Falling Icicle
Adventurer
I posted this originally on the WotC messageboards, and thought it might be good to post it here also. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to start any kind of edition war. I'm just making some observations that I hope will lead to a constructive discussion about these things.
Alot of people use the word "realism" when actually the word they should have used is "believable." Obviously, DnD is a fantasy game and there are things in it which are completely unrealistic like magic and dragons. But things can be fantastic and yet still be believable. A cleric channeling the power of the gods into a healing spell to heal you, that's believable. A warlord shouting at you and your wounds just disappearing because his words made you feel encouraged, not so much, at least not IMHO.
Now, before somebody replies with the old "but hit points were never realistic!", let me stop you right there. You're right! They're never were realistic. To be honest, I've never liked the way hit points have worked in any edition of the game, especially how they scale multiplicatively with level. A 1st level wizard can stub his toe and die, while a 20th level fighter can be hacked with a greataxe dozens of times and live, something clearly unbelievable. Likewise, a jar of alchemist's fire or acid is a somewhat decent weapon to use at 1st level, but at higher levels the mere d6 damage it inflicts becomes next to worthless. In real life, not to mention fantasy novels, movies, etc. I dont care how experienced a fighter you are, having a jar of acid thrown on you will really ruin your day.
People often say that hit points aren't meant to represent real injury to the character. But then, what are they supposed to represent? Falling back on things like endurance and morale are really poor excuses, because hit points simulate those things even more poorly than they simulate injuries. Besides, everyone knows full well that the reason you lose hit points is because your character was injured by some attack or hazard. He fell 40 ft. off a cliff. He got engulfed by a dragon's flaming breath. He was critically hit by a barbarian's axe. Those are the reasons you lose hit points in DnD. If they were equally things like endurance or morale, why do I not lose hit points whenever I find out a loved one has died, or when I see the village I've lived in all my life burnt to the ground by some villianous horde? Those things are devastating to one's morale but don't inflict hit point loss, so obviously you can't say that hit points have anything whatsoever to do with morale. As for endurance, likewise, being hit by clearly life-threatening attacks is going to do alot more than make you tired.
The real reason hit points are so unbelievable, to be blunt, is simply a concession of game design. In a real sword fight, dozens, even hundreds of swings of a weapon might occur before someone actually lands a blow, and once they do, it's very often lethal or at least crippling. But in a game like DnD, if combat were that realistic, with so many misses being involved and the occasional hit being so deadly, well, let's just say it wouldn't be a very fun game to play. Playing through a several minute fight, one 6 second round at a time, swing by swing, rolling for each one only to find that 99% of them miss, who would want to play that game? Hit points are there to make players feel like they're steadily accomplishing something while still pacing battles to last for at least a certain amount of time.
Other game systems over the years have devised other means of tracking injuries that are far closer to the threshold of believability than hit points are while still being playable and fun for an rpg. That said, DnD combat still tends to be one of the fastest, simplest and most fluid, mostly thanks to hit points. So really, even though everyone realized how unbelievable they are, we accept it for the good of the game. That said, when 4e came along and introduced healing surges and non-magical characters healing people by yelling at them like a drill sergeant, that pushed the game even further into the realm of unbelievability than it had ever gone before, and that pushed it outside of alot of people's comfort zones.
Again, to be blunt, 4e's deisgn seems to disregard the believability of things in favor of "what works better for DnD combat as a miniatures wargame." (I'm not trying to start an edition war here, I'm just calling it as I see it. 4e's design clearly emphasized making things work well in combat as the highest priority.) Many of the powers seem to have been written primarily with their in-game effects in mind. "Let's make a power that deals X damage to this many creatures plus makes them all blinded until they make a save." The flavor text of the powers often seemed like fluff tacked on as an afterthought, like "a rogue throwing dozens of knives to accomplish the effect". Of course, many of us ask "how could the rogue possibly have done that?" It's not that the actual end result was unablanced in the game, it's just that the narrative used to describe it was totally unbelievable and for many people completely breaks their sense of immersion and roleplaying.
Unbelievable rules have always been a part of DnD, and rpgs in general, to some extent or another. 4e just embraced them to a point that had never been done before, and did so so transparently and blatantly that it insulted many people's sensibilities. I, for one, think that when people design powers they should start with the idea of what the player is doing in the world, in a way you can visualize and explain it, and then make a set of rules for how to represent that in the game. I'm not trying to bash on 4e here, I'm just trying to explain why the design approach that was taken rubbed so many people the wrong way. 4e made alot of great advances in rpg rule design. Had they just taken a different approach and presentation and paid more deference to believability and immersion, I think 4e would have been far better accepted.
As for "DnD Next", I think most of the problems I have with hit points, such as the example of acid flasks I gave earlier, can be resolved simply by reducing the number of hit points people have, especially at higher levels. It's only because hit points and damage continue to increase at such a rate that things like alchemist's fire get left behind, as well as low-level spells, for that matter. 4e took the right approach by starting characters with more than single digit HP. Now, they just need to drastically scale back the rate at which they're gained. That will make them alot more believable and make the game more balanced as well.
Alot of people use the word "realism" when actually the word they should have used is "believable." Obviously, DnD is a fantasy game and there are things in it which are completely unrealistic like magic and dragons. But things can be fantastic and yet still be believable. A cleric channeling the power of the gods into a healing spell to heal you, that's believable. A warlord shouting at you and your wounds just disappearing because his words made you feel encouraged, not so much, at least not IMHO.
Now, before somebody replies with the old "but hit points were never realistic!", let me stop you right there. You're right! They're never were realistic. To be honest, I've never liked the way hit points have worked in any edition of the game, especially how they scale multiplicatively with level. A 1st level wizard can stub his toe and die, while a 20th level fighter can be hacked with a greataxe dozens of times and live, something clearly unbelievable. Likewise, a jar of alchemist's fire or acid is a somewhat decent weapon to use at 1st level, but at higher levels the mere d6 damage it inflicts becomes next to worthless. In real life, not to mention fantasy novels, movies, etc. I dont care how experienced a fighter you are, having a jar of acid thrown on you will really ruin your day.
People often say that hit points aren't meant to represent real injury to the character. But then, what are they supposed to represent? Falling back on things like endurance and morale are really poor excuses, because hit points simulate those things even more poorly than they simulate injuries. Besides, everyone knows full well that the reason you lose hit points is because your character was injured by some attack or hazard. He fell 40 ft. off a cliff. He got engulfed by a dragon's flaming breath. He was critically hit by a barbarian's axe. Those are the reasons you lose hit points in DnD. If they were equally things like endurance or morale, why do I not lose hit points whenever I find out a loved one has died, or when I see the village I've lived in all my life burnt to the ground by some villianous horde? Those things are devastating to one's morale but don't inflict hit point loss, so obviously you can't say that hit points have anything whatsoever to do with morale. As for endurance, likewise, being hit by clearly life-threatening attacks is going to do alot more than make you tired.
The real reason hit points are so unbelievable, to be blunt, is simply a concession of game design. In a real sword fight, dozens, even hundreds of swings of a weapon might occur before someone actually lands a blow, and once they do, it's very often lethal or at least crippling. But in a game like DnD, if combat were that realistic, with so many misses being involved and the occasional hit being so deadly, well, let's just say it wouldn't be a very fun game to play. Playing through a several minute fight, one 6 second round at a time, swing by swing, rolling for each one only to find that 99% of them miss, who would want to play that game? Hit points are there to make players feel like they're steadily accomplishing something while still pacing battles to last for at least a certain amount of time.
Other game systems over the years have devised other means of tracking injuries that are far closer to the threshold of believability than hit points are while still being playable and fun for an rpg. That said, DnD combat still tends to be one of the fastest, simplest and most fluid, mostly thanks to hit points. So really, even though everyone realized how unbelievable they are, we accept it for the good of the game. That said, when 4e came along and introduced healing surges and non-magical characters healing people by yelling at them like a drill sergeant, that pushed the game even further into the realm of unbelievability than it had ever gone before, and that pushed it outside of alot of people's comfort zones.
Again, to be blunt, 4e's deisgn seems to disregard the believability of things in favor of "what works better for DnD combat as a miniatures wargame." (I'm not trying to start an edition war here, I'm just calling it as I see it. 4e's design clearly emphasized making things work well in combat as the highest priority.) Many of the powers seem to have been written primarily with their in-game effects in mind. "Let's make a power that deals X damage to this many creatures plus makes them all blinded until they make a save." The flavor text of the powers often seemed like fluff tacked on as an afterthought, like "a rogue throwing dozens of knives to accomplish the effect". Of course, many of us ask "how could the rogue possibly have done that?" It's not that the actual end result was unablanced in the game, it's just that the narrative used to describe it was totally unbelievable and for many people completely breaks their sense of immersion and roleplaying.
Unbelievable rules have always been a part of DnD, and rpgs in general, to some extent or another. 4e just embraced them to a point that had never been done before, and did so so transparently and blatantly that it insulted many people's sensibilities. I, for one, think that when people design powers they should start with the idea of what the player is doing in the world, in a way you can visualize and explain it, and then make a set of rules for how to represent that in the game. I'm not trying to bash on 4e here, I'm just trying to explain why the design approach that was taken rubbed so many people the wrong way. 4e made alot of great advances in rpg rule design. Had they just taken a different approach and presentation and paid more deference to believability and immersion, I think 4e would have been far better accepted.
As for "DnD Next", I think most of the problems I have with hit points, such as the example of acid flasks I gave earlier, can be resolved simply by reducing the number of hit points people have, especially at higher levels. It's only because hit points and damage continue to increase at such a rate that things like alchemist's fire get left behind, as well as low-level spells, for that matter. 4e took the right approach by starting characters with more than single digit HP. Now, they just need to drastically scale back the rate at which they're gained. That will make them alot more believable and make the game more balanced as well.
