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Proposed Fix for Whack-a-Mole Healing
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7074794" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>A rule that applies to a lot more then just RPGs is that you need to understand a rule before you can break it.</p><p></p><p>Why is the "heal from zero" / whack-a-mole rule in the game?</p><p></p><p>Once you know that, you can determine if you don't like <em>why it's there</em> and change it.</p><p></p><p>My personal though is such:</p><p>Combat takes up a lot of time by wall clock, perhaps more then any other single activity over time. The designers are aware of this, making sure that while other pillars fo the game may be suitably serviced by a subset of the party, every character can have a meaningful role in combat. So then, if a rule has been introcluded and kept to allow bringing characters back quickly, as least partially it's to keep the players involved. There is so many rolls in combat that a run of luck can drop anyone, and then they are bored. It also has a cascading effect where an encounter planed for a group of X is suddenly dealing with a smaller group that has an unexpected hole in it's capabilities.</p><p></p><p>So ... bringing characters back from unconsciousness for "normal" combats is a factor of (a) helping to keep players from being bored, and (b) stopping encounters from running away and killing a lot/all of the characters when not intended.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying this is correct - this is my opinion of why the rule is there. Heal-from-zero was introduced in 4e and with so many things they didn't keep, keeping this I feel was absolutely intentional, and that's my guess at why.</p><p></p><p>So: the large number of rolls in combat make it that characters can go down with a run of luck through no fault of their own, and this is there to help balance it so players aren't bored. Seems a reasonable goal for me. Balancing it against other reasonable goals like increased verisimilitude or admonishments against dropping are fine - find a balance for your table. At my table, consider how much my risk-adverse players already overthink, I'm happy with the default balance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 7074794, member: 20564"] A rule that applies to a lot more then just RPGs is that you need to understand a rule before you can break it. Why is the "heal from zero" / whack-a-mole rule in the game? Once you know that, you can determine if you don't like [i]why it's there[/i] and change it. My personal though is such: Combat takes up a lot of time by wall clock, perhaps more then any other single activity over time. The designers are aware of this, making sure that while other pillars fo the game may be suitably serviced by a subset of the party, every character can have a meaningful role in combat. So then, if a rule has been introcluded and kept to allow bringing characters back quickly, as least partially it's to keep the players involved. There is so many rolls in combat that a run of luck can drop anyone, and then they are bored. It also has a cascading effect where an encounter planed for a group of X is suddenly dealing with a smaller group that has an unexpected hole in it's capabilities. So ... bringing characters back from unconsciousness for "normal" combats is a factor of (a) helping to keep players from being bored, and (b) stopping encounters from running away and killing a lot/all of the characters when not intended. I'm not saying this is correct - this is my opinion of why the rule is there. Heal-from-zero was introduced in 4e and with so many things they didn't keep, keeping this I feel was absolutely intentional, and that's my guess at why. So: the large number of rolls in combat make it that characters can go down with a run of luck through no fault of their own, and this is there to help balance it so players aren't bored. Seems a reasonable goal for me. Balancing it against other reasonable goals like increased verisimilitude or admonishments against dropping are fine - find a balance for your table. At my table, consider how much my risk-adverse players already overthink, I'm happy with the default balance. [/QUOTE]
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