Design principles of healing - no mechanics allowed

[Crazy Jerome]

The purpose of this topic is to explore the assumptions that people have for how healing coud work. (Feel free to express as many as appeal, if you like more than one.)

Normally, examples are quite useful, but we want to avoid them in this topic, at least with mechanical underpinnings. Feel free to use story examples if they help. What we want is the design principles at work. If for whatever reason, the design principles are difficult to get across, use the "story" or "in game" ideas that you are driving at, and we'll try to determine the design principles from that.

Here's a possible one: "When a characters gets knocked out of a fight, they will generally stay out. Powerful magic might be an exception. Special abilities of the character might be an exception."

You can probably read between the lines there on mechanics. Hits zero hit points or lower, not much way to get back to positives. That would be roughly analogous, most of the time. But even when you can read between the lines, try to block that out for now.

If this goes like I hope it does, I want to pin down as broad a consensus as possible on the range of what happens in healing and what can cause it--what is always there versus an option, what is low powered versus high. Then, we'll do another topic where we talk about mechanics to try to reach that.

Finally, feel free to extend and extrapolate what other people have said. I'll say now: "Raising from the dead should be difficult but possible." If you want to hedge around that further with options or even core, go ahead. If two other people have contradictory wants, and you have the option that bridges them, throw it out there.

 

[GX.Sigma]

To me, it doesn't make much sense for someone who's dying (unconscious, bleeding out, at death's door) to be instantly restored to full fighting strength in six seconds. Even if it's magic. Well, maybe if it's really really powerful magic.

(mechanically, this is one of the main benefits of healing in combat and curbing it would go a long way towards oh god the dogs im sorry i didnt mean to mention mechanics in the thread oh god theyre eating me)

 

[Paraxis]

Healing in combat should be easy simple and not drain daily resources. It could even be not healing at all and give players to avoid all the damage from a single hit by taking a wound that gives them some penalty that last for a day or so. Just putting out their that damage avoidance and damage reduction are a type of healing in a way.

Something that was a heal over time effect slow and constant for a day would be a nice spell.

 

[aco175]

I more agree that healing should be something that allows the group to continue pushing forward and explore more, maybe more caucious since you are not all the way healed. I less agree that healing should use all of one characters powers/spells since that is his job. I would like to see some healing, less than 4e but more than 1e.

When the group gets together to play, we onlt have a few hours of gaming each week that we are able to get together. I want to do more exploring and encounters in that time and less tracking how many days of rest we would need to heal 2 points per day and a cleric can cast 2 spells per day, but wait until the random roll if he needs to use them, blah, blah. It seems like tracking ammo and food- unless there is a good story reason for it and it needs to be in, I would rather skip over it in the name of fun and game playing.

Some players may find this part to be the very reason they play, I do not want to deny that to them, but I do enough bean counting at work.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Some things (real physical wounds) should be harder to heal than others (things that are not real physical wounds).

Real physical wounds should take real time to heal (i.e. not during combat or in a single day).

Nonmagical skill should have significant and relevant and diverse effects on healing.

Nonmagical items (herbs, tools) should also be meaningful for healing.

Characters should have a meaningful chance of getting worse instead of healing, to be affected by factors like the above.

Disease should be a significant factor, and should be tough to heal without magic or with magic.

Magic skill should break the limits of nonmagical healing, but should be difficult and not an assumed resource.

Your character should influence the rate at which he heals. There should not be instantaneous self-healing, however, and such influences should not be strongly level-dependent or be a significant resource to manage or be a game balance factor.

You should be able to play through an entire session including combat encounters, without having to heal significantly, and still enjoy yourself.

 

[BobTheNob]

(All the following are IMHO)

I think healing needs 2 layer : In combat, and resting.

On principle, I think the ability to heal and recover comes from each individual, rather than one "healer" (i.e. Just like every character has hit points, they also have a healing capacity). Resting Combat should utilize this resource more efficiently than in combat (thus making combat healing a "harder decision").

If anyone opts to play a healing style character, this should work by enhancing each characters own ability to heal, and to a lesser degree supplement it.

Main points
* Healer is a strong option, NOT a "mandatory option"
* Healer isnt a "bag of spare hit points"
* In the absence of a healer, parties still function admirably.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Some design ideas I would like to see:

* A character may be incapacitated but they are not automatically unconscious.

* I would like to see dying words in a game without being obviously forced by the DM. There should be a point where a character is dying and mundane or standard magical healing no longer works on them. Every death does not need to end with an abbreviated exclamation mark. Death can linger for a while so you have that chance at getting those last words out.

* Having said that, a dire contract with dark or mysterious forces or very powerful divine magic can perhaps bring about the recovery of a "dying" character. There should typically be a window of opportunity to do this magic when somebody is dying. Once somebody is dead, they are typically gone and cannot be returned. Only the most powerful of magic or divine relationships should resurrect a dead character.

* Magical healing should take time (at least an hour) and be a carefully considered and appreciated resource rather than the spamtastic and expected thing it can become.

* A weak character may be lightly injured yet incapcitated (the pain, the pain!!). A tough character may be heavily injured yet able to go on. In other words, there should be a link between capacity for pain and morale.

* Some characters should be able to help their party with this morale thing, the will to go on as it were. It does not affect the injuries a character has, it just affects how the character deals with those injuries.

* Mundane healing should be an effective (but not over-effective) and typical method of dealing with party injuries. It might not get everyone back to 100% on a daily basis, and there are times when a PC will be injured beyond the typical scope of someone with mundane skill in healing, (and this is when magical healing resources should be considered). But most of the time, mundane healing should be good enough to keep the party adventuring.

* A PC should be able to battle on despite being injured, the PCs should not need to stop to get everyone back to full health to adventure. (In other words no 15 minute workday due to hit points/healing).

* PCs need to be able to adventure and only stop when one or more of the group are incapacitated.

* There should be a way of knocking someone out that does not have any long term wounding effects.

* A character who is severely injured and receives minimal assistance will take a long time to recover their fullest health.

* There needs to be a separation of wounding and injuries from the capacity to go on despite those wounds and injuries. The restoration of luck, morale, will to go on, toughness, divine favour, inner resolve, skill and strength should happen at a different pace (and a much quicker pace) than the recovery from wounds and injuries. Combining the two into the one concept is always going to cause logical issues and unpleasant corner cases.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Crazy Jerome]

On a mainly personal note, I'd really like for herbs and other such things to matter in healing--really matter. It need not be overly fussy, and optional is fine, but I'd like for a way to tie it seemlessly into the system, and just have it be mere color, either.

 

[howandwhy99]

So a hit is an abstract measure of structural destruction to a person or thing in the world, be it a PC, piece of armor, a wall, or whatever.

1 hit is based on a basic human standard of 1 solid blow from 1 average human on to another average human. 1 hit = 1 point (1 hit point). This is probably a kick or punch, but you can get more diverse than that with slashes and punctures, acid and fire, and so on.

No we have an abstracted point system 1 hit does not need to equal 1 hit point and vice versa. Perhaps 1 hit point is 20 bee stings, all separate attacks and damage. Perhaps 10 hit points was caused by a single punishing gouge attack by a bull's horn?

In the end it isn't about how many separate attacks occurred, but about getting a solid round of hitting and doing damage. Perhaps it was 60 seconds of sparring or 60 seconds of dancing around with a final blow coming in at the last moment? It's up to what the player says they are attempting to do.

Healing is similar to the above. It's basically structural repair. We are, magically or through hands on work, knitting blood vessels back together, reattaching ligaments, setting bones, and removing portions unsalvageable.

Does healing "Regrow" body parts? Some body parts already do, so it may depend on the kind of damage taken and/or magic involved. Critical hits could cause permanent damage to human, but critical curing could regenerate body parts that normally do not grow back. Now that called strike to the hand that cut it off can be countered, if after the fact.

Natural healing is the biggest baseline of the game for out of combat pacing. It was 1 Hit Point / day of full rest and light activity (also defined). No strenuous mental or physical exertion and that pretty much meant any adventuring.

This is very different than many games that focus almost exclusively on combat. In those combat is the point of play. Anything impeding combat from occurring is a hindrance to the game. A game that averages 5 to 50 hit points for PCs over its length is going to take one out of combat far more often with the 1 HP/day rule. But combat may also be approached much more strategically, which can lead to intricate planning and perception of combats, while actual playing of them may be fast and to the point. It depends on the group.

I think the tactical vs. strategic difference is something that is going to be difficult to design for as long as out of combat actions aren't accounted for as part of the game mechanics and not fluff.

Long or short healing times are easily presented as game options. That's not the hard part. It's going to be understanding why short healing is not necessarily slow pacing and fast healing isn't simply saying less hand waved time passed between combats. It also means understanding what the focus of play is going to be and enabling groups (I don't see this happening individually) to choose rule options to suit their preferences.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The purpose of this topic is to explore the assumptions that people have for how healing coud work.

Normally, examples are quite useful, but we want to avoid them in this topic, at least with mechanical underpinnings.

No problem. I'd like to ask everyone to think about the fantasy genre, and how wounds and healing seem to happen there, and when and why those things may add interest or drama (or camp, which can be a lot of fun, too).

I suppose you could just go over to TV tropes and hear a lot of the same stuff, but, here's my thoughts.


In fantasy, very serious (but not fatal) wounds, are not the norm. Maybe this is because, in the periods fantasy tends to harken back to, serious wounds tended to be mortal. Maybe it's because a dead hero's story tends to be over. :shrug: Anyway, you may see heroes in fantasy get hurt, winded, knocked about, rendered unconscious, or overpowered, in less than-climactic battles. When a hero gets badly wounded enough that he's staggering around or whatever, he usually still pushes through it when it counts. When the hero is rendered helpless or nearly so by a serious enough wound, it generally sets up a 'quest' by another character - to heal him, or to take up the hero's mission. That is, it's a major 'plot point.' Obviously that goes double for the hero's death.

D&D features heroes who fight a /lot/. Most of D&D needs to model the less-than-climactic battles heros fight in genre - unless, of course, the general tone/flavor/feel of the game needs to be changed to be vastly less combat-oriented, I suppose.

It'd also be great - if everyone's up for it at the table - to be able to handle those really dramatic situations where heroes get wounded, cursed, captured, or whatever.