The Healing Paradox

JamesonCourage said:

good stuff snipped for brevity

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But doesn't that simply assume that the PCs have no access to magical healing? In my experience, the PCs usually have access to magical healing such that one night or day of rest is all that is needed anyway. Being down HP is rarely a setback in a long journey (unless that long journey is through the tomb of horrors, where the PCs won't be able to find a place to rest anyway).

In your example, a 10 day journey where the PCs are attacked on day 5, gives them ample time to use magic to heal up while still traveling. Heck, even if they lose HP on day 10, they still have time to setup their ambush while recovering the HP. Nothing seems to change by having a longer healing mechanic in this example.

Now, if you're playing in a campaign with little to no magical healing, then I can definitely see where the argument for longer "natural" healing can be made. I've played in games like that, and they can be fun when done right, but more often then not, they end in TPKs. If the group is OK with that, then I'm all for it. But this style of low-magic game hasn't been the default for D&D in a very long time.

I don't personally believe TPKs are a problem. I consider them to be more of a learning tool. If a party dies due to a TPK because they were low on healing resources and decided to rush into a fight anyway, the players should learn the lesson that maybe avoiding the fight is a better course of action. Or if they're going to get into a fight, maybe gaining some kind of advantage via ambush or something else would be better. Unfortunately, avoiding the fight or gaining an advantage like ambush requires a DM that is amenable to that sort of thing. Not all DMs are.

Anyway, good discussion. I'm still not sure I see daylight on the pacing thing if we're talking about a default setting with available magical healing. Other than the grim & gritty low magic campaign, are there any other types of stories where the pacing would be truly hampered by overnight rest?

And for the record, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind... I'm truly curious to learn about others experiences with regard to the types of stories they tell through D&D. I think we've sort of identified a type of story that can't be told with overnight healing (grim & gritty low magic campaign). Are there others?

Lalato said:

But doesn't that simply assume that the PCs have no access to magical healing? In my experience, the PCs usually have access to magical healing such that one night or day of rest is all that is needed anyway. Being down HP is rarely a setback in a long journey (unless that long journey is through the tomb of horrors, where the PCs won't be able to find a place to rest anyway).

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Depends. Sometimes, it's good enough to heal and move on the next day. Other times, it might take two days worth of healing, and then another night's rest to regain spells (making it three days). Those two days can make a difference, from my experience, even if I prefer longer rest times (as is usually experienced in my RPG).

Lalato said:

In your example, a 10 day journey where the PCs are attacked on day 5, gives them ample time to use magic to heal up while still traveling. Heck, even if they lose HP on day 10, they still have time to setup their ambush while recovering the HP. Nothing seems to change by having a longer healing mechanic in this example.

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Well, I'd "quibble" that it wasn't my example. It was 10 days to get to a 13 day place, where healing time was longer, and the difference between day 10, 12, 13, and 14 was apparent (10 = able to investigate or set up an ambush; 12 = showing up during preparations; 13 = showing up at the last minute, hopefully in time; 14 = too late).

In this example, healing time makes a big difference in how the story plays out, which is a style I prefer much more than making the story the most interesting it can be. That might seem really odd, but I find that dynamic mechanics with many possible narrative paths make for really interesting stories, and as a sandbox-oriented GM, I personally prefer mechanics that fulfill this goal. To this end, potentially long heal times help more than overnight heal times, since the former can produce either overnight rests (little damage or resources used) or long healing times (great damage or most resources used).

Lalato said:

Now, if you're playing in a campaign with little to no magical healing, then I can definitely see where the argument for longer "natural" healing can be made. I've played in games like that, and they can be fun when done right, but more often then not, they end in TPKs. If the group is OK with that, then I'm all for it. But this style of low-magic game hasn't been the default for D&D in a very long time.

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Really, though, this seems like a tangent of your question that I answered: "what kind of story can't be told with the overnight rest mechanic?"

Lalato said:

Anyway, good discussion. I'm still not sure I see daylight on the pacing thing if we're talking about a default setting with available magical healing. Other than the grim & gritty low magic campaign, are there any other types of stories where the pacing would be truly hampered by overnight rest?

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Well, you should probably know that, to me, "overnight rest" includes the use of magic. Because, as a pacing issue, it's effectively the same (as you're trying to point out to me, I think). That's why I prefer longer recovery time on spells (something my RPG also has). But, hey, I like grim and gritty

As far as a story being hampered by overnight healing? Again, look at any story where even a single day would make a difference (again, pemerton's reference to Star Wars and Luke/Han rescuing Leia). In a game where heal time recovery plays a larger role, the story might unfold differently due to those mechanics. For example, say Obi-Wan is incapacitated by Alderaan exploding, and couldn't disarm the tractor beam. Even if Leia is rescued, they can't get away (well, they probably would, so they could be tracked, but it might be even more suspicious). And if they didn't get away, or go straight to the Rebel base, or whatever, it'd change the story.

If you're simply seeing if the story can remain the same as far as large brush strokes go? It can probably be pretty similar. Again, though, to a guy like me, who likes to see the story unfold based on the mechanics playing out naturally, longer healing times make a big difference. But this extends to other aspects, too (like hit charts, and the like), and don't necessarily represent what I think should be the default for D&D. As far as healing goes, I think it should default to "here is the dial, and here's what each setting might mean." But that's me. As always, play what you like

Lalato said:

And for the record, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind... I'm truly curious to learn about others experiences with regard to the types of stories they tell through D&D. I think we've sort of identified a type of story that can't be told with overnight healing (grim & gritty low magic campaign). Are there others?

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If magic lets you heal over-night or even faster, it's over-night healing, too. So what if you want a longer-paced story /with/ magic? Magic would have to face some limit on how much it could heal over that period. Magical healing is thus unavoidably part of the issue. Then there's encounter balance and class balance...

D&D assumes attrition over the course of a day to introduce resource management issues challenges and balance both classes and encounters. If the day has the right amount of challenges, using up the right amount of resources, it'll feel like a legitimate heroic adventure - like the heroes are over-matched (they're not, really, mechanically, but they'll have moments when they feel that way) but win through. The problem is, some stories just don't call for that many encounters in a single day. Some call for more, some for encounters days apart. The game fails to deal with those stories because the attrition is too great or non-existant, and without that it's not challenging enough or too deadly or large imbalances become evident among the classes.

Tying healing and other resource-recovery to story would be a solution, but, obviously, it's "too narrativist."

JamesonCourage said:

Well, you should probably know that, to me, "overnight rest" includes the use of magic. Because, as a pacing issue, it's effectively the same (as you're trying to point out to me, I think). That's why I prefer longer recovery time on spells (something my RPG also has). But, hey, I like grim and gritty

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I think this is an important point. If one really has a problem with the overnight rest mechanic, it would logically follow that one would have a problem with overnight spell recovery. That is, if one likes grim and gritty. Some folks seem to be OK with quick magic recovery, but still have a problem with quick HP recovery... and this position makes much less sense to me.

JamesonCourage said:

As far as a story being hampered by overnight healing? Again, look at any story where even a single day would make a difference (again, pemerton's reference to Star Wars and Luke/Han rescuing Leia). In a game where heal time recovery plays a larger role, the story might unfold differently due to those mechanics. For example, say Obi-Wan is incapacitated by Alderaan exploding, and couldn't disarm the tractor beam. Even if Leia is rescued, they can't get away (well, they probably would, so they could be tracked, but it might be even more suspicious). And if they didn't get away, or go straight to the Rebel base, or whatever, it'd change the story.

If you're simply seeing if the story can remain the same as far as large brush strokes go? It can probably be pretty similar. Again, though, to a guy like me, who likes to see the story unfold based on the mechanics playing out naturally, longer healing times make a big difference. But this extends to other aspects, too (like hit charts, and the like), and don't necessarily represent what I think should be the default for D&D. As far as healing goes, I think it should default to "here is the dial, and here's what each setting might mean." But that's me. As always, play what you like

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I think we're closer in agreement than you think. If your game has a significant resource recovery aspect to it, then all resources should have a dial that can be tuned from 1 to 11 (because all dials should go to 11... heh).

I think the default for D&D should probably be in the middle. A solid 5.5 on the dial. Unfortunately, I think people will argue incessantly about what that 5.5 should be. But I think there is probably some happy medium between super easy resource recovery and nightmare mode grim & gritty. For me, the 5.5 on healing includes a limit on the number of times a person can receive healing in a given day (like the healing surge mechanic from 4e), but leaves room for a good chunk of straight HP recovery from an overnight rest. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the 5.5 only gave you half your max HP for an overnight rest. If I wanted to make it full HP, I would just turn the dial down a little. If I wanted to make it one quarter max HP, I would turn the dial up a little. I would probably never play at 11, but that's just me.

Tony Vargas said:

Tying healing and other resource-recovery to story would be a solution, but, obviously, it's "too narrativist."

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I agree that such a system probably wouldn't fly as the default for D&D, but as implied above, I'm definitely not opposed to a dial setting that makes this possible. I'm just not sure that if my default is 5.5... where a story-based resource recovery would fall. Up or down the dial? I guess it depends on the group/DM and how they look at it.

If you want to tell a story about dogged survival in the face of dangerous threats, HP work best when they are not a per-encounter or per-day resource. As a long-term resource, they are something you can see whittled away over the course of a session or an adventure, something you carefully shepherd and nurture, something that provides a slow burn, a methodical, desperate escalating of danger, of slowly increasing tension.

Going to sleep and feeling all better in the morning doesn't capture that feel very easily.

For me, I think the distinction between Extended and Short rests is valuable, and I don't see many problems with 5e healing that can't be solved with a time-shift. Without further alteration, it slightly changes when you recover spells (now it takes a week to get those back), but a smart designer can preserve the daily-recovery spells and balance it with weekly-recovery HP.

I definitely believe that so long as you have daily recovery of healing spells, and available potions or other items that aid healing, and unlimited healing potential, you cannot have a game of survival the way it is being described. You have to actively remove these things from the game in order to have that kind of grim and gritty story.

I'm in a 4e campaign where the PCs often find themselves with 2 or less surges (sometimes 0 surges) and have to continue because they are in a place where extended rests are impossible. In fact, the PCs found themselves in a situation like that after the last session (and two PCs died in the last battle... down to 3... Yikes).

Unfortunately, there is very little hope left to make it through, but they don't really have a choice. They have to keep pushing to get out of the situation they're in or become Mindflayer dinner. And nobody wants to become Mindflayer dinner.

The main difference here is that at this point... they can't even gain more HP since they're down so low on surges. So they're going to have to come up with some interesting plans to avoid any other combats... because they have to really manage all their remaining HP related resources in order to make it out alive.

Anyway, I mention this to note that just because there is overnight healing doesn't mean that you can't have tension from lack of HP. You can have plenty of it... it just comes from slightly different circumstances.

I agree that if you want that same tension over the course of days, just limiting max HP recovery (a la healing surges) doesn't work... but I also think that default D&D with freely available healing, and the potential to heal to full regardless of how much "action" a PC has seen in the last 24 hours is less likely to result in the desired grim and gritty outcome. You have to impose some other elements to get that outcome... lower magical healing access, slower HP recovery, max out HP recovery between long rests, environmental issues which make long rests impossible or less useful, etc.

You don't have to use all of the options, but I think "natural" healing vs. "magical" healing isn't the main issue. It's part of it, but there is a lot more to it than just that. Unfortunately, many people focus on this one aspect and ignore all the other things they can use to arrive at the grim and gritty outcome they're looking for.

Me, myself, and I? I think overnight rest works fine for most situations. For those few other situations/campaigns... I would look at the whole universe of dials that could be turned to make it have the level of grittiness I'm after.

At this point I'm just rambling so I'll just stop. Good discussion folks. Be sure to give your feedback to WotC if you're doing the playtest.

Tony Vargas said:

If magic lets you heal over-night or even faster, it's over-night healing, too. So what if you want a longer-paced story /with/ magic? Magic would have to face some limit on how much it could heal over that period.

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In Rolemaster, a lot of healing magic only increase the rate of recovery, but does not heal instantaneously (at least until epic levels).

In Burning Wheel, healing magic adds a bonus to recovery checks, and a good recovery check can in turn reduce the rate of natural healing.

But instantaneous magical healing is such a staple of D&D that I would be surprised to see 5e do it differently.

Kamikaze Midget said:

For me, I think the distinction between Extended and Short rests is valuable, and I don't see many problems with 5e healing that can't be solved with a time-shift. Without further alteration, it slightly changes when you recover spells (now it takes a week to get those back), but a smart designer can preserve the daily-recovery spells and balance it with weekly-recovery HP.

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Given that Vancian spells are almost certain to give instantaneous healing, I think that they have to be on the same cycle as natural healing to ensure reasonable balance.

The blog you link to about balancing Vancian casting assumes that an "adventure" will contain a certain number of challenges within it - which is a fairly tight balance constraint (tighter than anything in 3E or 4e encounter design, I think) - and also relies on the adventure "recharging" if not completed in a single run. That second thing is also a reasonably tight constraint, this time on story rather than mechanical balance.

Lalato said:

I definitely believe that so long as you have daily recovery of healing spells, and available potions or other items that aid healing, and unlimited healing potential, you cannot have a game of survival the way it is being described. You have to actively remove these things from the game in order to have that kind of grim and gritty story.

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Removing consumables in an extended survival scenario shouldn't be an issue, just make it extended enough with not chance to replenish them.

From there, though, the system has to work with you. If you re-charged abilities based on milestones instead of long rests, for instance, you could have a very intense day with many encounters, and characters wouldn't be reduced to duking out virtually all of them with at-wills. You could even have a really intense series of fights with no short rests and not worry about everyone being down to grinding with at-wills only. Conversely, in an extended few-encounter travel scenario, you'd still have to manage your "dailies" because they don't come back every calender day. The use of powers follows the pace of the adventures.

Healing is even more problematic. Since 'natural healing' is the last of last resorts for adventurers, 'realistic' healing could be pegged at being very slow, with extraordinary or supernatural (martial or magical) abilities speeding it up when circumstances permit. Combined with the above, that could peg the rate of healing to the pace of the campaign, even if it varied greatly over time.

pemerton said:

Given that Vancian spells are almost certain to give instantaneous healing, I think that they have to be on the same cycle as natural healing to ensure reasonable balance.

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I don't know what "on the same cycle" really means, or what your criteria for "reasonable balance" may be, so...okay.

pemerton said:

The blog you link to about balancing Vancian casting assumes that an "adventure" will contain a certain number of challenges within it - which is a fairly tight balance constraint (tighter than anything in 3E or 4e encounter design, I think) - and also relies on the adventure "recharging" if not completed in a single run. That second thing is also a reasonably tight constraint, this time on story rather than mechanical balance.

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The first point isn't really a constraint as much as it is a guideline, or a target number. It doesn't say THIS MUST BE, it says this is what the game assumes. And since the numbers were directly derived from 4e, it is EXACTLY as tight as 4e.

And as for the time thing, I can only repeat what I've said elsewhere: a challenge that doesn't react to your interference (that isn't dynamic) isn't really a challenge. If the challenge is to unlock the door and the rogue can just sit there trying Open Lock rolls until the door opens, it's not a real challenge. If the challenge is a skill challenge that never lets you end it in failure, it's not a real challenge. If the challenge is a dungeon that just sits there and waits for you to patiently clear it out, it's not a real challenge. If the villain sits in his castle and just waits for the protagonists to come slay him, it's not a very good story.

At any rate, the point was to show that you can have spells that heal your HP restored every day without necessarily having magic cure ALL your HP on a given day (a la 3e) if magic is more limited. As of the playtest rules, if you time-shifted HP recovery but kept the same spell recharge rate, 2d8 hp isn't going to give anyone back all of their HP in one night. It's not an intractable problem. Whether or not you want to solve it is mostly a matter of want, not need.

Kamikaze Midget said:

I don't know what "on the same cycle" really means

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Weekly, daily, per-5-minutes, etc.

Kamikaze Midget said:

And since the numbers were directly derived from 4e, it is EXACTLY as tight as 4e.

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4e (at least prior to Essentials) doesn't make or need any assumptions about how many encounters can be dealt with in a given period between extended rests. It depends on how well the players manage their healing surges and daily powers, and how well they exploit the action points and daily item usages they accrue along the way.

The blog itself posits 2-3 encounters between rests, which bears no relation to my own experiences with 4e at all, either using the original damage numbers up to about level 8 or the new damage numbers since then.

Recently, the PCs in my game took on the following sequence of encounters without an extended rest:


The PCs started this day at 14th level, and finished it at 15th.

Kamikaze Midget said:

If the challenge is a dungeon that just sits there and waits for you to patiently clear it out, it's not a real challenge.

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Isn't this the Tomb of Horrors? Which many (not me, I'll admit) regard as the most classic of all D&D challenges.

Kamikaze Midget said:

If the challenge is to unlock the door and the rogue can just sit there trying Open Lock rolls until the door opens, it's not a real challenge. If the challenge is a skill challenge that never lets you end it in failure, it's not a real challenge.

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I'm familiar with "Let it Ride" approaches. The question is, how are they implemented? And how do they relate to what you're advocating, which is not "Let it Ride" but rather "success N only counts if success N+1 is also achieved within a finite period of time"?

For example, what story element explains how the lock got re-locked if the PCs go away and then come back tomorrow? Or if they spend the night camping in the room with the now-unlocked (but iron-spiked) door?

If the scenario is some sort of political intrigue in a world in which diplomatic communication is at the speed of horses, then the odd day here or there is not going to make a difference, is it?