Hit points & long rests: please consider?

[Lanefan]

Not everyone wants to tell the same stories.

Just like not everyone wants to run in the same setting or under the same rule-set, which is why this discussion even exists.

To the old hands around, was there often a time limit in the old adventures that use a system with a very slow recuperation time? Or were they most static/location based?

Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, occasionally neither; all completely dependent on both the adventure module itself and-or how it was presented by each specific DM.

For example, take G1 Steading of the Hill Giants. As written it's pretty much location-based; it might repopulate if you take too long but otherwise there's no preset time limit, and a party could keep nibbling at the edges for months if they so desired. But to suit her story a DM might throw a princess in there, captured by raiders and given to the giants for safekeeping; and if the ransom isn't paid in 5 days the giants get a pretty snack...so now there's a hard time limit.

One of the strong points of those old adventures is in fact this variability: you can wrap any story you want around them. I find newer adventures always seem to take more effort to run in any situation other than what the writer had in mind, mostly because they come with more story and setting baggage. Pathfinder adventures, while otherwise often very good, are generally the worst for this.

Lanefan

 

[synthapse]

How often were PCs killed, not just dropped to negatives, when it WASN'T a TPK? Similarly, how often were they dropped to negatives and not killed?

If you're looking for general feedback, I can share my personal experiences as well.

I ran 4E for a total of almost two years. In that time, I killed 6 PCs, never with a TPK. In every fight that mattered, at least one player was drinking from the Cup of Negative Hit Points, and in the best fights there would be two or more PCs in the dirt.

I ran 3E for almost the same amount of time, during which time I killed 3 PCs total, all in a 3 party TPK (during which time I greatly overestimated the party's ability to deal with a mind flayer and a life-leech otyugh). I don't know how often I dropped PCs to negatives, but it wasn't often.

These results are hardly conclusive-- I'm not the kind of DM that enjoys killing player characters, as it tends to screw up my plots. And in my 4E campaign, 5 of the 6 PC deaths came before 3rd level in a Dark Sun game, which tend to be nastier.

Due to great fortune, I was able to participate in the Friends and Family playtest, in which time I ran 4 sessions and killed 2 PCs, though one was killed due to spectacular levels of bad luck-- 3 consecutive natural 1s rolled on death saves, and taking 6, 6, and 5 points of damage with each failed save.

I don't know if that helps your argument or not, but there ya go.

 

[Walking Dad]

I have wildly different opinions compared to you but I respect your preference and won't fight it but...

How often were PCs killed, not just dropped to negatives, when it WASN'T a TPK? Similarly, how often were they dropped to negatives and not killed?

I play PbP and PbP Living Worlds/Organized Pay, and I have to say this varies more dramatically with the DM than the system in 3e & 4e. One ran a 4e at least 1 PC seemed to die at each encounter, but there was never a TPK. At least two others dropped into negatives but made it.

 

[SSquirrel]

I have wildly different opinions compared to you but I respect your preference and won't fight it but...

How often were PCs killed, not just dropped to negatives, when it WASN'T a TPK? Similarly, how often were they dropped to negatives and not killed?

Cool - Your last sentences just confirm we have different play styles. There isn't anything wrong with that! Hopefully the module system in D&D Next will be able to accommodate both of our play styles.

Yep I'm probably unlikely to agree on things w/either of you and that's all right.

As far as PCs killed, the Dark Sun game I was in saw a few characters die over the course of a year and we probably had someone below zero nearly every adventure. Some weeks it would be at least once per encounter. I agree w/Walking Dad tho, it is something that will vary drastically between DMs and the kind of adventures they tend to run.

The game I played in where we were doing Revenge of the Giants, I don't think we ever had any deaths, but we certainly had many temporary dirt naps. Sometimes it was even our Cleric heh.

 

[Libramarian]

I don't think this makes any sense at all. It should be equally difficult/hard in either direction. For simplicity, say you have a set of easy rules and a set of hard rules. If the game is hard by default, the easy rules are the house rules. If the game is easy by default, the hard rules are the house rules. Why is switching from one to the other more difficult based on which direction you're going.

Houseruling from easy to hard sets the DM up as the bad guy and encourages rules lawyering and suspicion from the players. If you have an inherently hardass game, then the DM can challenge the players without slipping into an antagonistic role.

 

[nnms]

Houseruling from easy to hard sets the DM up as the bad guy and encourages rules lawyering and suspicion from the players. If you have an inherently hardass game, then the DM can challenge the players without slipping into an antagonistic role.

This is an excellent point. I ran 4E on hard mode for a couple of years and while the regular group members were fine with it, when a new person who liked 4E came to join the game, I was told I wasn't being fair.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I think it's important to understand that there are actually three separate issues people have with "long rest = everything gets reset". Thinking of them as separate (albeit related) issues is crucial for productive discussion. Otherwise you just end up talking past each other.

(1) Hit point loss represents wounds. Serious wounds should not just automatically vanish overnight. Ergo, a complete hit point reset from a long rest doesn't make sense.

So lets make sense then, if a serious wound would not heal in a single nights rest, then a week bed rest wouldn't make serious wound vanish either. A broken bone or stab to the chest needs much more than simple bed rest. You would need hospitalization, maybe for weeks. Without moderm care, infections would probably kill you. Then maybe weeks before you can adventure again.

I have no interest in a RL simulations, but rather a FANTASY game. A fast, FUN, not bloated with loads healing rules. There ALWAYS going to be trade off between playability VS realism.

So just how much realism & sense do we include.

 

[Tovec]

So lets make sense then, if a serious wound would not heal in a single nights rest, then a week bed rest wouldn't make serious wound vanish either. A broken bone or stab to the chest needs much more than simple bed rest. You would need hospitalization, maybe for weeks. Without moderm care, infections would probably kill you. Then maybe weeks before you can adventure again.

I have no interest in a RL simulations, but rather a FANTASY game. A fast, FUN, not bloated with loads healing rules. There ALWAYS going to be trade off between playability VS realism.

So just how much realism & sense do we include.

You are right on all counts. Especially that infections would kill you. That is why amputations are so common until fairly recently.

But as far as your comments that this is fantasy and not reality: Well, I can't think of any fantasy depictions where people lose limbs or have broken bones that don't fix overnight.. except probably all of them. In fact the only time where everything DOES fix over night would probably 4th and 5th edition, or in games like them. I'm completely okay with giving accelerated or non-realistic healing. What I object to is the feeling that just because we are playing a game that all expectations at lethality and long term care go out the window. I find that totally unacceptable. If it takes months to fix bones I can accept it taking only a couple of weeks but I want that to be the baseline instead of all injuries healing overnight.

Even if we go with Mearl's idea that the top half of HP represent minor, almost invisible damages and the bottom half representing deeper or more noticeable damage then we should take those kinds of considerations into account when assigning healing to those wounds.

Again, if it takes 3-6 days for a simple cut to disappear then I can understand it taking 1-2 days in game. If it is internal damages, such as bruises - as suggested, then I would expect a fair bit longer time table. It shouldn't be that you go to sleep and suddenly get all better assuming you had 1 HP left.

 

[VannATLC]

I posted in this in a different thread, but I will be taking on rules that mean every time you reach 0 or below, you lose 1/8 from your maximum HP, and 1HD from your maximum.
These can be restored at a rate of 1HD per day, with a full day of bed-rest (A Long Rest will bring you to your new maximums)

There are healing rituals which take 4 hours and about 100gp to restore those HD, instead.

This is a modification of what I did with 4E and Healing Surges.

I'm not interested in applying penalties other than the missing HP, as I believe they are an abstracted enough resource to cover most areas you'd suffer penalties in.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Me neither. In 4E, you really should avoid describing any hit of any kind in narrative terms because you don't know when a non-magical effect will undo your description and replace it with a "it wasn't so bad after all" retcon.

No. You should in 4e describe hits in precisely the same way that Gygax tells you to in 1e.

Originally Posted by AD&D 1e DMG, page 61
Damage scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially physical - a mere nick or scratch until the last handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections.
​

This gets round the issue of PCs being made of armour plate as describing hits as good solid hits that smash into the PC as hard as an orc can leads to.