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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Realism vs. Believability and the Design of HPs, Powers and Other Things
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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 5876967" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>Personally, I don't find any more believability problems with healing and injury rules in 4e than I did in any other edition. I find problems all over the place in <em>every edition</em>. It goes hand in hand with D&D Combat's (un)abstract nature...Everything is abstract...until its not.</p><p></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hit Points can represent fatigue, physical trauma, sometimes even psychological damage, etc. Which implies...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Getting "Hit" doesn't actually mean steel meeting flesh. Except...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sometimes attacks carry poison or some other "non-damage" effect, which is triggered by you getting "Hit". That doesn't make sense unless you actually got skewered by the giant scorpion's tail (or whatever). But that's okay because...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The rogue in your party just <em>evade</em>d a huge fireball without moving at all. Not that you can tell the difference between her and the Barbarian that failed his save because...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You really don't suffer any form of hindrance or penalty for sustaining almost any kind of injury, until....</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You are almost dead from that last one. Which makes you wonder how you hopped back up and into the fight after the cleric cast Cure <em>Light</em> wounds on you. Was it just a <em>particularly small</em> sucking chest wound?</li> </ul><p>So really, the problem with hit points is their quantum-mechanical nature. That is, any given hit point of damage exists as an strange superposition of fatigue, morale, lost luck(?), and injury....until you recover that hit point. They're like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat" target="_blank">Schrodinger's Cat</a>. This is a problem that exists in every single edition of D&D. Non-magical healing in 4e only adds another way to collapse the superposition into morale as the Warlord tells you to "Keep on fighting, soldier!" </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Personally, I would love to ditch the hp system entirely. Its been a minor irritant to me for almost 30 years. Unfortunately, I haven't found another replacement system that meets my criteria for simple and fast and yet makes sense with some kind of save system and still feels relatively like D&D. I have tried several. So far, I haven't found a cure that's better than the disease. Its the worst system out there, except for all the others.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 5876967, member: 6688937"] Personally, I don't find any more believability problems with healing and injury rules in 4e than I did in any other edition. I find problems all over the place in [I]every edition[/I]. It goes hand in hand with D&D Combat's (un)abstract nature...Everything is abstract...until its not. [LIST] [*]Hit Points can represent fatigue, physical trauma, sometimes even psychological damage, etc. Which implies... [*]Getting "Hit" doesn't actually mean steel meeting flesh. Except... [*]Sometimes attacks carry poison or some other "non-damage" effect, which is triggered by you getting "Hit". That doesn't make sense unless you actually got skewered by the giant scorpion's tail (or whatever). But that's okay because... [*]The rogue in your party just [I]evade[/I]d a huge fireball without moving at all. Not that you can tell the difference between her and the Barbarian that failed his save because... [*]You really don't suffer any form of hindrance or penalty for sustaining almost any kind of injury, until.... [*]You are almost dead from that last one. Which makes you wonder how you hopped back up and into the fight after the cleric cast Cure [I]Light[/I] wounds on you. Was it just a [I]particularly small[/I] sucking chest wound? [/LIST] So really, the problem with hit points is their quantum-mechanical nature. That is, any given hit point of damage exists as an strange superposition of fatigue, morale, lost luck(?), and injury....until you recover that hit point. They're like [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat"]Schrodinger's Cat[/URL]. This is a problem that exists in every single edition of D&D. Non-magical healing in 4e only adds another way to collapse the superposition into morale as the Warlord tells you to "Keep on fighting, soldier!" Personally, I would love to ditch the hp system entirely. Its been a minor irritant to me for almost 30 years. Unfortunately, I haven't found another replacement system that meets my criteria for simple and fast and yet makes sense with some kind of save system and still feels relatively like D&D. I have tried several. So far, I haven't found a cure that's better than the disease. Its the worst system out there, except for all the others. [/QUOTE]
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