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The game doesn't always deal in averages though. When the 40hp fighter gets one shotted by a dragon where was his luck, resolve and ability to change the hit to a glancing blow. "Actual wounds"? What actual wounds? There are no ill effects from losing hit points. You are either up and fighting...

I would propose a version of damage reduction. Give players heroic surges, a kind of action point, that would allow them to reduce the amount of damage taken from a hit. Narratively it allows the players some control but as a limited resource they would have to make their choices count...

It's lame in the faulty way you perceive it. I would considered them lame if they were explained that way as well. If 1e through 3e hit points were considered only physical damage where the hero can take 6 to 10 arrows to the chest and keep fighting, then I would consider that lame. Extremes...

I don't get this. How does any game prevent someone from roleplaying? You can roleplay with monopoly if you wanted to. There is nothing in any version of the game that made it more difficult to create a personality. Personality isn't determined by game mechanics. Game mechanics are there for...

That is not completely true is it? If you roll a nat 20 on a death save you can use a healling surge.

That is why I was trying to advocate for heroic surges that allow the player character to turn a deadly hit to a minimum damage hit. I just thought that type of mechanic fit the narrative better.

You still need a Cleric the majority of the time to kick off healing surges. It's just that the cleric can do something in addition to the healing instead of it being the majority of what the class does. And there are some instances where you won't need a cleric to get some hps back. Those...

But surges were an attempt to do just that. A cleric uses a power that allows you to spend a healing surge. A healing surge is 1/4 of your hit points. So in this case the cleric uses a power on the commoner and the 5hp commoner gets 1hp back in healing. The 30hp hero gets 5hps back in healing...

Don't you still run into the confusion that CLW causes? Why does the commoner that only had a max of 5hp and is down to 1hp get completely cured of all his wounds by CLW and the hero who had a max of 30hp and is down to 1hp only get a large scratch healed? With them both at 1hp they are both...

Personally as a DM I have always wanted to build a story with my friends. I like having them make choices that affect the world and I like seeing what ideas they come up with. When the players make a character I usually try and go in depth with them about their characters backstory and then...

Wow. Do you track changes to all the other things that the abilities affect as well? So every time a character gets a str penalty they are adjusting their attacks bonuses. Everytime they suffer a Con penalty they are readjusting their hps? What about how these affect saving throws? Maybe you...

Healing surges don't remove the need for a cleric. They represent that in some cases damage doesn't represent physical wounds. In most cases you still need a cleric to use a healing surge. Healing surges also are a way of getting around the fact that low-leveling healing in previous editions...

Actually I want hit points to model what they claim to be but in a better way. Hit points represent the ability to take physical damage, hit points also represent the ability of a character to exert themselves to avoid a lethal hit, hit points represent the luck that the sword hit a piece of...

You are assuming all damage is physical. But it is not. Why should it take days and weeks for a character to recover from being a little winded in combat? This drives me crazy too. But why would a character need magical healing for the abstraction of hit points that represent that the...

i'll agree with you that the going from negative hps to up and running again was a jarring point in 4e. That was something I didn't particularly like. However, I think the idea of healing surges can be improved upon and I would like to see that done. Though I can see them in some form as an...

What I was saying is how does a commoner who at max health has 5 hp but was damaged and down to 1 hp is fully healed by CLW. However, our hero who at max health has 30 hp and is down to 1 hp only gets a scratch healed by CLW? If you don't take the mortal wound until a hit drops you to 0hp why...

But a healing surge wasn't necessarily magical. A healing surge could just as well be explained as magical healing or it could be explained as catching his breath. There needs to be some way to explain how you heal non-physical wounds.

Except what I am proposing here is not a modification to hp directly but instead a way to minimize damage. Use the heroic surge to allow the player to say "well, that might have been deadly hit but my fighter manages to roll out of the way just in time so I only take minimum damage." (The...

I would hope that is an option. But how do you square healing hit points with the fact that not all damage done to your character needs magical healling or long term rest?

Maybe this is a way to pull hps into a more narrativist style while meshing it with the mechanics better. When you roll an attack and you are successful, you score a "hit". However, the way hit points are described you may not necessarily have been actually hit. Healing surges were an attempt...