April 3rd, Rule of 3

[Guest 85555]

How does that work? You get into a single fight and you're down for several days. Seems like the pacing would be glacially slow in that case. Unless, of course, you're playing a high RP game with very little combat. But, then, if you're using D&D for that, you are pretty close to freeforming with a veneer of D&D tropes laid over top. How can you play D&D without any healing at all?

So, again, what is gained by having slower healing? Sure, it appeals to a certain sense of verisimilitude, but, again, it's mind boggling to me that you have no problems with a character regaining a hundred hp in a week, but regaining it in a day blows your mind. Really? What difference could it possibly make? Neither is remotely realistic. WA number of publishers were brought on board prior to the first 3.0 releases, and others allowed to work concurrent with a gentlemen's agreement, an agreement based on trusting that WotC and the 3PP would all be satisfied that the OGL would be agreeable to everyone once finalized, and so it seemingly w?

Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?

To answer the question what is gained: verisimilitude (as you say) and a more realistic pacing. There are also hidden opportunities for adventure and role play whenever characters are laid up. That might not appeal to yu, but it does appeak to plenty of people.

I already answered the other part but once again yes, one day or less healing blows my mind and one week or more (you are assuming I am only talking about 3e for some reason) Does not. I would also disagree that neither is remotely realistic. One week or more is vaguely realistic (i even offered my own experience with surgery to show it isnt that much of a stretch---though it is still a stretch---especially if you arent deaing with major issues like broken bones or ruptured organs), one day or less is not remotely realistic.

 

[Sunseeker]

You can argue I can't determine how good a system is before playing. I disagree. I'm perfectly capable of reading a book and making a decision on whether or not I will find it fun. If I wanted to play tactical minis, they used to have a game for that until 4e came out and killed it (DDM). I loved that game, because I played it for what it was, a tactical minis game that I was pretty good at.

While minis are arguable pretty integral to 4e, you could certainly play them without them, as much as dividing feet of older editions to make for squares as multiplying squares by feet to make distance is. 30/5=6 just as much as 6x5=30. And I still stand by my premise. Reading a book on soccer, watching it on TV, this will not tell you how you will feel when you play it.

I couldn't find a 4e game around here if I wanted, regardless. The local store got a DM and scheduled games, and 1 person showed up to play. 3.5 and PF is king here. I've seen it (4e) played a a local convention, and that was enough.

I have a friend who I'm trying to encourage to play 4e. Do you know why he hates it? It's not the system or how it plays, it's because he had a terrible DM, so incredibly terrible that he cannot rationalize all the horridness being JUST the DM, so he partially blames the system. Seeing one game in action, participating in one game, that's like saying you've been on one bumpy road therefore all roads must be bumpy. This correlation is not logical.

Intellectually dishonest? Can I critque a book if I'm not an author? Can I critque food if I only tasted, but didn't make it? Can a movie critic take shots an an actor if he's never appeared in a movie? I've read through the first core book, I've seen it played. It did nothing for me. That is enough for me.

Reading a book is tantamount to playing the system, you are experiencing the material as it was intended to be used, in a game. Personally, every book from every edition(save maybe the Draconomicon) is horridly boring. Based on just reading the base book for 4e, 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder, 2e and 1e, I would wager I would never play D&D. I play D&D because my friends sat me down and had me play with them, and I found it to be a ton of fun(I started with 3.5).

The system CERTAINLY impacts the "fun factor". I don't enjoy going to bars anymore, if my friends are going, I bow out. Sure, I like my friends, but it's just not something I find fun in my old age. Same with going to certain movies. If I don't enjoy the activity or topic, just because my friends are there doesn't make it fun. If the only chance I had to see them was over a 4e game, it would be one thing. I'd force myself to go through it, but I have the option of doing other things with them that are fun. So, in my opinion, the system not only impacts, but is the primary determinant of whether or not I would play.

Going to a movie, going clubbing, that's the same as playing a system. What you're doing is reading the menu and telling me the food is terrible.

 

[pemerton]

As I said before, fluff.

<snip>

What it does do is inform the background. It tells me why the peasant militia with no built in healers and 1 1st level cleric back in town is reluctant to face off with the orcs.

Just to be clear: my view that hp = mojo and ability to push on through comparatively minor REH-Conan-style punishment is confined to PCs. For NPCs, which (in 4e) don't generally have access to healing, it's a different matter. I narrate their defeat in combat however I want! (Minions are the ultimate example of this: their 1 hp doesn't tell us anything about their ingame health, or how much mojo they have. It's a metagame state - any wound they take from a PC will be a decapitation or something similar.)

 

[BryonD]

Hang on, two or three weeks of natural healing? So, we're not talking about d20 anymore either? Because 3e certainly doesn't take that long to fully heal. You get 1hp/level/day without any help at all. It's pretty unlikely that any character will ever need more than a week to fully recover his HP.

I find in my pathfinder games a barbarian (obviously the high end case) can have 13 hp / level. Avg 8 per level (yes, that is higher than 6.5 avg for a true d12) + 4 (minimum) for Con + 1 per level (favored). Throw in toughness and some magically increased Con and two weeks is feasible IF you are beat down to right at zero and have no magical healing whatsoever.

So two weeks seems to be the far end exception. Half that seems pretty typical. With "pretty typical" ignoring for sake of this specific conversation that magic healing is highly typical.

Strickly speaking, healing up from negatives obviously could take a bit longer just by the math. And if you were actually knocked unconscious and recover from that alone it can add some days before the recovery starts. But even I have never seen that case actually happen.

One week works for me.

Again, the whole embrace of some true "cause and effect" is the key. Swap surges to temporary HP so that some cause must bring about removal of wounds and I'm good.

 

[BryonD]

Just to be clear: my view that hp = mojo and ability to push on through comparatively minor REH-Conan-style punishment is confined to PCs.

Are you saying this is your view for ALL hp damage for PCs (in 4E)?
Honest question because I want to understand the context.

 

[pemerton]

Are you saying this is your view for ALL hp damage for PCs (in 4E)?

Obviously not for fatal damage - but given that fatal damage is identified only when certain extreme conditions are reached (three failed saves OR negative bloodied) the prelude has itself to be narrated in a fairly flexible way. Fatal damage, for PCs, is therefore not going to be disembowelling or severing of limbs - because that can't be narrated in the right way. It's going to be a bruise to the abdomen that (as it turns out) ruptured an internal organ, or a blow to the head that (as it turns out) was more than just glancing.

There are other corner cases too. In my last session, for example, a PC got shot by an assassin with poisoned bolts. The PC - a very tough dwarf - is heavily armoured. I was happy to narrate this as the bolts passing through chinks in the armour, delivering the poison, though not severing any tendons, ligaments or vessels.

There are odd cases for NPCs also. For example, in a couple of fights over the past year the PCs have fought NPC wizards with hundreds of hp (an elite and a solo). In these fights, even many "hits" are narrated as causing the wizard to have to parry a blow, or deflect a magical attack, with his/her staff. I certainly don't narrate it black knight style!, as if the NPC were still standing after taking blow after blow. (Contrast the fight against the dragon having hundred of hit points, where it did in fact withstand hard blow after hard blow. Contrast again the fight against the hobgoblin phalanx (a huge swarm), in which the effects of successful attacks were narrated as sending one or more of the hobgoblin soldiers flying.)

Of guidelines for narrating "damage" in this sort of system, the best I know (and the ones that have influenced me the most) are those in the original HeroWars book (HeroQuest revised uses a different mechanic for resolving extended contests, and so while on the whole a clearer set of guidelines, doesn't give advice for this particular issue).

 

[hanez]

Im not sure about this whole "you have to play it" to judge it thing. I mean every DM is different, so the variety of play between DMs will be huge anyways.

Nevertheless the rules make trends, push groups of DMs certain ways.

I saw no way to DM 4e without minis for example, it would just be so against the entire philosophy of the system it wouldnt be a rational thing to do.

The rules value certain things, prioritize certain things, make you super excited to play something vs someting else. I see no problem with someone reading my favorite editions phb, and sayin, read it and it looked bad. As long as he is experienced with D&D in general, he probably knows enough to decide whether or not he will like an by the bookish game run in that system.

 

[BryonD]

Obviously not for fatal damage ...

Fair enough.
Thanks

I'm completely on board with the flexibility to describe "hits" that cost HP as minor. I use that quite frequently.
And if you use that exclusively then you have, imo without question, fully resolved the surge complaint.

However, for me personally the value of HP as a narrative device come from their complete ambiguity and flexibility. I also won't hesitate to call a hit a "real" wound if the nature of the event fits. Obviously I won't cut off an arm in a D&D game. (excepting extremes not completely unlike those you describe)

It has been a while since I made this point, but I've said before that surges give you a choose your poison situation. Instantly healing wounds seems to the common theme. But you can avoid that poison by choosing the poison of never having any (non-fatal) blow actually do true harm. The characters can go through hundreds of battles and never once receive a wound that actually needs to heal.

I accept that this option is fine for you and I offer no criticism of it. But I hope you can accept that letting go of that narrative option for actual wounds is not acceptable to me.

 

[Hussar]

To answer the question what is gained: verisimilitude (as you say) and a more realistic pacing. There are also hidden opportunities for adventure and role play whenever characters are laid up. That might not appeal to yu, but it does appeak to plenty of people.

I already answered the other part but once again yes, one day or less healing blows my mind and one week or more (you are assuming I am only talking about 3e for some reason) Does not. I would also disagree that neither is remotely realistic. One week or more is vaguely realistic (i even offered my own experience with surgery to show it isnt that much of a stretch---though it is still a stretch---especially if you arent deaing with major issues like broken bones or ruptured organs), one day or less is not remotely realistic.

Yes, but, you're talkng about surgery in a modern day hospital with all the wonders of 21st century medicine. Do you really think that you would be back on your feet in a week in 1300 AD having undergone the exact same procedure?

Ok, say we accept 1 week. Why one week though? Can it be 6 days? How about 3 days? Does it absolutely need to be a week?

And, as a side note, achieving this is a relatively easy process. In my games, PC's recover 100% of their HP after an extended rest. For you, they recover, say, 10%. There, done. A sliding scale dial would satisfy both of us no?

As far as "plenty of people" go, I'm not going to play that game. I don't try to speak for the masses anymore because I have absolutely no idea what "plenty of people" do in their games. It's disingenuous to pretend that you do. You prefer a 1 week healing time. That's groovy. As I say, it's a relatively easy thing to resolve. I don't prefer that. I prefer a faster healing time because I find down time to be a somewhat rare experience and IMO, forces groups to have someone fall on the cleric grenade to have a healbot in the group.

But, in any case, wouldn't a sliding healing scale, instead of a one size fits all method, resolve all the issues?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Just so we're clear, I'll be expressing this as someone who has played D&D, not my own RPG.

I can't think of a single time I saw a character fully heal through natural means. It certainly never happened twice in any campaign I ever played in.

I have. Literally a couple dozen times.

I've never, ever, seen D&D played without any sort of healer, let alone seen it multiple times.

I have.

Unless, of course, you're playing a high RP game with very little combat. But, then, if you're using D&D for that, you are pretty close to freeforming with a veneer of D&D tropes laid over top.

This greatly amused me. Even if you don't change the rules whatsoever, you're close to freeforming the game? That's actually very funny to me. I know that you and Dannager both strongly believed that D&D was a game about combat, but you lost that poll about about two to one, I think. Most people disagreed. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/309227-d-d-about-combat.html)

Additionally, and this, to me, is the most important question, how is the game made more interesting by slower healing times?

Well, it aids in the passage of time. The passage of time allows for more evolution of the setting. The evolution of the setting allows for more interesting scenarios to naturally unfold. Armies may move, kings may die, bandits may get wiped out or raid a town. NPCs will fall in love and get married, PCs will have kids, and so on. Personally, it's why I'm against teleportation magic being used constantly, too (3.X was terrible about this). Not that I'm expecting D&D to change that.

Slower healing, if common, allows for very interesting events to unfold in a timeline that wouldn't be there otherwise. The same is true of mundane travel (especially if the weather slows you down from time to time). The same is applied to taking time to craft things. Anything, really, that allows for events to unfold in the setting naturally can make it very interesting.

Of course, I say this as someone who plays with a rather sandbox approach to the game. If you wanted to, you could take a more dramatist approach and "fudge" things so that "yes, this nation was drafting and arming an army, but nobody noticed it because it's a very, very good secret!" It's not my preferred approach, personally, as that, too, breaks my sense of verisimilitude within the game. But, I understand that a lot of players just roll with it, and have a lot of fun. And, more power to them. That's cool. But slowing things down in-game opens up new narrative paths in my preferred style of game that wouldn't be there otherwise. As always, play what you like