Quote from: Opaopajr;631578Dude, bullshit.

Timekeeping a day is far easier than timekeeping hours, especially in a game that runs off of rounds (anywhere from 1 minute to 6 seconds) and turns (10 minutes, a.k.a. the middling red-headed stepchild of time keeping). Keeping time outside of combat becomes an intense turn accounting affair in dungeons and generally nebulous during roleplay in peaceful areas. What you are asking is to default with another middle measure for intensive accounting continuously throughout play -- because with HP everyone has skin in the game, and they will want every last point --  and let people unwind that knot into something simpler if they cannot stand it.

That is needlessly convoluted for teaching and utter shite for KISS design. There is an obvious difference in simplicity.

The answer is, 'NO.'

What's next, fractions of an HP? These are games ran by people, ideally at a table, for relaxation, not games ran by microprocessors with nothing better to do. Leave to video games things they will always be best in.

Okay so you want an Old school design paradigm where a caster needs to take 10 minutes per spell level per spell to memorise their spells where DMs are supposed to roll for wandering monsters on a per x turns basis, where various spells last for turns or rounds etc based on the spell description which are all non standardised where the turning effect of Clerics lasts for a set number of turns and where potions and other magical effects all have varied durations .... but you think its too much bookkeeping to regain HP on an hourly basis...okay.

Quote from: jibbajibba;631577Yes but you would admit that there is no difference in simplicity between

i) gain level Hit points per day from healing
ii) gain level HP per hour from healing

The two rules are not divided by compexity versus simplicity they are divided by the difference they effect in play style.

I think there are difference between hourly and daily healing that make hourly healing more 'complex' in use, if not in the complexity of the rules themselves.

The daily healing rate is so slow, which tends to punt it out of consideration during an adventure itself; it becomes part of the process of what happens between adventures. So you go back to town, heal up for a few days or weeks or whatever, and do some bits and pieces of business while you're in town. This makes it simple to use, as a player, as its pretty much something just going on it the background.

Hourly healing is more tactical and happens within the adventure itself, so it becomes much more part of the adventuring process itself. (As an aside, I think it's this tactical aspect that makes it more like clerical healing, which is more tactical in nature than natural healing in early versions of D&D.) This makes it harder to use for the players, as they need to make calculated choices about when and when not to heal.

Quote from: Glazer;631586I think there are difference between hourly and daily healing that make hourly healing more 'complex' in use, if not in the complexity of the rules themselves.

The daily healing rate is so slow, which tends to punt it out of consideration during an adventure itself; it becomes part of the process of what happens between adventures. So you go back to town, heal up for a few days or weeks or whatever, and do some bits and pieces of business while you're in town. This makes it simple to use, as a player, as its pretty much something just going on it the background.

Hourly healing is more tactical and happens within the adventure itself, so it becomes much more part of the adventuring process itself. (As an aside, I think it's this tactical aspect that makes it more like clerical healing, which is more tactical in nature than natural healing in early versions of D&D.) This makes it harder to use for the players, as they need to make calculated choices about when and when not to heal.

To be honest I agree with that interpretation to a point. I just think that in a world like TSR D&D where there are so many effects in play that arguing that it is a bookkeeping overhead is a little weak.

Now you can of course just say per day's rest per or hour's rest and then the party will just rest for a couple of hours after a big fight and they will say. "Okay we rest for a couple of hours and eat something and Dave will sort the treasure out into 4 piles."
DM them rolls for a wandering monster after each hour.
I know that is how it works because we have been playing D&D with hourly recovery (except its 10% of HP rather than level which I now see is unnecessarily complex) for about 15 years.

Quote from: jibbajibba;629327I have always though one of D&D's strengths was that with a few tweaks it can be used to run a whole gamut of games. Which I guess is why the d20 boom saw so many different variants on the D&D frame.

Am I playing it wrong then?

Of course not, if you enjoy it then it's right, it's all about game fun.

BUT for me, nah, D&D is a deeply mixed genre all on it's own with a mix of system and setting assumptions all rolled up into one.

It needs a lot of rebuilding to play many types of fantasy, and frankly I doubt if that's a good idea. As people have said, play D&D to play D&D.

Now, was 4e a better way to play D&D? I guess that's the essential edition war argument. So let's try another one, is Dungeon World a better way to play D&D?

Quote from: tzunder;631590Of course not, if you enjoy it then it's right, it's all about game fun.

BUT for me, nah, D&D is a deeply mixed genre all on it's own with a mix of system and setting assumptions all rolled up into one.

It needs a lot of rebuilding to play many types of fantasy, and frankly I doubt if that's a good idea. As people have said, play D&D to play D&D.

Now, was 4e a better way to play D&D? I guess that's the essential edition war argument. So let's try another one, is Dungeon World a better way to play D&D?

The other side of that coin of course is that D&D is a system that has always been houseruled up the kazoo.
No two bunches of players played 1e the same way. Everything from Encumberance, to spell slots, to racial level limits was changed on a regular basis.
If you sat at my table and played in a game of D&D with me you would recognise it as D&D straight away.
Yes there would be no clerics and you would be in a city fighting a spy master or whatever but the whole thing would feel like D&D to you no doubt about it.
That to me is the strength of D&D and its why it stayed the system of choice throughout from D&D through to 3.5.

Quote from: jibbajibba;631579Okay so you want an Old school design paradigm where a caster needs to take 10 minutes per spell level per spell to memorise their spells where DMs are supposed to roll for wandering monsters on a per x turns basis, where various spells last for turns or rounds etc based on the spell description which are all non standardised where the turning effect of Clerics lasts for a set number of turns and where potions and other magical effects all have varied durations .... but you think its too much bookkeeping to regain HP on an hourly basis...okay.

A lot of that was Magic User responsibility (choosing when to take watch actually mattered), which along with slots made the class more challenging to manage time. Not every class had to do so, and that's a good thing because not every player wanted it so. Further, such precise accounting was often waved away while peacefully role-playing in town.

But everyone has HP. And when it goes to zero, your character dies. And since damage can occur at any time in an RPG, every last bit will matter.

With hourly HP regeneration the stakes are higher and the mechanic is unavoidable. If you ignore it, you die sooner, therefore it matters all the time. This hourly regeneration idea and magic user time management are completely not. the. same.

Quote from: Opaopajr;631594A lot of that was Magic User responsibility (choosing when to take watch actually mattered), which along with slots made the class more challenging to manage time. Not every class had to do so, and that's a good thing because not every player wanted it so. Further, such precise accounting was often waved away while peacefully role-playing in town.

But everyone has HP. And when it goes to zero, your character dies. And since damage can occur at any time in an RPG, every last bit will matter.

With hourly HP regeneration the stakes are higher and the mechanic is unavoidable. If you ignore it, you die sooner, therefore it matters all the time. The issue between this hourly regeneration idea and magic user time management are completely not. the. same.

But the time your potion of Superheroism runs for or the duration of that Strength spell?
The DM is tracking time right for wandering monsters, for background world in motion type events and all that stuff. So they just say okay hour's up you can get back some HP, or like I said above, which is how we do it, you only recover when you are resting then it's simples.

Quote from: Benoist;630999Absolutely. The funny thing is, it exists. It's called "a cleric". I'm sure you've heard of those. Now if you make abstraction of the noise you hear on internet forums that keep calling the cleric "healbot", maybe you'll realize that's far from summarizing what actual clerics do in the game, by any stretch of the imagination, ever since the class existed in OD&D.

If you're going to take the position that it doesn't ever happen, then it would be pretty clear what position you'd take on preventing it.  It also limits your input in the conversation.

Quote from: jibbajibba;631577Yes but you would admit that there is no difference in simplicity between

i) gain level Hit points per day from healing
ii) gain level HP per hour from healing

The two rules are not divided by compexity versus simplicity they are divided by the difference they effect in play style.

So in this case it's an argument between play styles, and logic and simplicity are moot.

Now if you were to say we took a survey and more people want HP/day than HP/hour then it would be logical to support that play style as you get more customers. However, you would still expect people that wanted the other type to complain just as traditionalists complained throughout 4e because it is a playstyle/commercial decision. that is what I was trying to get at with my original post and I stated as much very clearly.

Interestingly once you opt to go to HP/day you actually have to introduce a lot more stuff to support actual play. Which is why you have clerical healing, healing potions, wands of healing etc etc in the first place.
For me as I noted one of my real gripes is the way a requirement for magical healing results in a lot more magic inherent in the system. So if I want to try and get to a S&S feel where magic is rare and dangerous and fantastic its much harder.

I think the simplicity is the same. I just dont understand why they would begin with one hour heal rates. That basically means hp are only exhaustion. They literally cannot represent physical damage of you are healing your level in hp an hour (a fifth level fighter with fifty hp gets mever takes more than a day to heal). I get some people find this a lot more convenient, but I find it highly disruptive to my suspension of disbelief. It basically either means no one really gets hurt or characters are super heroes with regeneration. For me that doesnt fit how I view D&D at all. That said, if I can easily shift it to level per day or level per week, then it isnt a huge issue for me. But this definitely feels like a gamey decision to me.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;631615I think the simplicity is the same. I just dont understand why they would begin with one hour heal rates. That basically means hp are only exhaustion. They literally cannot represent physical damage of you are healing your level in hp an hour (a fifth level fighter with fifty hp gets mever takes more than a day to heal). I get some people find this a lot more convenient, but I find it highly disruptive to my suspension of disbelief. It basically either means no one really gets hurt or characters are super heroes with regeneration. For me that doesnt fit how I view D&D at all. That said, if I can easily shift it to level per day or level per week, then it isnt a huge issue for me. But this definitely feels like a gamey decision to me.

Add wounds, its easy
I have to say something though if you limit magical healing to ..well none at all. HP that heal quickly do not mean you never feel in touble quite the opposite.
After a big fight you are on say 20% of your hits you are really exposed. Your 5th level fighter is on 10hp and after 3 hours in game he is still on 25 even if he has just rested and nothing else came his way.
There is no heal wand, no quick Cure Serious to buff you up you really are on your own. Yes you can camp and try to survive the next few hours but Dms are mean so ...

Of course as you say you can bump it to L/day or week as you see fit.
The key i think is matching the heal rate to the availability of magical healing in your setting to get the game you want out of it.

Quote from: mcbobbo;631608If you're going to take the position that it doesn't ever happen, then it would be pretty clear what position you'd take on preventing it.  It also limits your input in the conversation.

I think the people who practice reductio ad absurdum as an art on the internet, as for instance they do when talking about the cleric solely as "the healbot" on D&D forums, is a rather limiting input to engender an actual, practical conversation in the first place.

So I see where you're coming from, in a way.

Quote from: jibbajibba;631630Add wounds, its easy
 

I do games i do like wounds. But i think D&D plays better without them. Obviously i can twek this to suit my taste, and I will. But to me it is just more of the same kind of stuff that bothered me so much about 4E. It is not a dealbreaker on its own however.

Everyone will have a personal preference, but I want somewhat realistic healing rates (slow...taked weeks to months to heal from fifty sword stabs)

Let magic healing be what heals you up at a fast rate.

Quote from: Glazer;631586I think there are difference between hourly and daily healing that make hourly healing more 'complex' in use, if not in the complexity of the rules themselves.

The daily healing rate is so slow, which tends to punt it out of consideration during an adventure itself; it becomes part of the process of what happens between adventures. So you go back to town, heal up for a few days or weeks or whatever, and do some bits and pieces of business while you're in town. This makes it simple to use, as a player, as its pretty much something just going on it the background.

Hourly healing is more tactical and happens within the adventure itself, so it becomes much more part of the adventuring process itself. (As an aside, I think it's this tactical aspect that makes it more like clerical healing, which is more tactical in nature than natural healing in early versions of D&D.) This makes it harder to use for the players, as they need to make calculated choices about when and when not to heal.

This is in fact a deliberate part of what makes 4E what it is.  If you want something that is even MORE tactical than Chainmail, that's all to the good.  But after years of doing things differently - and having other options in other games - it doesn't come off as "natural" to some of us.

JG

Quote from: jibbajibba;631577Yes but you would admit that there is no difference in simplicity between

i) gain level Hit points per day from healing
ii) gain level HP per hour from healing

No see,I think this is what you're missing: there's no difference in simplicity between either option IF you plan to use either one of them exclusively.

But if you want to have both, that is you want to produce an "old school" version of your game and a "4e version" of your game, then the answer is different.  Then it is in fact simpler to scale your game toward option 1, and ADD the mechanical changes necessary to accommodate option 2, then to try to do it the other way where instead of adding you'd have to subtract.

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