Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6293208" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't really have anything to add to [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] and [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]'s extended replies to this. In-combat healing is rationed in two ways: via limited usage of healing abilities (encounter powers, consumables etc), and via healing surges being a finite resource. Healing surges being proportional means that a common power suite can be more powerful when used by fighters, paladins etc than when used by thieves, wizards etc.You yourself acknowledge the reality of healing surge attrition when you talk about tactics changing to cope with low-surge characters.Healing surge attrition is a big factor in my 4e play experience - particularly for the invoker/wizard.I disagree. All classes and characters have hit points, which is a long-term resource (healed either by daily spells in pre-4e, or by consumables, or by extended rests). Managing hit point loss and recovery is a big part of traditional D&D play. It remains part of 4e play, but mediated via the healing surge mechanics.But healing surges as a finite pool of unlockable healing are one way to implement in-combat healing, to link it to overall damage taken (because you spend from the same pool to recover hit points after a combat), and to create a resource that can be drawn upon for other purposes (rituals, skill challenges etc).This doesn't tend to make them either "artificial" or "gamist". To my eyes it makes them powerful and versatile.I'm not sure I really follow this.You seem to be saying that the game would be no different if healing surges were replaced by two discrete mechanics: (a) some sort of rationed encounter-based healing; (b) every PC heals to full hp with a short rest.That might be a fine game, but it would have no long-term management of PC resilience. It would therefore be quite different from 4e, which does have long-term management of PC resilience, because each PC has a finite number of healing surges between extended rests.The fact that 4e has this additional feature - ie that it has both adventure-level and encounter-level management of character resilience and drama/pacing based around that - doesn't show that healing surges are artificial. It shows that they make the game different from, and more D&D-like, than the other hypothetical game that you describe. (I also don't understand the claim that what happened in prior encounters is irrelevant to later ones. Even were this true at a gross mechanical level - which it is not, given that healing surges and other daily resources can be depleted - it would not be true overall, assuming that the events of the prior encounter actually changed the state of the unfolding story in a significant way.)As to whether 4e is intended to support "big" fights or "mook" fights - that is a matter of taste. The DMG doesn't express a strong view. The WotC modules I have seen tend to be full of pointless on-level fights. I personally tend to use above-level encounters, because I think they play out in a more interesting way; and I hate "filler" encounters, which contribute basically nothing to the narrative. (And I am puzzled that your defence of the importance of narrative and story-telling in RPGs includes a defence of the centrality of "filler" combats.)But there are other 4e players and GMs on these boards who use lots of minion fights and other sorts of "mook" fights to use 4e to play adventures more like classic D&D in their overall dynamics. Not exactly my style, but good luck to them! They're certainly not contradicting anything in the published rulebooks that I'm aware of.Which people? When I run a game, and prepare for it, I certainly think hard about the likely adventure pacing. I make plans to account for that, and I take it into account when actually framing the encounters during the course of play.You move from "can be" to "is". That inferential move is invalid. A mammal can be a cat. But it needn't be; it might be a dog.So exploring a dungeon and looting its treasure can be a narrative; but it need not be. If you read accounts of tournament adventures like ToH or Against the Gianst you will see that those players were not telling stories. But they were playing a roleplaying game, because they were exploiting fictional positioning in action resolution.That's not true at all. For instance, if the GM narrates that there are bushes creating difficult terrain, and a player is able to use an ability to confer his/her PC with forest walk, then that PC can now ignore the difficult terrain. That's "flavour text" affecting action resolution.Here's another example: the DMG notes that wooden or paper objects might take more damage from [fire] attacks than (say) thunder attacks. The obvious reason is because those materials are flammable. This is "flavour text" affecting action resolution.Another example would be a player using Icy Terrain to help cross a stream or small pond. You can do that with a [cold] power but not an [acid] power because water can be frozen.4e's tight keyword system strongly facilitates this sort of adjudication (as [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] noted upthread).Classic D&D was not a storytelling game. It was (primarily) a dungeon exploration game, with support also for wilderness exploration - by "exploration" I mean the players, via the play of their PCs and the action resolution mechanics (eg searching, getting lost, etc), move through an imaginary area and learn what it looks like and what it is in it. There are also action resolution mechanics for determining whether creatures encountered are friendly or hostile, and if hostile for resolving fights with them.Given that this was how roleplaying was invented, this must count as RPGing, although stories and characterisation are not any part of it. And it is obviously not primarily a miniature combat game (although miniatures combat can be pat of it).4e is, at least in my own play of it, a very different game from classic D&D, because it has only limited support for exploration. But it has much more elaborate rules for encounter resolution. And also has much better mechanics for supporting storytelling, particularly in respect of pacing (both adventure-level and encounter-level pacing).This is a biographical statement about you. It is certainly not true for me. 4e requires from me the same sort of suspension of disbelief as does reading LotR or REH, or watching an X-Men movie. But it doesn't require the absurdities of classic D&D, in which ostensibly mundane human beings can recover from near-fatal injuries in a week or two of resting.This is a new thing for me. I've always regarded making up fiction as part of playing the game.But in any event, the fact that Healing Word relies upon divine inspiration is not unguided, unconstrained invention. The power (prior to Essentials) has the divine keyword, which means that it "comes from the gods" (PHB p 54). And it restores hit points. And hit points "represent more than your physical endurance. They represent your character's skill, luck and resolve - all the factors that help you stay alive in a combat situation" (PHB p 293). In other words, Healing Word is quite naturally understood as a divine bestowal of luck and/or resolve.The 10th level cleric utility power Word of Vigour is practically identical in effect to Healing Word (close burst 1, self and allies may send a surge and regain 2d6 additional hp). That power clearly restores vigour (it's in the name of the power). The cleric-ranger in my game uses that power and healing word as his two baseline healing effects. It's very natural to interpret them as being the same within the fiction. As I said, I've always regarded that sort of thing as playing the game rather than wanking.</blockquote>

Verification