D&D 5E We have a Legends and Lore this week

[Warbringer]

....which gives an interesting kind of flow to a fight with an orc band in the wilderness (or whatever). We now have a mechanical reason for them to "run away and lick their wounds." You fight a dragon outside of its lair or a demon away from the Abyss, and it runs away...maybe you can find where it ran off to, and slay it for good.

Could also be interesting with PC's needing different locales. Maybe the druid can't rest unless he's in a sacred grove, but the rest of the party is fine with a town. This means the druid won't get full rest in a town. Or perhaps a cleric needs access to a temple of their god -- a city of pagans isn't somewhere the cleric can ever get a full rest at. And that Orc PC, maybe he can rest at the orc lair, even though the rest of the party can't...

And doesn't that open up some wonderful story situations ... I think this is an awesome idea that will be yanked no matter what system I play from now

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Are you talking about a game like 3.x, or do you mean to say random encounters take your group 30 minutes in D&DN?

I was speaking generically, without referring to an edition. My point is, even if it only takes 15 minutes per battle, 4 of them still takes an hour out of our 3-4 hour long session.

I haven't timed our encounters in Next, however my group is good at not paying attention, I'm slow to write down damage and keep track of enemies. I'd say somewhere between 15 minutes and 45 minutes is about right depending on the complexity of the encounter. Which is way better than the 1-2 hours 3.5e and 4e battles took us.

 

[DonAdam]

I haven't read this entire thread, but taking what Mearls has said as a parameter, I'd like to see them bring back the bloodied condition.

If you're not bloodied and you get a night's rest, you regain all your hit points.

If you are bloodied and you get a night's rest, you heal up to your bloodied value. You remain bloodied.

You need a more serious rest or magic to stop being bloodied. This way 'bloodied' means you have suffered one or more definite wounds rather than just bruises and fatigue.

I like the idea that this rewards strategic play (avoiding not just death but being bloodied), though some will prefer more of a kick down the door style.

As far as the conditions enabling a more serious rest, I would think either that being in a safe haven (including civilization) or having someone tend to you without violent interruption make the most sense. So you can recover while under the watchful eye of the old kooky druid that lives in a cave, but not if it's just you in the cave.

 

[I'm A Banana]

TAlso, [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION], your suggestions of linking the fantasy geography to recovery in more intricate ways is interesting. With this sort of option, I would be looking for advice and tools to help make it work with party-based play - so the druid can go to the grove, the MU to the tower and the cleric to the non-pagan town, without the game breaking down in the way that it sometimes can if the party splits up.

I imagine this would mean that some thought must be used when making a place considered a "home base" for a party: a town where everyone can rest has a temple of the cleric's deity and a grove outside of it. It's also possible that, as [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION] notes, characters can take some hand in creating their own ideal resting conditions, perhaps with a chance of failure or a consumption or resources. Our Fighter knows how to make camp (with a WIS check) our Cleric or Druid can use a consecration ritual, our Wizard has Leomund's Tiny Hut or Rope Trick, or rogue knows how to endure without rest (with a CON check). Or whatevs.

But I imagine the "simple mode" would just say broadly, "towns provide everything you need." It's just something that probably could be broken down, if you'd like -- something that the idea of resting monsters keyed off in me.

 

[howandwhy99]

The characterization of extended hit point renewal as "one bad decision leading to ruin" is not something I care for. Beating up the player characters may be in vogue in some circles, but extension simply means a longer time span. These are games that place a longer view on what happens between combats. Several combats could happen in a day, but that could be due to multiple fortunate successes, a series of relatively weaker opponents, perhaps a number of retreats from battle, or maybe simply from being high level characters and having the wealth of resources to keep going.

My understanding is Hit Points are a proportion of Structural Points for the characters bodies. You don't have to tear down all the walls of a building or city to successfully invade it. Germs invade our bodies all the time. Hit Points represent a character's ability to take structural damage, hits, from whatever source until life can no longer be sustained. This isn't total demolition of the body, but a proportion needed to end life. There are ways around this total with coup de grace, assassination attacks, poison, and plenty of other magical effects, but attacks have their own challenges. Cutting down a foe's hit points to zero is its own goal.

 

[Hussar]

The characterization of extended hit point renewal as "one bad decision leading to ruin" is not something I care for. Beating up the player characters may be in vogue in some circles, but extension simply means a longer time span. These are games that place a longer view on what happens between combats. Several combats could happen in a day, but that could be due to multiple fortunate successes, a series of relatively weaker opponents, perhaps a number of retreats from battle, or maybe simply from being high level characters and having the wealth of resources to keep going.

My understanding is Hit Points are a proportion of Structural Points for the characters bodies. You don't have to tear down all the walls of a building or city to successfully invade it. Germs invade our bodies all the time. Hit Points represent a character's ability to take structural damage, hits, from whatever source until life can no longer be sustained. This isn't total demolition of the body, but a proportion needed to end life. There are ways around this total with coup de grace, assassination attacks, poison, and plenty of other magical effects, but attacks have their own challenges. Cutting down a foe's hit points to zero is its own goal.

Howandwhy99 - HP as meat is certainly one interpretation of HP. It's not one I subscribe to, but, it is one interpretation.

However, there are other interpretations of HP that are equally as valid.

Any HP recovery mechanic needs to take more than a single interpretation into account in order to make everyone happy.

 

[Blackwarder]

I would say that a heaven or a refuge is every where the DM say it is, so if the party have nam aged to ally with an orce tribe in the middle of a dungeon than that's an heaven for them and its a good enough rule for me, mind you I would love to have a full page of explanation and having this mechanic tied to other game mechanics but the actual rule should be as short and concise as possible.

Warder

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[howandwhy99]

Since this isn't the playing of the game we're not really talking about interpretations. This is about setting up and agreeing to the rules beforehand. My own ideas don't include simply meat, but a lot of the design of a creature's physiology. Of course there are other rules for the design of that physiology too, so therein lies the real discrepancy I believe.

I use morale rules, fatigue rules, saving throw rules for numerous environmental effects that include living organisms (e.g. poison, paralysis, stunning, etc.) and plenty of other game structures that are not collapsed into Hit Points.

That is the real trouble with simply redefining Hit Points. It has a tendency to cause blind spots where things are forgotten when we go from broad down to more specific definitions.

 

[Hussar]

Well, I don't know about making everyone happy, since that's probably a fools errand; but making it usable to as many as possible?...most definitely.

Potato, potahto. Yes, I agree.

Since this isn't the playing of the game we're not really talking about interpretations. This is about setting up and agreeing to the rules beforehand. My own ideas don't include simply meat, but a lot of the design of a creature's physiology. Of course there are other rules for the design of that physiology too, so therein lies the real discrepancy I believe.

I use morale rules, fatigue rules, saving throw rules for numerous environmental effects that include living organisms (e.g. poison, paralysis, stunning, etc.) and plenty of other game structures that are not collapsed into Hit Points.

That is the real trouble with simply redefining Hit Points. It has a tendency to cause blind spots where things are forgotten when we go from broad down to more specific definitions.

But, HP are far too abstract to get that detailed. Undead, particularly incorporeal undead, have no physiology as we would understand it. So, how can their HP be the same as the HP for a human?

Or take various fantastical creatures that simply cannot work, but, we accept them in the name of genre. Any flying monster that's human sized or larger doesn't work. It cannot work. Not without a complete revision of the physics of the game. And that's the point. HP are not part of the "physics engine" of D&D.

Can you do it? Sure. There are a number of games out there that do what you are proposing - typically pretty sim heavy games where the goal of the rules is to produce an accurate simulation of the world. But, again, D&D has almost always sacrificed simulation for speed of play. HP are popular because they work. They're quick and dirty, but, they work.

Sure, when you scratch below the surface, they make about as much sence as a cardboard hammer. We all know that. The trick is, don't scratch. Once you go down the road of trying to make D&D into a simulation game, it changes virtually every aspect of the game. D&D has always been an, to borrow a Forgism, incoherent game. It uses whatever works at the table to judge mechanics. Trying to redefine HP at this point would effectively invalidate every playstyle that doesn't follow your playstyle.

I'd much prefer to leave HP very fuzzy and then let individual DM's futz about hammering it into whatever shape they like.