D&D 4E 4E, Healing, and Suspension of Disbelief

[Lurker37]

Since some people have complained that they cannot think of a way to rationalise healing surges, here's my attempt at providing one possible in-game explanation of healing surges, built on two premises I've observed in 4E:

1) Healing surges are a fact of life in a 4E setting.

2) In 4E healing magic is taxing on the recipient.

I'm putting this forward in the hope that someone can take this half-formed idea and give it the polish I don't have time to apply at the moment.

Think of Healing surges as bursts of accelerated healing - the body's regenerative systems kicking into overdrive. PCs can even trigger this themselves voluntarily, either over a minute or more while resting, or in emergency during combat via the Second Wind ability (isn't adrenaline wonderful?), and other classes have learned how to inspire others to the point where a healing surge is triggered.

These healing bursts can even be used to overcome battle fatigue - cleaning out the toxins and replenishing the cells, allowing the body to return to full fighting focus when it was beginning to falter. (Healing when hit point loss is not high enough to represent actual wounds.)

But this regeneration taxes the body. It can only be done in short bursts, and each one puts more strain on the user's system. The body can only take so many before it needs to rest and recover. Once you reach that point, no form of healing - magical or otherwise, is going to be able to trigger a burst of healing. Such a person is on their last legs, and in need of rest soon.

 

[baberg]

You can't seperate HPs from injury.

And yet WotC did this very thing on page 293 of the PHB - the section I quoted above. WotC separated a character's HP from their physically injured state. Poof, just like that!

A person at 1 HP will fall over and die without assistance if they're hit by a stone thrown by a small child. Are they really tired? No, they're injured, and near death.

No, they're tired and at the limits of their physical endurance. Sure there are some scrapes and bruises, but the only physically damaging blow they take is the one that reduces them below 0 HP. The child with the rock? Because the PC is exhausted from a long fight, they don't notice the child throwing it and it hits them square in the temple, knocking them out.

They spend 6 seconds and go to their happy place and suddenly they're at 25% HP and no longer going to die from said child. Whats happened? It can't be explained.

The PC sucked it up and continued with his mission. Maybe he thought about his sister abducted by the Orcs and the oath he swore to never give up. Maybe he heard Mickey from the Rocky movies in his head saying "Get up you sunovabitch, 'cause Mickey loves ya!" Maybe his sensei Mr. Miagi came over and told him that his best Karate was still inside, and it was now time to let it out. And then the rock thrown by the boy is dodged and hits his helmet instead of his temple, allowing the PC to continue.

Wow, I just explained the unexplainable!

 

[Aria Silverhands]

No matter how much you people dribble onto the keyboard that Hit Points do not represent actual wounds and injuries, you're not going to make a difference. That mindset is so ingrained into gamers minds that it's not worth trying to say Health / Hit Points are abstract.

Just change the name and you solve both sides problems.

 

[Sashi]

D&D is a game in which Cure spells heal wounds, and Heal spells cure poison.

Don't think about this too hard.

 

[Wormwood]

No matter how much you people dribble onto the keyboard that Hit Points do not represent actual wounds and injuries, you're not going to make a difference.

Took my table 5 minutes to grok it.

I guess we're geniuses.

 

[plutocracy]

I hear you, it bothers me to. Thats why I've always loved the Wound/Vitality system that Starwars and other d20 games use. You have your abstract luck, toughness, vigor represented with Vitality but your actual health isn't in dire straights until you lose Wound points (the rest is merely flesh wounds, bruises, or near misses).

4th ed and healing surges works perfectly with that system as well. Maybe an optional rule where only the cleric and paladin can heal wound points.

So, simple fix other than characters being a bit harder to kill. Just give them -2 to rolls and defenses while wounded or something.

Much easier for me to believe.

To avoid threadjacking another thread, I've moved my off-topic rant to its own little thread. Chime in if you are so inclined.

Exactly. That's why I said that the way healing works in 4E has wrecked my suspension of disbelief.

I've always believed, since the days of the Red Box Rules, that hit points were representative of the amount of damage someone (or something) could sustain before being destroyed. HP = Life Points = Health, whatever. 4E changed that, and now, HP are representative of an all-encompassing, physical/psychological condition that may or may not indicate actual damage, depending on the means by which it can be remedied.

IMO, that's not a good thing. It forces me to change the way a critical element of the D&D game works in my head, in a way that I do not care for, for no real reason except to clumsily explain why everyone can now spontaneously heal themselves. Now I might be in the minority here; lots of people like the healing surges and the quasi-physical nature of damage in 4E...I'm just not a fan of it.

I know it is strange to say that "magical healing is more believable," but it's true. It is easier for me to believe in magic, than to believe I could "walk off" being struck by lightning.

 

[VannATLC]

Of course you're geniuses, you use the term grok. >.>

(I always wanted to be Jubal, growing up. Lack the writing talent. Got the insightful cynic part down pat.)

Regicide - You ignore it time and time again. The system is internally consistent. You choose not to view it. That's your issue, not the systems.

DND HP models the RL-inspired idea of 'The only serious injury you take, is the one that drops you.'.

I'm happy if you people don't like the idea that resting gives you back all your healing surges. Personally, I don't like it. While I'm not using Crits, I have house ruled that every time you drop to 0 or below, your maximum healing surges are reduced by 1, restorable by a week of rest, or by a specific ritual.

However, 3.5 was barely any better, and it didn't rely on magic. A few days rest would heal you from 1 hp. That stretches my imagination even more. It is indiciative of some injury, but can't be anything serious. At least 4e's model heavily indicates you shrug it off.

Anything, like poison, acid, fire damage. They are all flesh wounds. Bandage them up, move on. They don't impact your ability to fight.

I'm tired of this argument. Its not actually an argument, because the facts are unquestionable.

 

[Old_Skool]

No matter how much you people dribble onto the keyboard that Hit Points do not represent actual wounds and injuries, you're not going to make a difference. That mindset is so ingrained into gamers minds that it's not worth trying to say Health / Hit Points are abstract.

As long as we are capping the thread, I'll do you one better:

Why discuss it at all? If something about 4E is ruining one's ability to enjoy the game, there are plenty of other games out there to play. 4th Edition is not mandatory even for hardcore D&D fans, so stop complaining and just go away.

But that wouldn't be fun for anybody.

The point of a discussion (especially an Internet discussion) isn't to change peoples' minds...it is to entertain. If someone doesn't like the old "hit points are abstract" explaination, they should be allowed to express their opinion.

 

[Vaeron]

Ok, fine, that explains healing surges. Now, when you woke up the next day after you broke your ankle, was it completely healed?

Now you're being silly. I doubt he had a cleric or a warlord or a paladin hiking with him. One of the premises of 4e is that a party will have a leader (cleric or warlord) with them treating them during rests. I hope that clears things up some.

 

[IanArgent]

You can't seperate HPs from injury. A person at 1 HP will fall over and die without assistance if they're hit by a stone thrown by a small child. Are they really tired? No, they're injured, and near death. They spend 6 seconds and go to their happy place and suddenly they're at 25% HP and no longer going to die from said child. Whats happened? It can't be explained. Healing surges are not internally consistent. 4E is a bunch of inconsistent garbage thrown together.

I would say this is a fallacy. A stone capable of doing 1 HP of damage is one coming out of a sling aimed with deadly intent. (I will allow you the small child). The putative victim with 1 HP is too exhausted to dodge effectively. He's probably battered and bruised from a long and arduous fight. But given a bit of a breather (6 seconds) he pulls himself together and is now not so bone-tired and battered that he'll miss a slung stone coming for his temple before he can duck/block, etc.

3E got passed this in a simple way. Magic. You rest for a day you get some small amount of HPs back. You want fast healing, you have to use magic. Thats fine. Thats consistent. 4E you could use up all your healing surges and then try and resort to magic in the form of a healing potion and... it doesn't work. Why, magical healing only works when you aren't actually injured? No explainable reason. It's internally inconsistent.

Only if you torture the HP analogy; and make an unfair cross-system comparison. A healing potion no longer imposes healing from outside - it taps into your own reserves. If you've run those reserves dry (and it'll take a long day's adventuring to do so - you had to run through up to 3 times your total HP capacity or more to have exhausted your stores of healing surges if you're a fighter).

It's easy to suspend disbelief for fantasy mechanics, but when those mechanics are internally inconsistent it's impossible. You lose immersion and have to just accept the fact that you're playing a game and not part of one.

I would say the HP system is more consistent that it's ever been before in 4E. All it takes to kill someone is to do one HP of damage to them. It's just that some people have enough endurance to be able to stave of that last, physical point of damage for several minutes of deadly melee.

I don't know if you've read the Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. The main character is the Roman general Belisarius, in an alt-history saga in which Rome and an Indian empire clash. There's a battle in Persia described in the 4th book (The battle of the Pass if you've read the series) which is described in exacting detail. At one point the narrator notes that the elite Greek cataphracts pace themselves during the fight, resting when they can. But when they are fully engaged, they essentially die of exhaustion. Their swordwork is a little slower, their shieldwork a little sloppier - and the attacks that they would have otherwise parried with their swords or blocked on their shields slip through and are disabling or deadly. But given the chance to retreat, rest and reform; within a few minutes they are capable of fighting again.

From my own experience as a wrestler in high school I can say that during the match you are going at ten-tenths capacity - the match is at most 5 minutes of maximum exertion, and by the end of a full-length match you are wrung out and making mistakes. But a few minutes of rest and you're back up and ready to go.