Realism vs. Believability and the Design of HPs, Powers and Other Things

[Neonchameleon]

@Neonchameleon - We're down to opinions and personal feelings about the game now, which means a fundamental difference in how we play D&D, what we want out of D&D, and how we view various incarnations of D&D over the years. I've never felt that HP were broken. We are at an impasse. And 5E is supposed to bridge the gap between us. They have a ridiculously hard task to complete and I don't envy their position. I hope they can do it.

Yup.

(Incidentally in 3.5, crafting wands requires the cleric to be level 5 and expend a valuable feat slot [of which they'd only have 3 if they were humans, 2 if any other race].

The single best investment they can make.

It can't be rushed and it sets back the crafter's experience delaying his next chance to level up.

XP is a river.

And that all means time not spent exploring dungeons, saving kingdoms, searching for lost treasures, etc. It's not as simple as "Hey, let's take a break in this dungeon to make a wand." or "Delay the assault on the castle as long as you can. I'm busy making this wand here.")

It's one day. If your PCs are needed every single day then I dread to think how much of the world they are busy depopulating.

And now comes out the "reality" argument, which holds absolutely zero weight because REAL clerics didn't cast spells at all. Drop the silliness.

Myths and stories are based on things people find in reality.

So your "good fiction" involves nigh unkillable heroes

Not proven.

who heal themselves simply by taking a five minute rest or sleeping one night

I agree that 4e extended rests are a mistake. And have frequently said that I houserule extended rests to a long lazy weekend at a minimum. This problem is ultimately no different to the classic D&D spellcaster recovery one where spellcasters get a full loadout of spells each day, every day.

EDIT: And I'm done arguing with you because it's completely apparent that neither side really groks the problems the other side has. Different experiences, different expectations, different desires, and different viewpoints, all of which are irreconcilable without differing rules to cater to each side. You're unwilling to take a step back, as you probably see it, and I think the step forward was no such thing, so I don't want to move away from what has worked since RPGs were created for a system that I just don't like, even after playing it for 2 years.

Agreed.

To me, this is merely a question of "Do we want cure light wounds to be craftable in a wand at such a wholesale price"...to which the answer must be a resounding No. If anything, it kills off clerics just as much as healing surges do. Let's make clerics reflavorable and fun to play, including combat, with whatever weapons their deities favor, and we can move on from there.

Reflavourable and fun to play is exactly what 4e did.

This skirts my other main point, that a level 1 hero with ten surges has over 100hp to soak up each and every day. This is more HP than almost any other character I've played,

And damage per attack is higher and monster hit points are higher. A non-minion kobold has over 20hp as opposed to IIRC 2.

There's a difference between action hero and Superman. If a wizard feels like superman (our wizard too, never spent his entire allowed surges in two years of gameplay), Houston, we have a problem.

You know what feels like Superman? The ability to stop time. The ability to travel across the continent in the blink of an eye. The ability to showboat making yourself utterly immune to arrows.

Huston, we have a pre-4e wizard. And I'll happily accept that pre MM3 monsters didn't do enough damage.

That said in our PF games without a cleric, our wand has come in handy and allowed us to ram through lots of adventures while stuff having tons of danger and chance of death during combat, something I've never, ever experienced or felt in 4e, no matter the DM, module or custom setting.

YMMV. I have no problem terrifying my PCs in 4e post MM3.

When PCs die once every few sessions, you tend to learn the value of life and avoiding that.

The campaign I was in with S'mon had an average PC death rate of more than 1/session. (This included several near TPKs admittedly).

Why in two+ years of playing 4e every week did we not respec a single player as a cleric? because none of us died and made us think "hey, maybe I should build my new char as a cleric and the party would do better."

Ding, dong, the witch is dead! The idea that "Hey! This one class needs to be in any party" is in 4e exactly where it belongs. Six foot underground and well tamped down. People should be able to play what they want, not be strongarmed into playing clerics.

That said, no deaths is excessive. Seriously excessive. And they did have to raise monster damage.

This is quite different than, well, maybe you might be better off with a cleric in your party.

In PF, in my experience, no cleric = dead.

And this is a good thing? Forcing someone to play a cleric rather than giving them free reign to choose whichever of the twenty or so classes there are. The idea that the party must recruit a cleric is not a good thing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Y'know, just today (yesterday since it's 2am), I was in a pick-up game, because we just had too many players for Gardmore Abbey. I ended up playing a cleric someone else had built. Not quite a pacifist, but pretty close - Beacon of Hope, Stream of Life, etc - not my preferred sort of character. The rest of the 'party' were strikers. We went through 3 combats. The first one was a funny/frustrating dice-fueled wiff-fest, with hardly a double-digit coming up on the d20s for the longest time. Once the DMs dice warmed up, one of the strikers dropped and I brought her back, with a side defense-buff rider, and gave her a re-roll on her next attack. She finished one of the monsters with it. Also brought back another PC in the second fight, which was a fun one with an over-leveled Elite and some re-usable minions (minion's it was actually /good/ to crit). The 3rd fight was brutal, we missed a fairly obvious trap and got dropped into a room, surrounded, beat on, and another trap triggered on us. Everyone bloodied in the surprise round. Ongoing 10 damage getting tossed against us every round at 6th level. Beacon of Hope, Healer's Mercy, followed by a utility to get me to the far side of the original trap and Stream of Life. Cleric turned around a near-TPK just like that. By the end, the strikers had beaten down the last enemy, and Stream of Life had them all un-bloodied (I was bloodied, though - I failed my first to Stream of Life saves - awesome prayer, but you can kill yourself with it).

Maybe if the DM had put more design time into the encounters they would've been easier, but the sense of jeopardy was certainly there.

In casual play, I've seen more than a few TPKs with inexperienced players. I've also seen them prevented. Sometimes by a cleric (or Warpriest), once by a Mage.

No particular point beyond "yeah, experiences vary."

 

[Neonchameleon]

Just thought I'd add that to me D&D has always been cinematic. My first two fantasy roleplaying games were GURPS and WHFRP. When GURPS is your baseline, any claim to combat in D&D being risible or it not being a cinematic game becomes ... dubious at best. WFRP is set in a crapsack world with the concept of going into a dungeon being the height of stupidity.

I have my game of gritty realism. I have my game in a crapsack world. And neither of them has the massively escalating HP of D&D. To me D&D has always been about larger than life heroes, very combat-centric because the PCs were likely to not only win but win without being seriously impeded. And when D&D tries to do grit and realism it fits thematically to me about as well as 90s "dark" comic books involving four colour supers. For that matter, a 3.X D&D wizard can make Dr Strange look like an amateur. And Gandalf a mere beginner.

So rather than try to make D&D something it isn't (gritty), 4e embraces sword and sorcery and is the best match for Appendix N of any edition. It also embraces the larger than life legends the hit point system calls for (although the active capabilities don't) and allows for a mythological game. (No cutting the tops off mountains as in celtic myth tho).

 

[wrightdjohn]

I disagree. The gritty days of BECMI/1e are very fond memories for me. I suppose it's all what you call gritty. It doesn't have to be hyper realistic. It can be cinematic. But to be gritty it needs to be dangerous and it needs to require preparation and skill to defeat the enemies.

 

[Gorgoroth]

...

time doth not heal all

"I have a wound Sam, a wound that will not heal"

It's too bad persistent, chronic wounds such as Frodo's cannot be modelled in D&D.

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/ aside A beautiful passage from LOTR, blatantly ripped from this site:

'Do not be afraid,' said Aragorn. 'I came in time, and I have called him back. He is weary now, and grieved, and he has taken a hurt like the Lady Éowyn, daring to smite that deadly thing. But these evils can be amended, so strong and gay a spirit is in him. His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.'

Then Aragorn laid his hand on Merry's head, and passing his hand gently through the brown curls, he touched the eyelids, and called him by name. And when the fragrance of athelas stole through the room, like the scent of orchards, and of heather in the sunshine full of bees, suddenly Merry awoke, and he said:

'I am hungry. What is the time?'

 

[billd91]

time doth not heal all

"I have a wound Sam, a wound that will not heal"

It's too bad persistent, chronic wounds such as Frodo's cannot be modelled in D&D.

I don't think it is modeled, but I think it exists. Players get weary of playing a particular character or think their story is played out. They move on and start another one.

 

[pemerton]

It's too bad persistent, chronic wounds such as Frodo's cannot be modelled in D&D.

I quite like [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]'s approach.

Another is via the curse mechanics.

 

[Hussar]

time doth not heal all

"I have a wound Sam, a wound that will not heal"

It's too bad persistent, chronic wounds such as Frodo's cannot be modelled in D&D.

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/snip'

Actually, modeling that in 4e is easy peasy. Just use the disease track. Done.

 

[Gorgoroth]

fair enough

although I'd love to play some more 4e, it would have to be in a heavily houseruled world with custom magic items and so on, and there are just no 4e games going on in my city, at least in the somewhat fair amount of gamers I know in my circles.

Perhaps there are more out there...but why waste one's life chasing the receding tide out to sea.

 

[pemerton]

Actually, modeling that in 4e is easy peasy. Just use the disease track. Done.

The Book of Vile Darkness adapts the disease track to curses.