D&D 5E 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[Emerikol]

I think your definition of "martial healing" might be different to that of most people who discuss the issue. Could you clearly define it?

Any form of healing that forces a non-physical interpretation of damage. Now that does not mean there are no non-physical hit points. I'm just saying anything that forces that viewpoint. I accept some license for it being a game of course. So one month recovery that would normally take three months is okay. The idea and feel is that you had to rest and recover in a natural way. I know within the context I gave that some people can accept adding inspirational hit points even where physical damage has occurred and in this particular case I just disagree.

A healing skill that allows for bandages and what not to mitigate a little damage is fine. Emphasis though on a little. We might debate the amount but conceptually it's still talking about bandaging wounds.

There are other conceptual ways to achieve the same effect. Hit points is just a simple way to do it.

Here would be another way...
1. Hit points are equal to 1st level hit points.
2. Divide the damage against your character by your character level. This represents your defending and mitigating damage using luck and what not.

The above will result in a lot of fractions. So you could just multiply your hit points in #1 by your level and viola you have the basic system I propose.

 

[Sadras]

We want the order of events to flow in chronological order. We don't want to backtrack and reverse some earlier result. So once I roll to hit I've made contact. Once I roll damage I've applied some force. A Player can't come along and use a special ability and undo what's already happened. If it's part of the damage roll like a DR calculation that is not player chosen then it's fine.

Out of interest, how do you feel about reactive spells/abilities such as 5e Shield spell (+4 to AC), it kicks in once you are hit by an opponent. Now the Shield improves your AC by 4 and your opponent misses. No contact has been made technically (so no damage, no force application) but it was after your confirmed hit roll. How do you feel about that?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Any form of healing that forces a non-physical interpretation of damage. Now that does not mean there are no non-physical hit points. I'm just saying anything that forces that viewpoint. I accept some license for it being a game of course. So one month recovery that would normally take three months is okay. The idea and feel is that you had to rest and recover in a natural way. I know within the context I gave that some people can accept adding inspirational hit points even where physical damage has occurred and in this particular case I just disagree.

A healing skill that allows for bandages and what not to mitigate a little damage is fine. Emphasis though on a little. We might debate the amount but conceptually it's still talking about bandaging wounds.

There are other conceptual ways to achieve the same effect. Hit points is just a simple way to do it.

Here would be another way...
1. Hit points are equal to 1st level hit points.
2. Divide the damage against your character by your character level. This represents your defending and mitigating damage using luck and what not.

The above will result in a lot of fractions. So you could just multiply your hit points in #1 by your level and viola you have the basic system I propose.

This seems to be a straight-up "meat points" system. I'm not seeing any space in it for non-physical HP. You say you that you aren't ruling them out, but it really looks like you are, when the only non-magical way to regain HP is bed-rest/bandaging. I could see your argument if you limited how many HP could be recovered other ways, but you don't appear to be doing that.

 

[Emerikol]

Out of interest, how do you feel about reactive spells/abilities such as 5e Shield spell (+4 to AC), it kicks in once you are hit by an opponent. Now the Shield improves your AC by 4 and your opponent misses. No contact has been made technically (so no damage, no force application) but it was after your confirmed hit roll. How do you feel about that?

I would absolutely have to houserule that spell. I would require the wizard to announce it once an enemy has announced they intend to attack and before the attack roll is rolled.

 

[Emerikol]

This seems to be a straight-up "meat points" system. I'm not seeing any space in it for non-physical HP. You say you that you aren't ruling them out, but it really looks like you are, when the only non-magical way to regain HP is bed-rest/bandaging. I could see your argument if you limited how many HP could be recovered other ways, but you don't appear to be doing that.

My issue is mostly with the efficaciousness of non-magical healing methods. Maybe practically it doesn't matter. To me hit points are made up of two things mostly. Meat and fighting/evading skill. I don't really buy even stamina, maybe some luck/divine faovr I could accept. As such, no "motivational" methods work to restore hit points whether the motivation is your own or anothers. It is why I've said on numerous occasions that even if overnight I changed my view of hit points and totally accepted some of these other interpretations, I'd still not want "motivational" healing. I just don't buy it.

Part of the issue is the feel and the narration of the game. In every single game of D&D I've ever played in for 30+ years, I've never heard a single player narrate a loss of hit points as a miss that used up stamina and so forth. We always describe hits as hits. The narrative flows for us in that way.

 

[pemerton]

A healing skill that allows for bandages and what not to mitigate a little damage is fine. Emphasis though on a little. We might debate the amount but conceptually it's still talking about bandaging wounds.

In the WSG, I seem to remember that it was 1d3. I'll take [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s word that in 2nd ed it was 1d4+1.

For a 1st level MU or thief that is quite a bit of recovery. (Likwise for a typical 0-level NPC.) For a fighter of even 3rd level, or any character around name-level, it's a rather miniscule amount.

It's never been clear to me why bandaging low-level and/or non-combatant characters is quite effective in restoring them to full health, but it has a neglible effect upon physically robust and combat-experienced PCs. (A related puzzle is why you can bring a powerful character to full health by healing their light wounds multiple times, but can't do the same via non-magical treatment of "light wounds" - why does magic have this "stacking" effect if it is really just curing light wounds.)

For me, the absence of proportional recovery, and the stacking rules for magical healng, are not just conveniences to facilitate gameplay. They're fundamental problem in trying to make sense of the hp system. They drove me to Rolemaster, which doesn't have these problems. And I was happy to return to D&D mechanics with 4e, because it doesn't have these problems either.

 

[Emerikol]

For me, the absence of proportional recovery, and the stacking rules for magical healng, are not just conveniences to facilitate gameplay. They're fundamental problem in trying to make sense of the hp system. They drove me to Rolemaster, which doesn't have these problems. And I was happy to return to D&D mechanics with 4e, because it doesn't have these problems either.

For the record, I'm in favor of a proportional healing approach based upon the targets level. More than that might be more "realistic" but is probably not worth the bookkeeping. The stacking approach doesn't bother me and I'm sure I can come up with an explanation within the context of magic for why it works.

It really is all about the feel and narrative of the game. I could live with the feel of old school D&D with 1hp recovery because it didn't jar the narrative that much. We mostly magically healed anyway almost no one waited it out. The narrative on natural healing is that it's slow because you are naturally healing. Is it exactly right? probably not but it's not in your face unacceptable. The guy shouting motivational help across the room is right there in your face breaking the narrative and the feel of the game. Not yours but mine of course. It all depends on the narrative and feel of your game.

I don't expect either of us is going to have an epiphany on hit points. I'm not out to evangelize you to my interpretation. I'm mainly just wanting the best game for my playstyle. If not for big feats, I'm not sure 5e would really offer that much of an improvement for me anywhere else. I could probably add them to C&C and have the game I want if I had a list of them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My issue is mostly with the efficaciousness of non-magical healing methods. Maybe practically it doesn't matter. To me hit points are made up of two things mostly. Meat and fighting/evading skill. I don't really buy even stamina, maybe some luck/divine faovr I could accept. As such, no "motivational" methods work to restore hit points whether the motivation is your own or anothers. It is why I've said on numerous occasions that even if overnight I changed my view of hit points and totally accepted some of these other interpretations, I'd still not want "motivational" healing. I just don't buy it.

Wow, okay that's interesting and a huge difference. Stamina to me is a huge deal, it's one of the biggest aspects of medieval-style combat, and something definitely part of HP. Maybe the major part.

Part of the issue is the feel and the narration of the game. In every single game of D&D I've ever played in for 30+ years, I've never heard a single player narrate a loss of hit points as a miss that used up stamina and so forth. We always describe hits as hits. The narrative flows for us in that way.

Hits are contacts, but that doesn't mean stamina isn't an issue. IRL in medieval-style fighting it sure as hell is. Hits that don't cut through armour often still bruise, batter and wear down are very common.

Out of interest, if a PC somehow had an endorphin & adrenaline injector in D&D, and used it on themselves, on, say, 50% HP, what, in your game, would that do? Nothing?

The narrative on natural healing is that it's slow because you are naturally healing. Is it exactly right? probably not but it's not in your face unacceptable.

My 2E experience was that it became slap-in-the-face unacceptable if you tried to run a game without magical healing, whether because it was Three Musketeers-style, or because no-one would play a magical healer and they were rare in the setting, because D&D's combat mechanics pretty much assume regular damage incoming (unlike a lot of systems).

 

[evileeyore]

Perhaps this is the heart of GNS simulation. I'm not really sure. The constant confusion I get from people over these terms has let me to use narrative mechanical unity.

That's because 'Gamist' is "poorly defined" under GNS theory. Narrativism and Simulationism hold up fairly well.

(IMO)

As such, Emerikol, it might be helpful to remember that us 4e people, at least on En World, probably played every edition, and probably played every edition for hundreds of [-]hours[/-] years. We tend to be an [-]old[/-] ancient lot.

FEEEXED EET!

Unearth Arcana was not official and no DM ever felt so.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


You've just lost what little credibility I was extending you. That statement was absurd on it's face and false to boot. As Hussar said, you should stick to your own personal experiences and stop trying to claim authority over everyone else.

 

[Emerikol]

You've just lost what little credibility I was extending you. That statement was absurd on it's face and false to boot. As Hussar said, you should stick to your own personal experiences and stop trying to claim authority over everyone else.

It must be a regional thing. But honestly, nobody I know would ever have assumed you could use something in unearthed arcana without DM approval. Everything in the core books was assumed unless the DM spoke up. That to me is what core means. Assumed or not assumed.

It might be that 5e is the first game where nothing is core as opposed to 4e which proclaimed everything core. Though I'll add that even then I didn't know many DMs that automatically allowed stuff beyond the first three books. Perhaps old reflexes die hard.