Mearls: The core of D&D

[Beginning of the End]

I just thought of the alternative that you seem to advocate, and would give it a playtest, except the outcome is obvious.

The alternative to having healing surges, of course, being not having healing surges. My theoretical playtest with each character having 0 healing surges would inevitably lead to 1 encounter and then an extended rest (assuming they survived the encounter and the only non-magical way to restore HP is by taking extended rests).

What you've actually done here is demonstrate the problem with healing surges in D&D4: Whatever arbitrary value you set the number of healing surges per day at, you've created a hard limit beyond which adventuring is not possible because healing is no longer possible*. You've set the value at 0. D&D4 sets the value slightly higher.

(*Hussar's Literalist Disclaimer: Some alternatives do not exist, but not enough to sustain the adventuring day in most circumstances.)

The actual alternative, of course, is to remove the hard limit. Rather than giving each character "0 healing surges", you give each character "infinite healing surges". The mandated length of the adventuring day is now basically removed from the system.

Basically, there are two motivations for the 15-minute adventuring day: The carrot and the stick.

The carrot is stuff like the "nova strategy" where you burn through your most powerful abilities in an encounter and then immediately rest so that you can use those powerful abilities again in the next encounter. This existed in pre-4E. And, of course, it still exists in 4E in the form of daily powers and daily uses.

The stick is generally "you have to stop and rest or you'll die". 4E arguably weakened the stick by including encounter powers so that groups never "run out of spells". But the hard limits on the number of healing surges each character has essentially rendered that irrelevant by introducing a bigger stick than any pre-4E version of the game.

(Pre-4E versions, of course, had the same "0 hp and no healing left" threshold. But the amount of healing a party had access to was incredibly variable and completely trivial to adjust on-the-fly by DMs and, in many cases, the players.)

But this fragmentation would have happened anyways under the OGL as the modified rules grew farther and farther apart.

Possibly. But I would point out that Pathfinder wasn't the first time somebody published "alternative PHBs" or "alternative PHBs with a handful of minor rules fixes". It had been tried several times -- including by major publishers like Malhavoc and Mongoose -- and it didn't significantly fracture the playing base any more than the 20+ years of non-D&D core rulebooks pre-OGL had fractured the playing base.

Did Pathfinder succeed where the others had failed because Paizo did such a great job on it?

Maybe.

But it's far more likely that Pathfinder succeeded because WotC left a big, gaping vacuum of traditional D&D gameplay that Paizo was able to fill.

Notably, the 3.0 -> 3.5 transition didn't leave that kind of vacuum. (There was at least one non-WotC 3.0-compatible PHBs on the market when that transition happened. Their sales did not explode. Instead, they collapsed.)

It was only when WotC abandoned traditional D&D gameplay entirely in order to market a different fantasy roleplaying game under the same trademark that someone could do what Paizo did. Up until that point, the entire gravity of the OGL movement was drawn to the D&D core rulebooks. Oh, sure, some people successfully set up some orbiting space stations. In time there might have been some small moons. But it all funneled straight back to D&D.

I thought Monte Cook's work in Ptolus was as good as a 3E-ish product could be organized...

Honestly, I'm not fond of Monte's organization. In particular, I detest moving all the stat blocks to a key'd list at the end of the module.

I think you're ascribing something to Cook which isn't Cook's.

AFAICT, no Malhavoc product ever moved all the stat blocks to the back of the book. Ptolus, Banewarrens, and Night of Dissolution all have stat blocks incorporated into the main text. This also applies to the Arcana Unearthed modules I own and Demon God's Fane.

So when Cook was actually in complete control of how his manuscripts were being written and formatted, he never used that format. It was only when he was working for other companies that you see the "stick 'em in an appendix" method.

And Ptolus really is the best organized RPG product ever published.

 

[rounser]

Didn't the d20 license thing clog gaming store shelves with immovable dreck after the initial surge? An potentially harm the D&D brand, if you think in such terms? And lead to competing PHBs rather than just supplements? Why then is it a success from the D&D IP holder's standpoint?

 

[Mark CMG]

Didn't the d20 license thing clog gaming store shelves with immovable dreck after the initial surge?

Nope, retailers made good money the initial surge and the subsequent years, and the amount of stuff that was difficult to move was not unlike any other boom and bust period or trend in tabletop gaming.

An potentially harm the D&D brand, if you think in such terms?

The brand was strengthened, the retailers made tons of money, the system was innovated, customers had unprecendented amounts of choice and options. Everyone won from what I could tell.

And lead to competing PHBs rather than just supplements?

Competing? Hardly. Certainly not by any realisitic standard. Sales of core official books were orders of magnitude beyond anything else by WotC or 3rd parties, from everything I read and heard. What you suggest is a fiction.

Why then is it a success from the D&D IP holder's standpoint?

The brand's place in the market was never higher, by all accounts I have heard and read.


Links? Nope. Not going to do the leg work but if you do it yourself and find anything to the contrary of what I posted, feel free to shoot my position right on down. I'll read what you come up with, consider the sources, and adjust what I believe accordingly.

 

[Mark CMG]

That's, uh, not how debate works.

Alternately the drudge of the OGL harmed the bran name horribly, a scar that will last for many years. Proof? Pff, naw. That's for you to fine.

Welcome to EN World. You're certainly entitled to your opinion and to decide how best to try and frame any debate in which you wish to engage. I will take your position into account as I continually re-assess my own position going forward. I remain, however, unconvinced by your current argument.

 

[rounser]

Nope, retailers made good money the initial surge and the subsequent years, and the amount of stuff that was difficult to move was not unlike any other boom and bust period or trend in tabletop gaming.

Okay. I got the impression that distributors lost interest in all but a few companies, that there were extensive quality control issues, and that large numbers of books were going for a buck or given away in later years. Maybe 3.5 white elephanted them, but surely WOTC knew what would happen to the d20 publishers by pulling 3.5 on them, and therefore might have already been reconsidering whether they were something to encourage, or (as the 4E era approach suggests) try to put down as some kind of threat or competitor. Otherwise, why the outflanking maneuvers represented by 3.5 and 4E towards d20 publishers?

 

[Mark CMG]

Okay. I got the impression that distributors lost interest in all but a few companies, that there were extensive quality control issues, and that large numbers of books were going for a buck or given away in later years.

In later years I don't doubt that was true, and that would be and has been true for the tail end of any trend period. Our positions seem to be in sync in this regard.

*edit* I should add that I don't think there were "extensive quality control issues" that necessarily caused the situation, in fact many of the companies that jumped in early and had distributor support all through had "quality control issues" and seemed to weather all of the changes. However, there certainly was plenty of leftovers as the boom subsided.

Maybe 3.5 white elephanted them, but surely WOTC knew what would happen to the d20 publishers by pulling 3.5 on them, and therefore might have already been reconsidering whether they were something to encourage, or (as 4E suggests) try to put down.

What "WotC knew" is a potentially broad subject that I am not sure leads to all of the same places you or I could easily imagine. The 3.5 adjustment definitely seemed like something the contemporary heads of WotC felt was warranted (for the system and probably for financial reasons), and their support of the OGL at that stage was still very strong (relative to the support during 3.0). There may have been a mini-bust for some 3rd party interests at that stage but the resurgence of boomishness among most 3rd parties soon after 3.5 seemed to overshadow it.

I point to the naming conventions of 4E and the GSL debacle (the slow ratification, the lack of sufficient 3rd party support as expressed by most potential 3rd party pubs, etc.) as a sign that WotC heads felt reclamation of IP was in their best interest. It's hard to imagine anyone could look at the current market just three years after the release of 4E and think the brand is currently as vibrant as it was during the previous edition's boom period. Again, I'm open to be swayed by indicators to the contrary but I am not seeing them online, in stores, by the actions of the limited 3rd party supporters, etc.

 

[MrGrenadine]

I don't think that swords +1 had a lot of wonder in classic D&D either.

I distinctly remember when I first started playing (over 20 years ago), the moment my characters acquired their first magical weapons were incredible, awe-inspiring moments. And tossing away (if I was carrying too much) or selling my normal weapon for a few coins, and sheathing that +1 whatever, that just felt powerful.

Now, the game played much differently back then--magic was very rare in our campaigns, with high lethality at low levels--and I was just a young lad back then and new to the hobby, so maybe everything was a little awe-inspiring to me, but yeah, +1 weapons did hold a sense of wonder.

Kinda miss that, actually.


p.s. As to the article, I agree with the suggestions to add "funny shaped dice" and "a variety of races". And I would add "a variety of settings" as well--is there another RPG that had or has anything similar to all of the completely different, totally fun settings D&D has had over the years?

 

[Redbadge]

What you've actually done here is demonstrate the problem with healing surges in D&D4: Whatever arbitrary value you set the number of healing surges per day at, you've created a hard limit beyond which adventuring is not possible because healing is no longer possible*. You've set the value at 0. D&D4 sets the value slightly higher.

(*Hussar's Literalist Disclaimer: Some alternatives do not exist, but not enough to sustain the adventuring day in most circumstances.)

The actual alternative, of course, is to remove the hard limit. Rather than giving each character "0 healing surges", you give each character "infinite healing surges". The mandated length of the adventuring day is now basically removed from the system.

Basically, there are two motivations for the 15-minute adventuring day: The carrot and the stick.

The carrot is stuff like the "nova strategy" where you burn through your most powerful abilities in an encounter and then immediately rest so that you can use those powerful abilities again in the next encounter. This existed in pre-4E. And, of course, it still exists in 4E in the form of daily powers and daily uses.

The stick is generally "you have to stop and rest or you'll die". 4E arguably weakened the stick by including encounter powers so that groups never "run out of spells". But the hard limits on the number of healing surges each character has essentially rendered that irrelevant by introducing a bigger stick than any pre-4E version of the game.

(Pre-4E versions, of course, had the same "0 hp and no healing left" threshold. But the amount of healing a party had access to was incredibly variable and completely trivial to adjust on-the-fly by DMs and, in many cases, the players.)

Let me clarify my point. Let's say you take 3.5 exactly as it is with regards to the healing system. Now add one additional healing mechanic -- healing surges. In addition to regular 3.5 healing, characters can spend their healing surges, of which they have a limited number, to regain 1/4 their 3.5 hit points. They primarily spend these surges as a Second Wind and the end of short rests, which we would also add under this hypothetical change to 3.5. Say we didn't want this expansion to the healing system to be infinite, so we make it that the only way to restore "healing surges" are to take an extended rest. As an added benefit, instead of really slow healing each day, we'll go ahead and allow the character to restore all its hitpoints in addition to regaining back all its healing surges. Finally, as a bonus, we give all 3.5 healing classes an extra spell that they can use multiple times per encounter to allow these healing surges to be further used in combat. These spellcasters would retain their other, non-surge healing spells, which you must remember, have an arbitrary hard limit on the number of times they can be used per day.

Not only have you given the 3.5 character a way to extend the adventuring day, with surges, but you also reduce the variability and need for DM adjustment. And of course, both this version of 3.5 and 4e both have access to other non-surge healing such as daily spells of Cure Light Wounds. And nothing precludes a charged wand of Cure Light Wounds in either system.

 

[Wiseblood]

Longsword, +1 Now it is epic.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Not only have you given the 3.5 character a way to extend the adventuring day, with surges, but you also reduce the variability and need for DM adjustment.

Good point. If we hypothesize some arbitrary system that has essentially nothing in common with 4E's healing surges except that its uses similar terminology, we'll have demonstrated... umm...

Well, I guess we'll have demonstrated absolutely nothing of relevance.

I mean, I can sit here all day hypothesizing a huge variety of systems which just happen to use the terms "healing surge" and "second wind". But it will all be completely irrelevant in a discussion about how the healing surge mechanics in 4E work.

Just like your post.