Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[Raven Crowking]

They can. The arrow of time can hit you when you're ready to be hit - e.g at the conclusion of the adventure, or in any larger rest period within a "running" one. That's how it works in most stories. Jack Bauer is not indestructible, but his break-down comes at the end of the season, not during it. (Well, at least that's what happens in one season.)

Um....The arrow of time refers to the fact that, in normal life, things progress from cause to effect along a linear progression. The "cause" of a healing surge doesn't have an "effect" of making an earlier wound something else, for example. IMHO, all game mechanics should describe effects happening in the game world at the time they occur. You should not be dependent upon some later effect to determine what the event that happens now means, nor should some later event retcon what happens now.


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Um....The arrow of time refers to the fact that, in normal life, things progress from cause to effect along a linear progression.

I associated the "Arrow of Time" with entropy. My bad, I suppose I read too much popular science books.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Because it strains my (and most likely my players') sense of immersion if someone gets wounded to within an inch of his life, then "overcomes the pain", then suffers the same fate again, then overcomes the pain again, and then gets even more wounds, overcoming them again. The mental picture is rather like the old "I took 20 arrows to the chest, but no worry, I still have HPs left, so I am fine". Some wounds you simply do not ignore for too long.

Remember Boromir's death scene in Fellowship of the Rings? That's cool. I want my heros to be able to do that. Get hit by an arrow, turn and fight off more and more orcs as effectively as if never hit.

From a simulationist point of view, don't travel anywhere without a cleric, because without the magical healing--especially cure disease--any non-superficial cut will turn to blood poisoning, and you'll die. There's a reason "sawbones" is a nickname for the doctoring profession. Break a leg early in an adventure and your characters will sit out the rest of it waiting for it to heal--6 weeks, more or less. Rolemaster's critical hit charts only partially solved this abstract/concrete issue because it has an amazing tendency toward leaving permanent wounds (at least ones that can't be dealt with without a high-level healer) littered around any fight. Realistic, but not all that fun, at least for me. That's why my groups have almost always gone with, "Wounds are abstract." Well, that and a couple of my players will avoid movies with gratuitous gore.

The other real benefit (aside from taking away the constant reliance on the hit point battery--I mean cleric), is avoiding that death spiral.

 

[Fenes]

Remember Boromir's death scene in Fellowship of the Rings? That's cool. I want my heros to be able to do that. Get hit by an arrow, turn and fight off more and more orcs as effectively as if never hit.

Boromir died at the end of that scene. He didn't just surge heal back to full in 5 minutes after Aragon got to him. In game mechanics, he ran out of hitpoints. In 4E mechanics, if he had had a healing surge left, he'd have survived. And suddenly, the arrows would not have been actual hits.

I don't want Boromir to soak up half a dozen arrows, then get a second wind, soak up half a dozen more, then get the next healing surge, and soak up 6 more arrows, then rest 5 minutes, and fight as good as new.

Getting to close to zero hitpoints by arrows, and keeping fighting is good enough for me. Afterwards, the human pincushion should require extensive magical or mundane treatment, not just 5 minutes of rest, to keep going.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Boromir died at the end of that scene. He didn't just surge heal back to full in 5 minutes after Aragon got to him. In game mechanics, he ran out of hitpoints. In 4E mechanics, if he had had a healing surge left, he'd have survived. And suddenly, the arrows would not have been actual hits.

Maybe he failed his death saving throws?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I associated the "Arrow of Time" with entropy. My bad, I suppose I read too much popular science books.

The arrow of time is associated with entropy. Entropy is one of the factors that relies upon/causes perception of the arrow. Interestingly enough, a recent Scientific American article described attempts to model a universe from simple basic principles. You only get something that resembles our universe, apparently, if you include a presupposition of an arrow of time. I.e., events run in one direction only.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Maybe he failed his death saving throws?

You ignored the salient point: "In 4E mechanics, if he had had a healing surge left, he'd have survived. And suddenly, the arrows would not have been actual hits." Schrödinger's Wounding. Suddenly that cool scene Dinkeldog wanted his heroes to be part of is rewritten; it never existed as he imagined it.


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You ignored the salient point: "In 4E mechanics, if he had had a healing surge left, he'd have survived. And suddenly, the arrows would not have been actual hits." Schrödinger's Wounding. Suddenly that cool scene Dinkeldog wanted his heroes to be part of is rewritten; it never existed as he imagined it.


RC

No, he wouldn't have survived. You can die even if you have 100 % of your healing surges left. If you don't have a second wind or other way to trigger it, you have a high chance of dying. (You might stabilize)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The arrow of time is associated with entropy. Entropy is one of the factors that relies upon/causes perception of the arrow. Interestingly enough, a recent Scientific American article described attempts to model a universe from simple basic principles. You only get something that resembles our universe, apparently, if you include a presupposition of an arrow of time. I.e., events run in one direction only.

I am not sure if that recent article mentioned actually contained something new. But you are right - Entropy grows in direction of the Arrow of Time, but that doesn't mean they are the same.

 

[Fifth Element]

No, he wouldn't have survived. You can die even if you have 100 % of your healing surges left. If you don't have a second wind or other way to trigger it, you have a high chance of dying. (You might stabilize)

Indeed, a good way to die is to be a defender who has used his second wind already, out in the middle of nowhere amongst many bad guys, and no leader around to help.