I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Pentius]

As far as their abstract nature...

I had a discussion with a player about hit points years ago, I forget the edition. I explained that I felt that hit points represented more than just damage taken, it was also exhaustion and luck. The DMG at the time backed me up on that. His reply was that "Well, then if that poisoned blade didn't actually hit me, why do I need to Save vs Poison?"

I didn't have a good response to that, and I still don't.

There are ways to get poison into a human body without cutting it open first. Maybe it's a contact poison, and a drop flew off the blade at the PC. The save would be to see if he was lucky enough to have it not hit, or land on his armor. Maybe he blocks the hit, or turns it aside on his armor, but a smear of poison tries to seep through.

 

[Pentius]

Ok, I'm not picking on Naszir, here, it's just the most recent example of what I'm addressing.


Second wind causes the character to heal themself of wounds.

The 4e phb quotes I've provided slightly upthread seem to disagree with our common sense view of it, and state (pretty clearly, actually) that it's closing of wounds.


Now, I agree with everyone else who is claiming that it makes more sense if healing surges represent adrenaline or whatever else, rather than actually healing wounds....but that is not what it is spelled out as in the 4e phb.

I'm asking: Can anyone provide an actual WotC source that says what healing surges represent other than the closing of wounds/healing?



So, there's the challenge...is it just people making sense of it in their own way, or does WotC ever actually say anywhere that it represents something other than healing?

Actually, I can and you already did. 4e PHB, page 293, that you quoted earlier:

"Powers, abilities, and actions that restore hit points
are known as healing. You might regain hit points
through rest, heroic resolve, or magic."

This is right underneath the part where hit points are described as not being entirely physical. And there it is. "Healing" is defined as the regaining of hit points, not the closing of wounds.

You're ok with the rules actively going against your narrating? Rules are a tool for me, they are not going to dictate my narrating.

I can use the hitpoint rule and narrate how it works just fine (regardless if people agree what HPs represent). You can't do that with healing surges without making all kinds of assumptions and contradicting your narrating. If I could make sense of it in my narrations (in a way I liked) then it wouldn't be ok. But rather than let it dictate how I narrate, I'd rather not use the rule at all. Especially because I don't need the rule unless I want D&D to be easier to win.

BTW, just because you bold lines of text doesn't mean you just proved how I'm playing D&D wrong. You don't need to do that. The "deal with it" comment was also unnecessary. You need to chill out if you're getting that upset just because I hate healing surges.

I find it rather amusing that you call out my admittedly unnecessary "deal with it" comment in a post that contains unnecessary comments about me letting the rules dictate my narration and about surges making D&D easier to win. Neither of us is raising the bar here.

 

[JamesonCourage]

There are ways to get poison into a human body without cutting it open first. Maybe it's a contact poison, and a drop flew off the blade at the PC. The save would be to see if he was lucky enough to have it not hit, or land on his armor. Maybe he blocks the hit, or turns it aside on his armor, but a smear of poison tries to seep through.

In a game like 3.X, contact poison and injury poison are two separate and distinct things, and injury poison applies as long as at least 1 hit point of damage is dealt. From the SRD:

Contact
Merely touching this type of poison necessitates a saving throw. It can be actively delivered via a weapon or a touch attack. Even if a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison can still affect it. A chest or other object can be smeared with contact poison as part of a trap.

Injury
This poison must be delivered through a wound. If a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison does not affect it. Traps that cause damage from weapons, needles, and the like sometimes contain injury poisons.

 

[Dark Mistress]

To clear up the fuzzy memory of yours, second wind more represents getting an adrenaline rush and finding the fortitude to recover. It's not that hard to visualize. You see it all the time when someone has been presented with a crisis. There are times where you just feel like you cannot give anymore but you somehow find a way to push yourself and you get a second wind. Runners find it, hikers find it, and people who play sports find a second wind.

Yeah i know that is the accepted view of it. But to me hp is health. I am in the camp of. Why does 8 points near kill a level 1 fighter but a level 10 shrugs it off as follows. A level 1 doesn't know much more than the basic swings and a block or two. A level 10 knows lots of blocks and deflections and dodges. So a level 1 gets hit and takes most of the brunt of the great axe to the chest. The level 10 deflects the blow so it glances off her shoulder armor leaving a small but mildly painful shallow cut.

Since I see hp that way, second wind breaks immersion for me. To be fair I don't like it in movies either. I find it annoying when the hero is beat down nearly dead and then suddenly pops up and kicks ass like he was never hurt. To me second wind feels the same way. Which is fine if you like what I call cinematic game play, which I don't.

 

[Dark Mistress]

I can empathize with this point, but I think the 1d8+x hp model for cure light wounds serves a pretty good purpose. If the healing spells recovered a fraction of the target's hp total, how do you quickly heal low-level characters? Cure light healing 1d8+x serves the purpose of healing a much larger proportion of a low-level character's hit points. That helps low-level character durability immensely.

What may serve both your preferences and the needs of the game with low-level characters is a mechanism where characters are healed xd8+x amount below a certain level of hp, and a proportion of hp for higher hp. Alternatively, you'd need to come up with an entirely different structure for healing spells - not based on light, moderate, serious, etc wounds.

Yeah i get what you mean, I still don't agree and here's why. You take a 18 con Barby who gets dropped to 0 hp. A max CLW at 1st level barely puts him above half hp. While a 16 con wizard would be perfectly healed by the same spell with the same roll. I honestly do like the % of health healed better that healing surges do than the roll.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like CLW healing 25% of your health + cleric levels or something, or even 50% + cleric levels. The current 3.5/pathfinder system is ok and I do like it better than how healing surges currently work in 4e. But I also think healing surges have a lot of potential to be a good system with a bit more work IMHO.

 

[Spatula]

I can empathize with this point, but I think the 1d8+x hp model for cure light wounds serves a pretty good purpose. If the healing spells recovered a fraction of the target's hp total, how do you quickly heal low-level characters?

The same way you quickly heal high-level characters. Since all healing would be relative to HP totals anyway, healing methods become independent of level.

I can imagine a version of D&D where clerics (frex) get their normal complement of spells, and then also get some healing ability that is not tied to level in the same way that spells are. That is, instead of having to sacrifice memorization slots for healing spells, or sacrifice other spells to spontaneously cast healing spells, the cleric's spells & magical band-aids are separate. (although the cleric might choose to have some spells that heal in his/her repertoire, as a supplement to the class' healing ability) Since healing would be proportional, the system doesn't need several spells of different levels that accomplish the same thing - heal some HP.

Well, that's pretty much how the cleric and other healers work in 4e. But I can see the idea being transported into AD&D or 3e games as well, when paired with the concept of surges.

 

[Spatula]

I apologize in advance if I missed it, but I haven't found a response to this excellent post, that elegantly summarizes what many feel is wrong with the HS.

The only answer I have found doesn't address at all the "Schrödinger" issue.

The "Schrödinger" issue only exists if you have a warlord in the party, so if you have a problem with that... ban the warlord class? *shrug*

 

[JamesonCourage]

The "Schrödinger" issue only exists if you have a warlord in the party, so if you have a problem with that... ban the warlord class? *shrug*

I'm not very familiar with 4e, but wouldn't this problem exist with the Second Wind mechanic that everyone is entitled to? I'm trying to piece it together based off of memory and context used within this threat.

 

[Oryan77]

Neither of us is raising the bar here.

I can agree to that.

 

[Dausuul]

The "Schrödinger" issue only exists if you have a warlord in the party, so if you have a problem with that... ban the warlord class? *shrug*

Any time there isn't a source of magical healing in the party and someone is reduced to zero or less, the issue arises. You can spend any number of healing surges after a short rest; so, 5 minutes after you were dealt a "mortal wound," you're back on your feet and ready to roll.