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Those who come from earlier editions, why are you okay with 5E healing (or are you)?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7883808" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>There COULD be a correlation between healing and hirelings. I don't think it is out of the question. HOWEVER, I would say that IME the history of D&D, from this perspective, looks something like:</p><p></p><p>OD&D - hard healing, henchmen/hirelings/stronghold development expected. Really, from what I have heard and experienced of early 1970's D&D play, the game evolved out of a wargame (a Kriegspiel really) where each 'player' was more like a small country (or at least a 'warlord' who built some sort of state/army). The core rules were fantasy supplement Chainmail and the leader figures were adapted into PCs and dungeon crawls were substituted at some point for (at least most) standard outright battles. Thus hirelings/henchmen were the main focus of the original rules base, and classed PCs only slowly emerged. D&D itself focused a lot more on the PCs, but the rules fully envisaged an evolution of a campaign from low-level dungeon crawling up to being a warlord/mighty wizard/religious leader and then into a realm of land clearing, mass battles, etc.</p><p></p><p>B/X and following - Early on this was just a simplification and streamlining of the original game (Holmes). It doesn't really get into hirelings and such explicitly, but it was assumed the DM would move on to more complete rules (either D&D or AD&D). I really never played much red box B/X (or BECMI/RC) so I am not sure what they did in terms of hireling/henchman rules over time. Healing was certainly pretty much the same as in the original game though.</p><p></p><p>AD&D (1e) - I believe a CON bonus was added to healing, but it is still slow. Hirelings and Henchmen have extensive rules, but by this point in time ACTUAL PLAY had largely moved on from the original 'warlord template' of the original game. Some groups leveraged hired help a lot, and they could really add a helpful dimension to parties, but they were EXPENSIVE too. It also took a pretty large amount of time to work out all the logistics and whatnot, so many groups just used them cursorily or not at all. Modules largely seem to assume there will not be any such figures present, and don't provide any opportunities to really utilize them or explain how they would fit in, which further discourages their use. One thing I would note is that clerics get MANY more CLW spells in 1e than in previous editions (3/day with a decent wisdom vs 0/day at level 1 in D&D, and 1/day in B/X).</p><p></p><p>2e simply carries on with a trend of de-emphasizing hired help somewhat, though the rules remain pretty much intact if you look for them. Healing doesn't really change.</p><p></p><p>So, IME what I don't see is a strict correlation, but more of opposing trends, which might have reinforced each other. Most groups lost interest in the minutia of running games filled with loads of hired help. This was probably largely a result of D&D transitioning from an older wargamer audience to AD&D & B/X which attracted much more of a highschool/college age audience who didn't want to spend many hours a week in convo's with the DM working through all the logistics.</p><p>At the same time, these same players weren't that interested in Gygax's clockwork time keeping ideas and running many characters in parallel, so they really wanted a game where there was a challenge, resource management, but it knew enough bounds that they wouldn't be getting sidelined for half of every one of the much less common sessions.</p><p>Gygax was basically running games, or doing 'party related stuff' EVERY SINGLE DAY for several hours a day when he was an active DM! His vision of the game and rule system heavily reflect that, though I give him credit for making things quite flexible. The point being, the game played by most people in, say, 1979 is a lot different from what Gary was playing, and it probably had a lot less hired help and a lot more healing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7883808, member: 82106"] There COULD be a correlation between healing and hirelings. I don't think it is out of the question. HOWEVER, I would say that IME the history of D&D, from this perspective, looks something like: OD&D - hard healing, henchmen/hirelings/stronghold development expected. Really, from what I have heard and experienced of early 1970's D&D play, the game evolved out of a wargame (a Kriegspiel really) where each 'player' was more like a small country (or at least a 'warlord' who built some sort of state/army). The core rules were fantasy supplement Chainmail and the leader figures were adapted into PCs and dungeon crawls were substituted at some point for (at least most) standard outright battles. Thus hirelings/henchmen were the main focus of the original rules base, and classed PCs only slowly emerged. D&D itself focused a lot more on the PCs, but the rules fully envisaged an evolution of a campaign from low-level dungeon crawling up to being a warlord/mighty wizard/religious leader and then into a realm of land clearing, mass battles, etc. B/X and following - Early on this was just a simplification and streamlining of the original game (Holmes). It doesn't really get into hirelings and such explicitly, but it was assumed the DM would move on to more complete rules (either D&D or AD&D). I really never played much red box B/X (or BECMI/RC) so I am not sure what they did in terms of hireling/henchman rules over time. Healing was certainly pretty much the same as in the original game though. AD&D (1e) - I believe a CON bonus was added to healing, but it is still slow. Hirelings and Henchmen have extensive rules, but by this point in time ACTUAL PLAY had largely moved on from the original 'warlord template' of the original game. Some groups leveraged hired help a lot, and they could really add a helpful dimension to parties, but they were EXPENSIVE too. It also took a pretty large amount of time to work out all the logistics and whatnot, so many groups just used them cursorily or not at all. Modules largely seem to assume there will not be any such figures present, and don't provide any opportunities to really utilize them or explain how they would fit in, which further discourages their use. One thing I would note is that clerics get MANY more CLW spells in 1e than in previous editions (3/day with a decent wisdom vs 0/day at level 1 in D&D, and 1/day in B/X). 2e simply carries on with a trend of de-emphasizing hired help somewhat, though the rules remain pretty much intact if you look for them. Healing doesn't really change. So, IME what I don't see is a strict correlation, but more of opposing trends, which might have reinforced each other. Most groups lost interest in the minutia of running games filled with loads of hired help. This was probably largely a result of D&D transitioning from an older wargamer audience to AD&D & B/X which attracted much more of a highschool/college age audience who didn't want to spend many hours a week in convo's with the DM working through all the logistics. At the same time, these same players weren't that interested in Gygax's clockwork time keeping ideas and running many characters in parallel, so they really wanted a game where there was a challenge, resource management, but it knew enough bounds that they wouldn't be getting sidelined for half of every one of the much less common sessions. Gygax was basically running games, or doing 'party related stuff' EVERY SINGLE DAY for several hours a day when he was an active DM! His vision of the game and rule system heavily reflect that, though I give him credit for making things quite flexible. The point being, the game played by most people in, say, 1979 is a lot different from what Gary was playing, and it probably had a lot less hired help and a lot more healing. [/QUOTE]
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Those who come from earlier editions, why are you okay with 5E healing (or are you)?
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