for that matter, any other). Games can mechanically differ and still have the same feel.
> 
> ...



This comment was not aimed at you personally.
And by the same token I've proclaimed that the difference between 3E and prior editions is absolutely critical to my attraction to it.  So I'm somewhat in the same camp as you here in that I don't see consistency as a defacto praiseworthy thing.

But, you individually aside, I'll stand by two points:
There ARE people in this thread who did make it clear that the "not like prior" claims were personally offensive to them   and
The theme and mood of the pro-4e zeitgeist has markedly shifted on a few points, this being one of them.


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## BryonD (Apr 26, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I'm going to take this opportunity to go on record to say that I think you are entirely incorrect here, but that I see no particular use in arguing the point.



Noted.

It still happened.

But noted.


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## BryonD (Apr 27, 2012)

Hussar said:


> And, no, BryonD, you cannot "easily" open a lock with a spoon in 3e.  Not unless you reject the rules or really, REALLY bend the idea of "improvised tools".



No.  You are twisting what I said.



> Look, we agree here.  3e dictates to you how things will happen.  That's the whole point.  That's where the strength lies.  You want to do X, the rules tell you how you will do X.  If you cannot, for some reason, do X in the manner the rules prescribe, then you cannot do X.  End of story.
> 
> I cannot trip someone by having them stumble in a hole in 3e.  I simply cannot do that because 3e does not give me, the player, the ability to effect that in the game world.  4e does.  4e allows me to take a stance beyond actor stance.



Agreed.  That was my point.
4E says here is the effect: Target trips.
And you make up a story to backfill *why*.

Now, in 3E you CAN make someone trip into a hole.  But you must have some source of effect to make that happen.  I certainly agree that you can't cause someone to stumble into a hole in a manner that wasn't caused by the character.  I think that is a great positive thing.



> Now, this is not a good or a bad thing.  It's simply different.  I find it greatly liberating to not be entirely tied to the prescribed actions dictated to me by the rules.



But that is bogus there.  You are not REMOTELY "tied to the prescribed actions dictated to me by the rules".  Your character can take ANY action they want.  They might fail.  But they can do whatever they want.

*That guy over there stumbles into a hole* is not an action.  You have now left roleplaying and character acting behind and moved into authorial powers.  Nothing wrong with loving that.  But it is a whole different thing.



> It's not a case of one set is better than another.  It is a case that they are different and allow different things.



I agree 4E is very much different.


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## pemerton (Apr 27, 2012)

BryonD said:


> You pick the cause and then the game tells you the effect.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Your characterisation of 4e is, in my view, not entirely accurate. As I've posted numerous times in other threads, 4e's keywords matter here. They make an important mechanical contribution to fictional positioning in 4e. (For example, the reason that Fireball but not Icy Terrain can set a building on fire is that one, but not the other has the [Fire] keyword. Mutatis mutandis for freezing a stream so that you can walk across it.)

Your characterisation of pre-4e is, in my view, also not entirely accurate. In pre-3E D&D, saving throws generate an effect for which a cause within the fiction must then be posited (Gygax, in his DMG, gives the example of a fighter chained to a rock surviving a dragon's breath because at the last minute he found a niche in the rock, or the chains broke).

And in both classic D&D and 3E, the ingame character of hit point loss cannot be narrated until after the effect (in particular - was it fatal or not?) is known. (And given that a high-level fighter might survive that dragon's breath even with a failed save, presumably hit point narration can go beyond ducking and grazing to finding niches in rockfaces or breaking chains.)

That is not to deny that there are differences. For example, 4e follows 3E - and thereby departs from classic D&D - in its treatment of Fort, Ref and Will saves (renamed defences). And 4e departs from 3E and classic D&D in taking the fortune-in-the-middle style of hit points and saving throws and making them part of the "active" as well as the "passive" side of action resolution (so players can spend metagame resources not only to have their PCs survive the actions of others, but to have their PCs perform actions against those others).



BryonD said:


> Now, in 3E you CAN make someone trip into a hole.  But you must have some source of effect to make that happen.  I certainly agree that you can't cause someone to stumble into a hole in a manner that wasn't caused by the character.  I think that is a great positive thing.



I personally don't see why the absence of metagame mechanics on the "active" side is so great, but its presence on the "passive side" (via hit points) is untroubling.

To put it more bluntly: as I've noted in the past, given your apparent preferences I don't really understand why you're not playing either Runequest, or (if you think the absence of metagame plot protection for PCs would be too gritty) HARP. In HARP, Fate Points can be spent either "actively" or "passively", but in virtue of being a Fate Point mechanic rather than a more "embedded" mechanic like hit points, classic D&D saves, or (some) 4e martial powers, it makes the fiction/metagame distinction crystal clear.


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## Hussar (Apr 29, 2012)

BryonD said:
			
		

> But that is bogus there. You are not REMOTELY "tied to the prescribed actions dictated to me by the rules". Your character can take ANY action they want. They might fail. But they can do whatever they want.
> 
> *That guy over there stumbles into a hole* is not an action. You have now left roleplaying and character acting behind and moved into authorial powers. Nothing wrong with loving that. But it is a whole different thing.




Sure it is.  I, the player, decide that that guy over there stumbles in a hole.  I, the player, have caused that to happen.  I, the player, am not limited to a specific role predefined by the mechanics.  

You said it yourself.  My character can try anything he wants to do.  But, I, the player, can never, ever, have any effect on the gameworld other than what my character can do.  Thus, my actions are entirely proscribed by the mechanics of the system.  The mechanics determine my chances of success and pre-determine what impact I, the player, am allowed to have in the game world.

The problem here is that you equate role playing to a very limited style of play that you do and refuse to accept that role play can include more things than just character acting.  I get that you like character acting.  That's fine.  But, character acting is most certainly not the be all and end all of role play.


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