Out of the "Get Hurt, Get Healed" tradition

[Minigiant]

Tradionally the way characters defend themselves is byhaving high Armor Class and saves. But they are designed to fail and healing hit points is somewhere in the next few actions. This nudged D&D into a "hurt and heal" game.

I wonder if somehow the next version of the game could have other defensive strategies.

In other threads, I suggest having the warlord and bard having abilities that grant nice chunks of temporary hit points. The THP would act as a buffer for the real HP and change the game from healing HP to trying to defeat enemies before the THP runs out. At the end of the dungeon, PCs might have only 5 or 6 HP left but have 20 THP on top of that, thus not caring about their near death status.

Or certain character action or spells could be made that boost Armor and Saving throws. The party could walk around and plan to never get hit in the first place. The resource management would be of how many of these defensive buff spells they have.

A party's strategy could change with the composition. Have a cleric or druid, hurt and heal. Have a warlord or bard, use damage buffers.

What do you think?

 

[Yora]

HP are hard enough to explain and rationalize as they are. This proposal seems to be even a lot more removed from what one would expect of real injuries or endurance.

 

[ren1999]

What do you think?

I hate temporary hit points because I always forget to check if the player keeps them. Temporary hit points are a bad idea even if you design a DM application to track it.

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[Doug McCrae]

How about multiple PCs per player?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Or, on a simpler level, we could have rules for dodging and blocking (and perhaps armor as DR). Every point of damage prevented is worth a point of [healing surge, warlord powers, gratuitous healing wands, etc.], but without all the plausibility issues that healing presents, and balanced around what an individual character can do in a round.

 

[Ellington]

A fight where none of the heroes gets hurt isn't very dramatic. I like it when the heroes are brought down to very low hit points and barely survive.

Sure, they should be able to avoid getting hurt when playing smart against lesser opponents, but in bigger fights I expect them to get hit and thus I expect them to get hurt.

I for one to not want to see 'hurt -> get healed" removed. It's a big part of D&D to me at least.

 

[Minigiant]

HP are hard enough to explain and rationalize as they are. This proposal seems to be even a lot more removed from what one would expect of real injuries or endurance.

How so. The warlord says an inspirational battle cry and the bard plays an energizing song, the party gets pumped and stomp out some goblins.

The wizard casts a spell that grants +4 AC and saves on everyone and everyone fights defensively in every fight.

I hate temporary hit points because I always forget to check if the player keeps them. Temporary hit points are a bad idea even if you design a DM application to track it.

Well there are other defenses. Damage Reduction. Percentage based miss chance. AC buffs.

How about multiple PCs per player?

Heh.

Or, on a simpler level, we could have rules for dodging and blocking (and perhaps armor as DR). Every point of damage prevented is worth a point of [healing surge, warlord powers, gratuitous healing wands, etc.], but without all the plausibility issues that healing presents, and balanced around what an individual character can do in a round.

Something like that could work too.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think that there is a variety of defensive strategies, and encouraging a breadth is a good idea.

There's straight "recover HP" (clerics are the best!)

There's "temp HP" (good for warlords!)

There's "defense bonuses" (fine in modeation, but can be easily overdone)

There's "damage penalties" (bards may be especially good at this)

There's "auto-dodges" (a lot like a more reliable, but more limited, defense bonus)

There's "damage reduction" (barbarians simply ignore the damage)

There's "counterattacks" (like the 4e fighter)

There's probably more where that came from.

 

[FireLance]

The "get hurt, get healed" tradition is mostly a gameplay issue. How you get healed can be a narrative issue: Does a cleric heal your wounds? Does an insprining leader encourage you to press on? Do you down healing potions or make use of herbal poultices? Do you draw on your own willpower and determination? Do you head back to a safe place and rest after every fight?

So, as a gameplay issue, if you want the PCs to be pushed to the line in almost every fight, you can't avoid "get hurt, get healed". The only question is what resources (Magical or non-magical? Internal or external?) are used to heal and how long it takes (5 minutes, 15 days, or something in between?) to recover after each fight.

 

[hafrogman]

If temp hit points become a real staple of the game design to that point, then you've basically just adopted a VP/WP system where there's a pool of phantom "Vitality Points" that represent dodging and evading until you actually get hit and take a "wound point".

It works alright as a system, but generally doesn't feel like D&D to a lot of people. Even if it could be used for human characters, it'd feel really odd for fighting a dragon.

I do see the fundamental issue you're trying to address, because on one hand you have people (like me) who think that not having to have a cleric in every party is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and on the other hand there are many people who cannot and will not accept non-magical combat healing. It's a tough design point, I'm just not sure this is the solution.