D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Fenris-77]

To be honest I think temporary hit points are an unnecessary complication. Because all hit points are really temporary. The distinction feels artificial.

Nevermind that the mechanic feels very much like they should stack, but they don't, a state of affairs that irks most people when they realize how it works.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

People are still arguing about what hit points represent? What is this, 1978?

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as 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. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

 

[Garthanos]

Nevermind that the mechanic feels very much like they should stack, but they don't, a state of affairs that irks most people when they realize how it works.

I mean there are some places where having temporary hit points are used in 4e as a signifier of an unusual mind state and to provide a potentially encounter long duration I guess like the battlerager of 4e and sure enough they made those stack

 

[Maxperson]

In the second LotR film, Aragorn is unconscious having fallen over a cliff, and is returned to consciousness by the memory (or is it more than that? the film is a little ambiguous) of Arwen.

In the film Excalibur, Perceval is hanging unconscious from a tree and is revived by an encounter - purely in his mind - with the Holy Grail.

In LotR, when Frodo is stabbed by the Orcish captain in Moria, he falls and his friends worry that he is dead. He recovers when Aragorn picks him up and carries him out of the chamber.

That's one way of looking at those scenes. Another would be that all three were in the process of physically regaining consciousness already when those events occurred. In the case of Aragorn and Percival, their already waking minds came up with constructs while they were coming to.

Either interpretation is valid.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Doesn't happen because D&D does not have heros suffering anything that is effectively like real "wounds" unimpairing scratches and minor bruises with no actual impact do not have to go away when hit points are restored.

AD&D did have explicit impairing wounds at sub zero hit points.... and hurray restoring a characters full hit points did not remove the impairment. (one would be out of action for at least a week even with full hit points)

Because even then Hit point loss did not represent wounds. But rather a threshold before wounds could be recieved.

People homebrewed lingering injuries in many editions including in 4e and it has re-appeared in 5e look to those if you want wounds.

The Bards healing in 5e is officially not considered a magical effect by the way but rather much like the 4e Warlord (but not having any representation of calling on the heroic reserves of the subject I guess)

I have a wound mechanism in HoML also. So, suppose your character fell in a pit and would take a lethal amount of damage, or even enough to be technically 'dying', you could reduce the damage by one HS and instead inflict a wound on your character. Your leg is broken, which is damned inconvenient, but you still have some hit points, and you could now at least do SOMETHING. Fixing that leg might really be a pain, but you can carry on with it splinted up, albeit you will be moving slower. I consider it a form of 'Upping the Stakes', you gained a bit, but the overall result is you're deeper in the muck than you were before, and it isn't likely to get more shallow! At least not before its more than neck deep.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It actually does, because you are suddenly dying when you lose your last hit point. Which is the summary of my problem with Martial Power, it would be really "you are dying, walk it off".

For me, all the above is not a problem, whatever the edition, because it's exactly what you see in movies and books, people fighting totally unimpaired until the final stroke gets them down, and often really dead.

I see it all as heavily NARRATIVE. So, imagine a narrative description of this brutal sword fight. Its dark, smelly, frightening, and people are hacking away at each other, going down, getting up again, etc. Who the heck knows why the fighter is down? Did the orc just slam him to the ground and he's at zero hit points because he is so stunned and intimidated by this crazy orc that he just can't will himself to stand up again, or does he have a gaping chest wound? In a 40x40 torchlit room filled with 10 combatants there's no knowing. Heck, even the FIGHTER probably doesn't know if he's dying or not!

So, that's my general view of things. I mean, yes, it means that any specific description of action, such as "The orc plunges her axe into the fighter, who goes down in a spray of blood." is PROVISIONAL. That's the perception of the narrator at that instant in time, but it isn't necessary going to turn out to have been the actual situation. Maybe the blood was imagined, or already on the blade, or it was a shred of the fighter's armor seen in dim light, whatever. I equate this more to CINEMATIC action than LITERARY action. That is, if you are watching some movie with a certain type of cinematography you see a kind of crazy frenzy of action and motion and sound and fury, with the characters reacting in split seconds to things they barely even saw. At the end the dust clears, and it turns out the fighter slipped on some blood and the warlord telling him she was pissed because she was looking forward to hooking up with him got his butt back in action! Poor guy now has bigger problems than before! lol.

It just felt quite frustrating back in the day to hear the endless casual dismissal of 4e based on "I refuse to entertain the possibility that my fixation on this interpretation is really because it lets me not analyze what actually troubles me about this game." Not saying that is the case here, just that its an Edition War Legacy thing, it triggers people.

I'm surprised by this, since the motto of the 5e bard is "Music and Magic", really the core of the class. They explicitely cast spells like cure wounds using magic, right ? And it is about the song of rest, it's indeed not magic, but it does not heal out of the blue, it just reinforces whatever other characters do to heal themselves (whether it's using innate magic, drawing on their inner strength, etc.).

So, how is this not a perfectly good explanation of 4e warlords? I mean, Martial IS a POWER SOURCE, not just "the ordinary mundane non-magical world." IMHO this is why 'Chi' was not really an acceptable concept for a power source, and was rejected by the developers (I understand the cultural part too, not getting into that). Martial IS CHI. It is just a less stereotyped and 'Asian' presentation. In my own game, which uses pretty similar power source concepts, this is explicitly spelled out, "Martial is also sometimes known by terms such as Qi/Chi, ..." I mean, maybe there really isn't a perfectly good mapping there, but its at least a solidly supportable position. Nobody would argue with a description of a hero mustering his Chi and magically bolstering an ally with it. Heck, this kind of thing is practically stock-in-trade in half of all shows on Chinese TV in the last 20 years. You cannot even throw a rock online and not hit some video filled with that stuff.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Hitpoints are a metacurrency.

GM: The orc stabs you through the chest with its sword, you die.

Bob the Fighter's Player: Oh, I don't like that, I'll spend my hitpoints to prevent that.

GM: Okay, spend <clatter> 7 hitpoints.

Player: Okay, I had 10, so I have three left.

GM: Cool, the orc stabs at you but you manage to twist out of the way at the last minute and only take a shallow gash across your ribcage. The second orc swings his mace and <clatter> smashes your skull in.

Player: Um, hitpoints, again?

GM: Sure, spend <clatter> 5.

Player: Gulp, I only have 3.

GM: Okay, you drop to 0, and you die, crushed skull.

Player: Oh, wait! I invoke dying!

GM: Sure thing, you drop to zero, the mace has struck the crown of your head, but whether or not it was a fatal blow or a glancing one is yet to be revealed, make a death saving throw!

Player: Yes! <clatter> NO! A 1.

GM: That's two saving throw fails, looks like it's getting close to curtains!

 

[Lyxen]

I see it all as heavily NARRATIVE. So, imagine a narrative description of this brutal sword fight. Its dark, smelly, frightening, and people are hacking away at each other, going down, getting up again, etc. Who the heck knows why the fighter is down? Did the orc just slam him to the ground and he's at zero hit points because he is so stunned and intimidated by this crazy orc that he just can't will himself to stand up again, or does he have a gaping chest wound? In a 40x40 torchlit room filled with 10 combatants there's no knowing. Heck, even the FIGHTER probably doesn't know if he's dying or not!

It's a bit more complicated than this, because contrary to a book/movie where the writer/director can sort of lie to the reader/watcher or twist their perception, D&D is a shared narrative, which means that whatever vision there is needs to be shared in real time with all participants.

So yes, for me it's narrative, but there needs to be a shared truth as to whether the fighter is dying or not, otherwise people will not be telling the same story at the same time.

So, that's my general view of things. I mean, yes, it means that any specific description of action, such as "The orc plunges her axe into the fighter, who goes down in a spray of blood." is PROVISIONAL.

And this is where I have a different perception, because in particular of the above. It cannot be provisional, because the other players will make decisions based on what has been described by the DM, and going back on this will just throw other players into confusion.

This is why true retcon like the one that you mentioned (I found it, and it has nothing to do with just going through the mechanics of a single attack, whether there is a shield or not) where an orc had moved, but it was later moved back because of forced movement is troubling, people acting between the description and the retcon (which, once more does not happen with the shield action) will base their own action on incorrect information.

That's the perception of the narrator at that instant in time, but it isn't necessary going to turn out to have been the actual situation.

This might work for standard fiction but it cannot work in a shared fiction like D&D.

Maybe the blood was imagined, or already on the blade, or it was a shred of the fighter's armor seen in dim light, whatever. I equate this more to CINEMATIC action than LITERARY action. That is, if you are watching some movie with a certain type of cinematography you see a kind of crazy frenzy of action and motion and sound and fury, with the characters reacting in split seconds to things they barely even saw. At the end the dust clears, and it turns out the fighter slipped on some blood and the warlord telling him she was pissed because she was looking forward to hooking up with him got his butt back in action! Poor guy now has bigger problems than before! lol.

It just felt quite frustrating back in the day to hear the endless casual dismissal of 4e based on "I refuse to entertain the possibility that my fixation on this interpretation is really because it lets me not analyze what actually troubles me about this game." Not saying that is the case here, just that its an Edition War Legacy thing, it triggers people.

And this is why I find it extremely frustrating as soon as 4e fans are involved, you guys are so touchy about this that you take everything as criticism of your dear edition. I have nothing against it, play it to your heart's content if that is your preference, but please allow me my own preferences, different from yours, because I'm very possibly not looking for the same thing in a game. A Landcruiser is a wonderful car, a Porsche is a wonderful car too, but they are not interchangeable depending on where you want to drive them if it's not simple roads. One will perform better than the other in its favoured environment, that's all.

So, how is this not a perfectly good explanation of 4e warlords? I mean, Martial IS a POWER SOURCE, not just "the ordinary mundane non-magical world."

And again, I'm all for it, but my reproach, explained many times now, is that if it's a different power source because it's not magical, make it brilliantly so rather than saying that it's a mish mash of magical/divine. Once more, look at the Wheel of Time, the Flame and the Void / Oneness, it's a martial power source that is brilliant in itself and creates unbelievably cool scenes, but it does not try to mimic the One Power, and the other way around.

IMHO this is why 'Chi' was not really an acceptable concept for a power source, and was rejected by the developers (I understand the cultural part too, not getting into that). Martial IS CHI. It is just a less stereotyped and 'Asian' presentation. In my own game, which uses pretty similar power source concepts, this is explicitly spelled out, "Martial is also sometimes known by terms such as Qi/Chi, ..." I mean, maybe there really isn't a perfectly good mapping there, but its at least a solidly supportable position. Nobody would argue with a description of a hero mustering his Chi and magically bolstering an ally with it. Heck, this kind of thing is practically stock-in-trade in half of all shows on Chinese TV in the last 20 years. You cannot even throw a rock online and not hit some video filled with that stuff.

And I'm all for it, just give it its individuality, don't make it different by just saying "It's different", make it really different, with effects which are logical and just different. Don't give it exactly the same power as arcane and divine, just by changing "divine" into "inspiring" in the name of the power.

 

[Garthanos]

Hitpoints are a metacurrency.

Sure some games call that currency other things "heroic luck" or similar but inheriting from war games they became how many times the figure could get "hit". Gygax conjured flavor to put on top of an existing tool and here we are.

 

[Lyxen]

Sure some games call that currency other things "heroic luck" or similar but inheriting from war games they became how many times the figure could get "hit". Gygax conjured flavor to put on top of an existing tool and here we are.

Exactly, and I think that is one of the great ideas of D&D.

Additionally, for me HP are a sort of plot armor, meaning that were the story might stop for someone not heroic because of lack of it points, it will go on for the heroes who happen to have enough hit points.