D&D General 4e Healing was the best D&D healing

[billd91]

I think one issue on the corporatization of D&D is that the design time is too short and the editions are released incomplete. Like modern video games.

4E's healing system was great but the power system and some of the math needed tweaks. Tweaks that a bit longer internal playtests would have spotted.

Samewith 3e and 5e and their unbalanced classes and weird monsters.

I don't think it's a question of corporatization, per se. As long as the initial offering of the game edition is about as complete as its predecessor's initial offering and not grossly unplayable, I'm not sure there's a lot of validity to the complaint. Time in the hands of a mass of players is always going to reveal unexpected consequences of the rules. I'm not sure it's entirely fair to compare tabletop RPGs with a lot of predatory video game publishers who rely on eager gamers buying a release that's half-baked because they failed to account for time overruns in the project and didn't move the release date.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Let me guess... they also roll for HP at level up and prefer to roll for stats instead of using point buys or standard array?

They don't, on either front, no. I prefer arrays, they all seem to prefer point buy. One of them did want to roll their ability scores once, but she got frustrated with the results and went back point buy.

I think it's more about tactility of dice and that each HD represents a level. Originally I would allow them use the average if they wanted and they never did. There's always the possibility of rolling HIGH.

Maybe you should have them roll for movement like in Hero Quest, I bet they'd like that too

We do movement checks all the time. We only grab out the battlemat for the more intricate combats, so if there's uncertainty about positioning we often resolve it with a check.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't think it's a question of corporatization, per se. As long as the initial offering of the game edition is about as complete as its predecessor's initial offering and not grossly unplayable, I'm not sure there's a lot of validity to the complaint. Time in the hands of a mass of players is always going to reveal unexpected consequences of the rules. I'm not sure it's entirely fair to compare tabletop RPGs with a lot of predatory video game publishers who rely on eager gamers buying a release that's half-baked because they failed to account for time overruns in the project and didn't move the release date.

I don't know. The last three editions are chock full of stuff that are so obviously weird or off you don't know how they get printed as is. Thrn you learn about designer bias and lack time to playtest it all and it makes sense.

Also that "just make it good enough to sell" feels very corporate from my experience. Especially in todays gaming.

I concur, whole-heartedly. The expectation that you will find magic items suitable for your character is ... troublesome. I don't mind there being some flexibility and some availability outside of treasure troves, but I also don't care for the idea that (for example) a STR-based character can reliably expect to find a set of gauntlets of ogre power by level 5 or so.

Rules expectations creating weird gameplay results have always been an issue for D&D.

For example,low, mid, and high magic item availability games will have drastically different results. 3e handled it poorly. 4e handled it weirdly. 5e straight up lell you "stuff gets weird if you touch that knob. I aint tryna be balanced".

 

[Staffan]

The wand of cure light wounds was a problem (as were wands of various utility spells that enabled the wizard to step all over roguish toes). But my take on it wasn't that healing was problematic - my conclusion is that the wand rules were problematic. This is one of the premiere problems with the 3e family - the magic item creation/purchase rules. They're way too commodified and it changed (I'd go so far as to say warped) the way a lot of people approached and played the game.

Sure, I'll buy that. But I believe the wand of cure light wounds warped the game much more than a wand of knock did. Knock lets you deal with certain challenges, but the healstick changes the fundamental underpinnings of the game.

And hey, going into a fight with full hit points, or nearly so, is fun, and it allows the DM to judge the difficulty of each encounter on its own without accounting for previous attrition. Every version of D&D after 3rd has had some form of easy healing: 5e has hit dice and the Healer feat, 13th age has Recoveries which is basically the same as healing surges, Starfinder has a Stamina/Hit points system (where damage first depletes Stamina and then Hit points, and Stamina recovers fully on a brief rest) and Pathfinder 2 has the Medicine skill that lets you Treat Wounds in order to recover hp without any other resource than time. So the problem isn't the wand in and of itself, it's that the rest of the system makes certain assumptions which the wand then completely breaks.

 

[FireLance]

For example, if you wanted to stretch the concept of an adventure day in 4e, you could simply redefine a long rest as requiring a week of rest, unless resting in a safe location. Then you can do attrition based adventures spread over several days.

Just for completeness, you could also define a short rest as eight hours, so that the PCs' "encounter" powers were effectively only regained daily.

 

[FireLance]

For example,low, mid, and high magic item availability games will have drastically different results. 3e handled it poorly. 4e handled it weirdly. 5e straight up lell you "stuff gets weird if you touch that knob. I aint tryna be balanced".

Actually, I thought 4E made it really easy to adjust for the presence or absence of magic items. I don't know why the 4E team didn't make it more explicit. Maybe they weren't confident enough of their own math, or they were too invested in the philosophy that 4E should be run without tweaks.

Anyway, the basic assumption in 4E is that the PCs' attacks and defenses would increase at roughly 1 point per level. The increase isn't steady and you get occasional spikes and plateaus, but it generally isn't noticeable in actual play. Similarly, monsters' attacks and defenses would go up 1 point per level, and this is generally baked into the monster creation guidelines.

Hence, if the game assumes a PC of level X would have +A weapons and armor, but the PC only has +B weapons and armor, treat the PC as level X - A + B when designing encounters. In the case of a no magic campaign, B = 0, and the formula just becomes X - A.

I find this far superior to 5E's guidelines which effectively say: the encounters are balanced on the assumption that the PCs have no magic items. If you decide to give your 20th level paladin a holy avenger, plate mail +2, and a shield +2, you're on your own.

 

[Olrox17]

Actually, I thought 4E made it really easy to adjust for the presence or absence of magic items. I don't know why the 4E team didn't make it more explicit. Maybe they weren't confident enough of their own math, or they were too invested in the philosophy that 4E should be run without tweaks.

Anyway, the basic assumption in 4E is that the PCs' attacks and defenses would increase at roughly 1 point per level. The increase isn't steady and you get occasional spikes and plateaus, but it generally isn't noticeable in actual play. Similarly, monsters' attacks and defenses would go up 1 point per level, and this is generally baked into the monster creation guidelines.

Hence, if the game assumes a PC of level X would have +A weapons and armor, but the PC only has +B weapons and armor, treat the PC as level X - A + B when designing encounters. In the case of a no magic campaign, B = 0, and the formula just becomes X - A.

I find this far superior to 5E's guidelines which effectively say: the encounters are balanced on the assumption that the PCs have no magic items. If you decide to give your 20th level paladin a holy avenger, plate mail +2, and a shield +2, you're on your own.

There was even a specific variant rule, inherent bonuses, to run campaigns with no magic items. I used it to great effect, it worked like a charm.
You could even turn it on and off in the official character builder.

 

[Bawylie]

There are so many mechanical aspects of 4E that really make it the superior game to me. It's sad that there's something about the simulationist aspects of 3E/5E that make them generally more widely liked systems.

I've been running a 5E game, and every time I design encounters I get sad and miss 4E.

I wish I could marry 5Es character presentation to 4Es mechanics and monsters, but every time I sit down to do a rewrite, I get lost.

Hm. Noted.

 

[Undrave]

Actually, I thought 4E made it really easy to adjust for the presence or absence of magic items. I don't know why the 4E team didn't make it more explicit. Maybe they weren't confident enough of their own math, or they were too invested in the philosophy that 4E should be run without tweaks.

Anyway, the basic assumption in 4E is that the PCs' attacks and defenses would increase at roughly 1 point per level. The increase isn't steady and you get occasional spikes and plateaus, but it generally isn't noticeable in actual play. Similarly, monsters' attacks and defenses would go up 1 point per level, and this is generally baked into the monster creation guidelines.

Hence, if the game assumes a PC of level X would have +A weapons and armor, but the PC only has +B weapons and armor, treat the PC as level X - A + B when designing encounters. In the case of a no magic campaign, B = 0, and the formula just becomes X - A.

I find this far superior to 5E's guidelines which effectively say: the encounters are balanced on the assumption that the PCs have no magic items. If you decide to give your 20th level paladin a holy avenger, plate mail +2, and a shield +2, you're on your own.

I think one of 4e's strength was how... naked the game design was. It was clear about its structure and its principles and it made us all think about game design more. I think the hobby got better overall as a result of discussions surrounding its design, good or bad.

It was, however, probably why a bunch of people didn't like it. It turns out a lot of people don't like to think of their role playing game as a an actual game?

 

[Xeviat]

I think one of 4e's strength was how... naked the game design was. It was clear about its structure and its principles and it made us all think about game design more. I think the hobby got better overall as a result of discussions surrounding its design, good or bad.

It was, however, probably why a bunch of people didn't like it. It turns out a lot of people don't like to think of their role playing game as a an actual game?

I think about this a lot. In 5E, I find myself missing some of the fiddly 3E things (like how spot/listen got a penalty for distance or armor check penalties). There's something about a system pretending to be simulationist that lets players feel like they're in a world.

Somehow, balanced game rules put off some part of some people's minds. And that's weird.