Mercurius
Legend
I remember the days when D&D seemed to lag behind the cutting edge of RPG design--this seemed to start in the late 80s and early 90s when Ars Magica and the White Wolf games came out, and then, with the "Indie Boom" of the 90s, it became even more accentuated. 3E seemed to (at least partially) fix this, with a core engine that made sense, was somewhat modular and relatively streamlined.
In the 70s and 80s, D&D was kind of a big happy mess, like a sandbox that you could do what you wanted with; if you wanted to change something, you just did. Every campaign had house rules. In the 90s this was still true to some extent, but with the growing number of cutting edge indie games, the idiosyncrasies and awkwardness of D&D as a rules system began to glare a bit. Saving Throws vs. Petrification and Polymorph? "THAC0"? Really?! In many ways 3E was a saving grace; not only did it revive D&D as a community and game, but it vastly improved the rules system itself.
One of the most commonly discussed D&D rules (if I remember correctly) was Hit Points (and its related partner in crime, Armor Class). Even though HP was always meant to be an abstract gestalt of different factors--body, vitality, endurance, even luck, etc--it never seemed to make sense that an Ancient Red Dragon had less HP than a 10th level fighter. This problem wasn't really solved with 2E or even 3E. The numbers just got bigger all around.
Which brings us to 4E and healing surges. If HP truly is meant to represent a combination of factors, and not just physical damage capacity, then it would make sense that there would be easy and self-applied ways to regain a bulk of HP through rest, recovery, or something akin to adrenaline. It is my opinion that healing surges are essentially the "missing link" to HP, that HP don't really make sense without them, unless you want to go the route of the first WotC version of Star Wars and split HP into Wounds and Vitality.
I am continually surprised when I encounter the dislike of healing surges, seemingly because they aren't realistic, they turn D&D characters into video game superheroes. Now there are many things I don't like about 4E, and overall I would prefer a slightly more toned-down character development, somewhere between the weakling 1E 1st level characters and the already-heroic 4E 1st level characters (which are more like 5th level characters in 1E, imo). 4E has lots of problems that I hope will be addressed in 5E, but healing surges are not one of them.
I'm not attached to healing surges themselves, but to some mechanism that allows a character to "heal" themselves, to regain HP quickly. At least as long as HP remain HP--that is, a gestalt of different factors, an abstraction. If 5E wants to go another route entirely, say turn HP into body points only and instead increase defenses and damage resistance, sure, I'm fine with that. Actually, it makes more sense, really. But if we want to keep HP around essentially unchanged, than something akin to healing surges needs to exist, something that can be not only self-administered but self-generated. In other words, ubiquitous healing potions is not the answer and would create a similar problem to the necessity of magic item bonuses and an equally awkward patch (ala inherent bonuses).
If you dislike healing surges, why? And what would your solution be?
In the 70s and 80s, D&D was kind of a big happy mess, like a sandbox that you could do what you wanted with; if you wanted to change something, you just did. Every campaign had house rules. In the 90s this was still true to some extent, but with the growing number of cutting edge indie games, the idiosyncrasies and awkwardness of D&D as a rules system began to glare a bit. Saving Throws vs. Petrification and Polymorph? "THAC0"? Really?! In many ways 3E was a saving grace; not only did it revive D&D as a community and game, but it vastly improved the rules system itself.
One of the most commonly discussed D&D rules (if I remember correctly) was Hit Points (and its related partner in crime, Armor Class). Even though HP was always meant to be an abstract gestalt of different factors--body, vitality, endurance, even luck, etc--it never seemed to make sense that an Ancient Red Dragon had less HP than a 10th level fighter. This problem wasn't really solved with 2E or even 3E. The numbers just got bigger all around.
Which brings us to 4E and healing surges. If HP truly is meant to represent a combination of factors, and not just physical damage capacity, then it would make sense that there would be easy and self-applied ways to regain a bulk of HP through rest, recovery, or something akin to adrenaline. It is my opinion that healing surges are essentially the "missing link" to HP, that HP don't really make sense without them, unless you want to go the route of the first WotC version of Star Wars and split HP into Wounds and Vitality.
I am continually surprised when I encounter the dislike of healing surges, seemingly because they aren't realistic, they turn D&D characters into video game superheroes. Now there are many things I don't like about 4E, and overall I would prefer a slightly more toned-down character development, somewhere between the weakling 1E 1st level characters and the already-heroic 4E 1st level characters (which are more like 5th level characters in 1E, imo). 4E has lots of problems that I hope will be addressed in 5E, but healing surges are not one of them.
I'm not attached to healing surges themselves, but to some mechanism that allows a character to "heal" themselves, to regain HP quickly. At least as long as HP remain HP--that is, a gestalt of different factors, an abstraction. If 5E wants to go another route entirely, say turn HP into body points only and instead increase defenses and damage resistance, sure, I'm fine with that. Actually, it makes more sense, really. But if we want to keep HP around essentially unchanged, than something akin to healing surges needs to exist, something that can be not only self-administered but self-generated. In other words, ubiquitous healing potions is not the answer and would create a similar problem to the necessity of magic item bonuses and an equally awkward patch (ala inherent bonuses).
If you dislike healing surges, why? And what would your solution be?