I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[FireLance]

It seems to me that you don't like the answer. For me, HP damage reflects real damage, and when enough of it is taken, game-defined effects like unconsciousness and death kick in. The first hitpoint of damage on a 100 HP character can be narrated as barely more than a papercut or as the weapon going all the way through. It doesn't matter to the game.

To me, "the first hit point of damage on a 100 hp character can be narrated as barely more than a papercut," means that hit points are not entirely physical. I have no problem with the concept that hit points can be proportionately physical, i.e. if it takes 3 hp of damage to kill a normal man, then a high-level adventurer with 90 hit points who has taken 30 hp of damage is physically as beaten up as a normal man who has taken 1 hit point of damage. But for that 90-hit point adventurer to actually be sporting the equivalent of ten wounds, each of which would have been enough to kill a normal man, that strains my suspension of disbelief.

 

[gamerprinter]

To me, "the first hit point of damage on a 100 hp character can be narrated as barely more than a papercut," means that hit points are not entirely physical.

A papercut is physical - ever get one on your tongue? Ouch!

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think I lost some hit points reading through this thread...

How do I get them back and how would you narrate it?

 

[FireLance]

A papercut is physical - ever get one on your tongue? Ouch!

Ah, but if you managed to convert a sword thrust to the head that would have split the skull of a normal man into a papercut on your tongue, not all the damage you took was physical.

I think I lost some hit points reading through this thread...

How do I get them back and how would you narrate it?

Go take a short rest and spend a healing surge.

"And after five minutes spent recovering his composture, MichaelSomething felt capable of turning a sword thrust to the head that would have split the skull of a normal man into a papercut on his tongue again."

 

[gamerprinter]

Ah, but if you managed to convert a sword thrust to the head that would have split the skull of a normal man into a papercut on your tongue, not all the damage you took was physical.

Go take a short rest and spend a healing surge.

"And after five minutes spent recovering his composture, MichaelSomething felt capable of turning a sword thrust to the head that would have split the skull of a normal man into a papercut on his tongue again."

It was self inflicted. I used a paper sword.

 

[Pentius]

If you assume certain definitions about what HP is, assumptions that you disagree with, then they are less realistic. And as I pointed out above, the RAW of 4e say that successful attack rolls do damage, so there is tension in the rules.

You're reaching pretty far here. The assumptions you've chosen to make directly contradict the book. If you want to play that way, then do, play what you like, but don't pretend that the system is at fault for not doing something it explicitly states it isn't trying to do.

Facts not in evidence. It's entirely possible that it depends on playing style. Certainly the CO boards for 3.5 were disdainful of the idea of in-combat healing, so I suspect that certain 3.5 groups didn't have in-combat healing in practice.

And it's still a valid playstyle in 4e, to frontload damage and avoid healing in combat. The Warlord and Runepriest play to this style pretty well. But if 3.5 in-combat healing doesn't count as making combats longer because you don't have to do it, then 4e in-combat healing doesn't count as making combats longer, because you don't have to do it.

 

[prosfilaes]

To me, "the first hit point of damage on a 100 hp character can be narrated as barely more than a papercut," means that hit points are not entirely physical. I have no problem with the concept that hit points can be proportionately physical

It has nothing to do with proportion. IMO, partially shaped by this thread, trying to treat HP as units or measurements is pointless. I take as given that each thing that does HP damage does real damage, and that when you're down to 0 HP, you're staggered, when you down to negative HP, you're unconscious, and when you're down to -10 HP you're dead. Beyond that, the exact connection between HP and damage is left to be narrated as people like.

But for that 90-hit point adventurer to actually be sporting the equivalent of ten wounds, each of which would have been enough to kill a normal man, that strains my suspension of disbelief.

I'm not standing here as an advocate of D&D-style HPs. I find the escalation of HPs from 1d10 for a first level fighter to 20d10 for a 20th level fighter (=an elephant for a fighter with 10 CON, or a tyrannosaurus for 18 CON) to be ludicrous. But I find a system where a attacks do damage to "luck" or "divine protection" to be at least equally ludicrous, and I find a system where scoring a hit on an enemy that decreases HP (which, again, even the 4E PHB says does damage) may not actually be a hit and may not actually do damage to be unplayable.

 

[wedgeski]

Forgive me for skipping a couple of pages of posts... but this game that seems to be in dispute, this retro-linear narrative Schroedinger case-study where no-one in the group knows whether they're alive or dead or what the hell is going on until the fight's over...

What game is that again? Because I'll tell you straight: it bears no resemblance to the 4th Edition D&D we have an awesome time playing every Sunday afternoon.

 

[Pentius]

I think I lost some hit points reading through this thread...

How do I get them back and how would you narrate it?

"Oh, for the love of God..."

*Pentius has used Divine Word!
*MichaelSomething regains 18hp!

Feeling the blessings of the Raven Queen upon him, MichaelSomething realizes his papercut has been healed. However, he feels a strange urge to parry incoming sword attacks with his tongue!

 

[prosfilaes]

The assumptions you've chosen to make directly contradict the book.

I quoted to you the section in the 4E PHB that said when you hit with a combat attack, you do damage. Someone else pointed out the Injury Poison section in 3.5, that connects HP loss to a wound. I don't think the book is consistent here.

If it helps to repeat it:

Injury

This poison must be delivered through a wound. If a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison does not affect it.

But if 3.5 in-combat healing doesn't count as making combats longer because you don't have to do it, then 4e in-combat healing doesn't count as making combats longer, because you don't have to do it.

If the dynamics of the game have changed such that people who didn't find it productive to heal in-combat in 3.5 found it productive to heal in 4e (and I get the impression there's less concern about getting the one character that can heal into touch range to heal in 4e) then that's a change that 4e made that it has to live up to.

In any case, it's beside the point. If one group is saying this is what happened to them when they played, and another group is saying that doesn't happen to them, the fairest explanation, the one you should start at, is that it is indeed happening to the first group and not the second.