D&D 5E On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[pemerton]

Being down 5 HP is an imposed combat penalty.

<snip>

being down 5 HP means being 5 HP worse at fighting and 5 HP more likely to lose the fight rather than win because of the effects of the wounds.

That is not a penalty. It is not even a concrete state. It is nothing but an abstract game-mechanical notation.

In the real world, there is no such thing as "being 5 hp more likely to lose the fight". There is such a thing as being winded, or tired, or blinded by sweat/blood. All these things can make you more likely to lose a fight. There is also such a thing as being out-matched, or wrong-footed, or feinted. All these things can make you more likely to lose a fight, too. But none of these things, in either list, takes 5 days to recover from. Either you lose the fight because of it; or you nevertheless win the fight and then get your breath back, wipe your brow, sheath your sword.

If hit point loss represents situational disadvantages of the sort I've described, then the 4e/5e approach makes more sense. If it represents serious, debilitating physical injury, then the earlier edition approach fails to model it very well, due to the lack of penalties and the overly-rapid healing times (hence the reason why games that do model such things, eg RQ, RM, GURPS, were invented and built up big followings in the 80s and early 90s).

It is just bizarre people keep insisting that being wounded magically slows you down or makes it harder to hit someone. This has no basis in reality Yes certain major injuries to specific body parts may impose a specific penalty, but that would involve tracking hit locations, damage per location, having tables to randomize the injury etc.

Being wounded does not "magically" slow a person down. It slows them down by way of physical - indeed, physiological - mechanisms. A twisted or sprained ankle makes it harder to run. A broken toe can make it harder to walk or even stand. An injured shoulder can limit the extent of arm movements.

An injury that is not serious enough to impede physical functioning - particular movement - is not going to kill anyone. And is not going to impede anyone's combat performance. A scratch to my arm won't slow me down, but it won't make me lose a fight, either. So hit point loss, which does track a progression towards losing a fight, can't simply be this sort of thing either.

Another reason it can't be this sort of things would be that high level AD&D fighters take a day to heal a scratch that a low-level character doesn't even notice - which is silly.

Hit point loss therefore has to correlate to a trajectory towards defeat, but without being seriously injured. Hence Gygax's express emphasis on luck and divine fortune, or the implicit 4e emphasis on verve, morale and energy (implicit in the name of the healing mechanics, like Healing Surge, Second Wind, Inspiring Word, etc).

What he made clear was every HP has a meat component to it because every mechanic in the game that reduces it requires it, from poison to additional weapon effects to losing HPs from attacks you don't even know were there.

Gygax doesn't say that every hit point has a meat component.

The whole rationale is that it is flexible. You can narrate it this way on this occasion, and this other way on this other occasion. Even losing hit points to an attack you didn't know was there doesn't need to be narrated as "meat loss": if a 10th level thief backstabs a 10th level fighter for 40 hp of damage, and the fighter has 40 hp remaining, there is no obligation to narrate that as meat - drawing on Gygax's idea of hit points as "sixth sense", you can run with REH-esque narration of a "pantherish twist" by the fighter at the last instance, as s/he feels the rush of air from the descending blade and turns aside, taking only a nick or scrape or being left off-guard and vulnerable to a follow-up attack.

Even if the thief's blade is poisoned, there is no need to narrate "meat" loss if the fighter makes his/her poison save (as Gygax expressly calls out in the discussion of saving throws in his DMG).

1 HP damage injection poison darts REQUIRE it.

If the dart hits, and the poison takes effect, then actual physical contact must be narrated - but not necessarily "meat" loss (a blowgun dart doesn't do any genuine meat damage unless it hits you in the eye). But if the poison save is made, then there is no need to narrate any physical contact at all - "You narrowly dodge the blown dart - lose 1 hp" is a completely feasible narration.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't understand why this "weeks to heal" claim keeps getting reasserted. I did the maths upthread. It is impossible for a 1st level MU in AD&D to take damage that is both (i) not potentially fatal and (ii) takes a week to heal

That's fine. Magic Users are notoriously not-tough, and most people can't survive a direct hit from a sword. The level 1 MU is just categorized in with the rest of the chumps when it comes to saying who will die before suffering a major wound. It's not a perfect model of real life, but it's close enough for my purposes (and the purposes of many others). YMMV, obviously.

Gygax, in his discussion of saving throws in his DMG, explains pretty clearly that they are a "luck" mechanic as much as a "toughness" mechanic. And he says that one possible narration of a successful poison save is that the poison failed to be delivered because the stinger failed to penetrate the skin.

And yet, the game mechanics don't reflect that. The stinger failing to penetrate the skin is already covered by the situation where the attack roll fails to hit.

But again, that was pre-2E. Gygax clearly had some pretty controversial ideas, and there was a reason they were not carried into later editions.

 

[pemerton]

We're just saying that the position is as-consistent or more-so than the alternative.

If you view every HP as at least partially meat, then it can still be entirely consistent with every definition.

How is it consistent that a 10th level fighter takes as long to heal a scratch as a peasant does to recover from accidentally stabbing his-/her foot with a pitchfork?

 

[pemerton]

And yet, the game mechanics don't reflect that. The stinger failing to penetrate the skin is already covered by the situation where the attack roll fails to hit.

But the game mechanic does reflect that: if you make the save, after all, you don't get poisoned!

This is why, in pre-3E, it is feasible for clerics to have good saves against poison and death even though they're not as tough as fighters - because they have more divine protection.

If you ignore the description of the mechanics, and deem the "to hit" roll as the only point at which skin-penetration is determined, then you will reach the conclusion that you reach, and be pushed by the logic of your simulation towards the 3E approach to saving throws. But that is a choice - it is not forced upon anyone by the simple existence of a "to hit" roll.

Gygax clearly had some pretty controversial ideas, and there was a reason they were not carried into later editions.

Well, they were carried into some later editions: 4e and 5e, to judge by this thread.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But the game mechanic does reflect that: if you make the save, after all, you don't get poisoned!

But you took damage. The three outcomes of an attack with a poisoned weapon are: 1) the attack misses; 2) the attack hits, but the save is successful; 3) the attack hits, but the save fails.

If a hit is a hit and damage is damage and resisting the poison is resisting the poison, then not only do we get the major benefit of sticking with natural language, but the outcome of the roll will actually tell us what happens. This is the whole point of using a system to model anything, is that it tells us what happens. The more information we can get out of it, the better, (though concessions must be made to keep the game playable).

If a hit and resisting the poison can give the same narrative outcome as a miss, then we have no idea what happened and we need to just make something up. Which, I understand is something that holds some appeal for some players, but also makes the system significantly less useful as a model.

 

[Hussar]

Can you point out where it doesn't? We're not trying to establish meat as the One True Way of viewing Hit Points. We're just saying that the position is as-consistent or more-so than the alternative.

If you view every HP as at least partially meat, then it can still be entirely consistent with every definition.

But you are. If we accept Hp as meat then none of the 4e or 5e mechanics work and we are forced to use your interpretation.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How is it consistent that a 10th level fighter takes as long to heal a scratch as a peasant does to recover from accidentally stabbing his-/her foot with a pitchfork?

You're assuming proportional health - that the peasant suffering 1 damage (out of 2 max) is significantly more wounded than the fighter suffering 1 damage (out of 200 max).

Proportional health, while common, is not a requirement of the meat school. Plenty of people will play 1 damage as 1 damage, regardless of max, specifically to answer this conundrum. Even within the meat school, there's a lot of abstraction in Hit Points, so you can address any personal pet peeves by letting slide something that doesn't bother you as much. It will never be a perfect model, of course, since the game still needs to be playable. It just needs to be good enough to let us tell stories that make enough sense, which is something that will vary from person to person.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But you are. If we accept Hp as meat then none of the 4e or 5e mechanics work and we are forced to use your interpretation.

Plenty of people played HP=mojo in 2E and 3E, if these boards are to be believed. The only One True Way we want is Any Way That doesn't Exclude.

If 4E and 5E mechanics exclude the idea of HP = meat, then those editions are guilty of One True Way-ism. (And while I would agree that 4E is quite guilty, I would argue that there's enough room in 5E to play it either way.)

 

[aramis erak]

Not to play gotcha, but both the 1e DMG and 2e PHB mention the "near miss" as part of the category of attacks that do damage.

Yes, but doesn't it also note that they are part of several forms of successful rolls to-hit?

 

[Hussar]

Plenty of people played HP=mojo in 2E and 3E, if these boards are to be believed. The only One True Way we want is Any Way That doesn't Exclude.

If 4E and 5E mechanics exclude the idea of HP = meat, then those editions are guilty of One True Way-ism. (And while I would agree that 4E is quite guilty, I would argue that there's enough room in 5E to play it either way.)

Really? What support did the hp=mojo see in 2e and 3e? At best it was all abstraction, fine and dandy, but because almost all healing was magical it never mattered.

I like the idea of healing surges. It just fits with the definition of hp much better. That's the thing. The hp as meat crowd got away with their interpretation because the mechanics didn't support the definition of hps.