How do you explain overnight Healing in your game?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If it is really necessary to explain it and no other option works: It is a adventurer feature. If you have one of the adventurer classes, you have a special ability to recover all damage with an extended rest. It is not something external like a Wand of Cure Light Wounds or a ritual. It's something inherent in the nature of an adventurer.

NPCs don't have this feature. Is almost the distinguishing feature between an heroic adventurer - a PC - and an NPC.

Of course, since no one really has a concept of what hit points specifically are in the game world, since they mix injuries, luck, fatigue, mental stability, morale and so on, nobody really can pin point what's so special about adventurers, except that they rarely get seriously injured and that they recover to full fighting force very fast. Maybe this is a gift they are born with and that turns them to a career of adventuring, maybe this is something you just learn when you seriously take on a career of adventuring. But many people enter similar risky situations, and they don't have this gift for recovery.

But regarding wounds and injuries - With the hit point system, there was never something to model something like a broken leg or arm. I always kinda assumed this was possible to have, but I wouldn't describe it in hit point damage. It would cause some other type of penalties. If you see wounded NPCs with broken legs, a Cure Light Wound Wand wouldn't help them. (Just like it wouldn't help them regenerating lost limbs).
If you wanted to create something like a cut off limb or a broken arm, you needed a special rule in the game system. I think the same is true for a king falling of his horse and dying. A special rule could "simulate" this. The special rule might have been a untraceable poison, but it might also just have been a rule to simulate falling. If a king dies falling of his horse, is there ever not a reason to worry about foul play? An investigation might be required, regardless of whether he has 1 hit point or 250 hit points. An investigation of course would reveal what happened inside the game world, not what rules were used to adjudicate it.

In 4E I tend to assume there is also no 1:1 correlation between wounds and hit points. The Die Hard method certainly works for me. At least it gives a good excuse for characters still having scars, even with common healing.

 

[0-hr]

"This is just a game."

"We're only playing to have fun and realism is not fun."

and

"Feel free to house rule it."

are all just different ways of saying "I don't have a good answer for your critisism. This game has some serious flaws but I refuse to see them."

 

[N0Man]

"This is just a game."

"We're only playing to have fun and realism is not fun."

and

"Feel free to house rule it."

are all just different ways of saying "I don't have a good answer for your critisism. This game has some serious flaws but I refuse to see them."

So, my 4E's renewing my interest in D&D, giving me a new found passion for DM'ing, and making me feel freed of certain aspects of previous editions I've found frustrating is nothing but a product of self-deception?

If the point of the game is to be a simulation, then yes, it does have serious flaws, just like every other RPG I've ever played.

However, that's not the point of the game and so your argument has serious flaws.

To suggest that there's a considerable number of players who are being fooled into enjoying a seriously flawed game and just won't admit it to themselves is absurd beyond words.

4E isn't perfect, and it's not for everyone, however it certainly has merits to make it worthy of a following, even if it's not for you. Suggesting otherwise clearly indicates bias on your part, not self-deception on the part of those who are enjoying it.

 

[Umbran]

...are all just different ways of saying "I don't have a good answer for your critisism. This game has some serious flaws but I refuse to see them."

Please refrain from telling others what they mean.

 

[Mallus]

NPCs don't have this feature.

Right. It's like the old-school D&D notion that most people in the game world can't ever gain levels. Only PC's and rare NPC's.

I like 4e's default assumption --they were only "flesh wounds" that heal up overnight-- a lot better than 3e's --magical healing is cheap and plentiful. Note that it was 3e that effectively removed longer-term injury from the game, thanks to way it priced healing.

 

[Garthanos]

The game descriptions of what hit points were all the way back to 1...
meant that hit points loss included very little to no physical injury.... now the mechanics match that description relatively closely ... they didn't before.

It can be quite interesting that fixating on how an earlier version of the game did something can cause one to treat an improvement of self consistancy a flaw because it deprives them of easily ignoring the part they didnt like before... If you wanted hitpoints to be substantially real injury (and so describe things as definite wounds) you simply ignored the description saying they were mostly luck and morale and application of skill (causing fatigue) and similar things.

Now that description continued all the way from the very first version has mechanical backing because you are functionally better quickly.

 

[SkidAce]

I switched to 4E after much debate and research. The overnight healing issue was almost a show stopper. Not that I don't understand the "John Mclaine" theory, I do.

But different things break the barrier for different people. Having the PCs never get serious injuries...ok, they are special. Not being able to heal a commoner with a spell that I can use on myself, or the commoner not healing overnight was a little harder to deal with.

(As was not being able to heal someone with magic if they were out of surges...that was a big brain shift that took a while.)

So if it's easy for you to rationalize then good, but there are those of us who find it jarring from our sense of logic and cause and effect, and it is a valid concern.

 

[Naszir]

Garth,

If this were true why come up with the Bloodied Condition? It would have made more sense to come up with a different word. It seems that a lot of the confusion that comes from how the loss of "hit points" comes from "damage" and then reaching a "bloodied condition" is poor wording. Yes, this can be remedied but why continue with such official descriptions if it is a poor representation of what is actually happening in combat?

 

[Mallus]

But different things break the barrier for different people. Having the PCs never get serious injuries...ok, they are special. Not being able to heal a commoner with a spell that I can use on myself, or the commoner not healing overnight was a little harder to deal with.

Your absolutely right that everyone has their own threshold of ridiculous. I've always found it jarring that, according to the rules, you can't break a bone in D&D. No matter how big a cliff you fall off of. Now matter how many times a titan hits you with his mattock. No broken bones, ever. There is no procedure for it.

Unless you bring in DM Fiat, of course. Which --in it's infinite power and frequently laughably limited wisdom-- also neatly solves the NPC healing problem.

 

[Naszir]

I switched to 4E after much debate and research. The overnight healing issue was almost a show stopper. Not that I don't understand the "John Mclaine" theory, I do.

But different things break the barrier for different people. Having the PCs never get serious injuries...ok, they are special. Not being able to heal a commoner with a spell that I can use on myself, or the commoner not healing overnight was a little harder to deal with.

(As was not being able to heal someone with magic if they were out of surges...that was a big brain shift that took a while.)

So if it's easy for you to rationalize then good, but there are those of us who find it jarring from our sense of logic and cause and effect, and it is a valid concern.

Actually, can't you still heal someone with powers like Healing Word and Cure Light Wounds even if a character doesn't have any healing surges left?