I'm still trying to figure out why the D&D Next subforum seems to be the 'Tell the world why you hate 4e' forum.
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D&D 5E Hp as meat and abstraction
- Thread starter Lokiare
- Start date
I'm still trying to figure out why the D&D Next subforum seems to be the 'Tell the world why you hate 4e' forum.
Because some people don't want this edition to end up like the last one.
Obryn
Hero
It's funny because it's true.
Oddly enough, while I like Damage on a Miss conceptually (and 4E is my favorite released version of D&D, NEXT being my overall favorite at this point), I don't like it the way it is currently implemented - because I see potential future hazards with "attacks that deal damage" feats & abilities and so forth. While you can write in the exceptions on each of those abilities, things tend to get missed in RPG books, and I could see it leading to an issue further down the line.
I just don't like it because it eats up design space. That and it doesn't fit the way that kind of fighter plays in general. As it stands, I don't think you add 1.5x STR mod to damage when you hit with a 2H weapon in NEXT - I'd rather have hits that deal 2X STR damage for Great Weapon Fighting.
Actually, I'd go with 1.5x STR damage and rolling an additional weapon dice worth of damage on criticals.
IE: An ability that starts with "when you deal fire damage" that is intended for spellcasting classes and someone's wielding a fiery 2h bastard sword could lead to issues.
Conceptually I just lump it in with all the other BS that D&D entails. I feel as if I thought about D&D logically, my brain would break.
I just don't like it because it eats up design space. That and it doesn't fit the way that kind of fighter plays in general. As it stands, I don't think you add 1.5x STR mod to damage when you hit with a 2H weapon in NEXT - I'd rather have hits that deal 2X STR damage for Great Weapon Fighting.
Actually, I'd go with 1.5x STR damage and rolling an additional weapon dice worth of damage on criticals.
IE: An ability that starts with "when you deal fire damage" that is intended for spellcasting classes and someone's wielding a fiery 2h bastard sword could lead to issues.
Conceptually I just lump it in with all the other BS that D&D entails. I feel as if I thought about D&D logically, my brain would break.
To me, hit points are (and have been since a long discussion with my 3.0e group years ago) your ability to avoid a serious injury.
Whenever hit points are lost, I narrate that as anything that would, in context, wear down the victim such that they are less able to avoid a serious injury - for a barbarian, it might be shallow cuts and bruises. For a rogue, fitness and the ability to dodge. For a skeleton, it's the physical integrity of its body. For incorporeal creatures, it's the magic that protects them.
When damage would take someone to less than 0 hit points, that means - to me - that they are seriously wounded because they were unable to prevent it. Anything that happens before that blow isn't a serious injury - it's something that (with sufficient willpower, resilience or just dumb luck) you could ignore. The barbarian had too many small wounds, slowing her down enough that she couldn't avoid a heavy blow, for instance.
This is why I prefer harsher systems in place to deal with situations where someone has been dropped, as well. I mentioned a while back an exhaustion-based wound system I'm trying out - it seems to be working very well. Exhaustion is such a natural mechanic
I guess this interpretation is why I'm absolutely fine with martial healing - there's never a case of "shouting a limb back on" in my games: Purely hit point damage includes cuts, bruises, scrapes, a nagging sense of doom, the knowledge that all your works will come to nothing... It's easy to imagine that the right words could make you ignore all of that for a while. As soon as you've been dropped, though, nothing short of (Int/Dex/Wis)[Medicine] (depending on the injuries you took), a Lesser Restoration cast from a 3rd level slot or days (maybe weeks) of untreated rest is going to bring you back to full health, even if you can restore all of your hit points. Martial healing won't do it, but then neither will Cure Wounds (I'll allow a Paladin to spend 15hp of his Lay on Hands for it, or a Cleric to use a healing Channel Divinity. Both of those fit thematically. I can't think of a purely martial way that it would work, but I don't expect that to be a problem.
(Just to be clear: I do allow Cure Wounds (and I would allow martial healing) to get someone up from 0 hit points. I just apply consequences to the character such that getting up doesn't mean the problem has gone away)
Ugh. Another long ramble. Oh well.
Whenever hit points are lost, I narrate that as anything that would, in context, wear down the victim such that they are less able to avoid a serious injury - for a barbarian, it might be shallow cuts and bruises. For a rogue, fitness and the ability to dodge. For a skeleton, it's the physical integrity of its body. For incorporeal creatures, it's the magic that protects them.
When damage would take someone to less than 0 hit points, that means - to me - that they are seriously wounded because they were unable to prevent it. Anything that happens before that blow isn't a serious injury - it's something that (with sufficient willpower, resilience or just dumb luck) you could ignore. The barbarian had too many small wounds, slowing her down enough that she couldn't avoid a heavy blow, for instance.
This is why I prefer harsher systems in place to deal with situations where someone has been dropped, as well. I mentioned a while back an exhaustion-based wound system I'm trying out - it seems to be working very well. Exhaustion is such a natural mechanic
I guess this interpretation is why I'm absolutely fine with martial healing - there's never a case of "shouting a limb back on" in my games: Purely hit point damage includes cuts, bruises, scrapes, a nagging sense of doom, the knowledge that all your works will come to nothing... It's easy to imagine that the right words could make you ignore all of that for a while. As soon as you've been dropped, though, nothing short of (Int/Dex/Wis)[Medicine] (depending on the injuries you took), a Lesser Restoration cast from a 3rd level slot or days (maybe weeks) of untreated rest is going to bring you back to full health, even if you can restore all of your hit points. Martial healing won't do it, but then neither will Cure Wounds (I'll allow a Paladin to spend 15hp of his Lay on Hands for it, or a Cleric to use a healing Channel Divinity. Both of those fit thematically. I can't think of a purely martial way that it would work, but I don't expect that to be a problem.
(Just to be clear: I do allow Cure Wounds (and I would allow martial healing) to get someone up from 0 hit points. I just apply consequences to the character such that getting up doesn't mean the problem has gone away)
Ugh. Another long ramble. Oh well.
Balesir
Adventurer
That's only the minor action healing (both Warlords and Clerics get two instances per encounter). But Clerics also get "Cure Light Wounds" and similar as a Daily - which gives healing "as if you had spent a healing surge". I.e. you get the healing, you don't have to spend a surge.
Healing during an encounter (any stress situation) is limited. I have had player characters die at Heroic levels and very nearly die in late Paragon (have done hardly any Epic, yet).
Here is your problem - two Leaders is not really that great in a party, because you get too much healing and too little damage output. It's a weakness in 4E that wasn't really pointed out early enough.
Isn't that what every forum is for?
The "good fight" must be fought!
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Hit points have to *always* be at least partly meat if only to allow one simple long-standing mechanic to function: poisoned weapons.
If you're at full h.p. and I nick you with a poisoned dagger for 1 point damage you still need to save vs. poison. Thus, even that very first point of damage carries at least some meat quotient with it.
As for DoaM, the touch-AC idea above is a brilliant compromise - if you'd hit the touch AC but didn't hit the full AC then you've done some glancing damage; if you don't even hit the touch AC then you missed completely and do nothing.
Lanefan
If you're at full h.p. and I nick you with a poisoned dagger for 1 point damage you still need to save vs. poison. Thus, even that very first point of damage carries at least some meat quotient with it.
As for DoaM, the touch-AC idea above is a brilliant compromise - if you'd hit the touch AC but didn't hit the full AC then you've done some glancing damage; if you don't even hit the touch AC then you missed completely and do nothing.
Lanefan
Ahnehnois
First Post
Plausibility is arguably more important to fantasy than to other genres. Look at the amount of effort Tolkien put into world building, or the millions of dollars HBO spends on making Game of Thrones look real. Fantasy is not some alternate bizarro world, it's the real world with certain specific changes. Given that those changes are fantastical, it becomes even more important to emphasize everything that hasn't changed so the audience can connect with the material. Certainly applies to D&D as well.
Ironically, the original intent was to create a phonetic rendering of an obscure elven word. The h's can essentially be ignored; they're just guidelines as to how to pronounce the vowels. I'd have given it up for something easier on the eyes if it wasn't such a signature at this point.
"Alzrius" is a bit of a tongue-twister itself though. Hazards of making up fantasy words I guess.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I figured the h's were silent, it was the last three or four letters that were throwing me off. Are they pronounced like in "noise"? Or are they a French-sounding "-nwa"?
No doubt, though in this case I can't be the one to claim credit for making it up. It's an obscure demon lord that's cropped up every now and again since Second Edition. I use it often enough online (though, as it turns out, I'm not the only one using that name) that, like you, I'm loathe to give it up.
Ahnehnois
First Post
Definitely the former, though with a hard 's' (sound more like "voice"). I never considered the latter. Just because my avatar is an elf doesn't make me French...(reads up on elves)...oh, wait, it kind of does.
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