D&D 4E Healing and combat tension between 4e and Next

Lanefan · Oct 8, 2012

GreyICE said:
Given they worked even back in 3.0, and WotC released 3.5 and didn't change a damn thing, I'd probably say that if they weren't intended, then they certainly weren't discouraged. CLW/LV wands were definitely a big part of 3.X gaming.

Still doesn't make it right; they are capable of making the same mistake twice.

Lanefan

GreyICE · Oct 8, 2012

Lanefan said:
Still doesn't make it right; they are capable of making the same mistake twice.

Lanefan

When you've had 4 years to observe the results of your action and change it, reboot an edition to fix things that were wrong with it, and an element remains, it's probably something that the designers didn't think was a problem.

Actually the wands were a goddamn godsend from my end. If I'm playing a Cleric or Druid I'm not wasting my spell slots on healing spells, so the wands solve the issue of "spend 24 hours to rest to let the Druid/cleric memorize healing spells and then spend 24 hours to let them rememorize." Also let groups without a Cleric or Druid work fine - Factotems and Rogues could heal the party very well.

So overall it removed a dependence on two (broken) classes as well as made the adventure significantly less stupid and at least band-aid patched a healing system that was mostly broken, so I'd consider them more positive than negative.

Healing Surges were a better solution to the entire issue, yes.

Tony Vargas · Oct 9, 2012

UngeheuerLich said:
No, i do like a TPK in situations where players do stupid things... prevents them from having wrong assumptions how the game works...

What's 'stupid' in one game may not be 'stupid' in another. I guess it depends on what whether you want the rules to reward/punish specific player behaviors...

GreyICE;6028958S said:
overall it removed a dependence on two (broken) classes as well as made the adventure significantly less stupid and at least band-aid patched a healing system that was mostly broken, so I'd consider them more positive than negative.

I guess it removed the dependence, but it also made them that much more broken, since more of their spells could go to 'selfish' uses.

Ridley's Cohort · Oct 9, 2012

There is no one way of running healing that will work for every popular style of campaigning. Not only do I suspect every style of healing is sub-optimal for less than 49% of the campaigns, I suspect every style of healing is suboptimal for every campaign some of the time.

There is no magic bullet.

GreyICE · Oct 9, 2012

Yes, but then you could do the right thing and ban the Cleric and Druid outright, rather than hoping the players took a "Spell Tax" rather than good spells.

Lanefan · Oct 9, 2012

GreyICE said:
So overall it removed a dependence on two (broken) classes as well as made the adventure significantly less stupid and at least band-aid patched a healing system that was mostly broken, so I'd consider them more positive than negative.

Healing Surges were a better solution to the entire issue, yes.

Healing surges were even worse, unless your goal of play was to plow through an entire adventure without having the PCs rest and recuperate very often. That, and I'm not a fan of in-combat healing as a regular thing.

There is nothing - repeat, nothing - wrong with a party taking several days or even a few weeks (or even a few months if there's lots of travel involved) in game time to get through an adventure; most of which time is spent resting. Or, as an alternative, there's also nothing wrong with having the healers use their spells to - horrors! - heal rather than to do other things (I think this is a lot of what broke the Cleric in 3e - they didn't need to save their spells for healing so instead could become buff machines).

Lanefan

Magil · Oct 9, 2012

Lanefan said:
There is nothing - repeat, nothing - wrong with a party taking several days or even a few weeks (or even a few months if there's lots of travel involved) in game time to get through an adventure; most of which time is spent resting.

I dunno, it doesn't sound much like an "adventure" to me if you spend most of it laying around. It certainly doesn't fit into my idea of "heroic fantasy," though I understand for many DnD perhaps isn't all about that.

Sound of Azure · Oct 9, 2012

Lanefan said:
There is nothing - repeat, nothing - wrong with a party taking several days or even a few weeks (or even a few months if there's lots of travel involved) in game time to get through an adventure; most of which time is spent resting. Or, as an alternative, there's also nothing wrong with having the healers use their spells to - horrors! - heal rather than to do other things (I think this is a lot of what broke the Cleric in 3e - they didn't need to save their spells for healing so instead could become buff machines).

This is true, but it really depends on what your game's adventures actually are. In my case, most adventures I run are somewhat time-sensitive, and generally are not the explore-an-adventure-site-for-the-sake-of-exploration type. It's a taste thing, though.

I for one hope that D&D Next goes with variation in types of encounters (regular/quick vs. epic/boss/climactic). It's become increasingly obvious to me that having a single way of doing things hurts the game in one way or other. Having both, you can have one type, some types, or all of them. Might be a great way to help towards the "unity" goal.

GreyICE · Oct 9, 2012

Lanefan said:
Healing surges were even worse, unless your goal of play was to plow through an entire adventure without having the PCs rest and recuperate very often. That, and I'm not a fan of in-combat healing as a regular thing.

There is nothing - repeat, nothing - wrong with a party taking several days or even a few weeks (or even a few months if there's lots of travel involved) in game time to get through an adventure; most of which time is spent resting. Or, as an alternative, there's also nothing wrong with having the healers use their spells to - horrors! - heal rather than to do other things (I think this is a lot of what broke the Cleric in 3e - they didn't need to save their spells for healing so instead could become buff machines).

Lanefan

I dunno, when I present the lich as seeking to tear open a gateway to the Abyss to fulfill a bargain he made with a demon, and the PCs have to stop him, I expect that he's working rather hard at this goal and thus the PCs don't have a few weeks or months to lounge around on lawn chairs living the good life.

I mean it basically kills any mode of gaming that's at all time-sensitive, so basically the only thing that works is the Dungeon crawl, or maybe some very low-action political intrigue plots.

Ridley's Cohort · Oct 9, 2012

And that, in a nutshell, is why there never will be consensus about healing. A campaign where "the world provides consequences for PC actions" actually can mean exactly opposite things to different DMs.

A campaign where the PCs can be asked to endure even 2 grueling days of fighting in a row requires a lot of easy and cheap healing. So it is "realistic" and "dramatically necessary" that the PCs need to bring a healbot or the equivalent along for the ride, so they can save the world.

To other DMs, it is "realistic" and "dramatically necessary" that the PCs suffers more than a dozen or so hours inconvenience for nearly dying.

Both positions are rational, and point to very different and good ways to design adventures.