D&D 5E Second Wind: Yes or No?

[Sunseeker]

That depends on whether or not you want the hit point system to also represent stamina over the course of a day. If so, then yes, something in the system will resemble healing surges. Currently, that's hit dice.

But limits on magical healing do not need to draw from that pool. It can have its own limitations. Either by limiting how much magical healing a character may receive, or by reducing the supply. I prefer a little of both. The big win of keeping them separate from natural healing is that these limitations can be added or removed from the game at will without any modification to the mechanics of healing, and the same goes for hit dice.

One thing I liked about surges is that in some ways, it represented that the body can only be magically knit back together so many times. One of the MTG Ravnica block books had a character who'd basically reached that limit. The strain placed on the body through using magic(potions, spells, etc) is so intense that it can kill. I mean, you're basically using magic to cause the body to regrow significantly damaged portions of itsself in a few seconds. Even if we toss out hands up and say "it's magic", I rather like the idea that all but the very most powerful magic ever, is not perfect. It doesn't simply create something out of nothing, it causes your body to utilize magical energy in place of normal nutrients and gives your cells new, extreme instructions on what to do with it. There's no way that's gonna have no negative effects on your body.

But I honestly think that there isn't a good way to model this without something that basically looks like healing surges. Regardless of if the healing surges represent an inverse wounds system on how many heals your body can withstand, or if it represents your own healing capability. You either put in some kind of diminishing returns on the caster, or the recipient. The former is too complex to be a good solution, and the latter is basically healing surges.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

One thing I liked about surges is that in some ways, it represented that the body can only be magically knit back together so many times. One of the MTG Ravnica block books had a character who'd basically reached that limit. The strain placed on the body through using magic(potions, spells, etc) is so intense that it can kill. I mean, you're basically using magic to cause the body to regrow significantly damaged portions of itsself in a few seconds. Even if we toss out hands up and say "it's magic", I rather like the idea that all but the very most powerful magic ever, is not perfect. It doesn't simply create something out of nothing, it causes your body to utilize magical energy in place of normal nutrients and gives your cells new, extreme instructions on what to do with it. There's no way that's gonna have no negative effects on your body.

But I honestly think that there isn't a good way to model this without something that basically looks like healing surges. Regardless of if the healing surges represent an inverse wounds system on how many heals your body can withstand, or if it represents your own healing capability. You either put in some kind of diminishing returns on the caster, or the recipient. The former is too complex to be a good solution, and the latter is basically healing surges.

I absolutely agree with the fluff, but healing surges are a fairly poor mechanism for modeling that. Better would be a reverse system where every time you are magically healed you must roll a constitution save. The more you are healed over time, the higher the DC becomes and the worse the effects are for failing.

The biggest advantage of this method is that it creates uncertainty. Over time, healing becomes a greater risk, with you never knowing exactly how much healing you'll be able to take.

 

[Ratskinner]

I like this approach much better. Next time I play AD&D I will even suggest that the DM give it a look. It doesn't break my brain with "HP as meat", it's simple, and it is adjustable. It does create a bit of a "Death Spiral" but some folks are okay with that, and in the context of AD&D it probably wouldn't matter as much.

Yeah, I haven't playtested it, but the penalties are the part that I am the most "iffy" about. Its possible within the context of D&D that the HP recovery caps would be enough.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Ratskinner]

Is that totally an advantage? "It's just a flesh wound" is well a trope for a reason. I guess that reason might relate to how uncertainty can be exciting.

To my mind, it is. If you wanted to add a penalty-less category of wound from 0-5, you could. However, in this system, such a wound would usually just be something that falls into the realm of hp loss. I don't find that the current HP system and its Schrodinger's wounds do anything to represent "its just a flesh wound" at all, other than if you narrate it that way...just like you can with this system.

Also some have pointed out how the three saves and you are out gives you a sense of active participation (though if I am not making a choice it doesnt do that for me).... or really suspense.

hmm...Well, you could easily change the injury roll to a series of saves like the 4e Death mechanics. Each failed save knocks you further down the injury chart.

 

[Shayuri]

Let me ask this, and forgive me if someone else proposed it...I have not had time to read all the posts in detail.

Can we use the surge mechanic to represent physical wounds?

A character's number of surges remains more or less constant over time. They are a metric of hit points that can be easily measured and accounted for.

So perhaps something like this:

Each surge value of HP you lose becomes a wound. A physical wound of a relatively minor, but not ignorable form. This is a little tricky because the wound occurs when the damage does, while surges are not tracked until the healing takes place. But in general, the amount of damage healed by a surge 'becomes' a wound and can then be kept track of by noticing that the surge has been used to 'heal' it.

Most 'normal' healing techniques are more about triage and keeping you going than healing these wounds. Basically, any of the standard leader "x/encounter" abilities that let you heal a surge+whatever fall into this category as do Second Winds. They let you keep going, but don't make the wounds go away.

So even if you have full hit points, if you look at your Surges left, you can see how hurt you are. If you have full HP but only 5 out of 10 surges, you've got some hurts. Bandaged, anesthetized, all under control and not threatening you...but they're there.

Then, instead of refreshing all surges with every Extended Rest, we can have some other mechanic that refreshes them...magically curing the wounds whether by divine might or other contrivance appropriate for the class in question. For a gritty and dangerous game, that mechanic may not be easily accessible, forcing characters to move more carefully as their bodies' injuries begin to pile up. The spirit is willing, but the flesh can be weak.

 

[JamesonCourage]

It looks to me like a viable alternative that just twangs my SoD buttons much as others say surges do for them

At least it's a viable alternative, since that's all Crazy Jerome asked for

- "Lethal Damage" explicitly points up hit points as "meat", and this makes literally no sense to me. My view of how wounding works (as opposed to the grinding out of "grit") just doesn't gel with this - it's a problem I have with GURPS, even, too.

That's probably because, in my RPG, HP is meat. THP is the rest (I use it mainly as fatigue/skill). Certain effects -like falling- bypass THP, and when you take HP damage, you usually take a wound. I left those bits out though, to answer the question.

- Healing can fix up "meat" damage to make it "non-lethal", but can't fix up the non-lethal "general battering" damage?? I'd be forever asking myself why this is so. Rocky's trainer can fix up all his cuts and bruises, but not get him up off the canvas - does not compute, sorry...

You can use the Heal skill in my game to negate or reduce penalties from wounds, but the actual damage needs rest. The same concept applies here. And, hey, magic is magic -it only heals lethal wounds, but it converts it to "general battering" damage. If that's all you've got, well, the magic can convert it to "general battering" damage again, but it won't help much.

But, as you say, play what you like. I do.

Indeed, good sir. Thanks for the reply. As always, play what you like

I find this to be fiddly, personally. I never liked tracking non-lethal damage, so I find the application to be rather clunky, but you probably just "get used to it" eventually.

Yeah, that's why I asked if it was too fiddly (I originally asked "too hard" before erasing it, since it's not really what I meant). It's not too fiddly for me, so I've had no problem with it.

It accomplishes some of the same goals as a surge mechanic, but for me, your system is much less useful, since I use surges to represent other things in my game; they're not just for "healing" - they're an important resource. I use them for fueling ritual magic and for recharging powers. To me, and in my campaigns, they really represent "stamina" in the truest sense.

I've got a couple fatigue conditions for long term fatigue, and a whole mechanic that I use for short term fatigue (THP). That'd be replicated -in spirit- very easily. Nonlethal damage is still an important resource, especially for those in armor, as getting hurt while in most armor gives you some nonlethal damage (while cutting down on damage you take), so you have to balance combat with healing with rest.

But, I don't use "recharging powers" other than by round. I mean, those I could easily add one. I mean, extremely easily. And you could tie that into THP or a fatigue condition, I guess. The spirit in-game would be the same, but the resource management would certainly be different. Though you could limit abilities you gain to "1/encounter" or even HP you gain to "only when someone unlocks it" or whatever. The game is very flexible.

I also take issue with the HP = meat approach. It just causes the kind of jarring game/fiction disconnect in my brain that CaGI does for others.

Yeah, I didn't mention it in that first post, but HP -in my RPG- is meat, while THP is the other stuff (though I usually use it as fatigue/skill). And, like I mentioned earlier in this post, certain effects bypass THP completely and hit your meat (falling damage, falling onto lava, being on fire, etc.). This starts getting more fiddly (though it's honestly pretty easy to run with because of how rare it is, and how few effects bypass THP), but it's really stopped the "disconnect" that my group had when we ran HP as completely "abstract".

I'm not disparaging your approach; clearly for you this works, but it won't work for what I want to do. These are the kind of options I want in the game though; we should both be able to have our way if they do it right

Ah, well, I won't be disappointed when they don't have what I want. Because my wants are now crystallized due to making my own RPG. So, I know -for sure- that I won't swap to 5e as my main system. However, these options might be nice when somebody like my brother runs a D&D game that I want to play in (though he currently runs a game using my system as well).

Really, while the option would be nice in a theoretical sense, I'm not worried about it, really. I have what I want, and when I go to a D&D game, I know to expect D&D tropes, quirks, and failings. I include the HP system among these three. Anyways, thanks for the feedback and civility. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

the idea with someone else spending your surges for you is that you depend on that person to spur yourself on, but the consequence of that is then you have a resource that is not really yours and get your character "played by" another player at the table.

I think your table plays healing surges differently from me. At my table it is the player whose surge it is who spends it - but depending on circumstances etc, that player may have to get another player to actually use a power. There is no sense that when A's PC benefits from B's PC's healing effect, B is playing A's character. B is playing B's character, B's character says something inspiring/invigorating, and A then chooses to spend a surge -ie it is A who decides that his/her PC has been ispired/invigorated.

For the verb, try "heal." Or the phrasing, "but only if I bind my wounds...or only if B binds my wounds." The skald's aura allows that to happen faster and more effectively

For me this is beyond the limits of my versimilitude tolerance. Admittedly I'm not a paramedic, but it takes me more than 6 seconds to stick a bandaid on one of my kid's scratches. The idea that I'd treat any serious injury in less than 6 seconds I find pretty laughable.

For me it's a bit like the "healer's kit" in D&Dnext, which costs a pittance, has 20 uses, and with each use can unlock more hit dice than a cure serious wounds spel. That's not a few splints and bandags, that's a healer's kit that medics in Traveller wishes they had access to! It utterly punctures my suspension of disbelief.

dying from shock already has a mechanic and doesn't need one related to HP. We call it a saving throw.

Psionics in A&D 1st ed did hit point damage. I'm not sure what physical injury this correspond to.

I know that's a corner case - I'm just putting it forward as a modest degree of corroborating evidence for the claim that it's never been unequivocal that hit point loss is tightly linked to physical injury.

 

[pemerton]

What amazes me is that people can tolerate doing that kind of calculus for spellcasters (or, in 4e, and even more complicated set of calculations for all characters, who have discrete abilities on different recharge times and healing surges, at a minimum).

Running a 10th level, or even 20th level, 4e PC is not as hard as running a 10th level A&D caster. I would say it's more like running a 5th-ish level caster, and without the memorisation requirements. (Some controllers might be an exception, because of the need to mange all their fiddly differences in effects.)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think VP/WP come close, but I'm not sure if the need to track an extra "hit point" score will cause it to fail your criteria B.

B's not really the problem there. You can make VP/WP reasonably simple or ridiculously complex as you want. The real issue is that VP/WP as usually portrayed doesn't address A at all. If you make the "wounds" address A, you'll end up with something mechanical similar to surges, and thus fail C.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'll give it a go. Although, some of your conditions are rather subjective. I've never playtested this, so the numbers are just speculative. In particular, I'm not sure the penalties are worth their overhead outside a gritty campaign.

...

If an attack reduces a character HP to zero or less, or a character with 0 hp is hit, they must make an injury roll of d20 + the excess damage.

...

Anyway, that's my first draft. I've been thinking about trying something like this in the Old-school game I play in.

Realizing that my criteria is rather vague, my objection here is that it doesn't really address condition A. If there is plenty of healing magic, the character can be fully healed with relative ease. Moreover, a character can lose a lot of hit points over the course of a day or adventure and never take a "wound" to even need magical healing.

Another way of thinking about criteria A is that characters can be worn down, but can still operate well enough to keep going when somewhat worn down. An example would be, say, a party of 7th level BECMI characters with a few potions and clerical magic, set in a campaign and in a group where the DM worked hard to keep the balance of such healing congruent with the risk and flow. That is, that's an example of a matching result, even if the BECMI rules didn't satisfy the criteria either.

Theoretically, you could get this in a BECMI-style game (or some aspects of Next) by having healing magic have diminishing returns. A healing spell works great the first time, but then your body has to rest to make up the difference before it will work at 100% again. Cast enough in a short time, it stops working at all. However, explore making this mechanic robust and simple, and you'll end up putting limits on healing at the character's end, not the source of the healing. Explore a little more, and you'll end up with something like surges.