Reforms so you don't need healing surges

[Dragonblade]

Sure, but would you miss healing surges, or would you miss what they do? If there is a way to get the pacing, restoration, and all-martial party viability of 4e without healing surges, why not see what we can come up with?

This thread is about spitballing ideas. Whether there should be healing surges or not in 5e (as an option or not) is in the thread next door "Should 5e have healing surges".

Sure. In that case, I think a WP/VP system is probably going to come closest. Or a HP system but then add a SW Saga style wound track to represent long term injury and actual wounds.

So then if HP represents vitality you could have in-combat martial "healing" abilities, but only magic or rest can truly heal Wound points or move you back up on the damage track. Then you can tweak grittiness levels by deciding when WP gets hit and healed. If every crit does wounds you have a more lethal game than one where wounds only go down once HP are depleted. All sorts of options become possible.

 

[ferratus]

As a part of the healing fix for my d20 revision, I boosted the Healing skill:

First aid
Action: Standard
Check: Healing + Wis (DC 10)
Take 10: No
Take 20: No
If you administer aid to yourself or an injured ally no later than 1 round after the injury has been sustained, you can restore a number of hit points equal to 5 + your Healing rank.

That looks good, save for the damage to realism of treating someone while they are still fighting. Drinking a potion while fighting is just as absurd of course.

Treat injury
Action: Extended (1/2 hour)
Check: Healing + Int
Take 10: Yes
Take 20: No
You can attempt to treat your own injuries or those of another character. With a successful check, you can restore a number of hit points equal to the result of your check. No character may benefit from this treatment more than once per day.

I can't see anything wrong with this though, except to the most pendandic who would require that recovery from injuries take as long as it does in the real world, which no edition of D&D has ever demanded.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Sure, but take the wand of cure light wounds away, and you are back to the 15 min. adventuring day.

I still have never seen this in actual play. Like the Easter Bunny, I don't think it exists.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Maybe it's my background in playing tons of videogame RPGs long before I ever got into D&D, but I've never once had the problem with the idea that taking HP damage does not reflect suffering serious, actual injury. It means cuts and bruises and pain, but never anything serious or life-threatening that would require a long time or supernatural methods to heal. Honestly, if HP was supposed to represent things like serious sword cuts, third-degree burns, or broken bones, then I would laugh it off as being blatantly ridiculous and immersion breaking.

By the very mechanics used, HP can't represent a quantity of serious or potentially fatal injuries, because taking HP damage doesn't actually weaken a character's ability to fight or risks their life until they actually run out. HP has always represented a character's ability to resist or avoid serious injury, rather than serious injury itself. That is why characters only suffer severe wounds when they run out.

If you are going to fix anything to make the healing/damage system in D&D better, it would not be healing surges I would adjust. They work fine for the way HP work. The real issue is fixing the rules for what happens once HP reaches zero. It is at that point that a character becomes wounded. If there is any room for creating mechanics for situations where a character suffers a severe injury that requires long-term care or magic to heal, it would be then. Improving such rules, and by extension improving D&D's absolutely terrible death and dying rules, would go a lot further towards solving the game's problems and issues of immersion than messing with healing surges would.

 

[ferratus]

Sure. In that case, I think a WP/VP system is probably going to come closest.

I liked the idea of a VP/WP system in the original Star Wars D20, though its implementation left much to be desired. Certainly though, having your VP refresh with a short 5 minute rest (taking great care not to call it an encounter power) would make the need for healing surges almost redundant. I don't like "vitality points" for a name. "defense points" would probably be better and represent armor, abjuration spells, divine protection, or agility depending on your class and ability scores.

You could probably even refresh your in combat by taking a standard action and flavour it up appropriately. Fighters and Rogues catch their second wind, but mages reset their wards and priests pray for protection.

Or a HP system but then add a SW Saga style wound track to represent long term injury and actual wounds.

I like the idea of long term wounds, but generally people are worried about "the sink of suck" as you collect injuries that either gimp your character permanently, or for several months. All the regeneration spells are high level, while the risk is not. Also, unlike Star Wars there are no bacta tanks, med-pacs or prosthetic replacements to get you back in the game quickly.
(though perhaps maybe there should be) Götz von Berlichingen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

It would also punish strictly martial parties, because magical healing could remove long term wounds, while martial characters would be stuck with them.

If every crit does wounds you have a more lethal game than one where wounds only go down once HP are depleted. All sorts of options become possible.

That was a bit of a dogs breakfast in Star Wars if I recall. It essentially meant a 5% chance of death with every attack you faced, even if you were facing a squad of the notoriously myopic stormtroopers. It essentially meant that you chance of surviving to level 20 was absolutely 0%.

 

[Minigiant]

I say one way to to split up and plan all of the healing resources of the party.

Imagine this party:
A the fighter
B the rogue
C the cleric
D the wizard
E the ranger

The party's Maximum daily healing resources.
5 Second Winds (1 per action point per PC, 1/4 HP per use)
5 usages of the Heal skill to administer First Aid (1 per PC per day, 1/4 HP per use)
10 cleric spells (1/4 HP per total spell levels)
4 ranger spells (1/4 HP per total spell levels)
4 potion from A's potion tolerance (+3 Con)
3 potion from B's potion tolerance (+2 Con)
2 potion from C's potion tolerance (+1 Con)
1 potion from D's potion tolerance (+0 Con)
4 potion from D's potion tolerance (+3 Con)
1 healing ritual

Of course a character wont use all the action points on healing, have potions up to their limit, be the target of all of the cleric and ranger's spells. Nor with the cleric and ranger prepare all healing spells. So the fighter might not be able to heal more than 150% of his HP through potions, second wind, and spells. Games without second winds or time to perform first aid/rituals would have less healing. Games with milestones would allow more healing via more action points, regained spells, etc.

 

[ferratus]

I still have never seen this in actual play. Like the Easter Bunny, I don't think it exists.

Well, we believe things because we see it, because people we trust have seen it, or people of authority have seen it.

So I guess it all depends on how trusting you are. I've seen it, and people of authority in the game have seen it. So I guess you could at least accept that it is a problem in my game, rather than a conspiracy or lie.

Like I said, I think that people who aren't seeing it are just using techniques to mitigate damage (that I'd like to discover), or plan the pacing of their adventure better than most (that I'd like to copy). How do you compensate for the fact that in a single encounter, players can often go through more damage than they can heal, especially if there is no cleric in the party?

In 1e/2e it is quite possible to go through an encounter without getting hit or taking damage (which is rare in 3e/4e) but it is also true that through bad dice rolls you can run out of hp in the first encounter. That is the 15 minute adventuring day, if it happens more often than not.

 

[ferratus]

By the very mechanics used, HP can't represent a quantity of serious or potentially injuries,

You know it and I know it, but still people scream about "schrodeinger's hit points" or "how can I go from bleeding to healed by a warlord shouting at me".

The real issue is fixing the rules for what happens once HP reaches zero. It is at that point that a character becomes wounded. If there is any room for creating mechanics for situations where a character suffers a severe injury that requires long-term care or magic to heal, it would be then. Improving such rules, and by extension improving D&D's absolutely terrible death and dying rules, would go a lot further towards solving the game's problems and issues of immersion than messing with healing surges would.

I can certainly agree with this. Any ideas? 'Cause I got none.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Sure. In that case, I think a WP/VP system is probably going to come closest. Or a HP system but then add a SW Saga style wound track to represent long term injury and actual wounds.

So then if HP represents vitality you could have in-combat martial "healing" abilities, but only magic or rest can truly heal Wound points or move you back up on the damage track. Then you can tweak grittiness levels by deciding when WP gets hit and healed. If every crit does wounds you have a more lethal game than one where wounds only go down once HP are depleted. All sorts of options become possible.

This is why I like vp/wp or something of its ilk. Solves a lot of problems, opens up a lot of options to increase or decrease lethality.

 

[ferratus]

I say one way to to split up and plan all of the healing resources of the party.

That would be good, except my eyes glazed over from all the book keeping required. I suppose it could be done at the designer level, with a "recommended amount of healing by party makeup" but I'm not really keen on that either.

It does bring up an interesting point though. I have no problem with a party without a cleric being viable with the caveat that it costs more to buy healing potions, regeants, and other healing equipment (including exotic stuff like phoenix down at high levels).

No edition has really allowed for equipment to sub for a cleric, but I'm not sure if it such a bad idea. I know people want an all-martial party, but like the problem of skill overlap, I don't mind a few costs to playing against type. After all, an all rogue party doesn't have to be optimized, just viable.