Forked Thread: Healing Surges: Let's see them in Action!

[Hussar]

Forked from: Hit Points & Healing Surges Finally Explained!

People have pointed to REH's work. And, yes, occassionally there is an extended rest in there. Usually Conan being tended by the love interest. If there is no plot reason for the extended rest, it never happens. Conan shakes off the wound and off he goes.

It's funny, you can name any number of genre examples of characters using Healing surges, yet, for some reason, they aren't considered at all. Exploder quotes from The Lord of the Rings yet ignores Frodo's mithril armor. Constantine is mentioned, yet, the fact that his lung cancer never actually stops him from doing anything, isn't.

Look, I think this is straying somewhat off topic, so, let's have it out shall we? We'll start naming examples from genre or popular fiction where you have extended rests and healing surges/second winds and we'll see who runs out first.

Who's game?

I'll go first:

1. As I mentioned, Frodo is attacked in the Mines of Moria, receives what appears to all the other characters as a mortal wound, gets rolled over, stands up and is perfectly fine. He's "saved" by his mithril armor.

2. In the movie Blade Runner, Dekker gets his ass absolutely kicked by the penultimate villain who is nicely dispatched by the very hot Sean Young. He goes home, spits copious amounts of blood into the sink, lies down on the couch and has a sleep. Next day he's jumping off buildings. Major damage to fully healed in one night of sleep.

3. In pretty much any boxing movie you care to name, Rocky (various numbers) the protagonist goes down and the ref starts counting. He's gotten leveled by the bad guy. He looks over, sees his romantic interest, gets up and finishes the fight. Not only that, but, when he gets up, he's just as fast and probably MORE bad assed than when he went down.

4. Die Hard. Nuff said.

5. The Princess Bride. Inigo receives a mortal wound. Count Rugen certainly thinks so. Yet, he stands up, and fights perfectly well and, after the fight, runs off to find Wesley and the others.

6. Jackie Chan routinely gets the stuffing beaten out of him, shakes it off and gets right back into things. The only time he gets extended rest is if the hot nurse/love interest is going to be there.

7. Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon gets tortured, beaten and abused. Yet, hanging there apparently defeated, he summons up the strength to strangle his guard, free himself and escape.

8. In ERB's A Princess of Mars, John Carter is stabbed entirely through the chest, the sword explodes out behind him. Yet, after he kills his opponent, he pulls the sword out of himself and walks over to his women.

Note, throughout this, I'm giving pretty specific examples. It's not high altitude "oh, well, a book I read in high school doesn't fit this" sort of thing. I'm looking for very specific chapter and verse examples.

So, put your money where your mouth is. What examples from genre can't be emulated using 4e's healing system? In what examples from fiction would second wind/healing surges make no sense? In what examples do you REGULARLY see extended healing and the protagonist never simply "shakes it off"?

 

[Gimby]

Hmm, possibly the Farseer books by Robin Hobb - Fitzchivalry gets several severe beatings that take weeks+ to get over, including getting shot at one point that leaves him with a permanent (though minor) disability.

Though to be fair, no edition of D&D would handle this as written.

 

[roguerouge]

Reposted from other thread:

In a Robert E Howard short story, a barbarian king, Niall, fought this enormous dragon-python with a very poisonous bite. After defeating it, he was nursed back to health over what read like several months, but could have been several weeks. You observed that it's a standard trope in the Conan stories, usually in a hurt-comfort scenario.

And, of course, Frodo takes quite a while to recover from his Black Rider wound, doesn't he? Left increasingly incapacitated from a stabbing, and even when cured, there's lingering effects over a long period of time.

Not sure if these next count as sword and sorcery, but John Constantine's long bout with lung cancer and various ass-kickings might also fit your criterion. As might Barbara Gordon's paralysis at the hands of the Joker.

Whedon's work has a number of examples, and it is modern fantasy genre:

Spoiler

Xander gets maimed in season seven of Buffy. Faith has a long-term and a short-term coma due to physical injuries... twice. Cordelia and Wesley each spend a significant time in the hospital.

For the record, these are examples of injuries that 4E's healing surge and 6 hour rest mechanic would fall down on and some of which earlier editions' magic widgits would have a tough time modeling.

 

[Kzach]

All fights in the Buffyverse.

One in particular stands out. When Angel is fighting Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) from Wolfram & Heart and is obviously overmatched and getting the absolute buggery beaten out of him and Jayne says something like, "The power of gods flows through my veins, you can't stop me!" And Angel replies, "What word do you think you shouldn't have used just now?" gets up and bites him and then beats him up good'n'proper

 

[FalcWP]

Mal from Firefly/Serenity uses a healing surge or two.

"Do you know what your sin is, Mal?"
"Oh, hell, I'm a fan of all seven. But right now, I'm gonna have to go with Wrath."

Now, *after* those big fights Mal and the rest of the crew are often barely standing and need to rest and/or see the doc. But it does get them through the fight.

 

[Runestar]

Problem is that there is no consistency. They seem extraordinarily resilient during the actual fight itself, then proceed to collapse after the climatic battle and remain out for quite a while. Healing surges can only account for one part of this phenomena (but to be fair, it is the more crucial aspect).

Take Rurouni Kenshin for example. During the Shishio saga, Kenshin is able to fight 3 battles near consecutively. While he clearly is hurt, his injuries do not appear to have much impact on his fighting capabilities. He is still every bit as fast, and his attacks as deadly as ever. It is clear that he is ignoring the extent of his wounds and pushing his body to their limits. Even after being knocked unconscious by Shishio, he manages to stand up in the end and mount a spectacular comeback.

In a sense, this can be attributed to the healing surge/short rest mechanic. He is burning through his surges at an accelerated rate, which explains his staying power.

Yet, right after the battle, he collapses and remains unconscious for a whole week (could be two, can't remember offhand). That is one heck of a rest, if you consider that using the extended rest mechanic, he should be up and running the next day...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I just don't get where you're pulling "fully healed" from.

Blade Runner works as perfectly well under 3E hit points as it does under 4E hit points. As do most or all of the other examples.

The difference is that under 3E (and earlier) hit points, the description of the character is meaningful to observers. Deckard starts Blade Runner at 80 3E hit points. He gets the crap kicked out of him, occasionally gets some sleep and heals a small amount, and ends the film at 0 hit points. That works perfectly well.

The difference is that under 4E, when Deckard gets his extended rest, he actually is completely 100 percent capable. A GM describing his injuries, bruises, and exhaustion is basically lying to the replicant players. Whereas in 3E, when the GM describes the same things, it actually means something ... Deckard is hurting, and he's just not as durable in a fight as he was at the beginning of the adventure.

In 3E, description matches in-game reality. In 4E, it doesn't.

In 4E, description can match in-game reality ... but the cost is that characters never ever get injured (unless, of course, they die).

4E hit points force the choice between "description at odds with reality" and "the heroes never really get hurt." If either one of those choices works for you, groovy ... 4E will work for you fine. But I don't like either of those choices.

 

[Imaro]

Wow, I guess healing surges can represent everything from being stunned in mithril armor to drinking the blood of a god (magic potion) and gaining more power. I'm confused... a healing surge relies on no outside forces (except a 5 minute rest) so how are these things healing surges as they are presented in the game?

I'm not disagreeing with all of them but, I mean if some of these arguments can be called healing surges (When they clearly have an outside cause, or could be interpreted in other ways) there really is no "standard for a healing surge and this whole discussion is pointless.

 

[Kraydak]

Forked from: Hit Points & Healing Surges Finally Explained!


I'll go first:

1. As I mentioned, Frodo is attacked in the Mines of Moria, receives what appears to all the other characters as a mortal wound, gets rolled over, stands up and is perfectly fine. He's "saved" by his mithril armor.

Awesome blow feat (or whatever the MM knockback feat was)+crit threat+crit confirmed+Fortified armor=damage well below Frodo's hp total.

He *was* in fact saved by his armor, rather than recovering from damage with the aid of a surge.

2. In the movie Blade Runner, Dekker gets his ass absolutely kicked by the penultimate villain who is nicely dispatched by the very hot Sean Young. He goes home, spits copious amounts of blood into the sink, lies down on the couch and has a sleep. Next day he's jumping off buildings. Major damage to fully healed in one night of sleep.

He just never lost all his hp. He never took "major damage".

3. In pretty much any boxing movie you care to name, Rocky (various numbers) the protagonist goes down and the ref starts counting. He's gotten leveled by the bad guy. He looks over, sees his romantic interest, gets up and finishes the fight. Not only that, but, when he gets up, he's just as fast and probably MORE bad assed than when he went down.

When you start the fight Shaken (because of pre-fight stuff) and the opponent lands an Intimidate check, you want to break off the fight. Of course, the Frightened condition doesn't last, and your romantic interest lets you recover from being Shaken. Then, without shaken, you are scarier than before. You weren't (yet) seriously injured.

4. Die Hard. Nuff said.

Piles-o-hp FTW.

5. The Princess Bride. Inigo receives a mortal wound. Count Rugen certainly thinks so. Yet, he stands up, and fights perfectly well and, after the fight, runs off to find Wesley and the others.

Piles-o-hp FTW. Note that Wesley sure *isn't* using his "healing surges".

6. Jackie Chan routinely gets the stuffing beaten out of him, shakes it off and gets right back into things. The only time he gets extended rest is if the hot nurse/love interest is going to be there.

Piles-o-hp FTW.

7. Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon gets tortured, beaten and abused. Yet, hanging there apparently defeated, he summons up the strength to strangle his guard, free himself and escape.

Piles-o-hp + recovery from any intimidation FTW.

8. In ERB's A Princess of Mars, John Carter is stabbed entirely through the chest, the sword explodes out behind him. Yet, after he kills his opponent, he pulls the sword out of himself and walks over to his women.

Piles-o-hp FTW. Healing surges would mean that the stab wound *closed*.

...
So, put your money where your mouth is. What examples from genre can't be emulated using 4e's healing system? In what examples from fiction would second wind/healing surges make no sense? In what examples do you REGULARLY see extended healing and the protagonist never simply "shakes it off"?

Almost all "shakes off" scenarios are better modeled by huge piles of hp+possible morale effects. Healing surges means than any wounds *close up*. Piles of hp mean that the character fights through the injury w/o worry of death-spirals.

 

[maddman75]

there really is no "standard for a healing surge and this whole discussion is pointless.

This is my opinion. A healing surge is a game mechanic, not a narrative device. Its up to the player and GM to come up with an appropriate narration as to the events, same as any other game event. Is it the character getting a second wind? Words of encouragement from his leader? His faith in the gods? A look of hope from his lover? Did the bad guy become just a little bit too evil, and he just can't take it any more? Any and all of the above.