April 3rd, Rule of 3

[Teataine]

Here's the thing about HP: for me the suspension of disbelief in relation to HP gets punched in the face the moment the party's fighter can take more physical trauma than an elephant after gaining a few levels.

There is no way hit points can be justified as simply "harm" or "wounds" beyond first level.

In a martial art where you fight with weapons, one hit almost always means "game over". Up to there it's all about stamina, jockeying for position, having the upper ground, pressing an attack vs. falling back, reaction time, reflexes, being able to parry etc. etc. That's the only thing that HP can sensibly represent in my eyes. So I never had a problem with healing surges (and Warlords "shouting your wounds closed") conceptually, even if I don't play 4E. Their mechanical implementation is a different matter, but everyone who dismisses healing surges on the grounds of being "unrealistic" is imo missing how HP work in all editions so far. Gygax himself wrote in the 1st Ed DMG that HP were more than physical health, as quoted way above in this thread.

As for the classes, they clearly said they want to launch the game with "everything that has been in every first PHB ever" so all the stuff from Dragonborn to Assassins to whatever is probably in. "Core" in this context means the basic mechanical framework, not what will be in the game at release.

I think reactions like TwinBahamut's are really insubstantial fears, coupled with a very uncharitable reading of WotC's intentions and articles.

Anyway, the first playtest will probably be out after PAX, so let's just wait a little longer, yeah?

 

[Gundark]

Wow, at first its " wotc is throwing 4e under the bus!" . Now its "wotc is including 4e stuff , I am out!"

They can't win.

 

[Dausuul]

My requirements for hit points are:

1. "Hit" means "hit" rather than "miss," "heal" means "heal" rather than "catch your breath," and "damage" means "damage" rather than "tired." Abstraction is one thing, but I'm not on board with any system that requires rewriting the dictionary. If you want hit point recovery that isn't healing, stop using "heal" as a synonym for "regain hit points." A hit that deals damage can be a glancing blow, shallow cut, etc., but anything that's called a "hit" should physically connect and anything that's called "damage" should be some kind of injury, even if only superficial.

2. Long-term damage is possible, and happens from time to time. Furthermore, a mortal wound can be identified as such in the moment; a character who is on the ground dying (negative hit points, making death saves) is really on the ground dying, not in a Schrodinger's Cat state where they are both mortally wounded and merely knocked out until something happens to force them into one state or the other (the warlord yells at them, they die, etc.).

3. It is never a good strategy to wait until somebody's hit points go negative before dropping a healing spell on that person. I see this All. The. Time. in 4E, and it's a major nuisance.

4. Something else that came up in a discussion with a friend this past weekend: PCs should not transition abruptly from "totally fine" to "desperate and staggering." This is something that's happened in all editions, but is especially glaring in 4E: As long as the party's healing surges hold out, they're okay to keep going. The only resources that get expended are daily powers, which make up a relatively small amount of the party's total power. But as soon as the healing surges run low, the party falls off a cliff. I would like a system where that transition is more gradual.

 

[dkyle]

Depends on how they work it. For me, surges aren't great because they weaken they split HP into two halves that only ever partially meet. It's the whole "I'm down to 2 hp, I'm almost dead!....but only in combat. Once we're out of combat, I'm down 4 surges, which sucks, but I've got at least 2 more where that came from. Guess my mortal wound was really more of a bad sprain?"

It was never a "mortal wound". Because you would never die from that wound, no matter what. The next wound taken would be a possible mortal wound if it does 2 or more damage. Also, typically, people take some kind of ill effect from mortal wounds, even before they die or fall unconscious.

2 HP means you are vulnerable to being killed/KO'd by any further damage. It could just mean that you've lost focus, and your guard is way down. It doesn't, and has never meant, a "mortal wound".

That disjunction musses too much with my suspension of disbelief for me to think of it as Fun Times.

It seems like the problem with Healing Surges is only that they're new. They don't really do anything that HP doesn't already do. HP is completely nonsensical and very abstract, but it's been around forever, so it's just accepted as a matter of course.

OTOH, though, you can just translate surges into raw HP pretty easily, and then you get that slow decrease of health gameplay aspect right back.

That eliminates a lot of gameplay and strategic/tactical decisions. Healing Surges are basically just extra HP, yes, but they take effort to "unlock" in combat, and you still have a max HP, so you can't just spend them all out-of-combat.

 

[dkyle]

1. "Hit" means "hit" rather than "miss," "heal" means "heal" rather than "catch your breath," and "damage" means "damage" rather than "tired." Abstraction is one thing, but I'm not on board with any system that requires rewriting the dictionary. If you want hit point recovery that isn't healing, stop using "heal" as a synonym for "regain hit points." A hit that deals damage can be a glancing blow, shallow cut, etc., but anything that's called a "hit" should physically connect and anything that's called "damage" should be some kind of injury, even if only superficial.

2. Long-term damage is possible, and happens from time to time.

So to be clear, you want things that have never been a part of any edition of D&D, ever? That doesn't sound like what 5E is going for.

Gygax himself described HP as largely intangible, with only a few being actual physical damage.

Overall, it seems awfully nit-picky to let a little game jargon get in your way. Every game "rewrites the dictionary". That's how jargon works (and every game has jargon). You take words, and you assign new, specific meanings to them.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

So to be clear, you want things that have never been a part of any edition of D&D, ever? That doesn't sound like what 5E is going for.

Gygax himself described HP as largely intangible, with only a few being actual physical damage.

Overall, it seems awfully nit-picky to let a little game jargon get in your way. Every game "rewrites the dictionary". That's how jargon works (and every game has jargon). You take words, and you assign new, specific meanings to them.

I agree with you as well as with Dausuul.

Healing should not be called heling if it only restores hp. Cure serious wounds should do more than just replenish some hp. Hitting should mean, that after battle some treatment is needed, even if it is just washing out scratches.

Beeing really hurt means long term damage, that no second wind can restore. Constitution should play the larger part of that in some form. Level based hp should be the more intangible part. Starting class hp could be both.

 

[dkyle]

I agree with you as well as with Dausuul.

Healing should not be called heling if it only restores hp. Cure serious wounds should do more than just replenish some hp. Hitting should mean, that after battle some treatment is needed, even if it is just washing out scratches.

Beeing really hurt means long term damage, that no second wind can restore. Constitution should play the larger part of that in some form. Level based hp should be the more intangible part. Starting class hp could be both.

I've suggested before that perhaps we could have a very simple wound system, that works like this:

At half, quarter, and zero HP, a wound is taken. Each wound is -1 to most rolls. Wounds are not automatically healed when HP is recovered, and if you've alread taken a wound at a given level, you don't take it again if you go above, and then back down (so only 3 wounds max, ever). Non-magical HP recovery would exist, but Wound recovery would be only magical, or long-term.

If need be, HP recovery might not be called "healing"; only wound-healing would be "Healing". But that seems needlessly confusing to me. "Damage" has always been jargon for "reduce HP". I'm not sure why "Heal" can't be jargon for "increase HP".

 

[DEFCON 1]

No WotC, it is not early in the "process". There is no process going on here whatsoever. Spill some beans and let people honestly criticize what you've done and then fix it.

They already have. Those people are called 'playtesters'. And they've been doing this 'playtesting' thing for a while now.

Just because you're not currently one of them doesn't mean they don't exist and aren't doing the job.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I've suggested before that perhaps we could have a very simple wound system, that works like this:

At half, quarter, and zero HP, a wound is taken. Each wound is -1 to most rolls. Wounds are not automatically healed when HP is recovered, and if you've alread taken a wound at a given level, you don't take it again if you go above, and then back down (so only 3 wounds max, ever). Non-magical HP recovery would exist, but Wound recovery would be only magical, or long-term.

If need be, HP recovery might not be called "healing"; only wound-healing would be "Healing". But that seems needlessly confusing to me. "Damage" has always been jargon for "reduce HP". I'm not sure why "Heal" can't be jargon for "increase HP".

No. No -1 at percentage of hp. No death spiral for me. If they would implement this, it was the first thing i ruled out.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

While this isn't exactly what I'd prefer, it's illustrative of the idea using 4E terms.

You can use a second wind or otherwise recover hit points without magical healing as long as you are not bloodied.

Bloodied characters can only be healed by magic.

Drop below zero, you are wounded, plus any other near death effects. Magical healing can bring you above zero, but only more powerful magic or time can heal your wound.