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

[RangerWickett]

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.

Yeah, in early days of 4e my friends and I would joke that it was basically some dude saying, "Rub some dirt in it! That'll stop the bleeding."

Or that after combat we'd just flex our muscles really hard, and cause the capillaries to seal. Then we'd drink the blood of our enemies to replenish our own.

 

[Zio_the_dark]

So, what happens when someone runs out of HD, but still needs healing? Magic doesn't work anymore?

Indeed very few powers in 4th allow you to regain hit points freely without spending a healing surge. You must manage your daily limit to not be caught with no way of being healed during battle.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, what happens when someone runs out of HD, but still needs healing? Magic doesn't work anymore?

Yes, there is nothing to draw on.

A magical heal or potion is sufficient to stabilize someone, but not return them to even 1 HP. They are spent. Wait a day and they may recover some HD.

I hope they aren't on fire or anything.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Whereas in my preferred system, HP is just the ability to keep fighting. If someone simply does HP damage to you, there's never ever at all in any way ever an actual wound that is severe enough to impede your performance.

I applaud your consistency, and I realize that we all have choices to make in how to reconcile the base-level inanity that D&D is serving us, but isn't it kind of odd that you've attached the narrative of a failed hit to the mechanic of a successful one?

I mean, I've seen a number of action movies as well, and the good fight scenes always end up with people getting a dagger stuck into them and punching other people across the room. It isn't nearly as satisfying when two people dance around each other for ten minutes, and the fight's over as soon as one hit gets through.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Well, the more I am reading people talking about healing surges, the more I am inclined to think I wouldn't like them. I mean 5E is far from perfect, and frankly I've never liked the rapid healing of 5E by design, but healing surges seem like they would expound that issue with regaining 1/4 maximum hp per use. With roughly 8-10 healing surges a day, you are basically boosting your potential HP pool (in total) by 200-250%, as where 5E is (using say half your HD) a boost of 50% daily.

Also, the concept that you could, um, "run out of healing potential" (?) because you run out of healing surges makes little sense to me. Magic should still function to actually heal you (a problem I've had for numerous editions with HP =/= meat idea since you aren't being "healed" so much as "revitalized" but that is a different issue).

Now, if base HP was less, but you could recover a bunch of it when you had time, that would be interesting to me because it means each fight could be potentially harder (since you have fewer base HP). It would also make natural hazards more lethal (like the falling damage thread) because you don't have a huge lump sum of HP (5E) all at once.

If anything I am say is incorrect on how healing surges work, please let me know and thanks.

 

[RangerWickett]

I applaud your consistency, and I realize that we all have choices to make in how to reconcile the base-level inanity that D&D is serving us, but isn't it kind of odd that you've attached the narrative of a failed hit to the mechanic of a successful one?

A hit makes physical contact. But it is not causing a debility.

So, like, your cheek might get sliced by the dagger, or the arrow might impale in your thigh, or the club might bruise your forearm, but that's just wearing your down, causing pain, making you want to give up. People who have more experience fighting can power through that better.

A crit is when the dagger slices across your eyelid, the arrow hits your knee, or the club dislocates a thumb. You might still be a bad-ass with tons of hit points who can keep fighting, but your actual physical ability is impeded.

 

[GrahamWills]

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.

Yep, it's always been the issue with hit points in D&D -- 4E made that very clear. If you renamed hit points to "stress" it makes so much more sense. Your leaders don't heal you -- they receive stress. You don't die at 0hp, you drop from accumulated stress. If you run out of surges, you have hit your preservation limit and functionally cannot take any steps to preserve yourself.

 

[Retreater]

@dnd4vr , 4e was designed from the ground up to be a balanced game with crunchy tactical options and exciting (if long) combats. It is not based on any reality. You can't say "someone I know could realistically do this - it makes sense that someone can regenerate their health" - just like you wouldn't say that Mario getting bigger because he touches a mushroom makes sense. 4e is a game, and proudly so. It doesn't try to create a reality. Play it like a tactical skirmish game, and it's the best version of D&D to ever do that. But if you want resource management or simulationism, it's not going to be for you.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Are we talking about HP as a game mechanic or HP as a fiction modeling device?

 

[Zio_the_dark]

With roughly 8-10 healing surges a day, you are basically boosting your potential HP pool (in total) by 200-250%, as where 5E is (using say half your HD) a boost of 50% daily.

Also, the concept that you could, um, "run out of healing potential" (?) because you run out of healing surges makes little sense to me. Magic should still function to actually heal you (a problem I've had for numerous editions with HP =/= meat idea since you aren't being "healed" so much as "revitalized" but that is a different issue).

Running out of potential healing means that with this concept you know you have as you said 200-250% of your hp pool daily, no more, no less.
In 5th roughly 50% from HD if you take half plus every other healing from potion, cleric spells, etc... You can go much higher than these values.

Edit: as for healing as a I said a few specific powers allow you to regain hp AS IF you had spend a healing surge not forcing you to spend one but this is not the majority of them. Also using a potion replace a healing surge with a fixed amount of hp.