I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Dausuul]

Why? Well, one of the reasons they gave is that they felt the system was far too lethal. They felt that moving away from it allowed them to better capture the heroic and cinematic flavour of the Star Wars films, which like D&D are occupied by swashbuckling adventurers, clever scoundrels, and beautiful princesses.

The main reason for that excessive lethality was that they allowed critical hits to bypass vitality and go straight to wound points. This was a huge mistake IMO, because it meant that a damage effect scaled to chew through the "buffer" was now being allowed to bypass the buffer. Crits happen often enough that this was far too common.

If falling damage goes straight to wound points (or whatever you call them), you can then scale down the amount of damage dealt by a fall. Likewise with any other "bypass effect." That brings them back into balance with regular damage.

 

[avin]

Funny, our 1Ed, 2Ed, 3Ed and 3.5Ed campaigns of the past 30+ years had no problem running 5-7 encounters between rests. (Again, without CLW wands.)

That absolutely does not describe my 2ed, 3ed and 3.5 experiences. Don't get me wrong: if I had to choose my favorite D&D edition it would be 3.5... but 5-7 encounters without wands of healing or potions only if the enemy is clearly underpowered (in my experience).

Now, if Wotc manage to hit large encounters like 4E but a bit more faster and lethal like 3.5, heck, I'm giving them my money again.

 

[Pentius]

Lots of people have seen Gone With The Wind and loved it. I hate it. No matter how much GWTWphiles explain their reaction in an attempt to convert me to their view, they will fail.

TAG isn't you. I am not you. Why should our experiences with HSes match yours?

Do YOU get reminded of Tekken* when you burn a HS? I do. Every. Damn. Time. If not, why don't you? Because you are not me. Thus, one aspect of the game that I find objectionable is not anywhere within the scope of your experiences.




* I love Tekken, BTW.

I love Tekken, too, but 4e reminds me not at all of Tekken. Whether you like or dislike surges is a subjective measure, to be sure, but whether they make the difference between a half-hour combat and a three-hour combat is not a measure of their Tekken-ness. I question whether surges causes this major time differential the same way I'd question a claim that cutting the bread at a restaurant takes a whole season. I've cut bread in minutes the same way I've seen HP cut through in seconds.

 

[billd91]

....is how much different than relying on healing surges? From what I'm reading, CLW wands seem pretty commonplace in games. So the only difference is that the healing surges are free? Yer still relying on both.

It's the difference between limited and hard to transfer internal resources and transferable [/b]external[/b] resources. If one player had a lot of bad luck, you can concentrate any wand healing on him as much as you need to. I find that a big difference.

 

[billd91]

And one last bit:

I've seen a lot of people describe HP as concrete over the years. It's a constant thorn in my side, and why I'm so happy bringing up a new generation of gamers. I've heard that HP should be concrete since 1e, the idea making 0 sense all the way, and I've accepted it as one of those unavoidable idiosyncracies of a specific group. It's like when a player tries to say, in character, "I have X AC". Or "My weapon is +X"

In other words, treating HP as concrete has snapped me out of any immersion immediately for my entire gaming 'career'. I'm glad to see 4e finally make people face the inherent abstraction in the system. Let me say plain, it was no less realistic when a 1e fighter cured a spear to the gut by resting for a weekend.


I am fully aware some groups regard HP as concrete. You are actively narrating against the rules, via any edition. The developers are NOT beholden to your against-the-rules-narration. DEAL WITH IT.

I'm not so sure about that. 3x's take on hit points can certainly be used to support a physical-only interpretation of hit points. In the 3.5 glossary:

hit points (hp): A measure of a character’s health or an object’s
integrity. Damage decreases current hit points, and lost hit points
return with healing or natural recovery. A character’s hit point total increases permanently with additional experience and/or permanent
increases in Constitution, or temporarily through the use of
various special abilities, spells, magic items, or magical effects (see
temporary hit points and effective hit point increase).

The description in Chapter 8:

HIT POINTS
Your hit points tell you how much punishment you can take before
dropping. Your hit points are based on your class and level, and your
Constitution modifier. applies Most monsters’ hit points are based
on their type, though some monsters have classes and levels, too.
(Watch out for medusa sorcerers!)
When your hit point total reaches 0, you’re disabled. When it
reaches –1, you’re dying. When it gets to –10, your problems are
over—you’re dead (see Injury and Death, page 145).

Not much there about hit points being so abstract as to represent skill, luck, divine protection, or a host of other non-physical things. I would agree that in 1e hit points cover a variety of abstractions. The Players Handbook has a more expansive explanation of hit points in it that 3e, for brevity, omits. 2e, I don't know. Those rule books aren't handy to me right now.

I would be interested in knowing, of the people who adhere to hit points being physical, what edition they started with or played most with. That could have a significant effect on how they view hit points and make the 4e transition that much more jarring.

 

[molepunch]

Hi all. I'm not very articulate but if I may offer my perspective on the Healing Surge and Hit Points discussion:



As a 4E DM, I don't see Hit Points as Health Points entirely. I know this isn't much better but I think of HP as 'destiny' or 'narrative' points.

If an ogre 'hits' a PC, the 'damage' it rolls, to me, is the potential, erm, Harm Points (if you will), that it dished out. When 'hit', the PC Fighter or Wizard narratively wasn't fast enough or lucky enough to passively avoid the ogre's attack. He then instead must now fork out the necessary Hit Points to narratively 'have a close one' or 'took a hit but not too bad' or 'parry just barely'. As a DM I avoid narrating actual serious wounds until they are Bloodied (4E). As such, Healing Surges don't bother me as the DM because it makes sense. The PC using his Second Wind when Bloodied is still bloody narratively even if it brought his HP past Bloodied; he just isn't flagged with that condition anymore.

I deal with Poison damage similarly, and Falling Damage is automatically fatal past a certain height. I also adjust critical hits and damage to reflect better.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I question whether surges causes this major time differential the same way I'd question a claim that cutting the bread at a restaurant takes a whole season.

I've seen people get crappy service in restaurants I love: my family once went to a rather posh place for dinner and my father got his escargot appetizer...and that was it. His dinner never appeared before him.

I wasn't there to see it, but I do not doubt him. He had no reason to lie. Others witnessed it. Still others had made similar complaints about the restaurant on other occasions: inexplicably, this fine establishment occasionally had nights of simply inexcusably bad service.

I view the claim about surges increasing combat duration likewise: I personally have not witnessed it, but enough unrelated people have made the claim since 4Ed hit the shelf that I see no reason to question that this is their experience.

Why haven't I seen it? Perhaps it is that our playstyle- in which "going nova" is almost entirely unseen- is inherently slower than others' pre-4Ed games, so any HS-related slowdown disappears within our playstyle's inherent pace. I don't know.

But I can accept that others' perception that HSs cause their game to drag is non-controversial.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Yes hitpoints in all editions have been, to a degree, abstract. They have also been, to a degree, concrete.

Healing surges are, almost in their entirety, abstract.


I don't know why people don't see that.




Some examples of hit points meaning "you got hit and got hurt" include "rider damage" or "rider effects". This can be things such as poison or fire damage. If the person has not been hit by the sword, how are they poisoned? If the troll has not been hit by the sword, why does the fire damage prevent its regeneration? A "wounding" weapon that causes you to "bleed" certainly has hit you, and you are losing blood. To say otherwise negates the narrative.

Yes, clerical curing is odd in many editions (why does a lvl 10 fighter not heal his tiny wounds from a spell that would bring a lvl 1 fighter back from near death). However, just about every single description of healing spells is "closing wounds". I have never, ever, in any edition, seen a healing spell written up as "restores adrenaline" or "improves endurance" or whatever.

In fact, most editions have other mechanics for the things that those defending healing surges are describing hps or HSs as. Endurance? That's tested by con checks and there is an endurance feat. Fatigue? There are fatigue rules.



All along, hit points have been suggested to be abstract, and in essence, they must be (to a degree). However, the rest of the game was written as if they were quite concrete, but with some small degree of abstraction. 4e has turned this on its head, actually following the intent they have claimed to be doing all along, but have actually not done. EDIT: Also, I'll dispute the degree/level of "hit points are abstractions" in prior editions being claimed as well. I attribute it as a nod to "this ain't always going to make sense, roll with us" rather than them saying "hit points represent far, far more than getting hit/hurt."

EDIT: from the 3e and 3.5 phbs and http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Loss_of_Hit_Points

Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

Instead of "the best mechanic we have to simulate combat and injury" hps (because of HSs) are now, in 4e "a complete abstraction of a pc's adventuring across a given day".


The change has been both subtle (subtle as in hard to see) and radical. Hence exactly this sort of thread every so often.

Make no mistake. Hps in 4e represent something different than they have in earlier editions. Healing surges enforce this.


However, and another possible reason for the dislike of healing surges is that the 4e phb considers them "healing" they are defined as such and it specifically states that when a character uses one, he has healed. I can envision healing wounds, but are we to say "I healed, so I got luckier again"?


It seems to me that in every edition hit points have been a "have your cake and eat it too" situation. They represent getting hurt, but they also represent more than that. Healing surges go too far with that, mainly representing "you're healing, but you're not really healing".



There is a backwardness to healing surges. It's the same backwardness that is the cure light wounds does less on a light wound than a serious one (on a lvl 10 vs lvl 1 char). But this backwardness is even more in your face. At least with the curative spells, it is still healing that is being represented. The fact that the rules are ass backwards dosen't change this. With a healing surge, few seem willing to describe them as what wotc describes them as: healing.

Yes, hps represent some manner of luck. This is very telling in the 3.5 description of them when discussing how a lvl 10 ftr getting hit by an orc has suffered a "small wound" or "glancing blow". Healing these small wounds with spells closes the wounds.

So what does a healing surge actually do? Have I ever been hit? If so, do my wounds close? If so, how do I accomplish this as a normal human fighter?


In prior editions, yes, hps represented some luck/skill and some physical punishment. But the luck/skill was never restored by curative magics. That is a fundamental difference to what is being restored in 4e with healing surges...and thus causes a fundamental difference to the meaning of hps.

 

[gamerprinter]

This is incorrect. I'm pretty sure someone in this thread already quoted the description of hit points from the AD&D 1st Edition Players' Handbook so I won't repeat it, but it's quite clear that hit points weren't always purely physical damage. It's very possible to argue that the 4th edition approach is closer to the original intent.

Edit: I'll correct myself. Dungeon Master's Guide, p.82, not the PHB

Yes, it did say that in the AD&D 1e book, but even then I thought it was load of crap. Designers may have had intents that it be that way, but in game it always worked as hit points were real damage - know matter what they said...

I just have to agree to disagree with TSR designers at the time - it never made sense to be anything other than 1 hit point = 1 point of damage.

 

[billd91]

Yes, it did say that in the AD&D 1e book, but even then I thought it was load of crap. Designers may have had intents that it be that way, but in game it always worked as hit points were real damage - know matter what they said...

I just have to agree to disagree with TSR designers at the time - it never made sense to be anything other than 1 hit point = 1 point of damage.

You may disagree with the rules but that does take you into house rule territory. You can't really expect your view to be supported by later rules or for the D&D community at large to find your argument persuasive.