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

[DnD Warlord]

4e needed some work. However I think it was the best edition yet. I feel that as great as 5e is, they slid backwards. I hope someday 6e will build off the 4e franework

 

[RangerWickett]

I understand why you do it, but it hurts front line fighter/barbarian types much more than other PCs. I'd want to tie something in to the PC's total HP; a fighter that is hit with a crit for 20 points of damage is taking significantly less damage overall than a wizard hit for the same 20 points.

That and the back line guys tend to be more affected by save for damage spells and breath weapons in my experience.

Front line characters should be getting wounded, though. They're in harm's way. They should be harmed. They're just built to survive after being harmed.

I'd be fine with giving melee characters different ways to mitigate the threat of wounds. Nimble types might have an ability to downgrade a crit into a normal hit once per fight, and then make a riposte. Armored folks could just use their armor to downgrade a crit into a hit, or a hit into a miss, but then have to repair the damage to the armor.

And in my preferred system, we'd take the 4e concept of 'the attacker always rolls' and combine it with the PF2 concept of 'crit success, success, failure, mishap.' So a dragon could crit with its breath weapon, for instance.

Everyone would have two or three saves, which would be abilities that could be used once per combat to downgrade the severity of an attack against them, and then get some sort of perk or reaction. The trick would be deciding when to use them, or to deplete your foe's save on weaker attacks and then use your cool finishing move.

For instance, a wizard might have the ability to downgrade a spell attack against them, and if they can downgrade it to a mishap, they can actually rebound the spell at the caster. A barbarian might be able to simply downgrade any melee attack and make a grab or shove against the attacker. An alchemist could downgrade attacks that land near them if they match the keyword of an alchemical formula they know, which would let them get an extra use of that item. A monk might downgrade an attack and throw the attacker into someone else, potentially tripping both of them.

Stuff like that.

 

[RangerWickett]

This is a key element of my "colorful critical hit" system- kind of. I tie critical severity to the damage dealt by the crit vs. current hit points- otherwise, high level characters never suffer from grievous wounds.

I considered something like that, but I was trying to avoid having to both do math to figure out a ratio, and also do "if X, then A; if Y, then B."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Now 4E clerics I did enjoy because you could be something other than a healbot.

Conversely, 4E was the first time I didn't enjoy playing a cleric, because they couldn't actually heal anyone - which is the primary reason I would want to play that class in the first place.

Back in AD&D, taking damage was something to be avoided, because recovering from it was so difficult. Even if it wasn't immediately life-threatening, the damage felt like it was really holding you back; and when that damage was removed, it was a huge relief, because you didn't have to worry about it anymore.

With the over-all 4E model, damage stopped being meaningful. It was much more difficult to win a fight before it began, and you couldn't really even stack your defense to make it unlikely that you would get hit, but healing was easier than ever. If nobody was there to provide magical healing, then well... you'll be good as new in five minutes, or tomorrow morning at the absolute latest.

I appreciate that healing surges provided a mechanical limit on the amount of healing you could receive in a day, and that it helped healing abilities to scale numerically in a logical fashion, but the over-all ease of healing presented a radical shift in tone. It no longer felt like anyone was really even getting hurt anymore, and it felt like magical healing became entirely superfluous and underwhelming (from both a mechanical and narrative standpoint).

 

[Oofta]

Front line characters should be getting wounded, though. They're in harm's way. They should be harmed. They're just built to survive after being harmed.

I'd be fine with giving melee characters different ways to mitigate the threat of wounds. Nimble types might have an ability to downgrade a crit into a normal hit once per fight, and then make a riposte. Armored folks could just use their armor to downgrade a crit into a hit, or a hit into a miss, but then have to repair the damage to the armor.

But if I have 200 HP and take 20 damage, it's a glancing blow that I barely notice. If I have 30 HP (to go to an extreme) it's a really solid hit and the next one is likely to take me out of combat.

I just think front line types are already significantly penalized on a regular basis the way it is. It's one reason I don't do extra things on crits or fumbles for that matter.

But do what you works for you and your group,

 

[RangerWickett]

But if I have 200 HP and take 20 damage, it's a glancing blow that I barely notice. If I have 30 HP (to go to an extreme) it's a really solid hit and the next one is likely to take me out of combat.

If you go from 200 to 180, you're like a marathon runner who has just gotten past mile three. If you go from 30 to 10, you're a novice 5k jogger who is nearly pooped.

But if either one of them gets stabbed in the leg, they'll have a hard time jogging. You might have a ton of HP - e.g., the stamina to keep fighting - but you'll have to change your tactics.

I contrast this against many older, dumber critical hit systems where crits would, like, lop off limbs or whatever. I played Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, and you'd be gradually replacing body parts just due to bad dice rolling. But I'm intentionally making it so the wounds only hinder you for an encounter or two, unless the attack would have potentially killed you anyway.

 

[Minigiant]

The way I'd say it is

4e Healing was the best table top fantasy RPG healing. It however required too many departures from traditional D&D to be the best D&D healing.

or

It's "All we ever wanted" then we realized as a community we didn't want what we wanted.

 

[billd91]

I was fine with healing surges when they were Second Wind in SWSE. They were limited to certain situations and potentially dramatic. In 4e, I hated external healing resources like potions being diverted into spending healing surges. I recognize that it was done to apply someone's idea of balance to the mechanical gameplay but it didn't work as a concept for me. 5e's hit dice work much better for me.

 

[Oofta]

If you go from 200 to 180, you're like a marathon runner who has just gotten past mile three. If you go from 30 to 10, you're a novice 5k jogger who is nearly pooped.

But if either one of them gets stabbed in the leg, they'll have a hard time jogging. You might have a ton of HP - e.g., the stamina to keep fighting - but you'll have to change your tactics.

I contrast this against many older, dumber critical hit systems where crits would, like, lop off limbs or whatever. I played Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, and you'd be gradually replacing body parts just due to bad dice rolling. But I'm intentionally making it so the wounds only hinder you for an encounter or two, unless the attack would have potentially killed you anyway.

Except that guy with the 200 HP that takes 20 damage is not "stabbed in the leg". Because of their experience they twist at the last moment and it's a glancing blow or a superficial wound. The guy with 30 HP didn't do that so it's a severe gash. The guy with 10 HP goes down because he has no clue how to take a blow and it severed the femoral artery.

Anyway, just relaying the objection that I would have as a player. Every crit system I've seen penalizes front line fighters more than others. It's at the point now where unless there's some way to take various factors into account I don't know if I'd play with a DM that used a crit system because I like to play front line fighters.

It's free advice and probably worth what it cost. Take it or leave it. Have a good one!

 

[Dausuul]

Agree or disagree?

Agree.

IMO, the big problem with healing surges was not the mechanic itself - which is superior, for all the reasons you point out - but the presentation, specifically the choice of names. The decision of what to name things is hugely important in RPGs; it's the single most important way in which the fiction gets hooked up to the mechanics. Wizards dropped the ball with this in 4E, and healing surges are an example.

4E was the first edition to really embrace the idea that hit points are not meat, and that "damage" doesn't have to mean serious physical injury. Unfortunately, they kept all the old naming conventions which suggest the exact opposite. "Healing surge" is an example: If you recover hit points by means of a "healing surge," that implies that you are, well, healing, and this naturally leads to questions about how the warlord shouting at you causes your wounds to close.

On top of that, healing surges were presented as a resource that you can "spend." Except that you can't just spend a healing surge when you need hit points--something has to unlock the surge first. This is counterintuitive and confusing. Players quite reasonably expect that when they have a spendable resource available, they can spend it when needed.