The missing Role: speculation on Healing rules

[Gloombunny]

My guess is that healing abilities will become substantially weaker, while the basic game rules get tweaked to make healing abilities substantially less necessary, so that the gap between a group with a strong healer and one without is not so severe.

Random thought on warlords and healing: perhaps they'll get abilities that add temporary HP to injured characters rather than simply healing. The effect is similar, but it just "feels" more appropriate for a class based on inspiring its allies rather than on magic.

 

[Reynard]

It will be very interesting to see how 4e handles condition cures - curse, disease, stat loss and the like.

It will probably be handled by not including them at all, as all those examples fly in the face of the same design goals that push out SoD effects, Vancian magic and un-sneak-attack-able foes: including them might require a player to spend a few moments doing nothing (like thinking) instead of something.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Ok Leader does = Healer.

Yup, you're right. Don't know how I missed that. They might as well have named it the "Medic" role ...

It will be very interesting to see how 4e handles condition cures - curse, disease, stat loss and the like.

It will probably be handled by not including them at all, as all those examples fly in the face of the same design goals that push out SoD effects, Vancian magic and un-sneak-attack-able foes: including them might require a player to spend a few moments doing nothing (like thinking) instead of something.

That would suck. Blindness should be blindness; as PC I want to blind my enemies; as a DM I want to inflict conditions on the PC's. Forcing everything into HP would be pretty un-tactical, I think.

Think of the Tacticians!!

 

[Rechan]

That would suck. Blindness should be blindness; as PC I want to blind my enemies; as a DM I want to inflict conditions on the PC's. Forcing everything into HP would be pretty un-tactical, I think.

Think of the Tacticians!!

On the one hand, I agree with you.

On the other... Allow me to use an experience from my gaming table.

I had an enemy spellcaster the party was all gunning for - they even bought enough poison and crossbows so they could all get several shots at him apiece. He was primarily a damage dealer, sure. But, when the party walked in, he drank a potion of blur.

I'd say 7 out of 10 attacks got eaten by that 20% miss chance. It frustrated them to no end, because there was little tactics involved. One PC even got a crit and it failed the miss chance.

So I'm leery of effects that cause "Sorry Bill, your effort is completely negated; you accomplish nothing. Next." That's different than rolling the dice and saying "You miss", it's "You succeed - NOT!" Same thing with the rogue fighting hordes of undead. If x is your character's focus and abilities, and condition y completely negates X, you don't have to think different, tactically, you just have to wait around and hope your friends help out because your abilities are now hosed.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I remember hit points always being described as an abstraction of many things and not a pure calculation of the body's physical condition. It included things like "not dead and just fine", luck about to run out, fate, etc. But prior versions of D&D treated the restoration of hit points as fixing wounds.

What if 4e honored the abstraction of the concept of hit points by giving characters more ways to restore the "number" to full than mending broken bones and bloody wounds.

For example: The team is facing imminent problems after being worn down but the warlord shouts encouragement and the spirit of his allies who hear him are invigorated with a second wind.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Random thought on warlords and healing: perhaps they'll get abilities that add temporary HP to injured characters rather than simply healing. The effect is similar, but it just "feels" more appropriate for a class based on inspiring its allies rather than on magic.

That sounds pretty good, and if clerics retain their healing powers (as I think they will, though not necessarily to the same extent as in previous editions), it would help keep the classes separate.

 

[Exen Trik]

I don't know what they mean to do with at will/per encounter abilities and healing, but it seems entirely possible that everyone is fully healed between every combat, every time. If you can heal 1d4 hit points at will during battle, what is stopping you from constantly using that when combat ends?

It wouldn't both me too much, but it's clear that it wouldn't fit with others playing styles. Even without having a grim and gritty kind of game, it would be better if a combat that resulted in nary a scratch and one that ended with everyone at near death should have different consequences when the next battle comes along ten minutes later.

I don't know, I'm sure this would have occurred to them. Just have to wait and see what their approach is...

 

[loseth]

If I were in charge of 4e, I would just end the double-personality of HP. I would say, flat out, that HP loss is fatigue, loss of nerve, battle confusion, bad luck/'your number coming up', loss of support from your god, whatever, but NOT physical injury (physical injury would be rare for PCs and tracked separately from HP). Therefore, you don't need to 'heal' back your freshness, mental composure, fate, etc. A few minutes rest and you go back to full HP--no healing required. You catch your breath, shake off your fear, etc. and you're back to full HP (or maybe 80% if you're a realism freak).

If a character does happen to take a physical injury during a fight, then she'll need a healer, but this will normally happen after combat, or be a very dramatic event during combat, so there's no need to worry about the healer not having cool stuff to do during combat (because his healing powers are either used after the fight is over, or constitute a cool event in and of themselves during the fight).

Just my .02. And for all my wishing, I'm pretty sure it'll never happen.

 

[Nebulous]

If I were in charge of 4e, I would just end the double-personality of HP. I would say, flat out, that HP loss is fatigue, loss of nerve, battle confusion, bad luck/'your number coming up', loss of support from your god, whatever, but NOT physical injury (physical injury would be rare for PCs and tracked separately from HP). Therefore, you don't need to 'heal' back your freshness, mental composure, fate, etc. A few minutes rest and you go back to full HP--no healing required. You catch your breath, shake off your fear, etc. and you're back to full HP (or maybe 80% if you're a realism freak).

If a character does happen to take a physical injury during a fight, then she'll need a healer, but this will normally happen after combat, or be a very dramatic event during combat, so there's no need to worry about the healer not having cool stuff to do during combat (because his healing powers are either used after the fight is over, or constitute a cool event in and of themselves during the fight).

Just my .02. And for all my wishing, I'm pretty sure it'll never happen.

this sounds a lot like Wounds and Vitality. Not a bad idea, but no, i don't think they're going this route. It's hit points all the way.

 

[glass]

If I were in charge of 4e, I would just end the double-personality of HP. I would say, flat out, that HP loss is fatigue, loss of nerve, battle confusion, bad luck/'your number coming up', loss of support from your god, whatever, but NOT physical injury (physical injury would be rare for PCs and tracked separately from HP). Therefore, you don't need to 'heal' back your freshness, mental composure, fate, etc. A few minutes rest and you go back to full HP--no healing required. You catch your breath, shake off your fear, etc. and you're back to full HP (or maybe 80% if you're a realism freak).

That'd be my wish too. Then a 'leader' restoring hp really would make sense.


glass.