D&D 4E 4e Healing - Is This Right?

[D.Shaffer]

I think this is the cruz of the issue.

And, that's the bottom line. Fun. What is fun for one group might not be fun for another. I see a lot of 4E house rules being introduced into my campaign, just because the game is sliding further and further from DND and closer and closer to video games, all for the sake of expediency and simplification.

Exactly. You might see it as sliding closer and closer to video games. Others, me included, seeing it as simplifying a system to bring it more along the lines of the epic/action fantasy many of us have always pictured in our heads to begin with. Wizards is banking on there being more people like me, and less like you. Whether they're right, we wont know until we see how well the game does in the long run.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

But they probably used all approaches (2-2-2, 1-2-1, 1-1-1) and figured out that despite all their intellect, 1-1-1 was always the faster approach, and it didn't affect the gameplay fun negatively and due to the speed, made it better.

I certainly hope that's what they believe, since otherwise making the change means they're objectively stupid.

It can be very annoying to think too hard about the game and try to make sense of everything. But you're - unless your designing game elements - not supposed to think about the game, but to play it.

Um, I think your play-group and play experiences must be very, very different from mine. We think about how things work in the game all the time. We like to understand the world, as best we can, from our characters' perspectives.

And, seriously, it doesn't take thinking "too hard" about the problematic 4E rules to see that they're problematic. The two major rules sub-systems I have a problem with both pretty much reached out and slapped me on first reading, and the one I've play-tested only got worse in actual play. (And that was tactical miniatures combat, without even the need or desire for immersion.)

And a fast rate of healing means that the story of the game can unfold at the speed the group wants to.

That's fine. So the designers should explain it.

 

[FourthBear]

It really doesn't matter if you call hit points "stamina" and healing surges "recoveries" ... the basic problem remains: there's no injury in 4E.

And there was no significant injury rules in all previous editions of D&D. If there are no penalties to actions, that is not a significant injury. There has never been a way for a character to lose a limb or an eye outside of artibrary table decisions by the DM. Recovery times for hit point gain in 3e are not realistic. How can a character continually be brought to the brink of death from injury and recover with 48 hours of bed rest? Previous rules for hit points were a clumsy melange of unrealistic fantasy heroic action rules coupled with slightly more realistic, actual physical wounds recovery times. This is the worst of both worlds. It breaks suspension of disbelief that characters can recover from actual physical injuries as quickly as they do in 3e *and* they recover too slowly if they represent combat luck/injury avoidance (which all editions of D&D have explictly supported in part). The 4e approach is finally approaching a consistent message, which is far more respectful of gamers.

I would also ask that you stop making claims for the "remarkable contempt" the designers have for gamers. It is highly insulting.

 

[glass]

"Ease in playing the game," right, rather than "fun from playing the game"? After all, they "prioritized" the possibility of me having fun right out of the game.

No, you've done that yourself, by refusing to accept hp != actual injury in 4e even though it hasn't been a problem before.

And I know you'll come back with 'but in previous editions hp were actual injury' but repeating it yet again won't alter the fact that it isn't true, for all the reasons that have been pointed out several times by others in this thread.


glass.

 

[KarinsDad]

You don't play much above say level 10 I take it?

Of course you don't automatically die just because you lose initiative, the point was that initiative was much more important in 3e than in any previous edition, especially at higher levels. Doesn't change the fact that you were wrong about 3e being more weak-sauce than 1e and 2e, just because there are more options for healing up, during and in between encounters, and a point buy stat system /boggle.

Actually, I've played as high as 20th level. You are making assumptions based on your experiences which disagree with mine.

3E is not weak-sauce compared to 1E/2E just because of all of the healing options. It's weak-sauce due to all of the synergies of the abilities introduced by feats, prestige classes, and magic items (the former two which do not exist in 1E/2E).

A well designed and tactically well played 3E group of PCs will wipe through practically any same or slightly higher EL set of opponents nearly every time. It's actually difficult for a DM to challenge 3E PCs without increasing the difficulty of encounters significantly over what is recommended in the DMG or focusing heavily on PC areas of weakness. And, a lot of this is due to the synergies of the splat books and the introduction of the wealth by level chart (and the corresponding over proliferation of magic items in 3E to match that chart). This was not as strongly the case in 1E/2E. With more options comes more ways to handle even challenging situations and 3E just flat out has more options than 1E or 2E.

Winning initiative at higher levels is desirable in 3E, but it is rarely game breaking. Why? Because PCs have so many options in 3E to handle losing initiative.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

And I know you'll come back with 'but in previous editions hp were actual injury' but repeating it yet again won't alter the fact that it isn't true, for all the reasons that have been pointed out several times by others in this thread.

So what are you doing in 1E and 2E for the weeks that you're "healing" (game rules term) up to full HP? If you aren't healing from injury, what exactly is it you were doing?

In 3E, what are you doing when you're waiting for days while "healing" (again, game rules term) up to full HP? If you aren't healing an injury, what exactly's going on?

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Not anymore. That's exactly the problem. In 4E, there's "perfectly fine" and there's "dead." There's nothing in the middle. That just doesn't work for me in a game that is so much about combat.

Please explain to me how this is different from 1st edition, 2nd edition, and 3rd edition. It's not a case of "not anymore" -- a fighter in 2nd edition, with 1 hit point left out of 100, hits just as hard, works just as hard, can travel just as far, etc. etc. There has never been anything in the middle in D&D -- so it's not something 4th edition is changing, as you're implying. The only thing that's changing is the recovery system -- which is more logical in terms of what hit points seem to model, IMO.

 

[KarinsDad]

And I know you'll come back with 'but in previous editions hp were actual injury' but repeating it yet again won't alter the fact that it isn't true, for all the reasons that have been pointed out several times by others in this thread.

Actually, it is true.

There is a misrepresentation going on by the people on your side of the argument.

The 1E DMG indicated that hit points were not just wounds. It was the abillity to avoid serious wounds as well.

But, this explanation in the DMG is to explain the fact that a third level PC in 1E had 3 times as many hit points as a first level PC. That was a jarring disconnect back in the day 30 years ago. It's not that he can take 3 times as much damage, it's that hit points represent not only his ability to take damage, but also his ability to avoid serious damage.

It still took days or weeks to heal up in 1E BECAUSE hit points represented being wounded.


In 4E, this is no longer the case and this is a major divergence on what hit points represent. That paragraph in the 1E DMG does not support a case that hit points never represented wounds. They always did, even in 3E. Cure Light Wounds is called that for a reason and that reason has not changed since 1E. In 3E, hit points is also called damage. In 3E:

Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

It has always represented these two things since the days of 1E.

In 4E, it only represents real damage if a PC dies. Otherwise, it represents some form of "HERO game system Stun" which comes back in combat, between combat, and by the next day.

 

[Propheous_D]

I can't believe this argument is still going on..... Sometimes I really question the views of people that play this game then I remember the world I live and work in. If I have to tell someone how to spell their name so they can log into windows I guess this arguement is not that suprising.

Injury is a broad term which is not being defined here.

Does HP = Injury?

Yes it does in the most abstract way possible. The fact that seem not to grasp is that HP does not and will never reflect a serious injury. It also NEVER EVER IN THE ENTIRE SPAN OF DND done that. Just because something takes longer to recover from doesn't mean that physical injury was involved.

Serious Injury in DnD?

Sharpness weapons come to mind.
Whithering spells come to mind.
Ability damage in 3E and 3.5
Blindness/Deafness
Poison and Disease

None of the above have anything to do with Hit points beyond the fact that it may require a successful attack and damage to inflict. This may give you the impression that injury was achieved but a scratch does not a full blown injury make, and in an abstract system were the DM decides what kind of injury you have received through narative there is no definates.

I see nothing in this entire rant/debate that would convince me there is any reason to return to the incredibly broken and frankly boring way healing was handled in all previous editions. IT has all ways been the LARGEST complaint leveled at the system and the one we put the most effort into trying to correct through magical items or forced class choices.

PS> The argument of "Well my group played with out a healer and we were fine" doesn't cut it. Your GM was aware you had no healer and there is a 99% chance he tailored the adventure around that. When you take a level appropriate healerless party through Return to Temple of Elemental Evil and live come talk to me.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So what are you doing in 1E and 2E for the weeks that you're "healing" (game rules term) up to full HP? If you aren't healing from injury, what exactly is it you were doing?

In 3E, what are you doing when you're waiting for days while "healing" (again, game rules term) up to full HP? If you aren't healing an injury, what exactly's going on?

You hope to regain the favor of the gods? I really don't know, since it can't really be injuries, since if no further hit point damage is dealt, you can do all the crazy stunts you could do when you where fully healed.
Think about it - even after being reduced to 1 hit point, you can still run, make jumps, tumble, climb, stick your sword into enemies. But whatever these hit points thingies represent, it took you days (without magical help) to recover it. What are they?
If they were injuries, your abilities should be diminished when losing them (or lead to you losing even more of them, if you're performing strenuous activities). If they are not injuries, what does it take them this long to recover?

I don't know what hit points where in 3E, or earlier editions. I was happy to accept that there was no kind of injury penalty, despite this being not leading to something making really sense if you take the rules for "physic and biology of the game world". (At least if I'd want a game world that has some resemblance to real life.
Both in 3E and 4E the closed to reality you get is if you assume that adventurers can always avoid serious wounds (unless they die), and everything else are scratches, or "just a flesh wound", and they can ignore the pain or other limitations resulting from that. In 4E, these scratches or flesh wounds don't need to be tracked any longer over the period of extended rest. They might still exist inside the game-world, but they are outside the model of the game world.