Proposed Damage / Healing System

[KarinsDad]

So just to be clear here, you're arguing that the mechanic behind healing surges is a good model for the appropriate level of complexity you'd like to see in 5e?

If you go back and re-read the thread, the reason for me posting this is because I think that if 5E goes back to a 3E and earlier hit points / healing model, it will alienate some 4E players. So, I think a compromise, at least one in one of the add on modules, will probably be needed.

It has nothing to do with the simplicity or complexity of the model, it has to do with finding a model that (after the initial bitch stage by some percentage of players) will allow disparate groups to play the same version of D&D.

If you want to read more into that than I actually wrote, go ahead. It you want to post a constructive way to do that, feel free.

 

[Someone]

I've only skimmed the responses so sorry if I missed it, but in which way is this system fundamentally different in practice to "exactly like 4e, except that you need a spell or more time to recover healing surges?"

 

[KarinsDad]

I've only skimmed the responses so sorry if I missed it, but in which way is this system fundamentally different in practice to "exactly like 4e, except that you need a spell or more time to recover healing surges?"

Running out of healing surges doesn't kill your PC.

Getting hit hard doesn't drop your healing surges.

Healing surges cannot (except for one ritual TMK) be recovered without an extended rest and cannot be recovered in combat.

Healing surges only allow for x heals per day as opposed to as many heals as the PC is able to obtain.

The 15 minute workday is limited in this system to how much healing the group can manage. If they can manage a lot of healing and/or if the group gets in a lot of weaker fights, nothing stops them from having a couple of dozen encounters in a single day.


It's a fundamentally different paradigm.

In our 4E games, the 15 minute workday has changed into a 30 minute workday. We get about 5 encounters handled with 5 minute rests in between. Very few PCs run out of Daily powers, instead they run out of healing surges.


Although few people liked the golfbag of cure wands of 3E, at least that allowed the PCs to continue on after 5 encounters. Healing surges didn't solve that problem, they merely hid it.

 

[El Mahdi]

...

I don't completely agree with your analysis, and I think you missed some of the key points I was talking about. Though in truth we're probably both missing or not understanding some things each of us have posted.

But in the end I don't think it really matters.

The design team for 5E has stated one of their main goals is to make a simple core. This healing system does add extra complication. It may not seem like much to you, but you already have a good understanding of what you want out of this in your head, which makes it "easy" in your eyes. The rest of us don't see it that way. But whether you feel it's simple or not, it is an extra bit of bookeeping, which seems to go against the theme the designers have set down.

I also think there are ramifications or complications with this mechanic that you haven't fully worked out yet or realized. There are balance issues as concerns the math. There is disparity between classes (added disparity over and above what's naturally present with standard class differences). There is inequity issues between characters of different focuses (essentially, if you don't concentrate on having a high Con., you're essentially screwed). I also doubt the designers are going to want a wound model that can only be healed through the use of magic. That's a play style that some find enjoyable, but it's definitely not one that's universal. That being so, it's probably a no sale for inclusion into the core system. Another is when wound points reach a critical stage, if magical healing isn't available your adventuring day is done. I believe that's something else the designers are attempting to avoid.

I think this mechanic seriously changes the nature of the game, making wound points much more important than hit points. But according to the design team, Hit Points are definitely remaining as a core part of what makes the game D&D. Reducing the importance of hit points is yet another reason why it would probably be a no sale. I think it also significantly changes the feel of the game to one that isn't entirely "D&D".

Also, from your poll, it appears that people have some significant issues, concerns, or straight dislikes concerning it. Overwhelmingly, people seem either completely against it or think it needs more work. At this time, only 22%-23% like it as is. 39%-40% definitively do not like it (the majority), and another 35% think it needs work. That's pretty significant. I've seen a lot of defending of the mechanic on your part, but no real acceptance of the criticisms or willingness to address them through changes to the mechanic. If you're not willing to honestly accept criticism of this mechanic, and appropriately apply changes as necessary, I don't have much hope of it being refined into a workable one.

Nothing personal though, I'm just trying to honestly critique the mechanic and the situation.

I wish you luck going forward with this.

 

[KarinsDad]

I also doubt the designers are going to want a wound model that can only be healed through the use of magic.

This is probably exactly what you are going to get with 5E. A model that requires magic or long term rest to resolve. Why? Because that is the simple model of 1E through 3E. The 4E model will be an add on module at best if a compromise is not put into core.

Also, from your poll, it appears that people have some significant issues, concerns, or straight dislikes concerning it. Overwhelmingly, people seem either completely against it or think it needs more work. At this time, only 22%-23% like it as is. 39%-40% definitively do not like it (the majority), and another 35% think it needs work. That's pretty significant.

I view it more as 57% of the people like the concept as the majority, not the 40% who do not. A slightly different spin on the numbers than what you suggest. It's a bit of a stretch to equate the percentage that think that it needs tweaking to mean that it needs significant work.

I've seen a lot of defending of the mechanic on your part, but no real acceptance of the criticisms or willingness to address them through changes to the mechanic. If you're not willing to honestly accept criticism of this mechanic, and appropriately apply changes as necessary, I don't have much hope of it being refined into a workable one.

I'm willing to discuss valid criticism. So far, you haven't presented any. Present some numbers which support your POV and which actually use what I presented and we can discuss. Your disparity idea has some merit, but you based off of some false premises and then went on explaining how to fix it before you presented a solid illustration that it was even a problem.

You need to base your idea off of more solid math of what can and will happen, not what you opine will happen. It wasn't that tough to disprove your idea that high hit point PCs will die before they go unconscious (unless of course they are seriously injured before even starting an encounter). So, your critique is more based on opinion than any reasonable fact, hence, I didn't put much stock in it.

Write up a serious critique with some real math in it and we can discuss. Throw out another opinion which is easily disprovable and again, I'll mostly ignore your ideas. Be a scientist when discussing potential game mechanics, not a journalist, and people will take your ideas more seriously. Show and analyze how the mechanics will or will not work, do not opine how you think they will work. The former can be peer reviewed. The latter cannot.

I wish you luck going forward with this.

I'm not trying to move forward with this. I was actually trying to get people to understand the difficulties with a compromise. I think the 5E design team has their work cut out for them.

This is only one potential model. Regardless of how things work out, it would seem that some major percentage of players think that either hit points should actually mean some portion of physical wounds, or that should be represented via a different mechanic like the model I've proposed.

From what I see from the response here, 57% of people think that way to some extent as well and the 40% who do not might not necessarily disagree with the concept of some portion of physical damage, they just might not like it for a wide variety of unrelated reasons (e.g. an extra layer of complexity; it's not 4E; they think the math might fail; they don't like wound point systems; whatever). One would need to do a different poll to find out that answer.

 

[boredgremlin]

Yeah, not much worth commenting on here. If you don't see the benefits of having hit points auto-heal up during a short rest (i.e. never having to roll dice and cast spells and adding hit points back up until either maxxed or closed to maxxed), having second winds and self healing and Warlords shouting PCs back on their feet without people claiming that they screw up verisimilitude of D&D, having damage, magical healing, and rest actually mean something, and compromising on healing so that players of all versions of D&D could find something they like, then nothing I say will change your mind.

Let me get this straight.
the concept of HP as fatigue= fine with you
the idea of a character picking himself up after being beaten virtually senseless ( 1 or 2 hp left) shaking it off and being just fine a minute later= okay with you as long as the fight is over.

The idea of a buddy (the warlord) walking up to you, helping you up and saying the d@d equivalent of "get your head back in the game and kick some ass" to recover a few HP mid fight = Game breaking madness

And the Idea of that same character getting up, and shaking himself off midfight and re-focusing for the fight to recover a few HP in the middle of the fight instead of magically completely recovering the second the last bad guy falls = Pure frigging game versimilitude breaking madness.....

Okay....

Someone needs to go watch some more contact sports. Boxers, football players and MMA fighters re-focus mid round or play after being rocked all the time. And sometimes come back to win.

Thats a healing surge.
The coach in the corner saying "hey when he fakes with the left kick him" and then putting an ice bag on your head for a second and making sure your focusing on what he's saying? Warlords healing surge.

Whether anyone likes the mechanic or not it has a strong basis in reality, whereas this proposed system does not.

 

[Someone]

Running out of healing surges doesn't kill your PC.

Getting hit hard doesn't drop your healing surges.

Healing surges cannot (except for one ritual TMK) be recovered without an extended rest and cannot be recovered in combat.

Healing surges only allow for x heals per day as opposed to as many heals as the PC is able to obtain.

Yes, of course the details are different. But I don't feel it's going to be noticeably different in practice. I don't say this from a knee jerk reaction to new ideas or fanbyish defense of sacred cows; I just had a very similar idea some time ago and concluded that it wasn't after all that different in real play.

I admit that it may feel different, since you lose healing surges and wounds at different moments are their names are different, but at the end of each encounter, the results are the same. You have full HPs and a more long term vitality resource has depleted slightly, barring extraordinary circumstances like reaching zero wounds or trivial encounters that deal extremely little damage.

The 15 minute workday is limited in this system to how much healing the group can manage. If they can manage a lot of healing and/or if the group gets in a lot of weaker fights, nothing stops them from having a couple of dozen encounters in a single day.

Sure it is. The question is who has a session with a dozen weak encounters.

It's a fundamentally different paradigm.

Yes and no. In one system the sun circles the earth, in the other theory the earth circles the sun, but for the regular guy it dawns at 7 AM nonetheless. You may feel better knowing which one is more correct, but that's subjective to you, and the gameplay doesn't change very much except perhaps that encourages having more leaders and some kind of spellcaster that can remove wounds is now mandatory.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Do not like this idea one of thjoys of 4e for me was that there was no need for magical healing opening up party composition widely.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes, of course the details are different. But I don't feel it's going to be noticeably different in practice. I don't say this from a knee jerk reaction to new ideas or fanbyish defense of sacred cows; I just had a very similar idea some time ago and concluded that it wasn't after all that different in real play.

I admit that it may feel different, since you lose healing surges and wounds at different moments are their names are different, but at the end of each encounter, the results are the same. You have full HPs and a more long term vitality resource has depleted slightly, barring extraordinary circumstances like reaching zero wounds or trivial encounters that deal extremely little damage.

Feel is an important part of the game system. Some people didn't like the 4E rules on diagonal movement. For those people, it felt wrong. But, it was still a rule about diagonal movement, just like the 3E rule. Mechanics that feel properly are important to some players.


The main difference here is that lack of wound points kill, healing surges don't. Players will "feel" a lot more cautious when their PC's wound points are low because the PCs "feel" damaged. It will be VERY different in practice in many cases.

Nobody gives a damn if a PC's healing surges are low. It can go to zero and players might still keep going on to the next encounter (we've done this in our games, especially when something is time critical) because nobody is dead or even necessarily on the verge of dying.

It's a different mechanic and will result in different decision making by the players. It goes beyond just feel, but feel is important. Additionally, the ability to heal wound points will become a factor in the game.


Another thing that will probably change is the concept of Comrade's Succor. In 4E, healing surges feel like the PC is tired, so a lot of players do not mind if their PC gets a little more tired in order for another PC to get a little less tired.

When it's actual damage, though, I suspect that using this type of ritual might be done a lot less frequently.

Wizard PC: "Wait a second, let me get this straight. You want me to take on the Fighter's cracked ribs because he ran out of healing potions? Are you joking?"

Comrade's Succor is a metagaming tool to allow the group to continue on. Change it to wound points and there will be players who balk at it in character because they won't view Wound Points mechanically the same as Healing Surges as you do.


And finally, healing potions themselves work the exact opposite in this model. In 4E, healing potions suck down healing surges. In this model, healing potions give back wound points. The entire healing potion paradigm shifts to a more positive in character one for wound points (i.e. vitality resources increase when healed) compared to the metagaming one of healing surges (i.e. vitality resources decrease when healed).


I just don't see how one can equate the two as being the same when they are so different mechanically and via feel.