Neonchameleon
Legend
It has always represented cosmetic level injury that doesn't debilitate. And it is impossible to have a would deep and hard enough measured under the hit point system that can not be affected by sufficient castings of cure light wounds (short of death). To get actual injuries you need to go round the hit point system.Except for the fact that it does and always has. Or do you think that we're not supposed to understand anything from the fact that recovery spells are named "cure light wounds" "heal" "regenerate," etc.
If you had actually bothered to read regenerate you would know that it does in fact regenerate.
The subject’s severed body members (fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, tails, or even heads of multiheaded creatures), broken bones, and ruined organs grow back. After the spell is cast, the physical regeneration is complete in 1 round if the severed members are present and touching the creature. It takes 2d10 rounds otherwise.
Regenerate also cures 4d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +35), rids the subject of exhaustion and/or fatigue, and eliminates all nonlethal damage the subject has taken. It has no effect on nonliving creatures (including undead).
The regenerate part is the part that actually allows you to regenerate severed body members and broken bones. Heal likewise does some actual healing of non-cosmetic damage.
Heal enables you to channel positive energy into a creature to wipe away injury and afflictions. It immediately ends any and all of the following adverse conditions affecting the Target: ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, and poisoned. It also cures 10 hit points of damage per level of the caster, to a maximum of 150 points at 15th level.
It's not me doing this. I'm looking at the actual effects of the spells. You, however, are just looking at the names of the spells, paying no attention at all to the description (including the fact that regenerate literally calls out healing broken bones) and saying that somehow that because regenerate actually heals broken bones separately from hit points hit points must be the sort of injuries the spell handles separately.So you selectively decide to pay attention to what one spell name/description says, but not the others?
And you were talking arrant nonsense there too.That's not a very consistent way of looking at things. Likewise, the idea that hit points are a mixture of luck, divine protection, etc. was dealt with in the OP, i.e. that there's an essay or two that says that in the Core Rulebooks, but the game's operations don't reflect that, and never have
No you can't. Have you ever tried to use a broken arm? Have you ever tried to swing a polearm with one? Because in your world this gives no penalties.until 4E tried to shoehorn them in. You can, in fact, represent a broken arm with hit point loss, and so repair it with cure light wounds.
Regenerate is a solution to things like Sword of Sharpness and putting your hand in the Sphere of Annihilation that aren't represented by hit points.Losing body parts is something else (hence the perennial argument that "regenerate is an answer to a problem that isn't present (notwithstanding a sword of sharpness)" argument).
4e was pushed out before it was ready and is badly explained. I'm not fixing problems, I'm pointing out what the rules say but could have been more clearly expressed.You've almost stumbled upon a good point here, but gotten a salient point wrong, which is that the cognitive gap is about how much effort the players (which includes the DM) have to put in in order to bridge the different between what's happening in the game world and what the rules tell them. Unfortunately, the 4E rules are more obscure in many respects than what previous editions represented in that regard. The fact that some people don't mind that work doesn't mean that it's not there, which is demonstrated by how you keep saying that just because you can fix the problem, it's not a problem.
I have never denied that hit points represented bruises and minor cuts. They just aren't more than that. The step forward is you finally understanding what is meant by cosmetic damage.So you acknowledge here than an injury is being taken. That's a step forward.
You can't "play through the pain" for a broken leg. The damage is light.The fact that they're playing through the pain, as it were, doesn't change the fact that it's still an injury, however, and potentially a serious one. That's markedly different than a paper cut. Again, the characters are being damaged, they're just not letting it slow them down.
No it doesn't. This is what older editions did. 4e produced multiple metrics.In point of fact, an examination of 4E demonstrates that it's much worse at reflecting characters in this way. That's because while it wants to measure characters' injuries as well as their ability to keep going in the face of them, it foolishly tried to measure both of those by the same metric: hit points.
It has both healing surges and daily powers. It did what you want.Had it moved the personal stamina issue over to its own mechanic, then that would have worked out much better.
This is pure projection. You are arguing against a straw version of 4e based on not understanding it.And this goes to show that you yourself don't understand the game you're defending, which is why you have to keep misrepresenting what the books actually say in order to get your point across. The lack of a gap is entirely in your own mind, because you keep reassigning terms and definitions in ways that the books you're championing don't acknowledge.
This pretends that the only purpose of a healing surge is to restore hit points. They can also be used to power powers, to power rituals, and taken away by both exhaustion and energy drain mechanics. The fact that healing surges can be lost to things sapping overall vitality (such as "a gruelling trek across hostile terrain") in addition to recovering from damage is explicitly called out on p76 of the DMG.This overlooks that the operation of a healing surge is to restore hit points.
Once more this is entirely based on your having failed the cognitive load to understand 4e (which could have been easier with better writing) and deciding fifteen years after launch to open a long thread about your failure to understand 4e.
Except not the same way because the cost is different.The same way other curative effects restore hit points, even when those effects are explicitly stated to heal injuries.
This is what is colloquially known as an ass-pull. Spending a healing surge is digging into endurance to keep going. It isn't wound recovery, but it is things like catching your breath. You are still weakened and tiredSo if the healing surge is the character spending their own healing surges, what does that mean from an in-character standpoint? And why is it activated by another character's actions if it's something the target is doing? Because the answer here is that the regaining of hit points via a healing surge isn't wound recovery, whereas the recovery of hit points from certain other operations is.
And this sentence seems to assume that hit points are a genuine measurable thing and injuries work as in Order of the Stick, rather than that there are approximations involved.Ergo, the game has hit point restoration (and loss) being two different things, even though it's the same instance of game mechanics. Hence the widening of the cognitive gap.
The Healing Word does work on them. The light still washes over the target. They're just exhausted and drained and have no more to give. A simple pick-me-up isn't going to do it any more. Why does a pizza party feel good when people are already OK but do nothing for people who are demoralised?So why doesn't a Healing Word work on them when they've run out of healing surges, even though the description for Healing Word says "You whisper a brief prayer as divine light washes over your target, helping to mend its wounds."
I am discussing what is in the 4e rules. You however are only interested in engaging in your own version of them. And I can say that your version of the 4e rules suck.Because you're apparently only interested in discussing your own, rather than what's in the 4E rules.
I'm baffled you think it can.Which is why very few effects specify losing a body part, hence why that specific operation is called out in regenerate. However, I'm baffled that you think a cure light wounds spell can't repair a broken bone.
And that all physical injury so represented was largely cosmetic. Minor cuts and bruises.So you grant the premise that hit point restoration was traditionally (prior to 4E) only about restoring physical injury. Good to know.
I've never used 1e psionics in anger. The 3.5 one certainly can do Charisma damage via Ego Whip (Id Insinuation doing confusion). And Cure Light Wounds can't cure that.I think what you're saying here is that Cure X Wounds spells have never been able to heal damage dealt by an intellect devourer, which is a rather odd position to take. In the AD&D 1E Monster Manual, intellect devourers deal psionic damage (i.e. the eating the intellect part) via ego whip or id insinuation, which as per the OP deals physical damage to an opponent, and so can be cured via cure light wounds.
That stat point damage went.In the 4E MM3 book, their "thought feast" power (for the intellect glutton) deals 10 points of psychic damage, which can also be cured via a cure light wounds power. So I'm not sure what your point here is.
What do you think causes the placebo effect? The divine light has trivial direct healing - but it does have enough to help."Less different"? One is them accessing a personal reserve of stamina, and the other is bodily harm of some kind. If Healing Word was a placebo effect, why does its description say that divine light is washing over the target, helping to mend its wounds?
There is healing magic in there. Just not very much of it. Just enough that the target can feel it.Why is there no mention of the target "perking up"? You say that there's also some healing magic, but it's also a "perking up" effect; that's literally two different operations at the same time, which is what the OP refers to.
Do you actually know what the placebo effect is?
And when a burn and a light cut are healed at the same time by the same cure light wounds spell two different things are happening. Your argument that an action can only do one thing at a time is sheer nonsense.Which is another acknowledgment on your part that two different things can potentially be happening even when the operation is that hit points are regained. You're making my argument for me.
No. I am suggesting that a small but non-zero amount of physical damage is healed - in specific at low level 1d6+Wis (with the Wis bonus coming from Healer's Lore) and it uses the target's energy to do this so can't work on the utterly exhausted. But I am suggesting that it feels much greater than that; the target is still injured to the point of having spent a recovery which will need to be recovered normally.So in other words, you want to suggest that Healing Word doesn't actually heal physical damage despite what it says because of how many hit points are being regained?
That you think that only one thing can happen at a time?Because that's kind of the central point regarding 4E widening the cognitive gap.
I am suggesting that they don't directly recover injuries. If you have full hit points but few healing surges you are not fully recovered.Are you suggesting that healing surges don't recover hit points?
Which is still more realistic and interesting than being just fine and unimpeded and then taking 2hp and being on a one way track to death without magical help.But still dying, because you've taken wounds so severe that you can no longer function in spite of them.
Let's take an actual real world magic-free example of hit points and healing surges in action. And show why the healing surge model works and the pure hit point model doesn't in the real world. Two boxers having a boxing match.
Under the pre-4e model they throw the same attacks over and over, basically unchanging. Breaking between rounds does literally nothing. They start the next round at the exact same pace they ended the old one with exactly the same remaining hit point total and using exactly the same attacks. And when one character goes down to below 0hp they are either fine or out of it. I mean sure? That resolves the fight but not like any real boxing match I've seen, let alone a good one. It's boring and it's unrealistic. And the only way to have less than a ten count is for the attack to hit exactly 0hp.
Meanwhile under the 4e model the three minute break between rounds is being modelled as a short rest. (OK, that technically takes five in 4e). A boxer who was swaying on his feet at the end of one round can spend their healing surges so that they will be able to take more the next because endurance matters. And they will come out at the start of the round with encounter (but not daily) powers refreshed. A boxer who is knocked to the mat can have their coach (or their girlfriend) yell at them to get back on their feet and be inspired by that to stand up as they are being counted out. Inspiration matters on helping them to dig deep. So you can have the back and forth, and three counts and six counts rather than just a ten count without resorting to magic. Combine this with some tactics like baiting out the daily and we have at least a viable representation of a boxing match.
See the boxers.And yet the "personal reserves of stamina" issue still works to let you recover.
Except it does say what it does. Creates light that does a little bit of healing. Nothing I have said is incompatible with this.If you need a citation toward your own alteration of how healing surges work, I don't know what to tell you; that was your own previous post!
Oh, the irony here. You've postulated that healing surges represent personal reserves, apart from hit points themselves, then turned around and said that the flavor text for Healing Word doesn't really say what it does.
You literally just said that hit points don't tell us anything, that they were a video game lifebar, etc. So clearly you do hold that position.
Above is an image from the video game Doom. As you can see as his HP (or "health") gets lower he gets more cosmetically injured. But this doesn't slow him, just bringing him nearer to death. This is how hit points work. And they do tell something. They tell how long until the game over. This is what pre-4e hit points do.
My irony meter just exploded.This is an excellent demonstration of why your points are all over the place. You're bringing your own biases to the table,
No. I work with the game as it actually works because it supports good storytelling. This takes no reflavouring.i.e. how you think the game "should" function in order to abet "good storytelling," because you apparently want a more narrative experience.
What 4e fighters can't do is fight at full strength indefinitely. They have a limited number of encounter and daily powers.No wonder you have to keep reflavoring what 4E says! The fact of the matter is that D&D has never been a narrative-first game; the story is an after-the-fact construct that you put together later. Even in 4E, fighters can fight indefinitely so long as they don't take damage, so if you think it solves that problem, well, it was only "the best" because you've introduced a lot of things that aren't in the books.
And yet the DMG p76 is explicit that "a gruelling trek across hostile terrain" potentially costs a surge. And lack of endurance can stop you being able to fight.And again, this is you bringing your own issues to the table, rather than engaging with what's actually there. You want a game that includes an exhaustion/stamina mechanic, and that's fine. But having that be the same as the mechanic that tracks mounting injuries means that you have the same operation doing two things, and that's going to widen the cognitive gap, as it did in 4E.
And there is zero problem with having a mechanic that tracks multiple related things. The "cognitive gap" you are talking about is a lack not in the 4e rules but inside your head and your mental model of them.
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