D&D (2024) 4e design in 5.5e ?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Things I love from D&D 4 that I want to see again:

1. Warlord. It was a fun class, and I think it has an important role in fiction that seems underserved in D&D 4 Core.

2. Monsters combat abilties should all be within the stat block. If they can cast as 15th level Sorceror, too, that's fine, but list the relevant powers in the stat block. No page-flipping between MM and PHB! Ideally also some monster abilities that make them feel unique. A Gnoll Sorceror and a Kobold Sorceror should definitely feel different from each other, but I should also see some shared features between the Gnoll Sorceror and the Gnoll Fighter.

3. All Classes balanced about the same across the adventuring day, regardless of how many fights there are each day.
That does not have to mean that everyone needs to have At-Will/Encounter/Daily.
What I wouldn't mind instead:
After a short rest (be it 5 minutes or an hour or a day), a character can recover all important abilities. There might be some things that don't recover that fast, but then, everyone should have access to some then. D&D 4 healing surges for example.

The reason I really want that is because I am running a campaign with sessions that don't go beyond 2.5 hours per week (minus cancellations), and you can't really pack that many fights in an adventure. We're not going to run through 12 fights to clear one dungeon and gain one level. So I really prefer if every class and character can be balanced around one fight per day or 12 fights a day equally.

Under this scenario, I did a homebrew Star Wars game that was mostly based on 4E ADEU framework, and I realized that having 4 encounter and 4 daily powers just became too much, too. I need lots of high level NPCs to even provide challenging encounters - and it's a homebrew, so I don't have play-tested monsters reasonably well tuned for encounter level/challenge rating determination.

What I kinda want to experiment with is taking some ideas from Iron Heroes. Classes earn tokens over the course of the combat to power more powerful abilities. I am not sure that would really fly with D&D, though. At least not directly. But maybe at least for spells one could convince people to accept longer casting times, to represent a spellcaster casting a really powerful spell. Maybe a Fighter can stock up his superiority dice each turn he doesn't use them, and has some options that are only available with a high number of superiority dice. A Rogue might be able to sneak around and study his foe for a nasty backstab attack. Ah, well, that isn't really D&D 4 anymore, of course.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, just looking this up now, it seems that healing potions required available healing surges to be useful? What is that supposed to represent in the fiction? Are healing potions just glasses of water?

While in the heat of battle, Healing Surges are difficult to access. Normally, characters can only make use of one, and doing so costs them a standard action (which is a pretty steep cost in 4e terms). This is actually more similar to how real-world response to trauma works: the body actually has quite a lot of resources at its disposal, but a sudden, intense traumatic event can so badly disrupt your internal homeostatic equilibrium that you're unable to use those resources. They take time to draw out, more than the less-than-a-minute that most combats are supposed to be.

Healing potions directly allow the user's body to draw on those reserves. They usually aren't very efficient at it either--they give fixed HP instead of being based on your surge value, so most characters would prefer "proper" healing. But that doesn't mean healing potions are worthless, they're just emergency healing rather than main baseline healing. Drinking one is also a minor action rather than a standard action though, so there may be cases where the weaker potion is worth being able to take some other action too.

To me, that seems too transparent as other people are saying, in that the game is very obviously telling you that you will have access to X amt of healing and no more, because it does not want encounters to become unbalanced. Whereas in basic/AD&D, doing things to unbalance encounters (say, hoarding healing potions) was the objective.

If you choose to view it that way, that is your prerogative, but there are perfectly cromulent ways of viewing this, ones used in many other games. That is, the HP-vs-surges system is loosely analogous to a "vitality and wounds" system. You can only take X many wounds per day before you're tapped out--anything further could genuinely kill you. And even if you haven't taken that many wounds, if you lose too much vitality all at once, you can die from the sudden, intense trauma. Both of these behaviors model real human beings better than HP do. Humans must maintain homeostasis and have only so much energy they can expend in a given day before fatigue sets in, requiring rest. HP and surges correspond quite closely, in a narrative sense, to (what I would call) "fatigue" vs "exhaustion." Once you're truly exhausted, you have nothing left to give--time to pack it in. Before that point, though, a bit of rest can eliminate temporary fatigue....but only up to a limit.

Worth noting: different classes have different numbers of Healing Surges. Fighters, Paladins, and other classes that are, narratively and mechanically, geared for taking hits tend to have high numbers of surges. (Barbarians, for example, are not "Defenders" but have relatively more Surges because they're beefy front-line attackers expecting to take hits.) Wizards have few baseline Healing Surges, because they're bookish nerds. Anyone can get more surges by raising their Constitution (you add your Con mod to your total number of surges), or by taking the Durable feat (gives you two more healing surges).

There are also some extremely thematic powers tied into the Healing Surge system, my favorite being the Paladin's Lay on Hands power. It's a daily power, though you can use it a number of times each day equal to your Wisdom modifier (min 1). When you use it, you expend one of your healing surges, and an ally you can touch (or yourself) heals as though they had spent a surge. It is, quite literally, "I give of myself, to replenish you." That's WAY more thematic and flavorful than the incredibly boring "you have a pool of HP to share" mechanic that has been used in other editions. I value examples of gameplay and story integration like this.

 

[billd91]

There are also some extremely thematic powers tied into the Healing Surge system, my favorite being the Paladin's Lay on Hands power. It's a daily power, though you can use it a number of times each day equal to your Wisdom modifier (min 1). When you use it, you expend one of your healing surges, and an ally you can touch (or yourself) heals as though they had spent a surge. It is, quite literally, "I give of myself, to replenish you." That's WAY more thematic and flavorful than the incredibly boring "you have a pool of HP to share" mechanic that has been used in other editions. I value examples of gameplay and story integration like this.

The paladin's use of his own surges to lay on hands was probably the best thing about the healing surge system because it was very thematic. The paladin sacrificed to help his companions.
But then he got spotted at least 1 more healing surge over any other class to make it less of a sacrifice. So, I guess, what one good idea giveth, a poor idea undermineth.

 

[Malmuria]

Did I miss an announcement? I can't find anything about a 5.5 Edition on WotC's website. Are we talking about the 5E Rules Expansion set?

(Serious question, not trolling)

Yeah I was talking about the 2024 edition, whatever you want to call it.

I can't find it now, but I read a review of Tasha's when it came out that pointed out aspects of the design that were moving 'back' to 4e type design. In addition, it seems there's been a resurgence of interest in those mechanics, so I was sort of curious to see what aspects could/should be brought over (or should not be brought over).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The paladin's use of his own surges to lay on hands was probably the best thing about the healing surge system because it was very thematic. The paladin sacrificed to help his companions.
But then he got spotted at least 1 more healing surge over any other class to make it less of a sacrifice. So, I guess, what one good idea giveth, a poor idea undermineth.

I mean, I think of that as also narrative: the people who become Paladins have trained to be more durable. They've been making those sacrifices a lot, and that leads to more durability.

But let's turn that around: Would it be acceptable if they had received the Durable feat for free, with the caveat that they could subsequently take that feat a second time? (I don't recall if 4e allowed you to take that one more than once.) Keep in mind, not all Paladins had Lay on Hands, but all Paladins got extra surges.

 

[Teemu]

So, just looking this up now, it seems that healing potions required available healing surges to be useful? What is that supposed to represent in the fiction? Are healing potions just glasses of water?

To me, that seems too transparent as other people are saying, in that the game is very obviously telling you that you will have access to X amt of healing and no more, because it does not want encounters to become unbalanced. Whereas in basic/AD&D, doing things to unbalance encounters (say, hoarding healing potions) was the objective.

Common healing potions always require a surge, but 4e also has uncommon potions (cure wounds potions) that let you heal even if you don’t have any surges left. If any of that causes an issue in the fiction, it shouldn’t be any more of an issue than a high level character in 5e or 3.5 quaffing 10 potions of weak healing potions, yet still only be at half hp total—who then proceeds to run a marathon, followed by a jump from a tower that doesn’t kill them. And a commoner at death’s door drinks the same weak potion and is at full health.

One of the perks of healing surges is that the large majority of healing scales with character level. The weird issue with large hp totals and weaker healing effects largely disappears.

 

[billd91]

I mean, I think of that as also narrative: the people who become Paladins have trained to be more durable. They've been making those sacrifices a lot, and that leads to more durability.

But let's turn that around: Would it be acceptable if they had received the Durable feat for free, with the caveat that they could subsequently take that feat a second time? (I don't recall if 4e allowed you to take that one more than once.) Keep in mind, not all Paladins had Lay on Hands, but all Paladins got extra surges.

If you're compensated for making the sacrifice, it's not a sacrifice - it's a transaction. If the paladin player wanted to choose the feat, that's their option. But receiving Durable for free? Why are you undermining the sacrificial theme again?

 

[Undrave]

One thing I'll say regarding this (and which may be why there seems to be a disparity between those who found use with healing surges and those who didn't) is that I know personally in the 4E games I ran that I don't believe there was ever a time when a party ran low (let alone out) of healing surges before taking extended rests. So there was never any pacing to come out of them, and there was never a question of "pressing on" or not. I know for our tables, the number of healing surges a character had never came up, because the party would take rests based on narrative concerns... and that usually meant after just one or two combats in a day.

Now obviously this entirely comes out of how any particular DM runs their game, which is why some probably found them great, and some never got the appeal. If surges being a pacing mechanic never actually got used in that way (like they never were for me), of course that DM wouldn't see the use others do, and might very well just make the equivalency between the HS and the HD. "You have a fight, you spend some HS/HD, you get back some hit points, you then continue with your day until it's time to sleep."

So at the end of the day, it's not anything that will be able to be shown to someone else who doesn't agree with you, because their experiences with them were different and no amount of explanation is going to make it clear.

You're missing another aspect of Healing Surges: they were used for more than just healing damage taken in combat.

Traps, for exemple, wouldn't inflict HP damage, they would generally drain a healing surge (basically, it was assumed you would rest and spend your HS to recover HP anyway so it cut the middle man), environmental effects like a snow storm or extreme heat would ALSO drain surges if you failed an Endurance check. Certain rituals would require you to spend Healing Surges, the entire Martial Practice concept used Surges to fuel them, some Magical Item used them, I think the Warden had a power to spend a Healing Surge to grant Temp HP to everybody and that some monsters would drain them. You also had diseases and curses that could reduce your healing surge total or prevent you from recovering them!

 

[Ovinomancer]

One thing I'll say regarding this (and which may be why there seems to be a disparity between those who found use with healing surges and those who didn't) is that I know personally in the 4E games I ran that I don't believe there was ever a time when a party ran low (let alone out) of healing surges before taking extended rests. So there was never any pacing to come out of them, and there was never a question of "pressing on" or not. I know for our tables, the number of healing surges a character had never came up, because the party would take rests based on narrative concerns... and that usually meant after just one or two combats in a day.

Now obviously this entirely comes out of how any particular DM runs their game, which is why some probably found them great, and some never got the appeal. If surges being a pacing mechanic never actually got used in that way (like they never were for me), of course that DM wouldn't see the use others do, and might very well just make the equivalency between the HS and the HD. "You have a fight, you spend some HS/HD, you get back some hit points, you then continue with your day until it's time to sleep."

So at the end of the day, it's not anything that will be able to be shown to someone else who doesn't agree with you, because their experiences with them were different and no amount of explanation is going to make it clear.

I'm aware of that. I've encountered it. It's very frustrating, because what it's saying is that people played the game in a way that was different from how the game told you to play it (and 4e is exceedingly clear on encounter design and pacing) and then say that it's the game and the mechanics that are the problem. I recognize that I'm probably not going to get much traction with this, but there it is -- it's saying the mechanics don't work as intended based on not using them as intended.

 

[Mordhau]

WotC overdesigning games for a particular intended game pacing that tables don't actually want (or can't) adhere to is a recurring problem with their design.

Yes you can then frame it as working as designed, but it remains an issue that the goals of design are inflexible and misplaced.