Sorry if this is disjointed. I'm a bit sick.
Healing surges were an awful mechanic in 4e, and their resurgence in 5e is unwelcome to me. For that matter, the way Healing works in 5th edition is lame. For those who don't know, short rests let you roll a hit die, long rests give you all of your HP back. The problem is that it breaks immersion to have healing be so easy. That's what spells are for. Modeling long term injury is now impossible, and certain types of drama will not be possible because of it.
I'm not liking the more gamelike aspects of these rules, and I hope they decide to foster immersion rather than reinstate the board game aspects that 4e had. If people wanted those things, they'd just play 4e, right?
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592838Sorry if this is disjointed. I'm a bit sick.
Healing surges were an awful mechanic in 4e, and their resurgence in 5e is unwelcome to me. For that matter, the way Healing works in 5th edition is lame. For those who don't know, short rests let you roll a hit die, long rests give you all of your HP back. The problem is that it breaks immersion to have healing be so easy. That's what spells are for.
I'm not liking the more gamelike aspects of these rules, and I hope they decide to foster immersion rather than reinstate the board game aspects that 4e had. If people wanted those things, they'd just play 4e, right?
I think they are trying to appeal to the 4E crowd too, but generally the game seems to have moved away from many 4E-isms. That said i agree with you that the HD mechanic in 5E has zero appeal to me, and my interest in 5E has been on the decline. But they have a tough task: bring together old school gamers, 3E/pathfinder fans and 4E players. I am not going to be angry if 5E isn't the perfect game for me. Will be interesting to see what the final product looks like.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592838For those who don't know, short rests let you roll a hit die, long rests give you all of your HP back. The problem is that it breaks immersion to have healing be so easy. That's what spells are for.
I'd say you can retain your immersion if you move HP damage away from physical damage, like a lot of other games have done. Maybe you're not suffering any actual injury until you're very, very low on HPs, maybe not until you're in the negatives.
And when you look at HP that way, it might actually make more sense. For example, a sword to the throat is no more or less lethal to a typical human at the beginning of their life than it is at their end. Adventurers included. The level-gives-more-HP system can't be representing simply tougher throats. It has to also include avoiding damage in the first place, like twisting just so to change that gash into a scratch.
My issue is that I was very excited by the first playtest packet. The second one moved so far from what I want out of the game that I was a bit shocked. It's like they were on course for awesomeness, and then went 10 miles down the wrong road when I wasn't looking.
I don't really like the 5e 'hd/surge' mechanic.
After gming and playing 4E for years now; I declare healing Surges to be a bad idea in hindsight. The oldschool healing from 1E through Pathfinder did not need any huge change.
The one thing 4E does well in regards to healing is not the Surges, its the fact many abilities heal you while you are doing something else.
That element is an improvement over 'boring cleric heals a lot'
Quote from: mcbobbo;592844I'd say you can retain your immersion if you move HP damage away from physical damage, like a lot of other games have done. Maybe you're not suffering any actual injury until you're very, very low on HPs, maybe not until you're in the negatives.
And when you look at HP that way, it might actually make more sense. For example, a sword to the throat is no more or less lethal to a typical human at the beginning of their life than it is at their end. Adventurers included. The level-gives-more-HP system can't be representing simply tougher throats. It has to also include avoiding damage in the first place, like twisting just so to change that gash into a scratch.
I've tried that, but I don't buy it. I now look at HP totals as 100% health. For a guy with 20 hp, a 4 hp loss represents a 20% wound. So HP is linked to wounds, just not on a 1 for 1 basis. The main issue with my approach, and with yours, is healing magic. Why does cure light wounds work better for low level characters? That kind of thing has been a problem for a long time.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592845My issue is that I was very excited by the first playtest packet. The second one moved so far from what I want out of the game that I was a bit shocked. It's like they were on course for awesomeness, and then went 10 miles down the wrong road when I wasn't looking.
I have said for a while i think their feedback is skewed toward 4E players because that is the bulk of their present website base. They do need 4E players onboard, but if you check out the responses on the wizards forum versus other rpg forums, the overall reaction is strikingly different. I think it is also the same problem that led to 4E in the first place.
I hadn't thought of that. Good point. It sucks, though.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592848Why does cure light wounds work better for low level characters? That kind of thing has been a problem for a long time.
Interesting.
I'd say, from an engineering perspective, that you should probably uncouple it from any static value, and have it trigger more surges instead.
CWL - One extra surge.
CSL - Three extra surges.
Something like that.
Careful. If you claim that Next's Hit Dice and 4e's Healing Surges are similar at TBP, the 4vengers get their panties in a wad (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?652388-D-amp-DNext-Paladins-and-Ranger-spellcasting-to-return/page16&p=15954140#post15954140) and say they are nothing like it.
As for as 5e's mechanic as is, I don't like it either. I can't help but notice that the new playtest added a few lines that specifically called out healing in that manner completely optional. Me personally, I've already houseruled them to where you don't get HD back until after a long rest, and you don't heal any HP (let alone back to full) after a long rest.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592858Me personally, I've already houseruled them to where you don't get HD back until after a long rest, and you don't heal any HP (let alone back to full) after a long rest.
Why not?
Aside from the clear impact this will have on the powerlevel of the game, I can't really see what the difference is between allowing them to heal to full and allowing the cleric to heal them to full, then rest.
The main difference between healing surges, etc, and healing magic, is that healing magic represents something that happens in-setting. Healing surges represent a metagame nothingness.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592860Why not?
Aside from the clear impact this will have on the powerlevel of the game, I can't really see what the difference is between allowing them to heal to full and allowing the cleric to heal them to full, then rest.
Because a cleric healing them is through magical means. If I have a character who lost all but 1 hp on combat, it's too unrealistic for me to say that they naturally healed all of their wounds back in one long rest.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592868Because a cleric healing them is through magical means. If I have a character who lost all but 1 hp on combat, it's too unrealistic for me to say that they naturally healed all of their wounds back in one long rest.
This is true for me as well.
I prefer a 'gritier' healing system where it is more clear when your warrior has been stabbed fifteen times, and when he is just tired.
Even Conan had to heal naturally.
In 4E, The non magic healing should all have been Temp. HP, not actual HP healed.
Its a flavor issue with me.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592868Because a cleric healing them is through magical means. If I have a character who lost all but 1 hp on combat, it's too unrealistic for me to say that they naturally healed all of their wounds back in one long rest.
Ehhh, okay. But it's a setting with elves and stuff in it. Innate magical healing shouldn't be a dealbreaker.
If it exists in the setting, the characters there will game it. If every wound heals in a day, you'll find some strange behaviors. Not every GM wants to deal with that. Ignoring these consequences is easy for some, but other GMs want to run a deeper game where the characters are self-aware.
It's a case where I in particular want the rules to be the "physics" of the setting, as I've heard some people put it.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592875Ehhh, okay. But it's a setting with elves and stuff in it. Innate magical healing shouldn't be a dealbreaker.
So you don't have a problem with a PC who says they jump that 80 foot crevasse? I mean, the game has elves in it, so why not?
Sorry to pick on you, but every time someone trots out that excuse as a way to handwave
any and all sense of realism, it irritates me, because we all draw the line somewhere. Drawing the line at "I think that you shouldn't be able to heal all of your hp back after just one rest when the orc you just fought stabbed you through your stomach with a critical hit, which brought you from 16 hp down to 1. You were almost dead." is an unreasonable position to take that should just be dismissed because "elves".
*Edit* And I'm fully aware that HP are an abstraction, and particularly at higher levels represent things other than wounds. But it's safe to say that in the example I gave above, the HP loss was due to a wound, and not something like fatigue. The loss was instant, and caused by a critical hit by a sword. That sort of hp loss shouldn't be healed to full automatically just by sleeping for 8 hours. Not without breaking my sense of realism pretty horribly.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592875Ehhh, okay. But it's a setting with elves and stuff in it. Innate magical healing shouldn't be a dealbreaker.
It's more about 'Why does this particular fighter that has no supernatural abilities at all' heal from being implaed by a dozen spears in one day?
Sure, some individuals in a fantasy setting might heal super fast, but 'regular humans' don't.
ITT- basic misunderstanding of the hit point abstraction and over use of the word realism.
Quote from: Gib;592884ITT- basic misunderstanding of the hit point abstraction and over use of the word realism.
Allthough some people will conceptualize the hit point abstraction in different ways, I still feel that a 'normal human warrior' that gets beaten to death's door with a mace should take more than a few days to be 100 recovered---without magic/supernatural assistance.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592881So you don't have a problem with a PC who says they jump that 80 foot crevasse? I mean, the game has elves in it, so why not?"
That honestly sounds like a very Legolas thing to do. I could see Hercules doing it as well. There's also Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon springing to mind.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592881Sorry to pick on you, but every time someone trots out that excuse as a way to handwave any and all sense of realism, it irritates me, because we all draw the line somewhere.
No apology necessary. We totally agree. I'm just pointing out where I draw that line, and why.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592881Drawing the line at "I think that you shouldn't be able to heal all of your hp back after just one rest when the orc you just fought stabbed you through your stomach with a critical hit, which brought you from 16 hp down to 1. You were almost dead." is an unreasonable position to take that should just be dismissed because "elves".
Yeah, and you may have missed it above, but I would expect to obfuscate that stomach wound into something less specific. Yes if you call it a stomach wound, then the PC is dead, realistically. Because, lets be honest here, nobody in that time period survives a stomach wound. Infection sets in and you die, horribly, painfully, etc.
Quote from: Bill;592882It's more about 'Why does this particular fighter that has no supernatural abilities at all' heal from being implaed by a dozen spears in one day?
I see the notion that the fighter has no supernatural abilities as more versimilitude-breaking, actually. They're heroes. Some of what they can do absolutely has to be superhuman, or they're boring for one and they're not going to stack up to the casters for another.
If you want to play mundanes, then I'd suggest that fantasy is a bad place to do it.
But that's a preference thing.
Quote from: Bill;592882Sure, some individuals in a fantasy setting might heal super fast, but 'regular humans' don't.
Right, so it's two-fold for me:
1) Don't let the damage be depicted as lethal until it is, mechanically. Or adapt your depictions to the mechanics, if you will.
2) Assume that people who can heal this way are tapping into some form of healing magic that they do not understand, "because elves".
Quote from: mcbobbo;592887That honestly sounds like a very Legolas thing to do.
I don't think Legolas ever made an 80 foot jump, or anywhere near that. To put this in context, this is an 80 foot boat.
(http://www.capecoral-boatrentals.com/re_images/1235945574_offer_top~1.jpg)
QuoteI could see Hercules doing it as well.
Hercules was the son of a god. That's hardly mundane.
QuoteThere's also Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon springing to mind.
Wushu films are not a very good example of mundane actions.
QuoteYeah, and you may have missed it above, but I would expect to obfuscate that stomach wound into something less specific. Yes if you call it a stomach wound, then the PC is dead, realistically. Because, lets be honest here, nobody in that time period survives a stomach wound. Infection sets in and you die, horribly, painfully, etc.
No, people live from stomach wounds all the time. In the actual game play, the DM rolls a critical hit and adds flavor (or rolls on a location table) where the wound hit. The point isn't location, but that a character loses almost all of his or her hp due to one attack. Not fatigue or any other abstraction. But due to an attack directly. For me, saying that they heal completely just by sleeping is just way too unrealistic. And to have someone say, "That's dumb, because elves." is a bit condescending and dismissive, because we all draw lines of realism in our games.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592890I don't think Legolas ever made an 80 foot jump, or anywhere near that. To put this in context, this is an 80 foot boat.
It isn't that I lack context, I just disagree.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592890Hercules was the son of a god. That's hardly mundane.
...
Wushu films are not a very good example of mundane actions.
And fireballs are?
We disagree here, and you're going to have to try something else if you're really looking to do more than communicate that we disagree...
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592890No, people live from stomach wounds all the time.
In a world without antibiotics, I don't believe you're correct. Remember, you're excluding magical healing in your versimilitude test. So they have to have ruptured stomach organs and survive it without medical aid, it just takes a long time.
Not realistic.
Also, even with today's medicine, black blood from the abdomen is a really, really solid indicator of impending death.
Stomach wounds are really lethal in pre-modern settings, and pretty damn dangerous in modern ones without swift professional treatment and a good deal of luck.
I like a more cinematic game myself, with more durable characters, which is where Healing Surges and similar concepts come into play. However, I also recognize the value in characters suffering longer-term injuries that can't just be shrugged off between scenes, but rather require long-term rest or magic to recover from. The issue comes down to one of book-keeping. You can have both elements in a game, but unless someone comes up with a really elegant solution, I think it would add an extra layer of record keeping.
Case in point: I worked up a set of house rules for damage for OSRIC/1st edition AD&D a while back. I don't have them with me at the moment, but here's the gist:
Every damage roll you take inflicts 1 point of 'long-term' damage, and the rest is short-term damage. Short-term damage can be completely recovered by taking a short rest, but long-term damage must be healed normally, one hit point a day, or by magic. There were some other rules for damage, such as any wound dropping you to 0 or negative hit points being considered all 'long-term' damage, etc.
To keep track of this, the easiest method would be to have a hit point grid on the character sheet, basically a bunch of boxes. Mark off 'short-term' damage with a slash, 'long-term' damage with an X.
It's not a huge amount of extra work, and I suspect that players, seeing the advantage of more durable characters, would be willing to do it, but it is nevertheless extra time, extra book-keeping, and an extra layer of complexity if you are trying to get new players involved.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592902It isn't that I lack context, I just disagree.
So someone making that jump without magical assistance falls into your accepted realism? I doubt that.
QuoteAnd fireballs are?
Fireballs are magic. I've said that I have no problems with magical instant healing. But instant healing naturally? Sorry. You're essentially saying that natural healing should be able to be instant because magic exists. That's...pretty off.
QuoteIn a world without antibiotics, I don't believe you're correct. Remember, you're excluding magical healing in your versimilitude test. So they have to have ruptured stomach organs and survive it without medical aid, it just takes a long time.
Not realistic.
Also, even with today's medicine, black blood from the abdomen is a really, really solid indicator of impending death.
Stomach wounds are really lethal in pre-modern settings, and pretty damn dangerous in modern ones without swift professional treatment and a good deal of luck.
I suggest you go to badassoftheweek.com and read up on some of those people, particularly those in pre-modern times. People are a lot more resilient than you think. Remember, PCs aren't representative of the average person. They are the exception, much the same as the people on that list are the exception.
The problem with HPs has always been it's a nebulous stat that sometimes represents physical damage, and sometimes represents loss of stamina/fatigue.
The 5e HD mechanic is obviously looking at HPs mainly as loss of stamina/fatigue in which case the rules are not that bad, but they are still too fast.
Where it falls down though, is once you actually get wounded, or even literally on death's door, you're back in the saddle perfectly fine, no more then 48 hours later. That's Full.Retard.
[pedant]
Stomach wound without magic, modern surgery or antibiotics? Yeah, shove a fork up your ass, you're done, the good news is you might take a week to die.[/pedant]
badassoftheweek - yeah for every 10 million people who have gotten both arms chopped off since the beginning of time, there's that one guy who holds them in his teeth while he walks 75 miles through snow to safety and has them successfully reattached and goes on to play the piano. Roll that 10 million sided die. Or use Fate/Luck points. :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;592918The problem with HPs has always been it's a nebulous stat that sometimes represents physical damage, and sometimes represents loss of stamina/fatigue.
The 5e HD mechanic is obviously looking at HPs mainly as loss of stamina/fatigue in which case the rules are not that bad, but they are still too fast.
Where it falls down though, is once you actually get wounded, or even literally on death's door, you're back in the saddle perfectly fine, no more then 48 hours later. That's Full.Retard.
[pedant]
Stomach wound without magic, modern surgery or antibiotics? Yeah, shove a fork up your ass, you're done, the good news is you might take a week to die.[/pedant]
They are also glossing over the act that HP as pure stamina was one of the things people hated about 4E. Some people liked it, but it was one of the first things people mentioned when healing surges came up. I know a lot of these debates revolve around what is believable or realistic and so they might assume if they just offer an explanation of HP that allows for more believable and ocnsistent results people will embrace surges, but it really goes beyond that. Wile the believability angle is important to me, I really just dont like people having an innate healing mechanic in D&D. Whether it is believable or not. I prefered having slow natural healing and fast magical healing.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592887If you want to play mundanes, then I'd suggest that fantasy is a bad place to do it.
A fighter that is a skilled swordsman that can outfight most enemies with a blade does not automatically leap 80' and heal from crippling wounds in a day.
Sure, some characters are Hercules with Zeus Blood in their veins, but I don't think
every fighter should be, unless thats the entire point of the setting.
Another example is lets say you have a gladiator in Dark Sun. Every gladiator should not leap 80' just because one gladiator on th aplanet happens to have a psionic leaping talent.
I am not in any way trying to be argumentative or hostile; I just can't stand the 'Magic Exists so no logic can be applied to the setting' argument.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592887If you want to play mundanes, then I'd suggest that fantasy is a bad place to do it.
.
Didn't you
just get done accusing someone of excluding the middle? Fantasy isn't all or nothing wushu and magic.
When it comes down to it I'm actually of the opinion that you have to take hit points apart and put them back together in a way that makes sense for YOU.
Anyway, this is what I use in my B/X game:
For medium and small creatures:
For use when:
1] A hit is scored with a missile weapon***a firearm or an energy weapon*.
2] A critical hit (natural 20) is scored with a muscle powered melee**weapon.
3] when a character with 0 hit points is hit with any weapon.
Roll 1d4
1. Minor Wound: 1d4 days to heal [-1 to all die rolls and - 1d4-1 to movement rate during the recovery period].
2. Major Wound: 2d8+2 days to heal [-3 to all die rolls and -1d6+1 to movement rate during recovery period].
3. Grievous Wound: d30 +10 days to heal. [-6 to all die rolls and movement reduced to 1 during recovery period]. Note: A character with a grievous wound must be stabilized within 10 rounds or make a successful saving throw otherwise the wound becomes a mortal wound, and all related conditions apply.
4. Mortal wound: Save or die. A successful save reduces the damage to a Grievous Wound with doubled recovery time. A failed save results in death in 1d6-1 rounds. AT THE REFEREE'S DISCRETION dead character may be healed by miraculous means (super science or magic) for 1d100 rounds after death.
Cowering: when fired upon with missile weapons***, an unsurprised character may hide beneath a large shield and will, in the case of a normal hit, only take normal hit point damage (e.g. 1d6 from an arrow). Critical hits are considered to have pierced the shield and result in a roll on the wound table. Whilst cowering, a character may move 1/4 the Normal rate.
Optional rule: Characters with Major or Grievous Wounds who engage in strenuous activity (e.g. combat) prior to the end of the recovery period must make a saving throw. A failed save resets the recovery period back to the beginning, and in the case of a grievous wound the character immediately becomes unconscious.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;592925Didn't you just get done accusing someone of excluding the middle? Fantasy isn't all or nothing wushu and magic.
Forgive me, that's not the intent.
I think a high-powered fantasy setting makes for a sensable default, and a gritty setting should be a rules option. Just like E6 or low magic or what have you.
Better?
Quote from: Bill;592922I am not in any way trying to be argumentative or hostile; I just can't stand the 'Magic Exists so no logic can be applied to the setting' argument.
That's a Mary Sue, and no one can stand those, so that makes perfect sense.
I am not saying 'no logic can be applied'. You're saying that on my behalf.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592844I'd say you can retain your immersion if you move HP damage away from physical damage, like a lot of other games have done. Maybe you're not suffering any actual injury until you're very, very low on HPs, maybe not until you're in the negatives.
And when you look at HP that way, it might actually make more sense. For example, a sword to the throat is no more or less lethal to a typical human at the beginning of their life than it is at their end. Adventurers included. The level-gives-more-HP system can't be representing simply tougher throats. It has to also include avoiding damage in the first place, like twisting just so to change that gash into a scratch.
The problem with that method is that hit points are still all one pool. Even if you are reduced to negative totals (and thus actually badly hurt) you are healed just as quickly as someone who is merely a bit tired.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;592955The problem with that method is that hit points are still all one pool. Even if you are reduced to negative totals (and thus actually badly hurt) you are healed just as quickly as someone who is merely a bit tired.
That's true.
It almost begs for a 'hit points/wound points' scenario instead.
Quote from: mcbobbo;592944That's a Mary Sue, and no one can stand those, so that makes perfect sense.
I am not saying 'no logic can be applied'. You're saying that on my behalf.
So do you agree that every fighter in a fantasy setting need not have supernatural powers? If so, we have nothing to disagree about here.
Quote from: Bill;592999So do you agree that every fighter in a fantasy setting need not have supernatural powers? If so, we have nothing to disagree about here.
I do. I see the supernatural healing powers as a fine default that could be opted-out of, and don't see realism as inhibiting that design decision in any way. There is absolutely nothing illogical about wounds taking a long time to heal, and there is definitely a gamespace for that.
I think they should adapt the Bloodied concept. The hit dice mechanic can heal hit points above the 50% mark, representing the non-physical injury aspects of hit points. However, once you're damaged below the 50% mark, those represent physical wounds that cannot be healed by a short rest.
Quote from: Mistwell;593070I think they should adapt the Bloodied concept. The hit dice mechanic can heal hit points above the 50% mark, representing the non-physical injury aspects of hit points. However, once you're damaged below the 50% mark, those represent physical wounds that cannot be healed by a short rest.
Yeah, that sounds workable, too.
I was thinking about something similar, but using Constitution (and possibly Level) as the dividing line between badly injured and winded/bruised...
Ultimately, it feels like something that hasn't really been broken in earlier editions, and at worst needs some optional rules presented. Instead they're trying to shoehorn 4E's Healing Surges into the system.
Quote from: Mistwell;593070I think they should adapt the Bloodied concept. The hit dice mechanic can heal hit points above the 50% mark, representing the non-physical injury aspects of hit points. However, once you're damaged below the 50% mark, those represent physical wounds that cannot be healed by a short rest.
That sounds good. I would be tempted to have the level 1 base hp be equal to the Con stat.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;592921They are also glossing over the act that HP as pure stamina was one of the things people hated about 4E. Some people liked it, but it was one of the first things people mentioned when healing surges came up.
I have two problems with 4E-style healing/health mechanics:
(1) I've never been a fan of systems in which there are misses, misses that fatigue or wear you down for some reason, and then "real hits" that damage you. The conceptual distinction between the first and second categories doesn't make any sense to me and the mechanics rarely reflect the supposed explanation.
I double-down on this complaint when there's no mechanical distinction between the second and third categories. I triple-down on it with healing surges that are universally limited across multiple "wound" types. (You want to justify limiting the number of times a cleric can use healing magic on me in a day because my body can only endure so much divine energy or whatever? Sure, I'll buy that. But why did Bob yelling at me to boost my injured morale decrease my body's capacity for divine energy? Or vice versa?)
(2) I absolutely can't play with mechanics that treat every wound as if it were Schrodinger's cat, the nature of which cannot be determined until somebody decides to heal the wound.
"Oh crap! That sword thrust just dropped my character to 0 hp! Was it because it cut me open like a gutted fish? Or did it miss me entirely and I'm just cowering in hapless terror? There's no way to know until Bob either uses his Boost Morale ability on me or Suzie uses her Heal Fish-Gutting Wounds ability on me!"
Mechanics that so completely alienate me from the game world and prevent me from engaging with the game world are utterly antithetical to the way I play RPGs.
I can understand why people who play RPGs as if they were tactical miniature games are OK with this. I'm completely baffled by people who claim they like roleplaying and/or storytelling being OK with this.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592838Sorry if this is disjointed. I'm a bit sick.
Healing surges were an awful mechanic in 4e, and their resurgence in 5e is unwelcome to me. For that matter, the way Healing works in 5th edition is lame. For those who don't know, short rests let you roll a hit die, long rests give you all of your HP back. The problem is that it breaks immersion to have healing be so easy. That's what spells are for. Modeling long term injury is now impossible, and certain types of drama will not be possible because of it.
I'm not liking the more gamelike aspects of these rules, and I hope they decide to foster immersion rather than reinstate the board game aspects that 4e had. If people wanted those things, they'd just play 4e, right?
This really depends if HPs now track wounds in 5e. I don't know about 3rd and 4th, but 2e back, HP did not represent wounds, and that was not Gygax's origibnal intention for HPs, which were, to paraphrase him "an abstract timing mechanicsm to show how a long a character can last in a fight before taking a debilitating wound".
Quote from: TristramEvans;593133This really depends if HPs now track wounds in 5e. I don't know about 3rd and 4th, but 2e back, HP did not represent wounds, and that was not Gygax's origibnal intention for HPs, which were, to paraphrase him "an abstract timing mechanicsm to show how a long a character can last in a fight before taking a debilitating wound".
Which was totally and completely invalidated when your tenth level fighter walked off a 100' cliff. :D
Quote from: CRKrueger;593135Which was totally and completely invalidated when your tenth level fighter walked off a 100' cliff. :D
Really? Seems like instant death to me...HP doesn't enter into it.
Quote from: TristramEvans;593141Really? Seems like instant death to me...HP doesn't enter into it.
Me too, but those weren't the rules, which just goes back to HPs being a weird mix.
I use the rule Gary intended. So 100 foot fall would be 55d6 damage, or 192 damage on average. Go ahead and walk off that if you like.
Quote from: Mistwell;593070I think they should adapt the Bloodied concept. The hit dice mechanic can heal hit points above the 50% mark, representing the non-physical injury aspects of hit points. However, once you're damaged below the 50% mark, those represent physical wounds that cannot be healed by a short rest.
This sounds worthy enough to playtest.
...yeah, I always kinda liked the Bloodied concept and maybe it can work here.
I mean, hit points have always been kind of weird in ways that have been talked about over and over and over and over again, but still, the thing about a game where dudes fight with swords is that it's dumb if you completely elide the case where one of your dudes gets hit with a sword. Or...
Quote(2) I absolutely can't play with mechanics that treat every wound as if it were Schrodinger's cat, the nature of which cannot be determined until somebody decides to heal the wound.
Yeah.
I also like the various things Aos does with wounds in his house rules.
Quote from: JRR;593160I use the rule Gary intended. So 100 foot fall would be 55d6 damage, or 192 damage on average. Go ahead and walk off that if you like.
This stuff is always hard to model. There are some extreme falls that people survive:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/survival/stories/4344037
(see Alan McGee for the kicker).
So you want heroes to have some chance. After all, they survive things that are actually more brutal all the time with saving throws (fireballs, serious poisons). It's part of what makes hit points a hard mechanic once it moves outside of simulating melee.
What about just saying after a short rest you heal up 1/2 of the HP's you lost and then say you heal about 1 or 2 HP's after every full nights sleep?
The way I see it, it would model the 'HP's are fatigue' aspect by allowing quick recovery of some of your lost HP's ( which can never fully heal you ), and also model the more serious long term injuries by having it take a while to heal up to full HP's when healing naturally.
Quote from: Votan;593236This stuff is always hard to model. There are some extreme falls that people survive:
I am well aware of this. A friend of my father's was a paratrooper in WW2. His chute failed to open and he fell thousands of feet and landed flat of his back in a plowed field. He got up, walked a few miles to a small villiage where he got a ride to a hospital where he spent the next 6 months with a broken back. But then, he probably wasn't an npc since he had the coolest name ever: Buck Austin.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592838Sorry if this is disjointed. I'm a bit sick.
Healing surges were an awful mechanic in 4e, and their resurgence in 5e is unwelcome to me. For that matter, the way Healing works in 5th edition is lame. For those who don't know, short rests let you roll a hit die, long rests give you all of your HP back. The problem is that it breaks immersion to have healing be so easy.
That does indeed suck.
Heck, even in 3e, I found the ability to come back from a knock-down drag-out fight and be fine the next day, even with magical healing, to be disconcerting, so I worked out a system where you get longer term side effects when low on HP.
The problem with saying that you can't be at 100% fighting effectiveness only 1 day after being on death's door is that you are at 100% effectiveness to do anything else that doesn't cause HP damage.
So your fighter has this stomach wound that prevents him from routing the local goblins that the townsfolk are complaining about without a few weeks of rest, but has no real problem quarrying stone 8 hours a day with said stomach wound, or whatever other improbable task you can name that causes no HP damage but absolutely can't be done by anyone who was stabbed in the gut by a sword just yesterday "realistically".
That's always going to be the problem with less abstract HP and 'wounds'. The D&D equivalent of Buck Austin doesn't spend 6 months in a hospital with a broken spine. He spends <6 months doing anything but suffering attack rolls while recovering that broken spine.
Maiming and crippling wounds aren't things modeled with HP mechanics at all really. The answer to what happens when you get stabbed in the gut with a sword in D&D is that you die, and so you only suffer a serious stab from a guy swinging a sword when it reduces you to below 0 (or -10, or -Con or w/e) HP.
Otherwise I just got stabbed in the gut and am bleeding black, and I'm going to skip, and cartwheel and dance back to the inn to rest up for a few weeks or a few months (depending on my level, which makes even less sense) because it really doesn't matter so long as I don't cartwheel into a monsters den, or off a cliff.
TSR D&D, as I know 1e and 2e has them, had rules for Constitution exertion. There were assumed averages, then rules for forced march or other long-term exertion -- which would give penalties if not properly rested thereafter. Further you could push yourself even farther and roll against STR or CON to push your limits, taking subsequently more penalties until you exhaust -- and then you take a bucket more penalties that take even more time to recover.
So, it's sort of an addressed issue that doesn't directly correlate to HP. Another tangential issue to look at I'm sure, but not a failing of the original HP concept.
Second, AD&D 2e (I'm assuming 1e has as well, but Im' not gonna dig out my DMG or Wilderness Guide) had an explanation why there's an averaged limit to falling damage while having guidelines on resolving inescapable, certain death. They cited, IIRC, a Russian woman falling two miles from a plane and surviving, and then said falling damage is rather difficult to model because of such outliers and lack of 100% certainty of death.
However the next section immediately goes into how to resolve 100% certain death. They gave examples such as sealed in a room with a falling ceiling trap crushed by tons of rock, or sealed in a pool of high concentrate acid with no air or escape. Their guidelines were that there's no need to model let alone play out such a scene as each would just be an exercise in futility. And that's where 100% certain death was left to be resolved by GM judgment.
Quote from: Opaopajr;593685Their guidelines were that there's no need to model let alone play out such a scene as each would just be an exercise in futility. And that's where 100% certain death was left to be resolved by GM judgment.
But then you're just playing Magical Tea Party!
Quote from: Bobloblah;593697But then you're just playing Magical Tea Party!
Only until Kryten shows up with the blowdarts and tank.
Quote from: Bobloblah;593697But then you're just playing Magical Tea Party!
Well, I always personally disagreed there myself. I thought it'd be rather moving to act out the general panic, suffering, and eventual resignation toward certain death. But then no one really brings flowers to an rpg game, so what'll be my reward afterwards (besides a few discreet masculine tears and thunderous applause)?
;)
Quote from: Wolf, Richard;593568The problem with saying that you can't be at 100% fighting effectiveness only 1 day after being on death's door is that you are at 100% effectiveness to do anything else that doesn't cause HP damage.
So your fighter has this stomach wound that prevents him from routing the local goblins that the townsfolk are complaining about without a few weeks of rest, but has no real problem quarrying stone 8 hours a day with said stomach wound, or whatever other improbable task you can name that causes no HP damage but absolutely can't be done by anyone who was stabbed in the gut by a sword just yesterday "realistically".
I think the reason for this not being explicitly covered in the rules is that D&D is not typically thought of as "that game where you quarry stones all day". In other words, its assumed that the GM will place his own judgment as to what an injured person can or can't do.
Note that in many versions of D&D, you don't heal anything naturally if you aren't RESTING.
RPGPundit
I agree that introducing healing surges or any sufficiently similar mechanics that flat out appears to be (poorly rationalized from an in-game POV) 'self healing ability' might have a repercussion on 'what HP represents'.
But personally I don't think that healing surges were not introduced in that way in 4E (like the RPG.net discussion alludes to). Rather, it seems to me they were introduced for the following two reasons (and as often, I think understanding a design rationale is helpful to understand whether one wants to bring a mechanic into one's game or not - one may, for instance, find the rationale on the right track, just dislike the implementation, and then adjust the latter to fit the former):
1. Healing surges are there to mechanically control how many healing potions the party has each day; so it 'solves' an alleged balance issue. This becomes especially clear once you read what the magical items actually called 'healing potions' do in 4e - they let you spend a healing surge (plus some little extra), so it's basically giving you additional 'second wind' actions where you blow extant surges (if also at a minor instead of standard action). I.e., healing potions do NOT substantially interfere with the amount of healing you get per day - that amount is still controlled by your surges.
2. Healing surges are a resource mechanics without the 'hassle' of tracking them. Healing potions were things you had to buy and keep track off, like ammunition. Guess what 4E did to ammunition (caveat: I'm not sure you don't need to track ammunition in 4E once it becomes magical, say +1 vampiric arrows; but ordinary ammunition is not tracked). Same here.
So here's my problem with the mechanic. I'm fine with 2., but I don't like 1. I don't like the fact that the game designers encoded their assumption as to how many resources a party should have per day into my game. Guess what. If you have less than 4 encounters a day, you are not going to threaten a party, because they are - thanks to the designer - swimming in an abundance of free healing (this is what killed 13th Age for my playtest groups - same error, except aggravated). That's horrible, because instead of 'expanding the sweet spot' the game has just narrowed the 'sweet spot'. That, to me, seems the biggest problem with 4E, even today after years of playing it, and the biggest self-delusion or lie (take your pick) of the design parlance that came with it. 4E, more than any other edition before, came with a very strict idea of how you were meant to play it.
Healing used to be a resource with its own scarcity dynamic. As soon as you introduce auto-healing you efface, not just the 'hassle' of resource administration (2.) but also the tactical challenge and story-driven potential associated with the mechanic. That's why re-theming healing surges into anything else - 'let's just call them healing potions, and let's just assume the players cautiously buy the same amount of them each day, no matter where they are' (this in line with 'don't hassle with resource keeping, move forward and on to the fun!') - will not do, as I once thought.
What I've done in my own 4E games is change the amount of healing surges the PCs get back per long rest so something drastically less, and more random. They roll a dice. That's the 5E mechanic. At least that gives back the idea of SOME challenges associated to resource keeping. But I'd agree that it doesn't come anywhere near the pre-4E gameplay.
Quote from: RPGPundit;593970I think the reason for this not being explicitly covered in the rules is that D&D is not typically thought of as "that game where you quarry stones all day". In other words, its assumed that the GM will place his own judgment as to what an injured person can or can't do.
Note that in many versions of D&D, you don't heal anything naturally if you aren't RESTING.
RPGPundit
And the rules are pretty explicit as to what constitutes 'rest'. Magic Users can carry on spell research or possibly re-charging magic items (creating magic items implies casting
permanency and losing a point of Con wouldn't be allowed), Clerics can attend ceremonies and other daily religious responsibilities, and unless noted, all classes can perform routine daily maintenance: eat, get dressed, go to the market, etc, and of course simply remaining abed for the day. Basically, anything you would feel up to in real life if you had a moderate to severe flu, although it isn't stated as such in so many words. Strenuous activity like any kind of training, fighting, riding a horse and so on would prevent any healing for the day.
I think 2nd Edition provided for 1hp per day, plus Con bonus or something. Maybe that was just a popular houserule. In any event, your character would be healed up after a month of rest, regardless of the daily rate. That seems reasonable enough, but the numbers can certainly be tweaked for whatever rate a particular table agrees with.
I'm gonna do like I do with every single version on D&D.
I'm gonna play it like it's a different game.
My club will be happy. It might not be like another edition...but that is kinda it's only saving grace.
Quote from: StormBringer;593993I think 2nd Edition provided for 1hp per day, plus Con bonus or something. Maybe that was just a popular houserule. In any event, your character would be healed up after a month of rest, regardless of the daily rate. That seems reasonable enough, but the numbers can certainly be tweaked for whatever rate a particular table agrees with.
Per 2e PHB core it's 1 HP per day of no strenuous activity and then 8 hours of rest. Non-strenuous activity includes walking or riding a horse moderately, or riding in a cart, etc. No running or gallops, nor extra slow pace, just regular travel and 8 hours of sleep.
It's 3 HP per day for a full day of rest. You don't have to be in bed all day, but you have to be able to rest in a comfortable and clean sleeping area and not be traveling, let alone any strenuous activity. Daily activities, even social visits within the city or town, do not strain this full day healing.
The CON bonus comes in as extra after a full week of full bed rest. So at the end of a week of full bed rest you get 21 HP + CON bonus. So yes, with 84+ HP a month, it's not unusual for even high-level characters to recover their large amounts of HP with/in a month of full rest or so.
Quote from: Opaopajr;594089Per 2e PHB core it's 1 HP per day of no strenuous activity and then 8 hours of rest. Non-strenuous activity includes walking or riding a horse moderately, or riding in a cart, etc. No running or gallops, nor extra slow pace, just regular travel and 8 hours of sleep.
It's 3 HP per day for a full day of rest. You don't have to be in bed all day, but you have to be able to rest in a comfortable and clean sleeping area and not be traveling, let alone any strenuous activity. Daily activities, even social visits within the city or town, do not strain this full day healing.
The CON bonus comes in as extra after a full week of full bed rest. So at the end of a week of full bed rest you get 21 HP + CON bonus. So yes, with 84+ HP a month, it's not unusual for even high-level characters to recover their large amounts of HP with/in a month of full rest or so.
Ok, all that sounds more familiar, I didn't have my books to hand and had to go off memory. Clearly a bad plan on my part. :)
Quote from: StormBringer;594115Ok, all that sounds more familiar, I didn't have my books to hand and had to go off memory. Clearly a bad plan on my part. :)
Why would that be a bad plan? If you're playing a more "heroic" style game, 1+CON a day is a pretty good houserule actually. It's just the core rules already provide quite a bit of HP, especially at low levels. Running 2e again it's remarkable how fast low levels recover to full so quickly. The world may be more lethal at those levels, but you bounce back so quickly that it emulates brash 18 yr olds repeatedly going on adventures pretty well.
Playing by the core rule suggestions sometimes ends up being pretty enlightening.
the easiest way withiin the rules to "fix" hit points is probably to have a d6 at 0 level (or a fixed number ) then add HD with level .
The level based stuff is then obviously skill based as it grows with experience. therefore it can not be physical damage
So on that basis the level based stuff you can use healing surges on but the bottom bit you can't and it comes with slow recovery and minuses.
A cure light then heals say 1 or 2 points of your 'wound' bit of hit points or a d8 to the skill bit
The other option is to change healing to a %of total hits after a day you naturally heal (con/2)% of your hits. cure light cures 10% etc
these are the simple choices
Quote from: Opaopajr;594175Why would that be a bad plan?
I meant going off my memory instead of looking it up was a bad plan on my part.
Quote from: Monster Manuel;592838Modeling long term injury is now impossible, and certain types of drama will not be possible because of it.
As written, using the "All Around Slower Recovery" rules in the latest playtest packet: no healing on a short rest, at the end of a long rest (8 or more hours of rest), you get hit dice equal to 1+CON to roll for recovery. This makes long lasting wounds not only possible, but likely.
I think I'd go a step further with the All Around Slow Recovery rule and bending it to be that you can only gain 1 hit die for healing after a Long Rest without a Healing Kit, and if you use a healing kit at that point you can add your CON; wounds that are routinely cleaned and dressed heal faster.
QuoteI'm not liking the more gamelike aspects of these rules, and I hope they decide to foster immersion rather than reinstate the board game aspects that 4e had. If people wanted those things, they'd just play 4e, right?
All short rest healing requires you use a healer's kit or other healing item, so it represents bandaging and binding wounds, applying medicinal herbs, and the like.
It's also pretty easy to houserule, if the Slower Recovery rules in the packet don't appeal, unlike in 4e where you'd break a dozen powers by eliminating healing surges.
In Arrows of Indra, it will theoretically be possible to heal a considerable level of hp per day without magic, IF you have healing unguents, healing herbs, and someone with the doctor skill.
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