Experience Point: Sometimes you gotta play hurt

I feel rotten right now. I literally just walked back in from the doctor’s office where I tested negative for both flu and strep throat, which means my sinus drainage has managed to produce clinical levels of pain without actually resorting to an ailment for which prescription medications are the answer. Basically they said, “Keep taking what you’ve been taking and it’ll eventually go away. Now that will be a $20 copay.”

I teetered on the edge of whether to write the column today or not.

Now I can hear you already saying, “Perhaps you shouldn’t have waited until the last minute, Rel.” You make a good point, but the last week has been wall to wall. I was in a class all day last Thursday. Friday through Monday I was busy with our big, Spring NC Game Day (which was TONS of fun but left no time for writing). I came down sick yesterday and felt even worse than I do right now.

So here I am writing on my due date. Why? Because I said I would and I take those commitments seriously. There are a few things I’ve had to reschedule because they involve talking to clients. My throat simply won’t allow that right now so that’s just the way it is. But I can still type and so I’ll at least push out some wisdom in that format today.

What does any of this have to do with gaming? Well I guess I thought it reminded me of those times we were deep in the dungeon, having taken a pretty good beating, low on spells and healing. The question loomed large: Do we dare press on?

This question is at the heart of a lot of game design. The “15 minute adventuring day” gets talked about quite a bit. Certainly mechanics like available healing from Clerics, wands of Cure Light Wounds, and the oft-maligned Healing Surge are key to whether the party can press on or not.

The Tactician in me says, in the absence of some pressing goal, if you think the current condition of the party won’t survive the next encounter, recover and heal. In a typical dungeon the bad guys and treasure aren’t going anywhere so you’re better off to chip away at it when you have more of your resources. Even if you’re likely to miss out on some treasure, you’ll definitely miss out on it if you’re dead. So consider keeping discretion in focus and live to fight another day.

But what if you do have a pressing goal? What if the princess is going to be eaten by the dragon if you don’t go fight on? Is the Evil Wizard going to sacrifice the prisoners to summon the demon at midnight? Well then, you may have to suck it up and play hurt. The question then becomes how can you do it in the smartest way possible?

First I say pick your battles. Don’t waste your precious remaining resources on side quests or fights you don’t absolutely have to engage in. Figure out the key points that will allow you to come away with a win, recover, and return for more when you’re in better health. Can you rescue the princess without killing the dragon? Can you free the prisoners from the Evil Wizard and come back to kill him later? Prioritise your goals to aim for only the ones you absolutely MUST achieve.

Furthermore, consider resources that might get you to or from the key battles intact. A Mass Invisibility might allow you to sneak to the fight without having to deal with the guards or minions along the way. Or maybe it’s your method of avoiding them on the way out when party members are truly down to their last few hit points (or are being carried, unconscious, by other party members). Illusions or other distractions are your friends in that situation.

Also think about what kinds of expendable resources you have been holding onto for a dire situation. Now is the time to call upon those to help you survive the immediate trials you’re going to face. Do you have scrolls or potions you can use? Other single-use magic items? Burn them now when it really matters. Again, be creative in their use. That Summon Monster III scroll could get you a Fiendish Gorilla to help you fight the bad guys. But maybe it’s better to use it to summon a Celestial Dire Badger to aid you by digging a tunnel into the prison where the presumptive sacrifice victims are being held.

If you have any favors, maybe now is the time to call them in. If the local Thieves Guild owes you a favor, have them sneak in and bust out the prisoners while you hold off the Dragon or Evil Wizard. If you are on friendly terms with that Couatl in the jungle, see if she will tangle with the Dragon long enough for you to get the Princess out of there. Don’t be bashful. When you’re beat down, that’s when you most need the help of others.

As for me and how I feel today, I’m picking my battles. Right after I post this thing I’m taking a long nap while I wait for these meds to kick in. Meanwhile, I am drinking coffee to summon as much energy and focus as I can to power through the writing. And I’ve got a very good friend who is going to edit this for me since I doubt I’m doing a great job of that myself. With her help I’m sure it won’t be the muddled mess that is being formed by my fingers right now.

When your party has been beat up and is low on healing, how did you make it through anyway? What sort of reserves or favors have you called in when you felt like you could barely go on but needed to anyway?

 

[Razjah]

There have been a couple times the party in my game was beat up and almost ready to call it quits. If they decide to press on, it usually involved falling back on potions and loading up on defensive spells. Bear's Endurance can help get a few hit points to everyone, the Wizard decides burn a few more spells for defensive buffs, the party goes all-in on flanking for better bonuses and finally concentrates fire to kill enemies quicker, everyone starts using ranged attacks to lure the enemy to a choke point where the Fighter can keep them pinned under a flurry of steel, and sometimes the party gambles and needs to call in a favor to a local church or the party cleric is granted a few more healing spells in exchange for a sidequest from the patron god. Oh, and trying to ambush enemies for surprise rounds where they can try to get in some free damage to swing the fight in their favor.

 

[delericho]

I'm almost always the DM, so tend not to have to make that sort of call. That said, I can sympathise with your having to "play hurt" - there have been occasions when I've really not wanted to bother hosting/running a game. But what keeps me from cancelling (unless I really have to) is that there are other people who would be let down by a cancellation.

(Plus, our gaming is through a Meetup site, and one of the lessons I learned early on in the history of that site is that reliability is very important. If you get a reputation for cancelling late, even with the best of reasons, that can really poison your ability to get people together in future.)

It does, unfortunately, sometimes seem to be the case that D&D (especially 3e) has given PCs precisely the wrong amount of healing. Almost all of the time, you want healing to be quick and easy (to get on with the game), while occasionally it would be better if the PCs could be compelled to fight on through the pain. And yet, in order not to be caught short, the party will make sure to carry enough wands of cure light wounds to give them at least one "full heal".

 

[Zero Cochrane]

Perhaps players would respond to increased rewards for more encounters in a row. Action points don't do the job and extra treasure is problematic since you never know what you would have gotten in other circumstances. Perhaps they would respond well to an experience point bonus -- say +10% for each encounter after the first, cumulative (+20% for the next encounter, +30% for the following encounter, etc), until they take an extended rest or get back to town. Maybe this is too much or too little (YMMV), but in principle I think the 'greater risk gives greater reward' factor would motivate players who would otherwise be prone to the “15 minute adventuring day” syndrome.

 

[Razjah]

Maybe this is too much or too little (YMMV), but in principle I think the 'greater risk gives greater reward' factor would motivate players who would otherwise be prone to the “15 minute adventuring day” syndrome.

This could work, but then it makes the game all about combat. When a system rewards completing a quest with the same experience as completing a level appropriate combat encounter- I don't really want to up the experience for a fight. I don't know if this would help encourage pressing on. You may get one extra fight before healing, but in something like 4e, and even many 3.x fights, the combat wrecks PCs HP. They need to heal in between fights because the monsters deal boatloads of damage.