D&D 5E Healing Surges, Hit Dice, Martial Healing, and Overnight recovery: Which ones do you like?

[Jester David]

Wow, a game using game logic!? What a completely original and unique idea only to 4e...oh wait.

And I'll take 4e's more grounded "game logic" over whatever gamey world 3.P lives in, where I can jump from orbit and faceplant on the ground, poke myself with a glowing stick a few times that somehow makes me no longer hurt from jumping from orbit, and instantly be right as rain for my next orbit jump.

IIRC, falling damage is identical between 3e and 4e.
And the glowing stick isn’t even needed in 4e, you just need to sit for 5 minutes, have a sandwich, and you’re ready for your next orbital jump.

Games should use game logic, but D&D is a role-playing game, which means the game logic should be tempered by both narrative logic and simulationist logic. Neither realism, gamism, or narrativism can have dominance, and compromises should be made for all three.

I have lots of game. If I want to play a board game with my friends, I’ll break out a board game. Just like if I want a purely narrative experience I’ll play Fiasco, or a realistic experience I’d join the historical anachronism society or a LARP. I play D&D for an experience that’s a bit of all three.

If you remove the narrativism and simulationism from D&D all you have is a miniature combat game. Now tactical miniature games are fine. There are lots of them that do quite well. But if you’re going to make a tactical miniature games, you should go all in and make a tactical miniature games, opposed to something that tries to be both a mini-combat game and a role-playing game. Focused, dedicated play ensures a better experience for people who want that sort of thing.

You know what is a 100% completely and entirely artificial mechanic? Hit Points! Once you've accepted hit points (which behave like nothing ever as the consequences are just weird) you're into pure game territory.

Hitpoints… those are a necessary evil.

I’ve regularly and often paraphrased Winston Churchill: hitpoints are the worst possible health tracking system, except for all the others that have been tried.

Hitpoints suck. They’re problematic for immersion. But they work with the narrative and the game and thus can trump reality (two against one).

Hitpoints work best when you don’t think about them, when you’re in a comfortable state of denial. Healing surges, overnight healing, martial healing really draw attention to hitpoints. The point out the flaws in the system.

And this is a false analogy. It's like saying the 3e Wizard and the 3e Cleric play completely differently. There is only one power that's alike and a recharge. Beyond that every single power is different as is every single spell. But they have some overlap and recharge in the same way (as wizard and cleric do in 3E). Their spells are almost all different. But the way they cast them is simmilar. So they are samey?

Clerics also have better hp, attacks, armour, and weapons. So that makes a huge difference beyond spell selection. But... if you had a cleric who dump statted Con and dressed in robes they would play fairly similar to wizards in play: stay in the back, avoid melee, cast spells. Especially if the cleric took a domain that gave them access to wizard spells.

The difference between a 3e wizard and sorcerer was their spellcasting system, which is virtually irrelevant. If you gave a wizard the spellpoint system from Unearthed Arcana they wouldn’t stop being a wizard. Similarly, an evoker and illusionist wizard also play radically different. But different spell selections doesn’t make the base classes different; if the two memorized conjuration spells it’d be hard to tell them apart. Just like it’d be hard to spot the difference between a martial cleric warlord with generic powers.

Hit points backed by healing surges are less game-logic than Hit Points where you automatically have full access to your entire reserve and aren't slowed by damage until you drop. You want to see healing surges being spent? Watch a boxing match. Boxers spend them between rounds

Their wounds close? They go back into the fight at 100%? The coach on the side shouts some words of encouragement and the boxer springs back mid-round? The boxer then go and have three other equally or increasingly difficult fights that same day?
That’s what healing surges do.

There is room for a second wind mechanic, either generic or class based. Let me repeat: there is totaly room for second wind. That’s doable But it should be limited and/or tied to longer rests.
But healing surges take that workable idea and go a little far, rendering the concept implausible. It’s not the idea, it’s the execution. And because it went to the extreme, people are planting their heels on all implementations.
Just like how 3e botched Level Adjustment, Prestige Classes, and Challenge Rating and now even proposing those ideas illicits a negative reaction.

I used to be really, really anti-martial healing because 4e turned it up to 11. Since then I’ve relaxed my views and believe a nice middle ground would work. The D&D5 Hit Dice seem to occupy a nice compromise between the no-second-wind of 3e and the all-second-wind of 4e.
The base rules are a little much for me, with full overnight healing. But at least this time the game is designed around house ruling and tweaking so I can adjust that.

 

[Jester David]

This is neither the function not the purpose of healing surges.

This is the function and purpose of the short rest mechanic. Short rests allow characters to restore their own HP and encounter-based abilities without expending powers or non-renewable resources (potions, etc.). By actually being short, they are indeed capable of being taken (and intended to be taken) after every encounter (whether that is a combat encounter or not) which expends the sorts of resources which you can use it to recover.

The short rest mechanic is not contingent on the existence of healing surges, nor are healing surges contingent on the existence of short rests.

Right off the bat, this whole post was some well said stuff. Just a kudos for eloquence.

Okay, I would argue that the healing surge and short rest mechanic are both elements of the same design goal: the focus on the encounter as the baseline for balance. So there are powers that recharge after every encounter and healing that is freely usable outside an encounter, both tied to the short rest.
Arguing surges as being dependant on short rests is a little, well, chicken-and-the-egg.

But, the short rest was really unneeded. Powers and healing effectively auto-recharged. Actually taking the 5 minutes and declaring a “short rest” was often unnecessary in practice, unless the party was deliberately moving straight to the next encounter or the DM imposing a time constraint (such as a chase).

The primary function of the healing surge mechanic is to place a cap on the amount of HP a given character can recover in between extended rests. This prevents parties from stocking up on cheap healing resources (potions, the previously ubiquitous Wands of Cure Light Wounds) and extending the adventuring day indefinitely, as well as introducing a resource management aspect to all classes.

Given the focus both 4e and D&D5 put on extending the 5 Minute Workday, I do not think limiting healing surges was entirely focused around preventing an indefinite extension of the adventuring day. That was never really an issue.

There are ways within the system to augment (Healing Word and its ilk, feats, items, racial bonuses) the amount gained when using the surges, for those who seek to be more efficient in managing those resources.

There are also ways to bypass the limit, ways that tend to be subject to strict limits themselves (certain Cleric daily attack and daily utility spells), with most exceptions that slipped through having been erased in errata and updates.

I am aware of that. I remember the fuss over the avenger at-will with free healing.

Much of it seemed needless to me. More often than not, a lack of daily powers prompted a rest, as did ending the adventuring day at the end of a session to avoid having to track spent powers between sessions. But personal anecdotes and all. For all I know, every other group regularly had adventuring days that stretched over 3-4 sessions with dozens of encounters opposed to my 2-3.

It almost seems like it was added solely for the sake of having one more resource to manage, complexity for complexity’s sake.

The secondary (and largely incidental and unnecessary) function of healing surges is to be a convenient shorthand for a chunk of hitpoints. Without the goal of the daily limit/resource management aspect, there'd be no real need for this aside from the space saved by making '25% of maximum hit points, plus appropriate modifiers' into a less wordy term of art.

Proportional healing doesn't require the existence of healing surges, nor did healing surges necessarily need to be proportional. They could just as easily have been Next's class-based hit dice, or a standard hit die for all characters, or a universal constant (10 HP, for instance).

Right. Healing could have easily been based on the class’ Hit Dice, or been similar to what D&D5 is doing.

The static 1/4 was likely done to increase consistency and remove randomness. As the focus was on tactical play, the less randomness in the game the better. The only randomness in combat was the attack rolls and damage, with most other things being consistent and predictable.
Similar to how the board games did away with rolling damage and Dungeon Command did away with attack rolls. It's very likely, had 5e evolved from 4e, there'd be no attack rolls and damage would be assumed, because missing is "boring" and feels like you've wasted your turn, and because action heroes should never miss.

 

[Balesir]

So because I am not a fan of 4th Edition I must *only* have negative views, and believe conspiracies regarding WotC? And because of that, my views can be automatically dismissed out of hand?

No, if you want not to be a fan of 4E I have no objection whatsoever, BUT I am so sick of responding to the sort of hyperbolic and unfounded assertions about what 4E "must" work like that were crammed into that particular quoted block that I'm just not going to treat them seriously any more.

Let me put it more plainly: the stuff you claim is true in that quoted text does not coincide with my experience of 4E at all. That means that, even if you have found yourself assuming those things when reading or playing 4E, the assumptions are neither necessary or universal.

When I come onto a discussion site and see unfounded and biased claims of "fact" about a system I enjoy, I am only going to respond politely and gently so many times before I conclude that the repetition of those claims after it has been pointed out that they are false as a general case is not done out of ignorance, but out of spite.

 

[Balesir]

Hitpoints… those are a necessary evil.

Actually, they're really not. For a system that doesn't use hit points - or anything that is really hit points with some make-up on - look at HârnMaster. Or even its simplified skirmish game offshoot, BattleLust.

Hit points just fit as a game pacing method for D&D better than separate wounds per HM. It actually took me a good while to realise this, but I can now appreciate hit points for what they do well (because I can now see that they are not "necessary").

 

[Jester David]

No, if you want not to be a fan of 4E I have no objection whatsoever, BUT I am so sick of responding to the sort of hyperbolic and unfounded assertions about what 4E "must" work like that were crammed into that particular quoted block that I'm just not going to treat them seriously any more.

Let me put it more plainly: the stuff you claim is true in that quoted text does not coincide with my experience of 4E at all. That means that, even if you have found yourself assuming those things when reading or playing 4E, the assumptions are neither necessary or universal.

When I come onto a discussion site and see unfounded and biased claims of "fact" about a system I enjoy, I am only going to respond politely and gently so many times before I conclude that the repetition of those claims after it has been pointed out that they are false as a general case is not done out of ignorance, but out of spite.

Hyperbole like what?

Let's really look at what I claimed, in order:
* D&D occasionally represents elements of reality
* Roleplaying games are meant to facilitate the telling of a story
* Healing surges (in this case a resource providing static and proportional healing) were added so PCs would be full health at the start of each fight, as "the Encounters" was the principal means of balancing classes (edit: and the game)
* It's a little odd that Clerics, who likely dump stat Cha, would use the same inspirational healing as warlords
* (an honest question about clerical healing since I haven't played 4e in two years)
* A comment that I dislike hitpoints only being vitality and not including health at all

I don't see much there that's an exaggeration. Not compared to:

What about why all characters have a thing called a "class" or that adventurers come up with all this gold but inflation never happens or that magic users can apparently only remember "so many" spells at a time or that they inexplicably "forget" them once they cast them or that hordes of monsters live in an underground labyrinth with no visible food supply or that the "mayor" of the town is a 4th level commoner and yet power hungry adventurers haven't walked in and taken the place over or that dragons can only breathe three times a day for some inexplicable reason or that the merchant who your character could kill without raising a sweat refuses to sell a magic item he's holding for any price but insists you do a favour for him before he'll give it to you...

Did those inexplicably cause you no trouble at all?

 

[Dungeonman]

When I come onto a discussion site and see unfounded and biased claims of "fact" about a system I enjoy, I am only going to respond politely and gently so many times before I conclude that the repetition of those claims after it has been pointed out that they are false as a general case is not done out of ignorance, but out of spite.

Call me naive, but spite (to hurt, annoy, or offend) is the very last thing I would think of when assessing the motives of someone who doesn't appear to agree to disagree, esp on a topic like D&D.

 

[Jester David]

Actually, they're really not. For a system that doesn't use hit points - or anything that is really hit points with some make-up on - look at HârnMaster. Or even its simplified skirmish game offshoot, BattleLust.

Hit points just fit as a game pacing method for D&D better than separate wounds per HM. It actually took me a good while to realise this, but I can now appreciate hit points for what they do well (because I can now see that they are not "necessary").

It's possible to have different health systems. Wounds and Vitality/Vigour. Damage mitigation/ soak. Avoidance.

But you say it yourself: hitpoints fit as a game pacing mechanic better than separate wounds. Hitpoints are annoying and kludge and cause arguments about the ration of meat to luck but, darnit, they work. So long as you don't look too close or multi-page flame wars start.
Hence, necessary evil.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Games should use game logic, but D&D is a role-playing game, which means the game logic should be tempered by both narrative logic and simulationist logic. Neither realism, gamism, or narrativism can have dominance, and compromises should be made for all three.

I have lots of game. If I want to play a board game with my friends, I’ll break out a board game. Just like if I want a purely narrative experience I’ll play Fiasco, or a realistic experience I’d join the historical anachronism society or a LARP. I play D&D for an experience that’s a bit of all three.

If you remove the narrativism and simulationism from D&D all you have is a miniature combat game.

Given that unlike previous editions of D&D 4e has narrative pacing (short rest = scene, long rest = episode) and it's a much better sim of an action movie than previous editions of D&D (and a better sim of a world IMO) I fail to see what relevance this has. The oldest versions of D&D are almost pure game played in pawn play. 4e added a massive dose of narration and a simulation that would actually produce a world like fictional fantasy worlds.

Hitpoints… those are a necessary evil.

I’ve regularly and often paraphrased Winston Churchill: hitpoints are the worst possible health tracking system, except for all the others that have been tried.

Hitpoints suck. They’re problematic for immersion. But they work with the narrative and the game and thus can trump reality (two against one).

Hitpoints work best when you don’t think about them, when you’re in a comfortable state of denial. Healing surges, overnight healing, martial healing really draw attention to hitpoints. The point out the flaws in the system.

Ah, I get it. But this is very much a personal preference. Hit points with healing surges are a much better simulation of reality than straight up hit points. They also lead to much more narrative intensity. But they prevent you from being so comfortable with hit points that you can pretend that they aren't there. Healing surges therefore are not to your personal taste. I can understand where you are coming from. But me, I find the vastly superior simulation and the vastly more interesting narratives they create massively outweigh this.

(And for something better than hit points, I favour my hack to Vincent Baker's Fates that I'm using in both my Hunger Games game and my Silver Age Superheroes game - comments welcome on both)

Their wounds close? They go back into the fight at 100%?

Their wounds do not close entirely. You know how you know their wounds haven't entirely healed? They have still lost healing surges. While someone is at less than full healing surges they are not fully healed. Healing surges are every bit as much a part of the character's full endurance as their hit points.

As for going back into the fight at 100% - that doesn't happen either. They've used up any daily powers and arguably encounter powers. So they aren't at full fighting trim even if their short term hit points are at full. Which is very different from the classic "Full strength until you drop" model of classic healing surges.

The coach on the side shouts some words of encouragement and the boxer springs back mid-round?

Given that that's a limited use power they normally only do it when the fighter is being counted out by the ref. Most efficient use of healing. But yes, boxers do spend healing surges after being put down and the ref starts counting.

The boxer then go and have three other equally or increasingly difficult fights that same day?

A standard boxing match lasts 12 rounds. If they spend one healing surge in each break between rounds, that's twelve surges spent. Which is very close to the maximum healing surges any character has - and is twice as many surges as some PCs. So no they don't go on to three other equally difficult fights the same day. The one boxing match exhausts all their surges even if they spend only one healing surge per round.

That’s what healing surges do.

No they don't. Apparently your fighters have an unlimited number of healing surges. What healing surges do is the opposite of this. They mean that the fighter only has a strictly limited endurance. (And you're strictly wrong about the infinite working day never being an issue - I assume you've never seen Wand of Cure Light Wounds in its full glory).

The base rules are a little much for me, with full overnight healing. But at least this time the game is designed around house ruling and tweaking so I can adjust that.

One of the few houserules I use is that an extended rest takes longer than 8 hours.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

IIRC, falling damage is identical between 3e and 4e.
And the glowing stick isn’t even needed in 4e, you just need to sit for 5 minutes, have a sandwich, and you’re ready for your next orbital jump.

At least until you run out of healing surges, then you can't just sit down and heal for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in 3.P, you're all good as long as your glowy stick is still glowing and could theoretically orbital drop and infinite number of times a day as long as you have enough glowy sticks.

Games should use game logic, but D&D is a role-playing game, which means the game logic should be tempered by both narrative logic and simulationist logic. Neither realism, gamism, or narrativism can have dominance, and compromises should be made for all three.

4e works fine for me both mechanically and narratively. if you're having an issue with it narratively, it's always possible the reason is on your end.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

Their wounds close?

Inspirational healing has never magically made their wounds close(despite what Mearls wants you to think with his "lolol shout hands back on" nonsense). It just lets them fight despite their wounds until they're simply too much to ignore.