My problems with 4E's healing and dying mechanics:
#1: The dying mechanic is difficult to reconcile with non-magical healing. My character is reduced to zero hit points and falls down, bleeding out, mere seconds away from death; well and good. But then the warlord yells at him and he snaps out of it and jumps back up, carries on adventuring as if nothing had happened, and is fine the next day? This is the place where the hit point abstraction breaks down IMO. Even with magical healing, you'd think there would be some effect from being on the brink of death.
#2: PCs are excessively blase about being reduced to zero hit points. I have seen healers deliberately hold their healing (heck, done it myself) until someone falls unconscious, because you get more bang for your healing buck if you use it on a target who's below zero hit points. Granted, there are drawbacks to going unconscious, but if the healer is at the right spot in the initiative order - or delays to get to that spot - those drawbacks are minimal.
#3: There's no such thing as long-term injury. I don't want PCs to have to deal with lasting injuries all the time, or even most of the time, but I do want it to come up once in a while.
#4: Some powers inflict hit point damage that really should not do so, e.g., the bard's Vicious Mockery power. If it does hit point damage, that means it can kill. Vicious Mockery should not be able to kill. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's magic Vicious Mockery... a wizard did it.)
#5: Minions and auto-damage (damage that does not involve an attack roll) don't play well together. I'm a huge fan of the minion rules, but they need to be tweaked so you can't slaughter minions by the truckload using area-effect auto-damage.
#6: As mentioned above, coup de grace isn't.
My solution to #1, #2, and #3 would be to give PCs more hit points, but impose serious consequences for dropping to zero. Once you go to zero hit points, you should be out of the fight and possibly suffer a lasting injury. Healing effects can keep you from dying, but won't enable you to jump back up and rejoin the fray.
For #4, of course, make those powers not do damage, or just get rid of them.
Haven't yet worked out a solution to #5 that I'm happy with.
For #6, make it much harder to impose the unconscious or helpless conditions; balance those conditions as if they were instant death effects. Then make the coup de grace vastly more lethal. Something like: "The victim is reduced to zero hit points and must immediately make three death saves."
#1: The dying mechanic is difficult to reconcile with non-magical healing. My character is reduced to zero hit points and falls down, bleeding out, mere seconds away from death; well and good. But then the warlord yells at him and he snaps out of it and jumps back up, carries on adventuring as if nothing had happened, and is fine the next day? This is the place where the hit point abstraction breaks down IMO. Even with magical healing, you'd think there would be some effect from being on the brink of death.
#2: PCs are excessively blase about being reduced to zero hit points. I have seen healers deliberately hold their healing (heck, done it myself) until someone falls unconscious, because you get more bang for your healing buck if you use it on a target who's below zero hit points. Granted, there are drawbacks to going unconscious, but if the healer is at the right spot in the initiative order - or delays to get to that spot - those drawbacks are minimal.
#3: There's no such thing as long-term injury. I don't want PCs to have to deal with lasting injuries all the time, or even most of the time, but I do want it to come up once in a while.
#4: Some powers inflict hit point damage that really should not do so, e.g., the bard's Vicious Mockery power. If it does hit point damage, that means it can kill. Vicious Mockery should not be able to kill. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's magic Vicious Mockery... a wizard did it.)
#5: Minions and auto-damage (damage that does not involve an attack roll) don't play well together. I'm a huge fan of the minion rules, but they need to be tweaked so you can't slaughter minions by the truckload using area-effect auto-damage.
#6: As mentioned above, coup de grace isn't.
My solution to #1, #2, and #3 would be to give PCs more hit points, but impose serious consequences for dropping to zero. Once you go to zero hit points, you should be out of the fight and possibly suffer a lasting injury. Healing effects can keep you from dying, but won't enable you to jump back up and rejoin the fray.
For #4, of course, make those powers not do damage, or just get rid of them.
Haven't yet worked out a solution to #5 that I'm happy with.
For #6, make it much harder to impose the unconscious or helpless conditions; balance those conditions as if they were instant death effects. Then make the coup de grace vastly more lethal. Something like: "The victim is reduced to zero hit points and must immediately make three death saves."
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