I was unconsious 20 minutes ago, but I'm ok now..

[The Little Raven]

Every edition of D&D had long-term injury effects. HP loss took time (or magical healing) to heal.

Second edition and the earlier editions had it at higher levels, since you healed 1 hit point per day, and when you've got 100, it takes a couple months to be right as rain.

When a level 20 character can heal 100 hp (200 with bed rest, 400 with bed rest and a DC 15 Heal check) in 5 days, that really doesn't say "long-term injury" to me. That says "time it takes for a flu to run it's course."

 

[Jeff Wilder]

When a level 20 character can heal 100 hp (200 with bed rest, 400 with bed rest and a DC 15 Heal check) in 5 days, that really doesn't say "long-term injury" to me. That says "time it takes for a flu to run it's course."

Basically fair. I just figure "days" for a hero is "long enough." The truth is, the change to "days" in 3E strained things for me a little. "Hours at most" shatters things for me.

As an aside, I like a prior poster's idea for recovery: a certain amount of time for each healing surge used. But there are all kinds of good house rules possible ... I just hope 4E doesn't need one.

 

[Pbartender]

When a level 20 character can heal 100 hp (200 with bed rest, 400 with bed rest and a DC 15 Heal check) in 5 days, that really doesn't say "long-term injury" to me. That says "time it takes for a flu to run it's course."

And only then if you didn't have a cleric, wands or potions on hand, in which case you're back on an the ball in less than a minute or two. If you're out, you wait a day for the cleric to get his spells back, and he heals everyone then. For all practical purposes, it very rarely ever took more than a day for wounds to get fully healed in 3E. The only times it takes longer, is if you've taken ability score damage, and don't yet have access to Restoration spells.

4E simply admits that the typical party uses that sort of fast-track healing as a matter of course, but unties it from the cleric and other magical healers. The end effect is the same, but it's a lot less hassle in 4E.

 

[Li Shenron]

All this said I think 4e will still be a better tactical game than 3e-3.5, I'm just worried about it becoming more miniatures game than an RPG.

That summarizes my current feelings as well.

Don't get me wrong, I like my battlemat, I just want to see the combat being part of the roleplaying, not the roleplaying being that annoying stuff in between combats.

Mmm, I don't actually think that the new combat rules will really affect roleplay at all.

If it's true that now a combat is much faster to run, that can results in 2 situations, depending on the group:

a) the group loves combat more than roleplay -> the game will sport mostly fights, but they will be able to run 10 in an evening rather than 3-4 (GOOD)

b) the group loves roleplay more than combat -> the game will sport as few fights as before, but they will take much less time from the evening than before (GOOD)

The issues you (and me) are concerned about have to do with believability, but roleplay/story is another thing and is mostly unaffected by the rules.

I am indeed concerned by the heavier miniature-style of the new rules. I just don't see myself and my friends switch mentality continually during the game back and forth from thinking in terms of our characters to thinking in terms of minis.

 

[Knightlord]

Exactly. When I play D&D, I don't want to be Joe Schmoe, who needs a couple of day's good lie-down to recover from a nasty crack to the back of the head. I want to be John McClane and kick asses even after fighting a kung fu master in an elevator shaft. I want to be Jack Bauer and stride out of the wreckage of a crashed airplane. I want to be a hero.

100% agree. no, 1000% agree. I couldn't have said it better myself. D&D is a fantasy game, and because of that, it seems to be designed to support fantasy heroes. You're not just some dude walking down the street, retrieving some old lady's purse from a thief. No, your the guy the mayor calls on to retrieve his daughter whos been captured by a foul, mad baron.

 

[Knightlord]

Exactly. When I play D&D, I don't want to be Joe Schmoe, who needs a couple of day's good lie-down to recover from a nasty crack to the back of the head. I want to be John McClane and kick asses even after fighting a kung fu master in an elevator shaft. I want to be Jack Bauer and stride out of the wreckage of a crashed airplane. I want to be a hero.

100% agree. no, 1000% agree. I couldn't have said it better myself. D&D is a fantasy game, and because of that, it seems to be designed to support fantasy heroes. You're not just some dude walking down the street, retrieving some old lady's purse from a thief, and after a small scuffle, you have to rest a bit. No, your the guy the mayor calls on to retrieve his daughter whos been captured by a foul, mad baron. After that fight, you accept your reward and humbley ask "Who's next to suffer my wrath".

 

[Ingolf]

When has D&D ever been good at "realistic" or "believable" at all?

I have played every version (though some for only a very short time) since I picked up the box set in 1979, and even then - as a 14 year old kid - I didn't fool myself that there was anything "realistic" about hit points, or character classes, or levels, or any of it. If you want a realistic game, there are plenty of them out there.

You want a game that realisticly models wounds, bruises, armor, shield use, infections, all that stuff, go play Harnmaster. It's a great game, if that's your thing. What it's not great at is being D&D.

Complaining that 4e is not "realistic" or "believable" compared to 3.5 is like ordering a Budweiser but getting a Miller instead, then complaining that it's not whiskey.

 

[Keenath]

Somebody earlier mentioned the Death Spiral, and I want to reiterate that. If you've ever played Werewolf, you've probably seen a death spiral in action.

You get hit and mark off some boxes of damage, enough to give you a significant combat penalty. You fight a little more, but now you're fighting at 75%; it's easier for enemies to hit you and they deal more damage when they hit, and you aren't hitting as well. So pretty soon you take more damage and mark off some more boxes, and now you're fighting at half power, and you can't even run away because the enemy has more dice than you and can counter anything you want to do, so you take more hits, and pretty soon you're dead.

It's actually harmful to the flavor of the system to do it this way. Players are more cautious, and they don't want to fight beyond the point where they start taking significant damage, because they know they're on their way down. Especially in a "monsters" game like Werewolf, you wind up with players being cautious and slow when the flavor of the system is that they're all powerful monsters who prefer to charge in and kick butt.

Star Wars Saga Edition doesn't do *so* badly, with that condition track stuff. At least in that case, the condition track is fairly easy to move back up even if you don't get healing, so it's easy to get out of the death spiral without actually breaking off from combat.

 

[TerraDave]

If you have used up your healing surges, you aren't fine. You are that much closer to death.


Getting all your surges back in a night...that is another story.

 

[Xorn]

I've got to say, the idea of an "Adventure" unit for measure of time is awesome. I won't even bother counting up the surges, either.

I'm just going to bide my time, not say a word, and one of these days, one of my players is going to say, "You know, sometimes it feels a little cheesy that I get back all my healing surges in a day, I'm like an immortal!"

Then I'll say, casually, as if I'm shocked that he hadn't thought of it already, "Oh you couldn't keep up this pace forever, but you can keep digging deeper for the adventure. You'll have to rest much longer at some point--just not now."

I'm totally stealing that.