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

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think I at last see the abstraction from the perspective of the 4th Edition players.

You're just deciding when to give it that extra effort under stress, the same as your character would if under duress and desperate. Is that correct?

Exactly. What other interpretation could there possibly be really? You take some 'damage', which could be physical or luck or morale or whatever, but it hampers and drains your willingness and ability to fight. You take a few seconds, shake your head, wipe your eyes, look around at your friends fighting for their lives and you dive back in, cuts, broken ribs, exhaustion, etc put aside, for a while. Being a big hero type you can do this a few times a day and some minor magic can revitalize you a bit a few times before you hit rock bottom and then bad things happen.

Now and then bad things happen to PCs even if they're NOT totally drained of reserves. People can say it is 'ambiguous' what sort of shape you're in, but I don't think within reason that's really true. We should also look at it narratively from the standpoint of what the character knows and experiences. Characters don't really know how bad they've been hit. Every time you talk to someone who's been shot they almost always say they barely felt it or didn't know it happened, and same with other types of wounds. When you're going full tilt (and rounds are only a few seconds long) and my character suddenly finds himself sprawled on the ground he's not real likely to know if he's bleeding to death, has a concussion, has guts hanging out, broken bones, or what. He just knows if he can get up again and that he's game to try. Immediate hitpoints represents more "ability to will yourself to fight" than anything else. Sure, if your character is crushed flat he's just dead, but that's why there's a negative bloodied limit.

 

[BryonD]

Exactly. What other interpretation could there possibly be really? You take some 'damage', which could be physical or luck or morale or whatever, but it hampers and drains your willingness and ability to fight. You take a few seconds, shake your head, wipe your eyes, look around at your friends fighting for their lives and you dive back in, cuts, broken ribs, exhaustion, etc put aside, for a while. Being a big hero type you can do this a few times a day and some minor magic can revitalize you a bit a few times before you hit rock bottom and then bad things happen.

But no matter what you describe ALL effects of the damage are permanently removed by surges.

We have a blend of physical and abstract damage.
You can constrain the abstract damage so that it behaves in tune with the physical (as I described above) or you can constrain the physical so that it behaves in tune with the abstract as you describe here.

I have no comment on preference for one over the other.
But it is a HUGE difference and more than enough justification for not wanting anything like surges in the game.

 

[Naszir]

And you are not set in your ways?

Just because someone thinks that a given game mechanic is lame doesn't mean that they are inflexible. It means that they think that the game mechanic is lame.

Well, no. Someone asked if there were other ways to come up with alternative ways of healing. I wrote down something I came up with.

You said "lame."

I and others came up with ways that might describe how healing surges work.

You said healing surges are a stupid mechanic.

I have played the game with and without healing surges. I was never totally sold on hit points as literally how much physical damage a character can take. But I still played the game. I thought things might be improved upon.

When the game designers started to say "Hey, hit points are abstract, it not all about physical damage." That made sense to me.

They tried ways of coming up with a better model. It hasn't been perfected yet but I have liked where they are headed.

I don't want to put words in your mouth but you seem to say "No ... no ... lame ... stupid." There seems to be no evolution with you.

If you don't want 5E to have healing surges should hit points and healing stay the same as it was in 3E or some earlier edition?

For me I am hoping they find a way to model hit points a little better and there is an evolution that a majority of us gamers can go, "nice, I like that."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Leave them out of the core rules, yes...not omit them from the game entirely. I don't see why they can't be optional.

First of all, that only solves the problem for YOU, not for me.

Second of all I would contend you CANNOT DO THAT because you have to be able to define in some fashion how tough characters are from the start. That isn't something that can be 'modular' because changing it changes the very definition of everything else in the game. It isn't some optional rule you can just slap on and magically everything works.

I don't know, I could be more or less correct on that second point, but all my experience with designing and tweaking games says it is true to a high degree. We'll see what time brings, but I'm not going to be satisfied with some sort of half-arsed bandaide version of what we had in 4e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's the thing. If someone is exhausted, it's very difficult and nearly impossible to rally yourself. Rallying is force of will, but even PCs with low will type stats (Wisdom or Will or whatever) are capable of doing it every single time.

What's the point of having hit points represent fatigue if the PC can just blow that off at will?

The mechanic doesn't follow a reasonable rationale, the rationales suggested are shoe horned into following the mechanic.

Narrative driven is always better than game mechanic driven. Sometimes, one cannot help but use the game mechanic, but if there is a better one than this one (which over half of the respondents here want to eliminate), then let's get to one where the mechanic follows the narrative and not the other way around.

Yeah, I just don't agree that it is a mechanics-first thing. It models the way people 'rally' themselves. Perfectly? Maybe not, but then hit points by themselves don't perfectly represent 'damage' or anything else either. If they did then falling off a cliff would involve something like a % loss of hit points or use some other mechanism.

 

[harlokin]

First of all, that only solves the problem for YOU, not for me.

Second of all I would contend you CANNOT DO THAT because you have to be able to define in some fashion how tough characters are from the start. That isn't something that can be 'modular' because changing it changes the very definition of everything else in the game. It isn't some optional rule you can just slap on and magically everything works.

I don't know, I could be more or less correct on that second point, but all my experience with designing and tweaking games says it is true to a high degree. We'll see what time brings, but I'm not going to be satisfied with some sort of half-arsed bandaide version of what we had in 4e.

I agree. What Hit Points represent is a fundamental part of the game, and whatever is decided has a major knock-on for many other parts.

I would like to see Hit Points made what they were originally described as; an abstract of all sorts of defences, luck, toughness etc.

As part of this, Hit Points IMO need to be separated from a Character's Constitution score, perhaps granting some sort of bonus to Hit Points for each attribute.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not when they get hit in the head three times with a sword (as per the balance of hit point mechanics in the game system, it usually takes 3 shots to knock someone unconscious).

You watch too many Die Hard movies. Our entire culture watches too many Die Hard movies. Go talk to a real soldier whose been shot, even in the arm or the leg. The body goes into shock the vast majority of the time. End of story. Even with training, the vast majority of people cannot overcome major wounds.

If the PC is unconscious because of a beat down and might die, he shouldn't just pop up at will like a marionette.

Sorry, but your opinion here is utterly preposterous as are the game mechanics that we are discussing. These rules are for player entitlement and nothing else. They come nowhere near plausibility. Yes, one can pretend that every PC knocked unconscious is just a bit exhausted, but it's just stupid that getting clawed and bitten by a Dragon means that your PC is merely tired and out of luck.

Nobody claims that the mechanics of ANY version of D&D is exactly realistic, so lets just cut it with the BS on that score.

But YES, people ACTUALLY DO THESE THINGS.

"Although previously wounded by enemy hand grenade fragments, he proceeded to carry out a bold, single-handed attack against the bunker, exhorting his comrades to follow him. Sustaining 2 additional wounds as he stormed toward the emplacement, he resolutely pulled the pin from a grenade clutched in his hand..."

"Pfc. Albanese was mortally wounded when he engaged and killed 2 more enemy soldiers in fierce hand-to-hand combat."

"Sgt. Beikirch ran immediately through the hail of fire. Although he was wounded seriously by fragments from an exploding enemy mortar shell, Sgt. Beikirch carried the officer to a medical aid station. Ignoring his own serious injuries, Sgt. Beikirch left the relative safety of the medical bunker to search for and evacuate other men who had been injured. He was again wounded as he dragged a critically injured Vietnamese soldier to the medical bunker while simultaneously applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to sustain his life. Sgt. Beikirch again refused treatment and continued his search for other casualties until he collapsed. Only then did he permit himself to be treated."

You can go on and on with examples of people just plain going on and getting back up and being ridiculously punished. There are FAR BETTER examples, but I'm not about to spend hours digging them up.

Again, PCs are not your average guy walking down the street. They're people who are going knowingly into extreme danger, actively defending themselves and expecting to suffer for it.

 

[BryonD]

First of all, that only solves the problem for YOU, not for me.

Second of all I would contend you CANNOT DO THAT because you have to be able to define in some fashion how tough characters are from the start. That isn't something that can be 'modular' because changing it changes the very definition of everything else in the game. It isn't some optional rule you can just slap on and magically everything works.

I don't know, I could be more or less correct on that second point, but all my experience with designing and tweaking games says it is true to a high degree. We'll see what time brings, but I'm not going to be satisfied with some sort of half-arsed bandaide version of what we had in 4e.

I actually agree with this from the other side.

I'm skeptical of their ability to produce a system that is both compatible with 4E style healing and at the same time better than what I have now.

Now, big picture, if healing isn't as good as what I have now and the overall game may still be better and I'll work it out. But anything approaching 4E style healing is going to put them in a notable deficit from the word "go".
I respect that the same concern would apply in reverse.

 

[CleverNickName]

First of all, that only solves the problem for YOU, not for me.

I didn't say it was a problem that needed solving. They are just two different ways of looking at the same thing, that's all. It would be problematic to remove healing surges from 4E, or to add them to 3.5E, but that is not what we are talking about here.

Second of all I would contend you CANNOT DO THAT because you have to be able to define in some fashion how tough characters are from the start. That isn't something that can be 'modular' because changing it changes the very definition of everything else in the game. It isn't some optional rule you can just slap on and magically everything works.

Agreed. This is precisely why some people don't particularly care for the Healing Surge mechanic.

We'll see what time brings, but I'm not going to be satisfied with some sort of half-arsed bandaide version of what we had in 4e.

I don't think anybody would, honestly. But from what I've read so far, it doesn't sound like 5E will be anything of the sort. They aren't talking about "fixing 4E," they are talking about "going back to basics." If anything, it sounds like they are bandaging the old BECM rules, not 4E.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But no matter what you describe ALL effects of the damage are permanently removed by surges.

We have a blend of physical and abstract damage.
You can constrain the abstract damage so that it behaves in tune with the physical (as I described above) or you can constrain the physical so that it behaves in tune with the abstract as you describe here.

I have no comment on preference for one over the other.
But it is a HUGE difference and more than enough justification for not wanting anything like surges in the game.

No, it doesn't. When you use Second Wind or most healing powers you're removing surges, and if you don't think that's a consequence you haven't played in any game I've run, because you ARE going to need those surges later, and you're going to be sorry you had to use them now. If that isn't a consequence then what is?

The problem is every 'constraint' you propose is to simply eliminate any of the nice things that surges do model. Your proposal was ridiculously limited and would add nothing to the game that some simple proportional healing rule wouldn't add. Don't toss out some useless crumb and then tell me you're willing to compromise, lol.

Everyone is justified in having their own preferences. Don't mistake my defense of mine as an attack on anyone else's. I'm sure we all feel the same way on that. If we can all get something we're reasonably satisfied with that's fine. Everyone has to be actually willing to compromise some though. Having a "surge that restores some HP at the end of the day" is not compromise IMHO. I'm asking for a bit more than that.