I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[Oryan77]

I've never heard people defend the HP system as not being a representation of physical damage as much as I have until 4e came out.

I've also never heard so many people use a variation of "think abstractly" to defend a rule as much as I have until 4e came out.

 

[Dausuul]

The reason why I've never considered hit point loss to be "real" damage or injury is because of the loss of versimilitude I see between D&D combat and "real" combat if I did.

In actually swordfighting... especially between highly armored individuals, you usually don't see actual real injury occur until one of them manages a killing blow. Instead, you see two guys getting bruised, getting tired, getting their bells rung, slowing down, perhaps get some small cuts across the face or arm... until finally someone manages to get their weapon past their opponent's defenses and cuts off a limb, or guts the other guy in the stomach or face. But once that happens, the fight is over.

Now for the guy who wins... he usually isn't massively injured, because if he was, he wouldn't have been able to continue fighting. His guard would have dropped, and he would have been the one to have received the killing blow (or the 'took such a catastrophic injury that he ain't getting up any time soon, if ever' blow.) Instead, he takes off his helmet, he regains his breath, he drinks some water, he maybe bandages some superficial wounds, and he then gets ready to continue on to the next battle. He never was actually hurt.

Which is fine, until the guy who had his limb cut off jumps back to his feet and announces it was just a flesh wound and he's had worse. Sometimes I think 4E fighters ought to have a "Bite Your Legs Off" power.

 

[Gargoyle]

Easy explanation on that one. A level one fighter gets hit by a poisoned sword and take 8 points of damage from the slashing gash the orc just opened from his hip to his armpit. He then needs to make a saving throw vs poison.

A level 10 fighter gets hit by a poisoned sword and gets nicked in the arm for 8 points of damage. However, since he was hit, he still has to make a save vs poison.

The difference is a huge gash on a level 1 fighter, vs a nick on a level 10 fighter, even though both attacks did the same damage.

Which is all fine and good, I do the same, but my point is that because the blade is poisoned, it has to hit him. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. I can't as the DM say, "You rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding the blade." like I could if it weren't poisoned. Luck and exhaustion as explanations for losing hp don't make sense when there is a chance that it will poison him. It has to nick him repeatedly, thus limiting my narration.

I've been playing D&D since the late 70s now and have been DMing a 4E campaign for a bit over a year now and I'm still getting used to the idea of healing surges. I don't love how they work, but what I do love is that it really limits the 15 minute adventuring day - if the players have surges/reserves/hit-point-getter-backers or whatever you want to call them - the party can rest 5 minutes and press on and have access to all their at-will and encounter powers. In prior editions, it was one big combat a day and rest/recover and move out the next day.

I agree. And I don't have a better idea on how to get this functionality without the complexity and the narration issues.

 

[Nagol]

Which is fine, until the guy who had his limb cut off jumps back to his feet and announces it was just a flesh wound and he's had worse. Sometimes I think 4E fighters ought to have a "Bite Your Legs Off" power.

And that's why you can only narrate in after the fact. Party A is worn down to the point where a potentially catastrphic hit happens -- or did it? Maybe he just slipped and wakes up unhurt and ready to go; maybe he bleeds out on the floor and dies. You'll only know once the player of Party A works out if and how many healing surges can be triggered.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Which is fine, until the guy who had his limb cut off jumps back to his feet and announces it was just a flesh wound and he's had worse. Sometimes I think 4E fighters ought to have a "Bite Your Legs Off" power.

And that's why I never narrate a guy getting his limbs cut off, unless it was the monster taking the final attack that kills him.

 

[Dausuul]

And that's why I never narrate a guy getting his limbs cut off, unless it was the monster taking the final attack that kills him.

So you never narrate a guy being seriously injured, unless he goes from positive hit points to negative bloodied in one shot? Because that's the only attack you can know to be fatal at the time of narration. If the attack just takes the guy into negative hit points, it's possible--even likely--that he'll be up and about again when combat's over, apparently no worse for wear. Unless of course he bleeds out and dies, in which case he'll be dead.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And that's why I never narrate a guy getting his limbs cut off, unless it was the monster taking the final attack that kills him.

So, you never use things like Swords of Sharpness? Your loss.

 

[Nagol]

And that's why I never narrate a guy getting his limbs cut off, unless it was the monster taking the final attack that kills him.

Or going down in a pool of blood, being run through front to back, or having a large visible wound pumping blood, etc.

You're pretty much limited to "Party A goes down"; he may not even have been hit.

 

[Gaerek]

I've never heard people defend the HP system as not being a representation of physical damage as much as I have until 4e came out.

I also never heard of people defending the forward pass in football before it was first used in a game. Of course people aren't going to spend time defending it. Prior to 4e, it was the status quo. If you didn't like it, your choice would be to live with it, or not play D&D. It's only after the status quo was changed that the need to defend it occurs.

Having said that, I've had dozens of discussions with people about what HP really represent since I started playing in 1991. When I first started, I didn't think about it. When I spent time thinking about damage in D&D, I went to my DM (this was '92 or '93) and asked him about it, and we argued about it for about an hour. Since then, I've explained/argued/defended it many times. Just because YOU didn't notice people defending it, doesn't mean it didn't happen...a lot...

 

[DEFCON 1]

So you never narrate a guy being seriously injured, unless he goes from positive hit points to negative bloodied in one shot?

Nope. Makes no sense. How do you narrate differences in injury that don't actually incapacitate the person?

A fighter gets hit by various attacks for 5 HPs, 12 HPs, 10 HPs, 10 HPs, 4 HPs, then whoops! Critical hit for 42 HPs! And then after that attack the fighter still isn't even bloodied yet.

What were those 5 to 12 HP attacks? Were they all actual cuts? Cuts that won't 'go away' after combat is done and instead require magical healing to get rid of? And if so... what then was that 45 HP critical hit? A complete impaling through the sword arm? And yet after that... the fighter still doe-see-does through the rest of the combat as though nothing happens. And then on top of that... our fighter here is wearing a complete set of plate armor. So where exactly are these 5 vicious cuts occurring on him? What parts of him are actually exposed enough that he sustains actual physical injury in each of those attacks, and not just bruising and fatigue?

To me, if a swordfighter sustains a narratively gross physical injury... it's removed him from a fight. He's down. He's out. He's not getting up. You don't narrate the fighter taking an arrow to the throat if the expectation is he's going to spend a couple healing surges to go back to full HP.