D&D 4E The problem I've having with 4e.

[Toras]

In other words, in character, what happens when the metagame-event of "healing surge" is triggered? What is going on? How does it work?

Out of character, metagame, the answer is that the PC recovers one-quarter of his hit points, which he can do X times per day. That's simple enough. But what's going on in character, from a game-world perspective, is not as clear. From the character's point of view, what just happened? Did his wounds magically close? Is he still wounded, but no longer affected by his injuries? Was he even wounded in the first place?

Unless I am very much mistaken (Toras, correct me if I'm wrong), these are the questions to which Toras was seeking answers.

That was definitely what I was going for. Right on the money Dausuul.

 

[eleran]

Thats fine, but why should that be the only way to play D&D? Sadly it seems WotC thinks so and caters only this gamestyle with 4E while the rest of use has either have to change large amount of rules to make 4E work for us, stay at 3E (unsupported as it will be) or "switch to rolemaster".

No matter what one does it is obvious that "our gamestyle" is not wanted in 4E.

And, by that same token, I never felt like my gamestyle was wanted in 3e. Its all a circular argument Derren, it always has been.

Some of us are finally getting something closer to the game we wanted. Sorry you're on the losing end this time. I have waited a long time for it.

 

[Toras]

Eleran: You are getting the question, but you are largely missing the point.

OOC: I used a healing surge, and gained back part of my hit points.
IC: What just happened?

An event occured, what was the Observable Result

I say again, I can accept the abstraction so long as the abstraction is at least partially defined. The problem is that I don't want to metagame and then that is where I'm running into problems.

 

[eleran]

Assume if you will that the character has no concept of the numbers behind his existence. He probably doesn't know what exactly a healing surge is nor does he likely know that he has daily powers. However, since we are assuming he is moderately intelligent he has begun to wonder why, as I would in his place. He has observed that if he attempts his horse cutter strike 3 times in one fight, it will fail once. But if he attempts it twice, it will succeed both times. These are things he can observe. He also knows that he can recover from a day of fighting with a 6 hour rest. Because he has done so before.

Should he have had a ring before 10th level, and attempted to use it he would not have been able to. But as he has grown in skill and experience from his travels, at some point he is able to use that ring. There is an observable change. In fact, since it is so, they may become a measure of personal power/status. That mage is only 1 ring at best, or did you hear about the two ringed warlord.

If they were purely metagame elements, like action points, which alter only that which can be determined as luck or chance that would be one thing. But they have an IC effect, and it is likely the character could notice the effect, leading to speculation about the cause. Having something for him to find or how he might discuss these common phemonia with others who share it hardly strike me as metagaming.

Not sure why, but to me, the ring thing in your example should be self-evident and a really intriguing thing to put into play. You gained this ring at lets say lvl 8, your wizardly friend did a little study of it and declared that it is magical but could not figure out any properties of the magic within. A few months or whatever later, and you find that suddenly the ring has begun to 1) glow, or 2) speak to you, or 3) fill in the blank, and now you find that when the ring is worn and/or concentrated on you are able to make yourself go invisible.

It's magic, magic is at its heart fairly mysterious.

 

[eleran]

Eleran: You are getting the question, but you are largely missing the point.

OOC: I used a healing surge, and gained back part of my hit points.
IC: What just happened?

An event occured, what was the Observable Result

I say again, I can accept the abstraction so long as the abstraction is at least partially defined. The problem is that I don't want to metagame and then that is where I'm running into problems.

What happened was that you drew upon a reserve of adrenaline, power, ki, energy, whatever word you would like to use to describe it, to refresh yourself somewhat and to keep on going a little further until more rest can be sought to completely revive yourself.

As for the healing surge to bring you conscious, who's to say when you come conscious you arent still bleeding? In the game do you go out of your way to describe every single cut and scrape? To me, that is the DM's job to immerse you in the game and help suspend your disbelief, not the rules system. Some DMs are better at it than others, just like everything else in life.

And like I said earlier, some peoples ability to suspend disbelief is less fragile than others. That isn't a value judgement, just the way it is I guess.

 

[Toras]

Not sure why, but to me, the ring thing in your example should be self-evident and a really intriguing thing to put into play. You gained this ring at lets say lvl 8, your wizardly friend did a little study of it and declared that it is magical but could not figure out any properties of the magic within. A few months or whatever later, and you find that suddenly the ring has begun to 1) glow, or 2) speak to you, or 3) fill in the blank, and now you find that when the ring is worn and/or concentrated on you are able to make yourself go invisible.

It's magic, magic is at its heart fairly mysterious.

Magic at its heart may be mysterious, but both I and my friend are going to wonder why it is working now. After all, my life may depend on its function. I need to know if it is going to stop. More over, this applies to any magical item forged as a ring, but should a similar enchantment be forged into a glove it is straight forward. What is it about rings? Do certain enchantments required a circle shape to maintain and contain their effect? Or does the shape alter the properties of those magics placed within it. Does the circle have a special significance for magic? My mage friend may want to know, even if I don't. Especially if he's going to craft magical items of his own.

 

[FourthBear]

I think we need to be a bit careful when talking about healing surges, which are more of a game mechanic and the character actions that allow you to *use* a healing surge. So far, a character uses Second Wind, five-minute rests and divine magic to use a healing surge. Since divine magic and five-minute rest have obvious explanations, I think Second Wind is really what needs some explanation. It is notable that Second Wind offers not only healing surge, but a bonus to all defenses until your next turn.

1) The PC taking a moment to concentrate on defense rather than offense and catching breather for a moment while doing so.
2) The PC psyching up for a moment for adrenaline/motivation to continue
3) The PC calling upon their power source to aid in their defense.

 

[Pbartender]

Okay, to switch geek hats and go pop culture now, the problem with the stuff about Die Hard around here is that at the time it came out, Die Hard was actually a nominal move towards realism as compared to the Schwarzenegger/ Stallone model of '80's action hero – here was a hero who was an ordinary guy (Bruce Willis not being particularly esteemed as a tough-guy type at the time, his primary typecasting being as David Addison of Moonlighting – it was a bit like having Jerry Seinfeld or Zach Braff star in an action movie) who did get hurt by environmental effects such as broken glass and basically seemed somewhat mortal. On a superficial level, it is a nominal move towards realism after all, but that was the original movies' shtick. Not "unbelievable badass cleans house" but "ordinary guy has horrible day," but still in the action movie genre.

Sure, but still... The point is that he gets beat up, and cut up, and beat up again, and thrown around, and walks across broken glass barefoot, and bungees jumps out the side of a highrise using a fire hose, and so on... After all that punishment, he sits down behind a desk, catches his breath, bandages up his feet, gets a pep talk from the cop outside, reloads his guns, and then gets up and gets back into the fight as if none of it hurt.

That's one reasonable way to look at hit points... the ability to keep going despite all the beatings and wounds... Wounds which will truly heal in the background over the next couple of weeks between adventures.

 

[helium3]

But now, it seems like they're trying to "DM-proof" the game by strictly regulating what gear is appropriate for what levels. I don't like this at all.

It's actually not that they're trying to "DM-Proof" the game. That's just a strawman that people like to proffer because it gets a more visceral response from the reader.

The truth (IMO) goes something like this. The main problem with 3E is that, while the algorithm-esque method for building characters and monsters seems to promise an inherently balanced game, in reality it fails to do so. Why? Because players simply have too much freedom to select feats and spells and purchase items that render assumptions the system makes about AC, ATK, DMG and HP totally incorrect. In a sense, this is part of that whole "extended sweet spot" thing they've been talking about.

At low levels, the sweet spot doesn't exist because characters are way too easy to kill with a couple of good rolls on the part of the DM and a couple of bad rolls on the part of the player. The solution to this is pretty easy and we already know this is happening in 4E. You simply boost the number of initial hitpoints a character starts out with.

At higher levels, things get trickier because you have to remove options that allow players to make characters that break the assumptions but still provide meaningful options that allow players to differentiate their characters from the others. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is that you strip out most items, powers, feats and abilities that allow characters to permanently increase their ATK, DMG, AC and HP. The ones that you leave in are tightly constrained, either by linking them directly to level or by making the pool of options much much smaller and therefore easier to monitor for problems.

What does this have to do with rings? Well, rings have traditionally been one of the ways to permanently increase your character's AC. In 4E, the designers could have simply stated "rings never provide a bonus to AC" but I hunch they figured this wouldn't go over very well. By linking the number of rings that could be worn to level, they constrain characters to getting a specific AC bonus at a specific time in the game. I suspect that in 4E, there will be a single ring that will provide a bonus to AC and it won't be +1. It'll be +2 or +3. But that'll be it. And you won't be able to wear it until 10th level. Maybe there will be a better ring that you can wear at 20th level and it'll give you a +4 or a +6 bonus.

 

[eleran]

Magic at its heart may be mysterious, but both I and my friend are going to wonder why it is working now. After all, my life may depend on its function. I need to know if it is going to stop. More over, this applies to any magical item forged as a ring, but should a similar enchantment be forged into a glove it is straight forward. What is it about rings? Do certain enchantments required a circle shape to maintain and contain their effect? Or does the shape alter the properties of those magics placed within it. Does the circle have a special significance for magic? My mage friend may want to know, even if I don't. Especially if he's going to craft magical items of his own.

Well, that I cant tell you until the books are out and I see what they say. If I don't like their explanation I will spend a little time alone coming up with my own then. Until then I don't worry about it.

It could very well be however, that the form of a ring, an unending circle, is the most difficult to enchant or something, and therefore is used for among the most potent of all items short of artifacts themselves. Thats how these ideas start, just brainstorm it. It really isn't my place to make these decisions anyway, that is your DM's job. It is my job when I DM.