Repetetive Tasks

Today, the Paladin went around spamming his party-members with Lay on Hands.  There was a lot of XP granted.

Also, the Thief had to pick the locks on 10 manacles.

This not only adds up to a lot of XP and is pretty dull, but coming up with interesting consequences for 7-9 is a pain, and almost silly after the third or fourth time.

I'd just let it happen and skip the good part, especially if there's no real danger, but you know, "If you do it, you do it".

Also, if the Paladin keeps it up, I'll probably smack him with divine disfavor for his casual use of Lay on Hands until he can atone at a temple, but is it too much?  To take away the Move entirely?  To levy -1 forward?  -1 forward just on Lay on Hands?

Thanks for your insight.

we had a similar discussion in our game. combathobo made a post about his gaining xp for casting cure with his elven wizard and gaining XP off of it. the hard part was he was not doing this for the sake of gaining xp, he was doing it because he could do nothing else! as a level 1 wizard he had one spell, he took cure because no one else had it. his bow was lost in the dungeon and he sure as heck wasnt going to go punch the mud golem we were fighting...
was your paladin using lay hands repeatedly to gain xp, or was it your groups best way of healing?
one of the fixes we talked about was give a max number of xp gain able from alignment per scene. this allows players to go about what they feel they should be doing without being able to abuse the system (intentionally or not...)

for repetative tasks like chain healing or the pick lock scenario i would have them make one roll for the entire thing. if they got a 7-9 the penalty could be that they were interrupted before they could finish getting the cuffs off. or if they are really in no danger at all, just let them do it and give them an XP for the "roll" they just succeeded.

thats my two cents at least.

Picking 10 manacles? I think that could, reasonably, be one roll. It's like the difference between a group of enemies and a single enemy. If there's a group of enemies, you can Hack and Slash by saying "I smash the goblins mob with my hammer," I think 10 otherwise identical manacles can get the same treatment.

That said, maybe we need to reword the Thief ability a bit. Let me think on that.

The Paladin laying on hands is a more interesting case, since if it weren't giving him easy XP, I'd say it wasn't a problem. After all, every attempt to heal is another risk, so let him take that risk as often as he likes. Even with that, looking at the effects of doing that is a good idea, just don't be vindictive about it. The player characters are heroes, remember, they're supposed to use their abilities.

As it turns out, that's what I did for the Thief, and it worked out fine (one roll).

I doubt the Paladin was fishing for XP, it's just the only way he had to heal, and nobody was volunteering bandages (again, the forum format makes that a little weird).

As far as being vindictive, that's a good point.  It's just tricky to think of meaningful consequences for Lay on Hands sometimes, beyond "annoying the gods", especially if they're just camped out somewhere.  I guess wandering monsters?

Anyway, thanks.  I'm feeling better about it again.

I definitely get the concern about multiple Lay on Hands rolls getting repetitive. We're working to make Make Camp a clearer healing option, so that, if they have the time, thats an obviously better choice. Lay on Hands is designed to be kind of an emergency bandage, not a replacement for real healing. It's a tricky spot to hit, as we don't want the Paladin to be equal to the Cleric in healing (then why play a cleric?), but it also has to be useful with a single roll.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, its definitely on our radar to look at.

It takes a lot out of a Paladin to do all that healing.  On a 7-9, I'd have the healing work, but maybe have some of the hp's drain out of the paladin.  That makes it a little riskier, for the whole party as well as the PC: do you want one of your tanks spending her own hp's to fix someone else? 

im not sure i agree, joe. you dont want to make an iconic move like lay hands relatively useless and i fear if you put an hp cost on it like that then it would see very limited use in dangerous situations. the way that DnD does this, as im sure you all know, is the limit on how much total hp you can heal per day. if anything, i would think that a penalty for failure would be you cannot use the ability again until you rest and pray.
in any event, i am not sure this will be an issue after the rules for resting are redone. i agree that right now they are pretty ineffective. the character im currently playing is a level two fighter who had the good fortune of rolling max on his second level hit die. so with 24 hp making camp does pretty much nothing for me. even if it was level + con mod that would still only be a small fraction of my total hp. (maybe make a 'healing' roll [+con/+lvl?] and gain back a % of your hp? thinking that something that scales would be best so resting would always be a viable option.)

tl;dr
if making a camp and resting to regain hp becomes a viable option, then spamming cures should become a thing of the past. if someone persists in doing it then, then they are clearly doing it for the xp and can be punished accordingly.

tl;dr
if making a camp and resting to regain hp becomes a viable option, then spamming cures should become a thing of the past. if someone persists in doing it then, then they are clearly doing it for the xp and can be punished accordingly.

Why would spamming cures becomes a thing of the past?  Simply put, there is a cost to making camp (you risk enemies attacking you) but there is not really a cost to laying on of hands unless there is a limit there.  The solution is probably as simple as you put it, a failed roll means you can't do it anymore until you rest and pray. 

What's kind of annoying is that the healing rolls are pretty easy (Cure Light Wounds, Laying on of hands, etc.) so damage is really a threat beyond the combat it occurred in.  Plus, bandages are a bit overpowered I think until the encumberance rules are put in.

it would give an alternative to it so it is more rational to say "no" to or punish spam healing. currently if i find myself at 1hp(of max 24) i can:
a) get a few cure light wounds cast on me
b) use two bandages (4hp per use, 3 uses each)
c) make camp 12 times
i would prefer to make camp, but its currently the worst option!

why are bandages OP? i could see if people carried around stacks and stacks and stacks of them, but at least they have some cost to use (albeit a very small one) and restrictions on use. and again, if making camp healing reasonable amounts of HP it would be easier to put restrictions of frequency of use.

Agony, I just want to point out that Laying on Hands has the same cost as Making Camp: the GM gets to make as hard a move as he likes.

The penalty for failing a Lay on Hands can easily be an attack by monsters drawn to the positive energy, or the chanting, or even just wandering by.

That said, I think that once the Paladin figures out how things work, and what he's risking, he might choose to go with bandages instead.

Of course, the Paladin in my game has just cleared level three in the first adventure, so... whatever that means.

Laying on of hands has the same cost in theory but not in practice.  Why?  Because any decent Paladin will be rolling a +1 or +2 to that Laying on hands check. 

When you make camp, everyone rolls (or at least, that's how we do it), and there's bound to be someone with bad Con so it's more risky.

Ben - I don't think bandages are overpowered but without encumberance rules they're too common.  Everyone has at least 2 of them along with 2 Adventuring Supplies, 2 Food, Multiple weapons and armor and gold/magic items.

I think we'll try and wing the beta encumberance rules Sage posted on these forums until the actual rules come out.

And the reason why bandages without encumberance rules are too powerful is that your 24hp level 2 fighter will never die unless he fights a monster which can kill him in about 3 hits or less, OR the group fights so many enemies there is no down-time.  The issue being that you can heal between every combat easily.

Well, there are going to be a lot more Lay on Hands rolls (we're talking about spamming after all) than Make Camp rolls (which RAW is only rolled by the highest level character) so the risk is still higher, regardless of the stat bonus.

But obviously your experiences are going to differ if you're playing the rules differently.

Honestly, my problem isn't in the ease of healing with LoH, but with having to keep coming up with interesting consequences to what is often and repetitively and uninteresting event.

I just want to point out that Laying on Hands has the same cost as Making Camp: the GM gets to make as hard a move as he likes.

not really true. the making camp rules have distinct drawbacks built in. even if you pass the roll you still have to choose one of the 'bad things' to stay in. (being found by enemies, not finding food/water, leaving a trace). conversely, lay hands gives you beneficial things and allows you to pick more of them if you roll better. it then rests on the MC to come up with a suitable penalty for lay hands.
the act of making a camp also is an amazing setup for all sorts of things to happen while some guy in armor touching another guy in armor doesnt quite give the same opportunities.

also, if you dont mind the fact that they are using lay hands to heal full whenever just have them make one roll and say 'fine, you pray long and hard enough you eventually heal them full' one roll and done. no reason for unnecessary rolls to the sake of rolling.

agony:
its actually a level roll... and by the rules only the highest person in the group makes it.
i can see how the bandage thing can get out of hand. but i have never taken more than 2 bandages and a healing potion or two (which i only use if im about to die in combat! having no healer is hard) with me. the only reason ive had more is because someone died and we looted his corpse... with the amount of bandages i bring i usually run out by the time the day is done.

the reason why we take so much stuff with us is we tend to fail our travel checks and lose everything! adventuring gear especially because half the group uses bows and they burn those for arrows like nothing.

What happens when the paladin lays on hands and rolls a 2? What hard move are you making?

Normally making more dice rolls in DW, even if the rolls are generating XP, isn't a big deal, because more rolls means creating more interesting and troubling situations for the PCs. That said, Lay on Hands has no downside and no particular DM input on a 7-9, unlike say a basic move.

An interesting fix might be:
10+ Choose 2 (you can choose the same twice)
- The target is healed of damage equal to your level
- The target is cured of a disease of your level or lower

7-9 Choose:
- One of the above
- Choose 2, but your god takes notice of you and the DM decides what they think.
 

Tony's spot on, I was just discussing a rewrite along these lines with Adam.

We're also looking at Make Camp. We' upgraded the healing to half you max HP, which seems pretty generous, but we're not quite sure how to determine who's rolling, and +what.

One idea is to have one roll for the camp, +nothing. This makes making camp pretty dangerous, there's a good chance it means the GM makes a move. Maybe that's the intention? It makes making camp a big reward (everyone heals a lot!), but more often than not a GM move.

The other option is to have it more fictionally tied: When you make a camp, everyone you make camp for (blah blah blah, heal, consume rations, etc.) You roll +Wis to setup the camp, on a 10+ choose (etc.). Now we know who makes the roll, and it's less dangerous than a straight roll.

The way it's currently written is designed to make making camp in dangerous territory a bigger deal, but that's probably best left to monster moves and custom GM moves. "When you make camp in a dragon's domain, you take -1 to the roll." "When you make camp while infected with the wasting plague, consume an extra ration or..."