Hit Points & Healing Surges Finally Explained!

[Obryn]

Aside from the fact that a wand of cure light wounds assumes an ability override the natural laws of the game universe, a wand of cure light wounds is relatively easily removed. It's presence is in no way integral to the game.

You can build your game around the assumption of its presence, or you can build the game without it and never miss it.

This is where I always get hung up when people are comparing 3e vs. 4e healing.

Basically, the argument seems to be: Healing is slow in 3e if you disregard wands of cure light wounds.

I just don't know why the heck we should disregard them.

-O

 

[Scribble]

I want non-gamist explanations for stuff. A wand of cure light wounds (or, in our games, healing from clerics or other spellcasters) is a narrativist/simulationist explanation for extremely rapid healing.

4E proponents, on the other hand, don't seem to need "in-game" explanations for things, thus all of the posts to the effect that 4E's "six-hour healing" and earlier editions' "magical healing" are more or less identical. If the effect in-game ends up the same, to these folks the means to the effect is all but irrelevant.

One thing I like about 4e is how easy it is to modify.

Sometimes I feel like in conversations like this that people are telling me, they don't like the idea of non magic quick healing, and even though I do, and it's simple to remove, it's a stupid thing that shouldn't be in the game. Period.

I find that strange. I think we've never had a version of D&D this easy to customize, and modify without a big overhaul of the rules.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo.

 

[gizmo33]

I'm going to assume you don't have the 1e sources on hand to look it up even if you say you've read it. But it's p82 of the DMG. Twenty-eight days of continual rest will restore any character to full health.

I've read many things and I actually don't have the books for *any* them with me at the moment. I guess this is surprising to you?

Ok, so it's not "months". Maybe we say "weeks" and go back to the same point. I guess I heal 1 hp a day for 7 days, maybe 5/day for 20 days, and then I heal 193 hitpoints on the 28th day? I can't tell from what you wrote, I guess I am going to have to dig this up and read it again but I don't think the "suddenly super-nova heal on 28th day" rule is going to make all of this understandable. I'm not sure how these details on the periphery of the 1E rules somehow make a substantial difference in how you narrate the game?

Two adventurers are down to 1 hp. One has 8 hp max, the other has 300 hp max. How do the details on page 82 give you a clear way of narrating this?

 

[maddman75]

This is where I always get hung up when people are comparing 3e vs. 4e healing.

Basically, the argument seems to be: Healing is slow in 3e if you disregard wands of cure light wounds.

I just don't know why the heck we should disregard them.

-O

I certainly find the idea of healing surges to have better verisimilitude than 'we wave a magic stick over our bodies and make our wounds vanish every fifteen minutes.'

 

[Plane Sailing]

Or maybe just "surge," in order to account for the fact that some hp recovery is of actual, divine healing nature ("Shamwow the cleric buffs out your cuts and bruises. Your skin is good as new!"). Whether it's a healing surge or adrenaline surge depends on the power source that activated the surge.

You don't really need to do that though - standard cleric healing which is based on healing surge (healing word, etc) can just be magically activating an adrenaline surge like the warlord psychologically activates it.

Divine healing magically mending wounds was a (necessary?) artefact of earlier edition hp healing. Doesn't have to be that way in 4e though. The divine healer could be largely like a medic with an adrenaline hypo

Then the clerical prayers which heal without the expenditure of a healing surge become the genuinely magical re-knitting of bones etc. I'm guessing that the cleric probably gets more of those than the warlord?

Cheers

 

[Celebrim]

This is where I always get hung up when people are comparing 3e vs. 4e healing.

Basically, the argument seems to be: Healing is slow in 3e if you disregard wands of cure light wounds.

I just don't know why the heck we should disregard them.

-O

How often do you think wands of CLW (especially used abusively) were disregarded compared to disregarding healing surges and long rests? How dispensible do you think wands of CLW are compared to dispensing with healing surges and long rests?

I never had a problem with wands of CLW for several simple reasons:

1) I never DMed a cleric that could craft wands.
2) I didn't allow wands to be purchased.
3) Wands and there charges were thus rare, valuable, and conserved by my players.

And, after hearing about all the horror stories of CLW abuse, if I were running a 3rd edition campaign in the future, I'd simply elimenate all divine wands from the campaign.

 

[Obryn]

I want non-gamist explanations for stuff. A wand of cure light wounds (or, in our games, healing from clerics or other spellcasters) is a narrativist/simulationist explanation for extremely rapid healing.

4E proponents, on the other hand, don't seem to need "in-game" explanations for things, thus all of the posts to the effect that 4E's "six-hour healing" and earlier editions' "magical healing" are more or less identical. If the effect in-game ends up the same, to these folks the means to the effect is all but irrelevant.

I think it's more that I handwave it than that I don't worry about it, but I see your point. I sometimes narrate it, but I don't consider the specifics of the narration to be important.

Like I said, I think it's a small difference that some folks find very important. I am not one of those folks, but I think this is something about which reasonable people can disagree. I think I'm right, you think you're right, and yet neither one of us is crazy.

The thing that gets me is that this is an issue which seems (to me) to be almost insanely easy to patch if you otherwise like the game. Slowing down healing surge recovery seems pretty simple.

Alternately, you could just say that the party needs to perform an 8-hour magical ritual to recover completely, and that they recover more slowly if they don't. Heck; add a component cost, if you'd like, or else add other complications. Yes, I know this is not the default assumption - but in my mind, if you can get rid of CLW wands in 3e, you can add a ritual in 4e.

(BTW, I think the whole wand of cure light wounds things is rarer than many folks on the Internet seem to think. My groups have never used it, nor have I ever seen a group equipped with high-charge wands of cure light wounds in any convention games I've played in, since 3E was released.)

OTOH, they were common in my games.

Who wins?

-O

 

[jensun]

4E proponents, on the other hand, don't seem to need "in-game" explanations for things, thus all of the posts to the effect that 4E's "six-hour healing" and earlier editions' "magical healing" are more or less identical. If the effect in-game ends up the same, to these folks the means to the effect is all but irrelevant.

Reading this I have to wonder if you have actually read the thread.

HP ARE ABSTRACT

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THERE IS NO IN GAME EXPLANATION BUT THAT THE EXPLANATION IS TAILORED TO FIT THE SITUATION

 

[Scribble]

This is where I always get hung up when people are comparing 3e vs. 4e healing.

Basically, the argument seems to be: Healing is slow in 3e if you disregard wands of cure light wounds.

I just don't know why the heck we should disregard them.

-O

Eh I think the issue is:

Healing was slow(er) in earlier editions, unless you overroad it with magic of some type.

In 4e healign is fast. period. That bugs some people, it doesn't bug others.

I guess some feel that the game system itself should defend that viewpoint that healing shoul;d be slow(er) without magic of some type.

But with this concept the only real "smart" option is to keep a magic healer on hand. So a party must always have the magic healer. Or access to the magic healer.

Even if they have healing surges, if they come back at a slow rate, the only sane option would be to have a magic healer on hand or close by to avoid being waylaid for a lengthy time.

This in my opinion cuts down on the type of stories my group and I can play out.

 

[jensun]

Healing was slow(er) in earlier editions, unless you overroad it with magic of some type.

Of course this very much varied by edition.

3e IIRC had you heal HP equal to your level every day if you were reasonably rested. You could go from nearly dead to perfectly fine in a matter of a few days while sitting in a field receiving no assistance whatsoever.

I struggle so see how this is more realistic or simulationist or assisting in versimilitude than, well, anything really. If modelling long term injury or realistic damage is your thing then no version of D&D is really a great choice for doing it.