In the heat of battle, is hit point loss a wound?

[Hussar]

In 3E, he'd have received back 10 of those 15 hit points (10th level wizard). So, not quite back to full HP (his chest would probably still be tender) but mostly back to fighting shape.

Yup, and got tapped with a cure light wounds, or a simple Heal check and he gets twenty points back. It's a 10th level party and a DC 15 check. It doesn't even need a roll.

So, you have no problems with all hit points being recovered overnight without magic? 10th level wizard without a Con bonus averages (4+2.5*10=) 29 hit points. He can lose over two thirds of his hit points, IN A SINGLE HIT, and recover from it in a single night of rest.

And that's apparently believable. But, 4e HP aren't?

This is why this discussion can never progress. The HP=Meat argument is so full of holes that it makes swiss cheese look solid. Everyone points to the fighter and he's got lots of hit points, so it takes a bit longer to heal. This 10th level wizard cannot EVER take a wound in 3e that cannot be healed in two days.

Not ever. You cannot narrate any wound that doesn't kill this character that cannot be fully healed in two days. Actually, that's not even true. You cannot narrate any wound that doesn't outright kill this character that cannot be healed in a single day because with a full day of rest, this character regains FORTY HP. He's only got 29 to start with and 39 with the death's door rule.

Even a 10th level fighter who takes 39 points of damage in a single hit - certainly a pretty solid hit, cannot ever be narrated as taking a wound that cannot be FULLY recovered from in one day.

To me, and I've argued this before, the only resolution here is to have two baselines. You have the "HP=Meat" rules and the "We don't want to bother screwing around with healing" rules. HP=Meat looks a lot like 3e and earlier and makes clerics and/or other magical healers a pretty much required member of hte party. The other crowd looks a lot like 4e. Since both crowds will heal up to full in close enough to the same time (sorry, but three days vs one day REALLY isn't going to radically change most scenarios) you can have them both as baselines and everyone is happy.

Or, you take the "You heal full" rules, slow them down and you make the HP=meat crowd happy again.

What you can't do is use the 3e and earlier rules as the baseline and tell everyone else to screw off. Because the HP=Meat rules are too limited to be broadly applied.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

(sorry, but three days vs one day REALLY isn't going to radically change most scenarios)

It changes everything. Unless you're running a game in which nothing happpens until the pcs kick in a door, things change. The high priest finishes his summoning, the princess gets sacrificed, the dragon burns down 3 more villages, the scout returns with valuable information, etc. A LOT can change in 3 days.

Not to mention 3 days worth of random encounters that you must face low on hit points.

 

[Hussar]

It changes everything. Unless you're running a game in which nothing happpens until the pcs kick in a door, things change. The high priest finishes his summoning, the princess gets sacrificed, the dragon burns down 3 more villages, the scout returns with valuable information, etc. A LOT can change in 3 days.

Not to mention 3 days worth of random encounters that you must face low on hit points.

Yup, if your game is the fantasy version of 24, then, sure, it matters.

Look at Keep on the Borderlands. What exactly happens in three days? Nothing.

Heck, I ran the Savage Tide Adventure Path. One adventure takes SIX MONTHS of travel time. Three days to heal? Yup, not going to matter.

That dragon is so fast that it's mowing down one village every single day? Yeah, that's so much more believable than compound fractures that heal in two days. Scout manages to make about forty miles in 3 days. Again, probably not going to matter. Yet, it's funny how the DM's scout never, ever runs into all those masses of random encounters that plague the PC's, yet, it's supposed to be a "living" world.

Can you make it matter? Sure. Should you make it matter EVERY SINGLE TIME? Probably not.

Sorry, I try to run fairly believable campaigns where communication takes days, travel times take weeks, and repopulating areas takes DECADES.

OTOH, if your campaign features regularly spawn points, monsters that make kamikaze dashes to every single population center as soon as they are grown and unlimited numbers of baddies, then, sure, three days is going to make all the difference every single time.

See this is why this discussion can never make any headway. People are trying to wrap up their preferences as some sort of "realism". It's utter and complete ballocks. It's about as believable as cardboard hammers. But, people insist, "oh, no, two or three days will ALWAYS make all the difference in the world. It's so much more believable that a character can be six seconds from DEATH and fully healed, without so much as a scratch, in three days than in one."

Please. State your preference. That's fine. But stop trying to pretend that it's anything other than your preference. It's not more realistic, it's not more believable. It really, really isn't. It's only more believable TO YOU. Because it's your preference.

Once people start realizing that, we can finally start making some headway towards creating a system that makes most of us happy.

 

[Derren]

sorry, i try to run fairly believable campaigns where communication takes days, travel times take weeks, and repopulating areas takes decades.

ROFL.

With all the magic in D&D, communication and travel time is cut down quite a lot.
And even without magic, "a few days" is and always have been crucial. Sure, there are periods where nothing happens as everyone is regrouping, but once things are in motion days matter.
When a dragon has a gruge against a kingdom it can burn down several villages a day considering that it is highly mobile and villages don't tend to be that far apart. And when the PCs are attacking something hours are enough for the enemies to organize a defense. Days would allow them to strengthen that defenses somewhat.

If you want to run a game where nothing happens unless the PCs are directly involved, fine. But don't pretend that this has anything to do with realism.

 

[Mercutio01]

Deleted a long post before hitting submit that can be summed up in this post by Merric Blackman on the RPGGameGeek boards

That incoherence is all the way through AD&D. Part of it is a number of rules that were never or very rarely used - natural healing being one of them. How often do you actually need that rule in a D&D game?

The answer is: very rarely! Most healing is done by the cleric. However, having a natural healing rule makes us feel better about the verisimilitude of the game, even if it's largely irrelevant.

Until 4E, natural healing to full HP was not a concern except in the most extreme circumstances (like when the cleric was dead or out of spells completely). 4E changed the default assumption by doing two things I didn't like: it took healing out of the hands of clerics (I acknowledge that I'm in the minority, but I liked that healing was only in the hands of clerics and hate the opening up of healing) and it sped up healing from several long rests to one.

 

[billd91]

(sorry, but three days vs one day REALLY isn't going to radically change most scenarios)

I'd say that's the difference that matters the most. Three days vs seven vs ten - those differences probably don't matter as much when it comes to healing because many of the reactions to a lair invasion and retreat can be accomplished over the first day the party is in retreat - an extra week would mostly be gravy (though it may give them time to come off highest alert). What matters is that it's not just a virtually immediate bounce-back - time must be taken and considered.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

That dragon is so fast that it's mowing down one village every single day? Yeah, that's so much more believable than compound fractures that heal in two days. Scout manages to make about forty miles in 3 days. Again, probably not going to matter. Yet, it's funny how the DM's scout never, ever runs into all those masses of random encounters that plague the PC's, yet, it's supposed to be a "living" world.

Apparently you've never been to the south. A dragon could burn 3 towns near me top the ground without even slowing down. That's with AD&D rules where he can breathe 3 times a day. A man on horseback can make 100 miles in a day. With fresh horses, that's 300 miles in 3 days.

Sorry, I try to run fairly believable campaigns where communication takes days, travel times take weeks, and repopulating areas takes DECADES.

Lol. communication has never taken decades, not since we invented speech.

OTOH, if your campaign features regularly spawn points, monsters that make kamikaze dashes to every single population center as soon as they are grown and unlimited numbers of baddies, then, sure, three days is going to make all the difference every single time.

As opposed to static adventures that never change, no matter what happens. The princess never gets sacrificed until the pcs arrive, whether that's tomorrow or next year.

See this is why this discussion can never make any headway. People are trying to wrap up their preferences as some sort of "realism". It's utter and complete ballocks. It's about as believable as cardboard hammers. But, people insist, "oh, no, two or three days will ALWAYS make all the difference in the world. It's so much more believable that a character can be six seconds from DEATH and fully healed, without so much as a scratch, in three days than in one."

As I've said about a hundred fricking times and you can't seem to wrap your thick head around, it has jack all to do about realism, but about a believable world. It's about the world reacting to the pcs, about the world moving along WITHOUT the pcs. Is 3 days going to matter every single time? No, but with overnight healing, it CAN NEVER matter.


This is no way to talk to anyone on here, that's cursing and insults in one sentence not even to mention a few other things. Take some time off. - Lwaxy

Please. State your preference. That's fine. But stop trying to pretend that it's anything other than your preference. It's not more realistic, it's not more believable. It really, really isn't. It's only more believable TO YOU. Because it's your preference.

Ok, got it. Only me. No one else runs a game where the pcs actions - or lack of actions - matter. Only me, in 40 years of rpgs.

Once people start realizing that, we can finally start making some headway towards creating a system that makes most of us happy.

"Most of us" meaning you? Sure, once Hussar gets what he wants, everything's fine and dandy, but no one else gets an opinion, got it.

 

[Lanefan]

The HP=Meat argument is so full of holes that it makes swiss cheese look solid. Everyone points to the fighter and he's got lots of hit points, so it takes a bit longer to heal. This 10th level wizard cannot EVER take a wound in 3e that cannot be healed in two days.

The problem here is using hard numbers rather than percentages. If you use percentages then, if all else is equal, the same relative amount of damage will naturally heal in the same amount of time for everyone, give or take for rounding error.

Most easily explained using a contrived example: the whole party each has been reduced to 1 h.p. Natural resting will give back 10% of total each day.
So:

Fighter total 87 h.p. will get back 9 per day, full in 10 days
Cleric total 63 h.p. will get back 6 per day, full in 11 days
Thief total 40 h.p. will get back 4 per day, full in 10 days
Wizard total 14 h.p. will get back 1 per day, full in 13 days (remember, he started at 1)
If wizard had 15 h.p. he'd get back 2 per day, so full in 7 days - low level is a bit swingy here.

Note that the above assumes resting in the field; another aspect is to say no matter how long it would normally take to recover you're considered to be at full after x days of complete rest in town (I usually use x=7).

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

I'd say that's the difference that matters the most. Three days vs seven vs ten - those differences probably don't matter as much when it comes to healing because many of the reactions to a lair invasion and retreat can be accomplished over the first day the party is in retreat - an extra week would mostly be gravy (though it may give them time to come off highest alert). What matters is that it's not just a virtually immediate bounce-back - time must be taken and considered.

By this argument though, there is no difference between 1 day and longer either. Since, as you say, many of the reactions can be accomplished in that first day, it makes virtually no difference whether the PC's fall back for one day or for three.

And what's going to usually happen, since resting in the dungeon is typically seen as a bad idea, is that the PC's are going to fall back several hours of travel, rest, and then move forward again - thus 1 day.

I really have a problem with, "It's not about realism, it's about believability" when we're talking about this. Do people honestly believe that I can go from six seconds away from death to completely unwounded, not so much as a scratch, in two days?

Lanefan - Yeah, I could get behind that. I've always said that that was the way to go with healing surges. "You regain X healing surges per day of rest" and set X to whatever healing rate tickles your fancy. It seems a pretty easy solution to this. But apparently, just having "healing surges" is a bad thing. I suppose if you set healing to a percentage of max HP, it works the same.

Or the HP dice mechanic that 5e is using. Mix it up a bit and make it a bit random. That's groovy and a nice compromise. Changing the "You heal fully overnight" is an extremely easy mechanic to tweak to taste. Throughout this whole fruforol I've never really seen the issue.

 

[Lanefan]

Lanefan - Yeah, I could get behind that. I've always said that that was the way to go with healing surges. "You regain X healing surges per day of rest" and set X to whatever healing rate tickles your fancy. It seems a pretty easy solution to this. But apparently, just having "healing surges" is a bad thing.

It is when you can just do this...

I suppose if you set healing to a percentage of max HP, it works the same.

...instead, and bypass the surge mechanic in favour of straight h.p.

Or the HP dice mechanic that 5e is using. Mix it up a bit and make it a bit random. That's groovy and a nice compromise. Changing the "You heal fully overnight" is an extremely easy mechanic to tweak to taste.

I'd like to think it'll be easily tweakable but we won't really know for sure until we see not only the whole system but the first few "official" adventures, to see what they're designing for.

With 4e, the first few adventures were obviously designed for a full-heal overnight rest; converting "Keep on the Shadowfell" to 1e made this blindingly clear once in play, as an adventure that's designed-as-written to take just a few days ended up taking a few weeks, and that's not counting the many more weeks spent travelling back and forth to town. There are also no notes at all in that module to cover the "what-if" where a party takes much longer to finish than expected*.

I'm currently running "Marauders of the Dune Sea", again converted to 1e, and what I'm noticing there in the dungeon part is that the encounters can be all kinds of nasty - with no built-in time limit the party can easily pull a retreat-rest-return sequence between each encounter, facing each one in perfect condition, which gives the module writer much more room to crank up the opposition. (side note: if you throw in a few more connections (secret or not) between rooms to make it less linear MotDS actually isn't a bad little adventure at all)

* - if 5e is to have healing rates on a dial the first real clue will be how (and-or whether) the adventure modules answer this particular what-if.

Lan-"and of course as with all dials this one must go to eleven"-efan