You'll get no argument from me here on this. D&D casters make naval combat pretty ridiculous. Never mind the druid. The wizard crafts and Extended Wand of Fireballs and now has a 50 charge fireball wand that out ranges anything you could possibly mount on a ship. Why would you ever bother with a ballista when a 1st level wizard is a thousand times more effective?
It seems we agree on that.
Because you now have one player riding the pines for several months while his character heals, while the other characters are doing all this fun stuff. Never minding, of course, that at low levels, it's pretty much impossible for any of the PC's to actually engage in any of those in-game activities. But, at the end of the day, I don't play D&D to be a spectator. And even half-way realistic healing would force far too many players to ride the pines far too often.
Ideally, I'd hope that would foster thoughts toward thinking in terms of the character and what they're willing to risk for the rewards offered rather than what tends to be the D&D stereotype in which the players choose to fight everything and fight clear to the last HP of the last PC. Giving other options such as stealth, social skills, and a variety of other things a little more room to shine by making combat a little rougher is ok with me. I realize I'm probably in the minority with that sort of thinking, but that is my preference. I'd find it a refreshing change of pace to play in a game where combat isn't always the best option.
That's not to say I don't enjoy combat. I certainly do. It just gets a little old when hack first and ask questions later is so often the best way to solve a problem.
Even strictly speaking in terms of combat, I'd still find it nice if facing an entire army was something which (generally speaking) required having an army of your own if you hoped to succeed. Again, this isn't somewhere I require perfect realism. I'm a huge fan of R. Howard, and Conan facing several foes was a common thing. However, he still had his limits. I prefer that to a D&D 3rd Edition fighter with the right feats (great cleave I think) being able to teleport across the battlefield in 6 seconds by chopping down the entirety of an opposing force. Likewise, it was a bit of a buzzkill to face Orcus at the end of my first 4E campaign and find that he was wholly pathetic in comparison to the power level of the PCs. I find nothing wrong with mythic level heroes or mythic stories; mythology is something I love, but sometimes it would be nice to be able to play a hero by giving a rousing speech to lead men into battle or perhaps by pulling an Audie Murphy and surviving despite the odds.
If nothing else, it would at least be nice to have a little more realism so that a mount or an animal companion didn't suddenly become worthless because I went up a few levels. The questing knight on horseback is a classic trope. Yet, somehow, it is one which many of the rpgs in the d20 family (D&D and Pathfinder) tend to do poorly. Part of the reason behind that is because the PCs and the things they face tend to be on a completely different scale than the world they live in. Having more realism --even if it's only more 'realistic' in terms of the game world and fiction-- is something I feel would help me to include something like that in my game as both a player and a GM.
Sure, it's a sliding scale. I agree with that. But, considering the issue at hand with healing was 1 day vs 3 days (or 8 days absolute maximum in 3e), I find the issue to be a bit ludicrous. If 3 days is perfectly acceptable to go from six seconds from death to completely healed, then 1 day is no different.
Like I said, we accept impossible things all the time. A guy with an axe killing a giant or a dinosaur? Really? And people going to start fussing about spikey armor (who turned the clock back to 2001?) or whatnot? How can anyone complain about a lack of realism on one hand but not have any problems with the ninety-nine thousand other things we take for granted in the name of keeping the game going?
Sometimes the small details can be more important to a person than the big ones. Like I said in one of my previous posts, Battlefield is a first person shooter which has more realistic bullet travel models compared to Call of Duty. It's a small detail, but that small detail makes a world of difference in my ability to enjoy one game more so than the other.
I don't have much comment on the days required to heal. I'm somewhat assuming the 1 day versus 3 day argument is something born of 5th Edition conversations. Truth be told, I'm currently only vaguely aware of what some of the hot issues are for 5th. Somewhere around the beginning of October, I stopped paying attention except for a few blips on the radar which I found interesting.
As far as giants and dinosaurs... I suppose it's worth saying that I feel it should be far tougher to take down something like a full grown dragon than it tends to be in most d20 games I have played. I'd be fine with a suitably dangerous creature (such as an adult dragon) to be a match for a small squad of men --perhaps more for an especially dangerous specimen. With the right skills or the right knowledge (Smaug's weak spot is an excellent example,) odds would improve.
I'd prefer a game in which one of my knowledge skills allows me to learn that the secret to defeating a demon lord is coating my blade in holy water and speaking a long forgotten incantation at midnight to one in which that same demon lord is relegated to being a big bad of XP which I laugh in the face of as I stomp him into the ground. I can enjoy the latter style and often do, but, all things being equal, I lean toward finding the former more engaging.
I'm not opposed to having fantasy in my fantasy. I just wish there was enough reality to be able to tell some of the stories I want to tell. I find that --for me-- I get the best experience when there is the right blend of 'real' and unreal. I'm fine with elves and dragons and magic, but I'd still like to be able to have my set piece battles, castle sieges, and naval warfare as well.
