D&D 5E Additive versus subtractive modularity

[Zardnaar]

But, right there. RIGHT THERE, from your own preferences, you have NEVER EVER gotten what you wanted.

3e did not cap natural healing at 1 hp/level/day. Even without skill checks, it was 2 hp/level/day for complete rest. 1 HP/level/day was for 8 hours of rest. A simple skill check doubled that again, to 4 hp/level/day. I mean, this is right there in 3e, so, that edition is out.

2e and 1e healed SLOWER than your stated preferences. You got 1 HP/day, flat.

Never mind that the only reason you can make those claims is because you have chosen to interpret things like monks as inherently magical which they weren't in AD&D. One wonders how you can so blithely ignore 3rd Edition barbarian's rage (which is non-magical, EX) which actually increases your physical stats for short periods of time. How can it be totally unbelievable to gain HP, but, base stats are fine?

Oh, that's right, in all your oft mentioned D&D experience, no one at your table has ever played a barbarian. Just like in earlier editions no one played a monk or used the Heal Non-weapon proficiency. One has to wonder just how you can claim that your play experience is so widespread when you have some pretty large gaps in what's been played at your table.

So, you can claim about how things have changed so much through editions, but, when your own stated preferences have never actually been supported in the rules, it makes it pretty hard to actually take your expectations seriously. No edition of D&D has ever done what you want. Why would you expect 5e to do it?

Some of us play editions of D&D where the monk doesn't exist (or is banned) and the Barbarian does not rage. Even in 3rd ed its not that hard to remove wands of CLW or even ban the Barbarian/Monk.

The key difference is these things are not baked in on all the classes, just some of them and those classes may not even exist in the DMs campaign. Myself I am fine with 3 rates of healing.

1 hp/day (1st ed, C&C)
1-3 hp/day (2nd ed, some retroclones)
1 hp/level per day (3.x)

Not a massive fan of wands of CLW but at least they are magical. HD/Second Wind/Healing surges can die in a fire. I did not mind the second wind type ability SWSE had where you only got 1 per day but some class abilities could get you to 3 per day but once again that is fine as they are not baked in.

It doesn't bother me if they out right add something like healing surges, AEDU classes or whatever to 3rd ed as you can either ignore it or it may be on a new class that could be fun if judged in a vacuum. Book of 9 Swords for example is fine in 3.5 as you can easily ignore it or use it on occasion as the need arises.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I want a fighter and rogue that cannot heal themselves.
I want relatively slow natural healing maxing out at level per day.
I do not want any non magical ability that restores hit points in any significant way.

Whether you want that for niche protection of the Cleric as 'healer,' or out of mere deeply-seated prejudice against martial characters (or desire for caster supremacy), it's not really a vision that's compatible with a broader, more inclusive game.

5e can't satisfy both the reactionaries and revolutionaries by presenting an inflexible system of absolutes that can't be touched without breaking it. It needs a system of such robust balance that the DM who feels offended by the foisting of religion on his players (by Clerical niche protection and God-only clerics) can cut divine classes from his game entirely without trashing encounter balance for lack of PC healing or that a DM wanting to run a low-/no- magic campaign can cut casters without leaving his players with too-few, too-limited classes, unable to cover all the necessary tasks of adventuring, or that a DM wanting to explore the implications of magic in an otherwise RL-physics-photo-realistic world can do so without contaminating his experiment with fantasy tropes.

That's a tall order. It can't help the folks working on it, that they're getting bombarded with ultimatums that including this or that thing that might obviously be needed to accomplish some of the above, is an intolerable deal-breaker.

We just need to develop enough basic tolerance and ingenuity to see something we don't like and think 'well I can cut that' or 'how can I work around this?' rather than "To the interwebs!" to nerdrage against it.

 

[evileeyore]

I want a fighter and rogue that cannot heal themselves.
I want relatively slow natural healing maxing out at level per day.
I do not want any non magical ability that restores hit points in any significant way.

That's not RAW but it would make a good houserule.

 

[Hussar]

Some of us play editions of D&D where the monk doesn't exist (or is banned) and the Barbarian does not rage. Even in 3rd ed its not that hard to remove wands of CLW or even ban the Barbarian/Monk.

The key difference is these things are not baked in on all the classes, just some of them and those classes may not even exist in the DMs campaign. Myself I am fine with 3 rates of healing.

1 hp/day (1st ed, C&C)
1-3 hp/day (2nd ed, some retroclones)
1 hp/level per day (3.x)

Not a massive fan of wands of CLW but at least they are magical. HD/Second Wind/Healing surges can die in a fire. I did not mind the second wind type ability SWSE had where you only got 1 per day but some class abilities could get you to 3 per day but once again that is fine as they are not baked in.

It doesn't bother me if they out right add something like healing surges, AEDU classes or whatever to 3rd ed as you can either ignore it or it may be on a new class that could be fun if judged in a vacuum. Book of 9 Swords for example is fine in 3.5 as you can easily ignore it or use it on occasion as the need arises.

But, Zardnaar, there's a difference here. You recognise the fact that by making these choices, you've changed the baseline game. Emrikol has repeatedly stated that he's playing bog standard D&D and that his preference is a widely held one by enough people that not catering to his specific demands, WOTC is leaving bags of money on the table because people who share his preferences will refuse any other options being offered.

That's what this argument is about. Not that you cannot do 1 hp/level/day in DnD. Sure, you can do that. But, as you say, you have to consciously change the rules in order to bring that about. Even the 1 HP/Day/Level in 3e is for an 8 hour rest. There's been much ink spilled about chaining 5e's short rests together, so, why can't I do the same thing in 3e? AFAIK, there's no limitation on 8 hour rests. Which right there, gives me 3 HP/Day/Level. In any case, a full day of rest gives me 2hp/level straight out of the book.

 

[Lanefan]

Never mind that the only reason you can make those claims is because you have chosen to interpret things like monks as inherently magical which they weren't in AD&D. One wonders how you can so blithely ignore 3rd Edition barbarian's rage (which is non-magical, EX) which actually increases your physical stats for short periods of time. How can it be totally unbelievable to gain HP, but, base stats are fine?

The big difference here is that the Barbarian rage's benefits are all temporary, and soon go away on their own. Healing and resting benefits all stick around until-unless you take damage again; which makes the Monk a better comparison than the Barbarian.

I don't see Monkish self-healing as "magical", as such; I'd more equate it with psionic healing (which also only works on self) and leave it alone as an odd corner case. And people healing only themselves on a quite limited basis is fine; not to mention these types of self-healing take a bit of time and concentration and thus won't be seen in mid-combat.

Where the issues arise, I think, is that things like SW can be used fairly often, can be used in mid-combat, and can work on other people thus are a) much more powerful, and b) likely to be much more commonly seen in the game...coming from members of a class whose job it should be to remove hit points from others instead of give them back.

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

But, Lanefan, how do you non-magically gain Str and Con? In AdnD it was largely impossible save for cavaliers and arguably paladins. No other class can non-magically boost stats. Why is that believable?

 

[Umbran]

I want a fighter and rogue that cannot heal themselves.
I want relatively slow natural healing maxing out at level per day.
I do not want any non magical ability that restores hit points in any significant way.

As noted, that last one is trivial. "Magical" is not a rules-issue. Change the fluff on any healing so that it has some supernatural component, and you're done.

But, let us take it for the moment that you don't accept that you should have to re-fluff, that the printed descriptions out of the box must match your requirements. That makes this list pretty specific and restrictive, difficult to meet in a game of magical fantasy adventure with one of the three pillars of the game being "combat". You may be specifying yourself out of a game.

If I were designing a D&D game, I'd have made sure to offer multiple options for each baseline fighter power ...

How many times must we say this?

What we have now is *BASIC* D&D. You realize that "Basic" means, "without lots of bells and whistles and choices" right?

And, to be honest, multiple options for each and every baseline power is asking too much, perhaps even in the full game, much less in *BASIC*.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I don't understand why people want rules to remove rules. If I don't want martial healing or damage on a miss in my game, I'll simply rule them out. Is that so hard to do?

I have never had any difficulties removing or adding rules, no matter what the system. It's not that tough, even with rules that seem to be integral to the system.

 

[Umbran]

Some of us play editions of D&D where the monk doesn't exist (or is banned) and the Barbarian does not rage. Even in 3rd ed its not that hard to remove wands of CLW or even ban the Barbarian/Monk.

But, if you are already used to house-ruling some of these things out of the way, having the expectation (or worse, requirement) be that you not have to do that now seems excessive.

 

[Emerikol]

So, you can claim about how things have changed so much through editions, but, when your own stated preferences have never actually been supported in the rules, it makes it pretty hard to actually take your expectations seriously. No edition of D&D has ever done what you want. Why would you expect 5e to do it?

Those are my exact perfect preferences. BECMI, 1e, 2e, and 3e allowed for me to view hit points the way I want to view them. That isn't that radical. What I listed was my perfect synergy of all the editions rules into a single list.

If they just had 1hp / day healing right now, I'd be happy with it. I might houserule it to level per day but I'd still feel like the non-inspiration camp was getting some love.