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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4992511" data-attributes="member: 58197">You left out the next paragraph in my post, which addressed exactly this point.Yes, previous editions had the same thing going on in theory. But the mechanics didn't depend on it. The paragraph in each edition saying "Hit points are abstract, yadda yadda yadda," was completely ignored by the rest of the system, which behaved as if hit points were defined as "your physical condition."Anything that inflicted physical harm knocked off some hit points, and anything that knocked off hit points was inflicting physical harm*. Anything that healed you restored hit points, and anything that restored hit points was healing you. Previous editions were quite consistent about this, and if you didn't mind high-level characters being made of steel and mountain rock, you could disregard the paragraph extolling the Great Abstraction That Is Your Hit Point Total.4E is the first edition to take the GATIYHPT to heart and act as if that paragraph was more than a handwave for the benefit of people who didn't like characters made of steel and mountain rock. Which is fine, but I wish they had taken the time to overhaul their terminology to match.(Although I find 4E works quite well if you define hit points as a spiritual rather than physical attribute - your character's vital spark and will to live. Defining them in that way untangles all kinds of thorny problems, like how you can get them all back after a night's rest, or how the warlord can restore them without benefit of healing magic, or how you can survive a coup de grace, or how you can be mortally wounded and dying and yet bounce back up a minute later and carry on adventuring.)[SIZE=-2]*Caveat: "Physical harm" could include "sucking out your life-force" or "blasting your brain with psychic energy." But it didn't include "filling you with crushing despair." It always entailed moving your physical body down the scale from Healthy toward Dead; and "healing" always moved your physical body back toward Healthy.[/SIZE]</blockquote>

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