[UA] Mearls will be happy about this

[Nightfall]

Congrats Mike. So now about your AU work...think maybe they'll swipe that. OR what about some of the stuff in PG: Clerics and Druids? (I think while it's not varient stuff it's still rather neat the whole place/ancestor/animal totem worship dealio)

 

[buzz]

I am not going to sit there and count off minutes since the last fight so everybody can get hit points back for no visible reason.

Considering that even WotC can't really pin down what hit points are, other than (what I like to call) "cinematic importance points," i.e., high-level PC's don't die as readily as low-level ones, why does it matter if the reason is "visible" or not?

I love this rule because I feel it a) makes games more cinematic and 2) makes D&D a little more flexible. If it's not quite as absolutely necessary to have a "tank medic" in your party, you can vary its composition, and thus a campaign's subject matter, imho.

I dunno. This just rawks. "Options, not restrictions" dangit.

 

[Frostmarrow]

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=72032

Another thread on the same subject wherein Plane Sailing presents another niffty solution.

 

[hong]

Considering that even WotC can't really pin down what hit points are, other than (what I like to call) "cinematic importance points," i.e., high-level PC's don't die as readily as low-level ones, why does it matter if the reason is "visible" or not?

I love this rule because I feel it a) makes games more cinematic and 2) makes D&D a little more flexible. If it's not quite as absolutely necessary to have a "tank medic" in your party, you can vary its composition, and thus a campaign's subject matter, imho.

I dunno. This just rawks. "Options, not restrictions" dangit.

I think the point TW is making (well, one of them) is that using reserve points makes it necessary to keep a fairly accurate track of time elapsed in the dungeon. Has it been 30 minutes or 60 minutes since we fought those demons? That could make a big difference when we fight the lich.

I'm running into the same problem IMC, where I use a variant on VP/WP. VP get restored at the rate of 1 per level per hour, and this makes it necessary to keep track of how long it's been since the last fight. This is in contrast to hit points, where there are no bookkeeping difficulties at all; nobody gets back hit points unless they actually do something (cast a spell, stop to rest, etc).

I _like_ the faster healing rate of VP/WP, don't get me wrong. But it does have a downside.

 

[mythusmage]

Folks, when I started out everybody kept time. For one thing, there was always the chance something could wander around and take an interest in you as a possible source of nourishment every now and then.

There was also torch and spell duration, which DMs took very seriously.

"Not only has your torch gone out, so has your Protection from Evil."

So keeping track of time doesn't sound to me like that big an imposition.

 

[Nightfall]

This is why the Swiss invented clocks. So Dms would know something about how time passes.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I hate to disagree with mearls, but this doesn't seem like earth-shattering design to me.

As many folks have pointed out, it simply means that the party, instead of having to rest/recover/retreat after every fight, have to retreat after every other fight.

It changes the party's resources, yes, but I don't really think it changes "resource management" in any significant way. On the other hand, it does add a layer of timekeeping I could do without.

Wulf

 

[Nightfall]

Wulf,

Well if you want an earthshattering design, I think you have to shatter a world or two to get it right.

 

[mmadsen]

I am not going to sit there and count off minutes since the last fight so everybody can get hit points back for no visible reason.

I don't mind the "no visible reason" aspect, because hit points don't necessarily reflect "visible" injuries in the first place. Having a reserve is better than having to "heal" near misses, loss of momentum and esprit, etc. If you're going to use an ablative score (a "resource") for something that's not particularly ablative (ability to avoid a telling blow), some "wonkiness" has to enter the system.

I agree with your "counting off minutes" complaint though. Waiting for the power bar to recharge, minute by minute, is pretty silly. I think it would work better to run the reserve off "cinematic" time: After each fight, you get one reserve hit die back. If you take time to bandage wounds, you get a second hit die back. If you rest all day, you get a third hit die back.

I would much rather:

A: Increase hit dice size, ie how Arcana Unearthed uses D6 as the baseline.

The goal is to allow the heroes to fight and win multiple close fights in a row. Simply increasing the heroes' hit points makes them tougher; it's not much better than reducing all the challenges along the way. Increasing everyone's hit points -- heroes and monsters -- of course, is no improvement at all; you're back where you started.

Again, if you rely on an ablative score for survivability, you have to replenish it after most fights -- and relying on super-high starting scores is what gives us heroes jumping off cliffs, knowing they can't be seriously hurt, etc.

B: See more ways to do low-power cleric-type healing with Alchemy or a Heal check. Where are the folk remedies, or the old wise woman of the village who doesn't have real magic, just a knack with herbs?

I'd like to see that too. Of course, it ties in nicely with reserves. Perhaps most "healing" just transfers reserves to active hit points. And perhaps a rousing prayer (cure light wounds) doesn't heal at all, but it does boost reserves.

C: Some kind of "drama point" mechanic whereby low-level characters can dodge deaths from those random crits kobolds deal out. Maybe once per session, you can convert a crit on yourself into a normal hit, or an attack that would take you to less than 0 hp instead takes you to 1 and knocks you out for the rest of the battle. That's just off the top of my head, and should in no way be construed as a well-thought out idea.

Drama points can easily replace hit points. In fact, if you don't want to change the mechanics much, you can redefine hit points to be drama points:

"The orc hits you for eight points of damage."
"I'll use eight drama points to have the axe just graze me."

 

[maddman75]

At high levels (say > 15th), hit points are not something you worry about, in terms of resource management between fights. You can go from full hit points to near zero in just a couple of rounds of fighting. Assuming you survive, the cleric does a heal or mass heal, and you're back close to full again. The resources you worry about at those levels tend to be heal spells, boom spells, limited use/day items and abilities, and so forth. Smart PCs will get an item to cast heal on themselves, to protect against the possibility that the cleric is the one who gets taken out.

Heck, this sort of thing can even happen at mid-levels (around 10th-15th). The mage IMC got steamrolled by a giant blob monster and went from full hit points to -40 in one round. A few sessions ago, the knight got jumped by a big cat-demon and went from near-full to near-zero in the first round of combat. Only two critical hits from the raging barbarian that killed the demon saved him from getting shredded.

I'm seriously contemplating a change to our house rules to extend the bleed-out time for PCs who go down. Danger is all well and good, but the experience of one death per session that was typical of our high-level campaign is not something I want to repeat.

This is one of my problems with high level D&D. THe game is MORE lethal above 12th level than it is below 5th! Saves, especially those targetted to your weak save, become almost impossible to pass. And any wizard who has lived to 11th level darn well knows that you disintegrate the guy in robes wiggling his fingers and you Dominate the guy in full plate with a bastard sword.

Hit points are also a problem. At low levels you go down a lot but seldom die. I'm hitting your for probably 5 to 15 at a whack for a tough monster, making it likely that you go into negatives only to be dramatically saved at the end. When you get up in the levels and I'm smacking on you for 30, 40, even 50 points at a time you have less and less chance to hit that 0 to -9 window. So what's to be done?

Personally, I'm banning disintegrate. Even with the 3.5 fix, it's too disruptive to the campaign world. I want castles and fortresses to be important. As for the save problem in general I don't think it can be fixed really. Increasing bleedout time may be one possible choice, maybe the death threashold is at -10 - level, so a 15th level character can go to -25?

At one point I was handing out resurrections like they were going out of style, because the PCs were dying every other battle. I really don't like that.