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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, I think getting a grip on the yo-yo-ing hit point total would solve half the problems all by itself, regardless of whether you had some form of surges or not. Obviously, the exact mechanics for 4E surges would have to change somewhat--if only in the numbers--to get that effect. But in 4E, it is as much a function of huge hit point totals and massive damage inflation, as it is the surge numbers themselves (an expansion of what 3E started, BTW). The surge numbers are merely set high to work with that other stuff.

I have my doubts that any solution would satisfy all the people here, and not so much on an edition disagreement as in how much to prioritize "immersion" and whose to prioritize versus making a clean design first and then trying to give it some sense of verisimilitude. But certainly, the task would be substantially easier than otherwise, with smaller hit point and damage numbers.

I disagree. The main reason for the somewhat larger numbers is granularity. The problem with the pre-4e hit point system was that for low level PCs it was horribly low res. When it was perfectly plausible for a PC to have the lowest possible number of hit points in the game there was no way for the system to modulate its lethality for that character AT ALL, thus the somewhat silly things like lethal house cats.

Changing the low end of the scale from 1 hit point to about 24 hit points for PCs allows for a nice range of effects. The lowest levels also can represent a lower ramping up since the starting point of the linear increase is higher. Now, maybe that as a rather big jump and we can have a smaller number represent the bottom of the humanoid hit point range.

Of course there was no point in or way to reasonably implement any mechanics that created a yo-yo with PCs having under 10 hit points, but frankly going back to that level of resolution is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Izumi]

Your opinion on surges doesn't really matter to my point.
I strongly disagree with the idea that accepting one unrealistic thing makes it unreasonable to accept another unrealistic thing or that rephrasing it as using history to argue against one thing makes history inapplicable arguing against another thing makes the point any stronger.

That same point in either phrasing removes the actual specifics from any context.

It is perfectly valid to selectively accept and reject unrealistic things and it is perfectly valid to selectively embrace and ignore historic evidence. The idea that these things are bad gets tossed around all the time and it is one of those really simple obvious SOUNDING lines that depends on the reader not really thinking it through. In practice what is presented as simple obviously true turns out to be false more often than not.

I had said that some of us like more verisimilitude than others. You missed that part. However, that doesn't change the fact it's silly to argue history to somebody that has no care for it in their games. Especially in this case where the issue was which hp abstraction fit better.

 

[Hassassin]

I disagree. The main reason for the somewhat larger numbers is granularity. The problem with the pre-4e hit point system was that for low level PCs it was horribly low res. When it was perfectly plausible for a PC to have the lowest possible number of hit points in the game there was no way for the system to modulate its lethality for that character AT ALL, thus the somewhat silly things like lethal house cats.

Changing the low end of the scale from 1 hit point to about 24 hit points for PCs allows for a nice range of effects. The lowest levels also can represent a lower ramping up since the starting point of the linear increase is higher. Now, maybe that as a rather big jump and we can have a smaller number represent the bottom of the humanoid hit point range.

Of course, they didn't do this by adding granularity (e.g. multiply all hp and damage by two), but a combination of 1) shifting the hp starting point a couple of levels higher and 2) reducing intra-party variation. Both these had other effects than solving the house cat problem, some of which (like the loss of gritty low levels) weren't universally liked.

I agree that granularity doesn't contribute to yo-yoing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm trying to follow the different threads here, but I'm getting turned around. So far, everything from life force and vitality, to luck and force of will, have been rolled up and called "hit points." I think that we are starting to reach a bit too far in our attempt to redefine the stat, so let's go back to the basics.

And by "basics," of course I mean the Basic Rules Boxed Set. Oh yes, that's right...the B in BECM.

Hit Points:
[SBLOCK]Damage and Hit Points

In the game, when any creature is hit (either monster or character), damage is caused. There is a way of keeping track of damage, called hit points.

The number of hit points is the amount of damage that a creature can take before being killed. Hit points can be any number; the more hit points a creature has, the harder it is to kill. We often use an abbreviation for hit points: it is hp.

Your fighter starts with 8 hp (hit points) and still has all 8, since the goblin never hit you. He may have hit your armor or shield, but never got through your protection, so these attacks are still called "misses" -- they didn't actually damage your character.

- Player's Manual, pg. 3. Emphasis is in the original text.[/SBLOCK]
Constitution:
[SBLOCK]Constitution: Your health

Your fighter is healthy, and can fight a long time without tiring. This ability is measured by another Ability Score, called Constitution. Your Constitution is 16, well above average but not perfect.

Your Constitution affects your hit points. If you have a low score, you might only have 2 or 3 hit points. On the other hand, if you had an 18 Constitution, you might have as may as 10 hp, or more!

- Player's Manual, pg. 3. Emphasis is in the original text.[/SBLOCK]
Save Throws:
[SBLOCK]Poisoned?

This is a poisonous snake, which can be very dangerous. In the game, there is a way of finding out whether the poison hurt you or not. Roll the twenty-sided die again. If you rolled a 12 or higher, that means that you dodged before the snake could inject its poison (but you still take damage from the bite.) If you roll an 11 or less, your fighter takes 2 more points of damage from the poison (cross off the 7 hp and write 5).

You made a roll to see if you saved yourself from trouble; this roll is called a Saving Throw, and will be used later in many situations of the game.

- Player's Manual, pg. 4. Emphasis is in the original text.[/SBLOCK]
So there you have it. Even back in the BECM rules, the Player's Manual explained how your character's hit points, health, and even pure dumb luck all work together to keep your character alive.

Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to re-imagine the fundamentals of the game. But please understand that when other gamers don't share a new point of view, it isn't because they don't understand it or because they are being obtuse. They are just sticking to the old rules, and there is nothing wrong with that either.

I guess I don't understand how it is wrong to have a rule where if someone is low on hit points they can't take a defensive stance and reliably draw on reserves of some sort and regain some degree of ability to fight. Since hit points are NOT all physical damage I've never seen this as terribly verisimilitude breaking. My fighter has 30 hit points, he's down to 5, he takes a Second Wind and he's now back up to 12 hit points. Is that really a huge big deal? Sure, you COULD be at 24 hit points and take a second wind and 'be fine', but at that low level of 'damage' there's really not much reason to think the damage is one thing or another either, it could be all tiredness and loss of morale. Even if the PC is 'nicked' he's draining an HS to get those points back, so it is not as if this minor wound is entirely being ignored and it is just 'going away'.

All that I see 4e doing is allowing that 0 hit points doesn't ALWAYS represent some kind of fatal wound that cannot possibly be recovered from. There's still a point that DOES represent that, negative bloodied. Thus the warlord using an Inspiring Word to get someone back up has reasonable narrative explanations. Again the character isn't just "all better now".

The problem IMHO with "only a cleric can really heal you" is that once again you've created an absolute ironclad dependency on having a healbot in your party. It is an unavoidable consequence of such a system. You can replace said healbot with a bunch of potions and whatever but I think we've already covered why that doesn't really do it for some of us, we want a system where you can get by on your own internal resources, which has a lot more correspondence with the underlying source material.

 

[shamsael]

I voted to keep them, but after reading some of the replies, I think healing surges should be a special ability available o certain classes or a feat choice that any character can take.

When a cleric or other healer restores someone's hp, if the target has any healing surges, they can spend one of them for additional hit points.

Maybe a small selection of feats that all resemble something like...

Generic Surge Feat
Effect: Your maximum healing surges increases by 1. Whenever [trigger condition happens] you may spend a healing surge to [some restorative effect like hp gain or temporary resistance].

Each feat gives you another surge and another way to use them, but they also have an implicite use of gaining more hp when healed.

 

[KarinsDad]

ROFLMAO! Please, spare me the amateur nerd faux expertise about what goes on in combat. there were MANY different sword fighting schools in pre-modern Japan anyway, so I have no clue where you get your 'facts' from.

The thing is they're irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The analogy is between two groups (adventurers and football players) who both engage in stressful activity in an episodic fashion. There are certainly perfectly valid parallels to be drawn

Wait, let me get this straight.

Someone posts on the board that certain ACTUAL sword combat techniques did not allow for an opponent to passively defend and catch their breath (i.e. Second Wind) because of the aggressiveness of the technique, illustrating that in a life and death situation, there is little time for regaining one's breath and you consider that a non-valid analogy.

But, you consider a sport where none of the individuals are actually fighting for their life, where every 10 to 20 seconds everyone stops their heavy exertions, and where not every individual is even necessarily trying hard every single play (depending on how the play develops) to be a perfectly valid analogy.

ROFLMAO!!!


I'm sorry, but sports analogies are the dumbest rationale to support Second Winds that I've ever heard. Second Winds are there for combat continuation reasons (keeping every player involved most rounds) and for nothing else. They don't actually make a whole lot of real sense in a 36 second encounter and they didn't even exist for almost 35 years of the game system.

This is pretty darn funny that people are defending Second Winds as making actual sense in a real life or death situation when a foe is attacking, and using sports analogies at that. The person who covers up and tries to catch their breath in real life while being attacked is the person who is defeated (ask any SCA participant or a martial artist who compete in tournaments). In a real battle, there are no rules about not attacking the legs or hands, or not aiming for the head. In a real battle, the participants have to be going full out the entire time that they are being attacked. They can take a breather if they are not being attacked, but Second Winds are totally illogical if one is being attacked. Amateur nerd faux expertise not withstanding.

 

[shamsael]

Also, just to point out, MMOs don't have healing surges. They have characters who stand in the back and cast healing spells until they run out of them.

My first reaction to healing surges was that they were so unlike any MMO I'd ever played, compared to the 3.5 and prior clerics which were so similar to every MMO I'd ever played.

 

[BryonD]

I had said that some of us like more verisimilitude than others. You missed that part. However, that doesn't change the fact it's silly to argue history to somebody that has no care for it in their games. Especially in this case where the issue was which hp abstraction fit better.

Anyone trying to tell anyone else what they should prefer is silly. So I certainly agree with that.

But this point has over and over been presented in the reverse. It does not work that way.

 

[Izumi]

ROFLMAO! Please, spare me the amateur nerd faux expertise about what goes on in combat. there were MANY different sword fighting schools in pre-modern Japan anyway, so I have no clue where you get your 'facts' from.

The thing is they're irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The analogy is between two groups (adventurers and football players) who both engage in stressful activity in an episodic fashion. There are certainly perfectly valid parallels to be drawn, and more importantly the player base is likely to draw its understanding of activity far more from modern sports than from ancient fighting techniques which none of them are familiar with.

Finally, my observation from the admittedly limited perspective of reenactment is that a combatant has a pretty wide latitude when it comes to the degree to which they press the attack or not. A combatant taking a conservative and defensive stance can decrease the intensity of engagement quite significantly. An aggressive offensive aspect can increase the intensity as well. Most combatants will approach competent opponents in a reasonably cautious fashion simply because the consequences of a mistake are rather drastic. Of course you may have your exceptional individuals who are highly aggressive and utterly competent or dismissive of their own safety, but that's best handled by special rules and in any case doesn't change the fact that you could take a Second Wind by dialing back some.

Your ignorance shows, and despite your accusations, I gave easily confirmable truths about one famous Ryuuha from Kagoshima. One of the core tenants is that a second strike is not even to be considered.

 

[Herschel]

I had said that some of us like more verisimilitude than others. You missed that part. However, that doesn't change the fact it's silly to argue history to somebody that has no care for it in their games. Especially in this case where the issue was which hp abstraction fit better.

The point is your definition of "verisimilitude" is bunk. It's a snobbish word telling other people they're goofy freaks who like weird stuff based on its relation to your own preferences. This is a fantasy game of dragons and wizards. Trying to say "my game is more realistic than yours", especially based on an abstract damage mechanic, is ridculous when the very foundation of the game is steeped in pure fantasy and myth. Adding bits of actual (or at least what any of of us thinks is actual) doesn't change that, it just adds flavor we may want.

Like what you like, play what you want but get over the idea that "realism" has much of anything to do with the game because it's a self lie. I was there at one point myself and I now laugh that I ever thought that way.