Healing surges and other such fail.

Naszir · Post by **Naszir** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:16 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:I would like people to have wounds that they carry for the entire adventure in addition to wounds that vanish between scenes. If we're going for Hollywood healing, we should do Hollywood healing. That means that a bullet wound becomes much less debilitating by the time it gets to the next action scene, but it's still there in the next combat.

Characters should end adventures like a Transporter movie: limping along as a connect-the-dots of cuts and bruises.

-Username17

Agreed. One thing I have tried to implement in my 3rd edition games recently is this:

Wound Threshold
Anytime a character takes damage equal to 1/3 or more of their total hit points in one shot they take a wound. Wounds can only be healed quickly through magic. Otherwise the character must rest normally.

Wounds also have some negative effects:

1st 1/3 = Battered
Effect: May only take a Standard and Move action during a round.

2nd 1/3 = Badly Injured
Effect: Movement is reduced by 10ft.

Any other hit points that are lost during an encounter are immediately "healed" once the encounter is done.

In this way you have "real" wounds represented and you also have luck, small cuts and bruises and combat endurance included in hit points.

Admittedly this has not been playtested extensively but in my mind it has the right feel to it.

Second Wind would fit in nicely too if someone wanted to port it over from 4th to 3rd edition. Representing an adrenaline surge the second wind ability would only heal non-wound hit points mid combat.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:59 pm

Gragh. I was discussing this with a friend of mine, and he just can't get over the lameness of healing surges and the BS "six hours of rest equals three weeks in an ICU" crap. I'm wondering if scrapping HP entirely and going with "make a Fort save every time you're hit" to determine damage would be worth it, despite the clunkiness.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:23 pm

I like the idea of wounds that only get healed when you finish the adventure/movie/book. No, you can't rest up for eight hours to get that last +1 to Perception back. You have to go kill the demon-god-king-emperor, or you have to watch his armies destroy your homes. In 4e terms, I'd be thinking of a chance to pick up some form of injury every time you fail a death saving throw.

I'm not sure how you decide what specific effect such a persistent injury has, though. DM decides? Random charts? Player decides?

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:25 pm

No idea. I hate random charts for the most part. DM fiat could work, but you'd have to have pretty strict guidelines on how the system would function.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:28 pm

From my experience, though, accumulative wounds/depleting resources tend to fail in a few key ways.

1) What's to stop adventurers from just declaring a time-out when they have a bullet wound until they don't have one, though?

2) If you're doing things Die Hard-style and not allowing the players to rest until the adventure is over then how do you balance encounters at the end of the adventure?

Here's what generally happens. Players fight slowly escalating challenges until they get to the boss and beat him/her, then the fighting portion of the adventure is over.

The problem with that is that if people get screwed over from one encounter to the next then it can make the final boss encounter unwinnable.

I mean, really, just because the players had a bad spate of luck with the first encounter with the guards you're going to make it so that they don't have a chance of beating Maleficent or Luca Blight at the end?

You can of course just adjust the future encounters so that the challenge rating is still the same, but really, does this make sense from a storybuilding setpoint? The most challenging encounter was with the guards at the gate and the King of Fists at the top of the dojo turns out to be a pussy?

I can't support a system where doing bad in one combat makes the next combat worse. The dice make it so that eventually a player team are going to have a bad go of it sooner or later, but players going through a five-encounter adventure shouldn't take it in the ass because they had their bad luck in the 1st or 5th encounter rather than the 4th encounter.

I mean, those are your options. Either fuck over the players and encourage 'going home and taking a break' or making encounters gradually less climatic until the adventure is over.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:36 pm

I think that's the idea--players "pushing on" despite their grave injuries, defeating the encounter against the odds. Unfortunately, in game terms, this results in dead characters.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:43 pm

I think that's the idea--players "pushing on" despite their grave injuries, defeating the encounter against the odds. Unfortunately, in game terms, this results in dead characters.

The only reason why Bruce Willis wins the movie despite having his feet cut up and out of energy is because the plot requires it to happen.

Of course, that's okay in Die Hard. Even though it would be totally realistic for Bruce Willis to be limping so hard that he gets his ass kicked by Terrorist #8 and thrown out the window, people would fucking riot in the movie theaters if that actually happened. And for good reason.

But here's the thing: D&D is not like that! If you get your leg broken and a hole in your side, the mooks don't suddenly disappear nor will the dice take it easy on you.

What this thread is missing is the knowledge that players don't have plot protection like they do in the movies or stories. Getting a -3 penalty from your wounds in the first encounter of a four-encounter workday leads to you either failing or getting killed.

Healing surges are an utter failure concept in 4th Edition D&D because of the opposite reason of this thread; they put an arbitrary limit on the amount of ass you can kick in the day. So after you fight your way to the throne room and realize that you're at half hp and have no healing left for the day, rather than press on and go rescue the princess despite all odds you either get iced or give up and go home.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:47 pm

The King of Fists is the most challenging encounter, not because he is strongest, but because he has to be fought after the guards at the gate, when the players are worn down, injured, and low on chakra/mojo/etc.

Or, the King of Fists is the strongest, and the players have been worn down by injuries. However, they've also gained a level in KingSlayer and found an Amulet of Protection from Fists, so they're still stronger than they were when they fought the guards.

Evidently, the longer-term penalties need to be "your vision blurs: -1 to perception", not "you're blind: ha ha ha ha ha".

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:53 pm

MartinHarper wrote:The King of Fists is the most challenging encounter, not because he is strongest, but because he has to be fought after the guards at the gate, when the players are worn down, injured, and low on chakra/mojo/etc.

... which STILL leads to bullshit like the King of Fists either owning the players only because they had bad luck three encounters ago or the actual King of Fists being weaker than his fucking guards.

Or, the King of Fists is the strongest, and the players have been worn down by injuries. However, they've also gained a level in KingSlayer and found an Amulet of Protection from Fists, so they're still stronger than they were when they fought the guards.

Oh. Versimiltude-breaking convenience. That's what I look for in an adventure. 'We're fighting the Winter Princess in the next room but her ice wolves fucked us up! Good thing we just happened to MYSTERIOUSLY come across this stash of Protection from Cold potions last room!'

Evidently, the longer-term penalties need to be "your vision blurs: -1 to perception", not "you're blind: ha ha ha ha ha".

Then why even bother with mounting penalties if they're going to be slaps on the wrist?

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:45 am

... which STILL leads to bullshit like the King of Fists either owning the players only because they had bad luck three encounters ago

The King of Fists might well own you. If it was a cakewalk, we wouldn't be so focused on the fight. This should be a possibility.

Then why even bother with mounting penalties if they're going to be slaps on the wrist?

You can't have mounting penalties without them either being too minor to matter or potentially serious enough for the characters to lose because of them.

Pick one.

Either heroes at some point will genuinely be going against the odds and genuinely hoping that they can win despite being half dead, or we need to assume that they're at effectively full strength all the damn time and there is no such thing as "against the odds" except for the other guys.

The idea that "we're out of healing surges/mojo/action points/fate points/luck/YOUR MOM" means you need to call it a day does not mesh well with heroes pushing on despite obstacles. It works well for "minimize risk", however.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:54 am

The King of Fists might well own you. If it was a cakewalk, we wouldn't be so focused on the fight. This should be a possibility.

Then what happens is that when the players do worse than expected at the first or second leg of the adventure they decide to call it a day.

Yeah, another chance for drama and suspense... averted.

The idea that "we're out of healing surges/mojo/action points/fate points/luck/YOUR MOM" means you need to call it a day does not mesh well with heroes pushing on despite obstacles. It works well for "minimize risk", however.

Well, that's what's going to happen unless you're arbitarily forcing your players on your death march adventure.

I mean, really, as much as I would enjoy saving the princess and killing the dragon, I'm not going to risk a 75% chance of having to rip up my character sheet and start from scratch just because it's more 'heroic' to iron man my way through five encounters.

You could on the other hand just not allow players to take a rest unless they do your little adventure. I'm sure that will work well.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:09 am

Then what happens is that when the players do worse than expected at the first or second leg of the adventure they decide to call it a day.

Yeah, another chance for drama and suspense... averted.

Because the players refuse to take actual risks.

Well, that's what's going to happen unless you're arbitarily forcing your players on your death march adventure.

I mean, really, as much as I would enjoy saving the princess and killing the dragon, I'm not going to risk a 75% chance of having to rip up my character sheet and start from scratch just because it's more 'heroic' to iron man my way through five encounters.

You could on the other hand just not allow players to take a rest unless they do your little adventure. I'm sure that will work well.

Either you push on despite obstacles and injuries and whatever and face that chance (or a 50% chance, or whatever the chance is) of death or serious (long term) injury, or you call it a day as soon as you're out of Whatever.

If I was the DM in that situation, assuming that pushing on was meant to be desired, I'd make it clear that the dragon might eat/sodomize/kill/torture/whatever (yes, eat and kill are seperate) the princess if you don't get there in time.

So you have a choice:

#1: Whether you wait or not doesn't matter, you're at full for everything you care about after each encounter. So waiting doesn't do anything.

#2: Whether you wait or not doesn't matter, you can rest as long as you need between encounters and it doesn't matter if you depleted resources.

#3: Whether you wait or not does matter, and you're not at full after each encounter.

If you want maximum drama, you cannot avoid risk. If you want minimum risk, there can't really be any point other than "Get this over with" to spending less time.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:14 am

Either you push on despite obstacles and injuries and whatever and face that chance (or a 50% chance, or whatever the chance is) of death or serious (long term) injury, or you call it a day as soon as you're out of Whatever.

If I was the DM in that situation, assuming that pushing on was meant to be desired, I'd make it clear that the dragon might eat/sodomize/kill/torture/whatever (yes, eat and kill are seperate) the princess if you don't get there in time.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:28 am

Lago, the point is that if you want "against the odds", you have to be facing the odds.

Otherwise, whether you take two weeks or two hours to get from the entrance to the boss is irrelevant and the drama of succeeding despite the odds is gone because you eliminated those odds.

So, which would you rather lose? The security of being at full and not risking getting screwed, or the triumphs that you might win despite being at a disadvantage?

The PHB being an idiot doesn't magically make it dramatic to play it slow but sure.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:33 am

So, which would you rather lose? The security of being at full and not risking getting screwed, or the triumphs that you might win despite being at a disadvantage?

I'd rather this bullshit not be in the game in the first place.

It's like people seriously haven't learned their lessons with this from the Per Day/Spell Slots/etc. fiasco. There's a reason why D&D's 'Five Minute Workday' mentality gets roundly mocked in the first place.

If we're going to do a string of encounters, you should always be at full strength. I don't mind there being situational or positional penalties once combat starts, but what happened to your characters last combat shouldn't affect how this combat goes.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:41 am

If it's not in the game in the first place, welcome to one of the listed options.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:44 am

Then it is impossible to have characters going into a fight with any disadvantage other than "their players think they can take on a CR X at level Y".

Fine. Say goodbye to some drama, say hello to "you could be almost dead after one fight, but miraculously, are at full for the next".

With almost dead meaning whatever mechanics for "not actually killed outright but as close to that as you can get".

Manxome · Post by **Manxome** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:51 am

You can set the odds to whatever you want. The fact that you did poorly against the guards in the first scene might mean that you only have a mere 96% chance to beat the BBEG instead of a 99% chance. That's totally irrelevant to the pattern you choose.

As far as the overall progression of the game, either doing poorly against the guards in the first scene hurts you long-term or it doesn't. If you want it to hurt you long term, there needs to be some sort of penalty or resource depletion that it inflicts that you cannot overcome before the final scene. If you don't want it to hurt you long term, then you can just give full and automatic healing after every battle. Which one of those is preferable will depend on what sort of game you're trying to build. What is so hard about this?

Once you decide you want players to care about long-term resource management, then you should decide how big of an effect you want the first fight to have on your chances of winning the campaign, and design the system accordingly. That could be "if you make a minor mistake, your odds of ultimate sense are cut in half" or it could be "your impressively stupid tactics will cause you mild annoyance tomorrow."

If you decide not to deplete resources long-term, then anything that isn't a deadly threat isn't a threat at all; the output of an encounter is binary.

-=-

I want to give a shout-out to Saga Frontier, which gives all characters "hit points" and "life points." Damage is subtracted from your HP. If your HP reaches zero, you become disabled until it becomes positive again, and you immediately lose one LP (and another LP every time you're damaged if your HP is already zero). If you run out of LP, then your HP are set to zero and they cannot be restored by any means whatsoever until you get some LP back.

HP automatically fully recover at the end of every combat, but LP only recover between dungeons or when you expend extremely limited resources. Healing abilities allow you to recover HP during fights, which makes them useful but not usually critical (they're also generally pretty weak compared to other CRPGs).

In random fights, you usually don't lose any LP, but if you do particularly badly or get particularly unlucky, someone's HP will hit zero, and you lose a LP, so they can wear you down over time. But they'll be back for the next battle, and as long as you've got a couple LP going into the boss fight, you usually don't care whether you're at full--running out of HP disables you no matter how many LP you have left, so unless you're capable of doing a lot of in-combat healing (during a boss fight, while part of your party is disabled), you'll usually lose the fight before anyone's lost more than a couple LP anyway.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:09 am

For those trying to make the Diehard reference, I don't think the final boss was really much tougher than the mooks they had, his danger being organizing the group and the series of mooks before you get to him.

You could have the final boss only be marginally more powerful than his minions, and thus actually easily defeatable if fought first. Or perchance not have the wound penalties accrued be so severe as seen in something like Diehard, so you have a larger margin of strength to play with for the final boss.

I mention these options because I want the potential for prior fights to mean something to the characters, and not have it look like an console fighting game, where you go to the next stage looking the exact same from fight to fight.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:53 am

Elennsar wrote:Then it is impossible to have characters going into a fight with any disadvantage other than "their players think they can take on a CR X at level Y".

Manxome wrote:As far as the overall progression of the game, either doing poorly against the guards in the first scene hurts you long-term or it doesn't. If you want it to hurt you long term, there needs to be some sort of penalty or resource depletion that it inflicts that you cannot overcome before the final scene. If you don't want it to hurt you long term, then you can just give full and automatic healing after every battle. Which one of those is preferable will depend on what sort of game you're trying to build. What is so hard about this?

That's what situational disadvantages are for.

I don't mind the Big Boss having some sort of containment field that applies a -2 penalty to attack rolls or is draining life energy from the princess for his spells and the princess has to be rescued in three rounds or she dies--if you have a need for that sort of drama.

virgileso wrote:I mention these options because I want the potential for prior fights to mean something to the characters, and not have it look like an console fighting game, where you go to the next stage looking the exact same from fight to fight.

Why? Where's the drama in that?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:04 am

Just so you know, guys, the reason why in sequential art the heroes get banged up in movies is to create doubt in the audience whether or not the hero can win the movie.

Since 'the good guys win' is for the most part almost an omnipresent storybuilding element the writers have to maintain doubt and tension by stacking the odds.

However, in tabletop games, heroes are (to extent) not bound by the demands of the plot. While DMs (to extent) are generally bound to make encounters fair or at least give you an out, their responsibility ends there. There's no convenient weakness for you to spot or a chandelier to drop on your enemies, at least not that you can rely on. When you go into any encounter, there's a real possibility that you might lose and die.

And it's not a drama-inducing event, either. Your adventure can end just as easily at the feet of the Elite Red Guard as it can on the altar of Ultra-Hastur. The game doesn't care. It doesn't care about your plot or by how close you are towards your most awesome campaign moment.

Furthermore, when heroes fail in tabletop games, there are no continues. At least in a video game, if you die to some forest wolves while on your way to stop a genocide you can just reload and try again. When you die, that's generally it unless the DM takes pity on you. Moreover, almost every P&P gaming system I've seen makes it so that failure or weakness on one segment of the game punishes you for future segments. Now, while it's possible to implement a system of limit breaks or whatever the fuck, all this ultimately does is just shift the bonuses and penalties around.

So unlike the movies, where Inigo Montoya or Ichigo or Spiderman suddenly finds a reserve of strength after being beaten down and saves the day, there isn't any reversal of your fortunes. You suck and you'll only suck harder. Your only options is for you to take a rest, the DM to dumb down future encounters, or let the encounters stand as they are and take a potentially game-ending risk.

Since you don't know how Schroedinger's Gun is going to fire, you're going to fucking rest.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:29 am

Which means that instead of acting like a hero (either in our world or fiction), and pressing on and accepting that you may die, you go for "I take as few risks as possible".

The game may not care if the heroes win or lose at any given point, but that's a good thing if you want genuine risk involved.

So either PCs don't need to worry about how well/badly they did in previous encounters at all, for one of two reasons, or they do and they may well need (or want) to press on anyway.

Part of being a goddamn hero is risking getting killed to save the princess.

Virgileso: Thanks for clarifying.

So. Do we want to have our characters not give a shit about "the odds" because there are no "odds against the heroes", or do we want to figure out how to be okay as players with the face "odds against you" is unfavorable?

Personally, I'd prefer to feel that I might lose a character. If you're not making sacrifices, you're not really being heroic.

If you're incapable of losing "the quest", then winning is not very exciting...either emotionally or intellectually. You didn't win because you got lucky/did the right thing/whatever, you just were scripted to win.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:33 am

I think I'd take Elennsar's stance. Sometimes you have to go into combat at half health--it sucks, but you just have to be more careful.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:43 am

Elennsar wrote: Personally, I'd prefer to feel that I might lose a character. If you're not making sacrifices, you're not really being heroic.

If you're incapable of losing "the quest", then winning is not very exciting...either emotionally or intellectually. You didn't win because you got lucky/did the right thing/whatever, you just were scripted to win.

OR you can just take a break until your protagonists are at full health again.

Seriously, what part of 'the game doesn't fucking give you plot armor' do you not understand? What, exactly, is heroic about dying in the courtyard to a hail of arrows because you were too goddamn stupid to let your leg heal after being mauled by the gate guard?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:43 am

It is a cooperative story-telling game, and very few people I know of ever want to tell a story where there is no such thing as attrition, or at the very least the illusion of attrition.

What if 'healing surges' were a sort of special move, or even moves that allowed you to ignore wound penalties for a time? It would be one of those limited moves, likely an encounter power or equivalent.