I probably won't be switching after all...
Halaster Blackcloak
every thing I say "Yeah, cool!" to, there are three things that I
say "Oh gods no!" to. Or at the very least, the "Oh gods no!" comments
weigh more heavily than the "yeah, cool!" ones.
What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
amount of invincibility of players. First of all, they start with max
hp. Not a big deal, but it just starts the snowball rolling. Then we
have spells like Mass Heal, where a cleric can heal 2,000 hp of damage
in a single spell. Add to that the death's door rule where each round
the charcter gets a 10% chance to stabilize and even begin healing, and
also the way clerics can swap other spells for healing, and we now have
the equivelant of a bunch of Xmen Wolverine healing factors. The
assault on a dungeon no longer becomes dangerous, it's simply a matter
of attrition. Go in, kill what you can, retreat, heal everyone, go back
in. Never has this tactic been so easy. Hell, now you don't even need
to retreat, just heal on the run, why not? Just takes a short time to
memorize new spells anyway. There's no longer any need to retreat as
charcters can heal as they explore. There's virtually no limit to the #
of healing spells available. I hope the DMG doesn't list healing
potions, because they're an unneeded redundancy.
And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK! That's
before taking into account the overglut of magical healing available.
It seems to me that 3E is obsessed with superpowered characters, with
unkillable PCs who never need fear death. Never have characters had
such potent and plentiful healing potential. In the old days, the
cleric haad a handful of healing spells at best, and if you were lucky,
a few healing potions. You went into a dungeon or on some other type of
adventure, and relied on your wits to keep you alive. The healing was
just there as an emergency measure. You had to be careful, and you knew
there was a limit to the healing ability of the team. Gods forbid there
are two clerics on a team in 3E...you no longer need to worry about
damage, since you never need to go more than a few hours with less than
full HPs.
I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
characters without working his ass off just to balance out this single
powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned cleric
spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric gets
Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot of
automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
towards healing spells?
No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
CHANCE to die.
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Robin Lim
"Halaster Blackcloak" <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8nispi$6ia$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Well, the more I read into the PHB, the less I feel like switching. For
> every thing I say "Yeah, cool!" to, there are three things that I
> say "Oh gods no!" to. Or at the very least, the "Oh gods no!" comments
> weigh more heavily than the "yeah, cool!" ones.
>
> What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
> amount of invincibility of players.
*rolls eyes* If you think players are too powerful, then up the level of
opposition. Is it so hard? I mean really now.
> And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
> gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
> has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
> rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
> get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK! That's
> before taking into account the overglut of magical healing available.
Makes sense, since they should be able to heal at the same relative rate.
> It seems to me that 3E is obsessed with superpowered characters, with
> unkillable PCs who never need fear death. Never have characters had
> such potent and plentiful healing potential. In the old days, the
> cleric haad a handful of healing spells at best, and if you were lucky,
> a few healing potions. You went into a dungeon or on some other type of
> adventure, and relied on your wits to keep you alive. The healing was
> just there as an emergency measure. You had to be careful, and you knew
> there was a limit to the healing ability of the team. Gods forbid there
> are two clerics on a team in 3E...you no longer need to worry about
> damage, since you never need to go more than a few hours with less than
> full HPs.
Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea of PCs
running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime before going
back into the dungeon? Besides, if you think PCs spend too much time
healing, just throw more monsters at them.
> I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
> characters without working his ass off just to balance out this single
> powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned cleric
> spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric gets
> Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
> high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
> automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
> fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot of
> automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
> day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
> towards healing spells?
>
> No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> CHANCE to die.
Check out some CL 15 monsters first.
Rob
Sea Wasp
> And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?!
One of the wiser changes. The old way, there was absolutely no point
to HAVING natural healing at all. At least, not after first or second.
After that, it took SOOO bloody long to heal from what were, to the
character, proportionately minor wounds, that no one would ever USE
bed rest, and if for some reason they had to, it took a LONG time.
I mean, take your high-level fighter with 80 HP. He takes 10 points.
This is, proportionately, the same amount of injury as he would have
taken if he had 8 HP at first level... but it takes him 10 times as
long to heal. The first level fighter is up and out the door in one
day. It takes the high-level one a week and a half. Now THAT was
horseshit, my friend.
As far as the other healing, what's the problem? The characters don't
become invincible; just able to survive more attacks. If they get
killed in battle, the fact that the cleric COULD have healed them for
200,000,000,000 points of damage is irrelevant; they're dead already.
Battles aren't calmly ordered things like your standard videogame
interface, where you can sit and think about how your healing should
be allocated, and where someone with a potion or spell can decide to
heal Joe Fighter when Joe is across the room a dozen yards away with
several hostile creatures between Joe and the would-be healer. In an
RPG, the characters first have to be able to KNOW that another
character needs healing, AND be able to administer the healing, and
often a battle doesn't afford you that luxury.
What the healing supply DOES do is reduce the number of times that
the characters must simply go backwards and spend a week and a half
hanging around town to heal.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Halaster Blackcloak
"Robin Lim" <ascen...@home.com> wrote:
>*rolls eyes* If you think players are too powerful, then up the level
of opposition. Is it so hard? I mean really now.<
That's my point. I don't WANT to have to up the level of every monster
and villain. I simply don't like the escalation. I mean, at the rate
these new 3E characters can heal, killer dungeons from 1E/2E become
cakewalks.
>Makes sense, since they should be able to heal at the same relative
rate. <
How do you figure that? In 2E, a 10th level character heals 1 hp/day.
In 3E that same character heals 10 hp/day. That's a tenfold increase.
That's what, a 1,000% increase in healing ability? And if you go by
strict bedrest rules, it's 15 hp/day in 3E as opposed to 3hp in 2E,
which is a five-fold increase. Characters at 10th level in 3E can heal
more hp in two days without bedrest than a 2E character can heal in a
week with bedrest! It's insane.
>Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea of
PCs running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime
before going back into the dungeon?<
Powergaming. There's no challenge. When a cleric can swap his entire
spell roster for healing, when we have super spells like Mass Heal,
when characters can heal 10-15 hp/day at 10th level naturally, and
let's not even factor in healing potions...well, you now have an orgy
of healing happening, the charcters NEVER need to retreat. I fail to
see the fun in that. I certainly don't want a character like that, much
less have to DM them.
>Check out some CL 15 monsters first.<
Don't need to. The escalation is there regardless. Besides, PCs fight
more NPCs than monsters. Weapons still do basically the same damage as
they used to, only now the characters can heal 5-10 times faster, and
have an almost inexhuastable source of healing with their clerics. If
there's two clerics on the team, you might as well have them fight gods
once they hit 10th level. Also, the mature red dragon in the back of
the PHB does 7 pts LESS damage than his 2E counterpart with his breath
weapon, his claws do a little more, his bite about the same overall. I
don't see this as balancing out, not when PCs heal so powerfully.
The escalationin 3E reminds me of a sily high powered battle we once
had in a silly, overpowered campaign we ran. The PCs were fighting a
similar team of villains, and everyone kept getting healed and wished
back, and the battle went on for hours because it was hurt, heal, hurt,
heal. Not a lot of fun.
I guess if others like 3E, then more power to them, I hope they enjoy
it. I'm not arguing that 3E sucks or that people shouldn't play it,
just that I personally am finding it to be WAY too focused on super-
powered PCs, and hence it isn't something I'm likely going to embrace
after all.
A'koss
news:8nispi$6ia$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> CHANCE to die.
I'll tell you what, actually *run* a game for a couple of weeks and tell
me if this is still the case. As a playtester I can tell you right now that
characters have no trouble meeting their makers in 3e.
A'koss!
--
The Rings of Concordance
http://members.home.net/infinity/Main_Page.htm
Halaster Blackcloak
sea...@wizvax.net wrote:
>One of the wiser changes. The old way, there was absolutely no point
to HAVING natural healing at all. At least, not after first or second.
After that, it took SOOO bloody long to heal from what were, to the
character, proportionately minor wounds, that no one would ever USE bed
rest, and if for some reason they had to, it took a LONG time<
Well, let me preface this with the note that I'm not arguing just for
the sake of argument, and I do tend to agree with many of your posts
I've sen in the past. BUT...I simply can't agree about the healing
factor. Yes, it took a long time to heal, but it SHOULD. Think about
running a razor along the bottom of your foot. Nothing life threatening
assuming you're in general good health, but how many days, or WEEKS
will it be before you can walk, much less run on it? It won't heal in a
day or two on its own.
>I mean, take your high-level fighter with 80 HP. He takes 10 points.
This is, proportionately, the same amount of injury as he would have
taken if he had 8 HP at first level... but it takes him 10 times as
long to heal. The first level fighter is up and out the door in one
day. It takes the high-level one a week and a half. Now THAT was
horseshit, my friend<
I don't see it that way, really. I mean, take a 2nd level fighter with
10 hp. He takes 5 pts of damage, so he's technically half dead. He can
just heal all that with 2 days of bed rest? It makes no sense. I
understand your proportionate comparison above, but the way I see it, a
10th level character who loses 10 hp has taken more grievous wounds
than a 1st level character taking 1 hp. Because as levels go up, it
assumes a character can take more damage. I'm thinking about the part
in the 2E DMG that explains hp. If an 8pt sword thrust can kill a 1st
level character who has 8hp, that doesn't imply that a 10th level
character with 80 hp can survive 8 of those thrusts. It means he
manages to turn or pivot, making each thrust do a little less deadly
damage. He learns to handle deadly thrusts like that, hence lessening
its fatal effects. But imagine what that means. He's still got multiple
dangerous wounds. He SHOULD take long to heal. Overall, he's taken mroe
damage.
>As far as the other healing, what's the problem? The characters don't
become invincible; just able to survive more attacks. If they get
killed in battle, the fact that the cleric COULD have healed them for
200,000,000,000 points of damage is irrelevant; they're dead already. <
True, but let's take a dungeon setting for example. The characters
don't have to worry about running out of healing spells anymore, they
heal at 10 times the rate they used to, and eventually they get massive
spells like Mass Heal. They no longer need to worry about combat,
because they can afford to get all banged up and then retreat to an
adjacent room, perform all those healing spells, and continue on. On
top of that, it takes less time to memorize spells, less sleep is
needed, etc.
>Battles aren't calmly ordered things like your standard videogame
interface, where you can sit and think about how your healing should be
allocated, and where someone with a potion or spell can decide to heal
Joe Fighter when Joe is across the room a dozen yards away with several
hostile creatures between Joe and the would-be healer.<
Again, true, but typically charcters fight, retreat, heal, and continue
on. The difference now is that when they retreat to heal, they have a
virtually unlimited amount of healing available. Even resting one day
restores as much as magical healing used to, perhaps even more. I cnnot
even imagine how a 3E party could ever manage to stop for a day's rest
and not set out the next day fully healed, no matter HOW badly hurt
they all were the day before. It's like resetting a video game where
you get extra "lives" added to you score.
>In an RPG, the characters first have to be able to KNOW that another
character needs healing, AND be able to administer the healing, and
often a battle doesn't afford you that luxury.<
Again, I agree, but see my previous answer.
>What the healing supply DOES do is reduce the number of times that the
characters must simply go backwards and spend a week and a half hanging
around town to heal<
Well, I hated when that happened as much as the next guy, but sometimes
that's the only logical way it works. Shit happens, you gotta go
recover. You go back, re-plan everything, make sure you're better
prepared the next time. Maybe bring some extra healing potions or
scrolls. But I rarely saw that problem crop up because for the most
part, the players tended to use their wits and not rely on magical
healing to pull them through. Now that isn't much of a condsideration
because of how much healing they can get.
Also, I've seen players abuse things and go off loaded with healing
potions and scrolls, and tons of memorized healing spells, and it gave
them a hell of an edge. Imagine what it would be like now, with more
potent healing spells, the ability to swap other spells for healing,
and a vastly increased rate of natural healing. I just can't see this
as balanced, or even fun.
Halaster Blackcloak
"A'koss" <infi...@home.com> wrote:
>I'll tell you what, actually *run* a game for a couple of weeks and
tell me if this is still the case. As a playtester I can tell you right
now that characters have no trouble meeting their makers in 3e.<
I fail to see how, considering how much more potent healing has gotten,
and how weapons do the same damage. Also, even that dragon in the 3E
PHB was not that tough compared to his 2E counterpart (considering his
damage totals, BW, etc). Are the other monsters toughened up or
something?
I'm just not getting it for some reason, how they can not be
overpowered with the super-abundance of healing available, the sheer
increase in natural healing, etc. If I'm WAY missing something, please
LMK because I haven't closed my mind totally to 3E yet, I'm just having
trouble getting past some things, this healing abundance being one of
them. ;-) I'm asking honestly, because since you've playtested it, I
figure you might be able to explain it to me so I can understand WHY
it's balanced. I'd hate to have to wait till October and spend $40 more
to figure it out! ;-D
Halaster Blackcloak
>I'll tell you what, actually *run* a game for a couple of weeks and
tell me if this is still the case. As a playtester I can tell you right
now that characters have no trouble meeting their makers in 3e.<
Ooops! Left out something I wanted to say in response to this. What
I've seen so far, I think I can "tinker with" enough to like 3E. I
mean, as far as minor complaints like not having the druidic
hierarchy...I can easily add those back in if I want, it wouldn't take
any work at all. I can also take out a spell like Mass Heal *IF* I find
it overpowerful. I don't like the he/she pronouns, or the way they now
say "YOU cast a fireball", "YOU summon an animal", I don't even care
for much of the art, but those are all immaterial to being able to
enjoy the game, it's the mechanics that are important.
That's why this healing thing has gotten me so riled up for lack of a
better word. It just seems so unbalanced to me, so munchkin that it
isn't funny. But if it truly isn't, then sure, I'd like to still be
able to run a 3E campaign. I can always still run a 1E or 2E campaign
regardless. The point is, I have to like 3E and know it works well and
isn't munchkin powered before I go all out and do it.
Anyway, any help with figuring this out would be greatly appreciated.
I'm still hoping 3E turns out to work for me. Justs adds more options
and opportunities for fun. :-)
Dr Nuncheon
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
>hp. Not a big deal, but it just starts the snowball rolling.
Yeah, not having 1 hp Wizards anymore at first level sucks.
>Then we
>have spells like Mass Heal, where a cleric can heal 2,000 hp of damage
>in a single spell.
Technically accurate, but misleading. Heal would heal 2000 hp of damage,
too, if someone had taken that much and survived...
>Add to that the death's door rule where each round
>the charcter gets a 10% chance to stabilize and even begin healing,
Oh, yeah, that's incredibly unbalancing. Read carefully. *90%* of the
time you'll fail that roll and lose another hit point. 60% of the time
you'll eventually stabilize without help if you go to -1. If you go to
-5, you've got a 40% chance. The more wounded you are (surprise) the more
chance you have of kicking the bucket.
>The
>assault on a dungeon
Wow. I thought D&D had generally left that sort of stuff behind.
>no longer becomes dangerous, it's simply a matter
>of attrition. Go in, kill what you can, retreat, heal everyone, go back
>in. Never has this tactic been so easy. Hell, now you don't even need
>to retreat, just heal on the run, why not? Just takes a short time to
>memorize new spells anyway.
8 hours of rest + 1 hour for memorizing for the wizards, and 1 hour 'once
a day' for the clerics. They can't just take that any time they feel like
it, there's a set time for meditation and prayer.
>And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
>gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
>has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
>rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
>get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK!
You're so right. I love playing out 8 weeks of bed rest. I'll just change
that rule right now. (scribble)
So how come a 10th level fighter in 2nd edition who's been beaten within
an inch of his life (to 1 hp) takes so much longer to recover than a 1st
level fighter beaten within an inch of his life? I'd think the more
experienced fighter would be up on his feet faster...
>"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
>home."
>"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Really ironic quotes, considering your rant.
J
--
INTERNET SEEMS TO BE FULL OF MILLIONS OF | Jeff Johnston
IDIOTS & LUNATICS ! ! - c2 (ts...@my-deja.com) | jeffj @ io . com
Robin Lim
> In article <458n5.8584$i5.2...@news1.rdc2.on.home.com>,
> "Robin Lim" <ascen...@home.com> wrote:
>
> >*rolls eyes* If you think players are too powerful, then up the level
> of opposition. Is it so hard? I mean really now.<
>
> That's my point. I don't WANT to have to up the level of every monster
> and villain. I simply don't like the escalation. I mean, at the rate
> these new 3E characters can heal, killer dungeons from 1E/2E become
> cakewalks.
I dare you to run Against the Giants and see how long the players live.
Same with Tomb of Horrors. I'll be seeing how Temple of Elemental Evil does
against my players in a sec.
> How do you figure that? In 2E, a 10th level character heals 1 hp/day.
> In 3E that same character heals 10 hp/day. That's a tenfold increase.
> That's what, a 1,000% increase in healing ability? And if you go by
> strict bedrest rules, it's 15 hp/day in 3E as opposed to 3hp in 2E,
> which is a five-fold increase. Characters at 10th level in 3E can heal
> more hp in two days without bedrest than a 2E character can heal in a
> week with bedrest! It's insane.
Your logic is flawed. It works like this:
In 3E, a 1st level rogue with 7 HP will take 7 days to heal from a
near-mortal wound. A 7th level rogue with 35 HP will take about 5 days to
heal from a near-mortal wound. That's what I mean about a similar relative
healing capability. Doesn't make sense that one guy coming back from a
near-mortal wound will take a month, and the other guy will take a week.
> >Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea of
> PCs running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime
> before going back into the dungeon?<
>
> Powergaming. There's no challenge. When a cleric can swap his entire
> spell roster for healing, when we have super spells like Mass Heal,
> when characters can heal 10-15 hp/day at 10th level naturally, and
> let's not even factor in healing potions...well, you now have an orgy
> of healing happening, the charcters NEVER need to retreat. I fail to
> see the fun in that. I certainly don't want a character like that, much
> less have to DM them.
Several points.
First of all, chugging potions provokes AoO. It's not a safe thing to do
while a monster is whaleing away on you.
Never need to retreat? I doubt that. People are still going to get
pummelled and take damage. People are still going to go down. Clerics
probably spit out fewer healing spells than they used to, because the wisdom
spell bonuses got reduced. Parties also won't have to take several weeks of
downtime while they heal up.
> Don't need to. The escalation is there regardless. Besides, PCs fight
> more NPCs than monsters. Weapons still do basically the same damage as
> they used to, only now the characters can heal 5-10 times faster, and
> have an almost inexhuastable source of healing with their clerics. If
> there's two clerics on the team, you might as well have them fight gods
> once they hit 10th level. Also, the mature red dragon in the back of
> the PHB does 7 pts LESS damage than his 2E counterpart with his breath
> weapon, his claws do a little more, his bite about the same overall. I
> don't see this as balancing out, not when PCs heal so powerfully.
What, and NPCs can't heal 5-10 times faster than they did under the old
rules?
And considering the new dragon's AC, attack bonus, and everything else, I'm
not worried. But whatever. Some people don't like change. Stick to
whatever works for you. I know that old D&D didn't work for me. At all.
Rob
Dr Nuncheon
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <458n5.8584$i5.2...@news1.rdc2.on.home.com>,
> "Robin Lim" <ascen...@home.com> wrote:
>
>rate. <
>
>In 3E that same character heals 10 hp/day. That's a tenfold increase.
*relative rate*, Hal. It takes (roughly) the same time for a 10th level
fighter to heal half his hit points as it does for a first level fighter
to do the same.
>That's what, a 1,000% increase in healing ability? And if you go by
>strict bedrest rules, it's 15 hp/day in 3E as opposed to 3hp in 2E,
>which is a five-fold increase. Characters at 10th level in 3E can heal
>more hp in two days without bedrest than a 2E character can heal in a
>week with bedrest! It's insane.
No, the old way was insane. Thorgrim the 20th level fighter gets thrashed
within an inch of his life and has to spend 3 months recovering, while his
little brother the 1st level fighter is up and perfectly healed in a few
days.
>>Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea of
>PCs running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime
>before going back into the dungeon?<
>
>Powergaming. There's no challenge.
Because, y'know, the only way to challenge players is with a fight.
Really. It's not a real D&D game unless you kill 3/4 of the party (or was
that Paranoia? I always mix them up.)
>Also, the mature red dragon in the back of
>the PHB does 7 pts LESS damage than his 2E counterpart with his breath
>weapon, his claws do a little more, his bite about the same overall. I
>don't see this as balancing out, not when PCs heal so powerfully.
Just remember the dragon heals so powerfully too. And he's got way more
hit points than the PCs. He's going to hit more often than he used to
with those huge bonuses to his attacks. He's going to take 10 points less
damage form every hit on him that's not with a magical weapon. He doesn't
have any 3/day limit on his breath weapon.
G. James Wilkinson
<halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <458n5.8584$i5.2...@news1.rdc2.on.home.com>,
> "Robin Lim" <ascen...@home.com> wrote:
>
>>*rolls eyes* If you think players are too powerful, then up the level
>of opposition. Is it so hard? I mean really now.<
>
>That's my point. I don't WANT to have to up the level of every monster
>and villain. I simply don't like the escalation. I mean, at the rate
>these new 3E characters can heal, killer dungeons from 1E/2E become
>cakewalks.
Uhh... I seriously doubt some of the tough modules, such as the Temple
of Elemental Evil, would be a cakewalk for 3rd Edition characters. I
REALLY doubt that, actually.
>
>>Makes sense, since they should be able to heal at the same relative
>rate. <
>
>How do you figure that? In 2E, a 10th level character heals 1 hp/day.
>In 3E that same character heals 10 hp/day. That's a tenfold increase.
>That's what, a 1,000% increase in healing ability? And if you go by
>strict bedrest rules, it's 15 hp/day in 3E as opposed to 3hp in 2E,
>which is a five-fold increase. Characters at 10th level in 3E can heal
>more hp in two days without bedrest than a 2E character can heal in a
>week with bedrest! It's insane.
>
How is this insane? It is in proportion. As a person advances, HPs
go up, and so does the healing rate to represent their ability to
dampen damage through experience. Hit points do NOT equate raw
damage on a point-per-point scale. While five points of damage might
be a life-threatening would for a 1st level Bard with 6 hps, it would
be merely a wound that the 10th level Fighter had used his skills to
dampen to damage done to himself (Hence, 5 damage out of 70 HPs
total.) Why would this relatively small wound (In comparison) take
the same amount of time to heal as the nearly dead Bard? The fighter,
after recieving the same amount of punishement (To scale) as the bard
takes over a MONTH to heal?
Sure, this doesn't make too much sense when it comes to the various
cure spells (Why does a cure light totally heal a near-dead peasant,
while it doesn't do squat for a Fighter with 50 HPs of wounds?) but
this is where the whole HPs issue breaks down a bit, and you need to
ignore it; it's a balance issue for the game (1st, 2nd and 3rd.)
>>Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea of
>PCs running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime
>before going back into the dungeon?<
>
>Powergaming. There's no challenge. When a cleric can swap his entire
>spell roster for healing, when we have super spells like Mass Heal,
>when characters can heal 10-15 hp/day at 10th level naturally, and
>let's not even factor in healing potions...well, you now have an orgy
>of healing happening, the charcters NEVER need to retreat. I fail to
>see the fun in that. I certainly don't want a character like that, much
>less have to DM them.
Have you even -played- the game? How can you simply write-off
"There's no challenge to it"?
In pretty much ANY game I've played, Clerics have done pretty much
nothing but heal anyway. This does not change the game very much.
All this does now is encourage Clerics to pray for spells -besides-
healing in the morning, to not feel as much of a combat medic and play
a more active role in the game.
Mass heal is a _very_ high level spell. With higher levels come
better rewards.
>
>>Check out some CL 15 monsters first.<
>
>Don't need to. The escalation is there regardless. Besides, PCs fight
>more NPCs than monsters. Weapons still do basically the same damage as
>they used to, only now the characters can heal 5-10 times faster, and
>have an almost inexhuastable source of healing with their clerics. If
>there's two clerics on the team, you might as well have them fight gods
>once they hit 10th level. Also, the mature red dragon in the back of
Uhh... I think someone's exaggerating just a tad here. Let's not
forget that they have reworked the statistics curve, and higher level
monsters now have a SERIOUS advantage in the areas of strength and
constitution. Add on to the fact that they can be extremely powerful
Fighters/Clerics/whatever themselves, a monster like a mountain giant
will -definitely- give the party enough challenge to make it -seem-
like they're fighting a god.
Oh, wait, strong giants is just power escalation. Duh.
>the PHB does 7 pts LESS damage than his 2E counterpart with his breath
>weapon, his claws do a little more, his bite about the same overall. I
>don't see this as balancing out, not when PCs heal so powerfully.
>
>The escalationin 3E reminds me of a sily high powered battle we once
>had in a silly, overpowered campaign we ran. The PCs were fighting a
>similar team of villains, and everyone kept getting healed and wished
>back, and the battle went on for hours because it was hurt, heal, hurt,
>heal. Not a lot of fun.
The rest of this is antocedal evildence and really has very little
bearing on 3E actually, and sounds more like bitching.
>I guess if others like 3E, then more power to them, I hope they enjoy
>it. I'm not arguing that 3E sucks or that people shouldn't play it,
>just that I personally am finding it to be WAY too focused on super-
>powered PCs, and hence it isn't something I'm likely going to embrace
>after all.
Good for you.
--
James
Halaster Blackcloak
je...@fnord.io.com (Dr Nuncheon) wrote:
>Yeah, not having 1 hp Wizards anymore at first level sucks<
Well, just for the record, I never allowed a character to start without
at least an average # of hp, so wizard always rolled till they hit 2 or
3 hp, fighters until they hit 5, etc. But the whole bit of starting
with max hp for 1st level isn't a problem for me by itself, I was just
saying that that for me was the tip of the iceberg that revealed the
huge problems lurking below.
>Technically accurate, but misleading. Heal would heal 2000 hp of
damage, too, if someone had taken that much and survived,
True, but no character can have 2000 hp. At least not in a sane
game. :-)The thing with mass heal is that once you get it, you no
longer need to memorize ANY other healing spells. You heal the whole
team to full power all at once, with one spell. Slap a few on some
scrolls, and you're set to take on just about anything without fear.
>Oh, yeah, that's incredibly unbalancing. Read carefully. *90%* of
the time you'll fail that roll and lose another hit point. 60% of the
time you'll eventually stabilize without help if you go to -1. If you
go to -5, you've got a 40% chance. The more wounded you are (surprise)
the more chance you have of kicking the bucket<
The death's door tule effectively adds a full 10 hp to a charcter's
life. Adding the stabilizing effect just adds more. To me, it's
overkill.
>Wow. I thought D&D had generally left that sort of stuff behind<
One of the most traditional, classic, popular and fun types of
adventures left behind? I sure hope not!
>8 hours of rest + 1 hour for memorizing for the wizards, and 1
hour 'once a day' for the clerics. They can't just take that any time
they feel like it, there's a set time for meditation and prayer<
I like the idea of clerics having to pray at a specific time, but
still...they've cut HOURS off of memorization/preparation time.
Especially for wizards.
>You're so right. I love playing out 8 weeks of bed rest. I'll just
change that rule right now. (scribble)<
ROTFLMAO!! That was good, I gotta remember that one! The scribble part
was genius! :-D But I never knew anyone who played out 8 weeks of
bedrest (that musta been some battle!). We always jsut posted a
footnote:
"ok, so two weeks have gone by, you've been nursed back to full health,
etc, etc".
>So how come a 10th level fighter in 2nd edition who's been beaten
within an inch of his life (to 1 hp) takes so much longer to recover
than a 1st level fighter beaten within an inch of his life? I'd think
the more experienced fighter would be up on his feet faster..<
Because he's got so much more life to recover? :-) I don't know, not
everything makes total sense. But to me, natural healing is SUPPOSED to
take a long time. People who have heart attacks or gunshot wounds that
take them within an inch of their lives don't get up and walk out in a
few days...they spend weeks in intensive care, total bedrest, before
they can even go home. Granted, lower level characters seem to heal
faster in that system, but chalk it up to youth. Just like boxers
eventually don't recover as well once they get older compared to when
they first started out. That's how I always saw it. If you take lots of
injuries thoughout your life, later on it starts to take you longer to
heal, and you don't heal as well.
>Really ironic quotes, considering your rant.<
But..but..Halaster isn't overpowered in my FR campaign, honestly! He's
just, well...the dark side's way of counterbalancing Elminster! ;-)
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
carbon...@yahoo.com
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
...
> What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
> amount of invincibility of players. First of all, they start with max
> hp.
They always have in my games.
> Not a big deal, but it just starts the snowball rolling. Then we
> have spells like Mass Heal, where a cleric can heal 2,000 hp of damage
> in a single spell.
None of my players have every made it high enough to cast that
spell, and if they ever do, they'll need it for what I'll throw
at them.
>Add to that the death's door rule
Deaths door isn't new to 3E
>where each round
> the charcter gets a 10% chance to stabilize and even begin healing,
This IS new, but I hardly think it's a problem. In my games the
story is about the continuing adventures of the characters, not
an exercise in how many PCs I can kill. I want them to survive.
> and
> also the way clerics can swap other spells for healing, and we now
have
> the equivelant of a bunch of Xmen Wolverine healing factors.
You're way overstating this. It just means Clerics will be able
to try out all those spells they've never had access to before
because they had to memorize mostly healing spells.
> The
> assault on a dungeon no longer becomes dangerous, it's simply a matter
> of attrition. Go in, kill what you can, retreat, heal everyone, go
back
> in. Never has this tactic been so easy. Hell, now you don't even need
> to retreat, just heal on the run, why not? Just takes a short time to
> memorize new spells anyway. There's no longer any need to retreat as
> charcters can heal as they explore. There's virtually no limit to the
#
> of healing spells available. I hope the DMG doesn't list healing
> potions, because they're an unneeded redundancy.
>
I'n not sure what your games are like, but a good DM challenges the
players, no matter what capabilities they have. If you don't think
you can challenge your players with 3E, don't use it.
> And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
> gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
> has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
> rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
> get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK! That's
> before taking into account the overglut of magical healing available.
>
The 3E goes to great pains to say that x hit points isn't the same
thing to different characters. If a mage manages to heal 25% of
his hit points in a day, why should a fighter not be able to do the
same. After all, HPs aren't supposed to be a direct representation
of the ability to take damage.
> It seems to me that 3E is obsessed with superpowered characters, with
> unkillable PCs who never need fear death. Never have characters had
> such potent and plentiful healing potential. In the old days, the
> cleric haad a handful of healing spells at best, and if you were
lucky,
> a few healing potions. You went into a dungeon or on some other type
of
> adventure, and relied on your wits to keep you alive. The healing was
> just there as an emergency measure. You had to be careful, and you
knew
> there was a limit to the healing ability of the team. Gods forbid
there
> are two clerics on a team in 3E...you no longer need to worry about
> damage, since you never need to go more than a few hours with less
than
> full HPs.
>
Like I said, first of all it's not that much of a power increase.
Lots of the spells have been toned down. Secondly, more powerful
characters means more difficult adventures with more challenging
opponents. Geez, did you see how many hps dragons have now? I
bet the monster manual has lots of unpleasant surprises for your
new powerhouses (not that they are powerhouses).
> I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
> characters without working his ass off just to balance out this single
> powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned cleric
> spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric gets
> Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
> high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
> automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
> fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot of
> automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
> day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
> towards healing spells?
>
> No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> CHANCE to die.
>
Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself. Why not try it
and see? Unless you're running a monty haul campaign I don't
think you'll have to worry about mass heal for a while. Besides
if you hate it that badly, just eliminate the spell (The god
won't grant it to you without some special circumstance) or
make it higher level.
USCM_Sulaco
> Well, the more I read into the PHB, the less I feel like switching.
For
> every thing I say "Yeah, cool!" to, there are three things that I
> say "Oh gods no!" to. Or at the very least, the "Oh gods no!" comments
> weigh more heavily than the "yeah, cool!" ones.
>
> What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
> amount of invincibility of players. First of all, they start with max
> hp. Not a big deal, but it just starts the snowball rolling. Then we
> have spells like Mass Heal, where a cleric can heal 2,000 hp of damage
> in a single spell. Add to that the death's door rule where each round
> the charcter gets a 10% chance to stabilize and even begin healing,
and
> also the way clerics can swap other spells for healing, and we now
have
> the equivelant of a bunch of Xmen Wolverine healing factors. The
> assault on a dungeon no longer becomes dangerous, it's simply a matter
> of attrition. Go in, kill what you can, retreat, heal everyone, go
back
> in. Never has this tactic been so easy.
And this differs from old editions how?
<SNIP>
> And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
> gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
> has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
> rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
> get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK! That's
> before taking into account the overglut of magical healing available.
Give me a break! This is one of the most common house-rules and had been
suggested hundreds of times in discussions in this NG as a fix to the
bollox that a 10th level PC takes so much longer to heal than does a 1st
level PC. You just can't please some people.
> It seems to me that 3E is obsessed with superpowered characters, with
> unkillable PCs who never need fear death. Never have characters had
> such potent and plentiful healing potential. In the old days, the
> cleric haad a handful of healing spells at best, and if you were
lucky,
> a few healing potions. You went into a dungeon or on some other type
of
> adventure, and relied on your wits to keep you alive. The healing was
> just there as an emergency measure. You had to be careful, and you
knew
> there was a limit to the healing ability of the team. Gods forbid
there
> are two clerics on a team in 3E...you no longer need to worry about
> damage, since you never need to go more than a few hours with less
than
> full HPs.
But in 3e you *need* the increased power and extra healing. *Everything*
has been scaled up.
> I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
> characters without working his ass off just to balance out this single
> powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned cleric
> spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric gets
> Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
> high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
> automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
> fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot of
> automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
> day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
> towards healing spells?
Well, you *could* wait to see the DMG and MM before whining about it at
least.
> No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> CHANCE to die.
Good. More 3e stuff for the rest of us. :)
--
"Superstition is the religion of fools."
Dave's Wyrld http://www.homestead.com/daves_wyrld
My D&D Page http://www.homestead.com/daves_wyrld/adnd.html
carbon...@yahoo.com
unless you're a playtester, you probably haven't even run a
game in 3E yet, so you opinions are at best uninformed. If you
think that new dragon is easy, you haven't read the rules well
yet. Why don't you make up a party of 3Es and try running them
against the dragon and see how you do. They're invincible, right?
It seems to me you're trying to convince yourself that you don't
need to buy 3E because you don't want to spend the money. That's
ok it's your choice. Just don't expect all of us to agree with you.
Sure there are flaws in the new system, there always are. It looks
to me like it's worth trying.
USCM_Sulaco
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <458n5.8584$i5.2...@news1.rdc2.on.home.com>,
> "Robin Lim" <ascen...@home.com> wrote:
>
> >*rolls eyes* If you think players are too powerful, then up the
level
> of opposition. Is it so hard? I mean really now.<
>
> That's my point. I don't WANT to have to up the level of every monster
> and villain. I simply don't like the escalation. I mean, at the rate
> these new 3E characters can heal, killer dungeons from 1E/2E become
> cakewalks.
>
> rate. <
>
> How do you figure that? In 2E, a 10th level character heals 1 hp/day.
> In 3E that same character heals 10 hp/day. That's a tenfold increase.
> That's what, a 1,000% increase in healing ability? And if you go by
> strict bedrest rules, it's 15 hp/day in 3E as opposed to 3hp in 2E,
> which is a five-fold increase. Characters at 10th level in 3E can heal
> more hp in two days without bedrest than a 2E character can heal in a
> week with bedrest! It's insane.
The key word was REL-A-TIVE. Since most of your HP are not supposed to
represent actual physical damage, why does it take so much longer fro a
high level PC to heal?
> >Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea
of
> PCs running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime
> before going back into the dungeon?<
>
> Powergaming. There's no challenge. When a cleric can swap his entire
> spell roster for healing, when we have super spells like Mass Heal,
> when characters can heal 10-15 hp/day at 10th level naturally, and
> let's not even factor in healing potions...well, you now have an orgy
> of healing happening, the charcters NEVER need to retreat. I fail to
> see the fun in that. I certainly don't want a character like that,
much
> less have to DM them.
Whatever.
> >Check out some CL 15 monsters first.<
>
> Don't need to. The escalation is there regardless. Besides, PCs fight
> more NPCs than monsters.
That is up to the GM.
> Weapons still do basically the same damage as
> they used to, only now the characters can heal 5-10 times faster, and
> have an almost inexhuastable source of healing with their clerics. If
> there's two clerics on the team, you might as well have them fight
gods
> once they hit 10th level. Also, the mature red dragon in the back of
> the PHB does 7 pts LESS damage than his 2E counterpart with his breath
> weapon, his claws do a little more, his bite about the same overall. I
> don't see this as balancing out, not when PCs heal so powerfully.
Then don't play it and shut up about it.
> The escalationin 3E reminds me of a sily high powered battle we once
> had in a silly, overpowered campaign we ran. The PCs were fighting a
> similar team of villains, and everyone kept getting healed and wished
> back, and the battle went on for hours because it was hurt, heal,
hurt,
> heal. Not a lot of fun.
>
> I guess if others like 3E, then more power to them, I hope they enjoy
> it. I'm not arguing that 3E sucks or that people shouldn't play it,
> just that I personally am finding it to be WAY too focused on super-
> powered PCs, and hence it isn't something I'm likely going to embrace
> after all.
>
> --
> Halaster Blackcloak
>
> "Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
> home."
> "Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
--
"Superstition is the religion of fools."
Dave's Wyrld http://www.homestead.com/daves_wyrld
My D&D Page http://www.homestead.com/daves_wyrld/adnd.html
USCM_Sulaco
Whatever.
Yes you are. Saying you don't like it or won't play it is one thing,
saying it is "horseshit" and "powergaming" is another. If you don't like
it, fine; but just shut up about it then.
> or that people shouldn't play it,
> just that I personally am finding it to be WAY too focused on super-
> powered PCs, and hence it isn't something I'm likely going to embrace
> after all.
Wow. It is amazing the way you can judge an enitre game based on 1/3 of
the core rules sytem. Very impressive.
Lawrence Mead
> > Well, the more I read into the PHB, the less I feel like switching.
For
> > every thing I say "Yeah, cool!" to, there are three things that I
> > say "Oh gods no!" to. Or at the very least, the "Oh gods no!"
comments
> > weigh more heavily than the "yeah, cool!" ones.
> >
> > What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
> > amount of invincibility of players.
>
of
> opposition. Is it so hard? I mean really now.
>
Yes, it is. With all the crazy options available, it is timeconsuming
to invent 5th level monk/mage orcs who have a chance of damaging
supercharacters.
> > And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
> > gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
> > has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
> > rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
> > get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK! That's
> > before taking into account the overglut of magical healing
available.
>
> Makes sense, since they should be able to heal at the same relative
rate.
>
> > It seems to me that 3E is obsessed with superpowered characters,
with
> > unkillable PCs who never need fear death. Never have characters had
> > such potent and plentiful healing potential. In the old days, the
> > cleric haad a handful of healing spells at best, and if you were
lucky,
> > a few healing potions. You went into a dungeon or on some other type
of
> > adventure, and relied on your wits to keep you alive. The healing
was
> > just there as an emergency measure. You had to be careful, and you
knew
> > there was a limit to the healing ability of the team. Gods forbid
there
> > are two clerics on a team in 3E...you no longer need to worry about
> > damage, since you never need to go more than a few hours with less
than
> > full HPs.
>
> Maybe its because most people who play the game don't like the idea of
PCs
> running out of the dungeon and spending a few weeks of downtime before
going
> back into the dungeon? Besides, if you think PCs spend too much time
> healing, just throw more monsters at them.
>
It doesn't make more sense to limit healing and/or take time for it
(after all it just means making marks on paper for the DM to note the
passage of time) that to throw purposeless creatures at the PCs en-mass?
> > I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
> > characters without working his ass off just to balance out this
single
> > powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned
cleric
> > spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric
gets
> > Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
> > high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
> > automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
> > fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot
of
> > automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
> > day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
> > towards healing spells?
> >
> > No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> > CHANCE to die.
>
> Check out some CL 15 monsters first.
>
I have. A merely mature red dragon with 312 hit points ... C'mon get
real.
dMGorgon
Henry Link
I had many of the concerns that you had when these pieces of
information first became available, many months ago...
1) Proportionate Natural Healing ability
With the new ratio of healing, characters can go continue adventures
further without always needing a cleric in the party. No one in an
average game is "browbeaten" into playing a cleric. Honestly, how many
times on this board have you heard someone complain about getting
"stuck" with playing the cleric? Not everyone views the cleric as
being exciting to play.
Also, hit points are now looked at in a slightly different light. They
truly are more of the ability to turn a killing blow into a glancing
one. An 80 Hit point fighter taking 10 points of damage is just as
beaten up, proportinately, as an 8 HP fighter taking 1 point of
damage. Sure, the spells are called cure ___ wounds, but wounds are
not always sucking chest wounds - anything from major scrapes and cuts
to open bleeding is a wound.
2) "Invincibility" of PCs
Yes, there has been an overall power escalation - one cannot deny
that, compared to 2E. However, Comparing 2E to 3E is like comparing
apples to oranges. They are alike in many key points, but the subtle
changes are system wide. Never before since the Chainmail rules has
the D&D system been internally balanced, yet this system allows
players to play the character they WANT, rather than be restricted by
arbitrary checks and balances. The DM only has to make restrictions
based on the feel of his campaign, not because he is afraid a new
class or "kit" is too unbalanced or broken. Characters are slightly
more surviveable, because face it, no one likes their character to die
off 20 minutes after he has been created. It may happen, but now more
so at high levels than low ones. Playing just a few games of the
unmodified system would tell you this easily.
3) DM's Balancing Encounters
This is actually easier than before. Looking at the survival guide in
the back, you can see the Challenge Rating of each monster. This will
tell you whether this monster is adequate challenge for a group of 4
players of a given level - just match the CR to the party's level, and
add more to taste. An encounter or 3 levels above the party is more
likely to kill them than not. Easier than 2E, if you ask me.
Personally, I am waiting to see how the new XP system works out, since
I have my doubts about it. But, to me this is probably the best
version of D&D I have yet seen.
I would hate to think that you throw it away completely because of a
bad first impression.
Henry Link
"Halaster Blackcloak" <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote in
message news:8nispi$6ia$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Well, the more I read into the PHB, the less I feel like switching.
<SNIP>
Barry Smith
> I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
> characters without working his ass off just to balance out this single
> powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned cleric
> spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric gets
> Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
> high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
> automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
> fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot of
> automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
> day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
> towards healing spells?
>
> No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> CHANCE to die.
I agree with you. The whole 3e game has always given me a feeling that
I'm trying to play a video game or computer game on the tabletop. The
only thing missing is the computer. You know the feeling you get when
you first buy the latest computer game that's been hyped up for months,
if not years? The "I wonder what I can do" feeling? Well, 3e gives me
that feeling, without also giving me the feeling of what I *can't*
do....in other words, I don't sense a restrictiveness or any limitations
to what, who, or how characters are allowed to be played. Anything goes,
and seeing your examples of the healing rates in 3e only solidifies my
feelings on that.
--
Juilliard: The Ultimate Bardic College.
Barry Smith
> Well, let me preface this with the note that I'm not arguing just for
> the sake of argument, and I do tend to agree with many of your posts
> I've sen in the past. BUT...I simply can't agree about the healing
> factor. Yes, it took a long time to heal, but it SHOULD.
Absolutely. People have to remember that any "fair" or balanced system
for natural healing, to where the healing rate is equal across the board
regardless of your level, is going to make higher level characters fly
upwards in healing. The comparison that a 1st level guy who heals his 5
hps damage back in a few hours is the same rate that a high level guy
heals his 5 hps damage back. The fact that a high level character can
heal 34 hps damage in X time has nothing to do with a low level
character's healing rate, because the low level character would be
*dead* if dealt 34 hps damage. That's why 3e's method of healing has
high level characters flying up in the healing rates IMO.
It means he
> manages to turn or pivot, making each thrust do a little less deadly
> damage. He learns to handle deadly thrusts like that, hence lessening
> its fatal effects. But imagine what that means. He's still got multiple
> dangerous wounds. He SHOULD take long to heal. Overall, he's taken mroe
> damage.
Yep. Experience of a character is also a factor in how much damage a
character takes. I think that's why high level characters have so many
hps. By having more hps, a character is more experienced in shrugging of
damage that would normally kill many low level characters in a few
blows. To heal all that damage back as fast as 3e seems to do...
Also, I've seen players abuse things and go off loaded with healing
> potions and scrolls, and tons of memorized healing spells, and it gave
> them a hell of an edge. Imagine what it would be like now, with more
> potent healing spells, the ability to swap other spells for healing,
> and a vastly increased rate of natural healing. I just can't see this
> as balanced, or even fun.
Just like in computer games, characters pile up on the healing as much
as they can, so they know they will get by and survive. I don't see this
as balanced, either.
Halaster Blackcloak
USCM_Sulaco <uscm_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>The key word was REL-A-TIVE. Since most of your HP are not supposed to
represent actual physical damage, why does it take so much longer for a
high level PC to heal?<
Again, I always thought of it as a boxer, who as he gets older and goes
through more and more damaging fights, takes loonger to heal and
doesn't heal as well. It makes sense to me from that viewpoint. Healing
SHOULD take some time. If you have 50 hp and you're 10th level, you
shouldn't be able to be beaten to within an inch of your life (1 hp)
and then have total recovery over the weekend. That borders on
regeneration!
>Then don't play it and shut up about it.<
Look, there's no need to get nasty about this. It's an open forum to
discuss these things, right? I'm just a little freaked over what seems
to me to be a tilt towards powergaming. And I've asked people to
correct me if I'm wrong. I'm still open to playing 3E, although based
on some of what I'm seeing, I'm starting to think I won't. I'm not
saying it sucks or that others shouldn't play it. But this healing
thing seems pretty munchkin to me so far.
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
G. James Wilkinson
<halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <399D18...@wizvax.net>,
> sea...@wizvax.net wrote:
>
>>One of the wiser changes. The old way, there was absolutely no point
>to HAVING natural healing at all. At least, not after first or second.
>After that, it took SOOO bloody long to heal from what were, to the
>character, proportionately minor wounds, that no one would ever USE bed
>rest, and if for some reason they had to, it took a LONG time<
>
>Well, let me preface this with the note that I'm not arguing just for
>the sake of argument, and I do tend to agree with many of your posts
>I've sen in the past. BUT...I simply can't agree about the healing
>factor. Yes, it took a long time to heal, but it SHOULD. Think about
>running a razor along the bottom of your foot. Nothing life threatening
>assuming you're in general good health, but how many days, or WEEKS
>will it be before you can walk, much less run on it? It won't heal in a
>day or two on its own.
>
<snip>
Alright, it's at this point that I should point something out:
Dungeons & Dragons is a high fantasy game. It is not anchored in
gritty realism. The rules are meant to allow for you to wade through
a group of orcs, shrugging off their weaker blows, etc.
Really, you -should- look into GURPS if this is what you're looking
for. Neither 3rd edition or 2nd edition appears to be what you're
looking for.
--
James
Keith Barber
> Also, the mature red dragon in the back of
>the PHB does 7 pts LESS damage than his 2E counterpart with his breath
>weapon, his claws do a little more, his bite about the same overall. I
>don't see this as balancing out, not when PCs heal so powerfully.
>
you ignore that his INT went up as wll as his spellcasting abilities, use all
of the characteristics of a creature, not just hitpoints, AC and physical
attacks.
Halaster Blackcloak
carbon...@yahoo.com wrote:
>First of all, you're being ridiculously overdramatic,
I wouldn't go THAT far. I think the changes are pretty dramatic,so my
posts have been equally dramatic.
>Secondly,unless you're a playtester, you probably haven't even run a
game in 3E yet, so you opinions are at best uninformed,
Well obviously, that's why I'm hoping the playtesters can reassure me
that it isn't that way and help me make sense of it.
>If you think that new dragon is easy, you haven't read the rules well
yet. Why don't you make up a party of 3Es and try running them
against the dragon and see how you do. They're invincible, right?<
You know, that's an excellent idea, and I should have thought of that.
I forget there's some monsters in the back that I can use to playtest.
Point well taken, I'll do this.
>It seems to me you're trying to convince yourself that you don't need
to buy 3E because you don't want to spend the money<
Honestly, that's not it. I've spent...wow, I don't even want to think
of it...THOUSANDS on 1E and 2E stuff, miniatures, etc. Another $40-60
is a drop in the bucket, I don't mind spending that even if it's just
to find out whether or not I like the system. Would be nice to get a
decent idea one way or the other though, before I spend that next $40
though. ;-) Still, it isn't about the $$$.
>That's ok it's your choice. Just don't expect all of us to agree with
you. Sure there are flaws in the new system, there always are. It looks
to me like it's worth trying.<
Right, I don't expect everyone to agree. And I still may end up liking
3E, if I can get it in my head that it does feel balanced. There's lots
of good things I like about it too. I knew from day one that I'd be
doing at least a LITTLE "tweaking", I just want to make sure I don't
need a total overhaul! ;-)
Barry Smith
> So how come a 10th level fighter in 2nd edition who's been beaten within
> an inch of his life (to 1 hp) takes so much longer to recover than a 1st
> level fighter beaten within an inch of his life? I'd think the more
> experienced fighter would be up on his feet faster...
...by gaining a healing rate of 15 hps per hour? That's what you'll have
to do to make up the stagger on the low level character. And if you
choose to make that decision, why doesn't the low level character who's
been beaten within an inch of his life heal at 15 hps per hour, too? The
only way you could kill a low level character under that system is from
massive damage, otherwise, the low level character simply retreats and
heals to full health in one hour...
Clearly, 3e has taken the healing system and dropped the ball by giving
higher level characters a significantly higher healing rate while not
considering what that does across the board IMO.
Halaster Blackcloak
carbon...@yahoo.com wrote:
>This IS new, but I hardly think it's a problem. In my games the
story is about the continuing adventures of the characters, not
an exercise in how many PCs I can kill. I want them to survive<
I guess that in itself isn't such a problem. To me, it's just the
combination of effects, the extra healing spells, more potent healing
spells, swapping for healing, etc.
>You're way overstating this. It just means Clerics will be able
to try out all those spells they've never had access to before
because they had to memorize mostly healing spells<
Hey, if they have Mass Heal, they don't NEED any other healing
spells! ;-)
>I'n not sure what your games are like, but a good DM challenges the
players, no matter what capabilities they have. If you don't think you
can challenge your players with 3E, don't use it.<
True, and yes, I've made challenging games for players even when
they've hit their mid-20th levels and above, and not just by making
incredibly powerful monsters. But I still cringe at the sheer abundance
of healing ability. Unless, as I'm starting to hear this morning, they
actually NEED that much healing. If it balances out, I guess it
wouldn't hurt to try it, since it would be the same as 2E, just using
higher numbers.
>The 3E goes to great pains to say that x hit points isn't the same
thing to different characters. If a mage manages to heal 25% of
his hit points in a day, why should a fighter not be able to do the
same. After all, HPs aren't supposed to be a direct representation of
the ability to take damage.<
I understand that, but again I turn to that boxer analogy and how it's
harder to heal after aging and repeated battles kick in.
>Like I said, first of all it's not that much of a power increase. Lots
of the spells have been toned down. Secondly, more powerful characters
means more difficult adventures with more challenging opponents. Geez,
did you see how many hps dragons have now? I
bet the monster manual has lots of unpleasant surprises for your new
powerhouses (not that they are powerhouses)<
Yeah, it never did quite hit home that a mature adult dragon had 300+
hp. I'm starting to think that either way I'm gonna have to get the DMG
and MM and do some testing before I make my final decision. Still, even
so, I don't see the point of escalation of power if both sides are kept
balanced. Well, we'll see.
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Aristotle
>In article <8nj72f$hh4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>strict bedrest rules, it's 15 hp/day in 3E as opposed to 3hp in 2E,
>>which is a five-fold increase. Characters at 10th level in 3E can heal
>>more hp in two days without bedrest than a 2E character can heal in a
>>week with bedrest! It's insane.
>
>within an inch of his life and has to spend 3 months recovering, while his
>little brother the 1st level fighter is up and perfectly healed in a few
>days.
I agree completely Jeff, and I always thought the healing rate in 1st and 2nd
edition AD&D were horribly broken. We always fudged that because who wants to
spend weeks or months healing up from a dungeon delve. Further, as
you state, it makes no sense that the more powerful your character,
the longer it takes you to regain the same % of your health. Ridiculous!
Also, most of these healing benefits take place AFTER a battle. During a
battle, things are the same. If people try to run over to their cleric to get
healed during battle, they are going to open themselves up to attacks of
opportunity and get slaughtered.
-Aristotle@Threshold
--
VISIT THRESHOLD - Online Roleplaying at its Finest. Player run clans, guilds,
legal system, economy, religions, nobility, and more in a world where roleplay
is required! Roleplay online with thousands of people from all over the world.
http://www.thresholdrpg.com -**- telnet://thresholdrpg.com:23
carbon...@yahoo.com
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
...
> True, but no character can have 2000 hp. At least not in a sane
> game. :-)The thing with mass heal is that once you get it, you no
> longer need to memorize ANY other healing spells. You heal the whole
> team to full power all at once, with one spell. Slap a few on some
> scrolls, and you're set to take on just about anything without fear.
>
And what PC has? You using 100th level PCs? No wonder you think
they're invincible.
> The death's door tule effectively adds a full 10 hp to a charcter's
> life. Adding the stabilizing effect just adds more. To me, it's
> overkill.
>
We've been playing this rule for years in 2Ed, so it's definitely
not a new rule. As far as the stabilization goes, the best the
character can hope for if they go to -1 first (not to -5 or -8
etc.) and progress downwards during a battle is a 62% chance
of stabilizing. Even then survival is not assured. It's actually
in the 2E DMG as an optional rule. I suspect this is one optional
rule that got used a LOT.
How much difference does this make anyway? My players bend heaven
and earth to get to someone who's down before they reach -10. I
can't remember anyone being left to bleed to death.
...
> I like the idea of clerics having to pray at a specific time, but
> still...they've cut HOURS off of memorization/preparation time.
> Especially for wizards.
>
I suspect few DMs required their players to prepare for hours
or days at higher levels. This was probably one of the least
followed rules in 2E. This just legitimizes what everyone already
does. Again, no power difference.
...
> Because he's got so much more life to recover? :-) I don't know, not
> everything makes total sense. But to me, natural healing is SUPPOSED
to
> take a long time. ...and you don't heal as well.
>
The rationale in 3E (and 2E by the way) for hit points at higher
levels was that a lot of this damage was not actual physical
damage. So why should non physical damage take as long to recover
as real physical damage. Again, the new rules just make bedrest
an actual option again instead of spending a couple of days with
the clerics casting healing spells like mad, or buying potions
of healing by the ton. Under 2E rules, I can't remember the last
time the characters actually used the bedrest rules to recover
hit points. Even when they do stop and sleep, they don't bother
because 1 or 2 points is in the noise when you have 60hp.
carbon...@yahoo.com
one of it's main simulation goals. Instead it simulates the
high fantasy, epic heroes, fabulous monsters type of play.
If you want realism, try Rolemaster or perhaps GURPS. They will
give you much more of a realistic treatment of wounds and
damage (especially rolemaster). I hate rolemaster. I don't want
to play the realistic fighter who lasts about a round till he's
stunned or dead or incapacitated. I want to play the fighter
who can take a seeming major wound and still rescue the helpless
dragon from the ravening princess. If you want realism, try one
of the other games that specialize in this.
In article <399D36F1...@premier1.net>,
Barry Smith <bsm...@premier1.net> wrote:
...
> I agree with you. The whole 3e game has always given me a feeling that
> I'm trying to play a video game or computer game on the tabletop. The
> only thing missing is the computer. You know the feeling you get when
> you first buy the latest computer game that's been hyped up for
months,
> if not years? The "I wonder what I can do" feeling? Well, 3e gives me
> that feeling, without also giving me the feeling of what I *can't*
> do....in other words, I don't sense a restrictiveness or any
limitations
> to what, who, or how characters are allowed to be played. Anything
goes,
> and seeing your examples of the healing rates in 3e only solidifies my
> feelings on that.
>
> --
> Juilliard: The Ultimate Bardic College.
>
Aristotle
> but the way I see it, a
>10th level character who loses 10 hp has taken more grievous wounds
>than a 1st level character taking 1 hp.
Then clearly you have never understood how the abstraction known as "hit
points" works. As players gain levels, they are able to avoid damage, dodge
blows so they "glance" off, etc. That is why a 10 hit point "slash" does a
higher % of damage to a fighter with 12 hit points than it does to a fighter
with 100 hit points. The 100 hit point fighter is skilled enough to do
something like roll with the strike to lessen the damage.
>Because as levels go up, it assumes a character can take more damage.
No, you are totally wrong. That is not how hit points work. As the rules
state, being a 10th level fighter does not mean you can shrug off a blow that
would fell a rhino. It means you are skilled at avoiding damage in battle and
thus having more hit points reflects this.
>True, but let's take a dungeon setting for example. The characters
>don't have to worry about running out of healing spells anymore, they
>heal at 10 times the rate they used to
So what? How many battles do you know of have a "time out" period where
everyone can do rest up for a day in the middle of the battle?
>and eventually they get massive spells like Mass Heal.
Why are you obsessing over an 8th level spell. 8th level spells SHOULD be
powerful!
>because they can afford to get all banged up and then retreat to an
>adjacent room, perform all those healing spells, and continue on.
You must DM your NPCs as idiots if they do not follow.
>Again, true, but typically charcters fight, retreat, heal, and continue
>on.
And when they retreat, they stay "retreated" until they are fully healed. The
only difference is that now that "pretend" time where the DM says "X days have
passed" is less.
>Also, I've seen players abuse things and go off loaded with healing
>potions and scrolls, and tons of memorized healing spells, and it gave
>them a hell of an edge. Imagine what it would be like now, with more
>potent healing spells, the ability to swap other spells for healing,
>and a vastly increased rate of natural healing. I just can't see this
>as balanced, or even fun.
Yeah, lets imagine. Now if you try to use that stuff in combat you get POUNDED
by a foe using an attack of opportunity. Maybe you just didn't read the whole
book.
Aristotle
>I fail to see how, considering how much more potent healing has gotten,
>and how weapons do the same damage. Also, even that dragon in the 3E
>PHB was not that tough compared to his 2E counterpart (considering his
>damage totals, BW, etc). Are the other monsters toughened up or
>something?
Your two biggest complaints have been increased healing rate per day, and the
8th level spell mass heal.
First off, your daily healing rate has absolutely 0 effect on a battle, and
thus it has no effect on survival. It is not like you are allowed to declare
once per day "I take my daily healing right now, DM!" and thereby heal up in
the middle of battle.
Second, mass heal is an 8th level spell. It makes perfect sence for clerics to
have something like that when they get a spell of that extreme high level.
Please remember that in 2nd edition, clerics didn't even HAVE 8th level
spells.
Halaster Blackcloak
USCM_Sulaco <uscm_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>And this differs from old editions how?<
Well, in 2E I couldn't convert Protection From Evil, Part Water, Light,
Remove Curse, and Wall of Thorns into 4 extra healing spells. That's a
big difference.
>Give me a break! This is one of the most common house-rules and had
been suggested hundreds of times in discussions in this NG as a fix to
the bollox that a 10th level PC takes so much longer to heal than does
a 1st level PC. You just can't please some people<
I honestly never saw that as a problem, neither did any of the players.
It made sense to take a few weeks to heal terrible wounds. Again, a
10th level fighter with 50 hp who's knocked down to 1 hp and is almost
dead can be almost fully recovered over the weekend (counting Friday)
with no special or magical healing. That's pretty spectacular to me, in
fact it's more like magical regeneration than natural healing.
>But in 3e you *need* the increased power and extra healing.
*Everything* has been scaled up<
That's why I'm worried. I don't mind if it still feels balanced, but if
it feels super powerful I won't like it. I mean, at low levels, there's
a certain feel to it compared to higher levels. I don't want it to feel
like the low levels are still powerful, even if it is in balance with
the monsters and such.
>Well, you *could* wait to see the DMG and MM before whining about it
at least,
I didn't think I was "whining" about it, but it does look a lot like
the power levels are way increased. But you're probably right, I'm
starting to think that the only way I'm going to know for sure is after
I pick up the other two core books and give it a workout.
>Good. More 3e stuff for the rest of us. :)<
Does that mean you'd consider selling some of your 2E stuff cheap? ;-)
(Still haven't managed to snag that damned Manual of the Planes!)
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Mark Settlage
Manual is released.
Halaster Blackcloak wrote in message <8nispi$6ia$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Well, the more I read into the PHB, the less I feel like switching. For
>every thing I say "Yeah, cool!" to, there are three things that I
>say "Oh gods no!" to. Or at the very least, the "Oh gods no!" comments
>weigh more heavily than the "yeah, cool!" ones.
>
>What seems to be one of the major nails on the coffin is the sheer
>amount of invincibility of players. First of all, they start with max
>hp. Not a big deal, but it just starts the snowball rolling. Then we
>have spells like Mass Heal, where a cleric can heal 2,000 hp of damage
>in a single spell. Add to that the death's door rule where each round
>the charcter gets a 10% chance to stabilize and even begin healing, and
>also the way clerics can swap other spells for healing, and we now have
>the equivelant of a bunch of Xmen Wolverine healing factors. The
>assault on a dungeon no longer becomes dangerous, it's simply a matter
>of attrition. Go in, kill what you can, retreat, heal everyone, go back
>in. Never has this tactic been so easy. Hell, now you don't even need
>to retreat, just heal on the run, why not? Just takes a short time to
>memorize new spells anyway. There's no longer any need to retreat as
>charcters can heal as they explore. There's virtually no limit to the #
>of healing spells available. I hope the DMG doesn't list healing
>potions, because they're an unneeded redundancy.
>
>And this horseshit about characters healing 1hp/day/level?!?! Good
>gods, that means a 10th level charcter heals 10 hp per day, 15 if he
>has bed rest! In 2E, a character got 21 pts per WEEK with total bed
>rest, otherwise just 7 pts per WEEK. These 3E powerhouses (gods) can
>get more healing in a day than a 2E character got in a WEEK! That's
>before taking into account the overglut of magical healing available.
>
>It seems to me that 3E is obsessed with superpowered characters, with
>unkillable PCs who never need fear death. Never have characters had
>such potent and plentiful healing potential. In the old days, the
>cleric haad a handful of healing spells at best, and if you were lucky,
>a few healing potions. You went into a dungeon or on some other type of
>adventure, and relied on your wits to keep you alive. The healing was
>just there as an emergency measure. You had to be careful, and you knew
>there was a limit to the healing ability of the team. Gods forbid there
>are two clerics on a team in 3E...you no longer need to worry about
>damage, since you never need to go more than a few hours with less than
>full HPs.
>
>I truly, honestly fail to see how a DM can challenge a team of 3E
>characters without working his ass off just to balance out this single
>powergaming aspect. I can't make heads or tails of that damned cleric
>spell list, but I take it if I'm reading it right, that a cleric gets
>Mass Heal (an 8th level spell) at 15th elevel? Ok, that is a pretty
>high level, but by the time the team is around that level, they're
>automatically healing 15 hp/day WITHOUT magic. Given that an average
>fighter at that level will have about 60 hp, that's a hell of a lot of
>automatic healing! And if he gets bed rest, that's 22 hp healing per
>day. A cleric at 15th level can also trade in what...25 or so spells
>towards healing spells?
>
>No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
>CHANCE to die.
>
Halaster Blackcloak
thre...@threshold-rpg.com (Aristotle) wrote:
>First off, your daily healing rate has absolutely 0 effect on a
battle, and thus it has no effect on survival. It is not like you are
allowed to declare once per day "I take my daily healing right now,
DM!" and thereby heal up in the middle of battle.<
Yes, I understand that fully. I've never said anything about healing IN
battle. My whole point is that when the PCs retreat, they can now do
MUCH more healing in a MUCH shorter time, thus making them more
powerful and making it quicker and easier for them to return to combat,
exploring, etc.
Beau Yarbrough
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> No, I think I'm staying in 2E, where the charcters at least have a
> CHANCE to die.
Whatever works for you. I don't see a problem challenging characters,
high healing or no. Hell, my 2E PCs NEVER seem to be fully healed, and
I've had to learn to work around hit point oriented adventures. But if
you need to go the other way, there's plenty of ways to threaten
characters that healing doesn't enter into, among them petrification,
poisoning, polymorphing, charming, sleeping, geasing, cursing,
drowning, suffocation, starvation, sleep deprivation (really), the loss
of a sense, crippling, maiming, torturing, insanity, disease and
humiliation.
And, as I'm sure you'll hear countless times, adventures also don't
need to be about life and death. Lots of exciting games can be played
without dice being rolled once.