Has anyone been reading the Mike Mearls design articles?

[JDSorenson]

Weird, my party rollled all the time for healing during 5 minute rests.

The cleric's healing word was vastly superior to straight burning off healing surges. So, the party would wait 5 minutes, go through a few healing words (roll a handful of dice), then wait 5 more minutes to repeat the process.

Granted, "roll a handful of dice" is arguably superior to rolling a single die multiple times, but it's not that much different, really.

You know, I think that just having players burn a surge and regain all lost hit points would be sufficient in 4E, if they didn't just regain all of their surges during a long rest. I think I would like it better if characters only regained like 1/4 of their spent surges per extended rest...so the game didn't feel as much as a saturday morning cartoon with the combat segments being animated in syncro-vox.

The A/E/D resource management from 4E really bugs me. I think it's the idea of having narrative resources like per encounter, mixed with chronological resources like per diem, and then accomplishment based recharges like milestones. I think I would like the game more if it resource management was all based on accomplishment like per attack/per milestone/per adventure; or chronological like at-will, per hour, per day.

[Josh_Kablack]

please go into more detail especially on "gold cross clones"

No, fuck your troll ass with a rusty icepick. Read a fucking system that isn't D&D for once and tell your sorry made up troll friends to do likewise. Maybe then we could graduate from edition wars to outright system vs system jihads!

[CCarter]

Ok, what are some ways a constitution stat could be made interesting?

echo

The 4E solution to that one is that it give you a bonus to damage using crossbows (with the right feat) and hammers...

Other than that:

*extra skill uses e.g. Heal could use patient Con, or Survival checks could be Con modified (to handle exposure or see if you can eat that raw deer you just found).

*checks to temporarily boost other physical attributes (like attempts to temporarily raise normal STR to lift a heavy object/weapon, or run faster than usual).

*fatigue points ?

In games which have death spirals, higher CON could help buffer against penalties though that's not particularly cool.

[Username17]

Weird, my party rollled all the time for healing during 5 minute rests.

The cleric's healing word was vastly superior to straight burning off healing surges. So, the party would wait 5 minutes, go through a few healing words (roll a handful of dice), then wait 5 more minutes to repeat the process.

Granted, "roll a handful of dice" is arguably superior to rolling a single die multiple times, but it's not that much different, really.

Pretty much this. The existence of Healing Word makes out-of-combat healing into an annoying and time consuming ordeal where everyone looks at the Cleric and makes him fiddle with things. It's the opposite of fixing the problem where people draw straws to see who has to be the Cleric.

-Username17

[JDSorenson]

Pretty much this. The existence of Healing Word makes out-of-combat healing into an annoying and time consuming ordeal where everyone looks at the Cleric and makes him fiddle with things. It's the opposite of fixing the problem where people draw straws to see who has to be the Cleric.

-Username17

What if you were to implement a system wherein in-combat healing was limited, however during the obligatory 5 minute rest & loot period, characters expend some sort of healing surge-esque resource (though not "healing surges" as they currently exist) to gain XdY hit points, which is modified by some class ability of the medic character?

I mean, it could work on a practical level, but on a conceptual level some players might cry foul if there are different abilities for combat healing and not-so-combat healing.

[souran]

The A/E/D resource management from 4E really bugs me. I think it's the idea of having narrative resources like per encounter, mixed with chronological resources like per diem, and then accomplishment based recharges like milestones. I think I would like the game more if it resource management was all based on accomplishment like per attack/per milestone/per adventure; or chronological like at-will, per hour, per day.

unless the time based is going to be "real time" then time based is a bad idea. This will probably sound "excessively gamis" but where the game is going to act like a game everything needs to built around an idea of what is "normal" for the game.

The combat engine will have to make certain assumptions when assigning difficulty to encounters/monsters/effects. Basically the game cannot assume that the players are going to each fight at absolute full strength, or if they are they cannot assume that they will utilize every bit of that strength. Or more accurately, the game has never made this assumption.

I agree that the "per day" attacks are out of place though. The "per day" attacks should really be a pool of attacks that are "One of these per encounter" powers. (I.E. the grades would be at-will (or always available)/each ability once per encounter/One of the ones from this set per encounter)

The problem is that while the 4E designers realized that novaing was bad in that it made hard encounters to easy and it was to effective and easy to do they couldn't fully grasp that the issue is how tightly linked the combat/exploration resource systems are.

The really stupid thing is that the game pretty much assumes that players use 1 daily power per encounter (at least after level 10). Before level 10 the game assumes that 1 of the players uses a daily power each encounter.

[JDSorenson]

unless the time based is going to be "real time" then time based is a bad idea. This will probably sound "excessively gamis" but where the game is going to act like a game everything needs to built around an idea of what is "normal" for the game.

I tend to agree about chronological resources. Some gamers start verbally menstruating everytime designers make decisions designed solely to improve gameplay, rather than simulating reality.

I tend to prefer the idea of accomplishment based power recharge scheme, such as powers that can be used effectively at-will, powers that recharge on a rest or at milestones, and powers that recharge only between adventures, or "missions".

The combat engine will have to make certain assumptions when assigning difficulty to encounters/monsters/effects. Basically the game cannot assume that the players are going to each fight at absolute full strength, or if they are they cannot assume that they will utilize every bit of that strength. Or more accurately, the game has never made this assumption.

I agree that the "per day" attacks are out of place though. The "per day" attacks should really be a pool of attacks that are "One of these per encounter" powers. (I.E. the grades would be at-will (or always available)/each ability once per encounter/One of the ones from this set per encounter)

The problem is that while the 4E designers realized that novaing was bad in that it made hard encounters to easy and it was to effective and easy to do they couldn't fully grasp that the issue is how tightly linked the combat/exploration resource systems are.

The really stupid thing is that the game pretty much assumes that players use 1 daily power per encounter (at least after level 10). Before level 10 the game assumes that 1 of the players uses a daily power each encounter.

Yes...this is a thing. The game seems designed around the idea that players are going to blow at least one daily in each encounter, instead of hoarding them like misers and blowing them all on the big boss fight...hence the plodingly, agonizingly slow combat and anti-climatic set piece encounters.

Of course, maybe characters really don't need more than one nova ability at a time. Maybe progression should flow in such a way that what WAS your nova ability at first level, becomes your at-will spam attack by 10th level. Vancian D&D kind of worked in this way, to an extent.

People here seem to be fans of randomized resource management schemes, which I agree have merit...but the idea is pretty non-traditional, and since D&D designers feel the need to keep their lips around the teat of tradition, I don't think anything like this will be implemented soon.

[Dog Quixote]

I've always felt that Earthdawn handled healing with more elegance than any edition of D&D. (I'd elaborate but I can't remember a lot of the specifics - possibly because we never got bogged down in it.)

[Username17]

What if you were to implement a system wherein in-combat healing was limited, however during the obligatory 5 minute rest & loot period, characters expend some sort of healing surge-esque resource (though not "healing surges" as they currently exist) to gain XdY hit points, which is modified by some class ability of the medic character?

I mean, it could work on a practical level, but on a conceptual level some players might cry foul if there are different abilities for combat healing and not-so-combat healing.

That has few advantages. The reason that people don't ant to play the Cleric is because it is fiddly and it feels like they don't have control over their character. What kind of choice is "heal the party or don't"? There's only one real choice and it's to heal the party. Added to that, Clerical healing has historically been a pain in the ass with a whole fuck tonne of die rolling where the ultimate difference is whether you use up 4 charges or 5.

If you're giving people XdY healing, you've already failed. Because that is a pain in the ass. XdY healing is exciting if you only do it once as some last ditch combat reset, but if you are ever doing it at any other time (including doing it a second time in a combat), it's just fiddly grindy shit that no one likes.

Secondly, if your medic character's ability is that he can provide a bonus to other peoples' healing, the player has lost control over their character. It's one of those situations where the only real choice is to provide the bonus, so you're always going to provide the bonus. This means that "your" character is playing the same whether you're in the room or not, so your interest in the game wanes.

But to get this back on track: yes, Mike Mearls doesn't understand why people don't like the Cleric either. And his design fappery isn't going to fix the problem because he can't even formulate it correctly. In order to make healing exciting as a concept, you have to make it exciting. It has to be rare, and big, and choice driven. If the Cleric is laying down healing every round, that's boring. The other players are telling him where the healing is needed and he's delivering it. He might as well be the Dummy in Bridge. If the Cleric is healing everyone's wounds, he's healing everyone's wounds and again the other players are essentially playing his character for him.

You don't need to have healing as a supported role. The thing where he thinks you need to have Clerics and Constitution and Lawful Good really shows a lack of comprehension of issues. But if you did decide you needed Clerics, the changes to the class have to be based upon him having choices to make that are interesting as opposed to being a character that the other players shake reactively at problems.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

So what if abilities were on recharge timers like in Warhammer Fantasy 3rd?

The priest has his heal spell, and that's usable every 4 rounds. However, he also has other shit he needs to use in the mean time while heal is charging. So at best he's only devoting maybe 25% of his time to healing in any given combat.

Or why does there need to be massive amounts of magical healing? Is that *really* necessary?

[Username17]

So what if abilities were on recharge timers like in Warhammer Fantasy 3rd?

The priest has his heal spell, and that's usable every 4 rounds. However, he also has other shit he needs to use in the mean time while heal is charging. So at best he's only devoting maybe 25% of his time to healing in any given combat.

Recharge mechanics are annoying to track and still lead back to the problems of players being shaken at problems in downtime.

Or why does there need to be massive amounts of magical healing? Is that *really* necessary?

There doesn't. That's the core problem with the Mike Mearls article. The question should be "Do we need Clerics at all?" But if you're wrestling with the much less interesting question of "how do we make a character that does combat healing interesting?" you'd better come to one of the incredibly easy solutions before the end of your article or I don't fucking respect you. Solution 1: make combat healing a totally passive thing that isn't even the point of what they do with their actions - like a Paladin's Aura in Diablo II. Solution 2: make healing a rare call for divine intervention where the character does a big action that dramatically turns battles and otherwise does other things. I you can't come up with either of those two solutions to the Combat Healer being boring to play, I don't know what to do for you.

Basically, Mike Mearls is just spouting Deepities.

-Username17

[Almaz]

Or why does there need to be massive amounts of magical healing? Is that *really* necessary?

No. It isn't.

The almost-unanimous suggestion is to remove healing as a combat tactic.

[Josh_Kablack]

Or why does there need to be massive amounts of magical healing? Is that *really* necessary?

Given the other rules assumptions that all prior editions of D&D have made, yes, generous rapid magic healing is totally necessary.

If you have multiple encounters in a day and each of those encounters is supposed to have a reasonable chance to deal HP damage to characters and characters are on quests that are sometimes time-sensitive and the rules for healing HP without magic require full days of bedrest to recover then you need magical healing that can restore fully restore HP on the multiple-times per day basis or you have a game where PCs are going to be faced with a choice where attempting to complete the quest on the deadline means that they are likely to lose and stopping to rest and heal means that they cannot save the maiden before the fuckening happens and the ritual to seal the world in eternal darkness is completed.


But, in theory you totally could design a new edition of D&D where

• all characters refreshed a number of Temporary HP on each of their turns - thereby letting them ignore attacks less than that amount of temporary HP
  or
• all characters had some amount of fast healing
  or
• all characters could recover a fraction of their lost HP by taking a recovery action that didn't cost anything other than the action
  or
• characters primarily expenditure in combat was spell points or exhaustion or some other non-HP resource
  or
• combat worked by the PCs building up combat advantage until they hit a win threshhold instead of having combat working by degrading enemy HP until the enemies die
  or
• Characters just always start each fight at full everything. You've fucking played Final Fantasy for nigh on twenty fucking years now, and it works like this save for the big fights with multi-stage bosses.
  or
• KOed characters don't auto-die (or practically auto-die) and are revivable by anyone as a full-round action. Final Fantasy has also been doing this for twenty fucking years now.
  or
• All characters reqain N HP every X rounds - meaning that whoever is losing a combat wants to take defensive actions and stall while whoever is winning wants to hurry and press the advantage.
  or
• PCs only rarely took HP damage and their armor and class abilities are supposed to negate it most of the time, so when they take HP damage they are expected to take real-world time to recover from wounds.
  or
• PCs regained health by dealing damage, We've played God of War - this sort of aggression encouragement is potentially workable.
  or
• PCs didn't usually face more than one combat encounter between natural healing timeframes
  or
• at least a dozen others that I'm up way too late to remember

And in any of those setups you could nerf or even entirely ditch magical healing.

[Fuchs]

We've effectively played D&D without in-combat clerical healing for years, in 2E and in 3E. One does need to adjust stuff, especially some monsters, but it worked.

[K]

We've effectively played D&D without in-combat clerical healing for years, in 2E and in 3E. One does need to adjust stuff, especially some monsters, but it worked.

Frank and I were players in Red Hand of Doom where clerical healing was out.

As Shadowrun players, we just played DnD like Shadowrun. We forced the other players to have a Hide and Sneak solution and tended to attack things with overwhelming surprise. We also set people up with characters that had highly survivable abilities.

I think our DM got pissed at us. He really wanted us to run out the clock on the adventure with resting to regain HPs, but we pretty much made even dragons into our bitches.

It's kind of surprising how fragile the game is when you push team tactics.

[Fuchs]

We also played Shadowrun before and during our D&D campaigns. Might be something to that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you really wanted to make healing exciting you'd also put it on a randomized mechanic and/or some kind of rage meter/limit break button. The randomized mechanic doesn't have to be WoF but it does need to be done in such a way so that it generates suspense when someone announces 'I am Ubercharged!' or 'Cure Serious Wounds is coming online!'. Rolling 2d20 for a last-ditch healing can be fucking intense, rolling 2d6+15 is lame. Because at the latter there really isn't any question whether or not the healer will for the most park meet or even succeed the expected healing benchmarks. The 2d20 healing might get a result where someone rolls a 38 and not only does it get up everyone to full but it gives them a bulge on their next encounter. Or they might roll a 4 and have to run away and lick their wounds.

The Small Dice Amount + Large Fixed number has no excitement to it. When you do it like that people can seriously make long-term projections about their combat performance, which causes people to take it for granted and makes healing boring.

[Username17]

If you really want to know why Mike Mearls is never going to get anywhere with his big set of deepities:



Yes really. He made that "chart". Now I know what you're thinking: none of those are actually opposed. The opposite of Immersion is Dissociation. The opposite of Abstraction is Minutiae. Immersion is not the opposite of, or incompatible with Abstraction.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yes really. He made that "chart". Now I know what you're thinking: none of those are actually opposed. The opposite of Immersion is Dissociation. The opposite of Abstraction is Minutiae. Immersion is not the opposite of, or incompatible with Abstraction.

-Username17

B-butt Frank, when your numbers go up it makes you have more fun and makes the game more REAL, so having tons of opportunities for your numbers to go up makes it even REALER. Don't argue with it, he make a chart sucka.

[jadagul]

We've effectively played D&D without in-combat clerical healing for years, in 2E and in 3E. One does need to adjust stuff, especially some monsters, but it worked.

Frank and I were players in Red Hand of Doom where clerical healing was out.

As Shadowrun players, we just played DnD like Shadowrun. We forced the other players to have a Hide and Sneak solution and tended to attack things with overwhelming surprise. We also set people up with characters that had highly survivable abilities.

I think our DM got pissed at us. He really wanted us to run out the clock on the adventure with resting to regain HPs, but we pretty much made even dragons into our bitches.

It's kind of surprising how fragile the game is when you push team tactics.

Incidentally, reading your descriptions of that campaign absolutely cracked me up and I'd love to hear more if any of you ever feel like writing more.

[hogarth]

Yes really. He made that "chart". Now I know what you're thinking: none of those are actually opposed. The opposite of Immersion is Dissociation. The opposite of Abstraction is Minutiae. Immersion is not the opposite of, or incompatible with Abstraction.

I like that he rehashed the "Gamism/Narrativism/Simulationism" idea twice (once by retitling it "exploration, roleplay, and combat" and once by retitling it "Story, Immersion, and Tactics" and throwing in the useless "Abstraction" as a bonus). I'm looking forward to his next column where he calls it "Rock, Paper and Scissors".

[Josh_Kablack]

Basically, Mike Mearls is just spouting Deepities.-Username17

Term coinage aside, that's a morally suspect experiment. If the subjects need to be confidential and if the speaker really thinks that some of them are making the morally correct choice by staying closeted -- Then why are the subjects ages, genders and denominations being made public over the internet? With some cyber stalking and basic PI work tracking the interviewer (who the speaker also names) someone could make some pretty shrewd guesses about identities of the subjects. Seriously, my ass could have been fired from UCSUR for revealing that sort of information on our interview subjects.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Well, now there's a new one about opt-in rules. I don't think he's actually added anything to the discussion, except "DMs should have easy rules too!"

But it's nice to know that there's nothing you can do to prevent the GM from fucking you over because he's an asshat, so we're not even going to try.

[Gx1080]

The problem with making characters both heal and do damage is that is really hard to pull off without being vastly overpowered (specially if you stack it) or gimped compared to specialists.

That out, I would simply get rid of combat healing except on "last-ditch" solutions shared amount some classes. You take a rest/camp after each battle. Problem solved.

The thing where he thinks you need to have Clerics and Constitution and Lawful Good really shows a lack of comprehension of issues.

Nope. It shows a fear that if those things are removed, it would stop being D&D. That's a valid point. My uninformed opinion says that most people would simply accept 3.5ed with ToB classes in place of the regular Core classes and with Wizards nerfed, without a care of the flaws of that system on the first place.

But it's nice to know that there's nothing you can do to prevent the GM from fucking you over because he's an asshat, so we're not even going to try.

That's a gaming group problem, not a game system problem.

Note, I'm not saying that Mike Mearls isn't a hack, because he is and sales numbers prove that. But some issues are way beyond his hack writing.

[Username17]

The thing where he thinks you need to have Clerics and Constitution and Lawful Good really shows a lack of comprehension of issues.

Nope. It shows a fear that if those things are removed, it would stop being D&D. That's a valid point. My uninformed opinion says that most people would simply accept 3.5ed with ToB classes in place of the regular Core classes and with Wizards nerfed, without a care of the flaws of that system on the first place.

The issue is that he acknowledges that the roster of classes and attributes is not static. He thinks we need to have a cleric, but he doesn't seem to think we need to have a thief-acrobat, magic-user, or cavalier. He thinks we need to have a Constitution stat, but he doesn't seem to think we need a comeliness, agility, or size.

He's supposedly questioning what we really need, but he's also implicitly assuming a bunch of shit without even questioning it.

-Username17