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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Again, I agree with you.

As I said WotC is taking a real risk here.

But if they were going with your logic then why change, just double down on your 4E fan base.

I don't think this is a good assessment.

They had a HUGE fan base. And 3E ran its life cycle. It makes sense. When 4E was announced I was completely on board because I thought it was time to move forward. But you can't judge a game by its popularity at the end of the cycle. The 3E/D20 era has repeatedly been called the second Golden Age and was criticized for glut and pushing out innovation in other games. It was hugely popular for quite a few years.

4E was on shelves in June 2008. Fans were crowing about it being a New York Times Bestseller. According to recent WotC statements they decided to start work on 5E in "late 2010". So in 18 MONTHS (at most) WotC threw in the towel internally. And it was easy to see along the way, but it is far easier to see now with 20/20 hindsight that they were desperately trying to "fix" the game and salvage their fan base for quite some time. In 18 months they had time to go from bestseller to realizing they had a problem, thinking of an developing solutions to try, publishing the solutions, looking for the results of that change, and then realizing they needed to go new edition.

You are comparing a game at the end of its life cycle to a game that, frankly, never had a life cycle.



Nope. That isn't true.

I do agree that the designers should be thinking "EVERY FAN". They should have a positive attitude and an aggressive approach. But from a real business point of view, getting back to being the icon of RPGs will be more than viable and is a realistic goal.

Anyone on the design team that doesn't want "EVERY FAN" should be off the team.
Anyone on the design team who has not learned the lessons of the past few years should also be off the team.

Clearly we will have to agree to disagree. Notice that the whole OSR movement really gained a lot of momentum during the 3e era too. Clearly there were issues before the appearance of 4e. And again, why would WotC have felt compelled to make deep changes to the game if they didn't feel that the choice was between taking a big roll of the dice and simply admitting that they couldn't succeed at all? For that matter why was 3.5 released? I think there was a realization at WotC going far back before 4e was even thought of that there were problems. Heck, read what Ryan has written. This isn't anything new, they understood a dozen years ago that in the long run simply edition cycling the game every 6-10 years was not really a viable business strategy.

The fact is that the same forces that drove WotC to create 4e are going to apply equally to 5e. Go back to the same old thing as before and THE VERY BEST you can possibly hope for (and there is little chance of it) is to be stuck back where you were when 4e was being thought up. That's not success. Even getting back to that point is going to require EVERYONE being onboard, and thinking that the 'lessons learned' are that you should do over what hasn't ultimately succeeded, well, I've started and run a number of businesses and I know a winning business plan from a losing one, and "doing what we did before" is never a big winner when it didn't win the first time around.

 

[BryonD]

Exactly. It was declining because the model was all wrong. Modules, fluff supps that dont break the game, setting material etc. This will draw people to your product and keep them interested. 3E was putting out a lot of very bad flavor material toward the end because they seemed to buy into a mechanics matter, flavor doesnt approach. Castle Ravenloft (which I know I bring up a lot) is an example of how they just didn't understand the flavor ekements people want.

yeah, in hindsight I think they were already testing the waters for 4E rather than focusing on servicing their key customers. Which could contribute to why PF was able to take a "used up" system and make it huge again.

 

[BryonD]

For that matter why was 3.5 released?

3.5 was released because there was a landslide of feedback on the system and they thought they could improve the game. And, no question, they thought in doing so they could re-sell the core books and start over on their splats.

And it had major unintended consequences in the overall marketplace that I'm certain they regret. But again, "why" it was done and what the unintended consequences are are two different things.

Go back to the same old thing as before and THE VERY BEST you can possibly hope for (and there is little chance of it) is to be stuck back where you were when 4e was being thought up.

There is no evidence to support this. If they can go back to the height of 3E, they will be golden. "When they started thinking of 4E" pretends that years of massive success didn't come before that point. That is what they want and COULD have back.

But, again, I DO agree it will be REALLY REALLY hard to achieve.

 

[El Mahdi]

As I said WotC is taking a real risk here.

At this point there's nothing else left but to shoot for the whole enchilada. The only other options are all obviously losing propositions, with only how long it would take until inevitable failure as the differences between options.

Is it really taking a risk when there's no other choice...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

3.5 was released because there was a landslide of feedback on the system and they thought they could improve the game. And, no question, they thought in doing so they could re-sell the core books and start over on their splats.

And it had major unintended consequences in the overall marketplace that I'm certain they regret. But again, "why" it was done and what the unintended consequences are are two different things.

There is no evidence to support this. If they can go back to the height of 3E, they will be golden. "When they started thinking of 4E" pretends that years of massive success didn't come before that point. That is what they want and COULD have back.

But, again, I DO agree it will be REALLY REALLY hard to achieve.

Well, I don't know what they can have, but IMHO the days when basically a 3.x will succeed are gone and done.

5e is going to have to GENUINELY appeal to a lot of styles of play, and not in a superficial way. It isn't likely to please everyone entirely and I think you're going to find that it will of necessity incorporate the salient elements of 4e, whether you like that or not in effect.

I'm not at all sure that the designers of 5e will think quite in terms of CaS/CaW or if that is exactly the best way to look at play style differences. I suspect it will have greater emphasis on 'strategic' and 'operational' level planning than 4e does. You can certainly play 4e in a much less considered way than you generally could AD&D at least. I still maintain that the game DOES cater to that sort of play though. It just vastly deemphasizes casting as a universal go-to technique. I think it also puts a lot more emphasis on DM crafting of higher level story components and puts a lot less on designers doing that work for you. That's a two-edged sword from the standpoint of the company selling a game system though. On the one hand it can allow for a lot more freedom and ease for really creative DMs. OTOH it means you have less excuses to sell lots of fluff and an unmet demand.

Of course WotC could go back to the OGL and leave a lot of that to 3PPs. Who knows? While they say they "haven't made up their minds" on that kind of thing at this point I tend to doubt that. Modern expectations are unlikely to be met without a good number of releases of both crunch and fluff, but most of the fluff could be directed more into setting material, etc. It will certainly be a different mix than 4e had, and probably different still from previous editions as well.

 

[BryonD]

Well, I don't know what they can have, but IMHO the days when basically a 3.x will succeed are gone and done.

5e is going to have to GENUINELY appeal to a lot of styles of play, and not in a superficial way. It isn't likely to please everyone entirely and I think you're going to find that it will of necessity incorporate the salient elements of 4e, whether you like that or not in effect.

So I need to get used to the idea that it needs to make a lot of people like it, whether we like it or not. Got it.

As to the days of 3.X being "done and gone" I'd beg to differ. The current flagship name marketed itself as "3.5 Thrives".

But, as I've said like 5 times in this thread alone, I am COMPLETELY certain that they plan to cater to 4E fans and they would be idiots not to. The fact that there are major stumbling blocks inherent in that doesn't change that.

But when all is said and done, if 4E was anywhere close to providing what they wanted, they would be YEARS off from 5E. I've been right about the way a lot of things have played out over the past few years. One thing I completely blew was just how fast things would turn.

Will they make keeping 4E fans one of their priorities? Hell yes.
But if you really think they are going to gravitate to the approach that saw their fan base melt away over the approach that gave them a "second golden age" then you are way out in wishful thinking land putting your personal taste completely ahead of smart business.

I was told over and over that change was good and I should stop demanding that we stick to the past. I was told I was closed minded for wanting the old system to persist. The shoe is on the other foot.

WotC made some huge miscalculations in their assessment of their fans. If they have learned from those mistakes they have a very difficult task ahead of them. If they have not learned from them, they are doomed. (again)

 

[CleverNickName]

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.

It isn't "wrong," AA. It's just a different way of looking at it. The definition of hit points is something that is different to every gamer--and judging by this thread, it is safe to assume that it would be impossible to find a definition that everyone will agree with.

This is why I would want to make healing surges optional in the next edition. For me, it has nothing to do with verisimilitude or realism or what-have-you. It's about making the game appealing to the largest group of players.

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.

I think you might be overstating your argument. Third Edition does not have healing surges, but it does have a variety of classes, prestige classes, magic items, feats, and other mechanics that grant healing ability to different characters in different ways, all to different levels of effectiveness. For better or worse, 3.X is a highly modular system.

I hope 5E is equally modular.

 

[CleverNickName]

So, their pitch to me is "hey, please go buy this less interesting game because we put D&D on the cover and we need your money even though you spent $400 on the better version a couple years ago!". Yeah, I hope whoever takes the D&D license off Hasbro when that works out real well for them has more sense.

Maybe it's just me, but I am holding out hope that 5E will actually be more interesting than any other edition of the game (including my beloved BECM.) It's a tall order, true, but I choose optimism.

 

[dkyle]

I think they're great. Not only should they be kept, but used even more widely. Rename them "Heroic Surges" or something, and apply them to more things.

Want in-combat healing? Costs a Heroic Surge.
Want to cast an encounter-changing spell? Costs a Heroic Surge.
Want to cast an adventure-changing ritual? Costs a Heroic Surge (or more).
Anything that might otherwise have a "per-day" limit? Make it cost a Heroic Surge (or more) instead.

Make Heroic Surges the daily resource, and let the rest of the system be focused on encounters.

One thing I'd do, though, is eliminate surge use for out-of-combat healing. Require it only for in-combat healing.

I'd also give the GM a pool of "Adventure Points" that serve very similar functions, and refresh whenever the PC's Heroic Surges refresh. Basically, a Fate-point type of system.

 

[BryonD]

It's about making the game appealing to the largest group of players.

Absolutely.


Here's hoping they pull it off.....