3e's reliable crafting predates WoW by four years. And the 3e designers (probably Monte Cook) have said that they made that change to, as I said previously, remove the DM vs the player potential.
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The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)
- Thread starter Truename
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This has me scratching my head, so perhaps you can explain. Granted it's been a long time since I've seen a fighting game.
Healing surges are an expansion of a mechanic from SWSE, btw. CRPGs still pretty much use the nonsensical healing model of earlier editions of D&D: healing that comes in set amounts applied to larger and larger HP pools. So, basically the opposite of "videogamey," if your yardstick is computer RPGs, anyway.
Thank you to the OP for opening this wonderful thread.
I think some of my reasons (not all) for not wanting anything to do with 4e is indeed resistance to change.
Darrin earlier mentioned workspace change. A few years back, the company I worked with introduced a new process for handling certain client requests.
I had to use this process, so I did but quickly realized all its flaws (especially bottlenecks) and the damage it could cause to my team. So instead, I kept the old one active in parallel to the new, without warning anybody.
Guess what : two months later, my team was the ONLY one in the company to have met its objectives. Two months again later, the author of the new process was fired due to the disaster of the heavy losses we took thanks to this abomination.
I got a bonus.
Change is not always good.
I think some of my reasons (not all) for not wanting anything to do with 4e is indeed resistance to change.
Darrin earlier mentioned workspace change. A few years back, the company I worked with introduced a new process for handling certain client requests.
I had to use this process, so I did but quickly realized all its flaws (especially bottlenecks) and the damage it could cause to my team. So instead, I kept the old one active in parallel to the new, without warning anybody.
Guess what : two months later, my team was the ONLY one in the company to have met its objectives. Two months again later, the author of the new process was fired due to the disaster of the heavy losses we took thanks to this abomination.
I got a bonus.
Change is not always good.
Yeah, that's a head-scratcher for me, too. I'm not aware of any video game that uses Surge-like mechanics. And I play a lot of video games.
Full-heal on rest is sorta "videogamey" in that it's in nearly every video game out there - including the ones based on 2E D&D, which just have you rest twice as long while the cleric auto-casts all his spells as healing spells.
The Little Raven
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I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I "warred" with anti-4e people because I kept getting directly insulted by them with their claims that only a 13-year-old with ADD would like 4e, despite me being neither 13 years old nor suffering from ADD, or that I wasn't a real roleplayer if I liked it better than previous editions. I don't care if people don't like things that I do, but I do care when they get insulting or dismissive.
Halo 3. Call of Duty 3,4, & 5. Rainbow Six Vegas. Many others.
Rather than the earlier "HP models" where you needed to pick up the med-pack (i.e. healing potion) to heal (regain HP), today's games often have a "healing surge" when you avoid taking damage for a period of time taking you back to full health.
Rather than the earlier "HP models" where you needed to pick up the med-pack (i.e. healing potion) to heal (regain HP), today's games often have a "healing surge" when you avoid taking damage for a period of time taking you back to full health.
ExploderWizard
Hero
WOW is similar. When not fighting you gradually regain health. If you sit down the rate of healing increases and if you eat its faster still.
I don't see this as a healing surge though. The amount of health you can regain isn't limted in any way. Its not like you can only regain so much health per hour then thats it. D&D healing surges are a finite resource that can be used up quickly during rests but can eventually run out until the character takes an extended rest. Healing surges are not really videogame-like in this respect although I find them to be a highly gamist concept.
The Little Raven
First Post
Halo 3 - Shield System
- Automatic, with no input on the part of the player.
- Unlimited use, with no maximum cap on how many times it can recharge in a single encounter/mission/chapter.
- Independent of other resources; no need for health kits, special abilities, or the like.
- No secondary use.
D&D 4th Edition - Healing Surge
- Manual, with the player having to choose to spend a healing surge.
- Limited use, with a finite amount that can be spent in a single day.
- Dependent on other resources; potions or powers are required to use; the one exception is a five-minute rest to use them.
- Can be used to fuel abilities other than healing, such as magic items.
The only real point of similarity is that the shield's "don't take damage for several seconds" recharge quality can be compared to the healing surge's "spend as many as you want during a five-minute rest," since they both allow you to heal to full outside of combat (technically, the shield recharges inside of combat). Other than that, they are worlds apart.
This claim also doesn't deal with the fact that healing surges are far more akin to the Earthdawn healing system than any video game.
wut? Healing surges don't let you avoid taking damage. They're simply a measure of your total health (25% of your total, normally) that allows healing to scale up as your HP total does. This decouples healing from level-based distinctions and allows, say, a cure light wounds spell to always heal light wounds on the target, regardless of how powerful the target is.
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