D&D 4E 4e Healing as Plot Device

[rob626]

So after 6 hours of rest PC's are fully healed. Lots of people have trouble with this. Perhaps there is a better way to deal with the issue.

Make it a plot device! The god of healing, getting a bit too big for her britches, long ago implemented this plan. Every creature not dead heals overnight by her miraculous power. (This addresses the "but that's not realistic!" crowd). This is no more far fetched than dragons with hoards of treasure or mages with fireballs.

So if you don't like the "heal overnight" thing let the players change it for good or ill. The god of death is sick of this wimpy attitude and it makes his job harder, so he sponsors an artifact that cancels this effect. People get sick/wounded and stop recovering overnight. As his minions feed the artifact power/souls/whatever the area where healing overnight fails increases. Eventually the artifact will affect the entire world.

Let the players decide if they want to help the god of healing restore things to "normal" or if they want to help the god of death restore some semblance of balance. Placing the players into the decision making process for world events is empowering to them and helps deal with the thorny issue of believability at the same time.

Thoughts?

 

[fafhrd]

I think it's a fine idea. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see optional rules for 'gritty' campaigning that turn this feature off as well as options for changing healing surge recharge rate.

 

[DreamChaser]

Let's all repeat this together...

"HP loss does not equal physical damage"

Good. and again...

"HP loss does not equal physical damage"

Great. I think we've got it.

And since HP loss does not equal physical damage (see above), healing completely after 6 hours is not some amazing miracle of the gods of healing: it is the benefit of resting a tired body and mind.

"But teacher! What about 'bloodied?' Isn't that proof that HP loss IS equal to physical damage?"

Great question. Actually it is proof of the opposite. If all HP loss was physical damage, having a bloodied condition would make no sense because any HP loss would cause you to be blooded. Instead, this shows that by the time you are at about 50% HP, you've dodged and parried enough that are tired and have probably gotten a bloody nose or cut on your arm or other minor (but obvious) injury. This injury spurs on some blood thirsty creatures (like tieflings) but has little effect beyond that.

So, again, HP loss is not equal to physical damage and so non-magical healing surges and the restorative benefits of a night's rest make perfect sense.

Class dismissed.

DC

 

[Lizard]

From the perspective of the PCs, the six hour healing doesn't bother me; it just formalizes the way the game always worked, whether due to clerics or wands. What bugs me is what it implies about the day-to-day life of the world. I have this problem in 3e; I've got a small town with a 3rd level cleric, pretty typical, and said town has a hospital, and it occurs to me it's next to useless -- anyone wounded and not dead, the cleric can heal. (Disease is another issue) While in times of war, there might be more than 2 or 3 severe injuries a day, this isn't the case for normal life. Anyone breaks their leg, has an accident with an automated rice picker, or whatever, and poof! Good as new!

In 4e, you don't even need a cleric. Just not to die.

At this point, i'm tempted to say that 'healing surges' are something only a rare few people with special gut, grits, and determination have (PCs and 'named' foes), and use level/HP/day healing as the standard for the lumpen masses.

 

[malraux]

Let's all repeat this together...

"HP loss does not equal physical damage"

Good. and again...

"HP loss does not equal physical damage"

Great. I think we've got it.

Don't forget the other side of it. HP gain does not equal physical repair. That is, you can bind a wound and get some HP back, not because you are healed, but because you're able to take more damage.

 

[Walking Dad]

So after 6 hours of rest PC's are fully healed. Lots of people have trouble with this. Perhaps there is a better way to deal with the issue.

...

I think this isn't something new. In 3rd edition you just need 8 hours and a cleric as catalyst.
In no group I have ever been we really "used" natural healing (times). Face it, spells returned after 8 hours rest or a prayer every 24 hours. HP did regain much slower. They just cutted the need of a cleric in the resting period.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

At this point, i'm tempted to say that 'healing surges' are something only a rare few people with special gut, grits, and determination have (PCs and 'named' foes), and use level/HP/day healing as the standard for the lumpen masses.

This!

 

[spunky_mutters]

I don't see this as any different from the party seeing a guy with no eye, or who has lost a limb in 3e. How did that happen? The rules don't support it, so it had to happen off camera, when the rules weren't watching.

That's pretty much how the world works. Healing surges, and hps themselves, are most definitely a function of gameplay/narrative control that has nothing to do with how the world really behaves.

 

[rob626]

This was less an idea about how hitpoints are abstractions and more of an idea on how those that are having trouble with the hitpoints as abstraction can deal with the apparent contradictions between heal overnight and hp as wounds concepts.

By involving a higher power it smooths over the believability for those that need an explanation of why someone with an arrow sticking out of him feels better in the morning. And it involves the players so that they can make a solid, game-impacting change in their campaign world.

Imagine how the players will feel when they look back at the story arc and say "The reason healing is the way it is today is because we succeeded/failed!"

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Hero System has long had this problem when doing Fantasy Games (or any other genre where you want people to get beat up over time). Since it is cheap to buy a healing spell that a person can use as much as they want, anyone not killed in a fight is quickly back to fully healthy. There are various ways of getting around this on the edge conditions, but ultimately if you want to truly limit the healing of "Body", you do exactly what 4E does--limit the amount of healing per day that a person can get, not try to limit the healing effects.

Once you get why this works, the answer is easy: If you want something in 4E closer to the effect that 3E has, then let creatures recover their full complement of healing surges each day, but do not let them get any healing outside a surge--or at least sharply limit other healing. That is, extend what 4E already apparently does during a day to cover weeks, months, etc.

For example, Thud the Barbarian is extremely whacked on Day 1. He has used all of his 8 healing surges for the day, and currently has 5 hit points. He rests through the night. He gets back his 8 healing surges and, say, 1 hit point per level for resting. So he his still down many hit points. Upon waking, Thud immediately uses enough healing surges to get to 100% hit points--say, three of them. Great. If his Day 2 is uneventful, the non-physical, not serious damage he took on Day 1 is erased. If his Day 2 is moderately rough, he skates along much as he his--tired but still very effective. If his Day 2 is as rough as Day 1 (needing 8 healing surges to get through it), then Thud is going to die, barring some smart play on his part.

It need not be that dramatic, either. If every morning on an adventure, a character has to use one more of his healing surges to get back to 100% hit points, and this continues for days and days (1 on first day, 2 on second day, etc.), then eventually he gets too beat up and runs out. That is a mere deficit of needing one more healing surge each day than the character has--without a break, it will eventually prove fata.