D&D 5E what is it about 2nd ed that we miss?

[Tony Vargas]

By that same merit, there is no possible realistic world where it's impossible to suffer ill effects that persist longer than a day, because the only ill effect lasting more than a day is death.

Exactly.

One extreme is that a character can suffer multiple broken bones and impalement without noticeably slowing down, until suddenly collapsing. Recovery is either slow, or it requires magic.

The other extreme is that a character can suffer no scratches or bruises whatsoever, because the first hit that actually lands causes instant death.

The former is decidedly unrealistic, even impossible (no matter how inured to pain you may be, a broken bone limits what you're capable of, just mechanically). The latter is merely a weirdly consistent coincidence.

Given the two options, the former is significantly less ridiculous

Other way round. You can sprint at full speed on two shattered femurs: physically impossible. You can reliably 'dodge' the first attack in a battle if you're fresh, but eventually you get yourself instantly killed - implausible, but nothing impossible actually happens.

, and can be somewhat reconciled with the reality described in heroic fantasy novels.

Neither really come that close. What actually happens in heroic fantasy is that heroes survive all sorts of things they shouldn't, 'come back' from serious wounds that are clearly impairing them to take some heroic action that they previously couldn't pull off when perfectly healthy, and are sometimes terribly wounded but get up and at heroically at the risk of 'opening their wounds' and possibly dying.

D&D generally does only the first one. PCs have hps (plot armor) and saving throws that let them survive dangers they shouldn't, without being badly injured to the point of impairment. Second Wind and the like address the second one.

What doesn't happen so much in genre: Hero gets in a minor side-battle with a few mooks, gets skewered through the spleen, but is OK because his Cleric friend lays some glowy healing on him a few seconds later and makes the wound disappear. Magical healing is rare in genre, and even more rarely is it trivial and expected the way it is in D&D.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[RotGrub]

If you're describing hp damage in 2e as wounds that would impair the wounded PC (and the loss of mobility in your shoulder from an arrow wound would likely do so), you're stepping outside of the what the mechanics strictly imply/model. Which is fine. Just be willing to do so for 5e as well as for 2e.

A serious or moderate wound doesn't necessarily impair. You are trying to claim that it always does impair.

All those examples were spells, though. 8 points of damage from Heat Metal might impose some condition, because Heat Metals says so, 12 points of damage from burning oil or 30 from a fireball wouldn't. It's not an example of hp damage imposing a penalty, it's a spell imposing both hp damage, and a condition/penalty.

Caltrops are not spells and either are monster attacks. The Critical hit location rules in the players option books are not spells. Called shots are another mechanic that can be used to inflict them.

Even still, magical fire still burns flesh. You have some situations that impose a penalty and others like fireball that just use hit points. Either is acceptable. Burns represented by hit point loss or burns represented by both.

5e provides options, too. And unlimited license to rule however you like.

Yes and no. Yes you can get away with describing serious wounds whether you have plentiful magical healing and mundane healing so slow it's moot or rare/no magical healing and plentiful heroism, and so in any edition if you really want to. No, you can't describe mere hp damage that doesn't reduce you to 0 as serious wounds in 2e while holding it to the same, unnecessary standard of realism you want to hold 5e too, because there are no penalties or other consequences that such wounds would have.

Again, not all wounds need a penalty or a consequence. Sometimes long natural healing in lieu of magical healing is good enough.

That's not an argument /to/ hold 2e to unreasonable standards of realism, merely to refrain from doing so for other editions, as well.

I'm looking at the lessor evil in this case. Of course, insta-heal is enough for 5e to lose its paladin-hood.

 

[RotGrub]

I don't really want to get tied into this debate, because it's silly, but you're missing a fundamental point. There are no "ill effects" that linger. What does a broken bone mean in D&D? Unless you have mechanics for it (which always seem to involve hitting 0 first) ... then nothing. If you lose 50 hit points at first level, that kinda sucks. If you lose 50 hit points at 20th level as a fighter, well, that's just a gameplay mechanic.

There's no realism modeling. It's just a question of how easy you (as a table) want to make for people to keep on, keepin' on in the adventure.

Lose 50 HP in 2e and you get to roll a sys shock roll or die regardless of level.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't really want to get tied into this debate, because it's silly, but you're missing a fundamental point. There are no "ill effects" that linger.

You're missing a fundamental point, that being kind of beaten up - even if it's only to the mechanical tune of being easier to kill later on - is a meaningful model that can represent a coherent state within the game world.

It may not be realistic (which shouldn't be the goal anyway because elves and magic and stuff), but it's coherent and consistent and objectively measurable within the game world. It's not just a game mechanic.

It's kind of like modeling hair color within an RPG. Even if it almost never matters, barring the unlikely situation where you go against a monster or NPC with a special grudge against certain hair colors, it's still an objectively true fact within this world that we're modeling. If you have red hair, then some people will treat you differently, and you can hide it if you wear a hat or shave your head. If you are injured, then some people will treat you differently, and you will be easier to kill for as long as the injury persists.

The fact that Hit Points have an objective meaning within the game world is way more important than the degree to which its mechanical penalties (or lack thereof) mirror the real world.


Edit: The minimum requirement for a playable RPG is that it models some sort of objective reality. The minimum requirement for a good RPG is that it models a reality which meets a minimum threshold of what an individual player finds acceptable.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

Hit points are very abstract, not just in 2e, but in all editions. Enough so that you can't go mapping them to specific types/severity of wounds and still have it make sense. That's the point I was trying to make.

I think that RotGrub & Saelorn are saying that the assumptions in 2e (always a cleric around, adventurers never used the "rest-overnight" rules because magic) allows them to create a "specific subset of mapping wounds". Which they term as "2e". Valid viewpoint.

For most players, it's a matter of suspension of disbelief, and how far you're willing to go before you draw the line.
(...)
from a practical perspective, you could define injury however you felt like in 2E because it was just going to be healed with magic anyway. The fact that you could sleep it off with two weeks of intensive care was not something that usually came up during gameplay, since the cleric was going to patch you up within three days

A related question: How do you handle blunt-weapon damage in 2e? Maces, Clubs, a Giant's swinging fists... Do they have any "visible" physical effect at all? How is a guy who was Maul'd 3 times (say he has half hp left) described differently than a guy at full hitpoints? Or did this issue never come up in your games?

I ask because I have a friend who suffered a 20+ foot fall less than a year ago. Not sure of the exact height (we haven't bothered to measure it), but he was fixing a ventalation fan in an airduct straight above groundlevel. He kinda landed on soft cloth, but his arm was also jerked around by debris.
Anyway, he was very fortunate:
- He landed on his back and only dislocated his shoulder
- He had no initial pain (I guess the shock and endorphins let him function normally)
- But he couldn't put his arm down (his arm was stuck in an upright flex position)
- He drove to the doctor, who popped the shoulder back in place and gave him a sling

How would this event be described in your 2e game?
I guess you could handwave it under "fall damage", but isn't fall damage just a form of blunt-impact damage?
Are the 2e HP (MeatPoints or ClericPoints) able to handle blunt-weapon hits?
Or are all blunt-weapons just part of the 2e disbelief?
Did all fighters use edged weapons in your game?

Genuinely curious.

Can you imagine a world which worked that way, though? (Where small cuts, concussions, and fractures can't co-exist due to the overnight-healing rate?) In the same world with elves and dragons, where we have cheap steel that never breaks under normal usage, could we also have mighty heroes who recover from fractures within a week?

Which world is easier to imagine depends ... on the answers in this thread
4e PlotPoints vs. 2e HeirophantPoints; I can't decide which is the true D&D !!!

 

[RotGrub]

I'm not sure about arrows. But in the real world a bullet in the shoulder has a 3-6 month recovery time. And is pretty debilitating for melee combat and even moreso for archery. To call an arrow in the shoulder not a serious wound is ... trivialising.

That's fine because in D&D magical healing can trivialize this so it can be described as HP damage. A serious wound is not always debilitating,

You're functional with no penalty.

Why is that a problem? Why is a penalty always needed?

That 1 HP remaining on a clay golem could certainly be the result of several direct critical hits from a barbarian's great axe. HP loss remains as you described it for the situation at hand. It doesn't always mean the same thing either. If you describe a hit that requires a penalty then you need to provide one or find a rule for it.

But Cure Serious Wounds can't cure anything that bedrest can't as long as the character isn't bleeding to death. In 2e the French King who had a splinter lodged in his brain would have either survived because 2e characters are incredibly tough (most of them are tough enough to take the worst possible consequence of an orc attacking them from behind with an axe for a minute - even 4e doesn't get close to that) or would have required a Restoration or Regeneration spell.

Well in 2e the king would be healed by magic and that fact alone would calm any complaints about realism.

In 5e, the healer feat immediately restores him to 1 HP and the king uses his Second Wind and Hit Dice to ignore injury.

I think I'd rather go with 2e solution since it doesn't create more issues.

And the point I'm making here is that the 2e resting times are amazingly fast. They might be slower than 4e or 5e - but they are still blindingly fast. (And that most cure spells won't cure anything that resting won't). Claiming that 2e has "very long resting times" is a joke.

That's fine, but it's not two days or less. I'd gladly increase the resting times in 2e if it became a problem, but most of the time healing magic is used so the situation never comes up.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think that RotGrub & Saelorn are saying that the assumptions in 2e (always a cleric around, adventurers never used the "rest-overnight" rules because magic) allows them to create a "specific subset of mapping wounds". Which they term as "2e". Valid viewpoint.

Except that it's not valid, because the kinds of wounds they want to map to hps aren't otherwise modeled by the system - they have to go beyond/ignore the system to get there.

Though that's a good summary of the assumptions of 2e.

A serious or moderate wound doesn't necessarily impair.

How moderately have you been wounded that you can say that with confidence?

Seriously, though wherever you want to draw the impairing line, you can't cross it (in 2e) if the victim has hps left after inflicting the damage.

If you want to say that taking arrows through major joints and getting your chest slashed open isn't 'impairing' fine. But, then, there'd be no problem soldiering on after a Second Wind in those cases, either.

Caltrops are not spells and either are monster attacks. The Critical hit location rules in the players option books are not spells. Called shots are another mechanic that can be used to inflict them.

So, on the one hand, you're trying to limit the discussion to 0 hps = death, because death's door is optional, on the other, you're invoking stuff from much later books.

It doesn't change anything. You step on a caltrop, take a little damage & a penalty. You get hit for much more damage: no penalty.

Again, not all wounds need a penalty or a consequence.

They do if you set the bar for realism (or whatever it is you're getting at with your "I can't narrate wounds how I want because HD" complaint) high enough. Which you do, for 5e, but not for 2e.

Sometimes long natural healing in lieu of magical healing is good enough.

When you just have nothing to do for the next few weeks, sure. But that's when it literally doesn't matter. A match will do better than a fireball if all you want to do is light a candle, that doesn't make the match equal to the fireball.

I'm looking at the lessor evil in this case.

What is the evil leasing?

Of course, insta-heal is enough for 5e to lose its paladin-hood.

You got a little too metaphorical there. So you have a double-standard and judge a new edition more harshly than an older one. You're not able to be objective, nor even fair about it. OK, that's where you want to be, enjoy playing 2e.

You're missing a fundamental point, that being kind of beaten up - even if it's only to the mechanical tune of being easier to kill later on - is a meaningful model that can represent a coherent state within the game world.

Sure, and so would be getting over that 'easier to kill later on' part fairly quickly, without the visible evidence of the beating - those bruises, scratches & the like, needing to magically disappear. In fact, that's very much in keeping with genre, especially as seen on the screen.

it's still an objectively true fact within this world that we're modeling.

There is no objective truth in an imagined world. It's being imagined. You may write 'red' under hair-color on your character sheet and say your character has red hair. You might imagine it a bright, coppery red. Another player may imagine something closer to auburn or strawberry blond, the DM might imagine your character having primary-color red hair like an anime character.
It ain't objective, it never will be.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A related question: How do you handle blunt-weapon damage in 2e? Maces, Clubs, a Giant's swinging fists... Do they have any "visible" physical effect at all? How is a guy who was Maul'd 3 times (say he has half hp left) described differently than a guy at full hitpoints? Or did this issue never come up in your games?

The maul'd guy would look super beaten up, maybe a broken nose, and a bunch of bruises. Given that he survived this maul-ing, it was probably a fighter or paladin, which means he was probably wearing heavy armor at the time, which could cause abrasions.

How would this event be described in your 2e game?
I guess you could handwave it under "fall damage", but isn't fall damage just a form of blunt-impact damage?
Are the 2e HP (MeatPoints or ClericPoints) able to handle blunt-weapon hits?
Or are all blunt-weapons just part of the 2e disbelief?

It's just falling damage. People in D&D worlds tend to not get the sorts of specific, debilitating injuries that befall people in the real world. They trend toward being a little more resilient than real-life people.

Did all fighters use edged weapons in your game?

From a practical perspective, yes. Edged weapons did more damage than blunt ones, which is why they were almost always used by anyone who could.

Likewise, heavier armor was just better than light armor, so everyone would wear the heaviest armor they could, and the size of your hit die also corresponded roughly to the armor you were expected to wear. If you could survive three hits from a maul, then you had a lot of HP, but you also probably had heavy armor. If you couldn't survive three hits from a maul, and you weren't just a low-level chump, then it was because you were a squishy wizard (and you weren't wearing armor). Both HP and armor proficiency were used to model the toughness of a character. If you're trying to figure out how people react in situations where they aren't wearing armor, then you're leaving the realm of design assumptions that are fundamental to the game.

 

[RotGrub]

A related question: How do you handle blunt-weapon damage in 2e? Maces, Clubs, a Giant's swinging fists... Do they have any "visible" physical effect at all? How is a guy who was Maul'd 3 times (say he has half hp left) described differently than a guy at full hitpoints? Or did this issue never come up in your games?

I ask because I have a friend who suffered a 20+ foot fall less than a year ago. Not sure of the exact height (we haven't bothered to measure it), but he was fixing a ventalation fan in an airduct straight above groundlevel. He kinda landed on soft cloth, but his arm was also jerked around by debris.
Anyway, he was very fortunate:
- He landed on his back and only dislocated his shoulder
- He had no initial pain (I guess the shock and endorphins let him function normally)
- But he couldn't put his arm down (his arm was stuck in an upright flex position)
- He drove to the doctor, who popped the shoulder back in place and gave him a sling

How would this event be described in your 2e game?
I guess you could handwave it under "fall damage", but isn't fall damage just a form of blunt-impact damage?
Are the 2e HP (MeatPoints or ClericPoints) able to handle blunt-weapon hits?
Or are all blunt-weapons just part of the 2e disbelief?
Did all fighters use edged weapons in your game?

Genuinely curious.

Good question. Here is the argument from the 2e PHB that speaks to your falling damage issue.

Falling

Player characters have a marvelous (and, to the DM, vastly amusing) tendency to fall off things, generally from great heights and almost always onto hard surfaces. While the falling is harmless, the abrupt stop at the end tends to cause damage. When a character falls, he suffers 1d6 points of damage for every 10 feet fallen, to a maximum of 20d6 (which for game purposes can be considered terminal velocity). This method is simple and it provides all the realism necessary in the game. It is not a scientific calculation of the rate of acceleration, exact terminal velocity, mass, impact energy, etc., of the falling body. The fact of the matter is that physical laws may describe the exact motion of a body as it falls through space, but relatively little is known about the effects of impact. The distance fallen is not the only determining factor in how badly a person is hurt. Other factors may include elasticity of the falling body and the ground, angle of impact, shock wave through the falling body, dumb luck, and more. People have actually fallen from great heights and survived, albeit very rarely. The current record-holder, Vesna Vulovic, survived a fall from a height of 33,330 feet in 1972, although she was severely injured. Flight-Sergeant Nicholas S. Alkemade actually fell 18,000 feet--almost 3.5 miles--without a parachute and landed uninjured! The point of all this is roll the dice, as described above, and don't worry too much about science.

Being Mauled 3 times is 3 separate descriptions of damage.

I don't see any reason why they need to be described differently based on the number of current hit points. I'd most likely describe one bashing in his armor and causing internal injuries. The second blow might break a rib or two. And another might simply daze him and knock his shield aside.

Now do I need penalties for these injuries? Nope, I think a hero can fight on and suck it up until he gets magical healing. The player can role play his character screaming from the pain as he swings his mighty sword back in his foes direction.