I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Pentius]

(emphasis mine)

Not entirely accurate.



(There's probably a similar rule in 1Ed or 2Ed, but I don't feel like looking it up at 3AM.)

So, the seriously wounded fighter (down to about 5% of his max total) all alone in the woods without magical healing will be:

1) completely fine by morning, if this is 4Ed.

2) probably still in trouble in 3.5Ed (or previous editions), and will likely be so for some time.

Okay, Danny. Let's flip this around a bit. We know that 1hp is bad territory for a 3e character, because of non-lethal HP. I still don't see that this differs from being not in shape, but it is a form of impediment.

But what of the Fighter at 5 of 100hp? Alone in the woods, in 3e, he's only really in trouble if he comes upon a fight. He can run for 5 hours uninterrupted. He can do half a dozen other types of physical activity not directly covered under non-lethal damage unimpeded. Once the immediate impediment of strenuous running or swimming is covered by a handful of HP, he's not in bad shape.

To put it another way, he can run, jump climb, attack, whatever, so long as he avoids 5 hour plus runs and getting hit. We're considering him injured now, because of the low HP. But what does he gain if he suddenly regains 95 hp? Mostly, he regains the narrative ability to be in lethal circumstance and not die. He is not any faster, stronger, or more agile than he was when "gravely injured". So, if you really want to narrate a grave injury, what is stopping you?

 

[pemerton]

I'm saying that wounds always heal overnight mechanically (that is, as hit points). This mechanically affects the story in a very direct, very real way.

<snip>

I communicate HP as "wounds" because they inevitably are. That is, the only way one physically can die in 4e is, I believe, through HP damage. That means that at some point, they become wounds.

Now, that doesn't mean they're always wounds. And I'm not trying to say they are. I'm trying to express "wounds" in the sense of "mechanical loss of HP."

My point is when you mechanically lose HP, and you regain it back each night, you lose narratives where that wouldn't otherwise be the case, because the party has to make a very real and significant decision on what to do about it

<snip>

I'm not speaking of the description of wounds. I've tried to express that before, but I've apparently failed at that. I'm speaking of mechanical wounds. Saying, "wounds aren't there mechanically unless you make them be there by describing them" is missing the point, as I'm speaking of HP loss. I'm speaking of HP loss, and how always having rapid recovery of it (overnight) cuts out potential narrative paths (story branches) that might be there if wounds have a chance of lasting longer.

That makes it clearer to me, thanks.

Yes, the rate at which a metagame resource like hit points is recovered has an effect on pacing and on player decisions. It could be hit points, it could be action points, it could be fate points.

Heck, it could even be an ingame resource: in games like D&D and high-level Rolemaster, for example, with readily available magical healing, the pacing pressures come not from recovery of hit points but from recovery of spells/spell points (which in those games are generally a PC resource and not just a player resource). And I can imagine a gritty game in which time spent making arrows and/or repairing armour is a major factor in pacing (the Burning Wheel rules are clearly written to support this sort of play, as they have detailed crafting rules and make acquisition of tools and workshops a potentially important part of character building).

Now that (I think) I've understood your point, I want to paraphrase it back to you this way: you dislike that 4e has no medium-to-long term resource recovery mechanism which might put a brake on the pace of play (or otherwise constrain or shape the direction of play); and 4e's approach to surge recovery is one respect in which it lacks such a mechanism (whereas natural healing in earlier editions served as such a mechanism at least when magical healing was not available). Is that right?

just as low recovery time opens the new path of reacting slowly, it cuts off the old path of reacting quickly. The mechanics can't suggest both as the best course of action. That suggests to me that it is a wash. Maybe the precise path of restoring HP slower is preferable to you, and that's fine, but that undercuts the prevailing argument that we who switch to 4e have lost a huge swath of narrative ground. Rather, it suggests we've made a trade-off of one path for another, which is much harder to assign a value judgement to.

Agreed. One door shuts, another opens. I think that 4e suits gonzo-fantasy better, with 4-colour comic, "save the world" style pressures that make long breaks to recover crucial metagame resources nothing but a drag on pacing.

A game like Burning Wheel, which is less gonzo in its default orientation, and therefore more tolerant of breaks in the narrative, and which also has other mechanics built in to suck up long periods of time (like training), probably handles lengthy healing better.

Rolemaster has lengthy healing, but as I think I posted upthread it also tends to favour gonzo plot lines (it certainly has the magic and the monsters to support them), which means it can be a bit confused in the approach to play that it supports. (And this wouldn't be the only respect in which it manifests such confusion . . .)

 

[Samurai]

It's not really meta-game knowledge if it is the character's reality. To them, in the game world, they are back up to full HP after a 5 minute short rest, and they know that. They also know they regain Encounter powers, etc. This is the reality of their world, they need never worry about broken bones, punctured lungs, and other lingering wounds because they, and every other PC, has Wolverine's healing factor in the game, and they know it.

 

[Pentius]

Which is why I like something like 3.X, which allows for both. If you have 100 hit points as a 10th level Fighter, you heal back 10 HP each night. If you take 10 damage, you can press on and be fine (thus you have the narrative path* of still reacting quickly). However, if you take 70 damage, it'll take a week of healing, which means you're debating what to do now. It presents more narrative paths*, as you can press on and be fine (low damage), or have a longer-lasting wound (mechanical HP damage, whatever) and a dilemma (high damage). I want a system that allows for both options.

* Narrative path = story branch.

I think this is a false choice. If you are hit for damage that will heal overnight in 3.x, that damage heals overnight, no choice involved.

If you are hit for a week's worth of damage, you can either wait a week, or if magic is available, not at all. If any real consequence rides on the wait, and magic is at all a choice, then it isn't a choice. You take the magic. the magic will be back in the morning.

You only wait if magic is not available and high damage is dealt. With the dice, though, not even the DM can make that choice for certain.

 

[Pentius]

It's not really meta-game knowledge if it is the character's reality. To them, in the game world, they are back up to full HP after a 5 minute short rest, and they know that. They also know they regain Encounter powers, etc. This is the reality of their world, they need never worry about broken bones, punctured lungs, and other lingering wounds because they, and every other PC, has Wolverine's healing factor in the game, and they know it.

All this does is assume a hardline "HP=Wounds" stance, which, as I've described in detail, is far more damaging to my immersion than treating them as a narrative device.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION], that is a rule for recovering hit points. But it is not a rule for recovering wounds.

When the fighter has partially recovered his/her hit points, s/he can function without impairment (subect to some corner cases in 3E's fatigue rules, which don't exist in AD&D). Is this because s/he is now unwounded, or because s/he is wounded but is not impaired by those wounds due to herioc vigour/luck, or because s/he is wounded but the wounds are minor and non-impairing? The rules don't say.

When the fighter has fully recovered his/her hit points, s/he can function without impairment. Is this because s/he is now unwounded, or because s/he is wounded but is not impaired by those wounds due to herioc vigour/luck, or because s/he is wounded but the wounds are minor and non-impairing? The rules don't say.

The only difference between these two cases is that the fighter who has not recovered all his/her hit points is, due to the way the combat mechanics work, more likely to have the next blow suffered be a fatal one. That is, her heroic verve is reduced. (This cannot even be attributed to fatigue, and a correspondingly reduced ability to dodge/parry, because saving throws, attack rolls, open door rolls, etc are not impaired as they would be by such fatigue.)

So every edition of D&D definitely has rules for recovering hit points. But, other than AD&D 1st ed's death's door rules, there are no rules that I know of for recovering from wounds.

I see your point...but don't exactly agree.

Recovering without Help
A severely wounded character left alone usually dies. He has a small chance, however, of recovering on his own.

A character who becomes stable on his own (by making the 10% roll while dying) and who has no one to tend to him still loses hit points, just at a slower rate. He has a 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious. Each time he misses his hourly roll to become conscious, he loses 1 hit point. He also does not recover hit points through natural healing.

Even once he becomes conscious and is disabled, an unaided character still does not recover hit points naturally. Instead, each day he has a 10% chance to start recovering hit points naturally (starting with that day); otherwise, he loses 1 hit point.

So, if our lonely wounded fighter takes a spill, and takes him below zero, but makes his 10% roll, he stabilizes. He may become disabled.

A disabled character may take a single move action or standard action each round (but not both, nor can she take full-round actions). She moves at half speed. Taking move actions doesn’t risk further injury, but performing any standard action (or any other action the game master deems strenuous, including some free actions such as casting a quickened spell) deals 1 point of damage after the completion of the act. Unless the action increased the disabled character’s hit points, she is now in negative hit points and dying.

So, unlike a character who receives help, the lost 3.5Ed fighter in this case will have his movement hampered, and may actually fall unconscious or start dying again. And he will remain hovering in this precarious state until he makes that 10% roll to start regaining HP normally.

And merely resting overnight gives no bonuses to that 10% roll to regain natural healing.

IOW, his movement is affected, his ability to fight is affected until he recovers his ability to heal naturally or he gets outside help. He is suffering long-term effects from his injuries.

AFAIK, nothing like this can happen in 4Ed.

 

[Oryan77]

Am I nuts to think that all healing surges are is a way for the players and DM to not have to worry about the long-term consequences of damage and healing?

That is the main reason I don't like Healing Surges.

You might as well just get rid of any sort of real-world challenge and just make the game even easier and simpler by saying, "Everyone gets a Healing Burst after every single encounter. It heals you to max and now you can go to the next encounter without any worries. Have fun!"

At least you admit to what they are really for. The thing is, nobody else seems to want to admit that all Healing Surges are is a way to implement "cheat codes" so the game is easier and you have less to deal with. Then everyone wants to rationalize it with incompatible explanations about what hitpoints, bloodied, and dying represent in order to feel ok for using cheat codes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The thing is, nobody else seems to want to admit that all Healing Surges are is a way to implement "cheat codes" so the game is easier and you have less to deal with. Then everyone wants to rationalize it with incompatible explanations about what hitpoints, bloodied, and dying represent in order to feel ok for using cheat codes.

Well, nobody who really loves 'em, at least, has stated such a position.

But I would not be surprised to learn that there is someone who has been waiting for that kind of rule change for a while. That person may just not frequent the RPG boards.

 

[JamesonCourage]

That makes it clearer to me, thanks.

Yes, the rate at which a metagame resource like hit points is recovered has an effect on pacing and on player decisions. It could be hit points, it could be action points, it could be fate points.

Heck, it could even be an ingame resource: in games like D&D and high-level Rolemaster, for example, with readily available magical healing, the pacing pressures come not from recovery of hit points but from recovery of spells/spell points (which in those games are generally a PC resource and not just a player resource). And I can imagine a gritty game in which time spent making arrows and/or repairing armour is a major factor in pacing (the Burning Wheel rules are clearly written to support this sort of play, as they have detailed crafting rules and make acquisition of tools and workshops a potentially important part of character building).

As a side note, my game has a rather detailed crafting section, and I have a PC currently is taking large advantage of it. The party often works around his crafting time (something was held back by two days last session while he crafted something to help the journey).

Now that (I think) I've understood your point, I want to paraphrase it back to you this way: you dislike that 4e has no medium-to-long term resource recovery mechanism which might put a brake on the pace of play (or otherwise constrain or shape the direction of play); and 4e's approach to surge recovery is one respect in which it lacks such a mechanism (whereas natural healing in earlier editions served as such a mechanism at least when magical healing was not available). Is that right?

Um, I'll try to word it as simply as I can (I say "um" because I'm apparently not great at communication recently!): I like having many mechanical devices that allow for standard modern fantasy-genre fiction tropes to be realized in-game. I find that when it comes to natural healing, 4e has narrowed the window more than I find personally appealing (while it's widened it in other areas).

How was that?

I think this is a false choice. If you are hit for damage that will heal overnight in 3.x, that damage heals overnight, no choice involved.

What "choice" are you talking about? I'm talking of a game that mechanically supports both narratives in the base mechanics. I'm saying that I want the game to mechanically support the storyline of "we were 'damaged' in a minor way, but pressed on without any real injury or impediments." This is would be low HP damage.

However, I also want the game to mechanically support the storyline of "we were 'damaged' in a serious way, and then we [insert PC decision] after considering our 'injuries'." This would be high HP damage.

If you are hit for a week's worth of damage, you can either wait a week, or if magic is available, not at all. If any real consequence rides on the wait, and magic is at all a choice, then it isn't a choice. You take the magic. the magic will be back in the morning.

You only wait if magic is not available and high damage is dealt. With the dice, though, not even the DM can make that choice for certain.

It's not about forcing it, it's about supporting it mechanically. That is, if the mechanics support both, then both can theoretically be utilized. You can have someone who is injured and captured (and the captors don't waste magical healing on the PC, and might even lower his HP more), who is split off while injured (scouts ahead and is injured but escapes inside enemy territory, trap separates him from the party, sets off an alarm and gets injured and separated, ambushed and left for dead but someone comes along and finds him alive, etc.), the healer who is dropped in combat, a party without a healer (an all thief or warrior party), etc. In any of these situations (and others not listed, obviously), you can have a lot of interesting narratives open up if HP doesn't mechanically heal overnight. I've experienced it (that is, I've observed it while my players have experienced it). I find it interesting, and I don't want to lose those possible storylines.

I get that people don't agree. I'm fine with them voicing their opinion, and hoping that the game doesn't change. I'm not invested in D&D, so I'm not hugely invested in any decision Wizards makes. However, when it comes to game theory and what I like in a game, I am definitely invested in that, and this is my preference. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

Two weeks ago, I posted this upthread in reply to JamesonCourage:

I don't really regard a system as supporting a cinematic narrative if it is capable of delivering a very different narrative (gritty "modern fantasy") at the whim of the dice.

What 4e offers, that 3E and AD&D don't, is reliable support for the cinematic alternative.

And now you say:

I think this is a false choice. If you are hit for damage that will heal overnight in 3.x, that damage heals overnight, no choice involved.

If you are hit for a week's worth of damage, you can either wait a week, or if magic is available, not at all. If any real consequence rides on the wait, and magic is at all a choice, then it isn't a choice. You take the magic. the magic will be back in the morning.

You only wait if magic is not available and high damage is dealt. With the dice, though, not even the DM can make that choice for certain.

So I fully agree, but believe that I ninja-ed you by about 2 weeks!

(Great minds and all that ...)