The optional heal rates and guideline total xp for adventuring day are not completed rules yet.
However, I did notice that we were given in playtest 2, a dial for heal rates, but no corresponding dial for "adventuring day". To me, the two are linked, but this also brings in adventure-level design and pacing.
It seems reasonably obvious that if a team starts the day at e.g. 75% of total hit points, then what they can expect to achieve in that day is less than a team that starts at 100%.
It's not quite so obvious to me what the corresponding adventuring day or adventure guidelines should be.
With simple daily full healing, you could for instance, design a whole adventure, so that by the guidelines it had 4 days' worth of encounters. Then set a storyline time limit of 4 days to complete the adventure (else the bad plot thing happens) - simply give the players this information at the outset, and allow them to take an extended rest at any point. The players have an incentive to push harder when they are doing well, and have some flexibility when they are unlucky. And the whole PC/monster balance should play out by the standard assumptions of combat difficulty in the rules (whatever they are - currently is seems pretty easy, but quite a bit swingy so it is entirely possible for an adventure to spin off path and need some creativity in any case)
With the slower healing rules, it is not quite as clear to figure out what total xp to put into that same basic adventure design. Putting the same amount of encounters in as with overnight full healing would obviously reduce the PC's chances of success, and make the heroe's goals simply harder to achieve. I'm not sure advocates of slower healing rates are actually looking for that (maybe some are though, especially with the default game assumption being easy mode). Is the answer going to be a simple "less combat and damaging encounters" to go with slower healing?
What kind of "heal-matching" dials or advice for adventure days, or whole adventure design would posters like to suggest for the slower healing rates?
I am assuming a certain amount of "gamism" in the adventure design. For adventures where an assessment of PC chances of success and difficulty upfront is of low importance (lots of reasons and styles of play where this is the case, and I'm not at all anti- any of them), then I guess the heal-rate options are stand-alone and a choice made on what "feels right" in the game world independent of adventure design.
So a secondary question - is the "heal rate" dial effectively independent of encounter and adventuring day guidelines? In other words, if you are a group that chooses to set healing slower than reset-every-day, then actually you will be ignoring the adventuring day guidelines, and doing something else instead?
However, I did notice that we were given in playtest 2, a dial for heal rates, but no corresponding dial for "adventuring day". To me, the two are linked, but this also brings in adventure-level design and pacing.
It seems reasonably obvious that if a team starts the day at e.g. 75% of total hit points, then what they can expect to achieve in that day is less than a team that starts at 100%.
It's not quite so obvious to me what the corresponding adventuring day or adventure guidelines should be.
With simple daily full healing, you could for instance, design a whole adventure, so that by the guidelines it had 4 days' worth of encounters. Then set a storyline time limit of 4 days to complete the adventure (else the bad plot thing happens) - simply give the players this information at the outset, and allow them to take an extended rest at any point. The players have an incentive to push harder when they are doing well, and have some flexibility when they are unlucky. And the whole PC/monster balance should play out by the standard assumptions of combat difficulty in the rules (whatever they are - currently is seems pretty easy, but quite a bit swingy so it is entirely possible for an adventure to spin off path and need some creativity in any case)
With the slower healing rules, it is not quite as clear to figure out what total xp to put into that same basic adventure design. Putting the same amount of encounters in as with overnight full healing would obviously reduce the PC's chances of success, and make the heroe's goals simply harder to achieve. I'm not sure advocates of slower healing rates are actually looking for that (maybe some are though, especially with the default game assumption being easy mode). Is the answer going to be a simple "less combat and damaging encounters" to go with slower healing?
What kind of "heal-matching" dials or advice for adventure days, or whole adventure design would posters like to suggest for the slower healing rates?
I am assuming a certain amount of "gamism" in the adventure design. For adventures where an assessment of PC chances of success and difficulty upfront is of low importance (lots of reasons and styles of play where this is the case, and I'm not at all anti- any of them), then I guess the heal-rate options are stand-alone and a choice made on what "feels right" in the game world independent of adventure design.
So a secondary question - is the "heal rate" dial effectively independent of encounter and adventuring day guidelines? In other words, if you are a group that chooses to set healing slower than reset-every-day, then actually you will be ignoring the adventuring day guidelines, and doing something else instead?
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