How do you explain overnight Healing in your game?

[Klaus]

Originally Posted by tfwoods3

The characters are beaten to a pulp in the fight of their lives, they barely survive and all their heal surges are used up. They take an extended rest and boom! All health is back. If there was no access to a healing power, how do you add it to the story that they are fine and dandy 8 hours later?

The PCs got black eyes, scabs, dried blood all over, breathing hurts because of the cracked thrid rib and the knee still makes riding very uncomrtable.

Yet they can all fight as well as possible, if push comes to shove.

[Jeff Wilder]

FWIW, when WotC put up their videos of the group of WotC employees playing 4E, the game designer DM (was it Chris Perkins?) described actual wounds every single time.

Sure, maybe he doesn't know how 4E is "supposed" to work, but it's what he did.

So for those who don't have any problem with the 4E way of doing things ... does your DM just decide when PCs are "actually wounded," or do PCs just never get "actually wounded"? If the DM decides, are all the players okay with that? (I would be, but I know many perfectly reasonable players who definitely would not be.)

[Lizard]

It's pretty rare for a party to have no at least theoretically magical resources. Any non-Martial leader can claim that they perform some sort of off-screen healing magic which can't be done during a short rest. ("I have woven the charm of wound knitting, but you must do nothing for the next few hours so that it may work.") As for martial leaders... "A rangers hands are healing hands", or at least, a Warlord's are. You can claim he's used useful herbs, bound your wounds so that while you're still "injured", they don't actual affect you, and so on.

I personally find it more difficult that there's such a thing as "real" injury - you've got crippled and blinded NPCs all around - but nothing like this can ever happen to the PCs. Then again, no version of D&D ever had any "official" rules for crippling or long term injury.

The other factor is that hit points, as always, represent more than just physical injury, and healing surges represent a mix of luck, resolve, inner strength, adrenaline, and "spirit". (Thus undead drain healing surges, literally taking your will to live.) So someone at low hit points and out of surges might have no wounds other than shallow cuts, bruises, and so on, but he is at the end of his rope -- he can't fight on anymore, and his ability to dodge blows, parry weapons, and duck is very reduced (low hit points, so any attack is a serious one).

As brain-blasting as the 4e healing mechanic is, the fact is, it just formalizes the way 3.x games were, usually, played -- someone just breaks out the healsticks when the fights over. If you like, you can imagine this is how it is done in 4e, you just don't pretend to be tracking the charges.

[Cadfan]

I don't explain it, really. The cleric (or whoever) has tons of healing powers and the party has half a day to muck about with them. Eventually, everyone's fixed.

Its a lot like how I explained healing from zero hit points, dragging on the ground, your intestines hanging out, to completely healthy and a-ok in approximately three days during 3e. Or how you can be unconscious on the ground, bleeding out, and then suddenly able to do cartwheels and acrobatics and run marathons, all because someone slapped a bandage on you and you took an eight hour breather. The rules dictated that it happened, its completely ridiculous, but no one ever cared because the cleric got there first and magicked away the problem.

[Garthanos]

Originally Posted by Jeff Wilder

FWIW, when WotC put up their videos of the group of WotC employees playing 4E, the game designer DM (was it Chris Perkins?) described actual wounds every single time.

Sure, maybe he doesn't know how 4E is "supposed" to work, but it's what he did.

So for those who don't have any problem with the 4E way of doing things ... does your DM just decide when PCs are "actually wounded," or do PCs just never get "actually wounded"? If the DM decides, are all the players okay with that? (I would be, but I know many perfectly reasonable players who definitely would not be.)

Yup I the DM decided by putting that description in the players hands not only do they get to do something "out of turn" to help keep attention, but you can have a tough hero who takes nasty looking injuries but he just walks through them or a lucky one where weird happen-stance gets in the way and it is player choice.... (I still get some players who prefer I fill in those details but they are stylistic to me)

And argument by authority is always flawed... TWIW

[Obryn]

I often describe real injuries, too, but it never bothers me.

I'm in the same camp as Lizard - I just assume there's some behind-the-scenes healing going on that takes some time. If I bother caring at all.

-O

[Jeff Wilder]

Originally Posted by Garthanos

And argument by authority is always flawed... TWIW

Uh ... no.

Argument from authority (or appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam) is a formal logical fallacy, but it's perfectly fine (often vital, in fact) in informal logic. Just FYI.

[BobTheNob]

I never bothered explaining this to the party. The one time I brought it up, I simply explained that this is a game...not a life simulation. We are willing to accept that elves throw fireballs at undead in a fantasy realm contained in a multiverse inhabited by gods and demons where reality itself is askew, but we cant accept that people can heal?

Dont stress it is my advice. Just play the game, play it well and forget the "realities" of the situation. My team leanred to let it go, and no kidding, we are having an absolute ball with our campaign.

Remember, stressing the small stuff does not make the game more fun, and that is what is important at the end of the day

[Garthanos]

Originally Posted by Jeff Wilder

Uh ... no.

Argument from authority (or appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam) is a formal logical fallacy, but it's perfectly fine (often vital, in fact) in informal logic. Just FYI.

"Flawed" does not mean "entirely worthless", it is however imperfect. So should I quote a dictionary ? or would that be an appeal to authority, which seems done often enough in establishing the common basis of communication.

I don't think it is "perfectly fine" to argue rules as intended can be perfectly gleaned from how those rules are used by any particular DM.... unless maybe that one DM is the sole author and he is making the claim himself, for instance I often write things with the intent that they be used in variable ways.

[Jeff Wilder]

Originally Posted by Garthanos

I don't think it is "perfectly fine" to argue rules as intended can be perfectly gleaned from how those rules are used by any particular DM

Is that what you feel I did. Because, if so, I'd recommend a re-read of what I said, since I actually qualified reliance on that DM's behavior not once, but twice.

If you're saying that you can never use a game-designer DM's behavior to judge the way rules are intended to work, we'll certainly have to disagree. (I don't think you're saying that, since you carefully inserted a "perfectly gleaned" into your very loose paraphrase of what I said, but just in case.)

[Jeff Wilder]

Originally Posted by BobTheNob

Remember, stressing the small stuff does not make the game more fun, and that is what is important at the end of the day

For some people, "my character is still hurting, despite having gotten eight hours of ZZZs, but he'll push on anyway" -- and having that actually represented by the game mechanics -- isn't "the small stuff."

[Agamon]

4e takes a lot of the mechanics away from what happens outside of battle. That's awesome, I can explain it however I like (the divine PC is healing them, they have a wand that heals their wounds overnight, they didn't get all that hurt in the first place, etc) instead of have the way explained to me in black-and-white that the players will expect, if not demand, that that is how it works.

I just posted this next line at the KenzerCo boards, but it applies here, too. Not having A Rule For Everything™ is a feature, not a bug.

[Garthanos]

Originally Posted by BobTheNob

I never bothered explaining this to the party. The one time I brought it up, I simply explained that this is a game...not a life simulation. We are willing to accept that elves throw fireballs at undead in a fantasy realm contained in a multiverse inhabited by gods and demons where reality itself is askew, but we cant accept that people can heal?

Dont stress it is my advice. Just play the game, play it well and forget the "realities" of the situation. My team leanred to let it go, and no kidding, we are having an absolute ball with our campaign.

Remember, stressing the small stuff does not make the game more fun, and that is what is important at the end of the day

I really like visualizing the action... doing so makes the game more fun for me. Magical instant healing is rare in my fantasy game world. Are people arguing they don't want hit points to be almost entirely luck, morale and fatigue and similar quickly recoverable things - it really seems to me the game as written supports that stance more than a little?

[babinro]

I've never had to explain it...mechanically it is similar to 3E with less book keeping. Instead of the cleric using their remaining spells to remove afflictions/heal then rest to regain spells..this is just handled without all the needless declarations and rolling slowing down the game.

If the game really wanted you to record everything in 4E..it could just set a value to how long it takes for you to recover a healing surge in order to obtain more healing.

For example: A wizard recovers 1 healing surge per hour of non-strenuous work.
A Paladin recovers 1 healing surge per 30 minutes...etc.

Therefore, over the course of an extended rest, you heal your wounds using the new found surges, and by the time 6-8 hours have completed, everyone will have all surges and HP back. The only thing that wouldn't be magically healed are curses. Thus magic cures all ailments in the nights rest period in the same manor it would have in 3rd edition under normal party conditions.

[Lizard]

Originally Posted by Garthanos

I really like visualizing the action... doing so makes the game more fun for me. Magical instant healing is rare in my fantasy game world. Are people arguing they don't want hit points to be almost entirely luck, morale and fatigue and similar quickly recoverable things - it really seems to me the game as written supports that stance more than a little?

It supports it a LOT, but so has every edition of D&D. Gary Gygax set the tone back in the 1e DMG, where he pointed out a tenth level fighter CAN'T survive a sword through his heart -- the fact he's tenth level means the sword didn't go through his heart, it nicked his shoulder instead. Until you're down to your last handful of hit points, your injuries are minor.

In 4e, even more so. "Dying" can be seen as being in shock from pain, or stunned, or whatever, with the death roll being the chance that a seemingly minor wound might become more serious -- a damaged artery ruptures, etc. It's all extremely abstract, more so than in prior editions. Personally, I'd like a houserule whereby gaining any death marks represents significant weakness -- perhaps even after an extended rest, you're down 'n' healing surges, where 'n' is the number of death marks you had when you took the rest, not healing for another rest.

[Garthanos]

Originally Posted by Jeff Wilder

Is that what you feel I did. Because, if so, I'd recommend a re-read of what I said, since I actually qualified reliance on that DM's behavior not once, but twice.

We probably 100% agree and I am in a weird mood. I think there are people who are overly inclined to accept that kind of argument (off topic discussion about religion intentionally diverted)

There have even been comments about being careful how you describe the effects of attacks from the WOTC guys which are opposed to describing real wounds...

[Jeff Wilder]

Originally Posted by Agamon

That's awesome, I can explain it however I like (the divine PC is healing them, they have a wand that heals their wounds overnight, they didn't get all that hurt in the first place, etc) instead of have the way explained to me in black-and-white that the players will expect, if not demand, that that is how it works.

That is awesome. So if the PCs spent, say, 12 hours in a village in which four men were mauled by a bear, three children fell down a well, two guardsmen were ambushed by goblins, and a partridge tumbled out of a pear tree, all those injured folks will be fully healed, come the morrow. Definitely awesome.

[IanB]

Were I to run a 4e game (I haven't yet) I would just treat it as 'movie healing' - guy with a bunch of bandages on still kicks ass, whatever, and just maybe try to insert longer 'rest/recuperation/squandering of wealth' breaks in between adventures to explain away the post-adventure recovery probably, if there's someone in the game who would be irritated otherwise. "OK, you spend the next couple weeks resting from all those bruises, getting wasted, etc. Then one day, as your gold is starting to run out..."

I basically see little difference in absurdity between 4e's way of handling this and prior editions. Hit points as D&D handles them are inherently absurd in every edition; trying to pick an arbitrary line at which a wound system where nobody ever breaks a bone becomes 'unrealistic' is pointless to me. I just enjoy it for what it is, which is a hand wave to get the bookkeeping out of the way to let me spend more time kicking down doors and saving the world.

I don't really need or want a long-term healing rule to let me roleplay out the Eowyn/Faramir sickbed romance with a 40 year old hairy dude, in other words.

EDIT: There's also no reason you have to treat NPC off-screen healing the way you do PC healing. In fact I almost certainly wouldn't.

[Garthanos]

Originally Posted by Jeff Wilder

For some people, "my character is still hurting, despite having gotten eight hours of ZZZs, but he'll push on anyway" -- and having that actually represented by the game mechanics -- isn't "the small stuff."

I decided I like the potential for more story that having ongoing / recurring injury can provide (Lancelot died of old age in some stories but in others was killed by a wound that hadn't quite healed). And in the interest of letting this be a thing FOR the player instead of a punishment...

Wound System

[Regicide]

Originally Posted by keterys

In movies people get shot in bullet proof vests and fall unconscious for a scene, but aren't truly hurt. Apparently the same roughly applies to D&D.

It's a pretty bad movie where that happens nearly every scene. 3E had the occasional once-per-day saved from death ability, but 4E apparently you're so heroic you make Chuck Norris look like a walk-on.