Natural healing and dying condition

[zaragoz]

Hi from Spain to everyone

Well, I've made a first reading of the playtest rules. I liked very much some changes, but there are a few points that shocked me.

I know that D&D and later Pathfinder are RPG with an abstract combat system. There are other RPG more realistic, but I liked Pathfinder because it mantained some kind of balance. It was hard but not a killing system. There were no "second winds", where any PC could heal himself with no help, what made some encounters pointless and harmless.
Let's see them.

I find incomprehensible that there is no natural healing rules. I think that Medicine skill should list some king of long term treatment. Also, everybody should have a chance of self recovery.
Maybe that this is the main problem in the death/dying system. I think that the new system helps PCs, but that minimezes the threat of many encounters and hazards. NPCs and monsters die at 0 HP, but PCs are some kind of superheroes. Damm, you fall unconscious at Dying 1, and if a ogre hit you again, or a fireball bursts near you, you only becomes Dying 2. It's a joke.
What is more, a unconscious PC at Dying 1, could remain that way forever, without any risk, until he succeded with the Fortitude TS.

I don't know, but the old system, with a loss of 1 HP/round and death at negative Constitution seemed to be fairer.

Ok. That's my point. Thank you for your time.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Plus you're guaranteed to have at least one Hero Point per session, and

Playtest Rulebook page 300 wrote:

Spending 1 Hero Point allows you to stave off death. Anytime you gain the dying condition or your dying condition increases in severity (see page 296), you can spend 1 Hero Point to lose the dying condition entirely, even if the increase in the dying condition would otherwise cause you to die. If you have 0 Hit Points, you also go to 1 Hit Point.

So yeah, PCs are pretty tough.

zaragoz wrote:

What is more, a unconscious PC at Dying 1, could remain that way forever, without any risk, until he succeded with the Fortitude TS.

Only if they have positive hit points, which means they've stabilized. If they have 0 HP then a bad recovery roll pushes them further towards death. PF1 had stabilization at negative HP, I don't think this is much different.

zaragoz wrote:

I find incomprehensible that there is no natural healing rules.

There are, they're just not where one expects and (much worse) are not referred to from there. See "Rest and Daily Preparations" under Exploration Mode on page 317 and the second paragraph under Downtime on page 318.

[Rysky]

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

zaragoz wrote:

What is more, a unconscious PC at Dying 1, could remain that way forever, without any risk, until he succeded with the Fortitude TS.

Only if they have positive hit points, which means they've stabilized. If they have 0 HP then a bad recovery roll pushes them further towards death. PF1 had stabilization at negative HP, I don't think this is much different.

Yep, and a Critical Hit starts you at Dying 2 and Critical Failure moves you 2 down the track, since you're dead at Dying 4 the possibility of dying is a much greater concern this go around.