D&D 5E Healing Surges, Hit Dice, Martial Healing, and Overnight recovery: Which ones do you like?

[ForeverSlayer]

I would add to this: the game needs other components, both story and mechanics, to support the healing pace. A game that is designed around time-pressure storylines (which can be the case with questing storylines, fairly common in D&D) doesn't work well with long healing times. On the flip-side, introducing long healing times into Tomb of Horrors, where nothing is on a clock, is the merest of colour.

For long healing to be actually meaningful, the plot elements of the game have to be able to accommodate the passage of time, but healing still has to cost something. One possibility is downtime rules, whereby those PCs who aren't healing are able to grow their abilities by way of training/practice.

Going to have to disagree a bit. The problem here is you are trying to have the game completely structured to where "everything" happens in a precise way. I don't like limited encounters because of a structured healing system. I don't want a game that always assumes I am going into the next encounter at either full or near full. Now if the cleric heals us and burns resources, or we buy a lot potions of healing then that's one thing, but this structured healing by encounter number and encounter length is a straight jacket. Gaining HP through resting should take a long time. Patching up wounds on the field should only give you a fraction at max.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Once again, pleaae stop selecting the healing mechanic itself in the poll. Im not sure why you think selecting it is going to let the poll readers know anything. Please just select "Yes" or "No".

 

[Balesir]

Now if the cleric heals us and burns resources, or we buy a lot potions of healing then that's one thing, but this structured healing by encounter number and encounter length is a straight jacket. Gaining HP through resting should take a long time. Patching up wounds on the field should only give you a fraction at max.

Why "should"? Surely, the alternative of slow hp recovery is just as much a straightjacket - what makes one the "should do" option? As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] points out, the slow healing model is poor for time-critical quest type scenarios - it represents a "straightjacket" in that case, so the 2-axis healing of points and surges is strictly better for that particular circumstance. For when we want to consider "realism" and actual character injury (as opposed to scrapes and "true grit"), on the other hand, the "slow recovery" model is better. But I don't see what makes either one universally "better" or "worse".

 

[Minigiant]

Going to have to disagree a bit. The problem here is you are trying to have the game completely structured to where "everything" happens in a precise way. I don't like limited encounters because of a structured healing system. I don't want a game that always assumes I am going into the next encounter at either full or near full. Now if the cleric heals us and burns resources, or we buy a lot potions of healing then that's one thing, but this structured healing by encounter number and encounter length is a straight jacket. Gaining HP through resting should take a long time. Patching up wounds on the field should only give you a fraction at max.

You kinda do.

You have to create a standard for the basic dungeon crawl then tell groups that they can adjust up or down.

The game currently has you restore ~160% of your HP a day with 100%HP/50%HD.
Then you can go 50/100 for about the same healing.
0/100 or 100/10 for something a little weaker.
100/200+Con for something like 4e.
25/0 or 1/0 for grittier adventures of old editions which rely on clerics and potions.

 

[pemerton]

The problem here is you are trying to have the game completely structured to where "everything" happens in a precise way. I don't like limited encounters because of a structured healing system. I don't want a game that always assumes I am going into the next encounter at either full or near full.

OK. It doesn't seem to me that there is anything inherently better about a system in which encounters are entered at less than full hp; it's just another factor in determining combat difficulty. if you want pacing to matter (clearly the 4e designers did) you're going to have to account for it one way or another. If you don't care about pacing - eg prescripted encounter difficulty with variable hit point totals depending upon prior performance - then either you're going to have to do a lot of "fail forward" (which might include various soft-pedalled retreats) or alternatively a lot of generation of new characters to replace dead ones.

I don't see why any particular system has inherent virtues over the others. And in a module like ToH, as I mentioned, resting time is mere colour. You could change the "1 hp per day" rule to a "1 hp per week" rule and it wouldn't make the slightest difference. (Unless you start to worry about aging rules.)

Now if the cleric heals us and burns resources, or we buy a lot potions of healing then that's one thing, but this structured healing by encounter number and encounter length is a straight jacket.

I don't see the distinctiveness of the straitjacket, I guess. Long healing times are a straitjacket, too - I should know, I've GMed a lot of Rolemaster which uses long recovery times even for magical healing.

It depends on what sorts of storylines the game is meant to yield, and also on whether or not the passage of time iis a meaningful resource - in ToH it very much is not, in games with training mechanics (eg RQ, BW) it is.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Yes i generally enjoy, but not everything makes me a happy man.

I like Hit Dice as a reminesence of Healing Surge healing, allowing natural healing proportionate to your levels using HDs, a hit points related game element that always been part of the game.

I don't mind martial healing as a form of inspirational restoration or ''reinvigoration'', even if it needs further requirements such as hearring and seeing the heroe providing them etc...

I am not a fan of current long rest healing rules (100% HP / 50% HD) though. I prefer to have other options available as well and i hope there is variant rules for rest recovery of HP/HD like we've seen in previous packets. I prefer 100% HD / 50% HP or something along these lines. (and for more gritty feel even 100% HD / 0% HP)

For me its not so much about HP abstraction definition strangeness but more on the gaming feel and how it plays out when recovering all your HP every morning and never carrying HP loss over. 100% HP recovery overnight healing feels too gamey for my taste. It also doesn't emulate a playstyle found in previous editions IMO. Previous Editions playstyle with slow overnight healing + magical healing was that it could take days to fully heal the party back 100% HP.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have never heard an empassioned defense of healing surges or martial healing even from those that like it, but I have heard from many people violently opposed to either concept. I suspect that makes it the path of least resistance.

Then you've not being paying attention to either [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], myself, or some of the others round here.

Healing surges are a big part of the reason that 4e is literally the only version of D&D that I can consider for remotely generic High Fantasy rather than specific D&D Settings. (The other reason is that Vancian Casting is such a specific thing that it ties down the magic system in the way AEDU doesn't - and most non-D&D worlds don't use D&D magic)

First they liberate you from needing the Godbotherers. In editions of D&D before 4e you needed a cleric. A cleric provided your endurance. A cleric provided your ability to recover from mistakes. A party without clerics (or a bandolier of healing potions) was at the mercy of a couple of bad rolls putting someone on low hit points. You need a cleric and the game plays very differently without one. With healing surges everyone can recover their immediate short term ability to take a hit. It's a vastly improved gamist experience.

Second, they prevent things getting too ridiculous. You can't just empty two wands of Cure Light Wounds (or an entire Cleric-Day) into the same person and have them keep going. With healing surges, how tough someone is actually matters for their endurance - and for the amount of healing they receive (although that's more a bug in the Cure Wounds spells). Again, healing surges provide a vastly better gamist experience (and a better simulationist one).

Third, healing surges actually resemble a lot of fiction. Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Even if you pay no further attention to this post you've at least had an excuse to re-watch Raiders). Then watch Die Hard. (Again). At the end of a lot of scenes Indy or John McClane are utterly exhausted. But give them five minutes to rest, catch their breath, and to bandage wounds, and they are looking better able to deal with the next challenge (although John McClane runs out of healing surges near the end). The resting, the banadaging up? That's spending healing surges in a short rest and recovering encounter powers. Die Hard would be a much, much more boring film if rather than an AEDU-esque structure, John McClane simply was at full capacity until he dropped from losing his last hit point (which, of course, he never does). And the presence of healing surges allows you to swing to the point you are even taking people down. Therefore as well as being a vastly better gamist mechanic they lead to a much more exciting story and prove a vastly better narrativist one.

Fourthly, healing surges and AEDU are a vastly better model of reality than the binary "Enough hit points and the fighter is at full strength, able to keep attacking all day/-1 hit point - the fighter is down" model that pre-4e D&D used. If healing surges weren't a better model of reality than hit points (and ForeverSlayer was right in some of their claims) then a boxer would be exactly as able to take a punch at the start of a round than they had been at the end of the previous round. And there wouldn't be internal reserves to spend that would allow the boxer to get back on their feet after the count down started, which might be triggered by the roar of the crowd.

Healing surges therefore when properly understood (and the rulebooks don't help much - hit points in 4e are closer to stun damage and surges to endurance) provide a better gamist experience, lead to more intense and exciting narratives, model fiction better, and even model reality better than hit points.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I like all of these things. I'm not going to play or run another RPG, ever, that requires one PC to blow tons of their resources healing people in the very uninteresting and required ways that 3.XE D&D and before leant towards (3.XE was the worst for it).

Nor will I ever play or run an RPG that hard-requires/expects magical healing to deal with the fallout of most normal combat (as opposed to exceptional situations).

It remains to be seen how 5E deal with this, of course, because it's been all over the shop and promises optional rules to please everyone and their mother.

Healing surges were very close to perfect, frankly - the only problem was that there were rather too many of them per day, leading to them being only quasi-relevant much of the time (there was still the limit of how many heals the party could pull off per-encounter, of course, which was fine for most purposes). If they'd been a tighter, lower number, like 4-6 per PC, I think they'd have worked a bit better.

Also, Neonchamelon deserves a cheer for that rousing post!

 

[Shrander]

All I know is, I'm not going to go back to any version of the rules where my only choices are having magical healing or spending weeks in bed.

No more "somebody's gotta play the cleric." No more convenient cleric NPCs who follow the party around dispensing heals. No more Camelbaks full of healing potions and quivers full of CLW wands. I'm done with clumsy workarounds, thanks.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The only thing on the list the I actively like is hit dice. I like the idea that they represent how much you can rest and recover over time (albeit, imperfectly). My plan is to reduce how quickly hit dice recover, and remove overnight healing. That should get me the feel I prefer.

Healing surges were okay, though I felt they were too big, there were too many, and I disliked that you needed them for healing spells to work. Although others praise them for this very reason, and I get that.