I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[JamesonCourage]

This doesn't address my problem with PCs getting up every day with wounds they can always completely brush off without external healing.

Like I've said earlier in this post, in 3E I can completely brush off those wounds too - the only effect they have is they make it harder for me to ignore wounds in the future (ie because my hp reserve is lower) - which means that rather than actual impeding wounds they are more like a loss of heroic verve. And I don't feel any particular loss of verisimilitude in verve returning over hours rather than days.

I'm really not sure why you (and most other dissenters) are stuck on this line of thought when addressing me specifically. I feel as I've more than adequately expressed my view that story paths are dying when every wound can be healed overnight. If it matters to you, ignore "without external healing" and focus on what I've been extremely clear (in my mind) on trying to express: that I prefer a system that allows for both long term wounds and short term wounds, because both open up interesting narratives. When you heal from every wound overnight, it works against many narrative paths I want available in the game.

I really hope this is clear. I'm not addressing verisimilitude. I'm not addressing realism. I'm not addressing how heroic the characters are. I'm not addressing anything besides the narrative paths shut down by only having wounds heal over night. I can address my other issues with healing surges (and have in this thread), but please don't get my "healing overnight" and "dislike healing surge implementation" views confused or crossed.

Here I agree with Hobo. And I made a similar point to JamesonCourage upthread. If I want semi-gritty fantasy, 4e won't deliver it. But if I want gonzo heroic fantasy, 3E won't deliver it without a cleric or bard (because of its natural healing times). Each supports certain "narrative paths" but undercuts others.

Yes. I've expressed why when it comes to healing overnight, 3.X has more than 4e. I've said that 4e has more narrative paths than 3.X in other areas. However, considering the thread topic, I assumed this was in regards to healing surges, not overall with each game system.

I have played a lot of Rolemaster, which is a game where recovering from wounds takes significant ingame time, typically even after magical healing has been received. I personally don't think this works all that well for Rolemaster, which in many other respects is closer to D&D in its gonzo-ish orientation - so the gritty recovery can get in the way of "save the world" scenarios. Burning Wheel is also a game which builds extensive recovery times into the system, and does so I think in a more integrated way than Rolemaster.

But what both RM and BW have in common is that wounds actually play like wounds - they impede performance - and so when a recovering character hops out of bed because heroism demands it, the burden of the wound is still felt. Given that in any edition of D&D this is not the case - performance is unimpeded - I think that D&D copes fine with wounds, and recovery from them, being simply a matter of free narration.

Cool. You like it. I dislike it. We're both right. And, me saying that "recovering all wounds overnight closes narrative paths that wasn't the case in at least 3.X" is true. Yes, 4e expands potential narrative paths in other areas, and that's a very good thing. That wasn't the point of this thread. It was, "why don't you like healing surges" which led us onto healing with an extended rest (I'm not sure how surges are related). I've stated what I don't like about healing surges, and what I don't like about always wounds healing overnight.

When you say that you like another way of doing it more, that's cool. I'm okay with that, and I'm glad you have fun with it. I'm answering why I don't. I'm not saying I expected 4e to be what I wanted out of a game (it was pretty clearly not what I wanted as of some individual previews). But, when someone says, "I don't understand why people don't like healing surges. If you're one of those people, why don't you like them, and what would you do to fix them?", then I'm not going to hesitate in answering it from a preference-first basis. I know it was designed differently from what I want. That's kinda my point. As always, play what you like

It's a house rule in the same sense that applying a class to a goblin in 3E is a houseruled monster.

I disagree (I think). In 3.X, they say "here's how you use class levels with creatures." In 4e, my understanding is that they say, "here's how you handle diseases (disease track)." Applying class levels to monsters is covered explicitly within the rules. Applying a disease using the disease track is covered explicitly within the rules. Apply "wounds" to a disease track when there's no disease is house ruling, because it's not using the rules of the game, it's modifying, replacing, or dropping them.

Now, maybe I'm wrong on how they present the disease track (it's incredibly possible). If so, can someone correct me? I'm kind of curious if it's different from how I think it works.

One of the creatures in the Nentir Vale Monster Vault inflicts a curse that uses the disease track (but because it is a curse, uses Arcana (mabye?) rather than Endurance, and can't be helped with the Heal skill or Cure Disease).

This sounds like it's within the rules (as it's given mechanics to use). I wouldn't consider this house ruling. If a variant came out officially on using the disease track to model wounds, I wouldn't consider it house ruling. I'd still like it core, but at least you're using an official variant.

There's a sense in which that's a mechanical innovation, but only in the same sense that the first 3E module to include a class-levelled goblin was exhibiting a mechanical innovation. It's a mechanical innovation, or "house rule", that the rules themselves virtually beg to be implemented.

Well, 3.X has rules in the Monster Manual on how to add class levels to creatures, so it's really not the case, here, as far as I know. I might be wrong, though. I'm much more familiar with 3.5 than 3.0. As always, play what you like

 

[Pentius]

Oh, with diseases you're completely correct (I was commenting on mimicking the system, bu not using diseases). I think changing the track so that it's a "wound" track but not a disease is my problem. That's a house rule. Yeah, you can disease people and use it, and that's fine. I'm totally down for that. A disease-heavy campaign might even be really cool.

I'd like it to be reflected by wounds, not just diseases, but diseases alone aren't a terrible workaround, and you're right, it's not a house rule to use it. I'd like for natural healing to fill this role, but I'm not married to it. I just want the narrative path available for long term recovery. As always, though, play what you like

I would say this is a reflavor, not a houserule. The underlying disease mechanic isn't changing, but what you call it and what it represents in the game world is. In the same way that my home game has a Samurai despite 4e having no Samurai class(he's a Slayer). Natural Healing: The HP recovery per day doesn't cover it, but it's still something that has to be healed over time and can be speeded with medical care.

The application might be considered a houserule, but a minor one.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I would say this is a reflavor, not a houserule. The underlying disease mechanic isn't changing, but what you call it and what it represents in the game world is. In the same way that my home game has a Samurai despite 4e having no Samurai class(he's a Slayer). Natural Healing: The HP recovery per day doesn't cover it, but it's still something that has to be healed over time and can be speeded with medical care.

The application might be considered a houserule, but a minor one.

Definitely a minor house rule. I agree. Again, I dislike that you have to house rule it. That means that it's not the assumed position of the game, and I want a game that supports as many narrative paths as possible (within the modern fantasy genre, at least).

The fallacy is, "you can house rule it, so it's not a problem." I'd consider it a fallacy because you only need to house rule something if it's a problem for what you're going for. It's "problem needs a house rule", not "house rule when there's no problem". Now, the problem I have might not be in every group, but when we're talking about objections I might have, here it is. I accept others don't agree, don't prefer that as the default, don't want the system to handle it, etc. I do want the system to handle it. And here we are.

As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

every wound can be healed overnight

<snip>

I'm not addressing anything besides the narrative paths shut down by only having wounds heal over night

<snip>

healing overnight, 3.X has more than 4e. I've said that 4e has more narrative paths than 3.X in other

<snip>

recovering all wounds overnight closes narrative paths that wasn't the case in at least 3.X

<snip>

wounds healing overnight

As I said in the post to which you replied, and have posted earlier upthread, there is no rule in 4e that says that wounds heal overnight. Nor is there any rule that implies it.

Thus my puzzlement - you seem to be concerned by an imputed feature of 4e that the game in fact lacks.

Like earlier editions of D&D, it is the case in 4e that wounds which don't kill or knock unconsious don't impede performance. Not when suffered. And not later, while being recovered from. (And hence, presumably, are not all that serious.)

Like earlier editions of D&D (and putting AD&D's death's door rules to one side), 4e has no rule about how long wounds take to heal, anymore than it has a rule about how much polish is required to restore the shine to one's boots after wearing them on a dungeon expedition.

What 4e does mandate is that, after an extended rest, a wounded hero is no closer to suffering a fatal blow than is an unwounded hero. It has a quicker recovery time for "heroic verve". That is the only difference from 3E and AD&D that I can see.

 

[Pentius]

Definitely a minor house rule. I agree. Again, I dislike that you have to house rule it. That means that it's not the assumed position of the game, and I want a game that supports as many narrative paths as possible (within the modern fantasy genre, at least).

The fallacy is, "you can house rule it, so it's not a problem." I'd consider it a fallacy because you only need to house rule something if it's a problem for what you're going for. It's "problem needs a house rule", not "house rule when there's no problem". Now, the problem I have might not be in every group, but when we're talking about objections I might have, here it is. I accept others don't agree, don't prefer that as the default, don't want the system to handle it, etc. I do want the system to handle it. And here we are.

As always, play what you like

My main problem with that is that this change is no greater in scope than the dearth of magical healing, both via class and item, that is so crucial to getting the wounding narrative in 3e.

Thus my quip to Mort that we are not allowed to tweak 4e to taste.

 

[Pentius]

I'm really not sure why you (and most other dissenters) are stuck on this line of thought when addressing me specifically. I feel as I've more than adequately expressed my view that story paths are dying when every wound can be healed overnight.

I missed this earlier, somehow(I blame the pagebreak). I think I can answer this one for you. The disconnect I have here is that you are equating the loss of HP with wounds, but these wounds have no mechanical or story impact, by RAW, other than making the next blow more likely to be (narrated as) fatal. This means that any meaningful narrative and/or consequences of these wounds begins and ends in your hands already. So, why is it then that you are unwilling to hold onto that narrative when the HP is restored? The hp damage only ever served as a rough guideline by which you narrated the getting of wounds. It never handled any consequence of the wound. You were doing that yourself already. So, why not just still do that?

 

[pemerton]

The disconnect I have here is that you are equating the loss of HP with wounds, but these wounds have no mechanical or story impact, by RAW, other than making the next blow more likely to be (narrated as) fatal. This means that any meaningful narrative and/or consequences of these wounds begins and ends in your hands already. So, why is it then that you are unwilling to hold onto that narrative when the HP is restored? The hp damage only ever served as a rough guideline by which you narrated the getting of wounds. It never handled any consequence of the wound. You were doing that yourself already. So, why not just still do that?

I have the same disconnect, and I've been pressing it for most of my participation in this thread. It's why I [-]necroed[/-] second winded the thread!

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I find it difficult to narrate a serious wound if there is a significant chance that it can be practically "ignored" within the time it takes to have an extended rest (less than 24 hours and assuming no magical healing).

I can agree with this, but personally don't feel that the 3E healing times make a significant difference here - especially because the ignoring of the wound can begin right away (ie lost hit points don't impede performance) and the only way that the ignored wound impedes performance is the rather abstract one that later blows have a better chance of being killing blows.

The only time I pull out a "serious wound" description in 3e is when the character goes into the negatives. The only time I pull out a "serious wound" description in 4e is in retrospect when the party is examining the corpse of their former ally. "You remove his breastplate to find his ribs pressing out at different and unnatural angles"; or something else that was "hidden" and now can be revealed.

In 3e a character that goes into the negatives and is untended will likely die and so I do feel compelled by the mechanics to describe a serious if not immediately fatal wound.
In 4e a character that goes deep (but not fatally) into the negatives and with no surges still makes me hesitate to describe a "serious" wound although I will consider one of consequence where they are not getting up anytime soon without assistance. I would not feel mechanically supported though in describing a potentially fatal wound though.

Obviously in this discussion I'm closer to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - I'm a little curious about the narrative space in which exist wounds that (i) don't really impede performance at all, but (ii) in some sense (which is a bit obscure, given that they don't impede performance) take days or weeks to recover from, and which (iii) would strain verisimilitude or genre to be recovered from in the same obscure sense within several hours instead.

Perhaps theoretically, what seems quite small ends up in practice being very noticeable for a lot of players. Let's go for the most extreme example, the chest-sucking blood spurting critical wound. No expense has been spared in scaring the be-jesus out of the players that without immediate assistance, their ally is going to be dead within seconds. How confident are you to give this narrative?

In 4e:
1) If he saves and second winds then he's acting at capacity within seconds. Fair to say major fail by the DM here.
2) If there's a warlord around, then through charisma or intelligence you're up and at them if you have surges left or not! Again, I would expect a few rolled eyes at the DM here in describing a wound that was obviously not that bad.
3) If he saves but can't second wind, then he's down until he spends surges during a short rest.
4) If he saves but can't second wind, and has no surges, he has to wait for the opportunity for an extended rest and 6 hours from there. By forcing a party to not achieve an extended rest, you can extend this out indefinitely but I dare say, the players will be rolling eyes at you for an additional reason, aside from sloppy and over-enthusiastic description.

I think in all cases, from the chest-sucking wound to even one quite serious, I have little confidence of my description not getting contradicted. Only if magical healing is used would I feel like I had "got away with it". The point being that this shuts off quite a few narrative options when describing wounds (to the point where when DMing 4e I simply state hit point loss when PCs go into the negatives.]

In 3e:
1) A character in the negatives needs to be successfully tended otherwise they are in a very bad way (as statistically described on the other thread - they are incredibly likely to die).

2) If they do get tended to successfully through only mundane means they regain hit points naturally and so will likely be conscious within the day (as long as they are of higher level; otherwise they might remain in the negatives for several days). [On that other thread, I have described healing as related to level a deplorable way of doing it as it produces so many anomalies, it should be related to constitution instead]. From this point they will take many days to reach full capacity (although more days for a hale barbarian than for an anemic and sickly wizard). 3e healing still has a lot to answer for you know.
Is it perfect? Far from it. Is it even just a little bit better than 4e? Yes, if not by a huge margin. However, the clincher for all of this is not the theory but what typically happens in each game in practice.

3) The chance of the PC actually being forced to be naturally healed (particularly with a chest-sucker which focuses the group on producing the best magical healing available) is very low because of the ready access to this very same magical healing. Now this is the point, many see little difference between healing surges on one hand and magic sticks on the other; they are effectively performing exactly the same game function - they keep the party adventuring rather than twiddling their thumbs. Except that narratively speaking, magic cures all ills including over-enthusiastic DM wound descriptions! With magical healing as my backstop, I can be much more confident in practice than in theory that my outrageous wound narratives will never be contradicted in 3e. And it is this, perhaps more than the theoretical "ledge" that widens wound description options for the DM in 3e vastly more than how 4e potentially contracts them even further because of the common nature of restoring hit points through non-magical means.

Essentially, people will "buy" that magic is at work where as naturally they will not. My confidence for this wide range of wound narratives in 3e is substantially greater than I have when DMing 4e.

[By the way: No edition of D&D has ever produced healing to my liking because of the conjoining of physical damage with the abstract qualities of hit points.]

[As well: I actually like the idea of combat surges and hope that 5e will utilize them in a way so that you don't have the logjam of anomalies that you do with every other version of D&D.]

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Pentius]

Perhaps theoretically, what seems quite small ends up in practice being very noticeable for a lot of players. Let's go for the most extreme example, the chest-sucking blood spurting critical wound. No expense has been spared in scaring the be-jesus out of the players that without immediate assistance, their ally is going to be dead within seconds. How confident are you to give this narrative?

Honestly, the second we go in practice, 4e does just fine. To paraphrase the last time a PC dropped into negatives in my 4e game:

"The kobold's sword slips between the scales in your armor, and comes out slicked with blood. You drop to your knees, your vision clouded. Then you drop to your face. The others see a small, but growing pool of blood coming out from under you."

Maybe it was a bit, as some would call it, Heisenberg, but in practice that really doesn't matter. The next turn, the PC rolled a 20 on his death save and got up. I narrated that his bleeding stopped from the padding of his armor pressing against it, and he heard the voice of the paladin spirit haunting him tell him to get up right before he regained consciousness.

In practice, a lot of things that don't hold up under intense "What may have been" scrutiny never get held to that scrutiny, and the game is experienced as what happens, not what may have been.

 

[pemerton]

The only time I pull out a "serious wound" description in 3e is when the character goes into the negatives.

<snip>

The chance of the PC actually being forced to be naturally healed (particularly with a chest-sucker which focuses the group on producing the best magical healing available) is very low because of the ready access to this very same magical healing

<snip>

narratively speaking, magic cures all ills including over-enthusiastic DM wound descriptions!

All this makes perfect sense to me, and I would XP your post if I could.

In my last few posts I've followed Pentius in expressly excluding unconsciousness/near-fatality - in my case because I agree that 4e does handle these very differently from 3E.

As I posted upthread in response to a post from [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION], in 4e properly inspecting an unconcsious ally requires a Heal check as a standard action (ie in mechanicanl terms, a stabilise roll) and the mechanics guarantee that the narrative will proceed in one of two ways - "S/he's fine, and should be up soon if we beat the goblins!", or "I'm not sure, but s/he might be in a bad way". In 4e there is no way of confirming that a PC who is not yet dead is nevertheless dying (unless the group fudges the narrative of death, and allows a PC who "dies" in mechanical terms to be merely dying in the fiction and thus have time to utter famous last words, etc).

So there is never mechanical scope in 4e to narrate the "chest sucker", because this would be at odds with the mechanical requirements of the game set out in the previous paragraph.

So if one wants to narrate "chest suckers", 4e is definitely not the game!

(I don't really see this as an artefact of healing surges but rather of its death/dying rules. I seem to remember that a 3E variant of those rules was published on the WotC website during the transition period, and I imagine it might have produced the same issue without using surges to do it. But this is probably a minor point.)

Anyway, now come the bits of this reply where I think I disagree with you, but I hope in only a modest rather than a dramatic way!

In 3e a character that goes into the negatives and is untended will likely die and so I do feel compelled by the mechanics to describe a serious if not immediately fatal wound.

<snip>

A character in the negatives needs to be successfully tended otherwise they are in a very bad way (as statistically described on the other thread - they are incredibly likely to die).

I haven't seen this part of the other thread, but here's my maths for a PC dropped to -1 hp, and therefore losing 1 hp per round with a 10% chance to stabilise per round: the chance to recover is 0.1, +09*0.1, +0.9*0.9*0.1, and so on up to 0.9^8*0.1, = 0.1* (0.9 + 0.9^2 ... + 0.9^8) = 0.1 * 5.12579511, which is a little over one-half, and hence yields a chance of death a little under one half. Obviously this chance will grow as the initial wound becomes more serious - the chance to die if dropped to -9 hp is 90%!

I personally think that, if one is assuming that natural healing will be coming into play, this is a bit of an obstacle to narrating the chest-sucker - certainly with a 50% chance of natural recovery, this couldn't be narrated for a -1 wound, but even for a -9 wound one might wonder what sort of chest-sucker spontaneously stabilises within 6 seconds 90% of the time. (This is is one fact one aspect of the game where AD&D's one minute rounds probably aid rather than undercut verisimilitude.)

This is why I think your point about magic is so important - if you narrate the chest-sucker (or, frankly, just mention the negative hit points), the players will reach for their magical healing, and this will explain away the rapid recovery.

If they do get tended to successfully through only mundane means they regain hit points naturally and so will likely be conscious within the day (as long as they are of higher level; otherwise they might remain in the negatives for several days).

<snip>

From this point they will take many days to reach full capacity (although more days for a hale barbarian than for an anemic and sickly wizard).

<snip>

Is it even just a little bit better than 4e? Yes, if not by a huge margin.

Because the wounds don't impede the character during that recovery, except in the very abstract sense that the character is more likely, if struck again, to suffer a fatal rather than a glancing blow, I don't know that 3E is any better than 4e. It mandates a longer recovery time for "heroic verve" (the luck/fate part of hp) but I don't have any preconception as to how long this should take to recover.

Perhaps, in practice, many groups treat the recovery time as corresponding to actual physical healing, and just handwave over the fact that the imputed physical injuries have no impact on the character's performance. But then, following [MENTION=6676736]Pentius[/MENTION], it seems open to me, when playing 4e, to treat the recovery time as corresponding only to verve, and to treat the recovery of the actual injuries (which in any event don't affect performance) by way of handwaved free narration. Personally, I don't see any way to choose between those two even on aesthetic grounds - as [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION] has suggested upthread, I find it hard to see a preference for one rather than the other as anything but a preference of habit.

Which is not a criticism - habits are important and often make life easier and more comfortable - but does mean that the "narrative space" argument, at least as far as natural healing is concerned, is not very strong.

No edition of D&D has ever produced healing to my liking because of the conjoining of physical damage with the abstract qualities of hit points

It never occurred to me to narrate hit point loss short of death as serious physical injury until I saw the idea raised on these boards. But I was someone who migrated to Rolemaster in part out of dissatisfaction with hit points - they made no sense at a physical level, and I hadn't yet worked out how to use them as plot protection/heroic verve - and Rolemaster's treatment of wounds is mechanically reasonably satisfactory, although it doesn't always serve the pacing needs of the game that well.

I actually like the idea of combat surges

Besides their lack of verisimilitude when treated as physical damage, the other reason I disliked hit points is because I found "victory by abalation" boring. And still do. What I like about 4e is that its healing mechanics, plus its liberal use of conditions, positioning etc as important factors in combat, mean that it does not have a "victory by abalation" feel, at least for me.