Healing Surges innate Blessed band aids

[D'karr]

Trying to mock hong is like trying to drown water,

It's more like attacking the darkness.

 

[Piratecat]

Yes Hong just doesn't stop, just ignore him it's not like he's said much worth hearing since the announcement anyway.

Heh. I've found his 4e posts to be consistently interesting and informed.

In any event, please don't insult other folks on the boards.

 

[Goreg Skullcrusher]

Why do you have to explain this? In 4E, everybody gets healing. Apparently, some spellcasters have a healing tool that allows them to heal other people. For your self-healing, you use rituals, or magical items, or technology.

Because I don't accept videogame-like handwaving at my table? That kind of explanation is just as good as no explanation at all. You could very well have a game where eating food heals your HP and physically closes your wounds. In my games I demand at least a small adherence to reality (not a horrible amount mind, we play 3.5 mostly). If everyone can heal themselves in 4E I expect a system that makes some modicum of sense. Giving fighters "Healing Stimpacks" and clerics Cure Light Wounds doesn't explain why the cleric doesn't have both Healing Stimpacks and Cure Light Wounds. Saying that each is arbitralily limited to one doesn't sit well with me.

This goes back to my no-injury model; it's the only one I can think of that sensically allows martial-types to heal as effectively as magic-users.

 

[DandD]

Giving fighters "Healing Stimpacks" and clerics Cure Light Wounds doesn't explain why the cleric doesn't have both Healing Stimpacks and Cure Light Wounds. Saying that each is arbitralily limited to one doesn't sit well with me.

Does Cure Light Wounds even exist anymore? Now that they've changed the way healing works to begin with, you're rather going to improve the second-winds or whatever the mundane classes have as healing mechanic to patch themselves up, aren't you? And Khur, who apperantly is one of the very 4th edition game designers said that there is a way to heal outside of combat game mechanics...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Because I don't accept videogame-like handwaving at my table? That kind of explanation is just as good as no explanation at all. You could very well have a game where eating food heals your HP and physically closes your wounds. In my games I demand at least a small adherence to reality (not a horrible amount mind, we play 3.5 mostly). If everyone can heal themselves in 4E I expect a system that makes some modicum of sense. Giving fighters "Healing Stimpacks" and clerics Cure Light Wounds doesn't explain why the cleric doesn't have both Healing Stimpacks and Cure Light Wounds. Saying that each is arbitralily limited to one doesn't sit well with me.

This goes back to my no-injury model; it's the only one I can think of that sensically allows martial-types to heal as effectively as magic-users.

By the rules in 3E, everything is measured in 5ft steps. There are no smaller denotions you can move in. Does this mean that 5 ft is the world's "Planck Length", and you can't define a position more precisely then this in the game world?
Off course not. The rules just abstract this details away.

Is a 5 ft by 5 ft square entirely empty? Or does it contain some rocks, or dust, or the ribcage of a skeleton? The rules don't tell you.

The healing rules abstract the details of how you heal away. Maybe you're taking a shot of healing nanites, or you say a rhyme that attracts little feys that heal you. Or you take another dip from your healing potion. You apply an elven healing salve. The spellcaster creates a magical healing circle around the group. *)
It's a detail not covered by the rule, just like any distance lower then 5 ft, or the number or position of stones in the square you occupy.

*) Or you do something else, and rule that characters are only seriously hurt if they are out of healing surges and hit points.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Then you probably want a more skill based system where you can set the number of points to generate a character. Not just D&D, but any class and level system is geared to fragile low level characters. There are ways around that, but there are certain conventions inherent to the genre.


7 hit points vs. 2d4+2 (18-20 x2) seems like a good example for low survivability at 1st level. (Level 1 Rogue attacked by a CR 1/2 Orc). But see below or previous posts.



So, with my pay analogy, your taxes have somewhat decreased. That Kobold Skirmisher is down in about three hits, on average. Roughly comparable with previous editions. Presumably there will be fewer Kobold Skirmishers than standard kobolds to fight.

The ration is approximately 4 Kobolds vs 5 players. (Assuming Skirmishers. 4 Minions equal one Skirmisher, so you could go as high as 16 Kobolds).
The important thing is - it's unlikely that the 4 Kobolds kill anyone in the first round of combat. They might be able to do that in the second round, but the players get to take a shot at this first, and can bring the weakened PCs to relative safety. That's a big difference to 3E, where just one of the Kobolds might need to hit at all to take someone out of the fight.

A fight is exciting when there is a chance you will lose, but survive through cleverness and teamwork. Sometimes, the DM has to fudge that a bit. They may have a penalty to damage for poor quality weapons. Maybe they have a penalty to attack rolls from bright light. There are dozens of ways to legitimately decrease the 'lethality' of an encounter before the DM has to resort to fudging dice.

Doesn't make the game non-swingy. It reduces the likelyhood, but a natural 20 later, and the wizard is still dead. It's just like with those pesky save or die spells. "I can only fail on a naural 1 or 2! *roll* "2! There goes another Fighter...."

Why not? It's a tried and true tactic. Sun Tzu extolled its virtues.

Doesn't changed that it's very boring. Effective or sensible doesn't exclude the option of bore.
What was the Chinese Curse? "May you live in interesting times".
I hereby invent a new German Curse: "Mögest du langweilige Spiele spielen" - "May you play in boring games". (Both curses are nasty ones, though the Chinese curse probably still "wins" in magnitude).

Yes, and I was saying that if the DM is throwing inappropriate challenges at the players, it doesn't matter what edition you use. If the players assume they have total script immunity, but the DM wants them to retreat, there is a conflict that isn't covered by any ruleset. They could be fighting orcs, giants, dragons or gods. If the expectations of the DM and players don't match, you can't adjudicate the solution.

The Orc is not an innappropriate challenge! It has a CR of 1/2. I am expected to send 4 pairs of them at my PC over the course of a day, by the encounter guidelines.
I could alternatively send 3 Kobolds (Cr 1/3), and the results would stand.

 

[Goreg Skullcrusher]

By the rules in 3E, everything is measured in 5ft steps. There are no smaller denotions you can move in. Does this mean that 5 ft is the world's "Planck Length", and you can't define a position more precisely then this in the game world?
Off course not. The rules just abstract this details away.

Is a 5 ft by 5 ft square entirely empty? Or does it contain some rocks, or dust, or the ribcage of a skeleton? The rules don't tell you.

The healing rules abstract the details of how you heal away. Maybe you're taking a shot of healing nanites, or you say a rhyme that attracts little feys that heal you. Or you take another dip from your healing potion. You apply an elven healing salve. The spellcaster creates a magical healing circle around the group. *)
It's a detail not covered by the rule, just like any distance lower then 5 ft, or the number or position of stones in the square you occupy.

*) Or you do something else, and rule that characters are only seriously hurt if they are out of healing surges and hit points.

I'm afraid I don't understand this. I can understand hit points being an abstract concept, but I don't see how you can abstract the mechanism of healing. To me it sounds like a contrived hand-waving manoeuver. "It just happens, ok?" kind of thing. There are definite, non-abstract modes of healing, the most obvious one being divine power channeled by a cleric. If this is the case, why suddenly abstract the other modes of healing? The only reason I can think of is because there is no explanation that would make sense and not impose dissonance. It's definately a less satisfying solution to what the 4E designers are proposing.

Does Cure Light Wounds even exist anymore? Now that they've changed the way healing works to begin with, you're rather going to improve the second-winds or whatever the mundane classes have as healing mechanic to patch themselves up, aren't you? And Khur, who apperantly is one of the very 4th edition game designers said that there is a way to heal outside of combat game mechanics...

Well, it's a discussion on the hypothetical alternatives to the no-injury model that I'm working with. I've said earlier that I have no issue with that model, except when things like the Picador's ability spring up. Mudstrum is suggesting that the no-injury model isn't necessary, but the martial types simply adopt an arbitrary healing solution. We know the cleric has a healing power that will be the counterpart to cure spells in 3.x (Healing Word I think it's called). If this defined, non-abstract mode of healing exists for the cleric, why can't the martial types have one that is similarly clear and non-abstract? If it's somelike like a physical healing item, the question is then why doesn't the cleric have access to both?.

 

[DandD]

How do you really know that Healing Word is a defined, non-abstract mode of healing?

 

[tsadkiel]

If it's somelike like a physical healing item, the question is then why doesn't the cleric have access to both?.

Who says they don't? If you assume that the fighter's healing surges have a concrete representation in the game world (I'm actually fine with the abstraction, but bear with me) then the cleric has access to the same surge enabling items, which he can use on himself, and has magical healing abilities which he can use on himself and others. Or the cleric's magical healing abilities work by enhancing the surge enabling items. Either way, mere mortal bodies can only take so much accelerated healing per day, so the game effects are exactly the same.

 

[Cadfan]

The mechanism of healing is not abstract. A second wind is recovery of stamina and determination. A healing spell is magic. A heal check is bandaging.

What's abstract is the mix of healing. Over the course of the day, you can expect to recover some hit points with second wind, some with bandages, and some with healing magic. And then, with sufficient rest, you get back the balance.

If you INSIST upon mentally pairing the various types of injuries with the wrong types of healing, well, you won't find things realistic. But that's a self inflicted wound for which I have little sympathy.

PS- If the damnable picador is causing this much angst, don't use it. Look at the ENORMOUS number of monsters we've seen so far. Can you find even two that have abilities that bug you as much as the picador? The Picador is becoming the golden wyvern adept of the monster list- the thing that haters reference, over and over and OVER AGAIN INCESSANTLY, as they hint ominously that its the shape of all things to come, even when its the only thing of its type we can see out of a pretty wide selection.