What is a Wound? An attempt to bridge the divide.

[Bedrockgames]

I think that you may have misunderstood [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point. He's not arguing for quick natural recovery of hp. He's arguing that, whether you use the quick recovery module or the slow recovery module, your adventure pacing won't be very different, because groups who use the slow recovery module will rely more heavily on magical healing of some form or another to speed up their PCs' recovery rates.

But it seems all part of an argument to dismiss the other sides concern over fast healing (i.e. It doesn't matter in practice anyways so why should it be a. Problem). I am just observing that even if his argument about pacing is correct (and personally I dont believe is) it doesn't matter. What matters is fast natural healing bothers a large section of the player base.

 

[Hussar]

I think that you may have misunderstood [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point. He's not arguing for quick natural recovery of hp. He's arguing that, whether you use the quick recovery module or the slow recovery module, your adventure pacing won't be very different, because groups who use the slow recovery module will rely more heavily on magical healing of some form or another to speed up their PCs' recovery rates.

This is exactly right. Like I said, one day or three days, it likely isn't a huge deal when designing adventures - which is the bit we're discussing here.

I'm going out on a bit of a limb here, but, a group without ANY healing is an outlier in D&D. At least from AD&D onwards. Like I said earlier, it's pretty rare that a group would rely 100% on natural healing. Most groups would have a cleric at the very least.

It's also something of an outlier that an entire group would be low on hit points at the same time. Sure, it happens and I'm not saying it doesn't. But, it's a bit less frequent than a couple of PC's being seriously beat up and the group stopping to rest and recuperate. So, bringing up the idea that the cleric has to heal the entire party is a bit misleading since it likely doesn't happen that often. After all, that 23 HP of healing will likely bring the 7th level thief and magic user back most of the way. Sure, the fighter might take a bit longer, but, overall, we're talking days, not weeks.

And, as far as adventure design goes, days usually don't matter that much.

I mean, look at Keep on the Borderlands. Does it really make an enormous difference if you heal in 3 days or heal in 1? IIRC, in the original module, it takes weeks for reinforcements to repopulate a seriously cleared cave. It's not going to make a massive difference.

 

[Hussar]

But it seems all part of an argument to dismiss the other sides concern over fast healing (i.e. It doesn't matter in practice anyways so why should it be a. Problem). I am just observing that even if his argument about pacing is correct (and personally I dont believe is) it doesn't matter. What matters is fast natural healing bothers a large section of the player base.

Oh, no, I'm not saying this at all. I still want the two baselines as options. The criticism is that two baselines make adventure design too difficult.

My response is that, from a purely practical standpoint, it's rarely all that different. The slow healing group will rely on magical healing, just as they have always done, and heal at roughly the same rate as the fast healing group. Or, at least close enough in rate to not make a large impact on adventure pacing.

Both groups still get their own option though.

About the only group that would be a problem for adventure design would be the slow healing group that does not rely on magical healing. Like I've said, I think that's enough of an outlier that I honestly don't care. I mean, even with JRRNeiklot's 23 HP per day, you're only talking a week at the absolute outside to heal a party that's been brought to like 1 hp each. Most of the time, it will be shorter than that.

 

[Herschel]

Ever see someone have a seizure in real life? Psychic damage.

A seizure is in no way, shape or form Psychic Damage, at least by definition. Generally epileptic seizures are because of excessive or abnormal neuron activity in the brain but there's also physical trauma in types where there's the rapid and strong tightening of muscle groups and even resulting unconsciousness.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Oh, no, I'm not saying this at all. I still want the two baselines as options. The criticism is that two baselines make adventure design too difficult.

My response is that, from a purely practical standpoint, it's rarely all that different. The slow healing group will rely on magical healing, just as they have always done, and heal at roughly the same rate as the fast healing group. Or, at least close enough in rate to not make a large impact on adventure pacing.

Both groups still get their own option though.

About the only group that would be a problem for adventure design would be the slow healing group that does not rely on magical healing. Like I've said, I think that's enough of an outlier that I honestly don't care. I mean, even with JRRNeiklot's 23 HP per day, you're only talking a week at the absolute outside to heal a party that's been brought to like 1 hp each. Most of the time, it will be shorter than that.

Sorry Hussar. I miss understood as pemerton originally stated. In that case I do agree that we should have two options. But I think in practice both options will yield different results. However I am not terribly worried about modules striking the appropriate challenge rating for all groups (they never have and never will in my opinion---the gm always has to scale the mdoule to his desired level of difficulty for the party). Throw in rapid healing into the mix and the pace will change because it will fill in any gaps from magical healing (which in my experience varies a good deal from campaign to campaign and group to group). But pace and challenge are not the same thing. The individual encounters should still be about the same level of challenge. What changes is how many you can reasonably take on in a given period of time.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

A 7th level cleric likely has, IIRC, 4 1st level spells and 1 4th level spell. Even a 13 Wis netted you two more 1st level spells. An 18 wis and you have 2 4th level spells as well. That's considerably more than 5d8+1 hp. And, sure, it might take two or three days, but, that's about it. And that's not counting having any NPC healers, being able to go back to town for healing, potions, rings, a druid, or umpteen other sources of healing.

Like I said, 1 day or 3 days, it's not going to make much difference in adventure design.

It makes a lot of difference. A party takes an ass kicking, holes up somewhere, they heal one hit point each, the cleric - we'll assume all clerics have an 18 wisdom, as you seem to think - cures 9d8+2 hit points. That's an average of 38 hit points. Assuming everyone is 7th level, that will bring a fighter with a 14 or less con back to near full from 0 health on average. But what about the ranger, the thief, the magic user, the paladin? The next morning, the party heads deeper into the dungeon. The fighter is full up, or close enough. Everyone else is weak, but the mu has a full complement of spells, and the cleric has all his 2nd and 3rd level spells. Every fight today will be tough, and even a trap that would ordinarily be just a painful nuisance can be deadly. This is standard procedure for every group I've played in in over 30 years. Holing up in a dungeon is risky. Eventually you'll be found and fighting the entire complex at once is not something you wanna do. Unless of course, the bad guys simply wait in their cubicle for the adventurers to come and kill them.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah. About the biggest change would have to come in any race-the-clock style adventure. But, for most adventures, I don't think it would make too terribly large of a difference. I mean, you can look at various modules that have been imported into various editions, and by and large, they work. 3e has considerably higher healing rates than, say, straight up 1e (pre UA) but the modules can be adapted to both editions.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

It's also something of an outlier that an entire group would be low on hit points at the same time. Sure, it happens and I'm not saying it doesn't. But, it's a bit less frequent than a couple of PC's being seriously beat up and the group stopping to rest and recuperate.

Your dm must be a pushover. It happens all the time. Why are you stopping because one or two pcs are low on hp? If you still have 3 or 4 guys in good shape, you move forward, only stopping when necessary. A pc or two whining when they are hurt when the rest of te party is fine, well, they won't be pcs long. Or at least party members. My group would tell them to suck it up.

And, as far as adventure design goes, days usually don't matter that much.

I mean, look at Keep on the Borderlands. Does it really make an enormous difference if you heal in 3 days or heal in 1? IIRC, in the original module, it takes weeks for reinforcements to repopulate a seriously cleared cave. It's not going to make a massive difference.

The keep assumes you clear out a cave or two and return to the Keep. In that instance, a day or three might not matter much. But it's a simple matter to reset and move most traps. Or set a few new ones. The second foray in might not catch the cave dwellers as unprepared. At any rate, that's much different than finding a little used cave or secret room few know of and camping for a day. There are No wandering monsters in the keep, for one thing.

I've played in a ton of groups over the years, and every group has been the same. Spend a night, heal what you can, the next day you move on. I don't think that style of play is so rare.

 

[Uller]

A seizure is in no way, shape or form Psychic Damage, at least by definition. Generally epileptic seizures are because of excessive or abnormal neuron activity in the brain but there's also physical trauma in types where there's the rapid and strong tightening of muscle groups and even resulting unconsciousness.

You people will argue over anything...after having our third child my wife nearly bled out. After about a week in the hospital her blood pressure went way up and she began retain massive amounts of fluids (she normally weighs about a buck 10 and she was pushing 170...) one morning she seized....she was awake and confused when I got there then she siezed againn...the neurologist said "why the hell is she siezzing so much?" (Tell me that's not disconcerting!) . A couple months ago a friend of mine hit his head in a hockey game and siezed. When I was in iraq a fellow soldier suffered heat exhaustion and siezed. So I'm well aware of what a siezure is and what its effects are.

My point was that someone who is taken down to 0 hp by psychic damage could be narrated as if they were having a siezure. YMMV.

 

[Herschel]

You people will argue over anything...after having our third child my wife nearly bled out. After about a week in the hospital her blood pressure went way up and she began retain massive amounts of fluids (she normally weighs about a buck 10 and she was pushing 170...) one morning she seized....she was awake and confused when I got there then she siezed againn...the neurologist said "why the hell is she siezzing so much?" (Tell me that's not disconcerting!) . A couple months ago a friend of mine hit his head in a hockey game and siezed. When I was in iraq a fellow soldier suffered heat exhaustion and siezed. So I'm well aware of what a siezure is and what its effects are.

My point was that someone who is taken down to 0 hp by psychic damage could be narrated as if they were having a siezure. YMMV.

Good perspective. I get a little touchy about the subject as I have a step-daughter who has seizures preiodically and they have no real idea why.