Healing in 4e actually makes very good sense here, a typical healing heals 25% of your health. If you need any reasoning about the healing surges, just look at how healing works in the Wheel of Time book series. Multiple complete heals a day was not possible because it used your bodies energy to a large degree.
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How do you reconcile hit points?
- Thread starter Greenfield
- Start date
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Right, there has to be a point at which they are actually taking more damage, and can just handle it better. Some kind of conditioning means that they operate with wounds, not attack or hits, but wounds that would drop others.
This is not entirely unrealistic. I mean, the way its done in D&D is, but there are though stories of people getting really really hurt and still up and doing stuff.
This is not entirely unrealistic. I mean, the way its done in D&D is, but there are though stories of people getting really really hurt and still up and doing stuff.
I'm sorry, but it breaks my verisimilitude and immersion for a Fighter to have a vastly longer recovery time than the Wizard. Mechanics are the physics of the world after all, and broken mechanics mean a broken world. Pretending it isn't so isn't a solution.
This is part of why I prefer 4E for a more immersive roleplaying experience. Less need to pretend that broken game mechanics don't undermine the world.
OK - but it's par for the course in a system that uses ablative hit points and no injury modeling.
Not in any of my settings/campaigns/games. Mechanics are, at most, a very loose approximation kinda-sorta-maybe-not quite of the "physics" of the world. Mainly, they're tools that help answer the question "what happens next?". Casting mechanics in the role of physics always struck me as a sure-fire may to create a ridiculous, cartoonish video-game of a world (while intending to do the opposite).
Now that's funny! I don't think mechanics have much to do with the 'world' at all. The world, the setting - they're fiction (and should be judged as such). Mostly independent of mechanics.
OK. But for the record, I'm not pretending anything. I don't think pre-4e hit points are "broken" -- though I do really like 4e's take on HP, healing, surges, etc.-- and, more generally speaking, I find mechanics have very little to with immersion and/or verisimilitude.
I've created good settings/worlds using AD&D 2e, 3e, and 4e, and right now, I'm running an AD&D campaign using our 4e homebrew. It's working fine.
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Greenfield
Adventurer
Regarding 4e Healing: Being able to go from "near death" to "full health" in 24 seconds, without magic, isn't in the same time zone as "making perfect sense". With magic you at least have the excuse that it's magic. But simply be expending Healing Surges? Sorry, but whatever WOTC was selling there, I'mk not buying.
I've seen the "magic force field" approach, whether you call it "abstract damage" or "he spent 12 hit points avoiding the axe", it still doesn't explain why similar wounds require vastly different amounts of healing. And they certainly don't explain why a person with "magic force field" type points can be poisoned by a dagger that (by that rationale) never actually touched them.
From a functional stand point, I think most people follow the "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" approach: Don't think about it too much.
And that's okay. I didn't expect a real resolution. They haven't been able to resolve it in ten* editions now, I don't think we're going to suddenly come up with the answer.
*D&D, Basic D&D, Expert Rules D&D, Immortal Rules D&D, AD&D, 2nd Edition D&D, 3rd Edition D&D, D&D 3.5, 4th Edition D&D, and in all liklihood D&DNext)
I've seen the "magic force field" approach, whether you call it "abstract damage" or "he spent 12 hit points avoiding the axe", it still doesn't explain why similar wounds require vastly different amounts of healing. And they certainly don't explain why a person with "magic force field" type points can be poisoned by a dagger that (by that rationale) never actually touched them.
From a functional stand point, I think most people follow the "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" approach: Don't think about it too much.
And that's okay. I didn't expect a real resolution. They haven't been able to resolve it in ten* editions now, I don't think we're going to suddenly come up with the answer.
*D&D, Basic D&D, Expert Rules D&D, Immortal Rules D&D, AD&D, 2nd Edition D&D, 3rd Edition D&D, D&D 3.5, 4th Edition D&D, and in all liklihood D&DNext)
Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
Hit points are wibbly-wobbly, pointy-wointy... stuff.
In other words, they make my brain hurt whenever I try to think about them 'seriously'.
In other words, they make my brain hurt whenever I try to think about them 'seriously'.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I like the idea of natural healing being percentage-based, personally. IMC, I've used a "you're healed up to full" weeklong rest for a few months now, and, much like 4e's extended rest, it's been solid.
Dice4Hire
First Post
Perhaps if Next had percentage based healing it would be better. It works well in 4E.
I do agree somewhat that it is odd for a low hit point character and a high hit point character to need vastly different numbers of CLWs to heal.
But really, it is an argument/topic that cannot really be solved, and trying to take hit points and put them into physical injuries just never works.
I do agree somewhat that it is odd for a low hit point character and a high hit point character to need vastly different numbers of CLWs to heal.
But really, it is an argument/topic that cannot really be solved, and trying to take hit points and put them into physical injuries just never works.
But "what happens next?" is all physics really is. When X thing happens, it causes Y thing to happen.
If both a Fighter and a Wizard receive the same outcome in a combat (both knocked out), then the rules say "what happens next"; in pre-3E, barring magical healing, the Fighter will tend to take much longer to recover than the Wizard.
You say it's incorrect to even question this. That doesn't make much sense to me.
But if the mechanics flatly contradict the world, then why would you want to use those mechanics for that world? If the mechanics aren't useful for governing how the world operates, and predicting how it reacts to what the players do, what's the point of the mechanics?
Obviously, mechanics don't cover every aspect of how the world works. But within the domain of what the mechanics cover, should they not reflect and determine how the world works?
No, it doesn't make sense to go from "near death" to "full health" in seconds without magic. But that's not what the mechanics imply. Since HP is abstract, it's up to you to decide what they actually represent within the game world. Therefore, it's on you if you decide to make them represent something impossible, when a perfectly reasonable explanation is available: that the character wasn't "near death", but simply knocked senseless for a moment, winded, or even just had their morale broken.
It makes perfect sense to go from low, or even negative, HP to full without magic because HP are abstract. 4E makes sense because it treats healing as being as abstract as damage has always been, whereas previous editions treated HP recovery as though every point of HP represented actual wounds closing up.
Well, 4E fixes the first part, with the healing; the abstract damage that HP has always been now actually makes sense here.
The poisoned dagger still doesn't make perfect sense, but can at least be justified as the attacks being superficial flesh wounds that are themselves not very dangerous or hard to ignore, but sufficient to deliver the poison.
Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
I DM 4e, where your particular contradiction usually doesn't apply. (Healing potions being the odd exception.)
But when I play other editions -- and heck, most other games with hp -- and to reconcile 4e's healing surges, I say that in-game healing just doesn't work like real world healing. Or rather, in-game biology just doesn't work quite like real world biology. Everyone has a certain amount of life energy -- chakra, spirit, magic mojo, or whatever you like -- that literally turns blows, transmutes poison, regenerates seared flesh, and so on.
And it makes sense -- because this is a fantasy game, yes? (Well, unless you're playing d20 Modern or something, in which case I can't help ya!) In a world filled with magic, it shouldn't be surprising that everyone is a little magical. Of course, in-game people don't call their protective energy 'magic'; they just call it 'how the world works.'
