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

[Raven Crowking]

So, have you made any changes to slow down natural healing in 3e? If not, why?

-O

RCFG will be my "big" attempt to deal with all of the problems in WotC-D&D, while dropping none of the improvements. (IMHO, of course; the farther you are from my game of choice, the less RCFG will be to your liking!) So, you will have the opportunity to see exactly how slow I think natural healing should be.

Well, on some level yes, on some level not. I think it should be possible to make a sandbox work with 6 hour rest periods just as well as 24 hour rest periods or 48 hour rest periods.

But I also believe that one of the biggest time factors should be travel times, not bed rest.

Sure, but as your cheese-o-meter might ding with instant teleports everywhere, mine dings with instant healing everywhere.

I don't see how it is relevant that theoretically the Fighter might never get healed in 24 (or 6) hours if on his own, when practically he is never on his own and will be healed by the party's Cleric or other magical healing in short time. What's stopping the sandbox player from using a Wand of Cure Light Wounds or the parties Cleric to get him his hit points back?

I have no problem with magic being able to achieve things that cannot be done without magic. From comments I am reading, I am not alone in this.

I ask this specifically because I know that a lot of the design decisions made to 4E are based on how the game is actually played and avoiding the rules first pretending something different and then still providing all the tools to play that way.

I missed how the game was "actually played" using mundane healing that took characters to full health overnight. IME, it never happened.

(But I am sure that some DMs handwaved travel time, so this "reasoning" should have made teleporting fighters the norm, right?)


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

RCFG will be my "big" attempt to deal with all of the problems in WotC-D&D, while dropping none of the improvements. (IMHO, of course; the farther you are from my game of choice, the less RCFG will be to your liking!) So, you will have the opportunity to see exactly how slow I think natural healing should be.

I wish you continually success, even though I know that I will not "like" the results considering our play style preferences.

Sure, but as your cheese-o-meter might ding with instant teleports everywhere, mine dings with instant healing everywhere.

No, not y cheese-o-meter. Just my "can I run a travel focused evening as I sometimes do"-o-meter.

I missed how the game was "actually played" using mundane healing that took characters to full health overnight. IME, it never happened.

Yes, it never happened, because nobody waited on natural healing.
The game was not played with people taking long rests to recover via mundane/natural healing. The game was played with Clerics or "Clerics-on-a-stick", making the fact that there was a rule for natural healing irrelevant.
This gives me a low result on my "Do I need a specific class to play the game the way I like"-o-meter, which I like, and also a good result on my cheese-o-meter, because I don't need to have cheesy magical items to at least rudimentary reduce the need for that class.

(But I am sure that some DMs handwaved travel time, so this "reasoning" should have made teleporting fighters the norm, right?)

If the game never uses travel times or overland travel because there is always someone in the party that can teleport it, yes. But this is only the case at around 9th level and upwards in 3E. So I think there should be just a "tier" of play where this is true.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The game was not played with people taking long rests to recover via mundane/natural healing. The game was played with Clerics or "Clerics-on-a-stick", making the fact that there was a rule for natural healing irrelevant.

Your Mileage Varies From Mine.

RC

 

[Baron Opal]

Interesting. But this assumes that all wounds above bloodied are non-physical, and all wounds below bloodied are physical. Which will generally not be the case.

Why do you say that? Since hit points are divorced from any real in-game physicality the DM can make that division arbitrarily.

 

[Baron Opal]

I missed how the game was "actually played" using mundane healing that took characters to full health overnight.

Yes, it never happened, because nobody waited on natural healing....
The game was played with Clerics or "Clerics-on-a-stick", making the fact that there was a rule for natural healing irrelevant.

Your Mileage Varies From Mine.

RC

Indeed. In my experience, after 5th level the party holed up somewhere after they got beat up badly and the cleric memorized all healing spells. The next day everyone was healed and the cleric rememorized his standard list. While jarring, having the party ready to rock after one sleep instead of two isn't very different from my expectations.

On the whole, I agree with RC about the benefits of sandbox style play. However, I find that choices have consequences is the main theme of that style of play. The choice of how much time to spend on healing is just one of many.

It does irritate me, however, that an ogre can use your ribcage as a xylophone and as long as you have at least a hit point left you'll be right as rain in the morning.

 

[Obryn]

Your Mileage Varies From Mine.

RC

By this, do you mean that clerics in your game don't cast heal spells as quickly? Or that wands of cure light wounds are unavailable?

-O

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Your Mileage Varies From Mine.

RC

I assume you mean you didn't rely on Clerics or Healing Wands?

If you don't the following might be alien to you because it doesn't fit your experience or playstyle:

If you look at the 3E situation, you will notice that a lot of groups will be loaded with Wands of Cure Light Wounds and similar items (at higher levels, Staffs of Healing also became popular) and use their Cleric to cover the rest.
Nobody relied on natural healing after the 1st level and their first 750 gp.

A designer can look at 3E and have different thoughts:
1) Wait, you can heal your character in 2 to 3 days to full hit points? That's not realistic, we need to make the healing rate slower.
2) What, it takes a Wizard longer to recover then a Fighter? We need to figure out a way to fix that.
3) Wait, nobody is using the natural healing rules in practice! Magical healing is too strong, we need to nerf that. Let's start by taking away these Wands of Cure Light Wounds
4) Wait, nobody is using natural healing and instead uses the Clerics divine spells and Wands of Cure Light Wounds to recover in short time! They are perfectly willing to accept that in a D&D world, apparently Priests ask their good for healing, and then some more healing, and then even some more healing, and everyone is running around with a stick that heals people, just to avoid having to use natural healing? And they even demand a Cleric (or at least a Druid) in every party to have enough of the healing?
Maybe Natural Healing is just too slow. All the rules do at the moment is creating a "healing tax", that becomes mostly irrelevant over time and is just some extra book-keeping. Let's remove this superflous stuff. Healing happens over night, done.

It's obvious that I agree mostly with designer #4. Maybe I would have added: "And to avoid someone asking, I put my thoughts in a neat little "Behind the Curtain" box or something..."


Of course, there is a yet a different way to look at it, not going by what players typically do in their campaigns, and instead asking what you personally want to do in your campaign. Certainly the best way to get a game you personally like, especially if the current alternatives are not very close to what you like.

 

[Raven Crowking]

By this, do you mean that clerics in your game don't cast heal spells as quickly? Or that wands of cure light wounds are unavailable?

-O

I have never played in a game with a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Ever.

Moreover, I have played in many games, over several editions, where the PC group didn't include a cleric.


RC

 

[Scribble]

That seems kind of sub optimal...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That seems kind of sub optimal...

Well, it certainly a different on a different scale: But not playing pun-pun is also suboptimal .