D&D (2024) The Problem with Healing Powercreep

[James Gasik]

I once had a player want to play a Thri-Kreen. They wouldn't shut up about how amazing they were, and how powerful his character would be. I finally brought up their very short lifespan and he exploded, something like:

"What, you'd actually make my character grow old and die? That doesn't happen in D&D! If you don't want me to play the character, just say so!"

When I brought up that some monsters can age characters, like the ghost, his reply was "well, using a specific monster out of hundreds just to target my character's weakness is just telling me that you don't want me in your game".

I kind of threw my hands up in the air at that point.

 

[TiQuinn]

I once had a player want to play a Thri-Kreen. They wouldn't shut up about how amazing they were, and how powerful his character would be. I finally brought up their very short lifespan and he exploded, something like:

"What, you'd actually make my character grow old and die? That doesn't happen in D&D! If you don't want me to play the character, just say so!"

When I brought up that some monsters can age characters, like the ghost, his reply was "well, using a specific monster out of hundreds just to target my character's weakness is just telling me that you don't want me in your game".

I kind of threw my hands up in the air at that point.

Sounds like you dodged a bullet there.

 

[James Gasik]

Sounds like you dodged a bullet there.

This was back in 2e, when Dark Sun was a new and interesting thing. I had the same character balk when I mentioned that their "super powerful" Half-Giant was going to be in trouble in any kind of survival situation because they require additional food and water- because who tracks those things anyway, amirite?

-

Now I'll be fair here- I don't think the lifespan of a race should be a balancing factor for their playability. It's mostly a ribbon feature, unless the player finds a way to abuse it (say with, AD&D spells that age you as a consequence, like haste).

It's supposed to help make your character interesting, as they have a different perspective on things. If someone is making a game where "aging out" becomes a possibility, I would expect the DM to attempt to rebalance the races- perhaps give an xp bonus to the shorter-lived races or some other reason to play one.

OTOH, some people get bored of characters after awhile and want to try something new, and maybe shorter-lived races would be something you should point them towards, I don't know.

In AD&D, I imagine the fact that the so-called "demihumans" were both longer-lived and tended to hit a level cap at some point was intended to be a sort of limiting factor- the humans might leave the Dwarf player in the dust, but 20 years later, "Uncle Beardy" might be the perfect chaperone for a bunch of wet behind the ears level 1's, even though he's long since peaked.

Then again, some people like a challenge. I've known people to play horribly bad races because it suited them, and they liked the satisfaction of succeeding despite such handicaps.

 

[PHATsakk43]

Y’all need to get a room or something.

At any point an Internet forum thread turns into two people quoting and and trying to dunk on each other, nothing of value is being presented.

Can either of you at this point even remotely establish how your argument pertains to healing power creep in D&D over the past 50 years? I mean, I can’t even hardly understand what either side is trying to say, much less how it pertains to healing in D&D.

This was a pretty good discussion until the past couple pages.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Y’all need to get a room or something.

At any point an Internet forum thread turns into two people quoting and and trying to dunk on each other, nothing of value is being presented.

Can either of you at this point even remotely establish how your argument pertains to healing power creep in D&D over the past 50 years? I mean, I can’t even hardly understand what either side is trying to say, much less how it pertains to healing in D&D.

This was a pretty good discussion until the past couple pages.

There's a tendency on these forums for someone to start a thread about something like, say, how lock picking works in 5E, and the thread will inevitably end up in a near flamewar about whether or not Gandalf is actually a wizard.

 

[tetrasodium]

Y’all need to get a room or something.

At any point an Internet forum thread turns into two people quoting and and trying to dunk on each other, nothing of value is being presented.

Can either of you at this point even remotely establish how your argument pertains to healing power creep in D&D over the past 50 years? I mean, I can’t even hardly understand what either side is trying to say, much less how it pertains to healing in D&D.

This was a pretty good discussion until the past couple pages.

A hypothetical way of mitigating that power creep through the use of timeskips & extraordinarily long periods of rest/downtime. There were misunderstandings or bad expectations that hooked onto discussion about the wider impact of how doing that would make shorter lived races potentially take the form of multigenerational things with slight(or significant) changes individually feel a bit mayfly-like while the longer lived races might stick around through a few generations but feel the inverse with the world itself moving on during those extraordinarily long periods of rest/downtime. That kind of mitigation would also carry a goldskink along with that mitigation by making things like wands/potions/etc for healing & whatnot massively bulk purchases capable of recovering in hours/days at great cost.


Someone felt that was somehow infringing on their (hypothetical?) character concept (and should not join a game where such a method is used or should be expected to adapt to it if they do join)

 

[PHATsakk43]

A hypothetical way of mitigating that power creep through the use of timeskips & extraordinarily long periods of rest/downtime. There were misunderstandings or bad expectations that hooked onto discussion about the wider impact of how doing that would make shorter lived races potentially take the form of multigenerational things with slight(or significant) changes individually feel a bit mayfly-like while the longer lived races might stick around through a few generations but feel the inverse with the world itself moving on during those extraordinarily long periods of rest/downtime. That kind of mitigation would also carry a goldskink along with that mitigation by making things like wands/potions/etc for healing & whatnot massively bulk purchases capable of recovering in hours/days at great cost.


Someone felt that was somehow infringing on their (hypothetical?) character concept (and should not join a game where such a method is used or should be expected to adapt to it if they do join)

In 30+ years of playing, I can barely remember anyone bothering to keep track of ammo, rations, water, or even encumbrances or spell components, much less PC lifespans.

 

[DarkCrisis]

There's a tendency on these forums for someone to start a thread about something like, say, how lock picking works in 5E, and the thread will inevitably end up in a near flamewar about whether or not Gandalf is actually a wizard.

Obviously more of a Druid

 

[James Gasik]

No no, Gandalf is obviously a Bard/Angel/Cleric/Wizard/Druid/Psionicist!

 

[tetrasodium]

In 30+ years of playing, I can barely remember anyone bothering to keep track of ammo, rations, water, or even encumbrances or spell components, much less PC lifespans.

Generally probably true for most of my games for age too. It came up in a previously mentioned campaign that involved time travel and a broken timeline. Couple longer lived PCs decided to take the long way a couple times in order to do a few things (a warforged and an elf who said "given we are so far back, do elves have 2e/3.x ~1200 & [I forget] year long lifespans?").

Players would obviously need to actually track it more regularly if resting took many months or years too.likewise if the timeskips were just between adventures

Edit. I always track arrows as a player and require the same of play players