LONG REST: let's add some realism.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Don't quite understand the objection over healing to full hit points overnight, when serious injuries take weeks to heal.

Because if you're injured in such a way that it takes weeks to heal, chances are you're not moving and fighting at 100% capacity like you would be at 1 hit point. In D&D, until your character goes down, he's not really injured at all.

 

[Mercutio01]

We should recognize that the pace of natural healing and spell recovery is arbitrary in a game like D&D. To put it baldly, there is no reason spells should recover more easily than HPs.

If grit and resource management are such awesome things in your mind, then you can vastly "improve" your game by bringing spell recovery down to the same rate as "realistic" HP healing.

From a game balance perspective, this makes a tremendous amount of sense. I am all for slower healing in a game where all kinds of recovery are slower (and we can see this is a great place for a sub-system add-on module). The bottom line is it is a tremendous PitA to have to sturdiness of a party vary wildly based on the class selections. All the key character resources should refresh on a similar pace.

I just don't understand this rationale. Spells and hit points are two separate things. One measures the human body's ability to avoid or take damage. One is a measure of concentration and mental power.

I can still read even when I have a gash on my knee, so my mental power is not slowed. I can still study for and take tests when I've sprained my ankle. What I can't do is fight physically at full strength if I've pulled a hamstring. But I can absolutely pray to a god or read a book.

I get that there are metagame reasons, but those don't work for me.

 

[Mattachine]

I just don't understand this rationale. Spells and hit points are two separate things. One measures the human body's ability to avoid or take damage. One is a measure of concentration and mental power.

I can still read even when I have a gash on my knee, so my mental power is not slowed. I can still study for and take tests when I've sprained my ankle. What I can't do is fight physically at full strength if I've pulled a hamstring. But I can absolutely pray to a god or read a book.

I get that there are metagame reasons, but those don't work for me.

Spell recovery is always arbitrary, though. If spells were only based on concentration and study, then why not have unlimited casting? Likewise, whose to say a spell might not take a week to memorize after every casting? The answer: gameplay.

The idea isn't to simulate something about the nature of learning and casting spells, since we aren't modeling real world magic. The idea is to have the resources important to various classes use similar timeframes in the interest of gameplay.

 

[Mercutio01]

Spell recovery is always arbitrary, though. If spells were only based on concentration and study, then why not have unlimited casting? Likewise, whose to say a spell might not take a week to memorize after every casting? The answer: gameplay.

The idea isn't to simulate something about the nature of learning and casting spells, since we aren't modeling real world magic. The idea is to have the resources important to various classes use similar timeframes in the interest of gameplay.

Well, if wizards didn't also have HP to manage, then it would be a valid argument, but they do. Similarly, every class has to rely on Hit Points and manage those, but only wizards and clerics have spells to manage.

Setting the default refresh rate for HP and spells as the same is, again, a metagame reason that doesn't work for me.

Spells in D&D have always had a refresh rate of 8 hours rest in a 24 hour period, whereas HP have not always refreshed completely at the end of a long nap.

The only way I'd consider lengthening the refresh rate for spells is if they also get more spells to cast or had a mechanic to recall spells that have already been cast (like a skill check to recover).

I don't see any compelling reason, other than a metagame insistence on gameplay (which I don't buy anyway) to take the Vancian magic system's default refresh rate (which even carried over into 4E), and muck about with it arbitrarily.

 

[patrick y.]

Well, if wizards didn't also have HP to manage, then it would be a valid argument, but they do. Similarly, every class has to rely on Hit Points and manage those, but only wizards and clerics have spells to manage.

Hit point management for a wizard, however, is less important than it is for a fighter, or other front line character. A fighter's ability to absorb punishment - in the form of high hit points - is much more important to his effectiveness in play than it is for a wizard.

Slowing down hit point recovery in the name of "realism" is another one of those things that theoretically seems like it affects every class equally, but in practice mostly hammers the non-casters.

Again.

 

[Mallus]

I don't see any compelling reason, other than a metagame insistence on gameplay (which I don't buy anyway) to take the Vancian magic system's default refresh rate (which even carried over into 4E), and muck about with it arbitrarily.

Why do you think the "default spell refresh rate" is every 24 hour day?

It's because of a metagame insistence on gameplay.

It's not --as far as I remember them-- to maintain fidelity to Vance's Dying Earth stories. D&D's magic system only bears a partial resemblance to Vance's works, anyway.

 

[Gadget]

I just don't understand this rationale. Spells and hit points are two separate things.

Okay I'm with you so far.

One measures the human body's ability to avoid or take damage.

Hold it! I call shenanigans! D&D Hit points have never really measured the human body's ability to take or avoid damage well, as evidenced by being at full fighting trim until the last hp is gone. Hit Points, whatever verbiage they're dressed up in, have always been a form of ablative script immunity. They may be a little better at modelling something like endurance, but even that is a bit iffy.

One is a measure of concentration and mental power.

Presumably, there is some expenditure physical/mental/spiritual energy or endurance to either prepare or cast a spell as well.

I can still read even when I have a gash on my knee, so my mental power is not slowed. I can still study for and take tests when I've sprained my ankle.

Painful wounds effect my mental concentration, to a greater or lesser degree, but maybe I'm just not tough enough.

What I can't do is fight physically at full strength if I've pulled a hamstring.

Except in D&D, you always could (unless a 'pulled hamstring' is going to zero or below hit points in your interpretation).

But I can absolutely pray to a god or read a book.

I think it a valid interpretation that a purely fictional activity such as preparing and casting a spell is a little less passive than you imply here.

I get that there are metagame reasons, but those don't work for me.

I get that having a 'resource management' mini-game that expands recovery of hit points beyond a 24-hour period is a desired and fun play style for many (Personally, I think rolling your level in Hit Dice for recovered hit points after an extended rest is a good starting point), but using the word 'realism' as an argument doesn't work for me.

 

[Mercutio01]

Hold it! I call shenanigans! D&D Hit points have never really measured the human body's ability to take or avoid damage well, as evidenced by being at full fighting trim until the last hp is gone. Hit Points, whatever verbiage they're dressed up in, have always been a form of ablative script immunity. They may be a little better at modelling something like endurance, but even that is a bit iffy.

Well, that's demonstrably wrong. In Chainmail, one hit was death. In OD&D, you got 1d6 hit points per level and damage was 1d6 for each weapon, the inference being each hit was actually physical damage. AD&D broke with this and inflated HP progression and then came up with the idea that HP were both, but BECMI indicated that HP were damage. 2E specifically calls it as damage only, and 3E shifted back into the nebulous area that AD&D occupied, and 4E sort of did the same, but tried to take down the physical side of HP at bloodied/half max HP. So, you're actually incorrect in the "never" point of that statement.

Furthermore, if having fewer Healing Surges in 4E but full HP (also doesn't prevent you from fighting just as hard) can be rationalized as fighting hurt, then so can being down Hit Points from your max. You simply aren't fighting at full strength after you've taken a hit. Your ability to take hits is actually less. You may swing your sword just as hard, but you are hurt as indicated by the fact that further hits may knock you out or kill you.

Presumably, there is some expenditure physical/mental/spiritual energy or endurance to either prepare or cast a spell as well.

Sure, but that's not physical damage that needs to heal overnight. If you've taken a test today on math, you can take a test on math again tomorrow with some more studying and some rest. If you take a dagger slash across your forearm, that cut is still going to be there tomorrow.

Painful wounds effect my mental concentration, to a greater or lesser degree, but maybe I'm just not tough enough.

Right, so you argument here is? If you were trying to say that when a wizard is hurt, he gains spells back slower, that might be relevant. But you're not.

I think it a valid interpretation that a purely fictional activity such as preparing and casting a spell is a little less passive than you imply here.

Except that it's not, in the rules. It takes a rest, and then some preparation (in 3E/PF it was an hour). There are no checks or anything like that, hence it is definitely passive.

I get that having a 'resource management' mini-game that expands recovery of hit points beyond a 24-hour period is a desired and fun play style for many (Personally, I think rolling your level in Hit Dice for recovered hit points after an extended rest is a good starting point), but using the word 'realism' as an argument doesn't work for me.

And I didn't use the word "realism" now did, I? And I agree with your parenthetical.

If we track spells in exactly the same fashion as we track HP, then I might be able to buy the idea that all resource management should refresh on the same time sequence. But we don't. The resources are different and come from different pools, and do different things, so why should they all be tracked the same?

There are systems that track everything the same. Systems like Mutants and Masterminds and Champions, where everything is balanced exactly on a base number of build points.

Maybe if D&D shifted completely into a spell points system we could talk about the refresh rates being synchronized, but then I'd want to see the wizards having spell points at exactly the same rate as fighters have HP. If a fighter has 40 HP, then a wizard should have 40 SP. I mean, if we're shooting for completely metagame mechanical equivalency, then let's do that. If we're going to have different systems, then I've yet to be convinced that they all need to refresh at the same rate.

 

[Ranganathan]

Realism isn't something that D&D does. How does it add realism by adjusting the recovery rate of a purely abstract resource (hit points) that in themselves have no sense of realism? Read the playtest, hit points are not purely a physical damage meter. Which makes Mearls' comments about "realism" in the live chat today even more boggling.

Realism in D&D would be hardmode AD&D, everything rolled--in order--classes determined solely by those rolls, and hit points rolled according to class with no recourse by the players. Then, no gaining levels or hit points ever. That's a damn sight closer to "realism". The down side is it's damned dull to play that way. This is a game after all. And a game about wizards, dragons, elves, and dwarves no less. Realism isn't something D&D has ever done in general or done well when it's tried.

 

[Mercutio01]

Realism isn't something that D&D does. Where's the realism in adjusting the recovery rate of a purely abstract resource (hit points) that in themselves have no sense of realism?

Realism in D&D would be hardmode AD&D, everything rolled--in order--classes determined solely by those rolls, and hit points rolled according to class with no recourse by the players. Then, no gaining levels or hit points ever. That's a damn sight closer to "realism". The down side is it's damned dull to play that way. This is a game after all. And a game about wizards, dragons, elves, and dwarves no less. Realism isn't something D&D has ever done in general or done well when it's tried.

So is the answer to remove any attempts at verisimilitude? I mean, if that's the case, then why shouldn't everyone be playing Super-Ninja-Merlin-Wolverine? Or give everyone 25000 Hit Points and the innate ability to fly and shoot lightning bolts from their ass?

No one is asking for a game that simultaneously emulates degree programs in engineering, medicine, particle physics, fluid-dynamics, English literature, history, and sociology. We just want a nod in the direction, something that's seemingly plausible. Do people who get angry because some of us want the illusion of real healing also get pissed off at Star Trek because it nods more in the direction of realism than Star Wars? Do they look at Dresden Files and get angry because Murphy uses pistols? I mean, it's totally unrealistic that a human casts magic with a staff, so why shouldn't Murphy wear a mech-suit and blast things to pieces with gamma missiles?

The reason for nods to realism is because not every one wants to play fantasy superheroes. Some people do want to play fantasy Vietnam (not me), and some people just want to meet somewhere in the middle. We don't want 1990s style super-gritty anti-hero Punisher, but neither do we want Golden Age super fantastic invincible goody-two-shoes Superman.