How do you explain overnight Healing in your game?

[Jeff Wilder]

Remember, stressing the small stuff does not make the game more fun, and that is what is important at the end of the day

For some people, "my character is still hurting, despite having gotten eight hours of ZZZs, but he'll push on anyway" -- and having that actually represented by the game mechanics -- isn't "the small stuff."

 

[Agamon]

4e takes a lot of the mechanics away from what happens outside of battle. That's awesome, I can explain it however I like (the divine PC is healing them, they have a wand that heals their wounds overnight, they didn't get all that hurt in the first place, etc) instead of have the way explained to me in black-and-white that the players will expect, if not demand, that that is how it works.

I just posted this next line at the KenzerCo boards, but it applies here, too. Not having A Rule For Everything™ is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Garthanos]

I never bothered explaining this to the party. The one time I brought it up, I simply explained that this is a game...not a life simulation. We are willing to accept that elves throw fireballs at undead in a fantasy realm contained in a multiverse inhabited by gods and demons where reality itself is askew, but we cant accept that people can heal?

Dont stress it is my advice. Just play the game, play it well and forget the "realities" of the situation. My team leanred to let it go, and no kidding, we are having an absolute ball with our campaign.

Remember, stressing the small stuff does not make the game more fun, and that is what is important at the end of the day

I really like visualizing the action... doing so makes the game more fun for me. Magical instant healing is rare in my fantasy game world. Are people arguing they don't want hit points to be almost entirely luck, morale and fatigue and similar quickly recoverable things - it really seems to me the game as written supports that stance more than a little?

 

[babinro]

I've never had to explain it...mechanically it is similar to 3E with less book keeping. Instead of the cleric using their remaining spells to remove afflictions/heal then rest to regain spells..this is just handled without all the needless declarations and rolling slowing down the game.

If the game really wanted you to record everything in 4E..it could just set a value to how long it takes for you to recover a healing surge in order to obtain more healing.

For example: A wizard recovers 1 healing surge per hour of non-strenuous work.
A Paladin recovers 1 healing surge per 30 minutes...etc.

Therefore, over the course of an extended rest, you heal your wounds using the new found surges, and by the time 6-8 hours have completed, everyone will have all surges and HP back. The only thing that wouldn't be magically healed are curses. Thus magic cures all ailments in the nights rest period in the same manor it would have in 3rd edition under normal party conditions.

 

[Lizard]

I really like visualizing the action... doing so makes the game more fun for me. Magical instant healing is rare in my fantasy game world. Are people arguing they don't want hit points to be almost entirely luck, morale and fatigue and similar quickly recoverable things - it really seems to me the game as written supports that stance more than a little?

It supports it a LOT, but so has every edition of D&D. Gary Gygax set the tone back in the 1e DMG, where he pointed out a tenth level fighter CAN'T survive a sword through his heart -- the fact he's tenth level means the sword didn't go through his heart, it nicked his shoulder instead. Until you're down to your last handful of hit points, your injuries are minor.

In 4e, even more so. "Dying" can be seen as being in shock from pain, or stunned, or whatever, with the death roll being the chance that a seemingly minor wound might become more serious -- a damaged artery ruptures, etc. It's all extremely abstract, more so than in prior editions. Personally, I'd like a houserule whereby gaining any death marks represents significant weakness -- perhaps even after an extended rest, you're down 'n' healing surges, where 'n' is the number of death marks you had when you took the rest, not healing for another rest.

 

[Garthanos]

Is that what you feel I did. Because, if so, I'd recommend a re-read of what I said, since I actually qualified reliance on that DM's behavior not once, but twice.

We probably 100% agree and I am in a weird mood. I think there are people who are overly inclined to accept that kind of argument (off topic discussion about religion intentionally diverted)

There have even been comments about being careful how you describe the effects of attacks from the WOTC guys which are opposed to describing real wounds...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

That's awesome, I can explain it however I like (the divine PC is healing them, they have a wand that heals their wounds overnight, they didn't get all that hurt in the first place, etc) instead of have the way explained to me in black-and-white that the players will expect, if not demand, that that is how it works.

That is awesome. So if the PCs spent, say, 12 hours in a village in which four men were mauled by a bear, three children fell down a well, two guardsmen were ambushed by goblins, and a partridge tumbled out of a pear tree, all those injured folks will be fully healed, come the morrow. Definitely awesome.

 

[IanB]

Were I to run a 4e game (I haven't yet) I would just treat it as 'movie healing' - guy with a bunch of bandages on still kicks ass, whatever, and just maybe try to insert longer 'rest/recuperation/squandering of wealth' breaks in between adventures to explain away the post-adventure recovery probably, if there's someone in the game who would be irritated otherwise. "OK, you spend the next couple weeks resting from all those bruises, getting wasted, etc. Then one day, as your gold is starting to run out..."

I basically see little difference in absurdity between 4e's way of handling this and prior editions. Hit points as D&D handles them are inherently absurd in every edition; trying to pick an arbitrary line at which a wound system where nobody ever breaks a bone becomes 'unrealistic' is pointless to me. I just enjoy it for what it is, which is a hand wave to get the bookkeeping out of the way to let me spend more time kicking down doors and saving the world.

I don't really need or want a long-term healing rule to let me roleplay out the Eowyn/Faramir sickbed romance with a 40 year old hairy dude, in other words.

EDIT: There's also no reason you have to treat NPC off-screen healing the way you do PC healing. In fact I almost certainly wouldn't.

 

[Garthanos]

For some people, "my character is still hurting, despite having gotten eight hours of ZZZs, but he'll push on anyway" -- and having that actually represented by the game mechanics -- isn't "the small stuff."

I decided I like the potential for more story that having ongoing / recurring injury can provide (Lancelot died of old age in some stories but in others was killed by a wound that hadn't quite healed). And in the interest of letting this be a thing FOR the player instead of a punishment...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/240891-wound-system.html#post4649572

 

[Regicide]

In movies people get shot in bullet proof vests and fall unconscious for a scene, but aren't truly hurt. Apparently the same roughly applies to D&D.

It's a pretty bad movie where that happens nearly every scene. 3E had the occasional once-per-day saved from death ability, but 4E apparently you're so heroic you make Chuck Norris look like a walk-on.