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Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 08:09 AM
Ok, I know it's not official, but I was looking through This Document (http://www.ucalgary.ca/~amwhit/4e_PrRC_v2_6.pdf) and it says


An extended rest is akin to “camping” and lasts 6 hours. After an extended rest, you’re fully healed, you have a full compliment of healing surges, you have your daily powers back, and you reset your action points to 1. You can take an extended rest once a day.

WTF!?

If I read this right, then a character can take no lasting damage. A full day of being battered to bits, ripped to shreds, having possibly been down to negative hit points, and possibly (if no cleric is available) a hasty heal check to work out which way round his kidneys go, and he gets up the next morning as if nothing has happened.

I repeat...

W...T.....F?!!???

SamTheCleric
2008-05-22, 08:10 AM
You sleep through the night (6 hours of rest) and are fully healed. Much easier system than the Character level + con.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 08:11 AM
Ok, I know it's not official, but I was looking through This Document (http://www.ucalgary.ca/~amwhit/4e_PrRC_v2_6.pdf) and it says



WTF!?

If I read this right, then a character can take no lasting damage. A full day of being battered to bits, ripped to shreds, having possibly been down to negative hit points, and possibly (if no cleric is available) a hasty heal check to work out which way round his kidneys go, and he gets up the next morning as if nothing has happened.

I repeat...

W...T.....F?!!???



What D&D has ever done, healing spells.

Repeat after me:

DUH!

Rutee
2008-05-22, 08:12 AM
Ok, I know it's not official, but I was looking through This Document (http://www.ucalgary.ca/~amwhit/4e_PrRC_v2_6.pdf) and it says



WTF!?

If I read this right, then a character can take no lasting damage. A full day of being battered to bits, ripped to shreds, having possibly been down to negative hit points, and possibly (if no cleric is available) a hasty heal check to work out which way round his kidneys go, and he gets up the next morning as if nothing has happened.

I repeat...

W...T.....F?!!???
Problem? Resting is pretty much a full heal in 3rd ed, since the cleric can burn all their stuff to heal you at that point

Moral Wiz
2008-05-22, 08:13 AM
W. O. W. (Not in the positive sense.)

This is pretty inalienable proof of a leaning towards computer game style mechanics. It shoots internal realism to pot!

I think we have a subject for a future OotS joke.

@healing spells; yes, but now even those without clerics can heel out of combat, for no apparent reason,

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 08:14 AM
I suppose this is just another mark that I play different than most. I've been doing full healing sleeps forever, since I've never really considered having to rest three months after taking like 12 damage to be a particularly interesting or integral part of the game.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 08:14 AM
W. O. W. (Not in the positive sense.)

This is pretty inalienable proof of a leaning towards computer game style mechanics. It shoots internal realism to pot!

I think we have a subject for a future OotS joke.

I hope that's sarcasm. Because it's not like you ALWAYS got full healed after rest, right?

SamTheCleric
2008-05-22, 08:15 AM
Is it that hard to believe?

You get X number of healing surges per day, but can only use 1 per encounter yourself.

Most of the preview characters had 6-9 healing surges. A healing surge heals you of 1/4 of your hit points.

Even without this resting mechanic... 4 healing surges out of combat and you're back at full...

Telonius
2008-05-22, 08:17 AM
I know, we should return to the grand old days of yore where everyone got fully healed moments before they rested. :smalltongue:

Rutee
2008-05-22, 08:19 AM
This is pretty inalienable proof of a leaning towards computer game style mechanics. It shoots internal realism to pot!
No more then hit points does. Since hit points aren't necessarily a measure of actually getting hit now, it actually makes a good amount of sense to get them all back after resting.



@healing spells; yes, but now even those without clerics can heel out of combat, for no apparent reason,

Waiting's boring. That's a reason.

Ryuuk
2008-05-22, 08:22 AM
Other threads have said that HP fluctuates wildly round by round in combat, if that's true then this would just make a cleric-less party's life easier.

Yes, it may not have as much realism as it did before (realism that even in 3.5 the players actively tried to throw out the window with Cure x Wounds and Restore spells), but it'll be less bookkeeping.

Falkus
2008-05-22, 08:23 AM
If I read this right, then a character can take no lasting damage. A full day of being battered to bits, ripped to shreds, having possibly been down to negative hit points, and possibly (if no cleric is available) a hasty heal check to work out which way round his kidneys go, and he gets up the next morning as if nothing has happened.

Hitpoints are not a direction representation of physical durability, and never have been. They are an abstraction, nothing more.

Glawackus
2008-05-22, 08:27 AM
Honestly, that's kind of how I always DMed it anyhow. *ducks*

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 08:30 AM
Honestly, that's kind of how I always DMed it anyhow. *ducks*

More proof that great minds think like me, :smalltongue:

Indon
2008-05-22, 08:30 AM
"Karn! Ardam's been Petrified and is at -6 HP!"

"TO THE INN!"

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 08:32 AM
"Karn! Ardam's been Petrified and is at -6 HP!"

"TO THE INN!"

TARARARARARARARA! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBobrCBTNI)

leperkhaun
2008-05-22, 08:32 AM
you know that this is contingent on your DM actually allowing you a full rest right?

a random night encounter.........

Tempest Fennac
2008-05-22, 08:34 AM
How were healing spells less realistic, Ryuuk? Considering how D&D is a high magic setting, I'd say they fit in from a realism perspective.

Jarlax
2008-05-22, 08:36 AM
I suppose this is just another mark that I play different than most. I've been doing full healing sleeps forever, since I've never really considered having to rest three months after taking like 12 damage to be a particularly interesting or integral part of the game.

seconded, in truth sleep = full heal has always existed in the form of cleric burning off their remaining spells and leaving the party to top up off their level based hp recovery

this system is just making what existed in 3.5 already, mechanically feasible in 4e, since you require 5 minute rests to recover encounter spells, making burning off spare spells at the end of the day impossible.

Rutee
2008-05-22, 08:38 AM
More proof that great minds think like me, :smalltongue:


EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

EvilElitest
2008-05-22, 08:40 AM
Hey it worked in Neverwinter knights. Oh wait....


Here is the deal, magical healing, no problem. logical healing, no problem (healing slowly over a course of time). Healing with magical aid fine. But simply lying down and getting fully healed? Ok, i'm sorry, how much does 4E have to work to make this game nothing more than a PC centered hack fest. I mean really, this is getting to the point of patronizing. And the video game elements are extremely flinch worthy at this point

That being said, i freaking called it



Waiting's boring. That's a reason.
Oh yes, PC Entitlement, improving the game by taking away any sense of challenge. Is 4E suppose to be Dynasty Warriors or FF i wonder
from
EE

Glawackus
2008-05-22, 08:43 AM
you know that this is contingent on your DM actually allowing you a full rest right?

a random night encounter.........

This is also very true. Don't want 'em to heal up? Throw a bunch of goblins at them or something. "Sorry, rest insufficient for healing."

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 08:43 AM
Hey it worked in Neverwinter knights. Oh wait....


Here is the deal, magical healing, no problem. logical healing, no problem (healing slowly over a course of time). Healing with magical aid fine. But simply lying down and getting fully healed? Ok, i'm sorry, how much does 4E have to work to make this game nothing more than a PC centered hack fest. I mean really, this is getting to the point of patronizing. And the video game elements are extremely flinch worthy at this point

That being said, i freaking called it



Oh yes, PC Entitlement, improving the game by taking away any sense of challenge. Is 4E suppose to be Dynasty Warriors or FF i wonder
from
EE

Look at the bright side, EE, we get the more uses of the Batman Theme.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 08:44 AM
How many times have you heard "well I've got 5 level 0 and 2 1st level spells left, who's worst off?" after a day of hard combat.

Secondly, what about non magical healing... If you don't HAVE a cleric (indeed you might have a warlord in the Leader role) then it's crazy. I've just had my spleen ripped out, but I'm fine now. these people might be heroes, but even Conan couldn't just sleep off a sword to the gut.

There's never even been a semi permanent wound system. Very Low HP I have always taken to represent a broken arm, a cut to the gut that's likely to split at any time or something like that, some stuff which doesn't always heal quickly. rules for that can get overcomplicated, so give a little bit of give, I understand that HP often is an abstraction of what other games call a stamina score, which would be fine to heal overnight, but all those games have a separate wounds score, that takes a heck of a long time to bring back up. HP is a further simplification of that, but the new rules seem not to take into account the latter part.

I think that this is an abominable rule, it takes a lot of strategy out of dungeoneering, and takes a lot of excitement out of planning the week ahead.

DM:The Demon slams frank against the cliff face, slices across his with claws the size of swords, something squishy flies out and goes plop against Durgak's shield.
Durgak:"BLOODY HELL FRANK HE'S RIPPED OUT YOUR SPLEEN!! WHAT ARE YOU GUNNA DO? THE CLERIC'S BEEN TURNED TO SQUISH!!!"
Frank:"'salright mate, I'll grow another one in the morning"

EvilElitest
2008-05-22, 08:46 AM
Look at the bright side, EE, we get the more uses of the Batman Theme.

Meh, i think even the Batman theme won't make up for the total degrading of the game (on that subject, why aren't my comments showing up on the minion section?)
from
EE

Thrawn183
2008-05-22, 08:47 AM
I think the objections result from a lack of imagination. How would you normally have a character say... lose an arm? I'd only do it somewhere around negative hp because you can't really "fight too well"/"remain conscious" after losing an arm.

If people want "lasting wounds" because they feel it makes the game grittier they just have to realize that hp is an abstraction and figure out when they want the wounds to suddenly appear. And we haven't heard ANYTHING about that little old regenerate spell for regrowing limbs. So its a little premature to say that everyone is completely healing massive wounds overnight.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 08:49 AM
How many times have you heard "well I've got 5 level 0 and 2 1st level spells left, who's worst off?" after a day of hard combat.

Secondly, what about non magical healing... If you don't HAVE a cleric (indeed you might have a warlord in the Leader role) then it's crazy. I've just had my spleen ripped out, but I'm fine now. these people might be heroes, but even Conan couldn't just sleep off a sword to the gut.

There's never even been a semi permanent wound system. Very Low HP I have always taken to represent a broken arm, a cut to the gut that's likely to split at any time or something like that, some stuff which doesn't always heal quickly. rules for that can get overcomplicated, so give a little bit of give, I understand that HP often is an abstraction of what other games call a stamina score, which would be fine to heal overnight, but all those games have a separate wounds score, that takes a heck of a long time to bring back up. HP is a further simplification of that, but the new rules seem not to take into account the latter part.

I think that this is an abominable rule, it takes a lot of strategy out of dungeoneering, and takes a lot of excitement out of planning the week ahead.

DM:The Demon slams frank against the cliff face, slices across his with claws the size of swords, something squishy flies out and goes plop against Durgak's shield.
Durgak:"BLOODY HELL FRANK HE'S RIPPED OUT YOUR SPLEEN!!!"
Frank:"'salright mate, I'll grow another one in the morning"


Hp is not injury. Honestly, have you ever played Saga Star wars? It explains the concept quite well.

Tempest Fennac
2008-05-22, 08:51 AM
One problem with a lot of perminant wounds is that they can just be annoying to the point of hindering the player's fun (I know the 2nd Edition instructions recommended avoiding things like broken bones and severed limbs for this reason). Admittedly, I would have thought that a cure spell would be enough to heal broken bones (the fact that Regenerate is a level 7 spell would make having character's losing limbs earlier on in the game a bad idea unless the DM wants players to spend a ton of time rolling up new characters).

Scintillatus
2008-05-22, 08:52 AM
To me, this just implies that "rest" is less "mmm comfy pillow" and more "ow sharpy scalpel". When I run a game, rest will be very hard to come by. :B

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 08:52 AM
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.


I do believe you mean, Egoist, n. A Psion who specializes in Psychometabolism.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 08:58 AM
Ah, here is the SAGA quote that kills that stupid idea of HP as injury once and for all.

"HP is an abstract representation of the ability to stay alive. It is not the same for everybody. For an AT-AT, HP represents the armor being pierced, and the same happens for a (Insert name I don't remember) Dragon. However, for a character, HP represents the evasion of attacks and can be considered a literal virtual pool of resilience. It is when that pool is depleted that the first solid hit lands, which kills you, whether you are a lowly stormtrooper or a mighty Jedi."

Lapak
2008-05-22, 08:59 AM
seconded, in truth sleep = full heal has always existed in the form of cleric burning off their remaining spells and leaving the party to top up off their level based hp recoveryThis. In practical terms, the absolute most this does is halve healing time, since the most extreme survivable injuries in 3E could generally be healed by two cycles of resting - burn off remaining heals, rest, burn off all spell slots with healing, rest. At no point past level 3 or so did a party actually need to spend down time on recovery, so I don't see this as a big change other than making the bookkeeping easier. Which honestly, I'm in favor of.

It also fits with the cinematic-heroic that D&D has always held; other than actual poisons and diseases with no cure fantasy heroes from Hercules to Conan to Luke Skywalker have recovered from near-lethal wounds within hours of being able to rest in a safe place.

Rutee
2008-05-22, 08:59 AM
I do believe you mean, Egoist, n. A Psion who specializes in Psychometabolism.

Nah, I just love digging up the Devil's Dictionary.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 09:02 AM
And for anybody that needs 'em, here go the original words of the incredible Jedi counselor. Enjoy:


Hit points are not a universal gauge of concrete, physical toughness. If a soldier and a small tank both have 100 hit points, that doesn't mean the soldier is physically as tough as the tank! Hit points are deliberately abstract so that the same measure of damage can be applied to an inanimate object (such as a wall), an animate object (such as a tank), a massive creature (such as a Krayt dragon), or a high-level character. Consider what hit points mean to each of them:

* The high-level character's durability comes mostly from avoiding attacks, rolling with blows, and so forth. Only a fraction of his survival is based on his physical ability to absorb damage.
* The Krayt dragon's hit points include skill and speed, but a much greater portion comes from its sheer size and bulk. In other words, it's hard to hit something that big in a way that will cause critically injuries.
* The tank's hit points are completely physical in nature, but they aren't determined only by its size and mass. They also account for qualities such as the resiliency of the tank's systems, the volatility of its fuel and payload, the number of redundant and backup systems, and so on.
* The wall's hit points are completely physical and almost entirely determined by simple physical characteristics such as the type of material used to build the wall, the thickness of the wall, and so on.


Over the years, some players have developed a terrible misconception that a character with 100 hit points can be shot almost a dozen times in the chest. Not true! Both a high-level soldier with 100 hit points and a stormtrooper with 10 hit points will be grievously injured and possibly killed by a single blaster wound to the chest. However, the high-level soldier will dodge the first nine shots, and the stormtrooper won't. (If it helps, imagine that a high-level hero has a reserve of "virtual hit points" to offset attacks that would otherwise be lethal. Once he has exhausted his reserve, the blow that finally reduces him to 0 hit points will solidly connect and cause serious physical trauma.)

Scintillatus
2008-05-22, 09:10 AM
I think the stumbling block for most people would be the fact that we already have a dodging mechanic, in the form of AC.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 09:14 AM
AC is more like a skill dodge. Think of HP as tabletop's Could Have Been Messy, in which you got lucky with a supposedly landing blow.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 09:17 AM
I think the objections result from a lack of imagination. How would you normally have a character say... lose an arm? I'd only do it somewhere around negative hp because you can't really "fight too well"/"remain conscious" after losing an arm.


There's quite a bit of scope between losing an arm and getting tired. That is what HP is FOR. It would seem that now, fights are fatal or a bit tiring and nothing in between.



If people want "lasting wounds" because they feel it makes the game grittier they just have to realize that hp is an abstraction and figure out when they want the wounds to suddenly appear. And we haven't heard ANYTHING about that little old regenerate spell for regrowing limbs. So its a little premature to say that everyone is completely healing massive wounds overnight.

If I get into a fist fight and get punched in the face a few times, it's gunna take me a good few days to be up to doing much in the way of full fighting strength (trust me on that one)... a Hero won't notice a punch to the face, but a 2 inch deep axe wound through his abs is gunna sting for more than 6 hours... THAT is PART of the HP abstraction. The idea of a rules abstraction is that it is meant to cover many complicated things, in one simplified way. This works quite well when HP takes time to recover. If it just happens overnight, the abstraction has become less general and more specific and thus only covers "stamina", it is becoming in effect, less abstract.

If you're saying that wounds should be houseruled then I think that it's a large oversight on the the part of the game designers that people have to create house rules before the system has even been released!

Scintillatus
2008-05-22, 09:19 AM
I think the explanation works a bit better if you refine HP into both the "lucky dodge" and the superficial/mildly hindering wound. HP is the vaguest system in D&D, and there's no problem with that, it just needs to be left vague. The killing blow might not be just the first solid blaster shot, plenty of heroes get shot properly and continue being a badass, which is easily represented by more HP.

Clerics might heal you, but I imagine the Warlord shouting "Get up boy, it's just a flesh wound!" instead...

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 09:19 AM
There's quite a bit of scope between losing an arm and getting tired. That is what HP is FOR. It would seem that now, fights are fatal or a bit tiring and nothing in between.



If I get into a fist fight and get punched in the face a few times, it's gunna take me a good few days to be up to doing much in the way of full fighting strength (trust me on that one)... a Hero won't notice a punch to the face, but a 2 inch deep axe wound through his abs is gunna sting for more than 6 hours... THAT is PART of the HP abstraction. The idea of a rules abstraction is that it is meant to cover many complicated things, in one simplified way. This works quite well when HP takes time to recover. If it just happens overnight, the abstraction has become less general and more specific and thus only covers "stamina", it is becoming in effect, less abstract.

If you're saying that wounds should be houseruled then I think that it's a large oversight on the the part of the game designers that people have to create house rules before the system has even been released!

...You simply skipped all the things I poster, right?

A Hero IS NOT HIT. Get that into your skull, a hero is not hit until the killing blow, or takes only cuts and bruises.


Edit: Funny that's just what I've posted here in this olde poste. Metaconcerts FTW.

Vortling
2008-05-22, 09:25 AM
A Hero IS NOT HIT. Get that into your skull, a hero is not hit until the killing blow, or takes only cuts and bruises.

Based off of this and everything else about HP you've posted I can only conclude that high level DnD characters(and DnD characters in general) are a bunch of pansies. :smallbiggrin:

Charity
2008-05-22, 09:26 AM
Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his Constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four heavy warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The same holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

(PHB pg 35)

So enough about 4e's "new" take on hit points please.

Scintillatus
2008-05-22, 09:27 AM
Hey, come over here and let me shoot a burning arrow at you with this longbow. :smallbiggrin:

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 09:28 AM
Based off of this and everything else about HP you've posted I can only conclude that high level DnD characters(and DnD characters in general) are a bunch of pansies. :smallbiggrin:

Indeed, but they DO flurry dozens of parries and counterattacks a round, even if only three or four have an actual chance of hitting.

Indon
2008-05-22, 09:29 AM
A Hero IS NOT HIT. Get that into your skull, a hero is not hit until the killing blow, or takes only cuts and bruises.

Have you ever read/seen a manga/anime called Berserk?

Or perhaps watched a movie called Sin City?

Rutee
2008-05-22, 09:29 AM
Based off of this and everything else about HP you've posted I can only conclude that high level DnD characters(and DnD characters in general) are a bunch of pansies. :smallbiggrin:

As far as I'm concerned, at higher levels, you /do/ eat swords to the gut. You just keep on going. Lower levels it might be a bit of luck and cinematic flourish. But at level 20? You've got buckets of blood, use 'em.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 09:32 AM
Have you ever read/seen a manga/anime called Berserk?

Or perhaps watched a movie called Sin City?

That works under a beefed up Wound Point system

Touchéd! :smallwink:

Tingel
2008-05-22, 09:33 AM
A Hero IS NOT HIT. Get that into your skull, a hero is not hit until the killing blow, or takes only cuts and bruises.
If a hero is not hit until the killing blow, then calling him "bloodied" after losing half his HP is questionable terminology.

Scintillatus
2008-05-22, 09:34 AM
No it isn't. "Bloodied" is that "LET'S GET SERIOUS!" point when you've taken a shot to the arm or a punch to the face or a cut to leg, when you start kicking ass and taking names on principle.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 09:34 AM
If a hero is not hit until the killing blow, then calling him "bloodied" after losing half his HP is questionable terminology.

Good point. Perhaps something similar to the assault of the Thieve's Guild in The Halfling Gem by the Companions of the Hall?

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 09:36 AM
...You simply skipped all the things I poster, right?

A Hero IS NOT HIT. Get that into your skull, a hero is not hit until the killing blow, or takes only cuts and bruises.


Edit: Funny that's just what I've posted here in this olde poste. Metaconcerts FTW.


Yes, I'm at work switching between windows when people call, you post faster than I do.

Why can heroes not get hit?

I agree that that is what the rule implies, but that is crap! If you read my last post, you will realise that I am saying that HP is basically now a replacement for stamina with NO room for actual wounds... this is what I am objecting to.

Indon
2008-05-22, 09:36 AM
That works under a beefed up Wound Point system

Touchéd! :smallwink:

Indeed, and a Wound/Vitality system is good at modeling both the skill/luck and raw toughness aspects of survivability.

Personally, for 4'th edition I'd probably consider HP above 50% to be bloodless - it's convenient because at 50% HP, well, you're bloodied. From there it'd get progressively worse.

Yeril
2008-05-22, 09:36 AM
I always assumed that HP wasn't how physically tough you are, but how skilled in combat, losing HP isn't being stabbed 12 times with a sword, its being struck 12 times that noticably wear you down, give you minor cuts, take the edge off your skill.

Being at 3/94 HP isn't you bleeding like a stuck pig, its you exhausted to the extent that you can't defend yourself against the final killing blow that knocks you into the negatives.

so even after the most exhausting battle, it really wouldn't take more than a good nights sleep and a bit of bedrest to get your form back.

EvilElitest
2008-05-22, 09:37 AM
I think the objections result from a lack of imagination. How would you normally have a character say... lose an arm? I'd only do it somewhere around negative hp because you can't really "fight too well"/"remain conscious" after losing an arm.

If people want "lasting wounds" because they feel it makes the game grittier they just have to realize that hp is an abstraction and figure out when they want the wounds to suddenly appear. And we haven't heard ANYTHING about that little old regenerate spell for regrowing limbs. So its a little premature to say that everyone is completely healing massive wounds overnight.

1) HP may be stuff other than real wounds, but real wounds are included in HP. And even in real life, wounds, bruises, and exhaustion can last longer, not to mention actual battle wounds
2) which brings me to my second point, that this goes along with 4E simplification video game style play. I mean, ug, 2E was very challenging, and even 3E didn't act so patronizing towards the PCs


As far as I'm concerned, at higher levels, you /do/ eat swords to the gut. You just keep on going. Lower levels it might be a bit of luck and cinematic flourish. But at level 20? You've got buckets of blood, use 'em.
here is the thing, if a high level PC can take a lot of hits, good for them. There high level, they deserve it. However this rule goes for everybody. Which begs the question, can other people use this?
from
EE

KIDS
2008-05-22, 09:40 AM
I gotta admit I don't understand this. I had the impression that when you rested, you recovered all of your healing surges, which you could then use to patch yourself up in the morning (and it could be described quite well IMO) - are you saying that in addition to recovering all your healing surges, you are also fully healed as well, no matter your previous hit points? I'm not a fan of crawling, but even I would find it hard to describe after a tough battle...

Indon
2008-05-22, 09:40 AM
so even after the most exhausting battle, it really wouldn't take more than a good nights sleep and a bit of bedrest to get your form back.

If HP's are manifested by things like simple tiredness, a bit of slow reaction, and other such minor details, then it would definitely take more than a day of rest to recover from that, realistically - physically tiring activities leave you recovering for over one day, after a point, and extremely tiring activities can leave you needing to recover for multiple days (such as, say, pitching in baseball).

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 09:41 AM
A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained.
To Charity:

It would seem that these are no longer being accounted for in the new system. I always agreed that the vast majority was exhaustion, but to have no distinction between a lasting wound and a killing blow is ridiculous!


I gotta admit I don't understand this. I had the impression that when you rested, you recovered all of your healing surges, which you could then use to patch yourself up in the morning (and it could be described quite well IMO) - are you saying that in addition to recovering all your healing surges, you are also fully healed as well, no matter your previous hit points? I'm not a fan of crawling, but even I would find it hard to describe after a tough battle...

Yes, you're going "I've got some pretty nasty scrapes, but **** it, I'm gunna carry on regardless"

you can't do that ALL day, in which case you SHOULD take it off that day's healing surges

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 09:44 AM
(sorry for the double post)

Jarlax
2008-05-22, 09:45 AM
I think the stumbling block for most people would be the fact that we already have a dodging mechanic, in the form of AC.

but AC is not a dodging mechanic it is the mechanical representation of your ability to defend your person through armor and to a lesser extent physical agility.

if an attack misses on an AC attack then the hit/shot/spell has been absorbed by the protective garments on your person, or by performing a defensive dodge which required little effort on your part ala pirates of the carribian, where few people wear armor and instead rely on blinding parries and swift dodges and rolls to move past attacks these are the kinds of movements they could do all day.

however if an attack hits on any defense then you either strain to avoid or minimize the attacks effect or you are struck by it. 4e helps to describe the HP as more than physical injury through the "bloodied" state.

you can assume that outside of attacks specifically injuring a PC (eg, something which hamstrings an opponent in order to impede movement), that they will not suffer physical harm until they are bloodied at 50% hp. this represents the first time they actually fail to doge, and suffer a serious while not impeding wound (deep gash, sprained part, etc). from 50% onward its hit and miss, some attacks will be dodge but the ability to avoid everything is gone due to both your physical exhaustion and the injuries sustained, for every 2 attacks that damage the avoidance element of hp one attack strikes the physical element of hp.

once they hit bloodied they have tasted physical injury, their adrenaline surges at the threat of physical harm. many powers which would otherwise be impossible are powered by the mind and body's instinctive will to survive. for example the dragon, upon reaching bloodied instinctively uses his breath weapon as an immediate action in response to the pain

Tingel
2008-05-22, 09:46 AM
This is a bit off-topic, but I always viewed HP the way the HackMaster game describes it. In the GameMaster's Guide, Jo Jo Zeke wrote:


In HackMaster, player characters get injured... seriously injured. Some pansified wuss-games (and I use the term 'game' ever so lightly here) handle damage in the 'abstract'. They attribute hit points to some kind of "sixth sense", luck, combat skill and divine protection that somehow wears off after time. How preposterous! What complete and utter rubbish! Hit points represent quite analytically exactly how much physical abuse a character can withstand before succumbing to his wounds. Period.

Scintillatus
2008-05-22, 09:46 AM
Preaching to the converted. I'm not one of those people who stumble.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 09:48 AM
but AC is not a dodging mechanic it is the mechanical representation of your ability to defend your person through armor and to a lesser extent physical agility.

if an attack misses on an AC attack then the hit/shot/spell has been absorbed by the protective garments on your person, or by performing a defensive dodge which required little effort on your part ala pirates of the carribian, where few people wear armor and instead rely on blinding parries and swift dodges and rolls to move past attacks these are the kinds of movements they could do all day.

however if an attack hits on any defense then you either strain to avoid or minimize the attacks effect or you are struck by it. 4e helps to describe the HP as more than physical injury through the "bloodied" state.

you can assume that outside of attacks specifically injuring a PC (eg, something which hamstrings an opponent in order to impede movement), that they will not suffer physical harm until they are bloodied at 50% hp. this represents the first time they actually fail to doge, and suffer a serious while not impeding wound (deep gash, sprained part, etc). from 50% onward its hit and miss, some attacks will be dodge but the ability to avoid everything is gone due to both your physical exhaustion and the injuries sustained, for every 2 attacks that damage the avoidance element of hp one attack strikes the physical element of hp.

once they hit bloodied they have tasted physical injury, their adrenaline surges at the threat of physical harm. many powers which would otherwise be impossible are powered by the mind and body's instinctive will to survive.
precicely, but wouldn't that be a bugger of a mechanic... how about representing it simply by recovering health over a number of days!

Rutee
2008-05-22, 09:51 AM
This is a bit off-topic, but I always viewed HP the way the HackMaster game describes it. In the GameMaster's Guide, Jo Jo Zeke wrote:

And what a pompous ass he is, to dictate how hit points work in other games.

Tingel
2008-05-22, 09:57 AM
And what a pompous ass he is, to dictate how hit points work in other games.
That's the style of the whole HackMaster game. It is not to be taken seriously in its entirety. Jo Jo Zeke is not even a real person. It is a fictional character, claimed by the rule books as their author.



I have a question for those people who view HP as combat ability/dodging etc.: How can you justify attacks (like Sneak Attack) that inflict additional damage because they hit vital organs and/or by hitting without the victim seeing the attack coming?

Rutee
2008-05-22, 10:01 AM
The concept is referred to as utter rubbish. The sock puppet isn't just talking about his own game.

On PCs, they're generally successful hits. See the above, on buckets of blood. Actually that applies to a lot of NPCs too.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 10:04 AM
That's the style of the whole HackMaster game. It is not to be taken seriously in its entirety. Jo Jo Zeke is not even a real person. It is a fictional character, claimed by the rule books as their author.



I have a question for those people who view HP as combat ability/dodging etc.: How can you justify attacks (like Sneak Attack) that inflict additional damage because they hit vital organs and/or by hitting without the victim seeing the attack coming?

Ever played Def Jam: Fight for NY? In the final story fight, the Big Bad knifes you in the back, reducing your life by half. You're tough, but it's still hell to catch up with such an injury, which is pretty much a textbook SA, extremely painful, but not truly dangerous or fatal.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 10:08 AM
Ever played Def Jam: Fight for NY? In the final story fight, the Big Bad knifes you in the back, reducing your life by half. You're tough, but it's still hell to catch up with such an injury, which is pretty much a textbook SA, extremely painful, but not truly dangerous or fatal.

but it's ok because you'll feel fine tomorrow

just to clarify I'm not talking about the wound being more likely to kill you out of blood loss or anything, but after a wound like that, you're not going to be able to move quickly or take as much punishment as you would before, owing to the fact that it bloody hurts, your body will be exhausted trying to heal it and you won't be able to move as fast without splitting open the wound again. you won't feel better for a while... even a hero.

Rutee
2008-05-22, 10:13 AM
but it's ok because you'll feel fine tomorrow

just to clarify I'm not talking about the wound being more likely to kill you out of blood loss or anything, but after a wound like that, you're not going to be able to move quickly or take as much punishment as you would before, owing to the fact that it bloody hurts, your body will be exhausted trying to heal it and you won't be able to move as fast without splitting open the wound again. you won't feel better for a while... even a hero.

And in DnD, none of that has ever been represented by hit points, except for the "You won't feel better for a while".

6 hours is a while, incidentally.

Jarlax
2008-05-22, 10:14 AM
a question for those people who view HP as combat ability/dodging etc.: How can you justify attacks (like Sneak Attack) that inflict additional damage because they hit vital organs and/or by hitting without the victim seeing the attack coming?

how can you justify that stabbing a person 20 times with a sword or dropping a fireball on him or performing those same sneak attacks which are striking vital organs should not kill him outright, and yet he has 50hp remaining.

HP is merely a mechanic by which D&D has always tracked the lifespan of its PCs and monsters. in the case of StarWars: Saga, which was developed beside 4e the concept of HP is one of both physical injury and the stamina to avoid ("ability to" and "energy to" are separate things. AC and reflex represent "ability" while hp represents "energy"). we can make a reasonable assumption that 4e follows a similar mindset.

but in both cases its not "realistic" and there has to be some suspension of disbelief on some level. i personally follow the "stamina and physical injury" because that is what my rulebooks are saying the developers have in mind when they think of HP and is the "truer" description for me. i need only suspend my belief when performing attacks like sneak attack instead of pretending that when borimir got shot 6 times in the chest by a bow in LOTR he was a pansy, because my fighter can get shot 20 times and he doesn't die.

Haruspex
2008-05-22, 10:22 AM
I can take the idea that positive hit points less than your max means you're not really cut, just tired. Yeah, getting mad can recover your hit points, cool. But I always believed that negative hit points were broken bone, bleeding wound, write my will territory. Magic healing, Heal checks are required to save your life. After that, you still need to recover.

With this rapid healing, it seems that is gone as well. Unless the preview is overly simplified and there is something we don't know about. But I'm not so sure.

Cleric: He's gonna make it. I removed nine of the ten swords from his gut and patched him up as well as I could. (OOC: Stabilize check success)
Rogue: What now?
Cleric: Give him six hours, and he'll be at it again. (OOC: six hours rest, all healed)
Party: Huzzah!

Drascin
2008-05-22, 10:34 AM
The concept is referred to as utter rubbish. The sock puppet isn't just talking about his own game.

You seem to misunderstand, Rutee. Jo Jo is not a sockpuppet in any sense. He's like that as a character in the Knights of the Dinner Table comics - a horribly derisive gamer that only wants what he thinks is "old-school" and who finds more roleplaying-based games to be "for wussies", and he's been like that since much before the popularity of the comics had the editorial actually publish Hackmaster as a separate entity. He happens to also "be", in universe, the main author of the Hackmaster rulebook, a book whose Real World version is explicitly written to be the single most roleplaying-cliché-laden, rules-lawyering handbook ever, the book who half the cast in the comics (who are very, very much munchkins) treat as the "one true way" of RPGs. Of course he'd talk like that. It would be completely OOC for him to do otherwise :smalltongue:

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 10:37 AM
And in DnD, none of that has ever been represented by hit points, except for the "You won't feel better for a while".


So we are removing that exception. Which is my point!



6 hours is a while, incidentally.

how about I kick you in the face a couple of times without letting you lose consiousness, and then see how you are in 6 hours, would you be up for a fight?

I'm at work for more than 6 hours a day. That's not all that long really

Ryuuk
2008-05-22, 10:48 AM
How were healing spells less realistic, Ryuuk? Considering how D&D is a high magic setting, I'd say they fit in from a realism perspective.

I guess its not that healing spells were less realistic. There were rules that tried to model natural healing over time as well as feats that increased your rate of natural healing. However, in a typical 4 man party, these rules would almost never come into play because someone is bound to have a way of casting healing spells. In the end, these rules were superfluous, unless you were going for the no magic grim and gritty setting.

If you're in a high magic setting, at least from a mechanical perspective, what difference does it make if the healing comes from the healer or from the characters just being heroic enough to brush it off. Maybe its that I started with Videogames before dnd, but I don't mind it.

If the plot calls for someone to be crippled or injured, then that's easy enough for the DM to have happen.

fractal_uk
2008-05-22, 10:50 AM
One small problem with seeing hitpoints as physical exhaustion...

Lets say we have a tied up level 20 fighter, entirely helpless to defend himself against attack. A level 1 rogue comes along and coup de grace's him. The reaction goes something like this...

Level 1 rogue: Haha! *stab*

Level 20 fighter *having had his throat slit, passing the fort save on a 2 and taking 2d4+2 damage*: Oh no! That was very physically exhausting!

Oh dear.

If hitpoints are entirely arbitrary then they should really put some thought into making that actually make sense.

Rutee
2008-05-22, 10:52 AM
So we are removing that exception. Which is my point!
So you listed the rest because..?



how about I kick you in the face a couple of times without letting you lose consiousness, and then see how you are in 6 hours, would you be up for a fight?

I'm at work for more than 6 hours a day. That's not all that long really

1: I'm not a hero at all. More irritatingly, I'm in /real life/, and there's a rumor on the internets that it's exactly what it appears, not a veneer for a more tropetastic, awesome Masquerade that I'm just not in on.
2: I have no idea, but I've gotten up from exhaustion after sparring in about 10 minutes of rest. True, this was sparring, but we're talking "Can't move" exhaustion. We'd also come back to "I would not /let/ you kick me in the face in any circumstances". And the last time someone thought they got a solid hit on me, she was rather sorely mistaken.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-22, 10:53 AM
I actually found something I didn’t like about 4th. A miles stone. Till I decided (from the debate here- Yay free exchange of ideas) that those of you who stated this was simply a shift all the way from the 3.5 “some HP is wounds, some is energy” to the 4th “Almost all is energy, degrading into wounds at bloody”. Now I like this again, or at least see the Wizards point of view.

However, I do recognize some flaws in the system. I’m hoping that, since at negatives your unconscious, dying people can’t “camp” and therefore don’t pop back to full in 6hrs. I’m also hoping that they implement some kind of lasting effect rules (sore muscles, concussion, internal injuries, etc.) for major hits (1/4 you hp, a critical, something like that) so that the night healing isn’t a magical band aid. If Wizards doesn’t, I will. Alternatively, I will be altering this rule. I never really got how my PC’s could simply sack out in a dungeon like it was as comfy and safe as a living room anyway, so the time for resting in dangerous places/situations may be longer for me, or I may rule that you can’t rest well enough to get fully healed at all. Surges are more than enough in most situations.

All in all, an interesting rule that I think they will mess with a bit. This is from an “unreliable source” after all. If this is simply it, and 6hrs sleep=full heal, I will be a bit disappointed and have to figure something out myself.

But the argument that “OHNOES, D+D IS BECOME THE VIDEOGAME/MOREPIG DEBIL!” is getting old, and the logic is definitely stretching thin. Most games I play, D+D ones included, don’t have a sleep-to-full-heal function, and those that do often have a nasty learning curve to accommodate. Plenty of other table top games have something like this, and as shown, many people house rule it. For me, the HP system will simply become more Pirates of the Carribean-ish (good reference, btw. put it in perspective). More bums and bruises, less cuts, but when they hit bloodied there will be some lasting effects or penalties to healing, at least in my games.

Ryuuk
2008-05-22, 10:55 AM
One small problem with seeing hitpoints as physical exhaustion...

Lets say we have a tied up level 20 fighter, entirely helpless to defend himself against attack. A level 1 rogue comes along and coup de grace's him. The reaction goes something like this...

Level 1 rogue: Haha! *stab*

Level 20 fighter *having had his throat slit, passing the fort save on a 2 and taking 2d4+2 damage*: Oh no! That was very physically exhausting!

Oh dear.

If hitpoints are entirely arbitrary then they should really put some thought into making that actually make sense.

Would it make any more sense for the rogue to not be able to penetrate the fighters skin with the knife? Or to have the fighters throat severed only to have him brush it off as only a flesh wound? Simply using a system like HP to represent how far you are from death is going to require some suspension of belief from everyone's part.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 10:56 AM
If the plot calls for someone to be crippled or injured, then that's easy enough for the DM to have happen.

But WHY should it have to be a house rule when the rule before covered it perfectly. As I said, isn't it a bit crap that we have to invent house rules about damage before the system has even been released!

I hate to say this, but the best damage system I have come across is NWoD


So you listed the rest because..?
1: I'm not a hero at all.

Yes, but if a PC isn't being kicked in the face by me, he is being kicked in the face by a DEMON



2: I have no idea, but I've gotten up from exhaustion after sparring in about 10 minutes of rest. True, this was sparring, but we're talking "Can't move" exhaustion. We'd also come back to "I would not /let/ you kick me in the face in any circumstances". And the last time someone thought they got a solid hit on me, she was rather sorely mistaken.

Good for you. If some asshat hits you with a bike chain, bypassing your AC, you can still take him out, but you're not gunna feel like fighting for a while for a long while, trust me, and if the same kid comes back the next day, you're gunna go down quicker. Now replace me with a hero and the asshat with a barbarian Troll and you'll see what I'm saying.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-22, 10:57 AM
One small problem with seeing hitpoints as physical exhaustion...

Lets say we have a tied up level 20 fighter, entirely helpless to defend himself against attack. A level 1 rogue comes along and coup de grace's him. The reaction goes something like this...

Level 1 rogue: Haha! *stab*

Level 20 fighter *having had his throat slit, passing the fort save on a 2 and taking 2d4+2 damage*: Oh no! That was very physically exhausting!

Oh dear.

If hitpoints are entirely arbitrary then they should really put some thought into making that actually make sense.

Fighter takes a flesh wound. Explained. Not something that will kill him, cause the rogue apparently f*cked up (and don't give me crap that the fighter saved himself- saves are an abstraction as well), but something that is gonna hurt like a son of a gun for a while (say, 6 hours? :smallbiggrin: )

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 10:59 AM
But WHY should it have to be a house rule when the rule before covered it perfectly. As I said, isn't it a bit crap that we have to invent house rules about damage before the system has even been released!

I hate to say this, but the best damage system I have come across is NWoD

You have much to learn, grasshopper. The best system is ALWAYS GURPS or freeform.

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 10:59 AM
Can somebody on the "This is a terrible idea!" side please enlighten me as to why taking a month off of adventuring because you took 6 damage at level 1 is a desirable thing? I mean, I know that sounds like I'm being antagonistic, but that's really what it boils down to isn't it?

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-22, 11:00 AM
But WHY should it have to be a house rule when the rule before covered it perfectly. As I said, isn't it a bit crap that we have to invent house rules about damage before the system has even been released!

I hate to say this, but the best damage system I have come across is NWoD

I hope you don't mean 3.5. Cause that HP system/healing was just as craptastic as could be. It didn't NEARLY cover it "perfectly". I havn't seen anyone do HP perfect, because HP is a hard system to nail down. to say another system does it "perfect" is simply falsehood.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 11:05 AM
Can somebody on the "This is a terrible idea!" side please enlighten me as to why taking a month off of adventuring because you took 6 damage at level 1 is a desirable thing? I mean, I know that sounds like I'm being antagonistic, but that's really what it boils down to isn't it?

:smallfurious:

YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT! D&D IS TURNING INTO MOREPIG! *Dodges uncomfortable issue*

Or maybe because they want a low, gritty game and didn't quite realize that they have Warhammer and Conan for that?

DizzyD
2008-05-22, 11:12 AM
I think most of you are forgetting what house rules are for. Just like some DM's made this a rule in 3.5, I'm sure you can make a house rule to negate the 4e healing rule.

I can see it working either way, as long as it stays consistent. My bigger issue with 4e is giving PC's an advantage over NPC's and monsters. To me playing a game that’s not even Steven isn't nearly as fun. It removes strategy from the game. But that won’t stop me from playing a game or 2 of 4e, and if we don’t like it we can house rule it until we do.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 11:12 AM
I hope you don't mean 3.5. Cause that HP system/healing was just as craptastic as could be. It didn't NEARLY cover it "perfectly". I havn't seen anyone do HP perfect, because HP is a hard system to nail down. to say another system does it "perfect" is simply falsehood.

as perfectly as is possible with that sort of abstraction... I admit that perfectly was certainly the wrong word to use, "better" should have been more like it


So you listed the rest because..?
1: I'm not a hero at all.

Yes, but if a PC isn't being kicked in the face by me, he is being kicked in the face by a DEMON



2: I have no idea, but I've gotten up from exhaustion after sparring in about 10 minutes of rest. True, this was sparring, but we're talking "Can't move" exhaustion. We'd also come back to "I would not /let/ you kick me in the face in any circumstances". And the last time someone thought they got a solid hit on me, she was rather sorely mistaken.

Good for you. If some asshat hits you with a bike chain, bypassing your AC, you can still take him out, but you're not gunna feel like fighting for a while for a long while, trust me, and if the same kid comes back the next day, you're gunna go down quicker. Now replace me with a hero and the asshat with a barbarian Troll and you'll see what I'm saying.

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 11:15 AM
Or maybe because they want a low, gritty game

Wait.. I'm confused again. I thought they wanted to play D&D.


I think most of you are forgetting what house rules are for. Just like some DM's made this a rule in 3.5, I'm sure you can make a house rule to negate the 4e healing rule. Ooh! Wait! I know this! Any minute now, one of the "cool kids", y'know the type that love to point out that you're pulling a strawman, is gonna accuse you of Oberoni Fallacy. :smallamused:

Ryuuk
2008-05-22, 11:19 AM
This edition of dnd seems to be going for a heroic, high fantasy feel. Realism seems to be secondary to having the PCs enjoy being epic adventurers. It's simply a different flavor of RPGs that not everyone, but many, would enjoy. The ones who who would enjoy it, would also probably agree with the MST 3K Mantra. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KMantra)

kamikasei
2008-05-22, 11:27 AM
I can see it working either way, as long as it stays consistent. My bigger issue with 4e is giving PC's an advantage over NPC's and monsters. To me playing a game that’s not even Steven isn't nearly as fun. It removes strategy from the game. But that won’t stop me from playing a game or 2 of 4e, and if we don’t like it we can house rule it until we do.

It was never even. A party of level X fighting an enemy of CR X was expected to beat it with only some expenditure of resources, with no danger of defeat or death. Further, even assuming that that CR X enemy was a level X humanoid NPC with class levels and no LA or racial hit die, he would still have inferior gear and abilities to one of the player characters for whom he should notionally be a match (NPC WBL and NPC array instead of elite array, going by the baseline assumptions).

kc0bbq
2008-05-22, 11:29 AM
I think the objections result from a lack of imagination. How would you normally have a character say... lose an arm? I'd only do it somewhere around negative hp because you can't really "fight too well"/"remain conscious" after losing an arm.If you want an all-encompassing rules set then you're never going to find better than the already mentioned Hackmaster. You can *start* the game missing a leg or two. There are rules for having one or two peg legs, and how it affects your movement in various conditions unless you have special peg legs designed for that condition.

Say, 9 inches of snow and you have two regular peg legs. Normal human moves 12", *1/4 *1/4 (double penalty for two peg legs), that's less than 1" so you're effectively immobile. Put on your deep snow peg legs and you can suddenly move 12" again, but they're useless on normal terrain.

It's not fun unless you're playing Hackmaster. Then, somehow, it is. And, by rule, there are no rules contradictions, so it's easy to play. :)

Last_resort_33
2008-05-22, 11:29 AM
This edition of dnd seems to be going for a heroic, high fantasy feel. Realism seems to be secondary to having the PCs enjoy being epic adventurers. It's simply a different flavor of RPGs that not everyone, but many, would enjoy. The ones who who would enjoy it, would also probably agree with the MST 3K Mantra. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KMantra)

In which case why bother with HP for PCs at all. Just assume that they don't die?

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 11:41 AM
In which case why bother with HP for PCs at all. Just assume that they don't die?

Because dying should be a now or not sort of deal. You die because you got fatally wounded by orcs after trying to steal from your companion. Not because you got stabbed in the leg yesterday, hit with a rock in the skull, and then tripped over your own boot lace, because you only got one hit point back from said stabbing.

Ryuuk
2008-05-22, 11:45 AM
In which case why bother with HP for PCs at all. Just assume that they don't die?

Because its also a game, (which, if you want a video game analogy, varies in difficulty from "Easy" to "Dante Must Die" depending on the DM's style) and if you remove the threat of defeat, the game looses its thrill.

Draz74
2008-05-22, 12:05 PM
I’m also hoping that they implement some kind of lasting effect rules (sore muscles, concussion, internal injuries, etc.) for major hits (1/4 you hp, a critical, something like that) so that the night healing isn’t a magical band aid. If Wizards doesn’t, I will. Alternatively, I will be altering this rule. I never really got how my PC’s could simply sack out in a dungeon like it was as comfy and safe as a living room anyway, so the time for resting in dangerous places/situations may be longer for me, or I may rule that you can’t rest well enough to get fully healed at all. Surges are more than enough in most situations.
I would like an optional rule in the DMG that handled this sort of thing, but I doubt we're getting one. So start figuring out how to homebrew it.


(1/4 you hp, a critical, something like that)
I'd recommend "a critical that makes you Bloodied or unconscious."

Roderick_BR
2008-05-22, 01:40 PM
Yeah, people already commented on how healing is a bit weird in 4E already.
http://www.rpgworldcomic.com/d/20001117.html

Artanis
2008-05-22, 01:54 PM
Wait wait wait, let me get this straight...


There's a four-page discussion about the REALISM of a system that was already one of the single most unrealistic portions of the system? A four-page discussion about the REALISM of a system that the complainers assume involve being stabbed in the pancreas with a claymore fifteen times IN 3E? I mean, FFS, isn't there something that at least RESEMBLES realism in 3e that people can complain about changes to?


I...just...WTF?

SamTheCleric
2008-05-22, 01:55 PM
Wait wait wait, let me get this straight...


There's a four-page discussion about the REALISM of a system that was already one of the single most unrealistic portions of the system? A four-page discussion about the REALISM of a system that the complainers assume involve being stabbed in the pancreas with a claymore fifteen times IN 3E?


I...just...WTF?

We're bored.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 01:56 PM
Wait wait wait, let me get this straight...


There's a four-page discussion about the REALISM of a system that was already one of the single most unrealistic portions of the system? A four-page discussion about the REALISM of a system that the complainers assume involve being stabbed in the pancreas with a claymore fifteen times IN 3E?


I...just...WTF?

"Welcome my son....

Welcome...to the machine...

Where have you been?

It's alright, we know where you've been!"

Jack Zander
2008-05-22, 01:57 PM
Okay, assuming you don't find HP to be realistic in the first place (if you describe every hit as a stab to the spleen, that's your problem, not the mechanic's), making it even more unrealistic doesn't help anything.

2 wrongs don't make a right.

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 02:06 PM
Okay, assuming you don't find HP to be realistic in the first place (if you describe every hit as a stab to the spleen, that's your problem, not the mechanic's), making it even more unrealistic doesn't help anything.

2 wrongs don't make a right.

But what if someone doesn't find either of those wrong?

Artanis
2008-05-22, 02:32 PM
Okay, assuming you don't find HP to be realistic in the first place (if you describe every hit as a stab to the spleen, that's your problem, not the mechanic's), making it even more unrealistic doesn't help anything.

2 wrongs don't make a right.
But...it isn't making it more unrealistic. It only makes it more unrealistic if you're utterly, fanatically convinced that HP represents how many times you can survive actually being HIT, and ONLY how many times you can survive actually being HIT. If you accept that HP represents how many times you can survive being ATTACKED, it's no more unrealistic than before...hell, it might even be more realistic.

Tingel
2008-05-22, 02:41 PM
But...it isn't making it more unrealistic. It only makes it more unrealistic if you're utterly, fanatically convinced that HP represents how many times you can survive actually being HIT, and ONLY how many times you can survive actually being HIT. If you accept that HP represents how many times you can survive being ATTACKED, it's no more unrealistic than before...hell, it might even be more realistic.
If an attack manages to circumvent armor, parrying and dodging, we should be able to assume that said attack has hit its target. Only in those cases a character suffers HP loss. Thus, HP cannot possibly be a measure of how often a character can survive being attacked (as you claim), since HP aren't even affected by many attacks (namely those that failed to connect).
It seems very counterintuitive to me to introduce two completely separate concepts that both represent an abstraction of combat experience/dodging/luck etc., namely AC and HP. It seems far more natural to me to have one (AC) that prevents being hit and another (HP) that allows taking hits and still keep fighting.

As soon as you claim that losing HP doesn't mean you have been hit (as you did in the post I quoted), you remove most of the thematic distinction between AC and HP.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-22, 02:48 PM
If an attack manages to circumvent armor, parrying and dodging, we should be able to assume that said attack has hit its target. Only in those cases a character suffers HP loss. Thus, HP cannot possibly be a measure of how often a character can survive being attacked (as you claim), since HP aren't even affected by many attacks (namely those that failed to connect).
It seems very counterintuitive to me to introduce two completely separate concepts that both represent an abstraction of combat experience/dodging/luck etc., namely AC and HP. It seems far more natural to me to have one (AC) that prevents being hit and another (HP) that allows taking hits and still keep fighting.

As soon as you claim that losing HP doesn't mean you have been hit (as you did in the post I quoted), you remove most of the thematic distinction between AC and HP.
Actually, circumventing armor, parrying, and dodging just means that an attack does HP damage. Kinda circular reasoning there.

Besides, who really cares about the thematic distinction between AC and HP? Look at armor. Wearing full plate makes you HARDER to hit. Shouldn't armor give you an AC penalty and damage reduction?

HP is explicitly states, even in 3.5, to be a lot more than just physical toughness.

kc0bbq
2008-05-22, 02:50 PM
As soon as you claim that losing HP doesn't mean you have been hit (as you did in the post I quoted), you remove most of the thematic distinction between AC and HP.But that doesn't make any difference, because the character doesn't know any better. Even if there is no mechanical distinction, the fact that the character survives longer whether they get more armor or get tougher fulfills their goal of being more survivable.

The character doesn't have metagame knowledge, and on top of that they are just abstract models leading to that survivability. They aren't anything more than that in D&D.

Artanis
2008-05-22, 03:02 PM
If an attack manages to circumvent armor, parrying and dodging, we should be able to assume that said attack has hit its target. Only in those cases a character suffers HP loss. Thus, HP cannot possibly be a measure of how often a character can survive being attacked (as you claim), since HP aren't even affected by many attacks (namely those that failed to connect).
It seems very counterintuitive to me to introduce two completely separate concepts that both represent an abstraction of combat experience/dodging/luck etc., namely AC and HP. It seems far more natural to me to have one (AC) that prevents being hit and another (HP) that allows taking hits and still keep fighting.

As soon as you claim that losing HP doesn't mean you have been hit (as you did in the post I quoted), you remove most of the thematic distinction between AC and HP.
It doesn't seem that way to me. If you use "HP means not getting hit", then your AC or dodge or whatever is not getting hit at all, while the HP is just barely getting touched (or getting really lucky or whatever). You don't quite dodge the attack, but you get juuuuust far enough out of the way so that it scratches you, rather than going through your spleen. Your armor doesn't quite deflect the attack, but it deflects it juuuuust enough for it to inflict a nasty bruise, rather than lodging the Buster Sword in your trachea. And when you run out of HP? You're too bruised, too scratched up, and too tired to quite make that dodge, and you really do get a dagger to the kidney.


To illustrate it in another way:

HP as absorbing damage is like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Get a limb chopped off, and "it's only a flesh wound!"

HP as not getting hit is like the first time Neo dodges bullets in The Matrix. He dodges most of those bullets, but the last one gets past his REF defense and hits him...but he still avoids it juuuust enough for it to give him a minor graze instead of a fatal wound. Such a wound would still reduce his HP because while he didn't exactly get shot in the appendix, pulling a stunt like that might tire him out enough so that the next time he tried it, he wouldn't be able to make that last little bit of dodging, and wind up with that last bullet in the gut rather than grazing his leg.


Edit: and yes, I know that the characters are NOT Neo. That's just an illustration of the basic concept, NOT that the characters are Neo. To repeat, I am NOT saying the characters are Neo.

*watches everybody assume he said the characters were Neo, despite telling them three times that he wasn't saying that*

Indon
2008-05-22, 03:04 PM
I'd recommend "a critical that makes you Bloodied or unconscious."

You know, one of my favorite characters to play in this regard was a Barbarian who had a racial Fast Healing power (A WoW D20 troll, specifically). The purely biological Fast Healing ability gave my DM the freedom to describe my wounds in very physical, morbid terms - they would just patch right back up after the fight after all. And needless to say, I was pretty reckless so I took a good bit of damage:

DM: "You see a column of darkness ahead."
Me: "I stick my head inside to see if I can see anything."
DM: *rolls* "You get large chunks of your face partly clawed off. Take 14 damage.
Me: "I pull back, then hold my face back in place so that it heals correctly."

dcviana
2008-05-22, 03:05 PM
As soon as you claim that losing HP doesn't mean you have been hit (as you did in the post I quoted), you remove most of the thematic distinction between AC and HP

I think in the end its all about description:

DM: The troll swing its club at you. You barely dodge to the right and the club still hits the front of your armor, making that "clunk" sound. You prepare for the counter attack.

Seems to me the monster didn't beat your armor AC.

The troll swing its club at you. It hits the front of your armor with inhuman strength. You fall 3 feet away from him and is trying to catch your breath, your armor seems to be ripping through your chest.

Well, maybe there wasn't an "injury" here, but it sure seems that the PC lost a feel HP with this attack.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-22, 03:38 PM
It doesn't seem that way to me. If you use "HP means not getting hit", then your AC or dodge or whatever is not getting hit at all, while the HP is just barely getting touched (or getting really lucky or whatever). You don't quite dodge the attack, but you get juuuuust far enough out of the way so that it scratches you, rather than going through your spleen. Your armor doesn't quite deflect the attack, but it deflects it juuuuust enough for it to inflict a nasty bruise, rather than lodging the Buster Sword in your trachea. And when you run out of HP? You're too bruised, too scratched up, and too tired to quite make that dodge, and you really do get a dagger to the kidney.


To illustrate it in another way:

HP as absorbing damage is like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Get a limb chopped off, and "it's only a flesh wound!"

HP as not getting hit is like the first time Neo dodges bullets in The Matrix. He dodges most of those bullets, but the last one gets past his REF defense and hits him...but he still avoids it juuuust enough for it to give him a minor graze instead of a fatal wound. Such a wound would still reduce his HP because while he didn't exactly get shot in the appendix, pulling a stunt like that might tire him out enough so that the next time he tried it, he wouldn't be able to make that last little bit of dodging, and wind up with that last bullet in the gut rather than grazing his leg.


Edit: and yes, I know that the characters are NOT Neo. That's just an illustration of the basic concept, NOT that the characters are Neo. To repeat, I am NOT saying the characters are Neo.

*watches everybody assume he said the characters were Neo, despite telling them three times that he wasn't saying that*

ZOMG! D&D IS TURNING INTO MATRIX! PC'S ARE NEO! OMFGBBQB0RKED!

:smalltongue:

RukiTanuki
2008-05-22, 03:42 PM
Silly question: Who has actually played 3rd Edition (or prior editions) and had their PCs consistently take multiple days to heal injuries naturally, rather than using healing magic? Is anyone playing the game this way?

Is anyone who treats HP-as-physical-damage having issue with the "restore all HP after rest" rule in 4e but not with the "once per combat restore 1/4 HP as a standard action" second wind?

It just seems like the protest is coming from people who:
* have 3e characters who heal naturally and don't (e.g.) use the cleric's low-level healing spells at the end of the day
* treat HP as physical damage (*)
* believe that injuries sustained and not healed require mechanical penalties (if nothing more than "you're still down X HP")

(*)So far in the thread, we've quoted most every version of D&D as saying that HP don't represent wounds (at most, the last few HP do). SWRPG Saga, notably, had a wonderful writeup on the blatant and openly-declared abstraction that is HP. Can anyone who insists otherwise explain to me exactly where they draw the line of abstract/real damage (as this seems to be an important issue to them)? It doesn't seem like you can treat the 20th-level barbarian's 200HP as all physical damage; where are you drawing the line? Are you using the VP/WP system? If so, why complain about an HP system you're not using?

Let's try to use real numbers here. Let's treat 1/4 of the character's total HP (or less) as real damage. Let's claim that abstract damage can heal but "real" damage should remain unless healed. We then rule that PCs only gain 3/4 of their total HP overnight (thus they regain abstract damage but retain physical damage). We then watch as the players just spend a healing surge first thing in the morning to gain 1/4 of their max HP. We could have achieved much the same objective by removing a healing surge, as the game supports healing and the players will want to start at the top of their game, thus they'll heal up before combat. These are fairly safe assumptions, right? Can someone who disagrees provide me their perspective with actual math?

Are there a lot of these people vs. people like myself (who hand-wave what they deem unnecessary busy-work and say "between your cleric's prayers and your ranger's first aid, you awake the next morning sore but confident and ready for battle")?

I'm just perplexed at this point, trying to fathom the viewpoint of someone who is perfectly fine with their PCs taking multiple stab wounds, open slices, crushing blows, not to mention explosions, acid, etc., while walking around completely unimpaired by these injuries, getting patched up instantly via a prayer... but the line is crossed when he wakes up in the morning and feels significantly better.

I'm further perplexed when self-professed "skilled roleplayers" profess their inability to treat mechanics they're unfamiliar with as anything other than the most awkward literal interpretation possible, while providing excuses for their favorite awkward mechanics that don't really stand up to a minute of Fridge Logic (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic). But I suppose that's a larger discussion.

Can someone explain this to me? Or is it just about arguing? (In which case, I'll save my contribution for someone who wishes to understand me, not oppose me.) :)

Merlin the Tuna
2008-05-22, 03:43 PM
This is terrible! What on Earth am I going to do with the bundle of Cure Light Wounds wands I have sitting around!

Animefunkmaster
2008-05-22, 03:46 PM
Problem? Resting is pretty much a full heal in 3rd ed, since the cleric can burn all their stuff to heal you at that point

Yes, but this required you to actually have someone in the party with healing spells to burn.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-22, 04:00 PM
Yes, but this required you to actually have someone in the party with healing spells to burn.

Enabling us to play a game of D&D without having to have a cleric along--in fact, enabling us to play an all-martial game of D&D?! How DARE they!

kc0bbq
2008-05-22, 04:11 PM
Enabling us to play a game of D&D without having to have a cleric along--in fact, enabling us to play an all-martial game of D&D?! How DARE they!No, it's much better to have an inflatable cleric with. We kept ours in a portable hole with whatever ring that was that meant he didn't need food or air. Sustenance?

Ned the undead
2008-05-22, 04:53 PM
In 4e the cleric has at will heal spells, this justs cuts down on game time so you don't spend 15 min waiting for the cleric to heal you.

ShadowSiege
2008-05-22, 05:08 PM
No, it's much better to have an inflatable cleric with. We kept ours in a portable hole with whatever ring that was that meant he didn't need food or air. Sustenance?

Sustenance only provides food and rest (only need 2h sleep a night). Your inflatable cleric should have suffocated a long time ago :p

Kurald Galain
2008-05-22, 05:13 PM
I'm not going to argue about whether or not this is more "realistic" than hit points.

I will, however, point out that this change (and others) combined means that attrition, for the player characters, no longer exists. This means that certain particular styles of play are now no longer possible and directly contradicted by the rules. Of course, people who had a different style of play (which one assumes is the majority) will probably not notice this and possibly respond in anger to having this pointed out.

Starsinger
2008-05-22, 06:31 PM
I'm not going to argue about whether or not this is more "realistic" than hit points.

I will, however, point out that this change (and others) combined means that attrition, for the player characters, no longer exists. This means that certain particular styles of play are now no longer possible and directly contradicted by the rules. Of course, people who had a different style of play (which one assumes is the majority) will probably not notice this and possibly respond in anger to having this pointed out.

Actually, you just have to houserule that rule away, as opposed to the way things are now, where it's houseruled to be full healing after a night's sleep. Therefore, the shoe is simply on the other foot.

The Necroswanso
2008-05-22, 06:52 PM
Why bother carring? Do any of you seriously think that 4E is banning DM rule changes and homebrews?
The games my DM runs are hard, a taxing. We generally have two clerics. One blaster, and one dedicated healer (we have no wizard or sorcerer). The dedicated healer makes sure during combat that everyone lives, and has fun with his turning and turning based feats. The blaster focuses on beefs, burns`, turns, and handles any extra end of the day healings. We have this out of neccesity. We heal on average 5hp per night...Not alot. Without our cleric duo, we'd spend several days simply waiting.

Now, in 4th, our DM will do one of two things. Remove the need for a second cleric, or, keep our group the same, by REMOVING such a rule, just as he removes certain other rules he disagrees with in 3.5.
This sleeping restores full HP is most likely simply there as an extra option, one that makes you a truly powerful PC, in case you have no dedicated cleric.

Ranis
2008-05-22, 06:56 PM
"Kidney! Thank goodness you're back, I thought I'd lost you forever!"

Yahzi
2008-05-22, 09:15 PM
Other threads have said that HP fluctuates wildly round by round in combat, if that's true then this would just make a cleric-less party's life easier
Prediction: combining full-heal sleep and the brilliant Minion rules, WotC will soon realize that an even easier, more fun way to play is to not track PC hit points.

:smallbiggrin:

Jarlax
2008-05-22, 09:58 PM
Prediction: combining full-heal sleep and the brilliant Minion rules, WotC will soon realize that an even easier, more fun way to play is to not track PC hit points.

:smallbiggrin:

i think this is the misconception that people are coming to, that combat works as it does in 3.5. well it doesn't.

combat is now essentially self contained with the recovery of all hit points (through expending healing surges) and encounter powers recoverable in a 5min short rest. unless your out of surges for the day you come in to every combat at full HP with all powers except expended daily powers. this is also along with the new negative hit points system.

while healing outside of combat has been optimized, healing within combat is severely limited. each PC has a single second wind per encounter and healing powers for most classes are encounter powers, something they can expend once per combat. so even a healing class at first level can only heal themselves once per combat and another member once per combat.

because of this lack of healing during encounters the space within every 4e encounter is a greater threat to a PCs safety. while in 3.5 you carry damage over the day as you deplete your healing reserves making the early fights safer because you have vast healing reserves to tap into and later fights on the verge of deadly as your healing reserves for the day run out. in 3.5 you could burn every healing spell you have for the day to keep your PCs alive, in 4e you cant do that there is a limit to how much healing can be dished out per combat

in other words 4e is more consistent, a PC is just as likely to die first thing in the morning as they are in the last fight of the day because the amount of healing they can receive during combat is the same from start to finish.

4e also places a cap on how much an individual can heal in a day, because most healing powers expend a healing surge on the target. you cant use prayer of healing on the fighter 20 times in a day, because he only has 5 healing surges per day.

which brings us back to why you heal automatically while sleeping, because you cant waste all your healing spells at the end of they day like in 3.5, the reason your resting is that one or more party members have used all their healing surges, and therefore their ability to be healed any further today.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-23, 09:08 AM
Silly question: Who has actually played 3rd Edition (or prior editions) and had their PCs consistently take multiple days to heal injuries naturally, rather than using healing magic? Is anyone playing the game this way?

Yup. and when you only have 5 days to get through the dungeon full of powerful gribblies that keeps the Cleric casting every single round as both blaster and healer, to get Important Plot Artifact 'X', before an invading army attacks Important Plot City 'Y', you can run into some very interesting, fun and quite dramatic problems.



Is anyone who treats HP-as-physical-damage having issue with the "restore all HP after rest" rule in 4e but not with the "once per combat restore 1/4 HP as a standard action" second wind?

Nope, not at all. That seems like a Barbarian rage type thing to me where the character goes "**** THE PAIN" and "psyches himself up"



It just seems like the protest is coming from people who:
* have 3e characters who heal naturally and don't (e.g.) use the cleric's low-level healing spells at the end of the day

Nope, but I feel that if a Cleric still has enough spells to heal everyone up to max at the end of the day then the DM is too soft with his encounters.


* treat HP as physical damage (*)


PARTLY if nothing else, then why would avoiding a hammer be much different to avoiding a greataxe



* believe that injuries sustained and not healed require mechanical penalties (if nothing more than "you're still down X HP")

Yup, that's right, Anything more than "You're still down X hp" is usually too difficult to represent, but I have been working on a separate mechanic for it, don't you worry, which would, in fact, mean that HP COULD be used in the way 4e appears to describe



Can anyone who insists otherwise explain to me exactly where they draw the line of abstract/real damage (as this seems to be an important issue to them)? It doesn't seem like you can treat the 20th-level barbarian's 200HP as all physical damage; where are you drawing the line?

It doesn't matter, that would make it too complicated. As you say, HP is an abstraction, it is both of them mixed together in an abstract way so we don't have to worry about it, but 4e has taken the latter out of the mix.



Are you using the VP/WP system? If so, why complain about an HP system you're not using?


No, I'm, using the SIMPLER system of both vitality and wounds mixed together, that were called Hit Points



Let's try to use real numbers here. Let's treat 1/4 of the character's total HP (or less) as real damage. Let's claim that abstract damage can heal but "real" damage should remain unless healed. We then rule that PCs only gain 3/4 of their total HP overnight (thus they regain abstract damage but retain physical damage). We then watch as the players just spend a healing surge first thing in the morning to gain 1/4 of their max HP. We could have achieved much the same objective by removing a healing surge, as the game supports healing and the players will want to start at the top of their game, thus they'll heal up before combat. These are fairly safe assumptions, right? Can someone who disagrees provide me their perspective with actual math?
And this is where I kind of disagree with being able to use healing surge like that. I would see a healing surge more as like an adrenaline rush.

The point is, I'm not putting an actual value to it. it's abstract, that's the point.


Are there a lot of these people vs. people like myself (who hand-wave what they deem unnecessary busy-work and say "between your cleric's prayers and your ranger's first aid, you awake the next morning sore but confident and ready for battle")?
Depends on the situation, but to be fair, deciding where to allocate the last few CLW is a fun bit of strategy that the players can do alone while the DM composes himself for the encounters in the day ahead.


I'm just perplexed at this point, trying to fathom the viewpoint of someone who is perfectly fine with their PCs taking multiple stab wounds, open slices, crushing blows, not to mention explosions, acid, etc., while walking around completely unimpaired by these injuries, getting patched up instantly via a prayer... but the line is crossed when he wakes up in the morning and feels significantly better.

The things that you describe would be too much bookkeeping to implement, "take 15 off your hp", "add 10 to your HP" is not.

The line is crossed when it doesn't matter whether your diary for the previous day read "went for a short walk, had a nice meal and went to the gym" or "barely survived being pummeled into the ground by the legions of the abyss", you're just as healthy and ready to fight in the morning



I'm further perplexed when self-professed "skilled roleplayers" profess their inability to treat mechanics they're unfamiliar with as anything other than the most awkward literal interpretation possible, while providing excuses for their favorite awkward mechanics that don't really stand up to a minute of Fridge Logic (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic). But I suppose that's a larger discussion.


Yes it is


Can someone explain this to me? Or is it just about arguing? (In which case, I'll save my contribution for someone who wishes to understand me, not oppose me.) :)

I don't wish to oppose you for opposition's sake. I simply think that this rule is a bit poo, not you.

Saph
2008-05-23, 09:54 AM
Eh. I've got to say, this is a pretty stupid change, and one that's very obviously pulled from CRPGs (its original name on the Grand List of Console Role Playing Cliches was 'Bed Bed Bed'). Thing is, in CRPGs players accept that because they don't care about the world making sense, they just want to go back and have another try at the boss as fast as possible. But how exactly is the DM supposed to rationalise this?

If HP represents damage, this means that PCs can heal even lethal wounds by going to sleep for a few hours. On the other hand, if we're rationalising this by saying that HP doesn't represent physical damage, but only combat fatigue or something, then this means that it's now impossible for PCs to get seriously hurt in battle. Any wound they take has to be the kind that can be ignored with a night's rest.

It'll slightly speed the game up, but I don't think the gain in speed is worth the inherent silliness.

- Saph

Charity
2008-05-23, 11:28 AM
Why is it better in 3e when the cleric/anyone with UMD would just spam away charges on a CLW wand and everyones fine?
Or indeed why is it that the big tough fighter takes longer to recouperate after going unconcious than anybody else of the same level?
Or for it to take longer for High level characters to heal back up to full naturally than low level ones?
Guess what HP never made any sense how comes you've all only just realised?
HP's are and always were a game pacing/combat resolution abstraction, I don't see why it's any sillier now really.

Saph
2008-05-23, 11:47 AM
Guess what HP never made any sense how comes you've all only just realised?

So . . . your reasoning is that since HP in 3.5 didn't make much sense, it's a good thing for HP in 4e to make even less sense?

For some strange reason, I'm not feeling very convinced. :P

- Saph

Bryn
2008-05-23, 12:22 PM
As a possible alternative explanation, it is not the rest that heals the PCs. There is a very simple ritual that all adventurers know that takes time to act, which they can prepare before they sleep - by the morning, this ritual heals their injuries. Easy enough, if a bit of a handwave.

However, if this is really too much of a concern, it is something that is utterly trivial to remove. If you find that the ability to heal with rest seriously harms your enjoyment of the game, and the rest of the game is fine, then just stop healing yourself when you rest.

I know the arguments that a system that must be houseruled is flawed, but rather than being broken, this is just something that some people subjectively don't like. In this case, isn't simply removing it easier than arguing endlessly (:smalltongue:) about whether or not it is justified?

BloodyAngel
2008-05-23, 01:28 PM
I personally just do damage in my game in whatever way makes for good cinema. The ogre swings his club at the knight and hits for an impressive amount. The knight blocks with his sheild, but the sheer force still near-dislocates his arm. Gritting, his teeth, he rolls his arm a time or two to put it painfully back into proper place, then counter-attacks. Done.

I'm not in favor of the healer-less party resting to full each night really... and I actually am alright with the "hp as dodging" thing... but it makes some attacks make no sense. Coup De Grace for instance... Or in a star wars game, where we wanted to use a spike-launcher to grab a foe and tug him off a cliff. The DM rules we had to manage to hit him for wounds, which made the idea impossible. Rogue sneak-attack or poisoned weapons make less sense as well. Why should the fact that the rogue is good at hitting vital spots matter if most of his attacks don't actually hit? Also... how do you poison someone with, say, a blowdart? How about poison-coated longsword? Your attacks don't actually hit, but they still have to make the poison save? Or perhaps putting poison on your weapon is the only way to ensure that you actually, physically strike your target. So I have my PC's fight a gargantuan spider. Now it's every bite hits, and I have to explain again how they're surviving the bite of something with mandibles as large as they are... Not that it matters, since they'll be fine tomorrow.

Personally, I think it should just be left to the DM to decide what the effects of attacks are. If I'm running a cool fight scene, I'd like the freedom to describe injuries, as appropriate for the scene. I don't want the resident rules-lawyer saying "no no... in the book, I'm not actually hurt until I'm at this much". Really, I think D&D has been turning less and less into the kind of game I like the more rules they slap into it. We don't need the book to give us a rule for everything and to tell us what all those rules mean? I laugh when people say 3.5 an 4th ed. aren't complicated. The amount of rules and feats and class-abilities and Prestige class abilities you need to know to build an "effective" character are staggering. It's D&D: the gathering now... learn to exploit the rules, or go home.

Rant aside... no matter how the rules change, there will still be two types of game. Good games, and bad games... and the major factor in determining which of the two you end up with it about the players and the DM... and not the rules.

Mike_G
2008-05-23, 02:05 PM
Secondly, what about non magical healing... If you don't HAVE a cleric (indeed you might have a warlord in the Leader role) then it's crazy. I've just had my spleen ripped out, but I'm fine now. these people might be heroes, but even Conan couldn't just sleep off a sword to the gut.


Being down to 1 HP isn't a sword to the gut.

It's not a broken arm, since you can still Power Attack with a Two Handed Sword.

It's not a broken leg, or even severed tendons or ligaments, since you can run, jump and charge.

It's not a ruptured spleen, since you can march for hours with a heavy load, or climb a cliff with no penalties.

1 hp is bruises, scratches and fatigue. If you want to see a guy with 1 HP, look at an athlete in the final seconds of a tough game, or a boxer in the closing rounds. Soaked in sweat, breathing heavy, pain and fatigue etched on his face, but able to keep on playing.

Maybe at 1 HP, you're tired enough that you'll make a mistake, miss a parry or fail to dodge that next attack and then you'll be bleeding out from a ruptured spleen. But until then, you aren't all that hurt, since you aren't taking any penalties.

And you know what that tired, beaten, bruised athlete is gonna do right after winning game six of the NBA finals? He's gonna rest overnight and then play game seven tomorrow.

That's what having 1 HP is.

Tingel
2008-05-23, 02:12 PM
And you know what that tired, beaten, bruised athlete is gonna do right after winning game six of the NBA finals. He's gonna rest and then play game seven tomorrow.

That's what 1 HP is.
Comparing the exhaustion of an athlete to the physical state of an adventurer who just fell into a pool of acid, suffered a critical hit by a battleaxe and was the epicenter of a fireball explosion seems a bit odd.

If all HP damage is only exhaustion (and thus nonlethal), then why is there a distinction between lethal and nonlethal damage to begin with?

Reel On, Love
2008-05-23, 02:18 PM
Because HP doesn't and has never made any sense.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-23, 02:20 PM
1 HP isn't a sword to the gut.


Depends who you are doesn't it?

On a commoner it probably is.

On a hero it's a sharp blow to the shield.



1 hp is bruises, scratches and fatigue. If you want to see a guy with 1 HP, look at an athlete in the final seconds of a tough game, or a boxer in the closing rounds. Soaked in sweat, breathing heavy, pain and fatigue etched on his face, but able to keep on playing.

Maybe at 1 HP, you're tired enough that you'll make a mistake, miss a parry or not dodge that next attack and then, you'll be bleeding out from a ruptured spleen. But until then, you aren't all that hurt, since you aren't taking any penalties.


And so when the hero does take an arrow through his shoulder.... it sends him unconsious.... what a wuss.

So... this hero is unconsious with an arrow to the shoulder, or even a sword to the gut, he is on a solo adventure so he doesn't have a cleric. The monster buggers off leaving him for dead and he stabalises, and wakes up in the morning right as rain.

The old system, although did not account for the specifics of slowed movement/ reduced accuracy or whatever owing to wounds, did, in a more abstract way mean that he was at least in some way closer to death.

Merlin the Tuna
2008-05-23, 02:24 PM
Eh. I've got to say, this is a pretty stupid change, and one that's very obviously pulled from CRPGs (its original name on the Grand List of Console Role Playing Cliches was 'Bed Bed Bed').You don't need to look at CRPGs for this. You can just look at how games of 3.5 actually play. Just stop looking at the rules for a minute and pay attention to the game. People buy bundles of CLW wands and go to bed feeling fresh. That's pretty much just it. Or maybe they skip the last wand poke and let natural healing top them off. The bottom line is that no one actually waits a week and a half just to heal up after a standard day of adventuring. What 4E is presenting is 3.5, without the annoyance of buying bushels of wands and staying up for an extra 5 minutes slapping yourself with them. I can only support this.

And the implication that worlds don't have to make sense in CRPGs strikes me as almost as inaccurate as the implication that worlds in P&P RPGs do.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-23, 02:25 PM
If all HP damage is only exhaustion (and thus nonlethal), then why is there a distinction between lethal and nonlethal damage to begin with?

If all HP damage is all wounds, then why does a fleshy human have more hit points than a solid iron door?

Tingel
2008-05-23, 02:35 PM
If all HP damage is all wounds, then why does a fleshy human have more hit points than a solid iron door?
The problem I pointed out is a logical contradiction within the rules. The problem you have pointed out is not; it simply shows that heroes have fantastically robust bodies and an astonishing ability to survive injuries.

I have far less problems with playing in a world where I can be pierced by a dozen arrows and yet keep on fighting than playing in a world with self-contradicting rules.

Mike_G
2008-05-23, 02:39 PM
Depends who you are doesn't it?

On a commoner it probably is.

On a hero it's a sharp blow to the shield.


Not taking 1 HP of damage, having 1 HP left. I may have been unclear.




And so when the hero does take an arrow through his shoulder.... it sends him unconsious.... what a wuss.


The arrow that puts him negative, bleeding out and dying is not a clean flesh wound in the shoulder. It hits an artery, or a vital organ.

Jesus, it's Hit Points. They've worked this way since 1974. You don't take a blow to the liver, you take 15 HP of abstract damage, which is totally fatal if you have 3 Hp left and not worth noticing if you have 150 HP left.



So... this hero is unconscious with an arrow to the shoulder, or even a sword to the gut, he is on a solo adventure so he doesn't have a cleric. The monster buggers off leaving him for dead and he stabalises, and wakes up in the morning right as rain.


No, he may bleed to death. Or get a coup de grace from the guy who put him to negatives.



The old system, although did not account for the specifics of slowed movement/ reduced accuracy or whatever owing to wounds, did, in a more abstract way mean that he was at least in some way closer to death.

No, it didn't.

1 HP remaining was totally functional. 0 was unconscious, -1 was dying.

The only difference was that without spells, it took weeks for a 20th level Fighter to totally heal from a bad beating, and 2 days for a 1st level Commoner to heal up from the brink of death.

Artanis
2008-05-23, 03:11 PM
Jesus, it's Hit Points. They've worked this way since 1974. You don't take a blow to the liver, you take 15 HP of abstract damage, which is totally fatal if you have 3 Hp left and not worth noticing if you have 150 HP left.
I wanted to quote this because it is the important point that many people seem to be missing.

HP damage has NEVER been pure physical punishment that's been inflicted. Thus, to say that HP damage represents physical punishment is officially complete B.S. That in turn means that saying that things are less realistic because of the effects of physical punishment is totally irrelevant.

Saph
2008-05-23, 03:13 PM
What 4E is presenting is 3.5, without the annoyance of buying bushels of wands and staying up for an extra 5 minutes slapping yourself with them. I can only support this.

Yeah, it's so annoying that damage in 3.5 actually needs to be cured, instead of going away when you sleep for a few hours. Outrageous. :P

Look, it's a silly rule. That's all. It's not the end of the world, and it's not going to make everyone reject the game and swear of RPGs forever, but that doesn't change the fact that it's silly.

- Saph

Artanis
2008-05-23, 03:15 PM
Yeah, it's so annoying that damage in 3.5 actually needs to be cured, instead of going away when you sleep for a few hours. Outrageous. :P

Look, it's a silly rule. That's all. It's not the end of the world, and it's not going to make everyone reject the game and swear of RPGs forever, but that doesn't change the fact that it's silly.

- Saph
HP is silly no matter how it works. If it's physical punishment or if it's fatigue or if it's luck or divine intervention or whatever, no matter how it's done, HP always has been and always will be silly.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-23, 03:23 PM
Look, it's a silly rule. That's all. It's not the end of the world, and it's not going to make everyone reject the game and swear of RPGs forever, but that doesn't change the fact that it's silly.

- Saph

Sure, it's kind of silly. On the othe rhand, it's exactly as silly as HP rules before.

Look, a Fighter and a Wizard go swimming in acid. The fighter's down to 40/60 HP, the wizard's down to 1/20.

They do that again in ten levels. The fighter swims until he's at 40/200, the wizard swims until he's at -4/60. And yet, it takes far more wand charges to heal the Fighter. (Speaking of which, why does it take 1 wand charge to bring a level 1 fighter to tip-top shape, but 50 to do so for a level 20 fighter?)

A fighter and a commoner get knocked into the negatives, taking real damage. And yet, the fighter takes vastly longer to heal (or else he's "fully healed" at 1 HP, in which case he can swim in acid when "fully healed" at 100 HP, but not when "fully healed" at 1 HP).

And no matter what happens, barring incredibly specific circumstances (like an arm-severing cutscene or special ability), he'll never slow down from injuries, never break a bone, never etc.

Lapak
2008-05-23, 03:32 PM
And so when the hero does take an arrow through his shoulder.... it sends him unconsious.... what a wuss.

So... this hero is unconsious with an arrow to the shoulder, or even a sword to the gut, he is on a solo adventure so he doesn't have a cleric. The monster buggers off leaving him for dead and he stabalises, and wakes up in the morning right as rain.

The old system, although did not account for the specifics of slowed movement/ reduced accuracy or whatever owing to wounds, did, in a more abstract way mean that he was at least in some way closer to death.No, it didn't.

More to the point: the situation you describe came up word-for-word in a Robert E. Howard Conan story I was re-reading yesterday. In The Hour of the Dragon (first published in 1935-36 and considerably predating hit points) the hero gets into a bad fight. He is cut, beaten, and finally taken down by being hit in the head with a mace. (His helmet takes some of it, but it's a bad enough injury that his opponents leave him for dead.)

He wakes up several hours later, having been picked up by a slave ship, and is so much recovered from the near-fatal wound that he is able to singlehandedly slay the captain and hold off the crew long enough to cut some slaves free and lead a revolt.

That's what 4E is trying to emulate: heroic fantasy of the old-fashioned Conan model, where the hero can take pretty nasty wounds and be beaten down, yet bounce back when the action hits. Another Conan story, The Phoenix on the Sword, models the minion system in a note-perfect manner: he is caught in his chambers by a crowd of minions, plus one significant foe. Every time a minion takes a swing at him, he ends up killing them, but they do get in enough cuts to make it likely that he'll lose to the dangerous opponent - or even fall under sheer numbers. By the time they're interrupted, he's killed half a dozen guys in one shot but taken dozens of minor wounds and one significant axe wound to the side. That's exactly what you'd expect a PC fighter to have in 4E when faced with a dozen minions - each minion hurts him a little and they die in droves, and that little starts to add up. But in that story, his 'savage vitality' starts to assert itself as soon as the fight is over, and he's chugging wine and shrugging off the guys who are bugging him by patching up the gaping hole in his side. He's suffered hit point damage, that's all.

RukiTanuki
2008-05-23, 03:35 PM
Yay, a response! And I'm not even getting ad hominem'd! :D

I'll preface all my responses by saying that I treat HP as the character's ability to keep fighting, irregardless of physical damage. Think John McClane from Die Hard (especially after walking through glass). I disassociate mechanics from flavor text (and my players do too, thankfully), so I can say "your feet are bandaged and hurt like hell, but you keep thinking of your goal" without being constrained by the idea of "HP as health."


Yup. and when you only have 5 days to get through the dungeon full of powerful gribblies that keeps the Cleric casting every single round as both blaster and healer, to get Important Plot Artifact 'X', before an invading army attacks Important Plot City 'Y', you can run into some very interesting, fun and quite dramatic problems.

Agreed, though to be honest, I feel that 4th Edition will help me achieve that kind of tension better than 3rd does. My players will still have the dramatic problem of ensuring that they have enough healing surges to get through the day's combats (vs. ensuring they have enough healing to get through the day's combats PLUS heal at the end of the day -- a difference I find minor in actual play).


Nope, not at all. That seems like a Barbarian rage type thing to me where the character goes "**** THE PAIN" and "psyches himself up"

This, again, is how I picture things. But then, my players would love to have a BBEG scream "Why won't you die?!"


Nope, but I feel that if a Cleric still has enough spells to heal everyone up to max at the end of the day then the DM is too soft with his encounters.

An alternate theory is that the DM is balancing encounters based on the assumption that players will begin each day at full hit points. It's not necessarily making things easier on the players, it's just shifting the math around. They're getting the same numerical amount of healing either way.


Yup, that's right, Anything more than "You're still down X hp" is usually too difficult to represent, but I have been working on a separate mechanic for it, don't you worry, which would, in fact, mean that HP COULD be used in the way 4e appears to describe

Here's the reasoning I'm using: Mechanically, if I represent HP as "ability to continue fighting", I don't need to track physical damage (and the rate at which it heals) unless it provides a mechanical penalty. HP doesn't really do that; the only thing HP loss affects is "your ability to take more HP damage later."

D&D doesn't have a system to represent the slow degradation of the PC's abilities due to physical attrition (i.e. not recuperating from physical wounds). One way to imitate this is to alter other mechanics so that the PCs are unable to fully restore themselves to maximum HP every day (most notably, the encounters you give them and the spells you expect them to save for day's end). What worries me is the idea that doing so in 3rd Edition is either easier or (more concerning) more "correct" than making similar alterations to 4th's default mechanics.


It doesn't matter, that would make it too complicated. As you say, HP is an abstraction, it is both of them mixed together in an abstract way so we don't have to worry about it, but 4e has taken the latter out of the mix.

It was a bit of a crux to my argument that no one yet has been able to draw a line in the sand and say "I've actually done this and treated X/Y damage as physical." Is the discussion a theoretical exercise, or are people actually doing this? I'd like to see an example of how someone actually tracks physical damage (and its slow rate of natural healing) in play, and why they feel it's not as easy to do something similar in 4th.


No, I'm, using the SIMPLER system of both vitality and wounds mixed together, that were called Hit Points

I'm just curious: Is physical damage an actual, real number that is tracked during play? Does the DM track the damage taken, determine some portion of it as physical damage, then ensure that the physical damage heals at a rate he's happy with, and that healing spells heal the abstract/fatigue first? Or does the DM ensure that characters are not fully healed at the end of the day, magic spells restitching flesh nonwithstanding, and declare that the PCs still have physical injuries that hamper them in no way other than their ability to sustain further damage?


The point is, I'm not putting an actual value to it. it's abstract, that's the point.

This is why I asked for any real example from play. I feel like I'm trying to identify a moving target. Somewhere in the ruleset, someone is saying "there's a number that represents the physical damage you took," but they won't point to the number, or write it down, or tell me what it is, but they assure me that they use it. It's actually being used in play, but if I presented a full scenario with numbers all around for HP given, taken, and healed, when I ask for the exact value of physical damage the DM would use in that scenario, there is no value: it's just abstract in the end.

Which, incidentally, is where I left "physical damage" in the first place: an abstract. I don't track physical damage that doesn't impede your ability to fight, I don't pretend HP represents said non-impeding damage, and I don't worry too much about a change that leaves a system fully unequipped to track physical damage, still unable to do so.

But then, I can tell my players, "You start the day at full HP. You feel like a well-tenderized steak after yesterday's face-stomping by an ogre, but you can carry on," without getting laughed out of the room.


Depends on the situation, but to be fair, deciding where to allocate the last few CLW is a fun bit of strategy that the players can do alone while the DM composes himself for the encounters in the day ahead.
The things that you describe would be too much bookkeeping to implement, "take 15 off your hp", "add 10 to your HP" is not.

The line is crossed when it doesn't matter whether your diary for the previous day read "went for a short walk, had a nice meal and went to the gym" or "barely survived being pummeled into the ground by the legions of the abyss", you're just as healthy and ready to fight in the morning

I do feel, again, that this comes down to the degree of abstraction one places upon HP, and it seems to be a sliding scale for everyone. No one's translating each successful strike against AC as physical damage, because that's unrealistic. It seems like most people are somewhere between "the last blow or two are real, lethal injuries" and "whenever I think the remaining number of blows you can take are realistic, it starts becoming physical damage," with a wide variety of interpretations about what all those other, previous hits vs. AC represent.

No one argues that a PC who spend a day in idle leisure would feel better than one that was physically pummeled by demons for a day. The questions become (1) how did that pummeling translate to mechanics, and (2) what effect did it have on the PC's ability to fight?

I'm not saying "wearing the PCs down on a day-to-day basis" is a bad idea for a DM, though the idea of doing so in a world of healing magic pokes at my suspension of disbelief almost as much as not being able to do so in a party with no magical healing. I do wonder, however, whether doing so as a default part of the rules inconveniences those for whom that doesn't really add much to the gameplay, more than it inconveniences a DM who might be able to implement something similar with, say, a series of daily and progressively-harder Endurance checks.

Fourth Edition seems to move away from "gameplay mechanics that are more realistic but have high paperwork-to-payoff ratios," so I could see why this idea didn't get much focus.


I don't wish to oppose you for opposition's sake. I simply think that this rule is a bit poo, not you.

I'm getting pretty good at not taking things as personal attacks. How can I be personally attacked? I'm represented as a collection of words on a computer and a crudely drawn picture. :) I'm just trying to figure out who's being displaced by this, what they're actually doing in play that they couldn't do in 4th, and why I can't find a real-life example of what they're doing now.

Human Paragon 3
2008-05-23, 03:50 PM
Hey, I just got a great idea for a 4e house rule to simulate fatigue over long stretches. A healing surge tax.

Let's say you spend the day being pummeled and brought to negative hit points. The next day you start with one fewer healing surge.

If you spend the next day getting pummled and brought to negative hit points, you start with another missing healing surge.

Eventually you'll have no healing surges left, stretched to the brink of your endurance. The endurance skill could play into this somehow, too.

A day of rest (or not being pumled into the negatives or stretching yourself to the brink on a forced march) restores one healing surge.

Seems a good, if cruel, way to track fatigue, and something I might use if I want to run a gritty campaign or session. The fact that you start each day with full HP is useful here, because encounters will get harder and harder as you begin to run low on surges.

Lapak
2008-05-23, 03:58 PM
That actually sounds like an extremely sensible house rule, Gaurd Juris.

Sebastian
2008-05-23, 05:37 PM
Hp is not injury. Honestly, have you ever played Saga Star wars? It explains the concept quite well.

Uh-uh, look at the wardevil trident attack and tell me that is not a wound. or even the lovely needlefang drake swarm.

Animefunkmaster
2008-05-23, 06:20 PM
Because HP doesn't and has never made any sense.

+1

I feel HP is a convention that most people just look past or eventually it gets the best of them and they play a game with more realism. I don't feel it is exhaustion (there are rules for fatigue and exhaustion), it is just non specific damage (lethal or non lethal). I do not have a big issue with this form of rest, because I feel more than a few dms already do this (I do not, but it wouldn't surprise me). You can not compare this to clw wands or healing spells because that would require you to have the ability to cast those spells and use those wands (not to mention wands are consumable and don't comeback the next day). This is a variant to normal healing in an attempts to get you back in the action faster, it isn't realistic, sure, but it looks like it is going to be one of the new conventions in the 4e GAME.

Mike_G
2008-05-23, 07:41 PM
Comparing the exhaustion of an athlete to the physical state of an adventurer who just fell into a pool of acid, suffered a critical hit by a battleaxe and was the epicenter of a fireball explosion seems a bit odd.


Only because the tired athlete might actually be a bit slowed down from the ordeal, where the Fighter with 1 HP left isn't.

Theodoxus
2008-05-23, 08:12 PM
But what if someone doesn't find either of those wrong?

This is D&D for cripes sake - a place where magic permeates the very air, food and water. Who's to say that during that 6 hour downtime, the forces of healing magic don't knit up every scratch, repair the broken squigglyspootches and fill in missing grey matter.

Your HPs can be as physical or metaphysical as you'd like. In the end, the Prime Material Plane does the hard work of making you whole.

Seriously - y'all can accept earth shattering magic, Gods that create and destroy, fighters who can do amazing feats - and HPs bog you down?

I feel slightly reduced in my faith in the imagination of me fellow peeps.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-23, 08:38 PM
I'm thinking about just saying it's a nice long meditation session that heals up your wounds, Immortal Iron Fist-style.

Last_resort_33
2008-05-24, 06:10 AM
Hey, I just got a great idea for a 4e house rule to simulate fatigue over long stretches. A healing surge tax.

Let's say you spend the day being pummeled and brought to negative hit points. The next day you start with one fewer healing surge.

If you spend the next day getting pummled and brought to negative hit points, you start with another missing healing surge.

Eventually you'll have no healing surges left, stretched to the brink of your endurance. The endurance skill could play into this somehow, too.

A day of rest (or not being pumled into the negatives or stretching yourself to the brink on a forced march) restores one healing surge.

Seems a good, if cruel, way to track fatigue, and something I might use if I want to run a gritty campaign or session. The fact that you start each day with full HP is useful here, because encounters will get harder and harder as you begin to run low on surges.

Ding! A most excellent idea.

I may keep off this thread a bit because it would seem that I'm getting nowhere. but I would like to point out a spell name.

Cure Serious Wounds

Rutee
2008-05-24, 07:00 AM
Ding! A most excellent idea.

I may keep off this thread a bit because it would seem that I'm getting nowhere. but I would like to point out a spell name.

Cure Serious Wounds

It can't be much of a wound if you can still act as if you'd never been hurt.

Theodoxus
2008-05-24, 07:03 AM
Ding! A most excellent idea.

I may keep off this thread a bit because it would seem that I'm getting nowhere. but I would like to point out a spell name.

Cure Serious Wounds

Have you seen this spell in 4E?

wodan46
2008-05-24, 07:14 AM
Healing Surge tax is probably the simplest method. Every encounter you lose between 0-1 healing surges the following day, losing 1 if you are knocked unconscious, 1/2 if you are only bloodied, and 0 if you remain above. Each full rest recovers only 1 surge lost this way. If you go 5 encounters a day, you are gonna get pretty weak if you spend all your time getting beaten up.

Also, get over HP. It isn't realistic. It is abstract, yet represents several different kinds of injury at the same time. Physical injuries should disable actions or cause continual bleeding, while exhaustion should reduce your all around effectiveness to a degree as well. Super games represent this better, where characters get -1 penalties to Strength and Constitution until they fall flat on their face, and can receive more serious injuries on occasion. However D&D is not a Supers game, and isn't designed with such a system or compatible with one.

Talyn
2008-05-24, 10:04 AM
Hey, I just got a great idea for a 4e house rule to simulate fatigue over long stretches. A healing surge tax.

Let's say you spend the day being pummeled and brought to negative hit points. The next day you start with one fewer healing surge.

If you spend the next day getting pummled and brought to negative hit points, you start with another missing healing surge.

Eventually you'll have no healing surges left, stretched to the brink of your endurance. The endurance skill could play into this somehow, too.

A day of rest (or not being pumled into the negatives or stretching yourself to the brink on a forced march) restores one healing surge.

Seems a good, if cruel, way to track fatigue, and something I might use if I want to run a gritty campaign or session. The fact that you start each day with full HP is useful here, because encounters will get harder and harder as you begin to run low on surges.

That's a GREAT house rule. Good idea!

Yahzi
2008-05-24, 11:24 AM
the reason your resting is that one or more party members have used all their healing surges, and therefore their ability to be healed any further today.
One of the chief complaints about D&D was narcolepsy: when the wizard is out of spells, the party camps for the night - regardless of where they are or what they're doing.

4e introduced at-will powers to mitigate that effect.

And then they replaced it with full healing sleeps.

3e 4e play session:
Wizard Everyone: Oh noes! I'm out of spells healing surges. CAMP!"

:smallbiggrin:



Why is it better in 3e when the cleric/anyone with UMD would just spam away charges on a CLW wand and everyones fine?
Because in 3e there's a reason: you have a cleric. It might not be a good reason, but it's still a reason.

In 4e the reason has been replaced with: you want to be ready for the next encounter.

If all you are doing is playing a series of encounters, the two reasons are indistinguishable. However, if you're trying to play a world, then the two reasons are miles apart.

I think this is the difference: the people who like what 4e looks like are the people who want to have fun encounters; the people who don't are the ones who want to have fun worlds.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 11:30 AM
3e[/S] 4e play session:
Wizard Everyone: Oh noes! I'm out of spells healing surges. CAMP!"

:smallbiggrin:

Except you can only really burn 1 or 2 Surges per encounter, and people have a minimum of 4 or so.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-24, 11:43 AM
Except you can only really burn 1 or 2 Surges per encounter, and people have a minimum of 4 or so.

Not quite. The cleric, warlord and paladin all have abilities that let another person use a healing surge... so you CAN go through them.

In Keep On Shadowfell, the fighter starts with TWELVE at level 1, so its very unlikely that he'll get through all of his in a single day... and he's the one that should be taking the damage.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 12:13 PM
I recall seeing Healing Prayer had an absolute number of uses per day as well. Regardless, Narcolepsy should be less necessary now, and doesn't increase your abilities within a single fight nearly as much as it does in 3.5.

Morty
2008-05-24, 12:50 PM
Wheter narcolepsy is or isn't necessary is a moot point in 4ed, as according to what we have so far you can only take one extended rest every 24 hours.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-24, 12:54 PM
Wheter narcolepsy is or isn't necessary is a moot point in 4ed, as according to what we have so far you can only take one extended rest every 24 hours.

Correct, extended rests are Once Per Day... but short rests are 5 minute breaks that can be taken whenever... all they do is recharge encounter powers.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 12:54 PM
That won't technically stop anything, just make things take way longer In-setting.

Charity
2008-05-24, 01:14 PM
Because in 3e there's a reason: you have a cleric. It might not be a good reason, but it's still a reason.

In 4e the reason has been replaced with: you want to be ready for the next encounter.

If all you are doing is playing a series of encounters, the two reasons are indistinguishable. However, if you're trying to play a world, then the two reasons are miles apart.

I think this is the difference: the people who like what 4e looks like are the people who want to have fun encounters; the people who don't are the ones who want to have fun worlds.


See all the above posts detailing why HP's have never been a realistic mechanism for simulating wounds.
See also the miriad of posts showing that it has always been thus.
See how overall nothing but your perception has changed.
I cannot see how worlds and encounters can not be equally accomidated in either 3 or 4e and still be fun.
See how this thread is cyclic and rapidly becoming less fun.
I was going to finish with 'see ya' but I don't want to claim some lame final word rubbish. I just think there is a lot of
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6257/dramatx7.jpg
going on just like last time, not acusing any one individual, but it is really not proportionate.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-24, 01:53 PM
One of the chief complaints about D&D was narcolepsy: when the wizard is out of spells, the party camps for the night - regardless of where they are or what they're doing.

4e introduced at-will powers to mitigate that effect.

And then they replaced it with full healing sleeps.

3e 4e play session:
Wizard Everyone: Oh noes! I'm out of spells healing surges. CAMP!"

:smallbiggrin:
Except, of course, healing surges last you a lot longer.
Besides, c'mon. You know that if that hadn't been the case, you'd be complaining about how characters don't have to rest ever and that might make for good encounters but not good worlds.



Because in 3e there's a reason: you have a cleric. It might not be a good reason, but it's still a reason.
Or, you know, a ranger who can't even cast spells yet and a wand of cure light wounds.
Or healing belts.

In 4e the reason has been replaced with: you want to be ready for the next encounter.[/quote]
Or because you're battered, bruised, possibly somewhat wounded, exhausted, out of your most potent spells, and really not up to pulling any more fancy stunts.


If all you are doing is playing a series of encounters, the two reasons are indistinguishable. However, if you're trying to play a world, then the two reasons are miles apart.

I think this is the difference: the people who like what 4e looks like are the people who want to have fun encounters; the people who don't are the ones who want to have fun worlds.
Look, if 4E doesn't have. If you want to justify HP (when HP is inherently silly) being restored when you rest, there are tons of ways to do it. You can play up warriors entering a deep meditative trance that heals their wounds. You can decide that the ranger puts together healing poultices made out of specially treated magical herbs.
Or you can say the party has healing belts, that work over the course of hours.

Or you can not freaking worry about it because HP doesn't mean anything.

Mike_G
2008-05-24, 02:24 PM
Years agom we played the first edition of Harnmaster, which didn't have any HP. You took wounds which were described as "a serious wound to the leg" which gave you a move penalty and penalties to certain skills, or in the case of a bad wound to the chest, abdomen or head or whatever, made you save or die/become unconscious. Minor injuries were represented as a cumulative penalty on most rolls.

This was pretty realistic, and in Harn, you could say a wound was "a sword to the gut" because it was. You couldn't heal it with 6 hours of sleep. But you had to make a Con roll to survive it, and could only move at half speed and couldn't do a lot of actions. Likewise, you were never at 1 HP where any wound would kill you. A hit that was a minor foot wound could not put you down, regardless of how badly hurt you were previously. No auto kills and no wounds that couldn't possibly drop you. A few points in the eye and you were out.

HP, which work like a checking account, no penalty until the balance is zero, do not in any way simulate being hurt.

A grittier system works for some people. We liked it. But you spend a lot of time dragging your dead or crippled PC's back to the city between encounters.

Yahzi
2008-05-25, 01:34 AM
I cannot see how worlds and encounters can not be equally accomidated in either 3 or 4e and still be fun.
Defining the world in terms of encounters is a little different than defining a world in which encounters occur.

MartinHarper
2008-05-25, 04:07 AM
How exactly is the DM supposed to rationalise this?

I think it's up to each player to rationalise how their character heals overnight.

I fully intend to have my bard sing "clot, clot, clot, my bleeding arteries" every morning at 6am, and have my internal organs so motivated that they stitch themselves up. Meanwhile, your character can pull his Eternal Wand of Cure Light Wounds x/day from his backpack and start patching himself up.

Eldritch_Ent
2008-05-25, 04:21 AM
"Wound HP" vs "Tired HP" is one of those arguments that works out a lot like "Must ALWAYS take multiple attacks" VS "Multiple Attacks can instead just be one really solid blow.". It all comes down to how well you can seperate Fluff from Crunch. How well you can use your imagination and deviate the rules. Or, rather, "Are you lawful or chaotic?". Hi, I'm Mojotech, and I'm a chaotic-good DM and player. :smallbiggrin:

The main fallacy here is that some people think HP is an abstraction all the time, or HP is a measurerement of physical damage all the time. I assure you, neither is the case. Different situations call for different methods of wound taking.

For example, if you get attacked by a rogues poison dagger and he poisons you, of course it hits. It might just nick you, and if you make your save it might be too shallow to poison you properly. If you're tied down to a chair and Coup De Graced with a scythe... Yeah, you're probably bleeding pretty bad. Someone who isn't tough as nails- Without a high CON score and with a class/race with poor HD, someone would be hard pressed to survive that unless they were really getting up in the levels. But even with those two, there might be a lot of leeway in describing HOW the person avoids being killed outright... (Fighters ARE just that tough, Rogues can wiggle in their restraints, Wizards might resist through sheer force of will, and Divines might get actual help from above...)

The point of the matter is things aren't as black and white as that. Abstract VS Actual HP's can and really should be taken on a case by case basis. Just because there are two scenarios where physical HP's are the best, doesn't mean that it's the best in ALL scenarios. Learn to use what's best for the situation! Just because the arrow hits doesn't mean it has to hit somewhere even remotely vital...



As for this change itself, and the fact it makes Clerics less neccesary, I say that's not a bad thing. Maybe there are folks out there who don't WANT to play a Cleric, and don't want to be shoehorned into the role because "someone has to". Besides, it's assumable fighters also know how to patch themselves up well enough to be able to fight the next day, that arcane casters can pull it together through sheer force of will, Warlocks have fast healing ANYWAY and it probably just kicks in while sleeping, and if you have someone capable of divine things (Casting CXW spells, lay on hands, etc), you'd be patched up in one night anyway... It's not that hard to justify on a per-class basis.

Edit: The Ranger says "I brought a poultice made from local ingredients. This one contains Elderberries, Tree Bark, Mugwort Root, and Ground Squirrels. It's guarenteed to cure what ails you!"

Jerthanis
2008-05-25, 04:26 AM
Hey, I just got a great idea for a 4e house rule to simulate fatigue over long stretches. A healing surge tax.

Let's say you spend the day being pummeled and brought to negative hit points. The next day you start with one fewer healing surge.

If you spend the next day getting pummled and brought to negative hit points, you start with another missing healing surge.

Eventually you'll have no healing surges left, stretched to the brink of your endurance. The endurance skill could play into this somehow, too.

A day of rest (or not being pumled into the negatives or stretching yourself to the brink on a forced march) restores one healing surge.

Seems a good, if cruel, way to track fatigue, and something I might use if I want to run a gritty campaign or session. The fact that you start each day with full HP is useful here, because encounters will get harder and harder as you begin to run low on surges.

Just so you know... I now have two houserules for 4th edition games I run. The first is ignoring Minions being immune to miss damage, and the second is a Healing Surge Tax. Truly a great idea has been happened upon this day!