Legends and Lore - Nod To Realism

[Bedrockgames]

Or...I could just drop healing surges and save myself the work. I think a better approach is to start with normal HP as default and have healing surges as an add-on optional rule. Since people in my camp never ran into many issues with hp (I found it a happy medium for what D&D does), but someone in your camp feels HS adds something to the game experience, this would seem the least intrusive solution to both sides.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The second is that we are talking about mechanics. And if you want to strive for an ideal you should look for mechanics that also strive for that same ideal.

Ideal for whom? The mechanics that I would design to fit my specific groups' preferences would be significantly different from those that I would design for D&D players in general--if in some hellish alternate universe, I was so inflicted on you guys. Occasionally I read things here that make me doubt the writer has considered that distinction at all.

One of the reasons I keep reading what you write is that I know you understand it, but rarely share my preferences.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Or...I could just drop healing surges and save myself the work. I think a better approach is to start with normal HP as default and have healing surges as an add-on optional rule. Since people in my camp never ran into many issues with hp (I found it a happy medium for what D&D does), but someone in your camp feels HS adds something to the game experience, this would seem the least intrusive solution to both sides.

Sure. If you don't mind those niche issues like the wizard/fighter healing discrepancy, that would be a good option.

You'll note that I advocate precisely that for a 5E that had a small core and then supplements to support 3E and 4E style play. As long as we aren't talking about embedding 3E assumptions back into the game instead of healing surges, and have left room for healing surges to be an option, I've got no beef with that.

They can't always make a single rule that works for everyone, or even most everyone. They could sometimes make a rule that is easily adapted to two or three otherwise mutually exclusive approaches.

 

[FireLance]

Sure. If you don't mind those niche issues like the wizard/fighter healing discrepancy, that would be a good option.

Mind you, he might not have a specific issue with the idea that a cleric can cast a healing spell and restore 25% of any PC's hit points. However, he might have issues with:

1. The cleric can do so as a minor action (healing is too easy).

2. The cleric can do so two or three times after taking a short rest (healing occurs too frequently).

3. The warlord can do the same, anyone can take a second wind during combat, and anyone can spend healing surges during a short rest (non-magical healing).

I have made the point that healing surges are often blamed for issues that are actually related to healing powers or the idea of non-magical healing. To be fair, he did mention that he had an issue with the limitations on magical healing, which is related to healing surges. (Although there are healing powers such as cure light wounds and lay on hands which do not require the target to spend a healing surge.)

 

[FireLance]

This is problematic both in that it shakes the foundations of the sense of wonder and creates inconsistency in that it requires mechanical re-explanation. If it was more clear what could be done narratively, and the mechanics followed the flow, some of the problems created by your check list are removed, IMO.

Sure, but "what could be done narratively" is not always apparent at first blush. Fireball as an exploding ball of fire probably worked quite well at first. However, when you introduce non-magical abilities that allow you to remain completely unaffected by a magical attack (such as Evasion), then you get problems. If you decide, for narrative reasons, that you cannot avoid all damage from a fireball with Evasion, then (if you value game balance) you should make it a higher-level spell, or otherwise balance it against spells which narratively can be completely avoided such as lightning bolt.

 

[Mark CMG]

Sure, but "what could be done narratively" is not always apparent at first blush. Fireball as an exploding ball of fire probably worked quite well at first. However, when you introduce non-magical abilities that allow you to remain completely unaffected by a magical attack (such as Evasion), then you get problems. If you decide, for narrative reasons, that you cannot avoid all damage from a fireball with Evasion, then (if you value game balance) you should make it a higher-level spell, or otherwise balance it against spells which narratively can be completely avoided such as lightning bolt.

Sure, I see your objection and have given some thought to that problem in regards to a narrative-first ruleset. The component, which exists in all types of RPGs, that mitigates the problem is that the GM describes the actual results. A player can only explain what they are attempting, the consequences of the action are in the GM's purview. This is problematic with rulesets that dictate mechanical results as a given and then, as if to add insult to injury, tack on a set narrative to those mechanics. This is why RPG rulesets that go too far in trying to curtail the role of the GM tend to bring about such controversy, IMO.

 

[BryonD]

Ideal for whom?

It doesn't matter who.

I consider my statement to be universally true regardless of the specific ideal in question. I said "an ideal". I didn't say "the ideal".

I think it is fairly obvious that I was specifically speaking about my own personal ideal in that context, but it doesn't change the open-ended nature of the statement.

But very specifically I was angling at the point you referenced which suggested that simulationists (such as myself) may believe that mechanics can do more than they really can. I can easily see how in a reading of debates that it could sound that way. But that is because in the debates we all do tend to promote our own ideals. But the suggestion that there is a flaw in the position because reality does not fully achieve a particular ideal does not stand up to serious consideration.

 

[BryonD]

As long as we aren't talking about embedding 3E assumptions back into the game instead of healing surges, and have left room for healing surges to be an option, I've got no beef with that.

Are you suggesting that 3E, as-is, does not leave room for surges?

I would certainly agree with you that the game does not presume them and was not built with them in mind.

But playing a stable, functional, and reasonably balanced game of RAW 3E with surges as a single house rule would not be difficult at all if one was so inclined.

 

[Hussar]

Not to dispute your opinion in any way, but to simply present the other point of view:

That is on my list of beefs with 4E. Things that should be cool become too easy and thus just become typical actions.

I *DO* see Bull Rush attempts in 3E. I wouldn't say I see it in every game, or even every other game. But I do see it. And I think I see it in what, to me, is a completely healthy organic frequency driven not by having a daily or encounter based power to use or lose but instead by making the call when the circumstances fit.
/snip

Heh.

Those examples that you see, are they done by characters who have deliberately been designed to do them? IOW, the player has taken the Improved Bull Rush feat (and associated feats) in order to be able to do this? Which means that they actually aren't "thinking outside the box" since their character is specifically designed to include bull rushing in their box.

((I can't believe I just said bull rushing in their box - sigh))

Again, I disagree. I see bull rushing happening, or whatever non-standard action for that matter, when it would be appropriate and believable in the fiction of the game. There's a guy standing near a window, pushing him out that window isn't really too much of a stretch. It's something that happens all the time in genre fiction. So, I don't want it to be limited to the Bull Rushing specialist.

Because that's where I get kind of bogged down in 3e. Trying anything that is non-standard is just so punishing. Success at a bull rush is not particularly high. You need a target that is significantly weaker than you (very limiting), plus probably a charge (which is a point I do like) to have any real chance of success. If the target is equal to you in strength, your odds of success are just so low that the cost of the attempt (possibly two AOO's, one at +4, plus granting the other guy a full attack at +4) means that I never saw it attempted.

What did you do to make it more palatable? Or were your players simply not concerned with the odds? Or, was the only time you saw bull rushes when they were done by characters who specialized in it?

 

[Hussar]

Are you suggesting that 3E, as-is, does not leave room for surges?

I would certainly agree with you that the game does not presume them and was not built with them in mind.

But playing a stable, functional, and reasonably balanced game of RAW 3E with surges as a single house rule would not be difficult at all if one was so inclined.

That I actually kinda agree with. I know that I had toyed with the idea in 3e with simply allowing PC's to regain all their HP after each encounter, simply because that was what was happening anyway in my games - they typically used healing wands.

So, porting in 4e style healing surges into a 3e game would probably not be all that difficult.