April 3rd, Rule of 3

[Guest 85555]

I believe that you feel this way. But I suspect that you feel this way because you've been grown accustomed to 3e levels of natural healing, not because there's any qualitative difference.

No. This isn't why actually. Haven't played 3e in ages and it isn't even my prefered edition of D&D (not to mention I usually play other games aside from D&D).

You may not see a qualitative difference, but I certainly do. The difference is seven days to recover versus 24 hours or less. Huge diffeence there in terms of believability.

My guess is your primary concern is a gamist one (not in the ron edwards sense but in how we tend to use it here). That is perfectly fine and I can undestand you viewing slow healing as a bad rule if all you want t do is get back "on track" with the scenario. That isn't my primary concern. So slow healing doesn't impede my enjoyment of play.

 

[Guest 85555]

I'd prefer that there is no "default". If they do set a default, then you wind up with people claiming that the default is better than anything else, simply because it's the default. I'd much prefer that you have several options, and get to pick the one that applies to your taste.

Isn't that what modular means?

By default i mean core system, which they say there will be. The gm and players then choose which modular ad ons to include as available options.

 

[Guest 85555]

I

In a weird way, 3e had a lot of rules that were very important to people even when the very people to whom they were important didn't actually use them. Like recovering fired arrows, counting them, and keeping track of quiver capacity. The fact that these rules were in the game made people feel like it was believable. But the fact that these rules were awful meant that people found workarounds, usually involving magic items or spells that eliminated the need to use the mundane rules. If you questioned them on this, they'd insist they used these rules... because back at level 2, they counted arrows for a bit, before learning the more advanced Rapid Fire feats and buying a bottomless magical quiver so they didn't keep exhausting their arrows three rounds into combat. But on a day to day basis, these rules were honored in their absence: they were the catalyst that justified the use of magic to avoid their actual text.

.

First forcing people to track arrows (or money) isnt a bad rule. It may not be a rule you like but there is nothing inherently bad about the mechanic. Second, most people I know track ammunition. I think you are assuming things about the majority of gamers that just arent true.

 

[Guest 85555]

I

Difficult non magical healing screws with my ability to run a low magic game because if I want to do very simple things that the game purports to handle (like run your typical published module that includes more than one meaningfully dangerous fight in a single week), I have to use tons of magic from ye olde magic shoppe, or else I need a character designed to fix the problem for me by use of magic. I don't want those things. I don't mind slow non magical healing, but I hate all the things that come with it. And I don't see any solutions forthcoming.

people arent offering solutions because they dont consider it a problem.i run lots of low magic games, and dont mind dealingwith the challenge of healing times when it comes up. Sometimes the part has to recover for a week or two. To finding a town to regroup in and laying up for a week can be an interesting side trek on its own.

Heck in my other games outside D&D there usually isn't healing magic and natural healing takes a while.

In short i guess i dont want the physicsof the game world to bend too much to the perceived exepectations of play. A little us fine,which is why i am okay with AD&D natural healing rates.

 

[Balesir]

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).

I can identify with this to a point,but I have to say that I would solve it by adding (as someone else suggested upthread) "wounds" as conditions of some sort that are, perhaps, saved against weekly, rather than by concocting some rules around the idea that hit points are some sort of bizarre conflation of 'real' wounding as well as morale/mojo/compos mentis/willpower/luck/divine favour and so on.

Under this schema, 'pep talks' and such could return "hit points", but reaching bloodied, receiving a critical hit, reaching 0 hit points or failing a death save would all result in the application of a condition that could be removed only via magical healing or week(s) of (bed) rest.

This is, sort of, a version of the old "fatigue points" and "body points" systems - but I think having wounds as separate "entities" actually works far better. For some real gritty feel, have a roll of "1" on the weekly saving throw to lose the wound add a disease called "infection"...

Easy - it gives the plot a chance to move forward while the PCs lick their wounds.

If a party can wade through a particular adventure or dungeon all in one go without having to stop for any great period of time to rest, that dungeon is going to be pretty static except for immediate defensive moves by the occupants. This makes the DM's job easier but I'm not sure it's enough of a trade-off benefit. (4e's Keep on the Shadowfell pretty much expects this as written, that you'll plow through the whole dungeon with maybe only one (or two if you're unlucky) extended rests and get to Kalarel right away.)

But if a party is forced to take some significant time off and rest* the whole adventure can change on the fly. Reinforcements can arrive, or everyone can leave, or the enemy can proactively come after the party, or whatever - in any case, things become much less static; or at least the DM has the opportunity to make it so.

* - or train, or go back to town for supplies, or whatever.

All of which demonstrates quite clearly what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says - and I am right with him on this one - that it is a perfectly valid pacing preferences issue, and has absolutely zip to do with "realism".

 

[Cadfan]

people arent offering solutions because they dont consider it a problem.i run lots of low magic games, and dont mind dealingwith the challenge of healing times when it comes up. Sometimes the part has to recover for a week or two. To finding a town to regroup in and laying up for a week can be an interesting side trek on its own.

Why do you say "when it comes up"?

"When it comes up" is always. If there is a fight and a player is struck by a weapon, the issue has come up. If it is coming up as an exception from regular game play, in order to create variety and an interesting and unique challenge, then you're proving my point.

 

[Guest 85555]

Why do you say "when it comes up"?

Because healing characters are not constantly taking damage. Healing doesn't come up every moment of the game. And my games are all very different so in some natural healing may be a consistent challenge, whereas in others it may not be. In the case of natural healing alone, when it comes up means when the party doesn't have access to magic healing and has to wait in order to recover.

"When it comes up" is always. If there is a fight and a player is struck by a weapon, the issue has come up. If it is coming up as an exception from regular game play, in order to create variety and an interesting and unique challenge, then you're proving my point.

It isn't always the same challenge though. Believe it or not some parties will actually press forward when they are hurt very bad. So it doesn't always pose a challenge to the GM trying to get through a scenario. You may want to elaborate on what you mean here because I am having trouble understanding how your point here really connects much to what I said.

 

[BryonD]

I have played a lot of a game in which wounding figures prominently - namely, Rolemaster, which has no hp mechanic in the D&D sense (RM concussion hits are a very different thing from D&D hit points; they somewhat resemble RQ's "total hit points" ie damage that has not been allocated as a wound to any particular part of the target's body). In that system, given that PCs fight fairly frequently, magical healing becomes a must for PCs to be able to go on.

I'm cool with more than two buckets.

4E is one bucket labeled "all abstract"
Other games may be "all kinds of specific wounds"

Pre-4E D&D is neither of those two buckets and is yet another class of bucket.

 

[BryonD]

I can identify with this to a point,but I have to say that I would solve it by adding (as someone else suggested upthread) "wounds" as conditions of some sort that are, perhaps, saved against weekly, rather than by concocting some rules around the idea that hit points are some sort of bizarre conflation of 'real' wounding as well as morale/mojo/compos mentis/willpower/luck/divine favour and so on.

Under this schema, 'pep talks' and such could return "hit points", but reaching bloodied, receiving a critical hit, reaching 0 hit points or failing a death save would all result in the application of a condition that could be removed only via magical healing or week(s) of (bed) rest.

This is, sort of, a version of the old "fatigue points" and "body points" systems - but I think having wounds as separate "entities" actually works far better. For some real gritty feel, have a roll of "1" on the weekly saving throw to lose the wound add a disease called "infection"...

In general terms:

I could endorse something like this.

All of which demonstrates quite clearly what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says - and I am right with him on this one - that it is a perfectly valid pacing preferences issue, and has absolutely zip to do with "realism".

Meh, "realism" is such a loaded term it is hard to say anything really meaningful with it in this context and really know that you and the person you are talking to is taking it to mean what you intended.

But my aversion to surges really isn't about pacing. Clearly pacing is tightly interlaced with the concern. But pacing itself is not it at all. If the system is such that a fighter can go through 100 battles and (presuming no "fatal" wounds) never once receive a wound that requires actual healing but instead were every single time just so many ouches that get mojoed through, is a fundamental flaw to me. And there is no mention of pacing in that. Now, expecting some concept of wounds that require healing to exist obviously does immediately bring pacing issues into the equation. But those issues only arise ofter the problem has been defined, they are not part of the definition itself.

 

[Hussar]

Well, I wouldn't say 100 fights, but, don't most action heroes get through many, many fights without being wounded in any significant way? I haven't seen the movies in ages, but, I don't recall Indiana Jones, Han Solo or James Bond spending any significant time healing wounds. Even in LotR, other than Frodo, who takes any significant wounds that weren't fatal? LeggyLass, Aragorn, even Gandalf get into fight after fight after fight and never suffer any real wounds (other than dying and being raised, of course ). Even the hobbits, again, other than Frodo, never really suffer any serious wounds that I recall. (although, bringing up LotR is effectively Godwinning the thread, so I'm likely going to get proven wrong here)

Taking a step to the left to action TV shows, characters in shows like Buffy or Angel rarely take any serious wounds, despite getting into combat every single episode. Yes, I do realize that some do, from time to time, like Zander losing an eye, but, those are very much the exception and not the rule. It becomes a standing joke in the series that Giles gets knocked out yet again in a fight, yet never suffers any lasting injury.

There is a rather lengthy list of action stories where the protagonists get into many, many combats and yet suffer no lasting injury. Pre-4e HP make this impossible because every injury is lasting - it takes several days to weeks to heal naturally.

Isn't this a problem with the system?