Healing surges and other such fail.

[JonSetanta]

I would rather be able to heal whenever I choose.

How often and to what degree?


One could always use SKR's "Sprint Healing" ufufu

[Psychic Robot]

How often--on a round-by-round basis drawing from a pool of daily resources. To what degree--per unit of resources, or overall?

[Username17]

How often--on a round-by-round basis drawing from a pool of daily resources.

So you think that we should have a daily hit point number and have to stop adventuring when we run out of them.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

To some extent, yes. I'd like to see a modifier 3e system, which made healing better but gave it a higher opportunity cost. I realize that this is less "fun" that what other people want, though.

[Talisman]

Healing is a resource, just like spells or potions or whatever. I find it somewhat silly that any given fight literally doesn't matter as far as healing is concerned, as long as you have the wand of CLW and no one actually dies.

Healing should involve a resource-management issue, not "Well, we're down to 15 charges...we better pick up a new wand at the next town."

And before anyone asks: no, I don't care for 4e's healing, nor do I hate adventurers and want them to die, nor do I have a magic solution. I'm just stating my thoughts.

[Username17]

Talisman, you just spent like six pages arguing for people to not rest at arbitrary times. If healing is a resource that you run out of on a daily basis, then you have to rest and end the day whenever it is that you run out of it.

That's the facts. If you give people a daily limit to how much combat they can engage in, then they'll stop fighting when they run out of that limit. I don't know why this seems so hard for you to grasp.

If you don't want people to stop during arbitrary points in the day, you can't give people arbitrary limits during that day. It really is that simple.

-Username17

[Talisman]

It's the "arbitrary" part that bothers me (and yes, I know that just about every aspect of an RPG is arbitrary).

I dislike the Bottomless Well of Infinite Healing from an aesthetic standpoint.

I dislike the fact that heroic final charges don't work in 3.x from a dramatic standpoint.

It's not hard for me to grasp, and I'm not saying D&D works in a different way than it does. I'm saying I wish it worked in a different way, and asking what house rules can be implemented to make it work in a way that pleases me better.

Obviously the Perfect Game System is the Holy Grail of gaming. I'm not looking for that right now. I'm looking for something that mostly works and does mostly what I want.

[Username17]

So you want a system that punishes people tomorrow for the amount of fighting, spellcasting, and healing they engage in today in order to have things have a "cost" while at the same time encouraging people to keep charging forward as long as possible, right?

-Username17

[Talisman]

Wrong.

I want to discrete things, and they may be irreconcileably different.

I want a system where lesser wounds are shaken off in a couple of minutes, moderate wounds linger for a day or so, and there is the possibility of severe wounds that can put you down for a week (these should be extremely rare and/or avoidable by spending tokens/chips/whatever).

I also want a system that encourages the PCs to press on rather than blow their wad and then rest for 8 hours, and that allows for the Heroic End Run, where the heroes are battered but defiant and risk death to stop the Dark Lord.

That's what I want. These may be mutually exclusive. I'm not saying any system that doesn't do this is crap; I'm saying this is what I would like to see.

[violence in the media]

I know I'm going kind of off-base here for a moment, but maybe a large part of the problem with healing in RPGs is the structure of the adventures, the demands of the game system, and the way that relates to real-world trials and tribulations.

Nobody faces a series of hard opponents or challenges one right after the other if they can avoid it, so why should we expect or demand PCs do otherwise? It's not like we expect Rocky to fight Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago in rapid succession. One could make an argument that those three are "boss" fights for Rocky, but we also don't expect many D&D characters to take on a CR+4 ecounter by themselves.

Maybe we need a way to make mook fights engaging, even if they're essentially predetermined, so that adventures don't require PCs to be continuously challenged by "level-appropriate" opposition? Maybe somehow shift the focus away from being injured and recovering rapidly to avoiding injury in the first place? I don't know.

[Elennsar]

Interesting comments.

A response or three:

Nobody faces a series of hard opponents or challenges one right after the other if they can avoid it, so why should we expect or demand PCs do otherwise? It's not like we expect Rocky to fight Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago in rapid succession. One could make an argument that those three are "boss" fights for Rocky, but we also don't expect many D&D characters to take on a CR+4 ecounter by themselves.

If he could have avoided it (without Bad Things Happening), Frodo wouldn't have taken the Ring to Mordor.

If he could have avoided it, Han Solo wouldn't have joined the rebellion.

If he could have avoided it, Galahad would still have been a virgin prick.

Okay, bad example. Point is, that is an "if". Telling stories about heroes is ultimately telling stories about people doing things they'd rather not to prevent things they'd really rather not have happen.

I mean, seriously. Did St. George -want- to slay the dragon? No.

He did it because he was the kind of guy who would slay a dragon for you.

Not because he liked being cooked in his armor or because he was promised a princess, but because he believed it should be done.

Maybe we need a way to make mook fights engaging, even if they're essentially predetermined, so that adventures don't require PCs to be continuously challenged by "level-appropriate" opposition? Maybe somehow shift the focus away from being injured and recovering rapidly to avoiding injury in the first place? I don't know.

Engaging and predetermined are running at cross purposes. On one hand, you want to feel that your actions are relevant to your success (or that doing "better" is better than auto-calculating the result).

But if it is pre-determined, that's not entirely true.

As for avoiding injury in the first place:

That requires a very high threshold (relatively speaking) for one of two things:

1) The attack roll. This could be done by an "active defense" roll instead of high AC, but either way, people usually dodge, parry, block, or otherwise avoid being hit. A lot.

2) The damage roll. People are extremely hard to hurt when wearing armor, particularly plate, but chain mail works wonders too.

[Bigode]

Nobody faces a series of hard opponents or challenges one right after the other if they can avoid it, so why should we expect or demand PCs do otherwise? It's not like we expect Rocky to fight Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago in rapid succession. One could make an argument that those three are "boss" fights for Rocky, but we also don't expect many D&D characters to take on a CR+4 ecounter by themselves.

A boss fight for a single person's their same CR, actually. And that's definitionally possible to do. Once, for many characters. And indeed, the system expects them to rest after that. Or only going after that right after resting.

D&D specifics aside, people do what's best. So, either fighting without rest works better than fighting right after rest, or you just time most adventures (viable aside from planar retardation which shouldn't exist) and leave no option - then things happen as you want. Revolutionary concept, eh: that things happen as you want if you just force them to ...

[violence in the media]

Interesting comments.
If he could have avoided it (without Bad Things Happening), Frodo wouldn't have taken the Ring to Mordor.

Okay, bad example. Point is, that is an "if". Telling stories about heroes is ultimately telling stories about people doing things they'd rather not to prevent things they'd really rather not have happen. (Rest snipped for space.)

I think you're looking at this in a more meta sense than I was. Within the premise of the game (Han Solo joining the Rebellion, Frodo taking the Ring to Mt. Doom) they have the freedom and desire to avoid as many fights as they can. It doesn't matter how many orcs or stormtroopers they kill along the way, provided the Ring winds up in the firey embrace of the volcano. On the Death Star. Which explodes.

Engaging and predetermined are running at cross purposes. On one hand, you want to feel that your actions are relevant to your success (or that doing "better" is better than auto-calculating the result).

But if it is pre-determined, that's not entirely true.

I mean engaging in the sense that there is a point to doing well or poorly in the fight, but within the realization that Luke Skywalker is in no real danger from any quantity of Stormtroopers. Like someone else mentioned, make mook encounters more about things like:

Can I kill all these assholes before reinforcements arrive?

Can I avoid all these troopers on my way to the tractor beam controls?

Can I dispatch these ogres without getting stabbed more than twice?

Basically, I'd be looking at establishing other win/loss conditions for an encouter besides "slaughter everyone". Once the win or loss condition is met, the encounter resolves and we move on.

Gotta run. I'll try and elaborate more later.

[Elennsar]

Within the premise of the game (Han Solo joining the Rebellion, Frodo taking the Ring to Mt. Doom) they have the freedom and desire to avoid as many fights as they can. It doesn't matter how many orcs or stormtroopers they kill along the way, provided the Ring winds up in the firey embrace of the volcano. On the Death Star. Which explodes.

Which, personally, is desirable. Characters fighting more than is necessary to accomplish their goals does not suit either of those two.

Some things need more fighting than others, but if Bob's character can get from A to B without killing any orcs, and there was no reason to kill the orcs, congradulations to Bob.

Basically, I'd be looking at establishing other win/loss conditions for an encouter besides "slaughter everyone". Once the win or loss condition is met, the encounter resolves and we move on.

Good premise.

One thing that I think would need to die an excruciatingly painful death is that the number/difficulty of encounters you face has to do with how capable you are (both in terms of "more xp for fighting more" and "higher level people have more Stormtroopers magically appear", but mostly the former.).

Otherwise, mechanics in conflict. Which is baaaad.

[Draco_Argentum]

It would depend on the percent depletion of resources, I'd imagine.

The rested % success doesn't but you still didn't give a response to it.

[Elennsar]

Presumably, any encounter that you are expected to be able to win has a chance of victory of somewhere around 25% at a minimum.

Anything below that is getting into "the dice will not support it.", even if people have pulled off things where the odds are probably worse in our world.

Of course, that's "you" as in the party. A three people dead in a four person party winning by the skin of the fourth person's teeth is not necessarily a bad ending.

Read the following for an example for something even worse:

http://myth.bungie.org/legends/journal/ ... _iron.html
http://myth.bungie.org/legends/journal/ ... attle.html
http://myth.bungie.org/legends/journal/ ... evoid.html

This is not recommended for most adventures. It may be something that can come up and that we don't rule out, but it is strongly not recommended.

Damn epic if done right when it does come up though.

[violence in the media]

Presumably, any encounter that you are expected to be able to win has a chance of victory of somewhere around 25% at a minimum.

Wait, what? Are you saying that my chance of victory is a minimum 25% on an encounter I'm expected to be able to win?

That doesn't make any sense. A 25% success rate is not something I would term likely, let alone expected.

For an expected win to turn into a loss, something out of the ordinary or truly unexpected would have to happen beyond the simple variations on the dice. It could be a dice malfunction, but it would have to be severe. If I roll 5 "1"s in a row, that can't help my chances of success. But it would need to be more than flubbing a simple save or attack roll, or a lucky crit by my opponent.

Mostly, I'd imagine that I'd have to seriously miscalculate the scenario or my opposition.

Me: "How was I supposed to know that these guardsmen were elite skirmishers and veterans of the last campaign?"

DM: "WTF do you think I had you roll Knowledge: Heraldry or Knowledge: Local for?"

One thing that I think would need to die an excruciatingly painful death is that the number/difficulty of encounters you face has to do with how capable you are (both in terms of "more xp for fighting more" and "higher level people have more Stormtroopers magically appear", but mostly the former.).

Please elaborate on the bolded part, I'm not sure what you mean. A PC should have the same number of level-appropriate encounters from level 10 to 11 as he does from level 1 to 2. Higher level PCs can have more encounters but, if those are significantly lower level, they won't contribute much to level progress.

Now, if you're saying something to the effect that the guards are level 3 when I'm level 1, and those same guards are level 12 when I'm level 10, then I can agree with that.

As far as more Stormtroopers for higher level people, it makes sense to me that the Empire would send more troops to round up Luke and Han than they would to nab a couple of no-name rebel troops.

[Elennsar]

Wait, what? Are you saying that my chance of victory is a minimum 25% on an encounter I'm expected to be able to win?

That doesn't make any sense. A 25% success rate is not something I would term likely, let alone expected.

No, it doesn't. So read what I wrote more carefully.

25% is the minimum chance of winning for "You have a chance to win".

You are able to win there. Unlikely? Definately!

But if you have less than a 25% chance of victory, I would consider it a "victory is not going to happen whatever we do, what's the second best thing we can get?" scenario.

Please elaborate on the bolded part, I'm not sure what you mean. A PC should have the same number of level-appropriate encounters from level 10 to 11 as he does from level 1 to 2. Higher level PCs can have more encounters but, if those are significantly lower level, they won't contribute much to level progress.

If we want this:

Bob's character can get from A to B without killing any orcs, and there was no reason to kill the orcs, congradulations to Bob.

Then there has to be no particularly good reason for Frodo to engage the orcs. Being capable (gaining levels) should not require wading through orcs.

Which brings up the other part. Frodo is not facing a level appropriate encounter very often.

Now, this might be on the list of reasons levels don't work, but more specifically, some situations are just plain hard and unfair and if you want a campaign modeling them, they are going to be slanted like that...and we need the mechanics representing it.

As far as more Stormtroopers for higher level people, it makes sense to me that the Empire would send more troops to round up Luke and Han than they would to nab a couple of no-name rebel troops.

Right. But getting to Leia (A New Hope) is a CR 7 or so encounter. Period. That may be "CR+4" for our brave heroes or equal CR or whatever.

Level appropriate works fine for dungeon crawls or anything else where risk and reward are supposed to be weighed and we pick things with enough reward to justify the risk.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really fit something like LotR (which has other issues, admitedly), Star Wars, or a lot of other things where heroes have moments of "the odds are completely against us! We must turn back!"

So I would hate to shackle the system into forcing all encounters to be based on PC level and PC level to be based on the number of encounters fought (as opposed to avoided entirely) if we want to represent something like the Death Star or Mount Doom at all.

[MartinHarper]

Suppose that, when fully rested, facing a "tough" encounter, the party has a 0.1% chance of someone dying, a 1% chance of running away and surviving, and a 98.9% chance of victory. I think the ideal would be that a heavily fatigued party still has a 0.1% chance of someone dying, a 40% chance of running away and surviving, and a 59.9% chance of victory. That supports parties who want to don't want to rest up after every fight, but still allows for real attrition.

To achieve this, I think you'd want to ensure that all movement-related powers (including powers that slow down enemies) are encounter powers or at-will powers. Powers that drag out combats (such as healing, defence buffs, and offence debuffs) would also be predominantly encounter and at-will powers. Daily combat powers would mostly be about damage, buffing offence, preventing enemies healing, and reducing enemy defences. You could also have puzzle-solving abilities as daily resources, since puzzles tend to allow for easy retreat.

[MartinHarper]

25% is the minimum chance of winning for "You have a chance to win". ... If you have less than a 25% chance of victory, I would consider it a "victory is not going to happen whatever we do, what's the second best thing we can get?" scenario.

If you have a chance to win, then you have a chance to win. If you don't have a chance to win, then you don't have a chance to win. For example, if you have a 20% chance of winning, then you have a 20% chance of winning. Similarly, if you don't have a chance to win, then you have a 0% chance of winning.

I suggest that you read what you write more carefully.

[Elennsar]

Not to bog this down in nitpickery, but I do have to nitpick here...

You have a better chance of running away when worn out then when fully rested?



Just finding that rather weird, don't take this too seriously.

For example, if you have a 20% chance of winning, then you have a 20% chance of winning.

If you feel confident in rolling 16+ an amount of the time that actually relates to mathmatical probability, you have better crafted dice than I've ever used.

Thus saying 25% is as low as I feel that this isn't "you're going to lose." It is possible to win with say, two natural twenties in a row. Odds of that happening are too poor to trust in it without great optimism.

[MartinHarper]

You have a better chance of running away when worn out then when fully rested?



Just finding that rather weird, don't take this too seriously.

The idea is that rested parties are about as good at running away as parties who have already killed some fools today. However, they normally don't run away, because it's easier and better to smite the opposition and achieve victory.

The trick, as you note, is in making this feel quasi-realistic. So, somehow making action points particularly effective for running away (perhaps they grant move or minor actions, but not standard actions?).

[Elennsar]

The idea is that rested parties are about as good at running away as parties who have already killed some fools today. However, they normally don't run away, because it's easier and better to smite the opposition and achieve victory.

Ah, that makes sense. Just the idea that you're better off running when wounded was too amusing not to jest about it.

So, somehow making action points particularly effective for running away (perhaps they grant move or minor actions, but not standard actions?).

Something like that would work.

Of course, here's a question. How much should NPCs who are retreating/routing be easy prey?

Not as important for balance, but it does need to be decided, since there's no good reason to stand and fight when risking death unless doing so is either useful or regarded as the way to do things.

[violence in the media]

Presumably, any encounter that you are expected to be able to win has a chance of victory of somewhere around 25% at a minimum.

No, it doesn't. So read what I wrote more carefully.

25% is the minimum chance of winning for "You have a chance to win".

You are able to win there. Unlikely? Definately!

I was going to say, "Fuck your presumptions about my reading comprehension and write what you mean more carefully." However, I realize that we're arguing connotations here.

For you, as I am understanding what you have written, a 25% chance of success is the minimum that is acceptable to you. It's not the ideal, but you'll go into that situation if you have to and feel that you're being treated fairly.

For me, those chances are too low and it breaks my suspension of disbelief. It puts the game too far into the realm of the DM dictating everything that happens. Why? Because 3 out of 4 times, we lose that (probably Boss) encounter and either the game ends or some sort of DM-ex-machina has to happen for the game to continue.

Gaming is a lot like gambling in my mind. As such, when the chances for success go down significantly, then the rewards have to increase significantly, the personal risk has to decrease, or some combination of the two.

I don't think we have any significant disagreement on the second subject.

[Elennsar]

I was going to say, "Fuck your presumptions about my reading comprehension and write what you mean more carefully." However, I realize that we're arguing connotations here.

For you, as I am understanding what you have written, a 25% chance of success is the minimum that is acceptable to you. It's not the ideal, but you'll go into that situation if you have to and feel that you're being treated fairly.

Pretty much. Less than 25% is telling me that it is a situation where the only question is how badly you will be defeated, and 25% is something I can face without wanting to throw dice and pencils.

Gaming is a lot like gambling in my mind. As such, when the chances for success go down significantly, then the rewards have to increase significantly, the personal risk has to decrease, or some combination of the two.

I don't think we have any significant disagreement on the second subject.

I am not sure on that. (The agreement, that is). Depends on what you mean by rewards.

Rewards as in booty? No. But if I'm practically certain to die, I'd like to know that my death could still save the king/the world/the whatever.

I don't mind a good chance of losing, however. Heroes sometimes do lose.

That area (underlined) I think we disagree on.

I'd rather not...I don't like tragedies, but I don't want the enemy to be incompetent or less competent then he seemed.

But it had better be worth taking the risk of dying.

It doesn't necessarily need to be more rewarding, but it had better be worth it for me to agree to face overwhelming odds of defeat, particularly if it is defeat and death.

So I think we mostly agree, but I'm not sure we agree as fully as you said.