Quote from: jibbajibba;750233But this falls very much into "things that were no longer standard modes of play by the time AD&D came out".

Pretty sure "stuff happened between sessions" is still in the DMG.

Quote from: jibbajibba;749769The problem is that with a 1hp per day natural healing mechanic the game requires a fix of some sort to be functional. That fix is usually a miraclulous healer but you can replace the miraclulous healer with magical plants super paramedics, healing surges or whatever it all serves the same purpose which is to lessen downtime for the party.

If you look at S'mon's example of parties with no clerics the environemnt is still rich in clerical healing because without that the D&D HP system, results in weeks off between expeditions and expeditions that are fairly short.

Yes you can avoid combat but most players didn't pick a game based on a tactical skirmish game where more than 1/2 the rules relate to combat to then avoid it so meh...

If one did use the 1hp/day, and there were no clerics/druids, I would expect the gm to have some minor healing poultices, or something in use. I don't see any real need to have constant combat, so waiting a week or a month to go on a major expedition does not seem all that problematic to me.

Yes, if the gm does only 1 hp a day, period, and the characters all have 90 hp it could be annoying.

Quote from: Bill;750315If one did use the 1hp/day, and there were no clerics/druids, I would expect the gm to have some minor healing poultices, or something in use. I don't see any real need to have constant combat, so waiting a week or a month to go on a major expedition does not seem all that problematic to me.

Yes, if the gm does only 1 hp a day, period, and the characters all have 90 hp it could be annoying.

Waiting to go on the expedition is minor its what you do on day 3,4 5 of the expedition.

HPs are basically an ablative resource that get consumed roughly inline with their magnitude ( a 50 HP 9th level guy looses HP as a % of their their total at about the same rate as a 2nd level guy as risk and damage tend to increase with level). However in AD&D they recover at a set 1/day.

The standard of level per day or level +con bonus per day is a quick and easy fix.

Now the odd thing is that you think that if the party didn't include a healer that the DM needs to give the PCs a boon of some sort of semi magic handwavium healing. This doesn't make sense. The world is the world regardless of the make up of the party.

I moved to a vitality/wound model years ago where HPs heal at 10% of your total per hour.  I explored numerous other options I even tried to track individual wounds which would be a very logical option since wounds heal in parallel and not in series. However in the end I returned to how HPs are described and decided that if PCs had the number of HPs they get at 0 zero as their wounds and then all their HPs were earned through leveling were a mixture of skill luck etc then these HPs should heal fast but wounds should heal slow.

The thing I never understand about these hits vs. healing conversations is why everyone assumes old school play requires resting untile every single hit point is restored. Sure, if you are 1st level, or a higher-level sort reduced to your last few hit points, you are going to rest up to get a reasonable cushion of points. But some unlucky characters roll only 1 or 2 hit points at 1st  level... and they go adventuring anyways. If a player's 90 hp lord is down to 45 hp and the player is unwilling to send that character to bed and use another instead, what's stopping the player from going on the adventure anyways? Especially in OD&D or some of the Basics that use the flat 1d6 weapon damage? Only a few monsters do more than 1d6 damage, so the player could avoid giants, dragons and purple worms and take a less risky adventure, being extra cautious and not wading into the middle of an army.

Which, I think, is ultimately the problem we keep coming back to. If the goal of play is "glorious combat", you will run into changes meant to encourage lots of combat, like faster healing rates, or dropping the XP for treasure rule. If it's more about exploring a fantasy  world and building wealth or reknown through play, slow healing rates are not such a big deal.

I do have a house rule or two, nothing quite as extreme as what's been discussed upthread. But I still basically use the OD&D healing  rate of 1 point every TWO days. But it's not a big deal, because of the player's ability to choose either to adventure while wounded or use a backup character while the main character heals. It's just not necessary for old school exploration play to bolster hit points or encourage near-continuous combat.

Quote from: jibbajibba;750340The standard of level per day or level +con bonus per day is a quick and easy fix.

Now the odd thing is that you think that if the party didn't include a healer that the DM needs to give the PCs a boon of some sort of semi magic handwavium healing. This doesn't make sense. The world is the world regardless of the make up of the party.

1: That was also suggested in Dragon I believe.

2: We did fine without a cleric and without an abundance of healing potions.
This was one of the reasons why my characters invest in a caravan wagon ASAP. Allowed long overland travel and recovery. and gave us a semi-mobile base when on the go.

Quote from: talysman;750458The thing I never understand about these hits vs. healing conversations is why everyone assumes old school play requires resting untile every single hit point is restored.

If the situation required more immediate attention we tended to wade back in with whatever HP we could scrounge up in the interim. Same with spells. Id recover some low level spells if I could.

Quote from: talysman;750458The thing I never understand about these hits vs. healing conversations is why everyone assumes old school play requires resting untile every single hit point is restored. Sure, if you are 1st level, or a higher-level sort reduced to your last few hit points, you are going to rest up to get a reasonable cushion of points. But some unlucky characters roll only 1 or 2 hit points at 1st  level... and they go adventuring anyways. If a player's 90 hp lord is down to 45 hp and the player is unwilling to send that character to bed and use another instead, what's stopping the player from going on the adventure anyways? Especially in OD&D or some of the Basics that use the flat 1d6 weapon damage? Only a few monsters do more than 1d6 damage, so the player could avoid giants, dragons and purple worms and take a less risky adventure, being extra cautious and not wading into the middle of an army.

Which, I think, is ultimately the problem we keep coming back to. If the goal of play is "glorious combat", you will run into changes meant to encourage lots of combat, like faster healing rates, or dropping the XP for treasure rule. If it's more about exploring a fantasy  world and building wealth or reknown through play, slow healing rates are not such a big deal.

I do have a house rule or two, nothing quite as extreme as what's been discussed upthread. But I still basically use the OD&D healing  rate of 1 point every TWO days. But it's not a big deal, because of the player's ability to choose either to adventure while wounded or use a backup character while the main character heals. It's just not necessary for old school exploration play to bolster hit points or encourage near-continuous combat.

No one is suggesting you need max HP. In my system becuase wounds take 1 week each to heal PCs often go into trouble with a wound or two and each one carries a -2 penalty. Its more a case of a guy on 60 HPs will in all likelihood be on 40 HP end of day 20 end of day 2 so what do you do on Day 3?

Backup characters only work in a certain play paradigm and its not the paradigm that was most common by the time AD&D came out. The party that goes on an adventure a la The fellowship or the Belgariad, or the became the norm. This is supported in moduels liek the G series. It is assumed your PCs will work through the linked parts not that you will drop and change PCs between games.