Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[GlaziusF]

In 1e, when you took a hit, you could immediately determine what it represented in-world on the basis of the damage taken vs. the character's remaining hit points. Because you knew how long it would take to heal that wound, and how much it affected the character, you could peg it really, really closely. You were, in effect, telling the story as it unfolded.

However, in 4e, when you take hit point damage, you cannot immediately tell what that damage represents in-world.

I don't understand why you say this.

In 4E, you can recover from any blow that doesn't kill you outright unaided with 5 minutes' rest, assuming you have enough healing surges. This means that over the course of combat any damage you take cannot reflect injuries that would take more than 5 minutes' rest to heal.

This is why I say that when your hit points go negative, you pass out from the sudden shock rather than because you've been too badly damaged to remain fundamentally conscious. Healing surges reflect your ability to shake off shock and recenter yourself - when they run out, it's not that you're hurt any worse off than you were before, it's that you've tapped out your ability to recover from that shock, but with a good rest you're refreshed.

Could there be ways to regain that ability other than rest? Yes, though many of them that you could think of are not explicitly allowed. You could drink from a stream and be refreshed enough to regain 2 healing surges. Why? Well, you can decide that. Perhaps your character is part merfolk, perhaps the stream flows from the fountains of the Bright City, perhaps it has been infused with vital energy. The default setting assumes that such springs do not exist, so if one does it would be because of DM fiat. But if a DM is planning an extended dungeon dive then scattering such springs through would be a means of giving the characters the ability to recover without having to worry about where they stop to rest for 6 hours.

At least one way is spelled out. When a deadly trickster pulls off his epic trick he regains all hit points and healing surges. So whatever the epic trick includes, it must also completely refreshes him as though he has rested. Perhaps he points the other way and, while Time is distracted, picks its pockets of 24 hours for himself.

But somewhere in the point between fighting fit and unconscious, you do become obviously wounded - when you pass from about 50% hit points to 50% or below, and become bloodied. Here are the characteristics of the wound you have suffered when you are bloodied: it does not slow you down; it does not weaken your attacks or make them less inaccurate; it does not on its own reduce your hit points any further; it does expose you to certain kinds of environmental damage and effects that a non-bloodied person would not be exposed to; it does signal to enemies, allies, and casual observers that you are wounded; it does signal to yourself that you are wounded; and if you take the few seconds to use your second wind you can tend to it so that you are no longer wounded.

What is the second wind? It's a single moment of clarity that you can seize on to refocus and recover, just as if you were resting after the fight was over. Why can't you use it more than once per combat? Combats are fast and confusing and you can only muster that concentration once, barring special effects such as divine intervention. Try to grab it again and it won't work. It also won't work if you've been battered around so much during the day that all your ability to recover is gone.

If it's important for you to describe damage to your character, you can now imagine many "bloodied-type" wounds your character could suffer, depending on the source of damage, element of damage, and possibly location on the body. As you take damage in combat, think about these wounds. The strike that puts you into bloodied status could inflict one of them, but so could any single strike you take before then - the wound won't just become obvious until you drop to 50% hit points. (This is for cases where you have 50 hit points, a dragon bites you for 24, and then its kobold cutter minion dings you for 3. It is fine to say that the obvious wound came from the dragon bite and you were suppressing it with force of will until the minion rattled you and broke your concentration.)

Why is it okay to think about such things beforehand? Because describing damage to your character is satisfying for you, or because it will be one element in a story that you are enjoying telling with the other people at the gaming table. It gives them something real to bounce a hook off of - they can tend to that wound with first aid or have somewhere to lay on hands. But considering the game as writen, there is no other reason. There is nothing in the mechanics of the game to suggest that it matters what sort of wound it is that bloodied you. So, you are free to decide it for yourself, to your own satisfaction.

 

[The Little Raven]

Here is, IMHO, the biggest difference.

It doesn't change what hit points represent, though. If, like Gygax wrote, 1e hit points represent "combat skill" as one factor, then Second Wind is just a refinement of his original concept, as it's a representation of a hero refocusing his "combat skill."

In 1e, when you took a hit, you could immediately determine what it represented in-world on the basis of the damage taken vs. the character's remaining hit points.

Okay, let's say you're the 85 hp fighter from the 1e DMG example, and you take 10 damage... what does that represent in-world when those hit points are considered "combat skill" or "luck"? Probably as a glancing blow, or a flesh wound, or a near-miss. How is that any different from 4e?

The changes to hit points change them from representing something happening now to something that only happens later and is retroactively "true" in terms of the "in world" story.

You're confusing sources of healing with what hit points represent. The 1e DMG is very clear that the majority of hit points are NOT physical wounds, so that means the majority of 1e healing is not actually healing wounds, but restoring "combat skill" or "luck" or "magical factors."

That is, to me, a very big change. There are a number of things that turn me off 4e, but this is the biggest (ruleswise), and the hardest to simply houserule away.

You seem to be dead set on the idea that "non-magical healing" means that hit points are something completely different from previous editions because they don't always represent physical wounds, despite the fact that previous editions spelled out that they didn't always represent physical wounds.

Just because your options from healing went from "magic" and "time" to "powers" and "time" doesn't mean that hit points represent something different, when their description and use is the same.

 

[The Little Raven]

Sure, I've read stories, watched movies, and seen fights where people get that second wind. And do you know what happens when that fight is over? They collapse. Because a burst of adrenaline is just that - a BURST. It's not something permanent.

Read the Princess Bride. Inigo is dying. Flat out dying. He sees the ghost of his father and his teacher, cursing him for coming this far just to die like a chump. He overcomes his wound by shoving his fist into it, kills the Six-Fingered Man, helps Wesley escape, and never once collapses after his "Second Wind."

HP has gone from being vaguely abstract to being completely abstract, with no arguments available.

The 1e DMG on HP: "A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors."

The 4e PHB on DMG: "Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation."

A small amount of physical wound mixed in with a bunch of skill, luck, and other factors like resolve, magic, divine providence, and whatnot.

If they happened every fight, they wouldn't be second winds. They wouldn't even HAVE a name, other then "That part where the movie really started to suck."

Die Hard movies are full of John using Second Wind during almost every single fight, because he takes a beating and keeps going when a normal man would just stop and die. The reason he's always so covered with blood from head to toe by the end of any of the movies is because he doesn't stop, or collapse, or anything. He propels himself forward despite all odds.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You know you've been wounded when you lose HP. You may receive a morale boost that allows you press on despite those wounds. That does not remove the wounds or retroactively cause them to disappear.

Excepting, of course, that if this was true you'd still need healing after you pressed on.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't understand why you say this.

Clearly.

And from your post just previous to this one, it is equally clear that you don't understand what I am talking about in terms of logic.

If you claim that the moon is made of cheese, all that is required to refute that position is to demonstrate that your reasons for making that claim are fallicious. It doesn't mean, of course, that the moon isn't made of cheese -- that hasn't been proved. All that has been proved is that your reasoning does not logically arrive at your conclusion. IOW, if your conclusion is correct, and your reasoning is fallicious, your conclusion isn't correct for the reasons that you think it is. Instead, it is merely coincidentally correct.

No counterargument is required. One doesn't have to know what the moon is made of to refute a claim that it is made of cheese.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Read the Princess Bride. Inigo is dying. Flat out dying. He sees the ghost of his father and his teacher, cursing him for coming this far just to die like a chump. He overcomes his wound by shoving his fist into it, kills the Six-Fingered Man, helps Wesley escape, and never once collapses after his "Second Wind."

You know, one might suggest that this is supernatural healing. And, if this is the sort of "second wind" going on several times in each battle then it borders on the absurd.....Rather as parts of The Princess Bride are meant to.

If we were to assume that John from Die Hard fought day after day on his second winds -- as 4e characters can potentially do, no matter how savage the beating each day -- the Die Hard franchise would be far across the borders of absurd and into the regions of the ludicrous.

The 1e DMG on HP: "A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors."

The 4e PHB on DMG: "Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation."

Sure, this is what they say, but in actual play:

1e: Fighter with 10 hp takes 8 hp damage. He is now down to 2 hp. The player has a pretty good idea of exactly what sort of condition his character is in, and the DM has no difficulty describing the blow causing that damage within the context of the 1e paradigm.

4e: Fighter with 10 hp takes 8 hp damage. This might be a wound, or it might not be. Neither the player nor the DM knows if it is a wound at the time it is taken because, within context of the in-world story, if the fighter recieves magical healing later it was a wound, but a second wind means that it was not.

In the 1e paradigm, the in-world story is never required to change based on later PC or NPC actions. The in-world story unfolds as the story is played at the game table.

In the 4e paradigm, the "past" of the in-world story is frequently required to change based upon "present" PC or NPC actions. Or, as in quantum mechanics, the story stays in a curious state of indeterminancy until after all wounds are healed, magically or otherwise. Only then do we know whether they are "real" wounds or not. The in-world story only unfolds retroactively, after all events at the game table are known.

Which, if that's your cup of tea, is fine. It is not my cup of tea.


RC

 

[LostSoul]

Sure, this is what they say, but in actual play:

1e: Fighter with 10 hp takes 8 hp damage. He is now down to 2 hp. The player has a pretty good idea of exactly what sort of condition his character is in, and the DM has no difficulty describing the blow causing that damage within the context of the 1e paradigm.

1e: Hit points define something in-world. You can't change what they mean in-game; if you are hit, you are physically wounded.

4e: Fighter with 10 hp takes 8 hp damage. This might be a wound, or it might not be. Neither the player nor the DM knows if it is a wound at the time it is taken because, within context of the in-world story, if the fighter recieves magical healing later it was a wound, but a second wind means that it was not.

4e: Hit points define only how much staying power a character has. You can change what they mean in-game, based on the situation. A hit might be a wound, it might not be, based on what the players want it to mean at the time.

In the 1e paradigm, the in-world story is never required to change based on later PC or NPC actions. The in-world story unfolds as the story is played at the game table.

Nor can the players change the meaning of hit points; a hit point is a hit point is a hit point, regardless of whether or not it works best for describing what's happening in the game world at that moment in play.

In the 4e paradigm, the "past" of the in-world story is frequently required to change based upon "present" PC or NPC actions. Or, as in quantum mechanics, the story stays in a curious state of indeterminancy until after all wounds are healed, magically or otherwise. Only then do we know whether they are "real" wounds or not. The in-world story only unfolds retroactively, after all events at the game table are known.

That is not true. I can say that a Fighter gets hit for 2 hp at the start of the day, when he's fresh with all his surges, and describe it as a brutal wound to his gut.

That wound can stick around as long as I want it to. If I don't feel like describing the wound magically healing via a second wind, healing surge via a short rest, I don't have to. In other words, the wound is there if I say it is, and it's not there if I say it's not.

What the hp mechanics tell me is how much fight someone has left in them. They don't dictate anything else, and I'm glad for that. I can use them in whatever way works best in my game, in my world, in my story.

 

[MerricB]

1e: Fighter with 10 hp takes 8 hp damage. He is now down to 2 hp. The player has a pretty good idea of exactly what sort of condition his character is in, and the DM has no difficulty describing the blow causing that damage within the context of the 1e paradigm.

One of the unusual - and paradigm breaking - parts of 1e is then how healing interacts with such wounds. It's one thing which I believe 4e does far better with its healing surges (no matter how such are acquired).

Consider a 1st level fighter with 8 hp. He takes a fairly major blow for 7 hp, reducing him to within sight of death at 1 hp. Then the cleric casts a cure light wounds spell on him and restores him to full hit point. By the implied flavour of the spell, then it was surely a minor wound.

However, a 10th level fighter with maximum of 75 hp and then reduced to 1 hp has that self-same spell cast on him, and isn't even close to being fully healed. Indeed, given the monsters he is fighting, he's very, very close to death.

Bizarrely, if those two fighters, both reduced to 1 hp, then require bed rest to heal, the first requires only 7 days to be restored to full health, whilst the other requires 38 days! I'm tougher, more beloved of the gods... but I take longer to heal?

####

Returning to 4e, may I suggest the following way of looking at 4e damage, using a comparison with 3e Star Wars - Hit points in 4e are Vitality Points. Healing Surges are Wound Points.

A character who is out of healing surges is very close to death. Wounds are real wounds. I've seen it several times in my campaigns, and the behaviour of the players changes significantly when they're down to 2 or fewer surges. At that stage, they've taken several possibly life-threatening hits, and only the grace of the gods and/or their own skill and training have allowed them to continue.

A character with healing surges who has been reduced to 0 hp has been hurt - enough to render them unconscious - but the players and DM don't know exactly how hurt until they recover or die. The blow looked significant, certainly, but was it fatal? Perhaps it was just a glancing blow, or maybe not.

In ASL, there's a similar mechanic: tanks may end up under "shock", which basically stuns them for a couple of rounds. However, a random die roll at the beginning of each extra round may have them recover or be eliminated. Why is this mechanic in there? It's because it actually simulates real warfare: in WW2, soldiers couldn't tell if they'd actually "killed" the tank or not and so kept firing at it long after everyone aboard was dead.

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

4e: Hit points define only how much staying power a character has. You can change what they mean in-game, based on the situation. A hit might be a wound, it might not be, based on what the players want it to mean at the time.

And what it is remains in force until future actions invalidate the "in world" logic of what it once was. It was a gut wound, because that's what I wanted it to mean at the time, then I had a healing surge, so now it was never a gut wound.

That wound can stick around as long as I want it to. If I don't feel like describing the wound magically healing via a second wind, healing surge via a short rest, I don't have to. In other words, the wound is there if I say it is, and it's not there if I say it's not.

Going back, again, to my point that hit points in 4e are more gamist than in previous editions, because they are no longer linked at all to what has taken place in terms of the "in world" story.

You can't have it both ways.

One of the unusual - and paradigm breaking - parts of 1e is then how healing interacts with such wounds. It's one thing which I believe 4e does far better with its healing surges (no matter how such are acquired).

In 1e, the names of the curative spells might have flavour problems for you, but that doesn't mean that the hit point rules themselves do.

Bizarrely, if those two fighters, both reduced to 1 hp, then require bed rest to heal, the first requires only 7 days to be restored to full health, whilst the other requires 38 days! I'm tougher, more beloved of the gods... but I take longer to heal?

Sorry, but I'm not seeing this the same as you are. In 1e, the 1st level fighter simply isn't as good as the 10th level fighter. Both characters are healed enough to take a sword thrust at the same time. The 10th level fighter, though, has more finely tuned reflexes, etc., that make his tip-top condition better than that of the 1st level guy. They reach the same point at the same time; the 10th level fighter simply has the potential to gain more from more rest.

Returning to 4e, may I suggest the following way of looking at 4e damage, using a comparison with 3e Star Wars - Hit points in 4e are Vitality Points. Healing Surges are Wound Points.

So, basically, you are saying that I consider that a character gets wounded when he uses a healing surge? Wouldn't that make the determination of when hit point loss represents a wound take place at the time of healing? Isn't that exactly what I was just saying/complaining about?

If that floats your boat, I'm glad for you. Really. But it doesn't float mine. I prefer a game in which the rules provide representation for unfolding in world events in real time. 4e provides excellent representation for unfolding game table events. These are two different animals.


RC

 

[pemerton]

In 1e, when you took a hit, you could immediately determine what it represented in-world on the basis of the damage taken vs. the character's remaining hit points. Because you knew how long it would take to heal that wound, and how much it affected the character, you could peg it really, really closely. You were, in effect, telling the story as it unfolded.

In AD&D, when you deliver a hit, you do not know what it represents in-world unless you know the hp remaining of your target. Contrast this with RM and RQ, in which you (or actually the dice) are telling the story as it unfolds.

Hit points have always been a mechanic with a degree of fortune-in-the-middle.