April 3rd, Rule of 3

[I'm A Banana]

It was never a "mortal wound". Because you would never die from that wound, no matter what. The next wound taken would be a possible mortal wound if it does 2 or more damage. Also, typically, people take some kind of ill effect from mortal wounds, even before they die or fall unconscious.

2 HP means you are vulnerable to being killed/KO'd by any further damage. It could just mean that you've lost focus, and your guard is way down. It doesn't, and has never meant, a "mortal wound".

You can justify it and excuse it all you want, it still doesn't make it a fun gameplay element for me. The idea of being almost dead one minute and then not actually almost dead in another 10 minutes is Not Fun Times For Me.

It seems like the problem with Healing Surges is only that they're new. They don't really do anything that HP doesn't already do. HP is completely nonsensical and very abstract, but it's been around forever, so it's just accepted as a matter of course.

Riiiiight, because I'm deliberately lying about my preferences due to my remarkable and heart-seizing fear of change, not telling the truth about what I like because it's actually what I like. My well known and paralyzing fear of change stops me from changing jobs, changing cities, changing my mind, changing babies, changing my underpants, and making change for people at cash registers. Also, entropy terrifies me and the idea of personal growth drives me insane. Yep, fear of change. Not my actual preferences. Guess you called it.

Let's not try to perform Internet Psychic Psychology here, dude.

They don't do anything HP don't already do? Okay then, we don't need them. HP does the job nicely.

That eliminates a lot of gameplay and strategic/tactical decisions. Healing Surges are basically just extra HP, yes, but they take effort to "unlock" in combat, and you still have a max HP, so you can't just spend them all out-of-combat.

Those decisions are entirely worthless to my gameplay preferences. I don't want people to have to "unlock" all their resources. I want them to be able to spend all their resources that they have, if that's what they want. I like the feel of a slowly eroding pool of abilities more than the feel of having locked-away secret stashes of life and health that I can't call on unless some jerk in chainamil wants to scream at me (but only twice per every 5 minutes!).

No thanks.

Again, I do like the concept of a "surge value," and it deserves to stay. And "healing surges" can be implemented in other ways to maintain the feel that I like. So I'm not saying "OMG SURGES NO I AM OUT ICK ALL OF MY WORST FEARS CONFIRMED!" I am saying, "Hmm...a little suspicious of this, but let's see how it plays out."

 

[MoxieFu]

HP themselves, sure.

But the extension of this to include surges doesn't stand up to inspection.
There was nothing comparable to surges in 1E.

And I still don't see that they are ready to blunder again on that front.

There is plenty of space between 4e style surges and simply having "non-magical self healing". In 3E a fighter can non-magically self heal. It just takes roughly a week. It takes a hell of a lot less time than anything "realistic", but it still takes meaningful time. And it is "non-magical self-healing".

The fundamental basis of surges as a means of restoring HP is a departure from all prior editions. HP themselves being comparable is true and it does nothing to address the issue of surges.

"You must spread experience points around bleblah, bluhblah, blobity blah, yadda, yadda, yadda..."

 

[Sunseeker]

Really, a -1 possibly up to -3 is a "death spiral"? Far more serious status effects get tossed left and right in 3.X and 4E.

I figured it was a little to flavor the Wound as being something physical, and be worth removing, but not enough to be a serious impediment.

Lets spell it out one more time.

Hitting less often or not as hard means enemies survive longer, which means enemies hit more, which means you take more damage/wounds, which means you hit less/not as hard, making enemies survive longer which means enemies hit more. See the cycle?

Play Deadlands, it's not that hard to see. Look at Star Wars Saga and see how easily wound systems are abused, there is literally a build to yell at your enemies until they die, simply; because your yelling inflicts a wound. This is invariably what wound systems lead to, bypassing HP completly and inflicting wounds.

Deadlands had a Fate Point system to help mitigate this, you could move hits and their associated damage to less damaged body parts to avoid getting more wounds. You had 6 different body parts, to you could have 6 wounds(one in each) and still only take a -1 penalty. But the key was the mitigating system of Fate Points which could be used to avoid a wound entirely.

Without such a system, players will rapidly take wounds, which leads to taking wounds faster, which leads to taking more wounds faster, which leads to death. Hence, death spiral. Implement a mitigating system? Maybe not a death spiral, maybe.

 

[YRUSirius]

If the core mechanics of 5E feature thought as optional I won't be very interested.

Wait, if you treasure thought so much, how much thought do you need to implement options?

-YRUSirius

 

[ExploderWizard]

Wait, if you treasure thought so much, how much thought do you need to implement options?

-YRUSirius

I would welcome anything they would like as an added option including KAPOW!-ZOWIE!! rules with everyone getting fast regenerating stun points.

OTOH if that is the default core assumption I won't be interested.

 

[Steely_Dan]

THIS is the real truth.

They didn't actually say ANYTHING.

Exactly, it's like Nicholas Cage's reply in Raising Arizona to Cousin Glenn when asked "...how'd you get that damn baby so fast?"

"...well what it comes down to...is who knows who...and over here you have favouritism..."

 

[dkyle]

You can justify it and excuse it all you want, it still doesn't make it a fun gameplay element for me. The idea of being almost dead one minute and then not actually almost dead in another 10 minutes is Not Fun Times For Me.

Then why do you choose to interpret the rules in a way that isn't fun for you? "Almost dead" or "mortally wounded" at 2 HP is not in the rules. You are vulnerable to being killed by subsequent damage, but have not yet taken a mortal wound, or any significantly debilitating injury. That's very different than in the real world, where if someone is "almost dead" it generally means they've taken a serious injury, are debilitated, and are likely to die if left untreated. All the rules say is that you go down at 0 HP. What happens before that time is up to the DM and players. If you decide on describing events that aren't "fun" for you, then how is that a problem with the rules? All the rules did was give you the freedom to describe the events how you wanted.

If you want a rules system that mechanically produces situations where a character is "mortally wounded" but not unconscious yet, that's perfectly understandable (and even something I might want), but let's be clear that no edition of DnD has actually provided that.

Riiiiight, because I'm deliberately lying about my preferences due to my remarkable and heart-seizing fear of change, not telling the truth about what I like because it's actually what I like.

You are seriously misreading me if that's your take-away. I in no way accused you of lying about your preferences.

All I'm saying is that healing surges and HP are similar abstractions, and similarly disjuncted from reality. I'm arguing in good faith here, and trying to understand what the difference is besides surges being new, and not something that's been in D&D from the start.

Let's not try to perform Internet Psychic Psychology here, dude.

Noone's psychoanalyzing you.

They don't do anything HP don't already do? Okay then, we don't need them. HP does the job nicely.

They don't really do anything new in terms of new levels of abstraction. They obviously do new things in terms of game mechanics. I thought this was clear by context.

Those decisions are entirely worthless to my gameplay preferences.

Fair enough. Just wanted to be clear that gobs of HP, instead of healing surges, is not an acceptable equivalent alternative to me, and why.

 

[Caster]

I just woke up so be kind and this is totally off the top of my caffeine deprived head but what if there was a XP price to be paid for non-magical healing and more widely a way to spend XP's in-game and not simply hoard like like Dragons until you accumulate enough to level-up.

Thoughts?

Dave

 

[dkyle]

Hitting less often or not as hard means enemies survive longer, which means enemies hit more, which means you take more damage/wounds, which means you hit less/not as hard, making enemies survive longer which means enemies hit more. See the cycle?

I fully understand what a death spiral is. And have played systems with very strong death spirals.

But you seem to think that a -1 penalty Wound system in DnD would transform DnD from a no-death-spiral system into a death spiral system.

A Wound system isn't the only possible source of death spiral. Any edition of DnD with combatant death or removal from combat is an edition of DnD with a death spiral. Any edition of DnD with any status effects is an edition of DnD with a death spiral. 3.X and 4E in particular have tons of status effects, often more significant than a small penalty to attack. My point is that in the context of those sorts of systems, my described Wounds fit right in.

I also disagree with your implication that "death spiral" is inherently a bad thing. Too much, sure. But it also means actual consequences, and changing circumstances in battle, which are, I think, good things.

This is invariably what wound systems lead to, bypassing HP completly and inflicting wounds.

My intent with the system that I described is that it would be impossible to do this. Wounds happen at specific HP thresholds, period. They also aren't directly related to KOing or killing someone. HP does that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Then why do you choose to interpret the rules in a way that isn't fun for you?

Because "2 hp" already has an established meaning in my mind, and I don't see any virtue in changing it for this purpose. I can easily play a game that works very well in which "2 hp" means what I think it means. There's no need to change that interpretation, and no benefit to me for doing so.

All I'm saying is that healing surges and HP are similar abstractions, and similarly disjuncted from reality.

That's part of why I think they should basically be one thing, instead of two different things.

Just wanted to be clear that gobs of HP, instead of healing surges, is not an acceptable equivalent alternative to me, and why.

I'm unclear as to why, for you. What gameplay elements do you want to preserve?

If it's the "unlockable" nature of surges, doesn't limited healing serve the same purpose? "Okay, I have X hp, but my party has a total of 4 healing powers that each heal me for (X * .25) HP, so some of my HP are functionally in other folks' healing powers."