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I don't get the dislike of healing surges
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5698107" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>The reason why I've never considered hit point loss to be "real" damage or injury is because of the loss of versimilitude I see between D&D combat and "real" combat if I did.</p><p></p><p>In actually swordfighting... especially between highly armored individuals, you usually don't see actual real injury occur until one of them manages a killing blow. Instead, you see two guys getting bruised, getting tired, getting their bells rung, slowing down, perhaps get some small cuts across the face or arm... until <em>finally</em> someone manages to get their weapon past their opponent's defenses and cuts off a limb, or guts the other guy in the stomach or face. But once that happens, the <em>fight is over</em>.</p><p></p><p>Now for the guy who wins... he usually isn't massively injured, because if he was, he wouldn't have been able to continue fighting. His guard would have dropped, and <em>he</em> would have been the one to have received the killing blow (or the 'took such a catastrophic injury that he ain't getting up any time soon, if ever' blow.) Instead, he takes off his helmet, he regains his breath, he drinks some water, he maybe bandages some superficial wounds, and he then gets ready to continue on to the next battle. He never was actually <em>hurt</em>.</p><p></p><p>To me, that's swordfighting. Lots of superficial bruises and cuts until one to two massive blows occur that result in bodily shock, physical trauma, or immediate death. Each attack is <em>not real injury, not real injury, not real injury, not real injury, not real injury, BOOM! SWORD TO THE FACE!</em> And this is where I think the Healing Surge mechanic actually makes a little bit of sense.</p><p></p><p>Now you put this up against the D&D format, where <em>if we assume</em> that hit point loss is actual physical injury... you have a guy with 100 HPs taking anywhere from 3 to 15 physically damaging blows (attacks which cause hit point loss) over the course of an entire fight. To me, <em>that</em> seems patently ridiculous. Especially when at the end of a fight when a guy only has 5 HPs left, the only way he can regain those hit points is through <em>magical</em> healing potions or the blessed cures of a man of the cloth?</p><p></p><p>What kind of attacks were these things? Somehow deadly enough that they <em>require</em> magical healing to remove... but not deadly enough that the fighter could take 3 to 15 of them during the fight? Doesn't make sense. Sure, you might <em>occasionally</em> see a guy take a massive gouge to a non-critical part of the body (say, the thigh or something) that would ordinarily require surgery (or magical healing)... but that would only account for <em>one</em> of those 15 injurous attacks. </p><p></p><p>I dunno about anyone else... but if I see a swordfighter getting hit by a sword 15 times and is still fighting at full strength... those <em>aren't</em> causing actual physical injury (save for maybe one or two, plus the actual killing blow.) They just aren't. They're just bruising. They're just fatigue. They're just superficial loss of energy that you can get past by getting a Second Wind or a having a friend to tell you to Rub Some Dirt Into It.</p><p></p><p>So all in all... while the 4E doesn't take all parts of swordplay into account via hit points / healing surges... it's no more unrealistic than any of the other edition's damage systems. They're ALL abstractions. And thus you have to just accept them as game rules, rather than trying to mimic reality.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 5698107, member: 7006"] The reason why I've never considered hit point loss to be "real" damage or injury is because of the loss of versimilitude I see between D&D combat and "real" combat if I did. In actually swordfighting... especially between highly armored individuals, you usually don't see actual real injury occur until one of them manages a killing blow. Instead, you see two guys getting bruised, getting tired, getting their bells rung, slowing down, perhaps get some small cuts across the face or arm... until [I]finally[/I] someone manages to get their weapon past their opponent's defenses and cuts off a limb, or guts the other guy in the stomach or face. But once that happens, the [I]fight is over[/I]. Now for the guy who wins... he usually isn't massively injured, because if he was, he wouldn't have been able to continue fighting. His guard would have dropped, and [I]he[/I] would have been the one to have received the killing blow (or the 'took such a catastrophic injury that he ain't getting up any time soon, if ever' blow.) Instead, he takes off his helmet, he regains his breath, he drinks some water, he maybe bandages some superficial wounds, and he then gets ready to continue on to the next battle. He never was actually [I]hurt[/I]. To me, that's swordfighting. Lots of superficial bruises and cuts until one to two massive blows occur that result in bodily shock, physical trauma, or immediate death. Each attack is [I]not real injury, not real injury, not real injury, not real injury, not real injury, BOOM! SWORD TO THE FACE![/I] And this is where I think the Healing Surge mechanic actually makes a little bit of sense. Now you put this up against the D&D format, where [I]if we assume[/I] that hit point loss is actual physical injury... you have a guy with 100 HPs taking anywhere from 3 to 15 physically damaging blows (attacks which cause hit point loss) over the course of an entire fight. To me, [I]that[/I] seems patently ridiculous. Especially when at the end of a fight when a guy only has 5 HPs left, the only way he can regain those hit points is through [I]magical[/I] healing potions or the blessed cures of a man of the cloth? What kind of attacks were these things? Somehow deadly enough that they [I]require[/I] magical healing to remove... but not deadly enough that the fighter could take 3 to 15 of them during the fight? Doesn't make sense. Sure, you might [I]occasionally[/I] see a guy take a massive gouge to a non-critical part of the body (say, the thigh or something) that would ordinarily require surgery (or magical healing)... but that would only account for [I]one[/I] of those 15 injurous attacks. I dunno about anyone else... but if I see a swordfighter getting hit by a sword 15 times and is still fighting at full strength... those [I]aren't[/I] causing actual physical injury (save for maybe one or two, plus the actual killing blow.) They just aren't. They're just bruising. They're just fatigue. They're just superficial loss of energy that you can get past by getting a Second Wind or a having a friend to tell you to Rub Some Dirt Into It. So all in all... while the 4E doesn't take all parts of swordplay into account via hit points / healing surges... it's no more unrealistic than any of the other edition's damage systems. They're ALL abstractions. And thus you have to just accept them as game rules, rather than trying to mimic reality. [/QUOTE]
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I don't get the dislike of healing surges
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