I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[DEFCON 1]

...but right now you're fighting through the pain and weariness to survive and that plus the fact that you've trained to do this allows you to ignore the minor injuries and pain. It's sorta like the same way a professional football player has to ignore minor injuries and still play at or close to the top of his game. It's only when you've been whittled down to your limit with minor injuries or suffer a major injury that you fall and can't go on.

But this is the exact opposite of what many folks upthread have considered hit points. They aren't treating hit points as minor injury, pain and fatigue, they're treating them as actual, describable, bleeding wounds. Imaro, you're actually pointing out a way of looking at hit points that allow Healing Surges to actually WORK (and how those of us on the HS side look at it.) Minor pain, fatigue, and slight injuries are all things that can be fought through via adrenaline or psychological gearing up, or whatnot. All the things that healing surges (especially the Warlord/Bard 'shout them okay' type) represent.

See, IMO, this is already cinematic combat and is why HS seem, IMO, to push characters towards the superheroic scale. They don't just fight through injuries and pain anymore... now they can shake off (heal) major wounds, unconsciousness and even being on the brink of death... without magic or help... and give them 5 mins to catch their breath and they are in tip top shape for the next battle.

As I said above... you're absolutely right about the 'three strikes and you're dead' problem. It's the one place where we have to accept the breakdown of how someone can be on the brink of death but still be able to will themselves healthy after 5 minutes of rest. But if we are willing to accept that the game requires us to have a way to actually die (because it's a game trope that's been in existence forever that Death is the end of a character's career) ... we have to accept that the methods to achieve that death aren't going to be in any way realistic unless we build a much more intricate combat system like The Riddle Of Steel or something. And if we accept that the entire system doesn't make any lick of real sense... why is the healing surge game mechanic the one that makes you say 'nuh uh!'?

THAT'S what makes me wonder why folks get so bent out of shape about the concept. It's picking and choosing one stupid game convention out of an entire bucketful of stupid game conventions.

 

[Oryan77]

Unless, of course, you are running a high-magic setting like..........Planescape........

I run a 3.5 Planescape game and I do not have magic item shops other than Akin The Friendly Fiends shop. And even then, his shop is full of useless/odd magic items that either a player won't want to buy, or a player buys it but it has no real use in the game other than adding flavor.

Just because the game is high fantasy doesn't mean that you have to have magic item shops and allow players to buy whatever they want. It's possible, I do it.

 

[Hussar]

...Or spending any number of healing surges after a short rest. This is specifically called out in the rules as something you can do:

In the glossary entry for "Knocking Creatures Unconscious," there is a specific mention of unconscious creatures benefiting from a short rest, so unconsciousness does not prevent resting. And you can certainly spend healing surges while unconscious.

Note, unconscious and dying are not the same thing. When you knock something unconscious, you have deliberately chosen that your attacks are non-lethal. And,

When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer, you can choose to knock it unconscious rather than kill it. Until it regains hit points, the creature is unconscious but not dying. Any healing makes the creature conscious. If the creature doesn’t receive any healing, it is restored to 1 hit point and becomes conscious after a short rest.

so, you are actually flat out wrong here. Since you cannot spend any actions while unconscious, you couldn't spend healing surges. Granted, you wake up after a short rest, but, that's pretty reasonably. Someone knocks you out, you wake up a few minutes later, shake it off (spend your healing surges) and carry on with a seriously sore head.

Also note:

While a creature is unconscious, it is helpless, it can’t take actions, and it takes a -5 penalty to all defenses. It also can’t flank and is unaware of its surroundings. When a creature is subjected to this condition, it falls prone, if possible. See also helpless and prone.

 

[Imaro]

Want to stand on the podium on the Tour de France with a broken collarbone, it has been done. Want to spend several days walking around with a broken leg before getting any treatment, people have. Want to break your neck in the FA Cup Final and walk up the steps to get your winner's medal, that's fine too. Anything as complicated as injuries and people's reactions to them that's being resolved with a system as abstract as hit points is going to leave queries.

Again, isn't this covered by the fact that loss of hit points does not impair heroes with minuses to their actions, even though they still need to rest or heal eventually to get themselves back into top shape?

 

[Hussar]

Again, isn't this covered by the fact that loss of hit points does not impair heroes with minuses to their actions, even though they still need to rest or heal eventually to get themselves back into top shape?

You are exactly right. You can model things that way. And it works. Why can he push through? Well, he's still got some hit points left. That's because hit points work on a linear time frame. If he's still moving, he's got hp left obviously.

4e just doesn't work that way. Not that it's a better way of doing it, but, rather, a different way of approaching the issue.

People keep trying to apply an approach that 4e just doesn't support and then complain that 4e doesn't do what they want. In 4e, a wound is never, ever a fixed narrative point until AFTER everything is complete. That's the whole point of it being abstract and a narrative based concept. Everyone at the table has the opportunity to add or subtract from the narrative at every point in time, up to and including ret-conning narratives.

The orc attacks you and does X damage. That's all that's known. Until the combat is over anyway, and THEN, and only then, can you pin down the narrative. Granted, most of the time, the narrative does follow in a fairly linear fashion, but, that's simply because none of the players have changed the narrative as its being played out.

Your character takes a butt load of damage. Combat ends and he spends his healing surges. Now he's back at full hit points minus those healing surges. What happened to his gaping wound?

It never happened. There was no gaping wound. Even when the character fell down and was possibly dying, there was no gaping wound. Why not? Because the Warlord yelled at him to get back up and it worked. If he had a sucking chest wound, no amount of yelling would have made him stand up. But it worked, therefore there was no sucking chest wound. That blow that looked so bad was just stopped by the Mithril Armor and the character had the wind knocked out of him.

However, had the warlord not yelled at the PC, and the PC then failed his three death saves, then that wound would obviously have been a sucking chest wound, because, well, no one dies of having the wind knocked out of them.

Now, I can totally see why people might not like this way of doing it. I get that. But, the argument about "realism" just doesn't wash. It's perfectly realistic, but, you just have to apply the narrative after the resolution of the event, not as it occurs.

 

[Aaron]

Because as I pointed out upthread... since any character can actually get HIT AND DAMAGED three to fifteen times over the course of a fight... that's three to fifteen REAL INJURIES that a character is sustaining during that fight, and yet the fact they are still able to continue fighting doesn't break the reality for you? You're able to accept that... but it's the 'healing surge' mechanic where you draw the line?

If you are a high level character I have no problem imagining him/her sustain an impressive amount of damage.

I can cite tons of fantasy characters from manga/comics/movies etc. that can sustain an absurd amount of damage. But none of them presents the Schrödinger issue.

The orc attacks you and does X damage. That's all that's known. Until the combat is over anyway, and THEN, and only then, can you pin down the narrative. Granted, most of the time, the narrative does follow in a fairly linear fashion, but, that's simply because none of the players have changed the narrative as its being played out.

Your character takes a butt load of damage. Combat ends and he spends his healing surges. Now he's back at full hit points minus those healing surges. What happened to his gaping wound?

It never happened. There was no gaping wound.

If that's the case:

1) what happens if someone looks at the (eventually) wounded character? -what would someone see?
Maybe an ally looks at his comrade to see if he can sustain more damage, and go and help him, even if they can't communicate for some reason.

Or maybe there's someone else watching the combat without being involved, and wants to act if and when the character is effectively wounded.

Heck, his enemies too are interested into see if their attacks are effective.

2) what if the character for any reason can't use any HS for a long time after combat. Would he remain in this "cinematic" indetermination for hours?

3) if there's no "gaping wound", what happens? If, for example, a character is on fire, what happens? Is he/she damaged by the fire? Can I see if he/she is damaged only after something else happens, like his/her death or he/she quenches the fire?

4) What if the character falls unconscious after the combat. What would another character see looking at his/her body? A gaping wound or ...what else?

 

[DEFCON 1]

But it was understood that physical damage was the benchmark of that abstraction. Setting magic aside, healing was tied to ideas of normal healing of physical damage. Yes, it was a loose tie, but it was there. And along with the idea that some HP represents "luck", "fate", raw skill at avoiding damage, whatever, it was simply accepted that recovery of this "luck" scaled consistently with the primary idea of physical healing.

And this right here is where the whole system breaks down, and why EVER treating move-by-move combat in D&D as causing actual physical injury is patently absurd. (And please note, I'm not saying we didn't do this... I'm saying that the fact we did do this this entire time shows us how dumb we all were to do so.)

As I said upthread... an individual D&D combat involves a character taking upwards of ten to twenty actual wounds over the course of the fight (if we are to assume that taking damage equates to actual injury that has to be HEALED either via magic or long amounts of bedrest.) Now... name me ANY combat situation where this actually happens?

The answer is, there isn't any. Any fight actually usually involves just bruising, minor cuts, and fatigue until such time a single major injury occurs that almost assuredly knocks the person out of the fight entirely. Once you get that limb broken, or that blow to the head knocks you out, or you are gutted by the spear... you're done. You're on the ground in massive amount of pain, or your body goes into shock, or you are instantly killed. That's just the way it is. And it is only the extremely rare cases where you might suffer a massive injury (one that in the D&D world would require magical healing via spell or potion) and still be able to continue fighting... but then the odds are that a SECOND massive injury will remove you from the fight. Two injuries tops, three for a psychotic superman, but assuredly none of this ridiculous ten to twenty.

***

The only way D&D combat in any way would make a little bit of actual sense would be if hit points were not physical injury but fatigue, luck, blocks, parries, and bruising and it's only that final attack that drops you under 0 HPs that is the real, wounding injury (the 'killing blow'). But to emulate this... D&D's combat and recovery should really be that if you are under 0 HPs you require a magical heal to put you at 1 HP (thereby mending the gash in your abdomen, or resetting the broken bone)... and then all the rest of your HPs automatically return via 5 minutes of rest because of regaining breath, binding small cuts, putting ice on it etc. (the healing surge mechanic). You should in no way require your positive HP levels to have to be returned by magical healing, because that implies actual injury... which as I've just pointed out, makes not a lick of sense.

 

[Dausuul]

Note, unconscious and dying are not the same thing. When you knock something unconscious, you have deliberately chosen that your attacks are non-lethal.

The reason I brought up that rule was that it's debatable whether you can "rest" while unconscious. The rule makes it clear that you can. Nothing in the "dying" rules would indicate that the dying form of unconsciousness works differently.

so, you are actually flat out wrong here. Since you cannot spend any actions while unconscious, you couldn't spend healing surges.

Spending a healing surge is not an action. If the cleric uses Healing Word on you, you can spend a healing surge, whether you're stunned, unconscious, or what have you. Same with anything else that says "You can spend a healing surge." (The use of "spend" here is another example of bad choice of rules terms--it implies an action is required when it isn't, and it implies you can do it at will when you can't.)

 

[BryonD]

But this is the exact opposite of what many folks upthread have considered hit points. They aren't treating hit points as minor injury, pain and fatigue, they're treating them as actual, describable, bleeding wounds. Imaro, you're actually pointing out a way of looking at hit points that allow Healing Surges to actually WORK (and how those of us on the HS side look at it.) Minor pain, fatigue, and slight injuries are all things that can be fought through via adrenaline or psychological gearing up, or whatnot. All the things that healing surges (especially the Warlord/Bard 'shout them okay' type) represent.

I think one problem here is there is a lot of all or nothing going on.

What Imaro is pointing out is that you can have BOTH minor wounds AND serious wounds and work with that inside the same larger abstract system.

Some responses have latched onto "ALL SERIOUS" which is problematic and other, such as your here, have latched on to "All MINOR", which solve Surges but creates other major problems.

Surges reduce the options for how the abstract nature of wounds can be modeled in a satisfactory way. That is bad. (And I readily admit that someone might have a far easier standard of satisfactory, but at a minimum, the OP should see how this difference answers the question.)

 

[Imaro]

But this is the exact opposite of what many folks upthread have considered hit points. They aren't treating hit points as minor injury, pain and fatigue, they're treating them as actual, describable, bleeding wounds. Imaro, you're actually pointing out a way of looking at hit points that allow Healing Surges to actually WORK (and how those of us on the HS side look at it.) Minor pain, fatigue, and slight injuries are all things that can be fought through via adrenaline or psychological gearing up, or whatnot. All the things that healing surges (especially the Warlord/Bard 'shout them okay' type) represent.

First, no. Most people are saying that at least some part of hit points is physical injury and I agree with this. How much? It depends on the level of the PC and in part the DM. As an example...A Fighter with 8 hp's has a higher percentage of actual physical HP's vs. a Fighter with 800 HP's... perhaps 100% to 1%. I think this is how most people upthread who are disagreeing with you are looking at both hp's and damage (at least some of the damage has to be physical. Now that said...

I think you're misunderstanding me. I am saying the fact that there are no penalties imposed on a heroes actions is where adrenaline and willpower, IMO, fit into the narrative. Allowing you to heal yourself of wounds, a hero being back to tip top shape after a combat is over none the worse for wear, without any type of medical or magical healing, etc., IMO, is regeneration. There are some real fundamental differences in the two, HS allow one to actually heal damage... the "no-penalties to actions" thing is exactly what many american football players and other pro athletes do every game or competition... healing wounds is not.

As I said above... you're absolutely right about the 'three strikes and you're dead' problem. It's the one place where we have to accept the breakdown of how someone can be on the brink of death but still be able to will themselves healthy after 5 minutes of rest. But if we are willing to accept that the game requires us to have a way to actually die (because it's a game trope that's been in existence forever that Death is the end of a character's career) ... we have to accept that the methods to achieve that death aren't going to be in any way realistic unless we build a much more intricate combat system like The Riddle Of Steel or something. And if we accept that the entire system doesn't make any lick of real sense... why is the healing surge game mechanic the one that makes you say 'nuh uh!'?

No, it's not the only place. They can also be beaten unconscious one minute and back to full on readiness to fight in 5 mins without magical or medical aid. No ones saying make it realistic, but don't just keep stacking more and more abstractions on top of it for us to deal with and not providing a definitive way to associate those abstractions with something taking place in the narrative.

Maybe this explanation and example will help you undertstand it. By every definition of HP's, in every edition... at least some are physical, as is some damage... thus if I spend healing surges to get back to tip top shape from let's say... one hit point after a 5 min rest I have actually under my own power somehow forced my body to regenerate ala Wolverine, regardless of the specific percentage or number of hitpoints that are physical... add to that the fact that I can do this numerous times in a day and it borders on super powers.

THAT'S what makes me wonder why folks get so bent out of shape about the concept. It's picking and choosing one stupid game convention out of an entire bucketful of stupid game conventions.

No it's not... it's saying "Hey, just because I'm willing to accept some abstraction, doesn't mean you should keep adding to it, without consideration of the narrative, and expecting me to just wave it off...somehow...in someway."