Recovery


#1

I’m starting a game or two in a month or so.
I’m curious about the recovery of HP, or Hearts.

I look at the Recovery on page 17 of the master edition rules and they lead me to believe that any character can recover all their HP, or Hearts, essentially between most encounters.

Am I reading this right?
If this is the case it seems to be pretty powerful for the character to be able to consistently Recover and get their HP up to max.

Can you correct my thinking?


Recovery Spamming
#2

Recovery is available as long as you’re in turns, so PCs have to use their turns to access the recovery action, and even then, it’s not guaranteed. The amount of time a turn represents is variable, based on what else is happening, so walking for an hour between town and the keep may only be one turn, so only one chance for recovery. The idea is to keep the pressure up and timers going, and not allow a big block of time in which PCs can just auto recover all their HP. You can explain it however you want it - the action requires adrenaline, or whatever. On the other hand, if the PCs are getting creamed, you can give them a safe place to sock out, and let regain HP in a different way. I hope that helps clarify the idea.


#3

Thanks so much for responding. I really need to make sure I have a good understanding of the concept of time in this system.

Old dog, new tricks…


#4

I’m thinking about “keep the timers going…”
I’m concerned that over the course of (8) 4-hour sessions keeping the timers interesting, unique, and unforced feels to be a tricky task for a game master.

Can you recommend any resources that provide timer inspiration?

Only so many rooms can fill up with so much lava before the players are done with rooms filling with lava….


#5

One helpful thing is that timers can exist in different scales.

One campaign finale I did was “stop the evil android in the next 15 rounds or it will destroy the world!” That was the only timer going that session. Doesn’t feel like much at 14, but it keeps things focused

Current campaign has some timers that are based on “how many days” so it’s “in six days the insect monsters attack again.” That’s enough space where it’s not their immediate concern, but again keeps focus where something is happening.

For our group downtime/making camp earns an auto recovery (Con+1) so it keeps some tension as they don’t get full health back constantly.


#6

Awesome advice. Very helpful.
Thank you.


#7

JDH gives sage advice. I’d say if you aren’t feeling inspired, don’t force it. As you go, you’ll get more ideas. Action movies and TV are good inspiration. A timer until the prisoners are lowered into the gelatinous cube; a timer until the burning rope bridge breaks; a timer until the orcs bash the door down; a timer until all the torches go out; a timer until the fog makes ranged attacks impossible, etc. It can also just be a way to keep things moving. Roll a timer for down time - that’s how many places in town you can visit, the number of things you can do to secure the town before the bandit army arrive - you can train soldiers, build bombs, dig pits, or erect barriers. I’ve even done competing long term timers. Roll D4 weeks before the invading army arrives at the city gate, and D6 weeks before reinforcements arrive.


#8

Regarding Timers: there’s been lots of good discussion here about timer ideas in the past.
Here’s a link to one:

You can also search the forums for ‘timer ideas’ and get a bunch more results!

Cheers!!


#9

Another easy place to add timers is during combat to represent exhaustion (though not all combat scenes, as that would defeat some of the purpose of timers). For example “In 4 Rounds, unless you pass a Constitution check, all physical actions become Hard”.


#10

To sum everything up, TIMERS are just TICKS. They are the atomic unit time for a scene. It is the value of each TICK that is important and usually 1 TICK = 1 ACTION for players. Atomic means a tick cannot be divided down any further.

In combat, TIMERS are ticking each ROUND, which is the default assumption. You can still have TURN TIMERS for some important things, like DEATH TIMERS, which are ticking every TURN. After each player plays their turn (in this case, players won’t get an ACTION every TURN), the TIMER goes down.

Like many examples written above, you can say that each TICK of a TIMER is a certain length in fiction time (in-game time).

I say “Boys 'n girls, now each round is 10 mins long and each of you can take single action. In [ I roll 1D4 and the result is 2 ] 2 ROUNDS, this barrier in front of you is gonna collapse. Player A, what do you do?” In this example, 1 ACTION = 1 TICK = 10 mins.

Obviously players love to complain why in combat 1 TICK = 1 ROUND and while in exploration 1 TICK = 1 HOUR. I explain the difference simply like this: Combat is filled with adrenaline, quick thinking and quick reaction, whereas exploration is avoiding danger, finding a route, staying alive and whatnot. Naturally these things take a lot of time. Characters cannot always be in combat and therefore in ROUNDS because they don’t have such stamina (nobody has).


#11

@Khan - your last paragraph was beautiful! Best explanation I’ve seen! I’m totally using that! :herocoin: