From what I can tell, the damage from powers in 4e is pretty explicitly spelled out as "deep bleeding gashes", "drawing blood", "cracking skulls", "your enemy suffers bleeding wounds", etc. etc. which are in turn "healed" by clerical healing, surges, warlords shouting encouragement, etc. etc.
Well, my impression is that PCs inflict "deep bleeding gashes", "crack skulls" et al, but PCs suffer what turn out to be only relatively minor, unspecified injuries - unless the PC actually dies, of course.
Just adding to what S'mon said - which I think is 100% correct - PCs can also inflict hit point damage on their enemies by underming their morale using Bluff, Intimidate etc (as per the module in the MV boxed set - is it Cairn of the Winter King?). And monsters, equally, can inflict psychic damage by being scary (eg the Wight power horrific visage).
And an implication of the rules, which I've not seen spelled out yet, is that use of Diplomacy should be able to restore hit points (a few encouraging words from a friend).
My only problem with the RAW 3.X condition track is that its not aggressive enough in its implementation.
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I've had several scenes this game where the PC was 'bleeding out' (as my players call it) and circumstances required that they remain conscious for several rounds in order to survive, and many situations where characters were hoping to self-stablize or characters were scrambling to apply a tourniquet to a wound. I've also had situations where multiple characters were staggering out of the 'dungeon' with negative hit points. And I've had several bad guys bleeding out, who hurl a few dying invectives at the party.
No need for fiat or for forcing a predetermined outcome. Interesting things have just happened 'naturally' and in some cases far more interesting things than I would have invented on my own.
Rolemaster and Runequest play in this sort of fashion. Without revision, I don't think D&D does (although 1st ed AD&D, with its "death's door" rules and comparitively reduced damage ranges meaning that those rules are more likely to come into play, can sometimes come close).
I have a problem with 'the rules are suspended until the DM achieves the result he wants'.
Fair enough, but who is doing that? In 4e, a wound that cannot be healed simply by the restoration of hit points doesn't require bending the rules. (I'm not sure it does in earlier editions either, but this is a 4e game, and in 4e the issue is more clear cut.) It just requires the GM stipulating a certain state of affairs that could not have been arrived at by application of the action resolution mechanics.
If I had foreseen the need to suspend the rules because of some edge case, I probably would have patched the rules ahead of time.
Fair enough, but the only rules patching required here is to decide what sort of magic (if any)
can heal the injury in question. Which is not even going to be relevant for a low(-ish) level party in 4e. (I've noted that in my own game, Remove Afflication would do the job, as would any of the paragon-tier powers that allow bringing someone back from death or dying.)
Likewise, I think the attitude exhibited by some that PC's expending considerable resources to thwart the DM's plan that the NPC die is the PC's playing badly and acting like jerks is not a very productive attitude for a DM to have.
Agreed also. But I'm not sure who you actually have in your sights here.
I tend to notice a bit of bleeding as the PCs begin exploration, so it's not necessarily true that there's an off-on switch where you jump from scene framing to playing the game immediately. That's certainly possible, but I've noticed exploration mode in particular it takes a bit for the PCs to warm up to interacting.
I'd be curious to hear you chime in on this [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]? You seem to have a stronger grasp of scene framing than me.
I agree that the boundaries can be blurry - particularly if you're playing with a fairly laid back group in a relaxed environment. I mean, as you (as GM) are speaking your description of the situation, the players can always interject and kibbitz - but how (if at all) this is to be translated into movements within the action resolution mechanics can be a pretty flexible and fluid thing. (For example, if there is something that would be obviously relevant to the PCs' actions, and you just haven't got to it yet, it would be pretty hardcore play to say that a player was bound by an action declaration made eagerly and in ignorance of the as-yet-undescribed-but-highly-relevant-feature.)
Generally, if I'm describing a situation, and mentioning how the PCs are located in it (eg "As you walk up to the city gate, you notice that . . .), and the players make it clear that they want their PCs to act, I will put the players on hold, describe the rest of the scene so that they have full information, and then let them act. That is, if I'm trying to frame something fairly hard, and my players make it clear that they don't want it so hard, I'll pull back.
My reason for sometimes framing hard is to keep the game moving. My reason for pulling back if the players want to act is to let them play the game. But if the sorts of actions they want to perform are precisely those that I was hoping to avoid via harder framing (eg they want to do a lot of searching in an environment where I know there is nothing to be found) I will tend to resolve the action fairly quickly and decisively (eg if there is nothing to be found, I will let them know without playing through a whole lot of Perception checks).
In the case of the dying NPC, I would generally expect the PCs to rush to his/her side, attempt to heal, and so on, but having determined in advance that simple hit point restoration is not going to be enough for the injury in question, I would be ready to indicate that to the players in pretty clear terms. (And as S'mon noted above, would describe the injuries in a way that makes this seem unsurprising to the players.)
As an aside, I was talking about this situation with one of my players before yesterdays game. (I find this particular player a distinctive sounding board, because he has a lot of board game experience, but has only played RPGs in the Rolemaster and 4e games that I GM.) He had two responses, which echoed what a lot of posts here have said: first, that the rules are meant to facilitate rather than constrain, and so if a scene is conceivable in principle then the game should be able to accomodate it; second, that the GM could easily contrive a situation in which healing magic doesn't work (his particular suggestion was a stain of shadow on the soul that is draining away the NPCs life force).
When I suggested that not all injuries are healable by hit point damage he agreed - a severed limb was the example he mentioned - but I find it interesting that his first move was within the fiction - he though of a magical explanation - rather than at the metalevel of thinking about the function and limits of the action resolution mechanics.