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D&D 4E 4e Healing - Is This Right?
- Thread starter Archade
- Start date
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
Well, not for me. But this approach "didn't work" for Jeff or KarinsDad, so... Well, I guess I leave it at that. There is really no longer a point to discuss the topic. It's time for a new hot topic, I think.keterys said:
Storm-Bringer
First Post
Assuming Cadfan was not being sarcastic:glass said:
How convenient, then, that 4e fixed that by giving everyone their own "healing surge" amount.
is a circular argument by way of begging the question. It is presumed that healing is 'broken' in 3.x, therefore, a different mechanic 'fixes' it. As 4e provides that mechanic, 4e has 'fixed' what was 'broken' in 3.x with healing.
In and of itself, not an untenable set of premises and conclusion. Certainly one that is reasonably debatable. Except, the 'broken-ness' of 3e is a premise, and the conclusion. Hence, 'begging the question'.
If it helps (and sometimes I get headaches reading about formal and informal logic), Wikipedia has a decent article on the subject.
Of course, if Cadfan was using sarcasm, mea culpa.
glass
(he, him)
Cadfan was responding to a comment from someone on your 'side' that magical healing was illogical in previous editions, whatever you decide hp models. It is about the only thing everyone* in this thread agrees on.Storm-Bringer said:
EDIT: To whit:
KarinsDad said:
glass.
(* Apart from you, apparently)
Last edited:
Storm-Bringer
First Post
I don't agree or disagree. I find Karinsdad's argument compelling, if not wholly convincing.glass said:
In any case, using Karinsdad's conclusion as a premise is no less begging the question than if Cadfan had used it directly. Karinsdad's conclusion is still debatable, therefore it is not a useful premise. Were Cadfan's conclusion to be '4e healing is better', it wouldn't be begging the question, but would be open to debate, as the premise '3.x healing is broken' is debatable.
Incidentally, everyone on every D&D message board can conclude that 'healing is illogical', but that, in and of itself, doesn't make for sufficient evidence to be a valid conclusion.
Storm-Bringer
First Post
In fact, the 1st Edition PHB states that most damage at higher levels is not physical, but nearly all damage at lower levels is physical damage. Mr Gygax goes on at some length to delineate the differences, but it ends up being a more or less definite assertion that the first few levels of hit points plus Con bonus is physical damage capacity.KarinsDad said:
Ulorian - Agent of Chaos
Legend
Someone has used the term 'begging the question' correctly! *weeps with joy*Storm-Bringer said:
Healing Surges are a new resource in 4e and they seem to be just as important as Hit Points. After all, natural and magical healing seems to key off of them and certain negative-energy-style attacks seem to drain healing surges.
If you factor the slow drain of Healing Surges into the analysis of a combatant's physical ability over the course of an adventuring day, the combatant is not fully healed at all even when at full hit points. All the hit points represent is how much damage the combatant can take in the course of an encounter before dying, not the sum total of damage the combatant can accept throughout the day. In other words, a combatant is more likely to survive a lot of damage spread throughout the day than he/she would suffering the same amount of damage in a very short period of time. When the combatant uses a Healing Surge, he/she is not mending wounds but is instead shaking off the effects of the wound- losing a Healing Surge in exchange for regaining short-term durability in combat. A decrease in Healing Surges represents a diminishment of health as much as a decrease in Hit Points (if not more so).
Of course, this only applies to the use of Healing Surges to "heal" throughout the day. The complete refreshment of both Hit Points and Healing Surges over the course of an Extended Rest is not so easily explained. I can understand how that would bother some folks, prompting a houserule (if you intend to play 4e). However, it doesn't bother me- it fits in with movie-style action enough and streamlines bookkeeping enough to justify the rule's existence. Yes, action-movie-healing can be modeled under the old hit point system, but it can also be modeled under this system and can be done so with greater ease.
As for absurd examples of falling off of cliffs or whatnot, all past versions of D&D allowed ridiculous survival where reason would otherwise prohibit it. I suggest that the next time a PC falls off of a cliff, no matter what system you use, give the PC a saving throw. If the PC succeeds, they are severely crippled (as in immobilized & dazed) until medical/magical attention cures them of that state; if they fail, they die. The end. Hit points from any version of D&D are useless for modeling such corner cases so don't try- use your head and come up with something else instead.
If you factor the slow drain of Healing Surges into the analysis of a combatant's physical ability over the course of an adventuring day, the combatant is not fully healed at all even when at full hit points. All the hit points represent is how much damage the combatant can take in the course of an encounter before dying, not the sum total of damage the combatant can accept throughout the day. In other words, a combatant is more likely to survive a lot of damage spread throughout the day than he/she would suffering the same amount of damage in a very short period of time. When the combatant uses a Healing Surge, he/she is not mending wounds but is instead shaking off the effects of the wound- losing a Healing Surge in exchange for regaining short-term durability in combat. A decrease in Healing Surges represents a diminishment of health as much as a decrease in Hit Points (if not more so).
Of course, this only applies to the use of Healing Surges to "heal" throughout the day. The complete refreshment of both Hit Points and Healing Surges over the course of an Extended Rest is not so easily explained. I can understand how that would bother some folks, prompting a houserule (if you intend to play 4e). However, it doesn't bother me- it fits in with movie-style action enough and streamlines bookkeeping enough to justify the rule's existence. Yes, action-movie-healing can be modeled under the old hit point system, but it can also be modeled under this system and can be done so with greater ease.
As for absurd examples of falling off of cliffs or whatnot, all past versions of D&D allowed ridiculous survival where reason would otherwise prohibit it. I suggest that the next time a PC falls off of a cliff, no matter what system you use, give the PC a saving throw. If the PC succeeds, they are severely crippled (as in immobilized & dazed) until medical/magical attention cures them of that state; if they fail, they die. The end. Hit points from any version of D&D are useless for modeling such corner cases so don't try- use your head and come up with something else instead.
HeavenShallBurn
First Post
Nothing against you Lurker but since I'm your polar opposite I am going to explain precisely where I sit with regards to versimilitude and HP and the reason why.
It's modeling a place where a high level fighter is literally tougher than an elephant or a T-Rex and can single-handedly kill thousands of low-level characters because he's not an ordinary guy. If he were he'd be a low-level NPC. That 33rd level barbarian who just lost 120 hit points isn't covered in superficial bruises if they were superficial they never would have gotten past AC. He's got half a dozen swords and some arrows sticking out of him, and he's doing just fine because he's so F**#ing metal that it makes Khorne weeps tears of burning pitch and wish he was that badass. And when he reaches the castle wall he'll tear the gate apart with his bare hands, beat 170 low-level guardsmen down with an axe that weighs more than they do and stomp the evil king to death under his booted feet.
Because it's magic he wasn't recovering the ability to duck and weave if he'd successfully ducked and weaved he wouldn't have taken HP damage, the blows would never have topped Ac and thus missed entirely or glanced harmlessly from armor.Lurker37 said:
Let's turn this around said Greatsword has a damage statistic, this doesn't do #$%# damage, it does a predictable 2d6. So no matter who wields it the weapon itself does a maximum of 12 damage or if it crits a 24. Even assuming a stat modifier appropriate to a lvl20 fighter that's at least two nearly maximum non-crit damage from the unmodified weapon. The weapon must beat AC to deal damage and attacks that miss AC are described as insufficient to landLurker37 said:
So if it has struck a "solid, damaging blow" and done nearly the maximum damage possible for the weapon then in order to meet these conditions the weapon must have created a telling wound. Based on HP progression a blow that would have killed low level characters. But clearly having 170HP left he can survive many more such blows.PHB 135 said:
Because D&D is not a simulation of OUR reality, and concerns of IRL realism have no place in it. Versimilitude and simulation CAN be about "realism" but don't Have to be, the term covers an entire range so long as the constructed simulation remains internally consistent with itself. Which is the place abstract HP in every previous edition of D&D have failed when looked at systemically with no concerns as to whether it was modeling a "reality" like ours. The answer is it's not.Lurker37 said:
It's modeling a place where a high level fighter is literally tougher than an elephant or a T-Rex and can single-handedly kill thousands of low-level characters because he's not an ordinary guy. If he were he'd be a low-level NPC. That 33rd level barbarian who just lost 120 hit points isn't covered in superficial bruises if they were superficial they never would have gotten past AC. He's got half a dozen swords and some arrows sticking out of him, and he's doing just fine because he's so F**#ing metal that it makes Khorne weeps tears of burning pitch and wish he was that badass. And when he reaches the castle wall he'll tear the gate apart with his bare hands, beat 170 low-level guardsmen down with an axe that weighs more than they do and stomp the evil king to death under his booted feet.
I believe we have different visions of what constitutes "larger than life." Simply put if I wanted the sort of low-power quasi-IRL experience you're talking about I would have re-enlisted. D&D is at least in my view supposed to be about the flagrantly impossible heroics of myth at high level. The low levels are what sets you up with a more grounded base and provides an example of how far past ordinary heroes go as they level up. There's nothing wrong in what either of us prefer. But we're using radically different imagery and themes, ones that might do with some illumination into the WHY.Lurker37 said:
If you can talk about "simulating" someone with 50 arrows sticking out of him, you can just as easily talk about "simulating"...
... someone whose wounds close up when he uses a second wind.
... someone who is out cold at -10 hp and suddenly gets up again.
... someone who is at 1 hp after being beaten down by orcs, but still has perfect hair.
It's all to do with how metal you are, right?
... someone whose wounds close up when he uses a second wind.
... someone who is out cold at -10 hp and suddenly gets up again.
... someone who is at 1 hp after being beaten down by orcs, but still has perfect hair.
It's all to do with how metal you are, right?
