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

[Micah Sweet]

You can take the game seriously without presuming that rules are physics. Plenty of people do.

The minion rules do produce reasonable outcomes. In the real world, there are plenty of cases of soldiers who survived numerous deadly engagements only to be taken out by a single shot.


That's fine. I'm not trying to push minions onto anyone. I'm just rebuting the argument that they don't make sense. Like I said before, if you don't like them, don't use them.

They do make sense, "from a certain point of view". And that point of view is reasonable and liked by many.

 

[Teemu]

Trying to find monsters that give allies thp? That would be an unnecessary thing monsters are not typically hanging around after an encounter.

There are monsters/creatures that grant temp hp to their allies. In the same Nentir Vale MV there’s the Iron Circle Dark Adept that grants temps. One of the hobgoblins in MV grants them to allied beasts. These creatures do exist.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think we were ever in disagreement about that. If a finite number of strikes would be incapable of killing someone, then it's inappropriate to model that strike as dealing damage, because that's what HP actually measure.

Then it sounds like we're in agreement on this, as well. Minions only make sense using story logic. There's no way to actually take them seriously.

I think most people can very easily take them seriously.

 

[Teemu]

Thanks to minion rules, I’ve been able to pit an epic level party against an army of hundreds of soldiers (minion swarms) accompanied by a flight of young dragons (minion versions of the heroic tier solos). And it was all playable and enjoyable (and they also fought several other dragons at the same time!). 3e can’t pull that off without bogging things down immensely, and neither can 5e.

 

[Garthanos]

There are monsters/creatures that grant temp hp to their allies. In the same Nentir Vale MV there’s the Iron Circle Dark Adept that grants temps. One of the hobgoblins in MV grants them to allied beasts. These creatures do exist.

Cool I was looking oh that would be why it is an Essentials Expansion not exactly the kind to remain true to the game concept in my opinion.

 

[Garthanos]

Thanks to minion rules, I’ve been able to pit an epic level party against an army of hundreds of soldiers (minion swarms) accompanied by a flight of young dragons (minion versions of the heroic tier solos). And it was all playable and enjoyable (and they also fought several other dragons at the same time!). 3e can’t pull that off without bogging things down immensely, and neither can 5e.

Love swarms myself I wish they were a little better integrated at the first honestly.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Not sure I have much to add here because I never played 4E, but on paper healing surges seem like a really smart mechanic.

 

[Lanefan]

I’ll never understand this particular snapping of reality suspenders. (love that phrase)

Why should the stats of the NPC remain the same? Why do the stats of the NPC matter? They’re mechanics to represent what the NPC can do when interacting with the PCs.

I just...it doesn’t grok.

Because the stats remaining the same means the creature is what it is within the game world, as a natural and consistent part of the ecology of the setting.

The stats changing means the creature is merely a game piece and has no consistent connection with its environment.

Put another way, to maintain any sort of internal setting consistency the presence or absence of PCs in a scene should make no difference whatsoever to the stats etc. of anyone or anything else in that scene.

 

[Garthanos]

Not sure I have much to add here because I never played 4E, but on paper healing surges seem like a really smart mechanic.

Binds healing to heroic awesome instead of other sources, creates a rate of healing that is proportionate and does not require nearly as much class overhead for advancement or basic function. Yup.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Because the stats remaining the same means the creature is what it is within the game world, as a natural and consistent part of the ecology of the setting.

The stats changing means the creature is merely a game piece and has no consistent connection with its environment.

Put another way, to maintain any sort of internal setting consistency the presence or absence of PCs in a scene should make no difference whatsoever to the stats etc. of anyone or anything else in that scene.

I disagree. I think all it means is that there are different ways to represent that creature, because reality is too complicated to model perfectly, therefore we must use abstractions.

I mean, I don't think that anyone is suggesting that every guard uses the same basic stat block from the MM. Tom the guard might be significantly smarter than his fellow guardsman, Steve. Unless Tom is actually relevant in some way, you probably won't bother to actually modify the stat block to reflect this. But if he becomes a relevant character for some reason (Tom was just another guard in a throwaway encounter on their way to break a friend out of jail, but they managed to convince Tom to join with the party) then suddenly he has depth and personality and an Int score that's several points higher than what a typical guard has.

Does this make Tom nothing more than a game piece? I doubt most (if any) DMs name and generate a backstory for every throwaway monster the PCs encounter.