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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6602773" data-attributes="member: 85870">I generated a very long post addressing some talking points @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=42582" target="_blank">pemerton</a> brought up earlier, but my browser crashed and I lost it, but I did want to comment here. Looking at the way you describe 4e like this, @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6696971" target="_blank">Manbearcat</a>, makes it seem very similar to what I'm getting out of Savage Worlds---you're turning "healing surges" (a pretty terrible keyword, if you ask me) into a "hero pool." That's exactly the same thing as Savage Worlds "bennies," a pool of resources that lets the heroes be "heroic." And in that light, I'm suddenly much more open to the idea. Basically, the only difference between a "healing surge" in D&D and a "bennie" in Savage Worlds, at least in terms of being used as a healing mechanic, is that in Savage Worlds, it's damage prevention rather than healing after the fact. Making a damage "soak roll" in Savage Worlds is a narrative resolution mechanic, not a process sim one----how did the hero just avoid taking that massive hit right now? Dunno, but by spending a benny and making a successful Vigor check, the PC just avoided taking a sword stroke across the shoulder. Change healing surges to "hero points," and turn them into damage prevention and suddenly it makes a lot more sense. I'm not having to justify in the fiction an hour after a fight how a fighter sits down for 10 minutes and spends a "healing surge." Instead I adjudicate that the damage never occurred in the first place in the immediate fiction. It's ultimately the same thing----it's exchanging one metagame resource for another based on a player decision point, it just changes the when and why. A "hero pool" also would have ramifications for the warlord class in 4e that would make it much easier for me to understand---a warlord power wouldn't give direct hitpoint recovery, it would give back "hero pool" points. (If the player chooses to use those hero pool points for damage prevention later, great---it's the functional equivalent of hit point recovery). "Get on your feet, soldier! We can do this! Fight on!" Character gets up in the fiction (receives a hero pool point to spend). Two rounds later, character gets hit, but spends the hero pool point they just gained, and suddenly the damage is negated. Mechanically, it's the same end result. Did I just prevent the damage from happening, or did the player "heal" after taking a short rest? Doesn't matter, the player's hit point total is exactly the same at the end of the fight. Yeah, it's still "dissociated" from the fiction, i.e., a narrative resolution mechanic. But I'm only having to "narrate" the damage avoidance fiction, which is a single decision point. I'm not having to play "Schrodinger's wounds" or come up with some elaborate reason why getting down to 3 HP, then going back to 30 works in the fiction. Along those same lines, I think a basic change from player resource expenditure to fortune-based resource expenditure would also make a big difference for me. Specifically for martial characters, strike daily powers, move everything to encounter powers, and set a "recharge" mechanic of some kind. In Savage Worlds it would be brutally easy----any time a player is dealt a Joker, for example. Or a player could spend a "bennie" / "hero pool" point to recharge an encounter power mid-fight. It's still not a perfect association to me, but causes vastly less mental gyrations for me than trying to justify how and why a martial daily works. Seriously, if 4e had these things changed:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Healing surges changed to a "hero pool."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When used as "healing," a "hero pool" point acts as damage prevention, rather than post-factum healing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Martial daily powers removed and turned into encounter powers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Having a fortune-based recharge for encounter powers mid-combat, or alternatively "hero pool" expenditure to recharge mid-combat.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Revision of some of the problematic powers for better fictional association.</li> </ul>That.....actually sounds like a really interesting game. Like.....I might actually be excited to play a game like that, especially if it involved fun tactical combat. But then......we run afoul of the original premise, then don't we? Would D&D 4e have been successful if it had been called something other than D&D?I don't think my suggested changes make it any more like "D&D."</blockquote>

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