Schroedinger's Wounding (Forked Thread: Disappointed in 4e)

[Herremann the Wise]

Herreman, one narration I've heard suggested (can't remember by whom) for healing of an unconscious ally by the warlord is this: that as the ally lies on the ground, having given up the fight, they suddenly remember the warlord, and their duty to him/her and their other allies, and rouse themselves into action. (For a cinematic instance of this, think of Aragorn's recovery from the fall over the cliff in the Two Towers movie.)

Of course, this way of doing it opens up even more the gap between gameworld and mechanics - as the use by the warlord's player of the healing power does not correspond to something that the warlord PC is actually doing in the gameworld at that time - and so may not be attractive to you.

Story-wise this is great. I can even imagine my fat agressive slob of a tiefling warlord berating the other PCs that if they fall when he's still up, he'll haunt their dreams for eternity... but as an ongoing repeated happening, this one's going to run a little thin. In the end to accept this healing as working, you either have to come up with a commonsense approach that is repeatable, producing a narrative that doesn't conflict with what's happening (which at the moment I can't), or you just have to shrug the shoulders and say - well that's how it works... um... yeah.

Or, you can do what our group did and say, "hey, while this would be real handy, it doesn't make sense so we'll house rule against it".

Thanks Pemerton anyway for the response, I really appreciate your time and thoughts.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

What I would like to see, instead of a 'repeatable narrative', is for the warlord's player describing a narrative appropriate to the scene...

Until that ideal group of players lands at my table, I think I am stuck with:
or you just have to shrug the shoulders and say - well that's how it works... um... yeah

 

[Fifth Element]

Fast healing is laughably easy to set up in D&D 0 to 3.5. Hecek, in 3.0 and 3.5, you can even use the "Fast Healing" quality, adding it to all PCs or all creatures....whatever it is you want.

You're missing the point here, I think. The point is, per RAW, the pre-4E healing system produces a ridiculous result. It must produce a ridiculous result, because RAW says it takes a mighty warrior longer to recover from the same wounds as a wimpy wizard. Your suggested solution seems to be: just house rule it away.

But when you see a ridiculous result in 4E's healing, we go on and on and on about it. Why not just house rule it away? You only get a certain proportion of your healing surges back per day of rest, for instance.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're missing the point here, I think. The point is, per RAW, the pre-4E healing system produces a ridiculous result. It must produce a ridiculous result, because RAW says it takes a mighty warrior longer to recover from the same wounds as a wimpy wizard. Your suggested solution seems to be: just house rule it away.

No; my suggested solution is that you are misunderstanding what hit points represent. I went into no small amount of detail about the same; no house rules were needed. The "damage" unrecovered by the mighty warrior represents less than 1 hp damage to the wimpy wizard, not because warriors take longer to heal, but because hit points do not have an absolute value.

IOW, especially in 1e, these are explicitly not the same wounds.

OTOH, if you want to change the paradigm presented, you must house rule. And, it is easier to do so in (say) 1e than 3e, or in 3e than 4e. IMHO, of course.

Unlike, say, falling damage in 1e (and etc.), which consistently produces ridiculous results and requires house ruling if you want to avoid them.

But when you see a ridiculous result in 4E's healing, we go on and on and on about it. Why not just house rule it away? You only get a certain proportion of your healing surges back per day of rest, for instance.

I have said many, many times upthread that, were there not other problems with 4e that are just as problematical to me, I would do exactly that.

However, I should note that the argument is the result not of an inability to devise houserules where needed, but the inability of some folks to recognize that the RAW might result in ridiculous results in the first place. I.e., the cut & paste-go-round only continues due to the denial that the RAW consistently produces a result where one of the following occurs: (1) players disjoin game mechanics from narration, (2) players do not narrate portions of the game results related to the in-world meaning of damage and/or healing, (3) players retcon narration, or (4) plays accept that ridiculous results will ensue.

AFAICT, every "solution" presented requires either changing the RAW (house-ruling) or dealing with one of the four situations outlined above. Some of the houserule suggestions are good ones, and some playstyles make one or more of the four RAW options above less problematical.

And, out of curiosity, why blame me that "we go on and on and on about it"? You're free to get off the cut & paster -go-round any time you want.




RC

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Raven Croewking and Fifth Element step away from the thread, it might not have heard you.
To continue on this path, madness lies and ye'll be cursed to forever haunt the interwebs disputing the relative weight of a hit point between a wizard and a barbarian and the rest of us will have to read it.

 

[firesnakearies]

I.e., the cut & paste-go-round only continues due to the denial that the RAW consistently produces a result where one of the following occurs: (1) players disjoin game mechanics from narration, (2) players do not narrate portions of the game results related to the in-world meaning of damage and/or healing, (3) players retcon narration, or (4) plays accept that ridiculous results will ensue.

AFAICT, every "solution" presented requires either changing the RAW (house-ruling) or dealing with one of the four situations outlined above.

Gah, this continues to drive me crazy. This seemingly automatic and totally unchallenged assumption that the four options listed above are, essentially, the only ones on the table.

Now, the fifth option I'd propose COULD simply be a subset of your (4) above, but in my opinion, you'd simply be applying the word "ridiculous" in a pretty darn arbitrary manner at that point.


What about:

(5) Players assume that D&D 4E takes place in a much more inherently magical world than Earth, every PC is somewhat superheroic and "magical" in some sense, and so the heroes recovering with seemingly-miraculous speed from terrible injuries without requiring the aid of Arcane or Divine spells or items is not a narrative disconnect, but merely a different theme for the game, and a different model of in-world physical reality?


I totally understand that lots of players don't LIKE that kind of world, that kind of narrative, that kind of underlying assumption as to how the D&D fantasy world works, but not liking it doesn't mean that it literally cannot be considered as being what the game is intended to model.


The ONLY argument I've ever seen against that possibility amounts to "Yeah, but I don't want to play that kind of game. I want to play Conan or Lord of the Rings, not The X-Men."

I get that, and more power to you, but that PREFERENCE doesn't totally invalidate the possibility that 4th Edition D&D is built to represent a different sort of fantasy world than you're used to or would prefer.


I'm not asking that anyone embrace that idea, if they don't like it. I just want to see the possibility listed with the others, because if it is, it means that not EVERY choice has to equal an inherent brokenness in the game or a necessary willful choice by players to turn a blind eye to something intrinsically inconsistent.


Of course, you could say, "That's just part of (4), because suggesting that anyone would recover from being disemboweled to being just FINE after a night's rest, or following a rousing pep talk from the Sarge (who has never studied a lick of magic in his life), is plainly ludicrous."

But that's just a personal preference issue in game theme. There's nothing MORE ridiculous about that kind of "fantasy world physics" than any of the other "not congruent with Earth reality" assumptions and tropes which are already widely accepted by gamers and fantasy fiction lovers.

And, in my view, since the game rules as written directly suggest that such IS the way the D&D world actually works, in-game and in-narrative, it's my opinion that the possibility that 4th Edition is, in fact, built around such an assumption of altered reality, and thus contains no actual disconnect between the mechanics and the in-story occurrences.


I'd be MUCH happier to see people saying something like,

"Oh wow, WotC has turned D&D into Marvel Superheroes, and every character is Wolverine now. How lame! The rules are consistent with that in-world narrative reality, so it works as a game system with no need to jump through hoops, thus it isn't actually broken as such. However, I REALLY hate that thematic choice, and feel that it doesn't adequately present the kind of fantasy world and story that I want to play in, or am used to, and I will thus either change the game or not play it. Furthermore, I'm so unhappy about this drastic change to the basic nature of the game world and fantasy style of D&D that I'm going to continue to complain about it here, because it was really such a poor idea,"

instead of,

"There's NO possible way that anyone could EVER intend to tell a fantasy story in which the heroes heal that fast naturally, or in which some non-magic-using mundane guy shouting at your unconscious body suddenly causes a giant axe wound in your chest to close as you jump back to your feet ready to fight. That's just silly. So therefore, D&D 4E is BROKEN and in order to make it work, you HAVE TO play all sorts of metagamey narrative tricks or change the rules themselves for consistency with the only sort of "realism" which could POSSIBLY be considered "non-ridiculous". This is so patently obvious that in any discussion of this whole topic, I will always portray the situation such that the game MUST BE flawed, and the ONLY options are to ignore the rules, ignore the narrative, perform an amazing juggling act with the rules and the narrative to fit my idea of what should be realistic, or house rule some stuff."


The first example above is reasonable, to me. I don't mind people HATING the new edition, bashing it, loudly stating that it doesn't fit their preferences, and even saying that it's "not D&D as I understand the definition". But the second example is what I'm seeing a LOT of, whether or not they put it in such direct terms, and it just seems extremely tunnel-visioned to me.


This is not a straw man. This is really how I see the arguments playing out in these threads.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Gah, this continues to drive me crazy. This seemingly automatic and totally unchallenged assumption that the four options listed above are, essentially, the only ones on the table.

Sorry, firesnakearies, I should have listed an option (5) where the world acts in accordance to the rules, whether they make sense in terms of our real life world or not. I.e., where a game-human cannot necessarily be understood in terms of a real-world human. Frankly, I forgot your point when I wrote the bit you quoted.

It is certainly a valid solution, though not one I favour.


RC

 

[firesnakearies]

Sorry, firesnakearies, I should have listed an option (5) where the world acts in accordance to the rules, whether they make sense in terms of our real life world or not. I.e., where a game-human cannot necessarily be understood in terms of a real-world human. Frankly, I forgot your point when I wrote the bit you quoted.

It is certainly a valid solution, though not one I favour.


RC

Thank you! I'm happy now.


As an aside, I don't favor it especially, either. I'm houseruling the hell out of the damage system in 4E, myself. But it IS a perfectly valid way of interpreting the game, and I find it unfair that people seem to constantly overlook that.


EDIT: Oh, and wow, you put my own point MUCH more elegantly than I did! "option (5) where the world acts in accordance to the rules, whether they make sense in terms of our real life world or not. I.e., where a game-human cannot necessarily be understood in terms of a real-world human."

Great way of stating it, nice and succinctly.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thank you! I'm happy now.

Pleased to be of service.

Really, I wasn't attempting to pass over your solution, especially as it is the only one that I've had to add to the first time I parsed out the options oh-so-long-ago. Kudos to you, Sir!

If it helps, I have read comments where folks say 4e is like Marvel Superheroes, and healing surges are Wolverine-ish. I don't think the designers intended a supers game, though.

EDIT: Oh, and wow, you put my own point MUCH more elegantly than I did! "option (5) where the world acts in accordance to the rules, whether they make sense in terms of our real life world or not. I.e., where a game-human cannot necessarily be understood in terms of a real-world human."

Great way of stating it, nice and succinctly.

Thank you, Sir. Thank you very much.

(It is a rare day that I am more succinct than anyone else!


RC

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Gah, this continues to drive me crazy. This seemingly automatic and totally unchallenged assumption that the four options listed above are, essentially, the only ones on the table.

Now, the fifth option I'd propose COULD simply be a subset of your (4) above, but in my opinion, you'd simply be applying the word "ridiculous" in a pretty darn arbitrary manner at that point.


What about:

(5) Players assume that D&D 4E takes place in a much more inherently magical world than Earth, every PC is somewhat superheroic and "magical" in some sense, and so the heroes recovering with seemingly-miraculous speed from terrible injuries without requiring the aid of Arcane or Divine spells or items is not a narrative disconnect, but merely a different theme for the game, and a different model of in-world physical reality?

Interesting idea, personally not keen on it but interesting idea. Speaking for my self I am quite happy to view hit point as plot protection. Many years ago I decided that as a plysical wounds modeling system D&D (in all variation) was ludricous and went in search of better sytems, Rolemaster, GURPS and so forth. In the end of the day I decided if I was grim an gritty I'll use Warhammer and for more magical campaign I'll go back to D&D. But nobody get seriously hurt unless it is fatal. So no PC ends up as a blind beggar in the village green or dies screaming in the woods as gangerene eats his guts.
I want Conan the movie or LoTHR the movie with a bit more magic not the grim reality of medieval warfare.
To a certain extent why do people want realistic wounding? Not sure I understand the sandbox play argument. A week down time (with out magical healing) is sprained ligaments territory. Deep life threatening iwounds 2 to 6 months on the flat of your back and you survive because they cut off the rest of the limb. So your character is out for another year to retrain the cope with the missing appendage, if it is an arm or an eye.
And given the ubiquity of magical healing, from potions,pc characters and or wands, natural healing is almost never invoked so what exactly is all the fuss about anyway?
Combat narration, I do see the argument there, but don't understand as to why a healing surges used as are not taken into account.
Comparing 3e to 4e directly is not a proper comparison a 1st level fighter in 3e (absent magical healing) has Xhp but his 4e counter part has x*healingSurgeValue hit points.