WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Maxperson]

Damage has always, back to 1974, either been fatal or something you shrug off with a modicum of rest. Exactly how much rest has come down from (potentially) a few weeks to one night. But anything you can shrug off in a couple of weeks without medical attention is not a serious injury, any more than anything you can shrug off overnight.

Have you hated hp since 1974?

No. Healing over night or close to that fast is where I draw the line.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How so?

Death spirals - where the more damage you take the worse you become at keeping yourself alive - are also quite realistic, particularly if one thinks of situations where the damage includes actual injuries affecting movement, flexibility, ability to attack, and so forth.

Obviously, the win condition then becomes putting one's opponent into a faster death spiral than your own.

I played various editions of Legend of the Five Rings for years. All of them had death spirals. Never had an issue with it, except people tried to avoid fights (which was fine).

 

[Chaosmancer]

Meh. The only explanation that makes sense is that hit points (for humanoids, at least) is Aura.

I won't say the only, but it is a really, really, really good one

 

[Azzy]

For me, I don't think about hit points that deeply. I just don't care enough—to me it's a just a game element. It's not what I would implement were I to design an RPG from the ground up (something I do have on the back burner), but it in no way negatively impacts my enjoyment of the game. I'm just too busy enjoying the fiction of the story that's being created, the characters and their abilities, and socializing with other players to get philosophical about game mechanics.

 

[glass]

Death spirals - where the more damage you take the worse you become at keeping yourself alive - are also quite realistic

No they aren't, that's the point. They can feel realistic to people who have never been in a fight to the death (which hopefully includes most of us), and to be fair how they feel is more important than actual realism anyway. But in an actual life or death struggle, your brain is very good at ignoring injuries that would impede you, so they tend to take you out of the fight entirely or do nothing - exactly what hp model.

The sole exception in general seems to be injuries which incapacitate a particular limb, denying you the use of that limb for the rest of the fight while not necessarily taking you right out of it. But scaling generalised penalties - not realistic in the slightest.

 

[Cadence]

No they aren't, that's the point. They can feel realistic to people who have never been in a fight to the death (which hopefully includes most of us), and to be fair how they feel is more important than actual realism anyway. But in an actual life or death struggle, your brain is very good at ignoring injuries that would impede you, so they tend to take you out of the fight entirely or do nothing - exactly what hp model.

The sole exception in general seems to be injuries which incapacitate a particular limb, denying you the use of that limb for the rest of the fight while not necessarily taking you right out of it. But scaling generalised penalties - not realistic in the slightest.

The being useful later that day or recovering quickly the next day or week feels less so to me, but that could just be getting old...

 

[Mind of tempest]

How so?

Death spirals - where the more damage you take the worse you become at keeping yourself alive - are also quite realistic, particularly if one thinks of situations where the damage includes actual injuries affecting movement, flexibility, ability to attack, and so forth.

Obviously, the win condition then becomes putting one's opponent into a faster death spiral than your own.

given it is antithetical to fun fights I would recommend against it as d&d is supposed to be fun.

 

[bedir than]

This thread got interesting, but has a headline with a horrible idea

 

[Remathilis]

given it is antithetical to fun fights I would recommend against it as d&d is supposed to be fun.

Agreed.

While there might have been a time D&D was assumed to involve risk mitigation, success though superior numbers and avoiding fights, those days have long been in the rearview of the game and it has instead been interested in high-flung action, bold decisions and resources that refresh quickly. It's the difference between a game where the PCs are assumed they won't directly engage their foes and one that does. In short, D&D rules have morphed based on how D&D is actually PLAYED.

 

[Voadam]

given it is antithetical to fun fights I would recommend against it as d&d is supposed to be fun.

It is generally antithetical to back and forth fights or longer ongoing fights (unless they are two invulnerable tanks slogging it out waiting for the rare crit to finally penetrate their opponents defense and activate the death spiral).

In my experience a number of death spiral systems have some options to bypass the death spiral aspects (Vampire the Masquerade frenzy; Shadowrun stim patches, pain editor cyberware, some magic options; in Mutants & Masterminds I played an Achilles tank concept to not worry too much about it) .