I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Nagol]

<snip>


The only real difference between 4E and 3E here is that you don't have to tote around Father Maynard if you don't want to.

Actually, the difference is that the play group could, should it so choose, decide to conduct adventures in an injured state a la Tristian and Isolde. That adventure space has been shrinking since 1e and is completely gone in 4e.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Pretty much, no. If they were taking wounds which required actual healing (either magical or surgical), then you'd also have things like on-going bleeding damage, penalties to your attack rolls and skill checks, etc. After all, if you've got a "wicked huge gash" in your leg, aren't you going to at least be hobbling around a bit, taking penalty to your speed and Tumble and Jump checks at least?

So, if you're having to make saves before you die, is that enough of an indication that you can narrate a bad wound? I mean, your list includes "on-going bleeding damage, penalties to your attack rolls and skill checks, etc." If your character is incapacitated and having to make saves or die from being in the negatives, isn't that cause enough to narrate a "deep gash" by those terms?

If they narrated that a particular attack caused a particular wound (even though the rules don't say it does), but then complained when the effects of that wound weren't mechanically supported, then yes - they'd be acting foolishly.

There seems to be some sort of gap here. In my eyes, the rules are supposed to be an abstract game model that helps progress the narration of the game. I feel like it's reasonable to have an attainable expectation of purposefully abstract rules supporting a narrative common within the genre. If the rules fall flat here, that's a problem with the rules. It might be foolish to buck against them, but the argument is, "the rule is bad for the type of narrative I'd like to see possible" and not, "the rules won't let me run my narrative, and I can't figure out why."

If you are trying to play a game that is about being in a cool story and involves a lot of combat and then you ban all injury that could possible require aid then you have created a HUGE irreconcilable problem.

No, you haven't. By adding in meaningful injuries, you are creating the problem.

First, I think you missed part of BryonD's quote. You left out the very short next sentence: "But that is for what I want." BryonD is saying that the rules are creating a "HUGE irreconcilable problem" for what he wants. Which, as he's indicated, is as follows:

I mean I want to feel like I am in a novel and TO HELL with "game".

So, the real context of what he quoted was basically, "when rules get in the way of making it feel like I'm in a novel because of arbitrary game mechanics, it's fails to conform to the model I want in a game." So, you telling him that adding meaningful injuries creates a problem does not make sense within the context he gave.

Second, the rules demonstrate that there is such a thing as meaningful injuries. That is, you can die from them. Obviously they're meaningful. If that's the case, it seems like narrating a "deep gash" to describe why someone drops in combat should be reasonable. After all, it meets your list of "on-going bleeding damage, penalties to your attack rolls and skill checks, etc." Some people complain when the rules go back and contradict what should be a perfectly reasonable narrative. Nobody is confused as to why this happens.

Why in the HELL are you narrating in a gash, anyway, since the rules don't require or meaningfully support it's existence? And then why are you complaining when the rules don't mechanically support getting rid of something they never told you to put there in the first place?

The rules do support meaningful wounds. You can die from them. Narrating a wound that causes ongoing bleeding damage, as well as more than adequate penalties on attack rolls and skill checks, it seems to fit what you're looking for. And yet, the rules contradict this narrative later on, either by saying "it wasn't really that bad" or by glossing over it and letting everyone heal to full health with little explanation.

"Doctor, it hurts when I keep doing this!"
"Well, then, stop doing that!"

The complaint is with the rules not supporting a common genre narrative. It's not "I can't get this to work." It'd be more akin to:

"Doctor, I can't lift my arm."
"Well, then, stop trying to lift it."

It's not really satisfactory if you want to lift your arm. In this case, saying, "well, the rules don't support that narrative" is like the following:

"Doctor, I can't lift my arm."
"Well, you can't lift your arm."

Yes, we know that. We know the rules don't fit that narrative. Saying, "that's how it works" isn't helpful, and saying "work around it" doesn't help when the goal requires that type of narrative to be an option. And, in a thread where the main question was, "why don't you like healing surges?", it seems like a more than reasonable thing to say.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's 375gp + a handful of XP + a single day of downtime for 50 uses of Cure Light Wounds. (And a feat, but Craft Wand's a damn good feat for a wizard to pick up anyway.)

And yet I have never seen a player take this option in any 3Ed or 3.5Ed game.

It's cheaply available and ridiculously useful for the cost. It's ~half the price of brewing potions of CLW, and even they aren't terribly expensive if you prefer that route.

Just because something may be cheap to make does not make it readily available. Like any other product in the market, they can be "out of stock"- after all, the PCs aren't the only ones in the world risking life & limb. And regardless of cost, they take time to make.

The fact that you never had standard-issue-healsticks, IMO, marks you as more the outlier than my game.

1) I'm with him, obviously- CLW wands were treasure, not commodities, so they weren't always available.

2) since there is no published "census" of D&D campaigns (just postings on the Internet by those willing to talk), there is no way to know who the outliers really are. To me, having never seen Ye Olde CLW Wand Haus in 30+ years in the game (in 3 states, in 5 cities), YOUR claim seems to be a statistical aberration.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

That is, however, a pretty big difference.

Certainly; I don't deny that it is.

There's no rules for that in D&D. You interpret that as you can't take a wicked huge gash in D&D; I interpret that as D&D characters ignore the realistic effects of nasty wounds.

Fine, then - if you want it that way, why can't they continue to ignore the effect of that nasty wound tomorrow, then? Why must the "deep gash to the thigh" non-magically heal completely overnight, as Bryon would have it, rather than just continue to be ignored?

The only real difference to you. Some people find the in-world difference between calling on the power of the gods and using a healing surge to be real and important.

Certainly there are differences in the flavor and narrative description of what happens. At the end of the day, however, everyone is mechanically back at full HP the next morning.

Actually, the difference is that the play group could, should it so choose, decide to conduct adventures in an injured state a la Tristian and Isolde. That adventure space has been shrinking since 1e and is completely gone in 4e.

... and you can continue to adventure in 4E while at fewer than maximum available healing surges, and can continue to press on rather than stopping for an extended rest (e.g., camp for the night), meaning you don't get all your surges back. You can lose surges for failing your cross-country-travel skill challenges, or can be denied an extended rest for failure.

You can, should you wish to step into houserule territory, easily adjust the rate at which surges are regained (as mentioned earlier, 1 per day or 1 per week can quite easily give you the larger amount of "healing downtime" if that's what you really want).

So, no, I disagree - this is still possible in 4E.

So, if you're having to make saves before you die, is that enough of an indication that you can narrate a bad wound?

Nope; it's possible to die of shock from an, all-else-considered, fairly minor wound, if you want a real-world explanation.

First, I think you missed part of BryonD's quote. You left out the very short next sentence: "But that is for what I want." BryonD is saying that the rules are creating a "HUGE irreconcilable problem" for what he wants. Which, as he's indicated, is as follows:

I didn't miss it. I just don't think it's a particularly germaine distinction. The rules in 3E don't mechanically support getting terrible wounds in combat. The rules in 4E don't mechanically support getting terrible wounds in combat.

He is willing to draw a "line in the sand" for 3E (and earlier) because they make HP take a relatively-long time to come back absent external help (but then make that external help routinely and plentifully available, so ...), and he calls that enough to support narrating bad wounds - even though it's a terrible simulation of bad wounds.

If you want to simulate bad wounds in 4E, the disease system works pretty darn well for it.

And yet I have never seen a player take this option in any 3Ed or 3.5Ed game.

Really.

Just because something may be cheap to make does not make it readily available.

Wands of Cure Light Wounds are, by the rules, available in Small Towns and larger a large percentage of the time (by PF rules, anyway; I can't find the 3.X ones). That requires a settlement of no more than 200 people.

Now, if you decide not to use the rules for what items you can find, that's fine, but then you're arguing about DA's Personal D&D, and not the actual shared game.

And, again, that's assuming that your players aren't just making their own.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

You can, should you wish to step into houserule territory, easily adjust the rate at which surges are regained (as mentioned earlier, 1 per day or 1 per week can quite easily give you the larger amount of "healing downtime" if that's what you really want).

<snip>

If you want to simulate bad wounds in 4E, the disease system works pretty darn well for it.

<snip>

Now, if you decide not to use the rules for what items you can find, that's fine, but then you're arguing about DA's Personal D&D, and not the actual shared game.

So you'll discuss house rule territory to allow 4e to achieve a style more in keeping with what I want, but dismiss it as stepping away from the shared game when others do?

BTW, Tristian was nursed back to health by Isolde for over a month of bed rest. That's a REALLY substantial modification to the default healing rules (though he may have had a form of disease as well depending on the story). The story fits in well with 1e and 2e healing though.

Ultimately, the rules as presented do not present opportunities to start at less than full strength.

What the game has lost is the emergent strategic consequential choice: do we engage the adventure today even though we are under-strength or do we recover and hope our goal is still possible to achieve?

Can DM fiat change that? Sure, DM fiat can change anything. But it stops being a naturally occurring event in the game. It only appears when the DM feels it is dramatically satisfying which makes it forced and potentially dickish.

None of my current players picked up Craft Wand. Their first 7ish levels the group of six had only a druid for healing and that character preferred to use non-magical aid (Healing skill) for the most part. They did pick up a few wands of CLW, both as treasure and purchased resources but often forgot/decided against using them. Now at 19th level, there is a Fighter/Cleric with a Cleric cohort so healing is more available, but the group has split/gone on adventures without that pair. The behaviour doesn't seem atypical. As a DM, I've had groups in 1e, 2e, and 3e that had no healers. The groups adapted and pursued challenges and used tactics suited to their strengths.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That is, however, a pretty big difference. To bounce back in 3e requires some form of outside resource - wands, potions, healing spells, scrolls, etc

Specifically, a kind of magic. Which is how it's easier to wrap your mind around it in pre-4e D&D: "It's MAGIC! It knits your arm right back on! It does that because it's MAGICAL!"

I mean, if 4e just decided to give everyone the ability to create X number of magical healing salves in a day, and each healing potion recovered 25% of your hit points, but you couldn't apply the healing salve without about 5 minutes to bandage yourself adequately and suchlike (though certain characters could spur you on to suddenly use a salve regardless), and described it as MAGIC, this wouldn't really be as much of an issue, I think.

And still, it seems that it might cause problems in pacing. Healing is effectively an encounter-based resource, but that doesn't jive with folks who want a less-mythic period of convalescence.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Nope; it's possible to die of shock from an, all-else-considered, fairly minor wound, if you want a real-world explanation.

Well, I think you're really on the fringe of things, if that's your opinion. If the only way to die (via save or die while in the negatives) is by going into shock over fairly minor wounds in your game, I'd say you're detached from most groups. This is just a gut assessment, obviously, but it's nothing I've ever heard anyone else put forward before this moment.

Now, it's fine to be in a corner case scenario. I mean, it doesn't solve the problems of people who want to participate in standard fantasy genre narratives, but you didn't set out to solve that, either.

I didn't miss it. I just don't think it's a particularly germaine distinction. The rules in 3E don't mechanically support getting terrible wounds in combat. The rules in 4E don't mechanically support getting terrible wounds in combat.

The healing surge rules (including full recovery on an extended rest) make it much harder to mechanically support getting terrible wounds in combat. If you take a terrible wound in 3.X and are naturally heal, it'll take a few days (to a couple of weeks) while your wounds heal. This isn't the case in 4e. To this end, 3.X certainly doesn't shut off the narrative the way 4e does. Within this context, 3.X certainly has more mechanical support for getting terrible wounds in combat (it allows the simulation of slower healing over time) while 4e has a mechanic that actively denies this narrative, by your own admission (people can only "bleed out" over shock on minor wounds).

He is willing to draw a "line in the sand" for 3E (and earlier) because they make HP take a relatively-long time to come back absent external help (but then make that external help routinely and plentifully available, so ...), and he calls that enough to support narrating bad wounds - even though it's a terrible simulation of bad wounds.

I think the issue is whether or not a particular type of narrative is available in the game. The question, "why don't you like healing surges?" was answered with, "because they close off this type of narrative to my group." Going into your opinion on the value of the mechanics isn't germane to this discussion. For example, I didn't keep the healing mechanics in my SRD-based RPG as they were written. However, the issue here is whether or not a narrative is available, not whether or not it's a good "simulation of bad wounds." The fact that bad wounds cannot be simulated well in your mind in 4e is problematic when the complaint is over narrative possibilities.

If you want to simulate bad wounds in 4E, the disease system works pretty darn well for it.

Are their rules for it in the game?

Really.

Same for my group. Not once did a player ever use a healing wand. Wands were used literally twice in the 7 or so years we played 3.X (including my long-running campaign with over 2,000 hours put into it).

Wands of Cure Light Wounds are, by the rules, available in Small Towns and larger a large percentage of the time (by PF rules, anyway; I can't find the 3.X ones). That requires a settlement of no more than 200 people.

Now, if you decide not to use the rules for what items you can find, that's fine, but then you're arguing about DA's Personal D&D, and not the actual shared game.

In 3.5, you need at least 901 people per town to buy that wand. On top of that, you'll need to run across a town that has it "in stock" as Danny indicated; this meshes well with the DMG's advice on a "living, breathing world" (page 131) and exceptions to towns and prices ("while exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought)", page 137). If the area of the world is affected by the setting in ways outside of what is assumed in the DMG (frontier settlements, low magic setting, wartime ("during wartime, authorities may restrict or even confiscate materials and supplies", page 133), etc.), it is encouraged that the towns differ from how they are presented in the DMG.

I think it's reasonable to say, "circumstances permitting" without taking it to the extreme of, "but now you're playing DA's Personal D&D, and not the shared actual game." Plenty of people play in or have played in low magic games, with the setting adjusted accordingly. The guidelines in the 3.5 DMG support changing the rules to reflect this. It's not controversial, and it's not playing a different game.

And, again, that's assuming that your players aren't just making their own.

Which ours weren't. So, yes, it's assuming that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Originally Posted by Dannalcatraz
And yet I have never seen a player take this option in any 3Ed or 3.5Ed game.

Really.

Yes, really. IME, casters take Metamagic feats, get special familiars and so forth. The only caster feats they have are built into their classes.

I think it's reasonable to say, "circumstances permitting" without taking it to the extreme of, "but now you're playing DA's Personal D&D, and not the shared actual game." Plenty of people play in or have played in low magic games, with the setting adjusted accordingly. The guidelines in the 3.5 DMG support changing the rules to reflect this. It's not controversial, and it's not playing a different game.

Exactly. "Available" means one or more exists within a given populace. It does NOT mean "on the shelf at every store in the city." It does not mean that the shopkeeper will sell it to you for a price you can pay if it IS in stock. It does not mean the shopkeeper is willing to sell it to a member of your species or outsiders of any kind. Or perhaps it's sale is restricted to members of a certain social class or organization...and you aren't either one.

It does not mean that the seller even knows what it is.

And, of course, if you don't ask the right people, you won't find it at all.

And to be perfectly clear:

1) I wasn't alone in playing this way- virtually every DM I've ever played with has done likewise.

2) this had nothing to do with magic items per se- even mundane items were subject to the laws of supply and demand. In RtToEE, we spent a lot of time in small towns, so I couldn't find a smith able to make a plain dire pick...much less the masterwork one I really wanted so I could get it enchanted.

 

[Dark Mistress]

To be fair, this has been true throughout all of D&D's history (and is also true in quite a few of the wargames from which D&D came from).

The only thing 4E has changed is the fact that you don't need a Cleric to get back into the fight the next day.

In 3E, you needed a Cleric or a Cleric-on-a-stick (ubiquitous wand of CLW or lesser vigor).

In 2E and previous, you just needed an extra day or two.

True the difference is in 3e and what I remember of 1e (played very little 2e) you needed magical healing or it would take you days if not weeks to recover. Which implied you was hurt. In 4e a good nights rest and your fine. I am not saying it is good or bad, only saying that it bugs me and that I personally don't like it.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Whereas for me, the three conditions are: "still in the fight", "temporarily out of the fight, but could get back in with help", or "out of the fight". Feel free to rename that middle one to something shorter, but I wanted it to be clear.

For me, this works great with the way I want to play cinematic, and it also happens to fit 4E pretty well. But I prefer most hit point systems (absent something like RuneQuest, where the points are clearly physical only and very limited) to play this way, because of the lack of any death spiral effect. Anyone not yet started down the spiral is fully "in the fight". Anyone dead, unconscious, routed, completely intimidated, etc. is "out of the fight". Everyone else is in that middle condition.

Perfectly understandable. I do agree 4e does a very good job of capturing what I call high cinematic feel combat and games. Which if you like that, it works greats. Me I tend more towards gritty and dark style games. Which is why it bugs me on a personal level.