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

[Neonchameleon]

If HP are all inspiration, what does the cure wounds spell do? Why is it not titled inspire valor?

No one says that hp are all inspiration.

If we're looking at 4e then Cure Wounds is one of the very few ways someone can recover hit points without spending a healing surge - it magically patches them up a little, treats bruises, clots and possibly closes cuts, and replenishes endurance. In 4e an ability that was called "Inspire Valour" would let someone use their own endurance to keep going, spending a healing surge probably with a bonus of doing it more efficiently (which is exactly what Inspiring Word does).

If we're looking at the classic "health bar" model then Cure Wounds does exactly the same thing picking up meat does in Castlevania. Restores the player character's health bar. It absolutely can not cure any substantial wounds that would impede a character because those aren't inflicted through hit point damage. Any actual wounds in this model of hit points are as cosmetic as the way Doomguy looks beaten up as his health drops in Doom but just by picking up a medipack suddenly perks up.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

No one says that hp are all inspiration.

If we're looking at 4e then Cure Wounds is one of the very few ways someone can recover hit points without spending a healing surge - it magically patches them up a little, treats bruises, clots and possibly closes cuts, and replenishes endurance. In 4e an ability that was called "Inspire Valour" would let someone use their own endurance to keep going, spending a healing surge probably with a bonus of doing it more efficiently (which is exactly what Inspiring Word does).

How does one determine which are HP and which are morale? Can cure wounds both heal and inspire? If so, isn't that odd? I don't see anything about inspiration in the spell description. Am I misreading it?

 

[Neonchameleon]

How does one determine which are HP and which are morale? Can cure wounds both heal and inspire? If so, isn't that odd? I don't see anything about inspiration in the spell description. Am I misreading it?

I don't understand the question.

Cure Wounds in 4e does not directly inspire but it does invigorate by providing energy from outside. Inspiration in 4e enables someone to dig deep into their energy reserves, spending some of their stamina (a healing surge) to keep going right now in the face of current adversity (raising their hit points). Cure wounds magically replenishes hit points without spending a healing surge, literally undoing the effect combat has had on the recipient rather than simply enabling them to keep going using their stamina.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I don't understand the question.

Cure Wounds in 4e does not directly inspire but it does invigorate by providing energy from outside. Inspiration in 4e enables someone to dig deep into their energy reserves, spending some of their stamina (a healing surge) to keep going right now in the face of current adversity (raising their hit points). Cure wounds magically replenishes hit points without spending a healing surge, literally undoing the effect combat has had on the recipient rather than simply enabling them to keep going using their stamina.

If some HP lose is due to wounds and some is due to moral loss - how do you determine which was the cause of each hit point?

 

[CapnZapp]

Unfortunately, the default rules are so ridiculously far over to one side that there's no way to get back to normal, even using every option that was included for that explicit purpose. Even if it takes eight hours for a short rest, and a week to recover your healing surges; and even if you only get back half of your healing surges per long rest, with no free healing at any point; you can still go from 1hp to full over eight hours. That places a hard limit on what damage is, which puts it exactly into line with 4E, and makes it completely distinct from everything before that.

And that's intentional. You're supposed to have free healing, because you're supposed to be hit. Fixing that would require a complete overhaul of how AC works, in addition to spot-fixing things like the fighter's second wind. It's not remotely trivial to house rule. You'd be just as successful in replicating the feel of 4E tactical combat, by including the optional rules for marking and flanking. The tools they give you are simply insufficient.

This is not only a clear-headed analysis. It also makes me realize yet another thing about Pathfinder 2 that's similar to 4E.

I'm thinking of the way every encounter is balanced on the assumption you're at full health; which in turn makes the game based on the assumption out-of-combat healing is free and plentiful. And Medicine is just that!

 

[CapnZapp]

This is one of those issues where the designers of 3.0 really didn't know what they were doing and created unforseen side effects. In particular they added the Wand of Cure Light Wounds as an item that cost less than a third of a simple +1 sword (counting the cost of the base masterwork weapon) and that could be made by the PCs. On paper there is only slightly more healing available in 3.0 (and 3.5) than in AD&D but in practice the difference is overwhelming and healing is almost free.

I agree to this.

Funny though: every edition since takes this and runs with it.

As if it wasn't a mistake, but some great design breakthrough, I mean.

Pathfinder 2, for example outright boasts it has solved the problem of you having to carry around all those CLW wands.

Not by restoring injury as something you would worry about and try to avoid - but literally making you not having to carry around the wands! (Just get a skill* and you have all the wands you need, as it were)

*) Again I'm talking about Medicine

 

[Neonchameleon]

If some HP lose is due to wounds and some is due to moral loss - how do you determine which was the cause of each hit point?

First why does this matter?

Second morale increases your ability to keep going. If in a boxing movie a boxer was down and started to be counted out, but someone on their team got the crowd behind them or merely told them they could do it, and this gave them the strength to get back up off the mat and fight on this would not be confusing and would be in genre (I'd even say it would be real world realistic). The inspiration doesn't magically undo the battering they have already taken - but it does enable them to reach their reserves and keep going. So a boxer that was down and being counted out (below 0hp) is back on their feet and fighting.

Or, to put it another way some Saw style sadist takes two identical twins and tells them that if they reach the end of the corridor that's both full of fire and sandblasting them (so they take damage) they get something. One identical twin is offered a $10 prize, and the other can see their baby crying and dangling over a firepit. Which twin do you think is going to keep going longer before collapsing? The one whose only reward is $10, or the one who is trying to save their baby? If you said the one who is trying to save their baby then you can understand that inspiration and motivation can enable you to keep going longer despite damage. If you said that someone enduring pain for $10 will last exactly as long as someone fighting to save the life of their baby I don't know what to tell you.

 

[DND_Reborn]

How does one determine which are HP and which are morale? Can cure wounds both heal and inspire? If so, isn't that odd? I don't see anything about inspiration in the spell description. Am I misreading it?

While this thread is focused on 4E, IMO it really doesn't matter which edition you're talking about.

Anyway, no, not really odd at all. Not all wounds need by physical, you know. Mental fatigue and stress from dangerous attacks and environment can be just as debilitating as broken bones and severed muscles. Being fully combat effective (i.e. full HP) is just as much about mental and morale healthiness as it is about physical wholeness of body.

If some HP lose is due to wounds and some is due to moral loss - how do you determine which was the cause of each hit point?

Why do you fee the need to bother differentiating? The abstract nature of HP is precisely so you don't need to determine what source of hit points are lost, just that some are lost.

The concept of hit points is a vast abstract designed to measure several factors. Each PC will likely have a different blend of those factors. A rogue's HP might be mostly luck and skill, a fighter's might be mostly physical resilience and gritty determination to keep soldiering on, a wizard's could be luck and mental acuity giving him the edge to move before solid blows can land, a cleric's hit points might be mostly granted by the favor of his god, whose divine providence makes an attacker's feet slip just enough to have a lethal attack miss by mere inches.

Cure Wounds (at least in the description in 5e) offers no text description as to the narrative of how it restores hit points in the text description of the spell, it simply does. The narrative is left up to the DM. Maybe the cure wounds relieves mental stress, maybe it heals cuts and gashes, maybe it's divine magic (it is magic, after all) brings more "good luck" or divine favor in a blessing to the recipient? Any of those things are possible and left up to the player and/ or DM to determine along with the story of the game.

The very abstract nature of HP makes them fill all roles that are needed or possible, and there really isn't any problems with that as I see it anyway. If you want more differentiation, HP won't work for you as it seems not to (judging from your comments, anyway).

 

[CapnZapp]

This approach had serious issues though. A seriously tough character with a high hit die and good Constitution who was reduced to 1 hp would take an absurd time to heal compared to a frail wizard who'd been reduced to 1.

That feels like changing the subject.

You could always say that healing is expressed as a fraction of someone's maximum hit points, if that truly was your only concern.

 

[CapnZapp]

Just FYI: discussing the nature of what hit points is is rabbit hole and will get you nowhere. My honest advice: just stop

We were discussing other stuff, remember...?