How do you explain overnight Healing in your game?

[Nytmare]

If you turned "reading threads about HPs" into a drinking game, you could do some serious damage.


[EDIT] I'm not sure how that damage would be expressed, but I'd guess it would be HPs.

 

[Lizard]

They shouldn't. That's meta-gaming through exploitation of knowledge of the rule system. It's very close to cheating.

See, I think it's the opposite of cheating. The characters live in the world, they know how the world works. They know a great fighter can kill 100 orcs. They know that a seemingly impenetrable vault is child's play to a thief. They know that magic exists to send a message across a continent, and that debating the existence of heaven or hell is silly since you can go there and see for yourself. They don't necessarily know about "levels" and "hit points", but they can determine how skilled someone is or how hard he is to take down in a fight. If a "plot element" makes no sense under the rules, I expect the *characters* to be curious as to what's really going on. My personal rule on stretching the bounds is that an event does not need to be PROBABLE, but it ought to be POSSIBLE. An Eladrin shouldn't be jailed in a cell with a view of the outside world, and if he's not escaping, the characters ought to wonder why -- is it a warded cell, or does he not WANT to escape, for some reason? The thing which must not happen is that someone ask the Eladrin why he hasn't telported out, he replies, "Oh, I forgot I can do that." or "The plot required me not to."

 

[Garthanos]

Being included in films doesn't necessarily mean that it's realistic. It shows more about what we wish was realistic, and what we find to be inspiring moments or stories that resonate in us.

In other words, sometimes it's not about what is reality, but what we wish was reality.

Sure but reality is way more extreme than people think, and second winds are familiar to about every high-school or better athlete in existance they describe it as there fatigue going away and similar things the doctors call it epinephrine released in response to the pain associated with fatigue. (it tells the body to pump/process the blood better among other things which really will fix the chemical problems of fatigue its not just pain suppression)

Human Body: Sensation - Pain : Discovery Channel

My halfling buddy calls using a second wind as his luck turning around... However you skin it I think its quite fun.

 

[Agamon]

Well, first, low level parties DON'T have access to that magic, and there's a gih resource cost even for high level parties which DO.

Second, if you argue "The PCs have off-screen magic which heals them all.", then you ask, "Why doesn't anyone else?" "Can the PCs single-handedly heal an army?" "If it's something special about just the PCs, why do NPCs travelling with them also heal overnight?"

Further, the rules hold whether or not "magic" is being used, or not. A Warlord heals as well as a Cleric, and there's no such thing as an injury "only magic can cure".

Again, the issue doesn't start causing fun-ruining SOD issues when you're just adventuring. It causes issues when the PCs interact with the world outside the dungeon and you try to reconcile "how everything works for us" vs. "how everything works for everyone else".

If your players never interact with NPCs beyond, in effect, clicking the "Accept Quest" button, then, it's unlikely to ever bother you and you likely don't understand what all the fuss is about. If your players try to pretend they don't know who is a "PC" and who is an "NPC", and treat everyone equally, the difference in how the rules work quickly becomes glaring, and not just in terms of healing. The "shallowness" of NPCs who are supposed to only last one combat becomes very evident if they're long-time companions of the party.

You bring up good points. But is it a 4e problem or a D&D problem? Healing a-plenty has been around for a while. I would just think back to how this happened in older editions and apply. In 3e, rest time was started with getting bopped by a wand. So you could say one of the PCs has a magic item that heals everyone each night, just as one example.

Maybe that sort of thing isn't for everyone, but I like being challenged for reasons why things are the way they are (especially when it comes to the players throwing me a curveball). Best part about DMing, IMO.

 

[Bumbles]

See, I think it's the opposite of cheating. The characters live in the world, they know how the world works.

We're not talking about what the characters know. The meta-game information you're talking about is things the characters don't know, though the players might. When you bring up things in the rules and try to use them to invalidate events in the world, that is actually relying on the rule system, something the characters as a rule, do not know.

If a "plot element" makes no sense under the rules, I expect the *characters* to be curious as to what's really going on. My personal rule on stretching the bounds is that an event does not need to be PROBABLE, but it ought to be POSSIBLE. An Eladrin shouldn't be jailed in a cell with a view of the outside world, and if he's not escaping, the characters ought to wonder why -- is it a warded cell, or does he not WANT to escape, for some reason? The thing which must not happen is that someone ask the Eladrin why he hasn't telported out, he replies, "Oh, I forgot I can do that." or "The plot required me not to."

Sorry, but this particular example isn't a good representation of the problem, which may come up with regards to meta-gaming such as has been the issue here. Eladrin being able to teleport isn't something that would require rules knowledge to know.

I've got to go now, so I can't give a better example at the moment, but that's why I don't consider yours to be a problem. It's not a rules issue.

 

[Lizard]

We're not talking about what the characters know. The meta-game information you're talking about is things the characters don't know, though the players might. When you bring up things in the rules and try to use them to invalidate events in the world, that is actually relying on the rule system, something the characters as a rule, do not know.

I disagree. The characters may not know "Sir Fred is a 10th level fighter with 100 hit points, and a fall from a horse can do 2d6 at most", but they DO know just how tough someone with Sir Fred's experience is, and that he has survived far worse falls with no serious effect.

Putting it another way: If someone told you, I dunno, Hulk Hogan, in his prime, was killed when someone through a balled-up sock at him, would you be at least a LITTLE suspicious? To a person who lives in a world which runs by D&D rules, a powerful individual dying from a trivial damage source is just as odd.

Sorry, but this particular example isn't a good representation of the problem, which may come up with regards to meta-gaming such as has been the issue here. Eladrin being able to teleport isn't something that would require rules knowledge to know.

I've got to go now, so I can't give a better example at the moment, but that's why I don't consider yours to be a problem. It's not a rules issue.

It's an example of the larger problem dicussed here, that of shaping the world so that it makes sense according to the rules. While there's always been magic, etc, in D&D, 4e introduces a common race, found in multiracial cities, which can teleport once every 5 minutes to someplace in LOS. This instantly changes how jails must be designed, and the nature of how the law will be enforced. Another good example is wizards. Pre-4e, you could bind and gag a wizard, or even just take away his bag of components, and you could be FAIRLY sure he was harmless, feats like Still Spell notwithstanding. But in 4e, a bound, gagged, wizard can blast Scorching Bursts all around him. He might not be able to aim them, but he can cause a lot of havoc. So, again, the world has to reflect this. If it doesn't, the world suddenly becomes a lot less believable.

Likewise, if the way healing works when the PCs aren't looking is different from how it works when they are, it makes the world make less sense. I have no problem with someone saying that "PCs (and their allies) simply don't take serious wounds in combat, unless you actually die", but then I'd like it stated that the use of healing surge powers, whether martial, arcane, or divine, don't impact the "seriously wounded", however defined. To some extent, NPC vulnerability is handled by the fact they usually can't activate their own surges, but this still doesn't allow an NPC to be injured without being able to "sleep it off", except by simply handwaving it. A world with no injuries other than "annoying" and "fatal" makes no sense, and I don't like having to rule that if a PC wants to heal an NPC, they can't, because of all the questions that would raise.

These things stick in the back of my mind and keep me from enjoying 4e as much as I should.

 

[Garthanos]

Putting it another way: If someone told you, I dunno, Hulk Hogan, in his prime, was killed when someone through a balled-up sock at him, would you be at least a LITTLE suspicious? To a person who lives in a world which runs by D&D rules, a powerful individual dying from a trivial damage source is just as odd.

An interesting thing in real life... tough marines can and do die of shock from what are medically classified minor wounds and youthful athletes die of heart attacks (generally from previously undiagnosed heart defects). A very famous robustly healthy man was crippled horribly falling from a horse.

I am probably a mean DM and being a significant NPC is a privilege not a right ie in the D&D 4e universe an attack or occurrence that delivers 1 hit point of damage is "potentially" a deadly incident (not a sock) , so unless you are holding a banner over somebodies head saying this is for certain a significant npc and that is for certain not he might now have a dreaded minion status, in spite of having been famous.

IRL lots of heroic famous people die and their fans do indeed refuse to believe they could have died in meaningless trivial ways, why should the game world be that different.

 

[N0Man]

Sure but reality is way more extreme than people think, and second winds are familiar to about every high-school or better athlete in existance they describe it as there fatigue going away and similar things the doctors call it epinephrine released in response to the pain associated with fatigue. (it tells the body to pump/process the blood better among other things which really will fix the chemical problems of fatigue its not just pain suppression)

Human Body: Sensation - Pain : Discovery Channel

My halfling buddy calls using a second wind as his luck turning around... However you skin it I think its quite fun.

Oh sure. I was merely trying to head off any "but those are movies and not reality" type statements that I thought someone might respond to my examples with. There are certainly examples of it in real life as well but what I meant as that it's commonplace enough in our fiction to show that even when it's not realistic, it's pretty obvious that it offers a kind of universal appeal to us.

But yeah, a real world examples from sports could certainly apply too, such as marathon runners.

 

[Bumbles]

I disagree. The characters may not know "Sir Fred is a 10th level fighter with 100 hit points, and a fall from a horse can do 2d6 at most", but they DO know just how tough someone with Sir Fred's experience is, and that he has survived far worse falls with no serious effect.

Any player who came to me with this would find themselves being told to stop meta-gaming.

Now if they wanted to investigate whether or not the horse was drugged, the saddle was cursed, or I dunno, Sir Fred was given extra fortified wine, then that'd be fine.

Putting it another way: If someone told you, I dunno, Hulk Hogan, in his prime, was killed when someone through a balled-up sock at him, would you be at least a LITTLE suspicious?

I believe they already used that with Kevin Nash back in 1999. But speaking of Hogan, I've heard a lot of people complain that his technical skills as a wrestler were sub-par, and that the whole acclaim he receives is nothing more than kayfabe. Really, Pro-wrestling is all about suspending disbelief, at least to some people. To others, it's about knowing how the sausage is made. To each their own I guess.

To a person who lives in a world which runs by D&D rules, a powerful individual dying from a trivial damage source is just as odd.

Only if you're meta-gaming. In game, I usually suggest not doing it, and remind you that the rules are a convenience, not an accurate simulation of reality.

It's an example of the larger problem dicussed here, that of shaping the world so that it makes sense according to the rules.

It's making the problem a little too large, I'd deal with the teleport/magic problem very differently than the players making an issue of somebody dying from slipping from their horse.

Yeah, they may seem like they fit under the same umbrella, but they're really not.

These things stick in the back of my mind and keep me from enjoying 4e as much as I should.

Well, it seems to me you have two choices, either accept that the system is an abstract, or create your own new system to use which fits your conceptions better. Is there some other option you'd prefer to pursue?

 

[ST]

I don't know if this has come up before, but I've considered modeling "serious injuries" as a disease by 4e rules, one with a DC high enough that it's unlikely a common person would recover quickly without aid.

Yeah, that implies that "serious injury" isn't something a PC risks when they get hit by a sword, but I think that's already covered by the HP abstraction.