D&D 5E Should 5E have Healing Surges?

[CleverNickName]

The key question is how is the 4e HP system any less realistic than say the 3.5 HP system? In 3.5 my 5th level fighter probably has at least 40 hit points or so (certainly no less than the high 20's and that would be pretty crappy). He can fall off a 100 foot cliff (10d6 damage) and his chance of being killed by that is well under 50/50. He can stand and take 8 average sword blows or longbow arrows hitting him. This is already so ludicrously unrealistic that comparing the two systems and talking about which is more realistic is like talking about if a pink elephant is more realistic than a loch ness monster or a flying saucer.

The key answer then, is "it's not." Which is more realistic: a wounded soldier healing himself just by being awesome, or a wounded soldier being healed by unicorn dust? My distaste for healing surges has nothing to do with making the game more realistic.

I dislike them because they do not fit the style of game that I have grown to love. Hit points have always meant a certain thing to me, and I don't really feel the need to redefine them. That's all.

 

[TwinBahamut]

It seems the large majority of those advocating for healing surges disagree with this assessment. It seems to be the consensus that HP represents mostly nonphysical damage, and healing surges help represent that. If so, your reasoning doesn't really hold, for me. But hey, that's me.

No, I think [MENTION=83870]Kingreaper[/MENTION] has the right of it. I know I've said that HP can't represent serious injury, but things like minor scratches and bruises, as well as the general sense of being battered and exhausted, works just fine in the context of the hit point and healing surge system.

I have never seen a fantasy movie or read a fantasy story or played a pre-4E game where it seemed that magical healing wasn't externally sourced, and since the soul of D&D is now officially the story, I see no great reason to suddenly change my story.

Well, I have seen fantasy stories where magical healing had its limits based on the physical limits of the patient. Even a few videogames have taken that approach for story reasons. I've always loved that approach. It feels more real to me. It makes magic more of an art with strengths and weaknesses, rather than a miracle that can fix anything. It helps explain why some things can be healed and others can't. It just makes things more interesting.

 

[Mattachine]

I like healing surges, but I fully understand why they seem wrong to many players.

I just want the game to have some mechanism for healing aside from painfully slow "natural" healing or clerics. Very few fantasy novels/movies/shows I have watched prominently feature healing magic of a type similar to arcane magic--meaning healing spells or healing wands.

What do I see in lots of fantasy works? Heroes recovering after a fight, then going on to fight some more.

As long as D&D keeps a way to heal without clerics, I will be happy. Hit points have always been an abstraction in standard D&D rules, for all editions. Likewise, recovering hp can be an abstraction, too.

 

[LurkAway]

Well, I have seen fantasy stories where magical healing had its limits based on the physical limits of the patient. Even a few videogames

Well I'll stop you right there because videogames as inspiration is contentious Back to the story inspiration, I think healing that triggers internal reserves is great for low fantasy that is trying to ground fantasy with some gritty realism, but in 4e, where you can knock a hydra prone, insult a skeleton to death, and teleport constantly -- is it really so impossible and uninteresting to have healing that is truly magical? I see a huge inconsistency there, based not on finding cohesiveness in fantasy tropes and getting the "best" story, but based on justification/rationalizaton of preexisting mechanics. Given that I know there are highly enjoyable alternatives (pre-4e and high fantasy stories), I just don't know how to see it any other way.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Well I'll stop you right there because videogames as inspiration is contentious

I know you say that in jest, but I still find this really irritating. I'd rather use videogames as inspiration than long-forgotten 70s fantasy novels, at the very least...

Back to the story inspiration, I think healing that triggers internal reserves is great for low fantasy that is trying to ground fantasy with some gritty realism, but in 4e, where you can knock a hydra prone, insult a skeleton to death, and teleport constantly -- is it really so impossible and uninteresting to have healing that is truly magical?

4E does have healing that ignores healing surges, though. One of them is a level 2 Cleric Utility called Cure Light Wounds. Accepting the limitations of healing surges upon HP restoration as the standard is not the same thing as denying the possibility of healing that ignores that rule.

I see a huge inconsistency there, based not on finding cohesiveness in fantasy tropes and getting the "best" story, but based on justification/rationalizaton of preexisting mechanics. Given that I know there are highly enjoyable alternatives (pre-4e and high fantasy stories), I just don't know how to see it any other way.

I really don't think there is any cohesiveness of fantasy tropes to be found, outside of the very fundamental stuff that has existed long before "fantasy" was ever conceived as an idea. Every fantasy story has its own internal logic and worldview. Using a worldview that favors the game mechanics you want to use is simply a part of good game design. Story and mechanics should not be enemies, after all.

 

[LurkAway]

Using a worldview that favors the game mechanics you want to use is simply a part of good game design. Story and mechanics should not be enemies, after all.

Oh, but in D&D, for me, they were sometimes enemies. Then in 4E, sometimes bitter awful enemies, totally dissonant -- sometimes the story was free as a bird to do what it wanted, and sometimes the story was like a slave bound in chains on its knees beholden to its Mechanical Master...

Ahem, sorry, what was I talking about?

 

[Kingreaper]

A post I made on the WotC forums that might be relevant: Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

I really love the mechanic of Healing Surges. But I get that a lot of people don't like them.

The thing is, a lot of the arguments against them are more based on the flavour, than the basic mechanic.

So here's an idea I was thinking about on how to tweak them:

For each 25% of your max HP you lose in any given encounter, you gain a wound. You have a limited number of wounds you can take before you're debilitated (can't be granted HP normally, and can't fight, pretty much crawling/being carried) based on your class and/or constitution.

The rate at which wounds recover is an explicitly variable thing. You can have them recover daily, or take weeks to fully heal.

Outside of combat you can rest up and restore your HP, but the wounds stay constant.

Most healing does nothing to wounds, so a Warlord would restore your HP, your will to fight, but do nothing for your wounds.

The major exception is obvious: Cure Light Wounds heals you 25% of your HP, and heals a wound. Cure Moderate Wounds heals 2 wounds, and 50% of HP. Etc.


How does this differ from Healing Surges? Primarily in the fact that you take wounds IMMEDIATELY from the damage, rather than using HS to restore yourself after the damage.

More importantly, the FEEL of the mechanic is different. By calling them "wounds" you make it obvious that HP are not wounds, per se, and by having them be permanent you show that a warlord isn't HEALING, but rather INSPIRING.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The key answer then, is "it's not." Which is more realistic: a wounded soldier healing himself just by being awesome, or a wounded soldier being healed by unicorn dust? My distaste for healing surges has nothing to do with making the game more realistic.

I dislike them because they do not fit the style of game that I have grown to love. Hit points have always meant a certain thing to me, and I don't really feel the need to redefine them. That's all.

He's not healing himself. He has exactly the same number of hit points AFTER he uses his Second Wind as before. He's just less close to the point where he's going to make a fatal mistake or collapse flat on the floor from exhaustion right this instant.

The point is, people argue that straight HP seems 'more realistic' as a logical argument. There is none.

See, I can see the people saying "full healing in one day! That's preposterous". I can imagine having one HS restored per day and saying that yeah, once you got to a certain point somewhere in there one of those hits or the cumulative effect of a few of them really did you a good number and you're functioning below normal. That could create more fun resource games, and it feels a LOT more thematic to me that our hero goes off somewhere at the end of the day and gets his magic healing potion vs having to sip them all day.

 

[SteveC]

I find it quite dispiriting how many people reject any concept of Healing Surges (in whatever form /whatever compromise) out-of-hand.

As I said in the earlier post: I think it's because they were too much out in the open, and were open metagaming. I think a lot of the things WotC did with 4E were the equivalent of showing how the sausage was made.

I expect 5E to return to much more of the trappings of the past, where the players had to figure out how many healing surges they have as a group by what characters they have and the magic items they acquire (or are allowed to acquire).

I also think there will be much less of a notion of hit points being a nebulous concept, and more of them as a representation of physical toughness. We seem to have lower total HPs talked about, although I really hope someone reminds the designers that they said a D4 is too few hit points per level even back in the 3.5 era.

In the present system, I have no idea why only magic can restore your stamina, luck, or will to survive, which is what hit points are described as, but that seems to be the flavor of the moment.

 

[merelycompetent]

Healing surges, as a mechanic in 4E core, do not appeal to me at all. For me and most of my crowd, that would be a deal-breaker.

Now, if it was modified (especially so that my ~magic~ potion of healing still works even if I'm out of healing surges) and used to reduce the Cleric-In-A-Sack(tm)... er, I mean, bag of holding full of wands tendency in earlier editions, then it becomes much more acceptable.

IIRC, even the 1E monk had a self-healing mechanic. So it's not like it's completely foreign to old school play.

I think any mechanics like this will absolutely depend on the balance of the classes against each other, what changes they make to the HP mechanics, and how good a job the designers do of keeping the *magic* in the magic system.

If self-healing is so prevalent and/or thorough that it's magical, then it won't work for a wide enough audience. Just look at the threads containing arguments about going from death's door to mildly battered. If self-healing isn't "good enough", then we'll see a run on Clerics-In-A-Sack (tm).

(Yes, I'm exaggerating. But I think you get my point.)

I'm hoping for an optional Recovery mechanic, similar to some of the ones already described. Maybe even as simple as "Class x recovers y hitpoints with a 5 minute rest, a number of times per day equal to level. Recovery can happen only once per combat/encounter/scene."

Along with that, I hope they keep the Bloodied mechanics. That made for a number of cool fights when I houseruled it into my existing game.