Realism vs. Believability and the Design of HPs, Powers and Other Things

[Doug McCrae]

Someone really needs to write the definitive guide to hit points in D&D, so we can just link to it every time these sorts of discussions arise. As Hussar says, the same points keep being made over and over. That said, Ratskinner's post upthread is one of the most elegant, succinct and yet thorough I've seen on the subject.

 

[billd91]

And herein gets to the heart of the matter: 1e, 2e and 3e HP recovery was redonkulously slow by mundane means, and only accelerated by divine magic or potion means. Thus, the recovery mechanic was unbelievable and incongruous with what HP were defined as. THIS, more than anything, is where the confusion has arisen over these 30+ years about what HP are and how HP work.

Is it really slow? What model do we have regarding the speed of recovery of luck? Divine providence? Elan? Morale? Whatever else loss of hit points is meant to reflect? I don't think we do so how can we say it's unbelievably slow?

Alternatively, maybe those hit points that were lost due to non-physical factors are the ones that heal first - the physical ones taking even longer to really start to heal?

There's no objective way of deciding whether healing is too fast or too slow. There are just subjective ways we feel either helps or hurts in the pacing of the game and shaping the decisions of the players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There's no objective way of deciding whether healing is too fast or too slow. There are just subjective ways we feel either helps or hurts in the pacing of the game and shaping the decisions of the players.

generally speaking i think the faster the healing the less realistic people are likely to find it.

 

[Mercutio01]

Must spread some XP before giving them to Ratskinner again, but yes, this:

Personally, I would love to ditch the hp system entirely. Its been a minor irritant to me for almost 30 years. Unfortunately, I haven't found another replacement system that meets my criteria for simple and fast and yet makes sense with some kind of save system and still feels relatively like D&D. I have tried several. So far, I haven't found a cure that's better than the disease. Its the worst system out there, except for all the others.

: is absolutely my experience as well. I like a lot of the other systems out there, but they don't feel like D&D to me. They all seem to work for whatever game they're intended, but they don't work for me in D&D.

 

[Neonchameleon]

levels, AC, xp

Those three are simply a fudge - learning by doing makes sense, being harder to land an effective hit on with armour makes a surprising amount of sense, and levels are just a way of keeping score. Sure you can have something finer grained than levels or AC but you need to have a value to really keep score.

3e/4e's staccato combat,

This actually makes a surprising amount of sense if you say that one turn is one OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) cycle. The time it takes someone to see what's going on, work out what they are doing, do it, and start to observe again. This is the (or at least one) way real skirmishes last. (Of course not everyone's OODA cycle is the same length and one purpose of military training is to lower the loop time). What to me makes no sense at all is the AD&D 1 minute combat round.

They insisted on a very unpopular interpetation of HP and then went and created a healing system that doesn't make sense outside of that interpetation.

They insisted on the fundamental orthodox interpretation of healing. Where they screwed up was with the Extended Rest. One of the few houserules I make for 4e is that an Extended Rest is actually extended. It's at least a lazy weekend. In LoTR terms Extended rests in the first few books happened at Tom Bombadil's, Rivendell, and Lorien. And if the Company of the Ring were hurt by wargs or in Moria? Tough. They remained down healing surges. Still hurt. Just ready for the next fight.

But we do want a system that allows for characters to be physically hurt by attacks and not be glaringly unbelievable by incuding instant or single day natural healing.

And here I agree 4e screwed up. They did one thing right - putting fighters and wizards onto the same recharge cycle. But they picked the wrong one. They set the HP recharge cycle to match the old spell recharge cycle when it should have been the other way round. Taking out the fifteen minute adventuring day by making recovery take considerably more than eight hours. I fully agree that standardising on the one night recovery was a poor decision.

With my house rule of you only recover surges at a genuinely extended rest do you have any problems with 4e healing working? And yes, I'm aware that this is the Oberoni Fallacy in action - I'm fixing a silly part of the game with a houserule.

 

[Libramarian]

Dear WOTC 5E game designers,

Please put an entire page explaining the core definition of Hit Points in each of the core handbook. If core hit points losses are meat chunks and physical damage, say so. If core hit points is stamina, tell us so. If hit points is to some point the abilty to cause lethal attacks and obstacles to instead be cuts and bruise, can you write this in? If HP is partially morale and mental resolve to continue despite injury, explain to us this. If it is a combination of all of the above on a case by case basis, write that. This will make a lot of agruments about them to happen less frequently.

-Minigiant

Doubtful. The problem with hitpoints is that the people who don't have a problem with them don't have a problem with them because they don't really think about them. This is key to not having a problem with hitpoints. Of course, the people who do have a problem with them won't accept that for an answer, so they constantly poke and prod until we have to make up elaborate justifications which are mostly baloney. Like Gary Gygax's in the 1e DMG.

Honestly, I don't think that any explicit explanation will actually capture why I'm fine with a mostly physical-based explanation of hitpoints. I've tried to explain it, but I mean it's mostly just made up.

The biggest fridge logic moment with hitpoints isn't even what damage and healing means in play, it's what's happening when you gain hitpoints when you level. I straight up just don't question that at all. Maybe I would say greater experience makes you harder to kill. That would be it.

I think what we're arguing about isn't actually the definition of hitpoints. Hitpoints just mean stamina. It conceptualizes stamina as a depletable resource that you manage.

What we're arguing about is what kinds of damage we want in the game. It's damage that colors the way we narrate and think about hitpoints.

Personally, I like to make the characters bloody. I like largely physical damage forms. I don't like "psychic damage", like damaging someone by insulting them. I think the reason I don't like this is not so much because it conflicts with my well-established, explicit definition of hitpoints. I just don't think it's cool.

 

[Yora]

I think the easiest solution is to use a wording in cure spells, that they reinvigorate the character instead of healing wounds. Then you can hit point have to mean what you want them to mean.

 

[Libramarian]

So really, the problem with hit points is their quantum-mechanical nature. That is, any given hit point of damage exists as an strange superposition of fatigue, morale, lost luck(?), and injury....until you recover that hit point. They're like Schrodinger's Cat. This is a problem that exists in every single edition of D&D. Non-magical healing in 4e only adds another way to collapse the superposition into morale as the Warlord tells you to "Keep on fighting, soldier!"

Yes, OK. I just don't care for some of the 4e superpositions. I don't like the idea of my character losing the will to fight until another character shouts at them. I just don't like that image.

Why can we just have warlords provide temporary hit points and have that function as morale based defense.

Hobgoblins show up.

Warlord (or Bard) says "It's time to kick some butt!"

The warlord's (or bard's) allies get 20 temporary hit points because they are all hyped up and in butt-whooping mode.

Repeat until the warlord runs out of cool things to say.

Not a bad idea, I like this better.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

I am one of the biggest proponents of preserving a high degree of realism/verisimilitude/believability in D&D and I have absolutely no problem with "mundane" healing like the Warlord. It doesn't break my suspension of disbelief at all; it's not unrealistic--it's just an abstraction, like the hit points supposedly healed thereby.

Things that break my suspension of disbelief more include rust monsters, flying colossal dragons, and plate armour not being sufficiently effective. Worst of all would be stupid, over-the-top, crazy anime/wuxia stunts like cleaving mountains and such being built into the fighter class without the option of easily ignoring them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

With my house rule of you only recover surges at a genuinely extended rest do you have any problems with 4e healing working? And yes, I'm aware that this is the Oberoni Fallacy in action - I'm fixing a silly part of the game with a houserule.

I would probably have to see thisin action but most likely no, because my issue isn't just the rate of recovery. The other issue healing surges create for me is their ability to undo something Inhave just described in a given combat.