Fourthifying healing in SWSE

[DerekSTheRed]

I've been enjoying SWSE so far, but I really hate the healing system in the game. I much prefer the 4E healing for several reasons, but mostly because it's easy for me the GM. I know at the beginning of each combat, the players are at max hit points. At the same time, they have a finite amount of surges which limits their daily activities and the max hit points are lowered which increases the chance of getting a PC unconscious and makes each fight exciting.

I'm thinking about porting over the healing surge mechanic to SWSE and doing away with healing damage via the Treat Injury skill. The treat injury skill would still be used for medpacs once a day and removing persistent conditions etc. which is consistent with the movies IMO. I only remember medics healing Luke of hypothermia (persistent condition) and installing a cybernetic hand in Episode V. Maybe there are more surgery examples but I can't think of them.

I'm looking for advice to make sure it's balanced. I've been looking at the variant rules in this article for inspiration. This is the one I am going to use.

Variant Rule: Multiple Second Winds
Instead of having one second wind per day, every heroic character can catch a second wind a number of times per day equal to 1 + [class bonus to Fortitude Defense] + [Constitution modifier], with a minimum of 1. Any ability that would add an extra second wind (such as the Extra Second Wind feat or the Tough as Nails talent) instead adds a number of second winds equal to this base number. As always, you can catch a second wind no more than once in a single encounter.

Vital Transfer would be changed to the following results.
The Jedi must spend a second wind to use this power. The Jedi loses the second wind no matter the result.
DC 15: Your ally gains hit points equal to his second wind as if he spent a second wind.
DC 20: As DC 15 except your ally gains an additional 5 hit points
DC 25: As DC 15 except your ally gains an additional 10 hit points

My concern is that this is making the PCs too tough. I currently set the hit points per level (after first of course) equal to half the max + 1 + con modifier. The only time I get the PCs down close to zero is if I concentrate the enemies' fire. Is this acceptable and will the new rules change this?

 

[The_Gneech]

In my game, I changed Second Wind to be usable per encounter, but treat all movement down the condition track as "persistent" until the character is treated (either via Treat Injury or a Medpac). There are some talents and feats that need tweaking in that context, and it removes the "recovery" action (or more accurately, turns it into a standard action with a Treat Injury check), but what this does in effect is to move HP the rest of the way into the world of the abstract (i.e., "luck and fatigue") and change the condition track into actual "wounds."

We've only just started doing it this way, so I can't say yet how it will do in action. But I have high hopes for it.

-The Gneech

 

[MarkB]

I think it's easy enough to import the 4e Healing Surges system more or less intact to SWSE. Have any current significantly-effective healing method (first aid, surgery, Force-based healing) consume a healing surge, make Second Wind an Encounter power, remove the 1/day limitation for First Aid and have it heal surge value on a 15, surge +5 on a 20 or surge +10 on a 25.

 

[DerekSTheRed]

In my game, I changed Second Wind to be usable per encounter, but treat all movement down the condition track as "persistent" until the character is treated (either via Treat Injury or a Medpac). There are some talents and feats that need tweaking in that context, and it removes the "recovery" action (or more accurately, turns it into a standard action with a Treat Injury check), but what this does in effect is to move HP the rest of the way into the world of the abstract (i.e., "luck and fatigue") and change the condition track into actual "wounds."

We've only just started doing it this way, so I can't say yet how it will do in action. But I have high hopes for it.

-The Gneech

Making the CT persistent until a Treat Injury is an interesting idea. IMC there is a noble who pilots, heals, uses Trust to give other PCs a standard action, and is the face. I also have a CT sniper. I can see how this house rule would make the noble more useful in combat which is good, but might make the CT sniper more powerful which is bad. Having said that, NPCs that have to recover are dead men walking anyway so maybe it's not that powerful after all.

EDIT: I've thought about this a bit more and I have some thoughts. I don't like grouping all CT penalties in the persistent category. I'd like to be able to differentiate between CT penalties from hypothermia, exhaustion, starvation etc. which would transfer from encounter to encounter and possibly from day to day. I could simply subtract surges from the PCs in these situations, but I think CT penalties make more sense.

A better way to do it would be to remove the recover action entirely and make the only way to go up the CT is to use a surge/second wind (excepting other special cases like equilibrium). This would be a limited way in which PCs and NPCs can recover especially in combat but at a cost of a daily resource.

 

[Nifft]

I don't like the idea of all conditions being persistent. It's just too easy to stack them. In fact, I'd rather add a layer of complexity and steal an idea from White Wolf's games: some condition track damage should be very transient ("bashing" or "stun"), some should be dangerous ("lethal" or "normal"), and some should be really, really bad news ("aggravated" or "persistent").

Normal/Lethal condition track damage would be the baseline: when you take more damage from a single attack than your Healing Surge value, you suffer one level of lethal CT damage. This stuff you can get rid of with a Rest (short or extended) and a Treat Injury check. You can't get rid of it in combat normally (with an exception for some kind of medic feat or talent, or force power, any of which need the expenditure of a Force point by the patient).

Bashing/Stun would be all the stuff that's easy to add on to an attack: CT damage from feats, stun weapons, sniper talents, etc. You can get rid of one of these with three Minor actions in combat, or fewer with the right talent. These would represent easy-come, easy-go conditions.

Aggravated/Persistent would remain the same: you need major surgery to get a new hand, or treatment to recover from radiation sickness, or whatever.

White Wolf's notation would even work for these:
[*][X][X][/][/][/][_][_] = one persistent, two normal, and three stun levels of condition track damage. When you heal your stun levels, erase them. If you take more lethal damage, convert the leftmost stun to lethal, and add a stun on the end.

It's also nice because it tells you if you've passed out (your rightmost box has a line through it) or if you're dying (your rightmost box has an X in it), or if you've been chopped into little bits (* in the box).

Cheers, -- N

 

[ValhallaGH]

That's actually a really good idea regarding the notation.

If you're going to go that sort of route with the condition track (and making all conditions persistent is a bad idea) then that notation is a fast and simple way to indicate how you've been moved on it.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Regarding the multiple second winds, I adopted Gary's suggestion with a couple alterations.

First was that Extra Second Wind instead lets you take an additional second wind during the same encounter instead of granting extra second winds, and the second that Tough as Nails only gives you additional second winds equal to your Constitution modifier. A friend of mine has used it in his campaign for quite a while, and it certainly does a fair bit of preventing one bad encounter from bringing an adventure to a crawl while the party tries to heal up. Aside from Luke in ESB, we never really see the heroes spending all kinds of time convalescing (and Luke had a pretty darn good reason to do so).

Making all conditions persistent is a horrifically bad idea. Especially given how easy it can be, particularly at lower levels, to get bumped one or two steps down the condition track, where every point of a penalty counts against you. To say nothing of stun weapons becoming even more dangerous, especially if used in tandem with feats and talents that let you move a target down the CT with a successful hit. It also makes talents like Equilibrium and Resilience a lot more valuable than they already are. Maybe it works for a "grim'n'gritty" type of campaign, but Star Wars is anything but grim'n'gritty.

 

[The_Gneech]

Interesting thoughts re: CT movement being persistent. The idea wasn't so much to make them "all persistent all the time" as much as to make a Treat Injury check (and thus "treating the wound") the fix, instead of standing back and taking a deep breath to go back up the CT. Basically, I want hit points to come back between encounters, but not for the heroes to be invincible.

I'm thinking that a limited number of healing surges/day, which can be used as either Second Wind style HP recovery, or movement up the CT, might be a better way to go.

-The Gneech

 

[ValhallaGH]

Even that level of persistence for all conditions is probably a bad idea, from gameplay concerns. And the in-world logic of it breaks down once you get to oddities such as Force Stun or Stun damage.

Having it as an interim condition for the CT movement from hp loss would make the game a bit grittier but not necessarily in a bad way.

I can't escape the memory of the two-attack (surprise round) Rancor battle. Force Stun 4 steps down the track. Stun blasters (Bounty Hunter / Scoundrel) 4 more steps down. The third member didn't even have to take his turn.
It left a heck of an impression on our new party members. (They were a bunch of damage-dealing death machines, joining a group that could count our kills on one hand despite being in a high-combat campaign.)

 

[MarkB]

I would also say it's a bad idea to make all conditions persistent.

The condition track is SWSE's one-size-fits-all equivalent to 4e's many and varied conditions, and just as it doesn't require expenditure of special resources to succeed at a saving throw to end a condition in 4e, it shouldn't require any special expenditure to move up the condition track when knocked down it by basic conditions in SWSE.

If you want to make the Condition Track more like 4e-style conditions, you could introduce the equivalent of a saving throw - say, a Constitution check as part of the Recover action. DC 10 should suffice, given that the subject's check is modified by their Condition Track penalty. Then, you'd have an extra variable available to provide a wider range of conditions: For conditions more serious than average, but not so serious that they should be Persistent, you could have the condition impose a penalty to the Constitution check, which would go away once the character successfully Recovered to the top of the track.