Healing Surges innate Blessed band aids
- Thread starter qstor
- Start date
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
But you aren't regenerating. Hitpoints are a lot like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. You can't know what they are unless you look at them and looking at them changes them so the result is no longer correct.Derren said:
So, you need to deal with them in theory without ever defining them. This is the best way to use them and the ONLY way they make sense in all cases. Knowing that someone with 1 hitpoint left is EITHER beaten to a pulp and is bleeding profusely and can barely stand OR their winded and couldn't possibly dodge another blow is all that's important.
However, the way that healing surges tend to work "in practicality" is that they are a way to trade off longer lasting injuries for temporary vitality. I.e. you can survive the next attack against you that would have killed you, but in exchange you are actually hurt.
Hitpoints tend to represent your ability to take no damage at all. You fall off a cliff and it doesn't reduce your hitpoints to 0 then you simply rolled, got a couple minor scrapes and got up.
Healing Surges let you say "I want to be tough enough to take a blow from an ogre after getting up. I'll say that I'm a bit more tired and that I have a nasty cut in exchange for more hitpoints."
But even that analogy doesn't work perfectly. What hitpoints are is a metagame concept designed for providing the optimal play experience in terms of how much pressure players feel they are under, how much danger they are in and how often people should die.
Derren said:
How about with PCs surviving ridiculous things, taking breather, and then going on to survive other ridiculous things? Full HP need not equated with having no injuries.
At one point, in at least one game, I or someone I know is going to play a character that regenerates. It'll be really nice to only have to modify my descriptions instead of having to come up with some way to balance giving anything like the 3E regeneration ability to a PC.
When I was a kid I fell off a swingset and right onto my bottom. It knocked the wind out of me. For about 15 seconds I couldn't breathe, then slowly I was able to start gasping for air again. 5 minutes later I was fine, but with a bit of a sore bottom.Derren said:
Did I regenerate? Or was I just able to settle myself down and re-collect my wits so that I could get back to full health?
Stop thinking that HP represents actual physical wounds. HP is much more abstract.
Xyl
First Post
Hit points do not represent how much physical damage you can take before collapsing. Instead, they represent the ability to survive abstract damage. That ability might take the form of physical toughness, skill, luck, quickness, magical defenses, or anything else that will let you survive a fight longer.
Healing surges, in this scheme, represent the ability to recover your ability to survive after a fight - no matter what the source of that ability. The particular rationalization you use for them depends on what you think your hp represent. The fighter bandages his wounds. The rogue catches her breath and regains her composure. The cleric gives thanks to his god and prays for luck in his next fight as well. The wizard renews the minor defensive spells that deflected enemy blows.
If you wanted to, you could break hp down into all the different things that make it up - wound points, fatigue points, luck points, magical defenses, and whatever else you can think of - and track them seperately, with different rules for recovering them. Or you could just take hitpoints for what they are, a simple to use abstraction of all those things, with a unified recovery mechanic called "healing surges".
Healing surges, in this scheme, represent the ability to recover your ability to survive after a fight - no matter what the source of that ability. The particular rationalization you use for them depends on what you think your hp represent. The fighter bandages his wounds. The rogue catches her breath and regains her composure. The cleric gives thanks to his god and prays for luck in his next fight as well. The wizard renews the minor defensive spells that deflected enemy blows.
If you wanted to, you could break hp down into all the different things that make it up - wound points, fatigue points, luck points, magical defenses, and whatever else you can think of - and track them seperately, with different rules for recovering them. Or you could just take hitpoints for what they are, a simple to use abstraction of all those things, with a unified recovery mechanic called "healing surges".
Charwoman Gene
Adventurer
Majoru Oakheart said:
Sigged
Storm-Bringer
First Post
Wait, are you saying that 4e will actually allow me, as a player, to have some kind of say as to what happens at the table? I won't be forced to attack a dragon until my PC dies? The Cleric won't be casting healing spells on me without my permission? Could it be that I might, possibly, also be able to carry on conversations with NPCs or other players at the table?Khur said:
Joy!
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Majoru Oakheart said:
I'm glad to see that my Quantum Hitpoint Theory is alive and well.
