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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
The Healing Paradox
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<blockquote data-quote="Lalato" data-source="post: 5950896" data-attributes="member: 9171"><p>I definitely believe that so long as you have daily recovery of healing spells, and available potions or other items that aid healing, and unlimited healing potential, you cannot have a game of survival the way it is being described. You have to actively remove these things from the game in order to have that kind of grim and gritty story.</p><p></p><p>I'm in a 4e campaign where the PCs often find themselves with 2 or less surges (sometimes 0 surges) and have to continue because they are in a place where extended rests are impossible. In fact, the PCs found themselves in a situation like that after the last session (and two PCs died in the last battle... down to 3... Yikes).</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, there is very little hope left to make it through, but they don't really have a choice. They have to keep pushing to get out of the situation they're in or become Mindflayer dinner. And nobody wants to become Mindflayer dinner.</p><p></p><p>The main difference here is that at this point... they can't even gain more HP since they're down so low on surges. So they're going to have to come up with some interesting plans to avoid any other combats... because they have to really manage all their remaining HP related resources in order to make it out alive.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I mention this to note that just because there is overnight healing doesn't mean that you can't have tension from lack of HP. You can have plenty of it... it just comes from slightly different circumstances.</p><p></p><p>I agree that if you want that same tension over the course of days, just limiting max HP recovery (a la healing surges) doesn't work... but I also think that default D&D with freely available healing, and the potential to heal to full regardless of how much "action" a PC has seen in the last 24 hours is less likely to result in the desired grim and gritty outcome. You have to impose some other elements to get that outcome... lower magical healing access, slower HP recovery, max out HP recovery between long rests, environmental issues which make long rests impossible or less useful, etc.</p><p></p><p>You don't have to use all of the options, but I think "natural" healing vs. "magical" healing isn't the main issue. It's part of it, but there is a lot more to it than just that. Unfortunately, many people focus on this one aspect and ignore all the other things they can use to arrive at the grim and gritty outcome they're looking for.</p><p></p><p>Me, myself, and I? I think overnight rest works fine for most situations. For those few other situations/campaigns... I would look at the whole universe of dials that could be turned to make it have the level of grittiness I'm after.</p><p></p><p>At this point I'm just rambling so I'll just stop. Good discussion folks. Be sure to give your feedback to WotC if you're doing the playtest.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lalato, post: 5950896, member: 9171"] I definitely believe that so long as you have daily recovery of healing spells, and available potions or other items that aid healing, and unlimited healing potential, you cannot have a game of survival the way it is being described. You have to actively remove these things from the game in order to have that kind of grim and gritty story. I'm in a 4e campaign where the PCs often find themselves with 2 or less surges (sometimes 0 surges) and have to continue because they are in a place where extended rests are impossible. In fact, the PCs found themselves in a situation like that after the last session (and two PCs died in the last battle... down to 3... Yikes). Unfortunately, there is very little hope left to make it through, but they don't really have a choice. They have to keep pushing to get out of the situation they're in or become Mindflayer dinner. And nobody wants to become Mindflayer dinner. The main difference here is that at this point... they can't even gain more HP since they're down so low on surges. So they're going to have to come up with some interesting plans to avoid any other combats... because they have to really manage all their remaining HP related resources in order to make it out alive. Anyway, I mention this to note that just because there is overnight healing doesn't mean that you can't have tension from lack of HP. You can have plenty of it... it just comes from slightly different circumstances. I agree that if you want that same tension over the course of days, just limiting max HP recovery (a la healing surges) doesn't work... but I also think that default D&D with freely available healing, and the potential to heal to full regardless of how much "action" a PC has seen in the last 24 hours is less likely to result in the desired grim and gritty outcome. You have to impose some other elements to get that outcome... lower magical healing access, slower HP recovery, max out HP recovery between long rests, environmental issues which make long rests impossible or less useful, etc. You don't have to use all of the options, but I think "natural" healing vs. "magical" healing isn't the main issue. It's part of it, but there is a lot more to it than just that. Unfortunately, many people focus on this one aspect and ignore all the other things they can use to arrive at the grim and gritty outcome they're looking for. Me, myself, and I? I think overnight rest works fine for most situations. For those few other situations/campaigns... I would look at the whole universe of dials that could be turned to make it have the level of grittiness I'm after. At this point I'm just rambling so I'll just stop. Good discussion folks. Be sure to give your feedback to WotC if you're doing the playtest. [/QUOTE]
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