April 3rd, Rule of 3

[Andor]

My view is that D&D has never had, as part of its combat resolution mechanics, some mechanicism for producing a character who is slowed by a spear through his/her leg, though not actually unconscious and dying. (Contrast Rolemaster, Runequest, Burning Wheel etc.)

So you are describing a scenario that can't arise via the mechanics. It's therefore not an issue that the mechanics (for 4e, or for any other edition) don't tell us how to handle it.

That's true, no edition of D&D could posibly model this situation. Oh wait, except for this one. Or this one. Or bleeding damage. Or the diehard feat.

And before someone says "Oh, but that's just 3e, it couldn't happen in 1e, just like they didn't have paralyis (ghouls), or slowing (gorgons) or other status effects." I remind you of the sword of wounding.

Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not. You are frickin' skewered. There is a spear in your lungs. If you still have 1 hp, then you are sufficiently Ramboed up enough to keep fighting with a spear through your lungs. This is why natural healing in any edition prior to 4th would take weeks to heal that wound. The only way to quickly fix a ruptured lung is Magic. You know, the same stuff that lets you fly, or glow, or walk through lava unharmed. Why is this the sticking point where suddenly spells that can move mountains should suddenly be no more effective than a medieval chiurgeon with his leeches and cauterizing irons? And why should that same chiurgeon be able to get you back on your feet in 5 minutes after you fell off a cliff, got knocked to -9hp and were 5 seconds away from death if he hadn't intervened?

 

[ExploderWizard]

The only thing the surge system does on its own, is to make sure you can't chug potions and use Wand of CLW all day... and doesn't that fix one of the big complaints about 3e? If the infamous wand of CLW used the healing surge mechanic, it would not be too broken, because healing someone drains a daily resource off them.

But whenever anyone mentions healing surges, the grognards go overboard and yell about how much they hate healing surges, and won't buy 5e if it has healing surges. I think there's a miscommunication here.

Healing surges make magical healing mundane. That is largely because of the overabundance of magical healing makes it so.

A magic potion that merely allows the imbiber to spend a surge is about as magical as a Mountain Dew.

Cheaply available wands, scrolls, and potions are what led to surges. Fix what got broke in 3E to begin with and there is no need of them.

 

[Sunseeker]

Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not.

No, actually, we cannot. A great many of us have no interest in serious medieval reenactment with our D&D.

Until D&D develops a system to determine where you get hit, combined with what you get hit by, and the appropriate resolution mechanics for that, I have no issue with saying a "hit" does not imply you just got run through, even a crit.

Technically speaking, we'd also have to have a system for momentum, velocity and force with every weapon to determine if you actually got run through or if you just got knocked off your feet.

So yeah, I've no interest in turning D&D into a mathematical experiment in medieval combat simulation.

Healing surges make magical healing mundane. That is largely because of the overabundance of magical healing makes it so.

A magic potion that merely allows the imbiber to spend a surge is about as magical as a Mountain Dew.

Cheaply available wands, scrolls, and potions are what led to surges. Fix what got broke in 3E to begin with and there is no need of them.

To be fair, healing surges are not only a product of readily available healing magic becoming mundane. Healing surges are partially a product of a desire for non-traditional party reliance. Call them "bandages" if you want, maybe even "fate points", but they all represent a similar concept: The party shouldn't need a healer.

Take LOTR for example(since almost every topic seems to want D&D to reenact it), no healer. Frodo is the only person to ever get seriously wounded and need a healer, and yes, while it took weeks to heal, the entire party made it from Hobbiton to Mordor with only one need for a healer(13 months if I recall?) Yet Aragorn fell off a cliff and was seriously injured, but there was no addressing his recovery, he just recovered! How did he do this? While Aragorn may know a little healing magic, magic is arguably very very very rare by the end of the Third Age, and he probably didn't do it while he was unconscious. Aragorn self-healed through the sheer power of how awesome he was. Did Gimli ever go to a healer? What about Legolas? I'd put a solid bet on Boromir using his Second Wind at some point before he died...and an Action Point too.

I know, a lot of people prefer "gritty" fantasy where people just die...a lot. But Healing Surges are not entirely a creation of readily available healing magic, they are a direct representation of Heroic Fantasy. Sure, this is a point a lot of people make about 4e and I'm not about to disagree with them, 4e most definitely captures Heroic Fantasy moreso than any previous edition. Perhaps this ties in to the abundance of readily available non-human races, people want to play unique, powerful heroes.

I like healing surges in this regard, but when you have like, 54 of them, it does really water down the idea of them making you more heroic. To this end, I would like to see a massive reduction on healing surges. Perhaps only say, 4 of them, for anyone, healing for say, 10% of your health. Healing magic remains the primary source of healing, unconnected with healing surges. Characters retain Healing Surges for things like Second Wind's, Action Points, Heroic Effort, ect... All moments that will make your character more feel more awesome.



Let me put it another way: I appreciate the logic of roles, but I play WoW every day, and it can be frustrating when there aren't many tanks of healers playing. I do not want this same feeling in D&D, and that's why I support Healing Surges. You should be able to reliably adventure into the unknown without having to sit around in town spamming "LFM! Need healer for dungeon crawl!" It works from a gamist perspective, a place for everyone and everyone in their place, but it doesn't really sit well with me for how fantasy adventures should take place.

 

[Mattachine]

In AD&D, the higher level PCs in my game routinely carried around bags of healing potions. Though many campaigns didn't use item creation rules, AD&D had them; potions could be made starting at level 7, scrolls even earlier, and wands at level 11. Casters in my games routinely made potions. Also, as a young DM that used a lot of published modules, I was trained to provide many healing potions as treasure, starting with low level modules.

I can totally understand the dissatisfaction with 4e healing. As a 4e DM, there are times I would like to healing be more difficult. On the other hand, I love the base mechanic, that aside from some really special magic or class feature, you just can't keep healing all day. I would like 5e to keep that mechanic.

 

[Guest 85555]

No, actually, we cannot. A great many of us have no interest in serious medieval reenactment with our D&D.

Until D&D develops a system to determine where you get hit, combined with what you get hit by, and the appropriate resolution mechanics for that, I have no issue with saying a "hit" does not imply you just got run through, even a crit.

Technically speaking, we'd also have to have a system for momentum, velocity and force with every weapon to determine if you actually got run through or if you just got knocked off your feet.

So yeah, I've no interest in turning D&D into a mathematical experiment in medieval combat simulation.

I certainly have no problem with others not assuming hp loss is primarily physical damage, but surely you can see why some of us ave trouble with this in our own games, and why it was less of an issue for us in previous editions (which had healing rules that appeared to support the notion that damage was largely physical). None of us are arguing for wound charts or granular level HP systems. We just want HP recovery to support HP as physical damage.

 

[Sunseeker]

I certainly have no problem with others not assuming hp loss is primarily physical damage, but surely you can see why some of us ave trouble with this in our own games, and why it was less of an issue for us in previous editions (which had healing rules that appeared to support the notion that damage was largely physical). None of us are arguing for wound charts or granular level HP systems. We just want HP recovery to support HP as physical damage.

Better than attempting to say that lance hit bypasses your 300 HP, it would be easier to simply reduce HP by 99%. I can believably say that lance made you dead when it does 10 damage and you have 9 health.

Thing is though, any rule that says you gotta sit out for a week to heal is basically more ways to punish non-magical classes. And if we are to reference the fantasy genre, it is usually not the guy who is accustomed to taking a beating who needs to sit out for a week. The tough, grizzled fighter who usually takes the brunt of the damage is usually the first one to walk out of the hospital, while the soft, weak wizard who has barely set foot outside his tower will often lay unconscious for months after taking "only a flesh wound".

Personally, I'd say it'd be a lot easier than developing all sorts of complex damage, healing and weapon rules to simply take whatever HP 5e spits out and divide by 10.

 

[ExploderWizard]

To be fair, healing surges are not only a product of readily available healing magic becoming mundane. Healing surges are partially a product of a desire for non-traditional party reliance. Call them "bandages" if you want, maybe even "fate points", but they all represent a similar concept: The party shouldn't need a healer.

I have played in games over the years where no one played a healer and it worked fine and we didn't need surges to do it. A Lankhmar campaign with all fighters and thieves won't really have healers anyway.

Play without a healer works just fine as long as you play smart and don't keep jumping into battle after battle.

 

[Sunseeker]

I have played in games over the years where no one played a healer and it worked fine and we didn't need surges to do it. A Lankhmar campaign with all fighters and thieves won't really have healers anyway.

Play without a healer works just fine as long as you play smart and don't keep jumping into battle after battle.

As I go on to point out, healing surges play into very fantasy concepts like "second winds".

Sure, if we play the 15-minute workday, a party doesn't need a healer, but for a lot of settings that just...doesn't work.

Let me go back to my WoW example for a moment.
I can adventure around the world all day and never need a healer. While this can take up a lot of my time, the vast majority of it is a 15-minute workday with a huge emphasis on exploration and socialization. To venture into the dragon's lair? That I need a healer for. To fight the giant earth elemental? Need a healer. Even if I pull together some of the best melee players in the game, without some form of healing, we're not going to get very far.

Sure, an all-fighter party can "play smart" and be careful, and not fight too much, but I am going to argue that will water down the whole game a lot more than having some self-healing does. Personally I think dragging around a guy who's only job, whose only capability is to heal you is a lot more genre damaging than any of that! I really do think that on the whole, any combination of players and classes should be able to succeed without the Holy Trinity(video game term, directly relates here). I do not think that games need to be specially tailored in order for a healer-less party to succeed.
EX: the damage output of a party of wizards should compensate for their low health and rather easy kills.
-the damage avoidance and survivability of a party of fighters should compensate for their low damage.
-the avoidance and skill of rogue-types should compensate for their lower defenses and moderate damage.

Even if we take the Holy Trinity party design as a baseline, we should be able to reasonably substitute higher damage, higher survivability, and greater ingenuity for a party healer.

Again, I'm going to reference LOTR, which so many people on this board seem to hold as the epitome of a D&D game. No party healers. One instance of needing a healer, constant battle jumping, minimal magic, personal-awesomeness miraculous recovery. That's what Healing Surges really represent, personal awesomeitude, 4e may have run a little too far with the concept, but the ideal remains a good one, and one exemplified by many books/tv shows/movies/comics dealing with the fantasy genre.

Any party makeup should reliably be able to accomplish the same tasks if they are played to their strengths.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Again, I'm going to reference LOTR, which so many people on this board seem to hold as the epitome of a D&D game. No party healers. One instance of needing a healer, constant battle jumping, minimal magic, personal-awesomeness miraculous recovery.

One thing the LOTR movies didn't impart well was the passage of time. There were no healers but Frodo took weeks to heal. There wasn't much need of miraculous recovery because there wasn't a whole lot of actual wounding.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's true, no edition of D&D could posibly model this situation. Oh wait, except for this one. Or this one. Or bleeding damage. Or the diehard feat.

And before someone says "Oh, but that's just 3e, it couldn't happen in 1e, just like they didn't have paralyis (ghouls), or slowing (gorgons) or other status effects." I remind you of the sword of wounding.

Can we please stop pretending that a crit from a lance from a charging knight on horseback only does damage by scaring you? It does not. You are frickin' skewered. There is a spear in your lungs. If you still have 1 hp, then you are sufficiently Ramboed up enough to keep fighting with a spear through your lungs. This is why natural healing in any edition prior to 4th would take weeks to heal that wound. The only way to quickly fix a ruptured lung is Magic. You know, the same stuff that lets you fly, or glow, or walk through lava unharmed. Why is this the sticking point where suddenly spells that can move mountains should suddenly be no more effective than a medieval chiurgeon with his leeches and cauterizing irons? And why should that same chiurgeon be able to get you back on your feet in 5 minutes after you fell off a cliff, got knocked to -9hp and were 5 seconds away from death if he hadn't intervened?

No, the Lance through your lungs will reduce you to 0 hp or lower. Only someone who has the diehard feat will be able to fight some more rounds before dying. If noone helps you after the combat you die.

A lance reducing you to 1hp is a blow, that your armor took and maybe broke some of your ribs, but most probably only hurt very much and inflicted some bruises.

If you wore no armor, the lance scratched you seriously, but no deadly wound.
It really could never be a wound that could kill you, as you are still fighting at full capacity.
I would not mind a system, where you could actually receive a wound and have some penalties. But not by just beeing reduced below some percentage.

There could be some massive damage rule which may inflict a wound if you fail some check. And I could imagine a Lance from a charging knight maybe even critting having no problem doing damage above that treshold. Or a lance having an ability that does not do extra damage but forces a safe against beeing impaled when you attack someone with a mounted charge attack.