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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Things I really like about 4e (and how they could be better)
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<blockquote data-quote="TwoSix" data-source="post: 5627593" data-attributes="member: 205"><p>Healing in any edition of D&D has always been a little wonky, because it's trying to reconcile two opposed design concepts. (Well, more so in 3e and 4e. I don't know if earlier editions cared). There's the simulation aspect of resting to recover strength versus the gamist (and genre emulation) concept of pressing on when the chips are down.</p><p></p><p>It's hard to argue against resting as an unrealistic simulation. In the real world, we don't do a voluntary activity that's physically demanding without resting first. Rest puts us back at full strength. It's so inherent to the human condition that you can't simply design it out of the game. Rest is mandatory.</p><p></p><p>If rest is inherently a solid simulation, where is the problem? The problem, of course, is the game aspect. Every edition of D&D (most especially the early versions) is a game of resource management. The goal of the game is gain treasure and experience. To do so, you must expend resources, most commonly your vitality (Hit Points) and magic spells. (Other physical resources like food, water, and supplies were also a consideration in early editions, less so in 3e and 4e). You regain resources by resting. The other consideration is that probability of success increases with the amount of resources available, and the probability of catastrophic failure (i.e. death or other loss of progress, as opposed to not making progress) increases markedly as the amount of resources nears zero. </p><p></p><p>So, the most rational approach to standard D&D conditions is to rest up completely before any encounter where the probability of success is less than 100%, and the possibility of death is not zero. Hence, 5-min adventuring day.</p><p></p><p>This is where the genre emulation and gamism come in. The 5-min adventuring day is perfectly rational, but it's boring. Genre heroes don't retreat when bruised. Games where the probabilities are near certain aren't as engaging. So, what incentives can be put into the game to reward fun play over rational, efficient play? (Note that this issue is also a key driver of many MMO mechanics).</p><p></p><p>Older edtions did this by linking greater progress to pressing on. The better treasure was at the lower levels of the dungeon, so you couldn't progress by simply doing one fight at a time. Resources beyond your personal vitality and spells (such as healing potions and scrolls) were also available to be gained via progression, allowing for gain in resources outside of rest and retreat. </p><p></p><p>While the gain of resources outside of personal power was tightly controlled by the DM in earlier editions, much of that power was shifted to the players in 3e, by means of a more robust and structured magic item creation system. This allowed for the efficient transfer of treaure into more endurance. Wands of cure light wounds meant that rationally, a loss of hit points had a fixed gold cost. Also, the amount of personal endurance was vastly increased by the greater amount of spells that could be used by the spellcasting classes. Since the increased spell load could also be manipulated to increase effectiveness, with the trade-off of increased endurance (i.e. going nova), the rational approach was still to face as few encounters as possible, but face more challenging ones (since amount of progress had become more explicitly coupled to the amount of challenge provided by an encounter) when possible to allow for the most efficient use of the increased amounts of abilities.</p><p></p><p>4e provided several solutions, with the aim of pushing towards a low-rest baseline. While earlier editions had incentivized progression (both for its own sake and to provide endurance), 4e sought to minimize resource cost. At-will and encounter powers provided combat novelty while zeroing resource cost. Healing surges provided a secondary vitality resource that minimized probability of catastrophic failure (low HP = high chance of dying, full HP = low chance of dying) while still adding a simulationist pressure of dwindling resources. (After all, there's no point of having resources if they can't be expended). </p><p></p><p>However, some have argued that 4e didn't go far enough in its design. Low incentive to rest is still some incentive to rest. Daily powers are both flashy and powerful, and their expenditure still represents a diminished probabilty of success and a higher probability of catastrophe. This is perversely encouraged by 4e's encounter design. Since every encounter should occur with the characters at or near full strength, and encounters deplete resources so slowly (due to their decreased cost), every encounter must provide a non-zero chance of catastrophe to provide any meaningful challenge. The best way to prevent catastrophe is the use of your most powerful abilities, which are your daily powers. Since the difficulty of any encounter can be hard to assess in the first few rounds, and the most efficient deployment of any stronger resource is at the beginning on the battle (something explicitly encouraged by dailies with encounter durations), it creates a situations where efficient play is to start off with dailies, and then assess the remaining threat to see if more dailies are necessary. </p><p></p><p>So, what other options are there? I'd start with decoupling resources from combat effectiveness. I'd say the probability of catastrophe is low enough in the current paradigm that it isn't the major driver of rest. I think healing surges provide a nice simulation of increasing fatigue. (Especially if you the fiction that healing surges are an internal reserve, and hit points represent overall combat readiness. The concept that healing magic makes you tired but fixes wounds is a popular one in fantasy novels. The verisimilitude of second wind and martial healing isn't an issue I want to address, since I'm rather conflicted on it.) </p><p></p><p>The other way to lower rest is, of course, to increase motivation to not rest. The tried-and-true method is, of course, narrative urgency. (Rescue the princess! Save the kidnapped townsfolk!). This can work in small-to-moderate doses, depending on the character's motivations and the player's willingness to bend to narrative pressure. I would argue, though, for a mechanical rationale for progress. There is already a mechanical incentive to not rest in the game: action points. While action points are strong now, I would argue for them to become an even more integral part of the gameplay process. Tie action point expenditure to cool stuff. Eliminate dailies, and have a class of powers that can only be used via action points. Have methods of action point generation in addition to per encounter, or every other encounter. Using encounter powers should give action points. Burning a healing surge should give action points. Basically, a method where effectiveness increases with resource burn, not decreases. It's the single best way to drive players to act like fantasy heroes should.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TwoSix, post: 5627593, member: 205"] Healing in any edition of D&D has always been a little wonky, because it's trying to reconcile two opposed design concepts. (Well, more so in 3e and 4e. I don't know if earlier editions cared). There's the simulation aspect of resting to recover strength versus the gamist (and genre emulation) concept of pressing on when the chips are down. It's hard to argue against resting as an unrealistic simulation. In the real world, we don't do a voluntary activity that's physically demanding without resting first. Rest puts us back at full strength. It's so inherent to the human condition that you can't simply design it out of the game. Rest is mandatory. If rest is inherently a solid simulation, where is the problem? The problem, of course, is the game aspect. Every edition of D&D (most especially the early versions) is a game of resource management. The goal of the game is gain treasure and experience. To do so, you must expend resources, most commonly your vitality (Hit Points) and magic spells. (Other physical resources like food, water, and supplies were also a consideration in early editions, less so in 3e and 4e). You regain resources by resting. The other consideration is that probability of success increases with the amount of resources available, and the probability of catastrophic failure (i.e. death or other loss of progress, as opposed to not making progress) increases markedly as the amount of resources nears zero. So, the most rational approach to standard D&D conditions is to rest up completely before any encounter where the probability of success is less than 100%, and the possibility of death is not zero. Hence, 5-min adventuring day. This is where the genre emulation and gamism come in. The 5-min adventuring day is perfectly rational, but it's boring. Genre heroes don't retreat when bruised. Games where the probabilities are near certain aren't as engaging. So, what incentives can be put into the game to reward fun play over rational, efficient play? (Note that this issue is also a key driver of many MMO mechanics). Older edtions did this by linking greater progress to pressing on. The better treasure was at the lower levels of the dungeon, so you couldn't progress by simply doing one fight at a time. Resources beyond your personal vitality and spells (such as healing potions and scrolls) were also available to be gained via progression, allowing for gain in resources outside of rest and retreat. While the gain of resources outside of personal power was tightly controlled by the DM in earlier editions, much of that power was shifted to the players in 3e, by means of a more robust and structured magic item creation system. This allowed for the efficient transfer of treaure into more endurance. Wands of cure light wounds meant that rationally, a loss of hit points had a fixed gold cost. Also, the amount of personal endurance was vastly increased by the greater amount of spells that could be used by the spellcasting classes. Since the increased spell load could also be manipulated to increase effectiveness, with the trade-off of increased endurance (i.e. going nova), the rational approach was still to face as few encounters as possible, but face more challenging ones (since amount of progress had become more explicitly coupled to the amount of challenge provided by an encounter) when possible to allow for the most efficient use of the increased amounts of abilities. 4e provided several solutions, with the aim of pushing towards a low-rest baseline. While earlier editions had incentivized progression (both for its own sake and to provide endurance), 4e sought to minimize resource cost. At-will and encounter powers provided combat novelty while zeroing resource cost. Healing surges provided a secondary vitality resource that minimized probability of catastrophic failure (low HP = high chance of dying, full HP = low chance of dying) while still adding a simulationist pressure of dwindling resources. (After all, there's no point of having resources if they can't be expended). However, some have argued that 4e didn't go far enough in its design. Low incentive to rest is still some incentive to rest. Daily powers are both flashy and powerful, and their expenditure still represents a diminished probabilty of success and a higher probability of catastrophe. This is perversely encouraged by 4e's encounter design. Since every encounter should occur with the characters at or near full strength, and encounters deplete resources so slowly (due to their decreased cost), every encounter must provide a non-zero chance of catastrophe to provide any meaningful challenge. The best way to prevent catastrophe is the use of your most powerful abilities, which are your daily powers. Since the difficulty of any encounter can be hard to assess in the first few rounds, and the most efficient deployment of any stronger resource is at the beginning on the battle (something explicitly encouraged by dailies with encounter durations), it creates a situations where efficient play is to start off with dailies, and then assess the remaining threat to see if more dailies are necessary. So, what other options are there? I'd start with decoupling resources from combat effectiveness. I'd say the probability of catastrophe is low enough in the current paradigm that it isn't the major driver of rest. I think healing surges provide a nice simulation of increasing fatigue. (Especially if you the fiction that healing surges are an internal reserve, and hit points represent overall combat readiness. The concept that healing magic makes you tired but fixes wounds is a popular one in fantasy novels. The verisimilitude of second wind and martial healing isn't an issue I want to address, since I'm rather conflicted on it.) The other way to lower rest is, of course, to increase motivation to not rest. The tried-and-true method is, of course, narrative urgency. (Rescue the princess! Save the kidnapped townsfolk!). This can work in small-to-moderate doses, depending on the character's motivations and the player's willingness to bend to narrative pressure. I would argue, though, for a mechanical rationale for progress. There is already a mechanical incentive to not rest in the game: action points. While action points are strong now, I would argue for them to become an even more integral part of the gameplay process. Tie action point expenditure to cool stuff. Eliminate dailies, and have a class of powers that can only be used via action points. Have methods of action point generation in addition to per encounter, or every other encounter. Using encounter powers should give action points. Burning a healing surge should give action points. Basically, a method where effectiveness increases with resource burn, not decreases. It's the single best way to drive players to act like fantasy heroes should. [/QUOTE]
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