Healing surges with a nod towards simulation

[Crazy Jerome]

This is a half-baked idea for keeping the heart of healing surges as in 4E, but making them somewhat more palatable to those with a simulation bent.

tl:dr up front: Make surges a very old school, wargaming form of hit points, and leave hit points as the stun/fatigue/luck/morale mechanic. Diverge the usage/recovery model on surges to keep the current gameplay and narrative scope, while achieving some simulation support.

Background Reasons

Some of these ideas have been suggested in various topics over the last month or so--too many to say it is a forked topics. Merely acknowledging here that this is often more synthesis than original.



Various people lately have expressed their displeasure with surges. With some modest exceptions, this topic isn't about that. Rather, I am assuming that the good parts of the 4E hit point/surge model should and would be preserved in any new model. Those good points, as I see them:

• By limiting the hit points in a fight to some fraction of the total possible hit point usage in a day, this puts some eventual limit on what a character can do, but contributes to making each earlier fight a bit more dangerous (during, not after in the current model).
• Surges restoring a set percentage of normal hit point total smooths out some historical rough edges in the healing model.
• Widens the scope of the narrative for what hit points can mean, and how they can be restored. Or rather, since D&D has always been this way for those willing to take that slant, makes this more consistent.

The less great parts of the 4E healing model:

• Easy overnight recovery, by default.
• Rather jarring around zero hit points--i.e. when a character crosses that threshold multiple times in a fight.
• Too many bloody hit points, characters and monsters, though obvioulsy manifested differently in the monsters. (Not strictly related to the 4E healing model, but hey, 4E is the most offending version in the batch, since the red dragons gained more than 88 HP.)
• Because surges are merely a way to recover a fraction of hit points, and come back so rapidly, they barely justify the extra overhead of those good points above. (That is, I think surges are worth it just for those benefits, but they could do more.)

Outline of Changes

So, change the ratio of hit points and surges. Mainly, PCs have less hit points, maybe slightly more surges, and their surge value is slightly smaller. Monsters get their hit points at least halved, and gain a handful of relatively weak surges. (This would require a change to some combat math, obviously.)

Some damage goes straight to surges. This is mainly to speed up play, but also to give a bit of oomph to nasty effects. For example, criticals don't do max damage. Instead, you roll damage per normal, and they take out one surge. Coup de grace takes out surges and hit points.

A character without a surge is effectively "minionized" by any surge taking hit. They are "out of the fight"--whatever that means for you in the narrative. For many monsters, probably dead. This provides for pseudo minions--monsters that have some modest hit points, but can't take a single surge taking hit.

Using surges works more or less like it always did, except that each usage doesn't do quite as much, and monsters get some minor options to use theirs. The idea here is to make in-combat healing definitely possible in a pinch, but often not the best choice. To fit the somewhat harsher tone of this model, using surges when at zero HP or lower should be harder. Perhaps a heal check is required, or perhaps it takes two surges to get above zero--one to get to zero, and one to get those surge value hit points back. Several things could work here.

Recoverying surges is now much harder, by default. Namely, a character in a safe place and resting can recovery 2, period. A character in less optimal conditions, but not being outright hounded, can recover only 1. No matter how much the warlord shouts at you, he can't change this. The heal skill would probably be used to determine whether zero, 1, or 2 was restored, with a modifier based on those parameters.

However, certain magic can also be used to restore surges. A handful of appropriate powers can, primarily the ones now that do not use surges (e.g. Cure light wounds). Special, much more expensive healing potions can do this. Kheotoms (sp?) Ointment would be a good candidate. Certainly, a major healing item might do so.

This last bit becomes one of the modular ways to regulate the pace within the story. If you want to have something akin to the 4E pace, then you up the natural recovery rate some, and perhaps make the healing potions and other items a bit cheaper. If you want relative grit, you keep the natural rate slow, and get stingy with special healing magic. The point here is that there are two levers that mean something in the healing model, but each one has a different meaning. (That is, how much of the old school "resource hoarding" game do you want in your D&D? Lots, go with items and special magic, and limit accordingly.)

Intended Flavor of this Model

Surges represent a handful of serious hits that a creature can take before they can't fight much anymore. They may not be dead--and if hit points are still positive, almost assuredly are not. When a creatures pulls upon their hit points to restore their fatigue/luck/morale/etc. they slightly diminish their ability to take future nasty hits. (Technically, this is a very minor death spiral effect that does not in any way affect other capabilities besides taking hits without dying.) Getting surges back is relatively difficult.

Hit points are now fully in the realm of fatigue/luck/morale. You can't technically die from lack of hit points. You can die from lack of hit points sucking you dry of surges and/or making you unconscious or otherwise unable to defend yourself.

As such, it probably would make sense to rename "surges" to "hit points" and "hit points" to something else. But I've left them the same here to make the mechanics clear.

Gamist/Narrative Concerns (in 4E sense)

The 4E narrative can still be played in this model, with very simple optional rules to make overnight healing possible. The most likely alternative for the party with only a warlord for healer is to soup up the natural healing rate based on the heal skill, and make sure someone has that skill.

There is an additional gamist element in that now spending a surge during combat is not only less effective (per surge and action use) but there are times when having the surge is better than having the hit points.

Note that while similar in some ways to many wound/vitality models, where this differs is in the exchange rate between surges and hit points, as well as the minimalist nature of surge "damage"--more akin to wargaming "hits".

 

[KarinsDad]

Could you give us the Reader's Digest condensed version? I read this yesterday and my eyes glazed over.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Could you give us the Reader's Digest condensed version? I read this yesterday and my eyes glazed over.

You're one to talk

Pot, meet kettle.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Hmm, I take it that the tl:dr summary was too condensed, then?

The basics are to change the mechanics/flavor of "surges" such that they become representative of serious damage/injury and/or major draining of a creature. Hit points then become fully about morale/luck/fatigue/etc. A relationship still exists between them, such that hit points can be restored by using surges (much like 4E now). However, once used, surges are much more difficult to recover without magic.

There are several mechanical suggestions (not fully fleshed out) of what would be involved to achieve this, with also an eye towards handling some of the more sticky edge cases in 4E--such as combat grind and the narrative whiplash around zero hit points. Most radically, monsters would need a few surges--though not nearly as many as characters. And finally, there is a push to make the conceptual difference between the new surges and hit points something that can be used by groups to leverage the game into their preferred playstyle with easily understood optional rules.

Also, it might not be apparent at first glance, but I'm trying to pull off a piece of sleight of hand. Namely, trying to inject a tiny bit of hit point bypassing and/or "save or wish you had" back into the system without dragging in most of the problems of such mechanics. Whether that part is successfull or not remains to be seen.

Perhaps an example is useful. I'll do that next.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This is a rough example with made up numbers. Since the numbers need to be adjusted, but only playtesting would tell us the correct spots, they can't be anything but made up.

Bob the 3rd level fighter has 30 hit points. His surge value is 5 (1/6 of hp). He has 10 surges, 2 of which are from his +2 Con mod. Bob has some allies, but we don't detail them here.

Grunk the reasonably tough goblin has 20 hit points. His surge value is 3, and he has 2 surges. His "pseudo minion" troops have 15 hit points, and no surges.

Presumably, damage doesn't scale quite so radically in this model, though it still starts out in the 1d6 to 1d10 range, plus whatever mods are applicable. This is because none of the numbers are going up terribly fast, either hit points or damage. An encounter power that does 2W is pretty darn brutal in the early heroic tier, and early dailies probably inflict status effects instead of exceeding that. However, some powers and situations can inflict surge damage directly.

Round 1:

Protecting the wizard, Bob gets an OA on the first goblin that tries to get by. He follows that up with a solid hit on his action, same goblin. This drop the "pseudo minion" below zero. The DM narrates this as the gobin knocked cold and bleeding slightly--could recover or could die.

Meanwhile, Bob picks up some incidental damage, and a solid hit from Grunk. He is now at 20 hit points.

Round 2:

Seeing that things are pretty serious, Bob uses his encounter power, "Mighty Cleave". This attacks two targets for 1W+Str mod, but increases the chance for a critical by 3 points (e.g. 17+ for Bob instead of the normal 20). Bob hits Grunk for 7 points of damage, and then gets a critical on another goblin. This does the same 7 damage, but is rather irrelevant as this goblin has no surges. The goblin goes down clutching his shattered arm and screaming.

Seeing that things are rapidly against him, Grunk unleashes his own special attack, connecting with Bob for 6 hit points and an effect--Bob must retreat 10 feet or suffer loss of a surge. Gritting his teeth with thought of his poorly armored friends behind him, Bob takes the hit on his shield, and narrates this a nasty strain in his shield arm.

Meanwhile, Bob's cleric friend invokes a minor healing effect that lets Bob spend a surge. The 5 hit points are nice, but hardly game breaking. Bob is down to 8 surges.

Round 3:

The wizard unleashes a daily herself, killing half of the remaining goblins. The rogue gets a critical on Grunk, taking one surge in the process. Seeing Bob bearing down on him, Grunk decides now would be a good time to run. Bob charges, smacks Grunk hard, knocking him down below zero hit points. While the remaining goblins scatter, a coup de grace is applied to the unfortunate goblin leader.

Short Rest:

After the fight, Bob uses 3 more surges to heal the many minor bruises and strains from this fight, getting himself almost back to full hit points, but now down a full half of his surges. He may have full hit points, but he can take half as many crits or other such effects as normal. Bob has his best "Die Hard" face on, but he simply isn't capable of taking as much punishment as he was before.

It will take Bob 5 days to get those back with normal rest, though with the Clerics' good Heal check, Bob will probably be back to full in 3 days. However, this adventure will involve several such fights, and the party stocked up on major healing potions. Between those, and the "cure light wounds", Bob can get back to full right away. However, this is expensive, and they can't do it repeatedly. Once those potions are gone, it will take at least a few days to recover fully.

 

[the Jester]

Err... this pretty much completely rewrites surges into a totally different system.

Granted, tl;dr, so I only skimmed, but it looks like you run out of hit points pretty easily, have a harder time recovering in combat and are unable to fully recover between encounters. Also, extended rests no longer completely heal you.

In other words, this rolls back all the things that make surges good (IMHO) and turns them into a wound/vitality system, which is fine if that's what you are after, but it looks like it misses the point of healing surges to me.

The point, imho, is to allow the pcs to forge ahead by allowing them to be "at full" when it's time for a new encounter. This system fails to encourage that, and goes back to encouraging a one-encounter day (so you don't get killed by a wandering monster at night or an ambush).

While I appreciate the cognitive issues with surges and prefer a surgeless, old-skool system myself, if you're going to have surges at all it's worth keeping an eye on why they work like they do, and trying to keep the end goals the same. Again, IMHO.

 

[KarinsDad]

Using surges works more or less like it always did, except that each usage doesn't do quite as much, and monsters get some minor options to use theirs.

...

Surges represent a handful of serious hits that a creature can take before they can't fight much anymore.

Ok. so here is where you lost me.

It sounds like you are describing wounds (or wound points) here.

You take a critical, you get wounded.

But then you indicate that you use the healing surges just like always. That seems backwards, or maybe I'm just not understanding it.

If the concept is really wounds, why would restoring fatigue / luck / morale result in a wound (i.e. loss of a healing surge)? Wounds should affect fatigue / luck / morale, restoration of fatigue / luck / morale shouldn't create wounds. If you are going for a simulation aspect, the mechanics should make plausible sense and not just be a rehash of 4E healing surges.


I really like the idea of wound or vitality points which only rest or magic can restore. But, I don't like the idea of taking a Second Wind and gaining a wound because of it.


From my perspective, Healing Surges is purely a game control mechanic and doesn't make any simulation sense at all. The designers didn't want Wands of Cure Light Wounds and even many consumables are heavily controlled via healing surges (at least until mordenkainen's magnificent emporium came out).

So the concept with Healing Surges is to prevent certain player tendencies via the rules. For example, using 100 potions of healing over the course of a day, especially at higher levels.

So the problem becomes, how does one in a wound point system limit the number of healing potions used in a day if the wound point system is used just like the healing surge system today? The potion cannot both cure the wound point and use the wound point. And having the potion restore luck / fatigue and replace it with a wound seems a bit plausibly strange as well.


I think you should consider divorcing the two concepts. Forget about healing surges as they are used today and concentrate on a wound point system.

As an example using the historic Potion of Cure Light Wounds (the name Potion of Healing is lame from a historical perspective):

A Potion of Cure Light Wounds restores 10 hit points and 1 wound point. A Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds restores 20 hit points and 2 wound points. A Potion of Cure Serious Wounds restores 40 hit points and 3 wound points. A Potion of Cure Critical Wounds restores 80 hit points and 4 wound points. Wound points can only be magically healed once per day (i.e. only one potion or spell per day).

By removing the concept that in combat healing of hit points requires any sort of healing surge or other resources usage, you get rid of the concept of "I give someone a potion of healing, but he is out of healing surges, so it doesn't work". Instead, it becomes "I give someone a potion of healing, but he's already had his single healing magic applied today, so it doesn't work.".

This latter concept sits better. It's not some vague mechanic, instead it has a plausible explanation. Real healing magic only works so well and so often.

With regard to Second Wind, it just happens. It works the exact same way as 4E, but it doesn't have a resource expense. It doesn't cost a healing surge because there are no healing surges. With regard to in combat power heals, they heal hit points. They work the exact same way as 4E, but they don't have a resource expense. They don't cost a healing surge because there are no healing surges. At the end of an encounter, the PCs take a short rest and get all of their hit points back.

Throw away healing surges. They are not needed.

Wounds (or wound points) take their place. You get frostbite in the mountains, you take a wound point. You get knocked unconscious, you take a wound point. You get hit with a critical, you take a wound point. You do a skill challenge fighting through the woods, and the DM wants to blow off the combat with the minor lower level foes, a failure = a wound point (the goblins got lucky).


The PC can get one magical heal per day. That could be a Potion of Cure Light Wounds, or it could be a magical spell of Cure Light Wounds (works just like the potion). As PCs level up, they are going to want to use higher level potions or spells because wounds are a more serious threat.

The PC can get one mundane heal per day. An extended rest with or without the Healing skill. Without = 1 wound point healed. A successful Heal check = 2 wound points healed, similar to what you've already thought about.

These two aspects can then be modified based on what the DM wants for healing. If he wants healing to be often and easy, 3 magical heals a day and possibly 3 wound points healed without a heal skill, more with a heal skill.


Now, here's where the reason why wound points matter comes in. For each wound point taken, the PC cannot recover 5 hit points (note: the -5 could be -10% instead). As an example, a PC with 42 hit points:

0 42
1 37
2 32
3 27
4 22
etc.

These max hit point levels are already pre-generated on the PC's character sheet. If you are wounded, your luck / morale / endurance drops. Durability comes into play with hit points, but wounds are wounds. Toughest guy in the world breaks a rib, he's still hurting about as much as a wimpy guy breaking a rib. But the tough guy has more hit points, so he loses 5 hit points out of 50 whereas the wimpy guy loses 5 hit points out of 30. The tough guy can still fight with a broken rib longer (45 hits max remaining) than the wimpy guy (25 hits max remaining).

In 4E, the only reason players even think about healing surges is when they run low or out. At that point, they cannot heal. Until that point, it's just bookkeeping.

With this type of system, a single wound is a bother. Two wounds start becoming an annoyance. Three wounds and the player gets the impression that the PC is in a bit of trouble, etc. Without going heavily into a death spiral system (because the PC isn't at minuses to hit or something, he just cannot fight as long in an encounter), but lightly into a death spiral system, it makes simulation sense and is easy to understand and narrate.


Looking at the numbers, even if a PC never gets knocked unconscious, that PC is going to take wound points one attack in 20 from a critical. In the first encounter of the day with 6 rounds, the Defender might get attacked about 10 times (usually less than this because of NPC attrition). There's a 50/50 chance that he'll walk out of it with a wound point. In 2 encounters, that averages a wound point. 8 encounters, 4 wounds points plus 1 more for having fewer hit points and getting knocked unconscious once.

So in a many encounter day of 8 encounters, the Fighter has gotten beat up all day and taken 5 wound points. He's low level, so the Cleric can only do Cure Light Wounds and restore 1 that way. The PCs usually make their heal check, so he gets 2 more back overnight. The next day, he still has 2 wounds and is at -10 hit points. Yesterday was a real rough day.

In a more typical 4 to 6 encounter day, that same Fighter might often be at 2 or 3 wound points and the Cleric will get him all patched up by morning.

But without magical healing (i.e. Warlords cannot magically heal), PCs will want to rest for a few days after every few days of adventuring.

Bookkeeping-wise, this is fairly comparable to 4E. Everything you need for healing and wounds is automatically written on the character sheet. The player just keeps track of hit points and wound points, just like he keeps track of hit points and healing surges today.

But, it brings back a bit of the flavor of earlier editions except that Wands of Cure Light Wounds don't exist. A DM who doesn't like death spiral aspects of wound or vitality point systems can drop the -5 points of damage per wound point rule. The wound points work the same, but like with 4E healing surges, they don't matter until the PC runs out (and dies).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Err... this pretty much completely rewrites surges into a totally different system.

Granted, tl;dr, so I only skimmed, but it looks like you run out of hit points pretty easily, have a harder time recovering in combat and are unable to fully recover between encounters. Also, extended rests no longer completely heal you.

In other words, this rolls back all the things that make surges good (IMHO) and turns them into a wound/vitality system, which is fine if that's what you are after, but it looks like it misses the point of healing surges to me.

I realize it is long, but all of those points are addressed in the original post. The somewhat harder time recovering during combat is deliberate, to help with grind. It is only meant to be "somewhat", and this is a big spot where playtesting would be very necessary.

However, options to make "natural healing" with the heal check would be easy to use to get something otherwise very close to 4E. This would be a "combat style dial" that would be set by campaign.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Ok. so here is where you lost me.

It sounds like you are describing wounds (or wound points) here.

You take a critical, you get wounded.

But then you indicate that you use the healing surges just like always. That seems backwards, or maybe I'm just not understanding it.

If the concept is really wounds, why would restoring fatigue / luck / morale result in a wound (i.e. loss of a healing surge)? Wounds should affect fatigue / luck / morale, restoration of fatigue / luck / morale shouldn't create wounds. If you are going for a simulation aspect, the mechanics should make plausible sense and not just be a rehash of 4E healing surges...

This is why I said that if this system were used, that "surges" and "hit points" would be renamed to "hit points" and something else, respectively. I kept them named the same in this topic to relate to existing 4E mechanics.

However, this is not a wound/vitality system. It has some aspects of that, in that the "hits" represented by surges are the more serious hits (and are a much smaller number), but don't stop there. As in the title, this is a nod to simulation. It is not meant to address every simulation objection to 4E mechanics. Rather, it is meant to make narration of hits somewhat more palatable to simulationists--or maybe, I should say immersionists.

But beyond that, the use of "surges" to restore "hit points" is a deliberate sticking with 4E mechanics over wound/vitality systems, and it does represent something useful from gamist, narrative, and simulationists perspectives. All those minor cuts and bruises and sore muscles and busted luck and so on--that are the non-physical parts of hit points? To get those back relatively quickly, in the "Die Hard" mode, a character has to but a serious drain on their reserves (absent good healing magic).

When the warlord tells Bob to shrug off the fatigue and get back into the fight, Bob does. He can do that several times. But each time he does, his ability to withstand serious injury is notably impaired. And you know, from the simulation bent, that's how it goes with things that wear you down. The guard goes down a bit, reaction times slows slightly, and suddenly that blow that would have done little before is more serious. Unless, of course, the group is adjusting those levers I mentioned to Jester. Then you go back to the 4E model.

That is, one of the issues with the current 4E model, from the "dial" perspective, is that you can easily house rule what "dying" means to make it more gritty, and maybe even layer a wound system on top of that using a disease track type mechanics. But you can't much change what losing hit points while still in the fight means, short of crimping surge recovery. And in the current system, this affects balance too much.

One of the reasons that it does is that monster hit point pacing is too different from character hit point pacing. The game is optimized for the 4E model, and this has left out a few key levers needed to vary this part of the mechanics easily. By putting the levers back in, and making the default somewhere in the middle of the 4E model and something with a bit more grit, it becomes much easier for optional rules to move the pacing where the group wants it.

 

[DracoSuave]

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