L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend

[billd91]

I suspect the term "bloodied" is not going to make an appearance in D&DN. It's a pity, because it's quite a good term given how they're envisioning the fiction. But too many folks would be reminded of the stuff they hated in 4E.

I don't know. I think bloodied is one of the least annoying new things in 4e. I use it in PF - mainly as a gauge that the creature they're fighting is actually badly hurt.

 

[nnms]

And yet you're still at a low level and so the point is still moot.

The vast majority of D&D play is at low level. How the game works then is more important than how it works at level 10+ (though it is still important for it to work well at such levels, just not as important).

You made the contention that having a dedicated healer is still necessary given what's been talked about in the article.

I say nonsense. And actual play of a version of the game that is way, way more harsh backs that up. Having access to the same dice you rolled to generate your hit points to restore them, each and every day, is very, very rapid healing. It's not as fast as 4E reset to full though. 4E already restores HP at the fastest rate any system could if we are talking about the refresh rate of a night's sleep. So if that's your standard, everything by definition must be slow in comparison.

And if you play 4E and need a healer, I can totally see how you might think that therefore you're going to need a healer even more with the system that's going to be in the playtest for 5E.

I'm saying, you don't. And given that D&D Next is about looking back at the entire history of D&D for ideas, it probably shouldn't surprise you that there are modes of play that will be included in 5E that are not from 4E.

 

[The Shadow]

I suspect the term "bloodied" is not going to make an appearance in D&DN. It's a pity, because it's quite a good term given how they're envisioning the fiction. But too many folks would be reminded of the stuff they hated in 4E.

I would hope most people would be more able to compartmentalize than that. I mean, I don't care for 4e really at all, but 'bloodied' is a perfectly serviceable English word that captures the desired concept.

Plus, is the 'bloodied' idea really something that people seriously dislike about 4e?

 

[Szatany]

Let's say that 10th level dwarven fighter has 100 hp (30 hp was a glancing blow)... 10d10... plus 40-50 from somewhere (Con, theme, whatever). Sounds like he can naturally heal 10d10 per day.

Not necessarily. Remember that the fighter has to spend his Hit Dice to heal. We don't know how quickly hit dice are recovered.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I am guessing your HP may well be not just the amount you get from class. I reckon everyone will start with con amount then x per level (average of class hit die maybe)?

 

[erleni]

In principle it may work. I'll just run the playtest twice, once with a cleric and once without to see the differences.
Anyway I don't like to have so few HP on a 1st level character. But let's see, if yu have enough ways to spend your HD that may even be not that bad.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

I would hope most people would be more able to compartmentalize than that. I mean, I don't care for 4e really at all, but 'bloodied' is a perfectly serviceable English word that captures the desired concept.

Plus, is the 'bloodied' idea really something that people seriously dislike about 4e?

Some people complain about everything 4E, whether they actually know anything about it or not. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there was a discussion somewhere expressing outright hatred of the bloodied condition, merely because it appeared in 4E.

One small problem I have had with Bloodied in the past was from a one-off comment I made about a villian who was struck in the nose by an attack. Naturally, his nose started bleeding. Thinking he was on the ropes, the heroes got cocky. TPK. I kinda wish they would come up with a different term, like 'staggered'. But that term also carries issues.

 

[Incenjucar]

The vast majority of D&D play is at low level. How the game works then is more important than how it works at level 10+ (though it is still important for it to work well at such levels, just not as important).

We don't need to go back to having the game turn into rubbish half-way through, thanks.

 

[Libramarian]

OK so hold on.

If you're above half your HP, you barely have a scratch. If you're below half, you're noticeably injured.

But what is the fictional meaning of the number of hit dice you have left?

What are you if you're above half HP but you've used up all your hit dice? You don't look injured but you're tired or something?

There needs to be some sort of fictional meaning that is consonant with the fact that it's going to feel a lot safer to take an axe blow when you have hit dice in your pocket than when you're out of them, at the same HP.

 

[Ainamacar]

The designers had their work cut out for them, and I think they really took a good whack at it. Whether it works, much less gains supports, is another matter. As a synthesis with clear 4e and pre-4e influences, the risk is always that both groups come away unhappy. My first impressions:

• It addresses at least one huge thematic complaint about healing surges by positioning HD as mundane (and apparently out-of-combat?) resources which are largely independent of what spells can do.
• It could potentially be used to run a campaign with mundane healing resources alone, hopefully treating combat (usually magical) healing from being an expected component of combat to a bonus. (Note that healing surges could have done the same thing, but 4e in fact went the opposite direction by baking a baseline of easily accessible combat healing into every single character and many classes.)
• Could more easily support different adventure (as distinct from encounter) grittiness with modules compared to other editions of D&D. Increasing or decreasing the number of HD regained during an extended rest could have a big impact over the long term without having a large impact at the per encounter basis. Neither 4e or earlier editions could really claim that (although 4e came closer). In 4e's case one could change the number of healing surges per day, but because they are so closely tied to combat they still have a clear impact on encounter outcomes. In earlier editions there are only hit points, and changing the amount a character possesses directly changes the encounter balance. This flexibility obviously isn't necessary for a fun D&D system, but if lots of ways to spend hit dice in combat show up the benefits are lost. It would be a temptation for designers everywhere because designers love exploiting character resources in new ways.
• Alternately, they could choose to emphasize the magic vs. mundane distinction as more important than the in-combat vs. out-of-combat distinction. That would eliminate the previous point, but open up lots of interesting mechanics and interactions with distinct flavor. This might be better than trying to emphasize the previous point anyway because most campaigns will probably stick close to the default and because the previous point is so easy to invalidate with future materials. On the other hand, it would also mean the "quantum wound" criticism of healing surges would stick around.

In about a week we'll have much more useful information, and in about a month we'll start to see if people's first impressions (whether warm or cold) turn out to be accurate. I'm willing to give it a fair shake.

I also remember from the very earliest playtest reports that quite a number of people found the healing system wonky. I wonder if this is basically what they had in January, or if this is a more recent attempt.

That also makes me think about multiclassing, since they will have hit dice of different size. Does one use the hit die for each class, so a heavily multiclassed character might be able to spend 3d6 + 2d8 + 5d10? Or will they use the highest or lowest die of any of their classes? (That would have very negative implications for multiclassing, and I dislike it.) What if the character gains fewer than its level hit dice over an extended rest, can the character choose which dice to get first? When spending can they choose which dice to spend first? At least the latter two options will lead to predictable behavior, with characters always gaining and usualy choosing to expend the highest hit dice available first. This part of the system could be wonky.

It's an interesting idea [cure light wounds healing 2 hit dice + level damage], but I don't think it's what they have in mind. Mearls explicitly says that HD represent non-magical healing, and that spells ignore them.

Notice that there is a distinction between "spending" HD while casting a healing spell versus referencing the size of the die itself. For certain values of "ignore" the example spell might be an acceptable interpretation. (Although referring to the size of the die and not spending a specific die could lead to problems in a multiclassing character. There are several ways one might choose which size to use, but none of them are as nice as simply saying "2d8+level hit points.")