Hit points & long rests: please consider?

[Mercutio01]

But casters aren't worthless. They are simply now playing an actual resource management game alongside the fighters - you just have to be careful about how to use them. And even the cantrips are quite nice. The spells, however, are "I win" buttons on a regular basis. Where regular to you means "Every day"

I'm sure you believe that. I don't. A caster without spells is a liability, not an asset, and they already have an extremely limited resource management (spells refreshing in a day), so limiting it further makes them unwanted hangers-on. It makes every wizard a Raistlin. I like Raistlin, but until he is imbued with Fistandantilus, he's nothing but a liability and a problem for the rest of the Heroes of the Lance.

Shorter me: I strongly disagree that restricting the spellcasters's level of awesome to being on the same clock as the fighter makes them effectively worthless. I further believe that releasing the need for magical healing from a party member (which, after all, is only absolutely necessary because of the different recovery rates) only does good things to the game.

And I am of the completely opposite opinions on both of those, without a doubt. First, a fighter can swing an axe every turn in every encounter for a full week. A wizard can't do that if his spells only refresh once a week. Second, mundane Wolverine-style magical healing breaks immersion and turns regular Joe the town misfit who turns to a life of adventure into SuperJoe the caped crusader. That is definitely not a good thing in the game.

And I see all this anti-magical healing stuff and think it's a load of garbage. No one forces you to play a cleric anymore than every party requires a wizard or a rogue. Just because you don't want to play a magical healer doesn't mean that everyone should be a superhero with mutant healing factors.

Or do you feel like everyone should be able to cast Magic Missiles and Fireballs since only wizards can do that? Maybe every fighter should be able to shoot magical bolts of light, heal himself, find every trap, talk every princess into bed, and singlehandedly kill the dragon?

It's a silly argument.

EDIT - Yes, it's hyperbolic, but the "But now every party requires a Healer" is just as ridiculous as "But now every party requires a rogue" or "Every party requires a blaster." I don't see people complaining about that. If people want to survive in a group, it DOES need to be well-rounded. A party of one of each character should heal faster, and move through the game better than a party of just fighters. Frankly, if you don't want a healer in your group, don't play one and just be prepared to not heal as fast. It's a trade-off, and it should be such. Just as not having a trap-finder means you're way more likely to blunder into traps or not having a wizard means your ability to control the battlefield is highly unlikely or not having a fighter means your squishies are going to get hit.

Long story short, I'll be house-ruling out Wolverine-style hit point recovery immediately upon purchase of D&DNext (assuming it's still in there) or, unlikely, just not purchasing D&DNext to begin with. This is why I'm participating in the playtest--to provide feedback for what it will take for me to buy the next version of D&D. So far I like just about everything else about the game except for mundane healing as written. That's not enough to make me give up completely, but it is enough to make me house-rule it, AND to provide my playtest feedback about it hoping they change it.

 

[molepunch]

If a character can perform at full capacity at 1 HP I certainly have no problems with his regaining to full after a short rest. I frankly don't see any immersion-breaking shrapnel in there at all.

Now, if 1 HP meant he had a significant wound and a short rest healed all that, then yeah it's a little silly.

As far as we know, 1 HP meant the former, correct?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm sure you believe that. I don't. A caster without spells is a liability, not an asset,

1: In Pathfinder and 5e there is no such thing as a caster without spells. (Nor is there in 4e).
2: If a caster is without spells it means they've either screwed up or been a huge asset.
3: A cleric without spells can still hold the battle line - he certainly isn't a liability.
4: A fighter without hit points is as much of a liability as a caster without spells.

First, a fighter can swing an axe every turn in every encounter for a full week.

This assumes that he is swinging at practice dummies. Because practice dummies don't hit back. A fighter on the other hand runs out of hit points.

A wizard can't do that if his spells only refresh once a week.

On the other hand the fighter can't rewrite the laws of reality ever. Advantage: Wizard. Who can keep using his cantrips as long as the fighter keeps swinging his sword.

 

[eamon]

On the other hand the fighter can't rewrite the laws of reality ever. Advantage: Wizard. Who can keep using his cantrips as long as the fighter keeps swinging his sword.

Fighters in D&D have used magic extensively in all editions I've ever played. Technically they didn't cast it, but it doesn't matter for balance whether it's from an item, a buff, an NPC or whatever... Forcing a class to be nothing more than a mundane dude with a stick and then arguing that it's unfair for anyone else to do more than that is the worst way to make this game fun, not to mention rather off-topic.

If you insist your fighter's too weak, that's probably the problem that should be fixed, rather than reducing everything else in the game to that level.

 

[Mercutio01]

On the other hand the fighter can't rewrite the laws of reality ever.

Except when he magically Wolverine's himself completely healed after sleeping one night.

I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye. Which is sad, since I'm even willing to meet at a halfway point for hit point refreshing, a proposal I've seen suggested at least a few different times by a few different people that actually matches Mearls own statements about what hitpoints mean. Healing HP > Bloodied happens overnight. Healing HP < Bloodied takes longer. I like that enough that it's going into my suggestions for when Wizards asks for playtest feedback.

You're unwilling to budge at all and appear to be insisting that everyone should just suck it up, agree with mutant healing factors and full HP every night, and, worst, to not provide honest feedback to the playtest. As such, it's not worth engaging in a discussion with you anymore. I'll provide my feedback to Wizards that fast-healing is immersion breaking, doesn't work for me, and is something that I will be changing immediately upon release for all D&D games I play with this ruleset.

 

[RigaMortus2]

EDIT: Sorry, I wasn't clear.

What I meant was that hit points have always been 'luck, skill, near misses' until you got to 0 hit points.

But D&D goes against the whole "luck and skill" thing, which it is trying to argue for. A hit is not always a hit, and a miss is not always a miss (look at attacks which still deal damage on a miss).

If a 60 hit point Fighter falls 60 feet and takes 25 points of damage, did he really take that damage? Wouldn't his legs be broken? Wouldn't he be at the very lease bruised and bloodied? Not according to the rule above. Yet, if a 10 hit point Fighther falls the same distance, and also takes 25 points of damage, they are dead. Doesn't make sense as Mearls is trying to rationalize "luck and skill". Damage is damage...

If an NPC shoots an arrow at a Fighter and hits their AC, but does nominal damage, you can say "it wasn't really a hit, the Fighter dodged out of way in time, and the "damage" you take represents luck or skill". But now add poison to that arrow, and the Fighter now has to make a Fort save vs poison, then obviously he DID get hit, it wasn't him using luck or skill to avoid the shot.

Also, how do you describe Sneak Attack? That is precision damage. It spells out in the description that you are striking the vitals of a creature. So if a Rogue deals 1d4 dagger damage and +2d6 sneak attack damage, but only takes off like 10% of hit points from a full health opponent... Did he REALLY hit the opponent, or did the opponent use luck and skill to avoid the attack (but they still take off x hit points)? Well, it HAS to be a real hit, right? After all, you are hitting a vital spot, you are rolling sneak attack damage. That goes right against the whole arguement of a hit not always really a hit.

Remember that taking a 'long rest' only works if you're already on at least 1 hit point. So if you're 0 or lower, it won't work. It requires 2d6 hours to get to 1 hit point from stabilised and it requires three successful death saves (irrespective of the fact that death saves are a low DC) to become stabilised. Either that, or you need magical or mundane healing of some type which burns a HD.

All that being said, this I like ^^^

 

[DMKastmaria]

If a character can perform at full capacity at 1 HP I certainly have no problems with his regaining to full after a short rest. I frankly don't see any immersion-breaking shrapnel in there at all.

Now, if 1 HP meant he had a significant wound and a short rest healed all that, then yeah it's a little silly.

As far as we know, 1 HP meant the former, correct?

The issue here, is that it cancels the ability to model being moderately to seriously wounded, while still conscious and capable of fighting.

Unless, a PC can recover from a serious (though not deadly) wound in just one night.

 

[RigaMortus2]

This assumes that he is swinging at practice dummies. Because practice dummies don't hit back. A fighter on the other hand runs out of hit points.

As does a Wizard. Both have the same resource here (hit points), so you can't really use that as a comparrison.

What they differ in is attack type/style. One swings a mundane weapon round after round, the other uses spells which will eventually run out. Thats the point.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You're unwilling to budge at all and appear to be insisting that everyone should just suck it up, agree with mutant healing factors and full HP every night, and, worst, to not provide honest feedback to the playtest. As such, it's not worth engaging in a discussion with you anymore. I'll provide my feedback to Wizards that fast-healing is immersion breaking, doesn't work for me, and is something that I will be changing immediately upon release for all D&D games I play with this ruleset.

You are misreading me. I run 4e and we don't have mutant healing in my games either. Well, some - but not really more so than previous D&D editions.

I've offered a compromise that I am prepared to accept. And that compromise is that wizards and clerics recharge their spells slowly. They don't get mutant magic every day. A further compromise is that despite your assertion, wizards are not useless when "out of spells" - it's built into the rules that they have a handful at will. (Including three combat spells in the case of the playtest wizard).

If you are balancing along a time period, as Vancian casting must, you need to homogenise the time period for resource management. The fighter can't be swung at all day - an important component of fighting on the front line.

I've offered a compromise. I am more than happy to compromise mutant healing. In fact I don't want mutant healing. I just see mutant healing as a necessity for play balance if the wizards and clerics are on a daily cycle. I only need mutant healing because you are completely unwilling to compromise on wizard and cleric casting being given to them every day despite it being strictly false in any edition later than 3.5 that the wizard can run out of magic.

Mutant healing is the compromise we have because you are unwilling to compromise your spellcasters and somehow the spellcasters must get 100% of their ability back every night. It's a compromise that makes us both unhappy.

I'm willing to budge. I've said what my price is. You however insist that everyone should agree that wizards get to be awesome every day when fighters run out of resources. I merely insist that everyone gets to return their awesomeness at an equal rate.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As does a Wizard. Both have the same resource here (hit points), so you can't really use that as a comparrison.

A wizard isn't expected to use their hit points in combat - they should be avoiding the front lines, and if a wizard is taking more than trivial damage something is going wrong. A fighter is expected to go toe to toe with the enemy and you can't do that wthout them attacking you.

What they differ in is attack type/style. One swings a mundane weapon round after round, the other uses spells which will eventually run out. Thats the point.

A wizard never runs out of cantrips.