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I don't get the dislike of healing surges
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 5701800" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>A few things I wanted to clear up.</p><p></p><p>First, the emboldened part of my previous post that you quoted wasn't me making any sort of statement about the game itself - it was my saying where I'm coming from on the issue of hit point loss and healing. For me, they always have been, and always will be, physical damage. What's in the books isn't really important on that score (though I personally think that the books agree with me, see below).</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>See, I don't see that as having any impact on the question of whether or not hit point loss is due to physical damage whatsoever. The very nature of D&D combat is abstract, and so a lot of factors are simply not dealt with, such as hit locations, wound tracking, facing, combat fatigue, etc. </p><p></p><p>Saying that "hit point loss cannot be physical damage since it doesn't impact your fighting ability" is, to my thinking, a failure to follow the game's own brand of logic - combat damage has no secondary effects, because it can only model so much. Now, there are some special effects for various things like feats, spells, etc. But these are explicitly called out as having a special effect.</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>We're taking very different things away from that particular passage.</p><p></p><p>What I got from that is that Gary is giving us narrative devices to explain why physical damage that's taken is comparatively less severe at higher levels, even when the amount of damage remains the same. In other words, he's not denying that the character is still taking physical punishment, he's just taking less of it due to things like luck, a sixth sense, divine protection, etc. allowing him to take, as Gary put it, "five such thrusts."</p><p></p><p>Those thrusts are still hitting, in other words, just not as palpably, due to purely narrative explanations. But they're all still physically damaging blows taken in combat.</p><p></p><p>Of course, it's ultimately something of a moot point anyway. Not only because that's the 1E interpretation (as opposed to 3.X, which was much more explicit in saying that hit point loss was physical damage), but also because quoting somebody else's ideas aren't going to make me say "Oh, I've been doing it wrong."</p><p></p><p>The OP asked why we don't like healing surges, and my previous post was me saying why I don't. Hit point loss in my games is physical damage, and regaining hit points is wound closure. Having characters non-magically experience a burst of healing as a voluntary action on their part is, quite simply, too out there for me to accept.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 5701800, member: 8461"] A few things I wanted to clear up. First, the emboldened part of my previous post that you quoted wasn't me making any sort of statement about the game itself - it was my saying where I'm coming from on the issue of hit point loss and healing. For me, they always have been, and always will be, physical damage. What's in the books isn't really important on that score (though I personally think that the books agree with me, see below). See, I don't see that as having any impact on the question of whether or not hit point loss is due to physical damage whatsoever. The very nature of D&D combat is abstract, and so a lot of factors are simply not dealt with, such as hit locations, wound tracking, facing, combat fatigue, etc. Saying that "hit point loss cannot be physical damage since it doesn't impact your fighting ability" is, to my thinking, a failure to follow the game's own brand of logic - combat damage has no secondary effects, because it can only model so much. Now, there are some special effects for various things like feats, spells, etc. But these are explicitly called out as having a special effect. We're taking very different things away from that particular passage. What I got from that is that Gary is giving us narrative devices to explain why physical damage that's taken is comparatively less severe at higher levels, even when the amount of damage remains the same. In other words, he's not denying that the character is still taking physical punishment, he's just taking less of it due to things like luck, a sixth sense, divine protection, etc. allowing him to take, as Gary put it, "five such thrusts." Those thrusts are still hitting, in other words, just not as palpably, due to purely narrative explanations. But they're all still physically damaging blows taken in combat. Of course, it's ultimately something of a moot point anyway. Not only because that's the 1E interpretation (as opposed to 3.X, which was much more explicit in saying that hit point loss was physical damage), but also because quoting somebody else's ideas aren't going to make me say "Oh, I've been doing it wrong." The OP asked why we don't like healing surges, and my previous post was me saying why I don't. Hit point loss in my games is physical damage, and regaining hit points is wound closure. Having characters non-magically experience a burst of healing as a voluntary action on their part is, quite simply, too out there for me to accept. [/QUOTE]
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I don't get the dislike of healing surges
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