April 3rd, Rule of 3

[YRUSirius]

That's fine, but what's the point of the MM entry then?

Yeah, exactly. Why does a housecat need statistics? Do you want to see a house cat in a fight? Against what? A mice?

-YRUSirius

 

[Andor]

So, can someone, please, pretty please, show me how I can get 4e style HP's and pacing with 3e mechanics? I've been asking this over and over again for a couple of weeks now, and no one seems to want to take up the challenge.

Step 1: Problem definition.

What do you mean by 4e style HP and pacing?

While I've read 4e, I haven't had a chance to play it, so I need to ask what this means as playstyle effecting game mechanic.

 

[Dausuul]

I can't XP you again, but I'm right with you on this one!

I think the "remedy" is a simple principle, actually:

"In order to cause hit point damage, a cause has to be conceivably either a killing or a knockout blow. Any other "damage" can be considered to cause conditions, etc. - but if it could not kill or render unconscious, it should never inflict hit point damage."

Damn straight. I've been saying this for a long time. Anything that can kill a minion in one hit, can also kill a tyrannosaurus in one hit, if the tyrannosaurus has taken enough of a beating first. So before trotting out the idea that a minion can die walking through a thornbush, consider that the same thornbush can kill a tyrannosaurus, and then ask yourself whether perhaps the problem is not the minion but the thornbush.

There are several issues with the minion mechanic. "Death by thornbush" is not one of them.

 

[Hussar]

Step 1: Problem definition.

What do you mean by 4e style HP and pacing?

While I've read 4e, I haven't had a chance to play it, so I need to ask what this means as playstyle effecting game mechanic.

In 4e, because the PC's regain full hit points after an extended rest (6 hours), the pacing over the longer term is considerably faster.

Additionally, since every class comes with healing surges built in, and you can spend as many healing surges as you with during a short rest, you can have several encounters per day without need for outside healing.

Thirdly, there are quite a few sources of non-surge healing, either through spells like Cure Light Wounds (grants 1 healing surge value worth of healing, 1/day IIRC) or regeneration and a plethora of sources of bonus HP (feats, powers, etc) and temporary hit points, it's quite possible to have very extended adventuring days without having to worry about the PC's running out of gas.

Fourthly, healing surges can also act as a resource for various effects. Some magic items cost you a healing surge in order to dump out larger effects, that sort of thing. And, healing surges can be used as a resource for extended skill challenges - failures could cost healing surges, for example.

Primarily, though, for me, it's the speed. The fact that I can drop five, six, seven encounters on the group, keep the pressure up, and not have to worry that a lucky die roll is going to mean that the group runs out of gas half way through the scenario.

I can do this with 3e and earlier style hit points, but, it requires healing wands and/or reserve feats. If I'm going to go that route anyway, I might as well build it directly into the class.

 

[Andor]

Primarily, though, for me, it's the speed. The fact that I can drop five, six, seven encounters on the group, keep the pressure up, and not have to worry that a lucky die roll is going to mean that the group runs out of gas half way through the scenario.

I can do this with 3e and earlier style hit points, but, it requires healing wands and/or reserve feats. If I'm going to go that route anyway, I might as well build it directly into the class.

I think you mean character, not class. Building unlimited non-combat healing into a class is pretty easy, for example you could rule that the dragon Shamans 1/2 hp total limit on Hp regeneration only applies in combat. Outside of combat a healing skill check might allow it to take you back to full. Or one of the Binder vestiges grants unlimited healing, metered out at once per 5 rounds.

If you want to build it into characters however, there are the Reserve HP rules from unearthed Arcana. You might also glance at the damage conversion rules.

By not hard coding healing into the system, but handling it on a case by case basis, 3e lets you throttle it however the GM pleases. For example by allowing classes (like Binder or Dragon Shaman or Crusader) with effectively unlimited healing you can get that "keep it rolling" feel you like from 4e, or you could give the party a magic item or NPC with some slow but powerful healing effects. Ring of regeneration, a wand of cure light wounds that regenerates a charge an hour, whatever you want.

4e is actually more restrictive, since surgeless heals are harder to come by although you can roll right along until the surges run out.

Combining these options in different proportions can let you set the dials quite precisely, although the fact that 3e ties healing much more strongly to the class than the character does mean you need to get your players on board with your goals. Or you can adopt the rules to account for their preferences. for example if they are prone to lightly armoured sneaky types with little healing, then the Reserve HP rules and cheap wands of CLW will keep them going. If they want dramatic armour clad types who can slug it out all day the damage conversion rules with a Crusader or Dragon shaman would be ... potent. If they are perfectly happy with a regular cleric in the group then reserve feats, as you note, fix the problem.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=1879]Andor[/MENTION], the feature of 4e pacing that is most important for me is not the operational pacing that Hussar talks about, but the incombat pacing.

4e combat is characterised, among other things, by making incombat healing a crucial part of play. Which is both part of the mechanics - accessing your surges within the constraints of the action economy - and part of the fiction - will this PC be able to surge back before being overwhelmd by the tide of combat?

To the best of my knowledge, this can't be done with 3E, but my knowledge of 3E doesn't include some of the later stuff like incarnum, ToM, Bo9S, etc.

 

[Andor]

To the best of my knowledge, this can't be done with 3E, but my knowledge of 3E doesn't include some of the later stuff like incarnum, ToM, Bo9S, etc.

Well, I can't speak to your play experience, but I've always found in combat healing to be crucial in D&D in every edition I've played.

And this was a problem, because for most of D&D history there was only one source of in combat healing, the cleric. And as that was so critical, the cleric often had little chance to do much else. I'm sure you're familiar with the problems and discussions about this. Oh, there were potions, and later wands of healing, but those are expensive, and wands still demand a healing-type character to use, so problem not solved.

Late in 3e we saw some attempts to shift the healing burden away from the Cleric by giving out some healing to other classes like the Crusader (Bo9s) and Dragon shaman, etc. The damage conversion I linked to above is another fix along that vein although it does not provide in combat healing, it does make it likely that when someone drops, they will merely be down and not out.

4e moves the burden of healing, in part, to the individual character. Everyone gets a second wind. The leaders also got healing as minor actions so that they could be active characters rather than mere heal-bots.

You could always back-patch those into 3e of course. Giving everyone a second wind power usable once a combat wouldn't be hard. Nor would changing the casting time of heal spells to swift actions. But it would have to be a matter of house rules, the only way to make RAW 3e move the healing burden onto the individual players is by handing out a liberal number of healing potions.

 

[Hussar]

I see what you're saying Andor, but, the problem is, you've simply shifted from needing one class to needing two or three classes. If healing is limited to specific classes, then every group will have a very strong need for one of those classes. I want to build HP recovery into character, not class, for exactly this reason.

I don't want the game to tell me that if I want to have any sort of high pacing, I must have one of the following classes.

Same goes with items. Again, if we're going to go that route, you've just made low magic campaigns a lost dream. It's hardly a low magic campaign if every encounter is followed by inappropriate touching with magic sticks.

So, while I totally agree that you can resolve the issue this way, and this is pretty much exactly how we DID resolve the issue in 3e, it's a patch, not a solution.

See, the thing is, you can very, very easily shift 4e's healing system to match other editions. I've lost the link to [MENTION=29358]Crazy[/MENTION]Jerome 's post where he makes a fantastic system for doing it, but, it's really not that difficult to adapt without forcing DM's to make any changes to their game world.

 

[pemerton]

Well, I can't speak to your play experience, but I've always found in combat healing to be crucial in D&D in every edition I've played.

OK. Different from me. I don't have much 3E experience, but in B/X and AD&D my experience was the same as that which [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] posted recently in one of these hp/healing threads: clerical healing, potions etc were deployed after the fighting, not during it. (I think in part this is because doing those things in a battle was tricky - clerical spells in AD&D have long casting times, and so can easily be interrupted. It was also suggested by the example of play in Moldvay Basic - fight first, heal later.)

I'm sure you're familiar with the problems and discussions about this.

Yep.

What's interesting about 4e - at least as it plays at my table - is that there is a mix of action types for healing abilities and powers. Second wind is standard, but minor for dwarves; most leader healing powers are minor, but some are standard, or are riders on standard action attacks; etc.

Then, these abilities are distributed over the PCs - second wind requires an action from the character, or from another character using Heal; different PCs have different healing powers (in my game, the ranger-cleric has several, as does the paladin, and the wizard has one "aura of charm" type power that grants temp hp to all allies).

And these abilities have different resource costs: encounter, daily, daily item (in the unerrata-ed rules, a PC can only use a limited number of daily item powers per day), etc.

Which means that the tactical considerations become more intricate, and the potential story contexts richer (different variations on last-minute recovery, heroic efforts, trading off helping your teammates vs pressing the attack, etc).

You could always back-patch those into 3e of course. Giving everyone a second wind power usable once a combat wouldn't be hard. Nor would changing the casting time of heal spells to swift actions.

Certainly AD&D or B/X would need a lot of houseruling to produce anything like this. And I think that even 3E might need a bit more than what you suggest - eg attack powers with healing riders (ie in the fiction, attacks that produce heroic resurgence of one's allies) I think are not a part of 3E as written, are they?

 

[Andor]

And I think that even 3E might need a bit more than what you suggest - eg attack powers with healing riders (ie in the fiction, attacks that produce heroic resurgence of one's allies) I think are not a part of 3E as written, are they?

Sure are. The Bo9S has the Devoted Spirit discipline which is free only for the Crusader, but the Bo9S gives pretty free access to the maneuver system for any character by paying with feats. There is a series of strikes that grant healing in that school, and also a stance I think. You can see the whole maneuver list for free here courtesy of WotC. The crusader class also has an interesting damage mechanic built into it where incoming damage up to a certain amount (basically 5 per 4 levels) went into a pool and didn't actually hit you until the end of your turn, and in the mean time it gave you bonuses to hit and damage. "Go on, hit me."