In 4th edition D&D, I find the question about when a character should use his Daily abilities to be a bit problematic. I would rather that most abilities be At-Will or Encounter.
I wanted to come up with a way for a character to recover from damage without needing to use a daily resource, such as the Healing Surges of 4th edition D&D.
D&D Gamma World deals with the problem by simply giving a character full recovery of all hit points during a short rest. This is convenient, but rather too good, and makes the consequences of injury almost unimportant. Certainly traps that deal damage would be useless outside of combat.
The following rules can work with any D&D game, though with the importance of healing surges in 4th edition, perhaps it would be best considered for use in the upcoming 5th edition D&D.
These rules can also be made to work with OGL-based games, such as 3rd edition D&D. Note, however, that it increases the characters' healing rate quite a bit without use of magical healing, and effectively doubles the effects of magical healing. Therefore, you might want to make adjustments to compensate.
The rules:
Injury is tracked in two simple ways. A character has Hit Points, which start at his maximum (uninjured value), and Damage Points, which start at zero and are accumulated.
Whenever a character takes damage, it is added to his Damage Points.
If the character's Damage Points ever exceed his current hit points, then the character gains the dying condition and may expire if not helped.
When the character takes a short rest, he recovers some of his vigour -- half the Damage Points are subtracted from his Hit Points, and his Damage Points drop to zero.
If the character is healed a number of points, say with a spell or potion, then the healing is applied to both the Damage Points and the Hit Points -- Damage Points get reduced (minimum zero), and the same number is added to his current Hit Points (up to his normal maximum).
An alternative version of healing may be equivalent to a short rest, as described above.
Natural healing occurs after a short rest has occurred (when the character has zero Damage Points and less than maximum Hit Points). A character naturally heals 1 hit point per day for each character level.
For example, suppose a Fighter is uninjured and starts combat with his full 63 Hit Points and 0 Damage Points. After sustaining a couple hits, he has accumulated 16 Damage Points. He still has 63 Hit Points, however. After winning the fight, he takes a short rest. His Hit Points drop to 63-(16/2)=55, and his Damage Points drop to 0. As you can see, he has partially recovered from his injuries, but has been weakened to an extent. During a second combat encounter, if he is badly injured, and his Damage Points exceed his current 55 Hit Points, he may die. If he imbibes a healing potion that heals 5 points, then his Damage Points are reduced by 5 points and his Hit Points are increased by 5 points. Thus, a character who needs healing badly gets more benefit than one who is at maximum Hit Points or has accumulated no Damage Points.
To maximize magical healing benefits, a character may choose to use magical healing after combat but before he begins his short rest.
This method allows a character to recover from injuries quickly, but not completely. Damage that occurs during combat is no more or less deadly when using these rules. However, injuries can still carry over from one combat to the next until a character has sufficient time (or magic) to fully recover. The only resources expended are those which accelerate healing (such as healing spells and potions), and a character never has to worry about running out of healing surges. With every new injury, he has the ability to recovery partially, but not completely.
Thus healing still has its limits, yet effectively becomes an Encounter ability.
Anyway, back to healing and HP, how do people feel about the current number of HPs characters have in 4th Ed (would you like more, less, the same etc)?
The amount of HP a character has is irrelevant without the context of potential damage. I think a more pertinent question is how many attacks can a tough/average/frail expect to survive before dropping. And really, we need to compare that against expected attack values compared against defenses. Maybe a tough character can only take a couple of hits before dropping, but has etraordinarily high defenses. Or maybe defenses are roughly flat for all characters, but HP levels differ widely. Certainly the latter is more common in D&D historically than the former.
Personally, assuming 5e maintains the expected paradigm, I would like average monsters to hit average same-level PCs about 55-65% of the time, and be able to suffer through 4-5 hits before dropping. So, a character should be able to suruve around 10 attempted attacks before dropping, assuming no support.
Essentials zigged, when I wanted to continue zagging.
Anyway, back to healing and HP, how do people feel about the current number of HPs characters have in 4th Ed (would you like more, less, the same etc)?
The amount of HP a character has is irrelevant without the context of potential damage. I think a more pertinent question is how many attacks can a tough/average/frail expect to survive before dropping. And really, we need to compare that against expected attack values compared against defenses. Maybe a tough character can only take a couple of hits before dropping, but has etraordinarily high defenses. Or maybe defenses are roughly flat for all characters, but HP levels differ widely. Certainly the latter is more common in D&D historically than the former.
Personally, assuming 5e maintains the expected paradigm, I would like average monsters to hit average same-level PCs about 55-65% of the time, and be able to suffer through 4-5 hits before dropping. So, a character should be able to suruve around 10 attempted attacks before dropping, assuming no support.
While I agree with the bolded sentence, remember that dice represent a hard lower cap to that equation, and higher quantities mean more granularity. A longsword is going to deal d8 damages, you can bet on that: therefore, in order to survive 4-5 attacks you need to have about 20 hps at first level as a minimum. You can increase that, but you can't as readily decrease it, because dice are dice, physical pieces of plastic with actual numbers on them.
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept. Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new. Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept. Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
I like the current amount of hit points. Feels like you're playing someone who doesn't fear the housecats, rats and stiff winds in the world.
Yes, I would not like to go back to the pre-4th Ed scenario of: "...a gnome throws a carrot at you; you die..."
That's why in all pre-4th Ed seshes I run (for many, many years now) all classes get triple max HP at level 1, and average rounded up for levelling, no Con bonus (so a Fighter gets 30, + 6 per level, similar to 4th Ed, one of the thngs I love about that edition).
Anyway, back to healing and HP, how do people feel about the current number of HPs characters have in 4th Ed (would you like more, less, the same etc)?
The amount of HP a character has is irrelevant without the context of potential damage. I think a more pertinent question is how many attacks can a tough/average/frail expect to survive before dropping. And really, we need to compare that against expected attack values compared against defenses. Maybe a tough character can only take a couple of hits before dropping, but has etraordinarily high defenses. Or maybe defenses are roughly flat for all characters, but HP levels differ widely. Certainly the latter is more common in D&D historically than the former.
Personally, assuming 5e maintains the expected paradigm, I would like average monsters to hit average same-level PCs about 55-65% of the time, and be able to suffer through 4-5 hits before dropping. So, a character should be able to suruve around 10 attempted attacks before dropping, assuming no support.
While I agree with the bolded sentence, remember that dice represent a hard lower cap to that equation, and higher quantities mean more granularity. A longsword is going to deal d8 damages, you can bet on that: therefore, in order to survive 4-5 attacks you need to have about 20 hps at first level as a minimum. You can increase that, but you can't as readily decrease it, because dice are dice, physical pieces of plastic with actual numbers on them.
Which is why I buck for higher HP, at least for the fighter. And skewing the HP chart in favor of more HP for the fighter. Like, 30-35ish. Wizards lower by at least 10, rogues and clerics middle of the road.
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quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
Anyway, back to healing and HP, how do people feel about the current number of HPs characters have in 4th Ed (would you like more, less, the same etc)?
The amount of HP a character has is irrelevant without the context of potential damage. I think a more pertinent question is how many attacks can a tough/average/frail expect to survive before dropping. And really, we need to compare that against expected attack values compared against defenses. Maybe a tough character can only take a couple of hits before dropping, but has etraordinarily high defenses. Or maybe defenses are roughly flat for all characters, but HP levels differ widely. Certainly the latter is more common in D&D historically than the former.
Personally, assuming 5e maintains the expected paradigm, I would like average monsters to hit average same-level PCs about 55-65% of the time, and be able to suffer through 4-5 hits before dropping. So, a character should be able to suruve around 10 attempted attacks before dropping, assuming no support.
While I agree with the bolded sentence, remember that dice represent a hard lower cap to that equation, and higher quantities mean more granularity. A longsword is going to deal d8 damages, you can bet on that: therefore, in order to survive 4-5 attacks you need to have about 20 hps at first level as a minimum. You can increase that, but you can't as readily decrease it, because dice are dice, physical pieces of plastic with actual numbers on them.
True.
But what about Stat modifiers? Will a bonus to STR translate to a higher hit bonus? Damage bonus? Both? Will armor be a defense bonus, or offer damage reduction? Both? Will crits max damage? Double damage? How much instant healing will the party have access to? Self-healing? Potions? Will healing be limited by internal limits (a la surges) or by external forces (number of heal spells/potions)? There are a lot of factors, and they are all interelated. How you decide on one particular instance can have a cascading effect through design, a sort of "Butterfly Effect".
But yes, assuming armor doesn't grant DR, and stats don't add much or anything to damage, a 1st level character needs to have ~20-25 HP at first level to be considered of average hardiness under my paradigm. Assuming a 3-18 stats spread, and low adventuring CON is 8, then averag CON should be about 14-15.
CON score + variable class bonus would be a good starting point for my preferred style.
Essentials zigged, when I wanted to continue zagging.
