Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[Herremann the Wise]

Yes, 1 HP from negative bloodied a PC can roll a natural 20 on a death save and get back up. And if the PC has three more healing surges it can be running around and bodychecking orcs into the undergrowth in 5 minutes, like nothing ever happened. This is something that can and probably will happen according to the extant mechanics.

You have two options: either you don't accept that that much recovery can occur in that little time, or you don't accept that being 1 HP away from negative bloodied actually represents a fundamental injury that the PC cannot recover from in 5 minutes. As I understand things, you have chosen option 1 and I have chosen option 2, and the difference between option 1 and option 2 is that option 1 requires you to also not accept the rules.

I am wondering, what's so bad about option 2?

I think you have only looked at one side of the coin, take the blinkers off for the moment. Lets look at option two, 1 hp from "Dead!" having been attacked continuously by the pointy end so as to be unable to immediately get up - he's unconscious. Now if I roll a 20 then I'm back into the frey as you say, OR I duff my 3 saves and my character is dead 18 seconds later. 18 seconds from death having been whaled upon by "damaging" blows. Now this guy is not some novice shop keeper who can't stand the sight of blood, he is a professional, veteran hero. He is a hero possibly 18 seconds from death, and possibly a short rest away from full health. I'm struggling to think of a physical condition for my hero that can be reconciled with this.

You say that being 1 HP away from negative bloodied can represent a fundamental injury that the PC can recover from in 5 minutes. Fine, but not one that could also have a veteran hero 18 seconds from death. Option 2 does not jive with my sense of realism as it applies to a fantasy game and it does not fit within the context of the game where my hero has just engaged in deadly combat to find himself in that 1hp from death condition. If my veteran hero is 1 hp and possibly 18 seconds from dead, then no, I'm not expecting him to get up from such a condition, completely unaided as if nothing happened to him. If you're happy handwaving that, then as I stated earlier, cool for you. I'm not. To me, it represents a situation where the game mechanic has over-ruled flavour to its detriment.

Having said that though, I still enjoy 4E, I'll still continue to play it despite a couple of handfuls of "irregularities". 3E wasn't perfect either as my 1st post stated and I still enjoyed that too. Imagine though D&D 5E where the game mechanics are so elegant, that they perfectly mimic the flavour they are trying to represent. Gaming nirvana that will have the entire D&D community on board without having tonnes of people feeling like they need to defend one edition or the other of the game. It ain't gonna happen is it?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[MerricB]

He is a hero possibly 18 seconds from death, and possibly a short rest away from full health.

Full health implies you have all your healing surges.

A character with 30 hp and 10 healing surges in D&D 4e has effectively 330 hp. However, in the space of an encounter, you can wear them down enough so that they are exhausted and make a fatal mistake.

I think there are a lot of people who don't appreciate that Healing Surges need to be taken into account when you're discussing the health of a character. What does 1 hp and 0 healing surges mean?

The one utterly gamist part of 4e where it departs simulation entirely is in regaining all your health overnight. For those who want a more realistic view of healing, allow only one healing surge to be regained per night of rest (and curative rituals or total rest/tending to return more).

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I mean, if I got hit and took a secondary effect (level drain, say) in 1e, then it meant I was hit. In 4e, what does it mean if you were hit, poisoned, but then lost that damage (but not the secondary effect) in a second wind? Were you really wounded? If not, how were you poisoned? If so, where did the damage go?

The last time I checked, a spider bite from a Redback Spider could kill you, but you'd take no appreciable damage in D&D terms. You can get killed from a minor scratch that infects you with tetanus.

In D&D terms, and - as Gygax wrote - a killing blow is turned by a hero into a glancing blow, inflicting perhaps only a bruise or a scratch. However, poison? Yes, it could well affect the character from that scratch.

 

[rounser]

And, here's a prediction -- either 5e or 6e is going to "correct" the Schrödinger's damage problem, and then (and only then) 50% of the people claiming the problem doesn't exist now will be clamouring about the obvious need for a fix then. After all, that's exactly what happened with every problem anyone (myself included) ever pointed out about 3e.

"I'm just....a little...out of breath....give me a moment."
"Your arm's off!"
"Trick of the light. Feeling much better now."
"But...it came clean off at the elbow!"
"Only a little bit. Needed to remind myself that I could do it, and that together we could do anything. Now, attack in that way I showed you before...."
"Eh? Says who?"
"I'm a warlord."
"Then where's your soldiers, where's the war? I know how to fight better than you do, you're not going to order me around. Back in your box you...whatever you are."
"A dragonborn."
"Okay....right............wake me up for 5E, please."

 

[Raven Crowking]

Full health implies you have all your healing surges.

What page is that on?

 

[Raven Crowking]

"I'm just....a little...out of breath....give me a moment."
"Your arm's off!"
"Trick of the light. Feeling much better now."
"But...it came clean off at the elbow!"
"Only a little bit. Needed to remind myself that I could do it, and that together we could do anything. Now, attack in that way I showed you before...."
"Eh? Says who?"
"I'm a warlord."
"Then where's your soldiers, where's the war? I know how to fight better than you do, you're not going to order me around. Back in your box you...whatever you are."
"A dragonborn."
"Okay....right............wake me up for 5E, please."

Obviously, the black knight in Quest for the Holy Grail was using 4e healing surges......

 

[Raven Crowking]

The last time I checked, a spider bite from a Redback Spider could kill you, but you'd take no appreciable damage in D&D terms. You can get killed from a minor scratch that infects you with tetanus.

In D&D terms, and - as Gygax wrote - a killing blow is turned by a hero into a glancing blow, inflicting perhaps only a bruise or a scratch. However, poison? Yes, it could well affect the character from that scratch.

So, your basically okay with Erac's Cousin gettng bitten by a rattlesnake, being poisoned thereby, having the poison stopped by an antidote, and then having the wound miraculously disappear. If that is the case, then that's good for you, because you've got a game that does that.

It is not something I find satisfying.

And, again, here's a prediction -- either 5e or 6e is going to "correct" the Schrödinger's damage problem, and then (and only then) 50% of the people claiming the problem doesn't exist now will be clamouring about the obvious need for a fix then. After all, that's exactly what happened with every problem anyone (myself included) ever pointed out about 3e.

(Of course, which folks are going to be singing a different tune will only be known when we have a chance to look in the box, but if I put ten names into a sealed envelope right now, I bet I'd have at least seven winners.)


RC

 

[apoptosis]

And, again, here's a prediction -- either 5e or 6e is going to "correct" the Schrödinger's damage problem, and then (and only then) 50% of the people claiming the problem doesn't exist now will be clamouring about the obvious need for a fix then. After all, that's exactly what happened with every problem anyone (myself included) ever pointed out about 3e.

(Of course, which folks are going to be singing a different tune will only be known when we have a chance to look in the box, but if I put ten names into a sealed envelope right now, I bet I'd have at least seven winners.)


RC

I have seem to have noticed this as well. It is only a perception and could easily be colored by how i perceived things have come about. But from my view of things, i kind of feel that issues people were hating in 2E that 3E 'fixed' are now the bugbears of 3E.

As I said it could be that I was not really a fan of 3E or 4E and see the things that i want to.

 

[Andor]

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 might want to reread the last paragraph.

To my mind the change that 4e makes to HP is this: Full HP no longer means 'uninjured.' It means 'unhindered by your injuries.'

No one thinks (I hope) that all your injuries close and heal fully after 5 minuetes as though every character is Wolverines natural son. Instead the idea that I take away from these rules is that after 5 minutes of rest and bandaging and field stitches the PCs are able to soldier on at full capacity. This is certainly heroic and I like it. Unfortunately carried to it's logical conclusion at the end of a long multi-encounter day the PC should be looking like a horror movie mummy but are still bouncing around like acrobats and taking swords to the spleen with barely a flinch.

 

[apoptosis]

Full health implies you have all your healing surges.

A character with 30 hp and 10 healing surges in D&D 4e has effectively 330 hp. However, in the space of an encounter, you can wear them down enough so that they are exhausted and make a fatal mistake.

I think there are a lot of people who don't appreciate that Healing Surges need to be taken into account when you're discussing the health of a character. What does 1 hp and 0 healing surges mean?

The one utterly gamist part of 4e where it departs simulation entirely is in regaining all your health overnight. For those who want a more realistic view of healing, allow only one healing surge to be regained per night of rest (and curative rituals or total rest/tending to return more).

Cheers!

WHile you have a good point about healing surges, they are still difficult to map to in-world events. If you dont spend a healing surge then the damage is real, if you do not spend a surge, it is not, is the type of issue that people like RC are having issues with.

I think HP have changed more than just in a quantitative fashion compared with earlier editions. The quantitative changes (healing surges and heal all damage overnight) have IMO created a definite qualitative difference in how they relate to game-world events. You are never truly injured in a way that resembles any form of reality that we are used to. This doesnt mean earlier editions were great at this but there was a closer connection between hps and physical damage to the character.

Whether they are a problem or not depends if you like this or not. I dont particularly like them in the context of the game they designed but understand that they perfectly suit the design goals (a game where we can have a series of linked encounters where all characters are close to full effectiveness most of the time)

I think HP are now a far more gamist construct than they have been. They are also a more narrativist construct but i feel they fall short of good narrativist mechanics as well.

I would have rathered them go full bore narrativist and be more similar to somethign like TSOY. Since HP have only a small overlap to real in-game meaning to physical damage, many things should result in HP damage as it is now a gamist/story mechanic and not really an game-world mapping injury mechanic. HP are now gamist/narrativist mechanics which really only determine how long your character can partake in the adventure. All failures in conflicts should end up doing HP damage making skill checks far more tension filled. Of course this might totally throw them off their design goals and many would not like this direction.