D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[The Crimson Binome]

I GM a 4e game, and I have had NPCs who have suffered severe physical damage - for instance blindness and maiming from being in melee with hobgoblins. The hit point and healing rules didn't pose any obstacle to this (because they are not a system for modelling or deciding what happens when NPC orcs fight NPC hobgoblins off-screen - I just make that stuff up!).

Right, and that's not acceptable to me. The hit point and healing rules, being an extension of natural law within the game world, shouldn't be able to distinguish between PCs and NPCs.

In my own game, where one of the NPCs had a broken leg, what were the mechanical effects? It meant that the character in question couldn't walk, and needed to be carried.
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If you're saying that abstract hit points handle all this in a way the free descriptions like "broken leg" don't, I'm not sure I follow.
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Certainly lost hp aren't such, because they don't impede you and can be naturally healed quite easily - whereas broken legs don't heal in a week, and humans never grow back lost limbs or eyes.

In general, the simplest solution is that abstract Hit Points cover random broken bones, and such things have no meaningful game effect (cosmetic limp), and it all heals within a few weeks or so. It's not a perfect model, of course, but it's a simple one.

You could also easily say that broken bones are too rare to come up as a result of standard combat. I've done the occasional "broken leg = move speed reduced to 10 feet" or "broken hand = -4 to checks with that hand". It's almost always the result of a non-combat wound, though, when there's absolutely zero doubt about the exact nature of the injury, and I always tied it back to hit points. A broken leg is accompanied by 3d6 damage, or whatever, and the penalty lasts until all of the damage is healed.

(I seem to recall that 3E had a line of sneak attack feats that worked very similarly, allowing you to make called strikes by sacrificing damage in order to impose conditions that lasted "until healed".)

Maybe it's just that I never encountered the idea that Hit Points didn't account for wounds until 4E, where they rather explicitly state that everything in a Hit Point is something that recovers with a night of rest. For various reasons, I still can't buy into the idea that you could lose Hit Points without actually getting hit, or that the physical state of a character is not reflected in current Hit Points.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe it's just that I never encountered the idea that Hit Points didn't account for wounds until 4E, where they rather explicitly state that everything in a Hit Point is something that recovers with a night of rest. For various reasons, I still can't buy into the idea that you could lose Hit Points without actually getting hit, or that the physical state of a character is not reflected in current Hit Points.

I think that might be it. I didn't encounter the "Meat Points" approach to HP until the internet (1993 or so), myself. Playing with both 1E and 2E players, experienced RPGers and new ones, everyone seemed to see HP as a mixture of physical injury and general degradation, which I believe they were explained to be in a number of earlier D&D sources (and Dragon).

HP are actually one of D&D's most daring ideas, one of it's best abstractions. But turning them into "Meat Points" misses the entire point of the abstraction, and often makes D&D farcical.

Also, the "natural law of the gameworld" thing sounds like "the rules are physics", to me, which is an approach I never saw until 3E, and leads into "this way madness lies" territory where the NPCs have to operate on the exact same basis as the PCs, which just creates more questions than it answers, in the long run.

 

[pemerton]

the simplest solution is that abstract Hit Points cover random broken bones, and such things have no meaningful game effect (cosmetic limp), and it all heals within a few weeks or so. It's not a perfect model, of course, but it's a simple one.

Your objection to [MENTION=6775806]Der-Rage[/MENTION]'s broken leg label was that there were no mechanics for resolving it.

But now you're saying that a "cosmetic limp" is sufficient.

I don't see how those two positions are consistent. I have never had a broken leg, but I have been on crutches more than once for soft-tissue damage to my knee and ankle. That sort of injury does not cause a merely cosmetic limp, and it does not heal of its own accord in a week or two. Hit points aren't a mechanic that resolves the recovery of a broken leg. They're not even a proxy for such a mechanic. I mean, with the fighter's Second Wind on the 5e character sheet, you could stipulate that s/he has a "cosmetic limp" even though all his/her hit points have recovered. If it's purely cosmetic, you can treat it however you like.

A broken leg is accompanied by 3d6 damage, or whatever, and the penalty lasts until all of the damage is healed.

This is kind of weird because it makes a broken leg potentially fatal for nearly everyone in the world (who in any edition of D&D typically have a modest single-digit number of hit points), whereas in fact suffering a broken leg is not in and of itself generally fatal, and probably won't even cause you to pass out from pain unless you really insist on walking on it.

You could also easily say that broken bones are too rare to come up as a result of standard combat.

My intuition is that in a combat involving mace and warhammers, broken bones would be reasonably common. Given how easily it is to tear ligaments, tendons etc jogging, or making sharp turns in ball sports, I suspect that those sorts of soft-tissue injuries would also be quite common, as a result of trying to manoeuvre and dodge.

I am happy to play a heroic game in which such injuries don't occur to the PCs - like Conan or Aragorn, for instance, they never suffer these severe injuries. And a hit point system is a good way of achieving this. But to project it onto the gameworld as a whole - so that, for instance, when armies of NPCs clash no one ever suffers a debilitating but non-fatal wound - turns the gameworld from something I can recognise and make sense of to something too removed from reality to be worth engaging with.

The hit point and healing rules, being an extension of natural law within the game world, shouldn't be able to distinguish between PCs and NPCs.

In 4e the hit point and hit point recovery rules don't distinguish between PCs and NPCs except in one respect - most NPCs don't have access to second wind as an encounter power. But stipulating, as GM, that a group of dwarven NPCs suffered various debilitating injuries in a fight with hobgoblins has nothing to do with the hit point and healing rules.

(And for the reasons I've already stated, I cannot accept that the hit point and hit point recovery rules are any sort of extension of "natural law within the game world". The gameworld is, more or less, the same as our natural world as far as human proclivity to injury is concerned. Real world wars leave large numbers of people injured in ways that can't be healed by a week or three of rest. The game world is no different - it's just that the PCs will never be instances of such people, because attempts to injure them are resolved using the hit point rules.)

Maybe it's just that I never encountered the idea that Hit Points didn't account for wounds until 4E

I noticed as soon as I read my AD&D PHB, which had a 7th level spell - Regenerate - that was separate from the Cure Wounds line of spells, plus a separate spell for curing blindness, but no way within its action resolution mechanics for inflicting such injuries other than via very magical items. (Whereas the real world has many people maimed and/or blinded by injury without every having suffered an attack from a sword of sharpness or a staff of withering.)

Also, as [MENTION=18]Ruin Explorer[/MENTION] has noted, there were the long discussions in both the PHB and DMG explaining that hit points are a type of "plot point" abstraction. (Page 34 of the PHB talks about "combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural forces), and magical forces." Page 82 of the DMG talks about "skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. . . . the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness) . . . exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability . . . physical and metaphysical." Page 112 of the DMG talks about "the aid supplied by supernatural forces.")

 

[Ichneumon]

I have to admit that I'm a little mystified that so many people seem to think casting two spells in one round is an absolutely huge deal. Seems like whilst that'd be nice, it's no different to a normal Mage getting surprise and winning initiative, which isn't typically seen as game-breaking.

Further, you can only cast so many spells, and if you insist on pumping out two at the beginning of every combat, seems like you'll be out real fast...

So I think this might be an area where, even if you can, via this suggested MC'ing, it's not actually likely to "break the game" in a serious way. The small number of total spells one can cast in 5E really limits it's value.

I doubt that being able to cast two spells together once between rests is really all that game breaking. But being able to motormouth an extra spell in a turn because you took two levels of fighter sounds jarring & counterintuitive to me. If anything, a trick like that seems best suited to sorcerers.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I doubt that being able to cast two spells together once between rests is really all that game breaking. But being able to motormouth an extra spell in a turn because you took two levels of fighter sounds jarring & counterintuitive to me. If anything, a trick like that seems best suited to sorcerers.

Depends how you look at it, doesn't it?

If you look at it as a sort of MAGIC POWER!!!!!!!, that they suddenly gain, then yeah, it does seems weird.

If, on the other hand, you equate it more to, say, Combat Reflexes from GURPS (which I don't think is a bad comparison), and see Action Surge as product of serious combat training that other classes might not experience, then I don't really see the "jarring"-ness.

Plus "motormouth"? Come off it. Spells cost one action to cast. Many of them can become Swift, implying that they don't actually *require* much speech at all. There isn't any "motormouth"-ing going on because spells are not you talking for an entire round or something (otherwise they'd be more vulnerable to interruption, 1E/2E-style). Stuff like that is putting barriers in your own way and then claiming the path is blocked, imho.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I like how the bonus is the main, most obvious number for each stat with the actual stat in small type beneath it. Ability scores are a tough cow to slay, but at least they realize what is important.

That said, it makes sense to have the modifier be the larger number. It's the important one.

Thaumaturge.

This is a part of gamer culture that saddens me. The value of a stat being no more than the bonus it provides and systems that reinforce this assumption via the mechanics.

That doesn't really answer the question at all. Whether the length of the short rest is 5 minutes or 1 hour, the point is that if you rest for [double the length of a short rest], you get twice as much benefit if you're jumped by a goblin halfway through.

That makes it even weirder. Now you've got a situation where someone is all beat-up, gets jumped by a goblin, and suddenly feels better.

In general, I think it's a bad idea to have abilities that can only be used "in combat," or that are triggered/reset by going "into combat." I prefer a more fluid approach where combat and noncombat can seamlessly blend into each other.

Agreed. Indeed the designing of mechanics around the "fights per day" paradigm is just a bad idea.

No wandering monsters in cities? Depends on the city, really. *cough*Sigil*cough*Sharn...

Not really. ANY city that is actually inhabited should have the potential for wandering encounters. Show me a city without a wandering prostitute table and I'll show you a city not worth visiting!

Speaking in generalities and stereotypes, D&D players tend to venerate the intellectual, physically-weak-but-my-brain-is-so-powerful-yo Wizard because it reflects their personal experience of the world, while the more "mundane" and jock-ish Fighter is placed into an intentionally subservient position. Note that the dominant narrative isn't so much one of straight revenge, but of benevolent superiority: the wizard, in his overwhelming power, is inclusive and accepts the jock, despite the jock's obvious inferiority due to lacking magical powers.

Anything that implies the jock is also able to break the rules of reality, even in tiny ways that pale in comparison to what the wizard or cleric can do, must be shunned or the superiority narrative starts to fall apart because it means the jock is no longer beholden to the magic users.

Note that we actually see this mentality spill into the real world. A lot of the tech-types view themselves as modern wizards, possessing secret knowledge (programming, system administration, economics) that unlocks the workings of day to day reality (the world runs off computers.) There's even a neo-monarchist movement that, at first glance, could be easily mistaken for someone's d20 Modern/D&D hybrid campaign notes.

You so funny. Some people enjoy playing fantasy as superheroes and some prefer a more traditional fantasy approach. Its that simple.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You so funny. Some people enjoy playing fantasy as superheroes and some prefer a more traditional fantasy approach. Its that simple.

What, you mean the "traditional fantasy" where wizards are always the badguys or not or rarely involved in the story as a direct actor, rather an an advisor/guide or living macguffin?



Certainly no definition of "traditional fantasy" I've ever come across features works with D&D-style wizards (unless you're talking about D&D-derived fantasy, which would be pretty incestuous!), and even if we get into the realms of "Weird Fantasy" and the like, then you have go for something like Malazan (which is D&D-derived, albeit distantly), and also definitely fits the "Superheroes" model, not the "traditional fantasy".

So yeah, no, it definitely isn't that simple. It's actually very complex and non-binary, directly contrary to your binary assertion - there's a definite sliding scale which goes in multiple directions, and nothing "traditional" about "fireball" or the like in fantasy.

 

[Thaumaturge]

It's actually very complex and non-binary, directly contrary to your binary assertion - there's a definite sliding scale which goes in multiple directions, and nothing "traditional" about "fireball" or the like in fantasy.

So you're saying it's either binary or it's not? (edit: )

Thaumaturge.

 

[Uchawi]

Temp HPs are awful for a Second Wind mechanic, because the best time to get temporary HPs is before you take any damage at all.

You'd have to rename it to "First Wind."

I agree. The tendency with any temporary hit point power under the players control is to evoke it immediately. Where second wind as hit point restoration fits the feel much better as shrugging off damage. And whether is it temporary, restoration, or resistance, players that don't like martial characters having an ability that is extraordinary will have heartburn.

 

[Thaumaturge]

And, to assuage some concerns I've seen, here is what Mearls said about the character sheet:

@thatmaxsteele Yup, that's essentially the official sheet filled in.

Thaumaturge.