D&D 4E 4E, Healing, and Suspension of Disbelief

[plutocracy]

Vitality/Wound system > Hit Point system.

It would be very compatible with 4ed as well.

For those unfamiliar, it was used in many of the 3ed d20 products, most notably Star Wars.

Have your cake and eat it to. Accounts for endurance/luck/morale/heroicness in a separate pool from actual serious physical harm.

Both parties' concerns are addressed. To OP, suspension of disbelief solved.

I'm definitely using it in with 4ed.

 

[Propagandroid]

You guys that are arguing that someone should look at the 1e DMG to help explain a 4e mechanic are missing several points.

First, 4e is not 1e. It changes almost every base assumption of 1e, and it is as different a game as GURPS and Amber. Shouldn't you be pointing to 4e sources to explain 4e mechanics and problems? If you can't, what does that say?

Second, the game mechanic changes in 4e make hit points work differently and, more germane, feel different. There is a distinct difference between 4e hit points and 3e hit points, because of how many you have and how easily they are regained. No amount of 4e cheerleading is going to change that fact.

Perhaps the most immediate thing I found that I disliked about 4e was healing surges, and 25-30 hit points at first level, because they combined to destroy the illusion that we were playing in a fake "real" world. The computer game simulation point of view is fair, because in 4e your character is no longer imagined to be a person existing in a real world, rather he is designed to be seen as an avatar that comes back from all injuries in the blink of an eye...the pushing of a reset button.

The OP is spot on...healing surges and massive hit points do not emulate the fake "real" world of previous editions.

 

[cangrejoide]

You're right, we've seen that argument 1000s of times, half a dozen in this very thread. So, why don't you try adding something new to the conversation? Repeating HPs are an abstraction over and over again is pointless.

Repetition is a good learning method, maybe you should go back and read my post a couple times more until you learn something.

 

[Obryn]

Falling is purely physical damage. You lose HP when you fall. HPs are a measure of physical damage.

Funny how when you get hit you take "damage"... the word "damage" implies, I dunno, wounds, and not fatigue?

...I fail to see how that really relates in any way.

1e - You have HPs. When you fall, you take HP damage.
3e - You have HPs. When you fall, you take HP damage.
4e - You have HPs. When you fall, you take HP damage.

It's like you're ignoring the fact that HPs have never been solely based on physical damage.

Are you arguing in favor of games like WFRP or Runequest? Or are you comparing previous editions of the game to the current one? (I mean, I love WFRP, but it's a tremendously different kind of game than D&D is.)

Fighter 1:
3E con 10 fighter = 10 HP, infinite amounts of healing.
3E con 20 fighter = 15 HP, infinite amounts of healing.

4E con 10 fighter = 25 HP, 9x6 = 54 points healed per day = 79 max.
4E con 20 fighter = 35 HP, 14x8 = 112 points healed per day = 147 max.

I think CON is pretty heavily tied to HPs in 4E.

Fighter 10:
4E con 10 = 74 HP, 9x18 = 162 healed per day, 236 max damage/day.
4E con 22 = 91 HP, 15x22 = 330 healed per day, 421 max damage/day.

And CON is still pretty important at higher levels.

You're switching things (Con to 22) and doing it a bit wrong at 10th level. I'll assume that attributes aren't going up on either example, since both could theoretically increase their Con scores. I'm also not including magic items, since Con scores can't be magically enhanced in 4e, and again - anyone could and most often did have them in 3e.

4e con 10 = 79 (25 + 10 + 6 x 9), 9 per day @ 19 ea.
4e con 20 = 89 (25 + 20 + 6 x 9), 14 per day @ 22 ea.

For healing surges, it does help a lot. If you can take a short break, or get them all activated, or you don't take too much damage in a single combat.

3e con 10, assuming 6 hp/level = 10 + 0 + 54 + 0 = 64
3e con 20, assuming 6 hp/level = 10 + 5 + 54 + 45 = 114

The fighter with Con 20 has 78% more HPs. This gets bigger & bigger.

-O

 

[MarkB]

You guys that are arguing that someone should look at the 1e DMG to help explain a 4e mechanic are missing several points.

Who's doing that? Mostly those pointers were intended to correct the OP's misapprehension as to what hit points represented in 1e-3e.

First, 4e is not 1e. It changes almost every base assumption of 1e, and it is as different a game as GURPS and Amber. Shouldn't you be pointing to 4e sources to explain 4e mechanics and problems? If you can't, what does that say?

That you're missing the point. Again, this goes back to debunking false assertions as to what hit points have represented in every version of the game.

Second, the game mechanic changes in 4e make hit points work differently and, more germane, feel different. There is a distinct difference between 4e hit points and 3e hit points, because of how many you have and how easily they are regained. No amount of 4e cheerleading is going to change that fact.

You're absolutely right.

Perhaps the most immediate thing I found that I disliked about 4e was healing surges, and 25-30 hit points at first level, because they combined to destroy the illusion that we were playing in a fake "real" world. The computer game simulation point of view is fair, because in 4e your character is no longer imagined to be a person existing in a real world, rather he is designed to be seen as an avatar that comes back from all injuries in the blink of an eye...the pushing of a reset button.

The OP is spot on...healing surges and massive hit points do not emulate the fake "real" world of previous editions.

But here, you're off the beam. Yes, 4e treats hit points a little differently than previous editions - but both 4e and previous editions treat them differently than the way injuries work in the real world, 4e no more so than 3e. It's just that 3e veterans have become sufficiently used to that system's rationalisations that they barely even notice them, which makes it harder to accept a system which uses a different set of rationalisations.

As I stated previously, when a 4e character expends healing surges to regain hit points, he is not coming back from all injuries in the blink of an eye - instead, he is binding his wounds, getting his breath back, dealing with the ongoing pain. Those expended healing surges represent serious stress-exertion, bruises, even injuries, that won't go away until the character gets those healing surges back.

Once you change your viewpoint from 3e's "the character's condition is represented by the sum of his hitpoints" to 4e's "the character's condition is represented by the sum of his hitpoints and expended healing surges", you'll begin to realise that 4e's rationalisations work just as well as 3e's, and are - at worst - no further from reality than 3e's.

 

[JohnSnow]

Vitality/Wound system > Hit Point system.

It would be very compatible with 4ed as well.

For those unfamiliar, it was used in many of the 3ed d20 products, most notably Star Wars.

Have your cake and eat it to. Accounts for endurance/luck/morale/heroicness in a separate pool from actual serious physical harm.

Both parties' concerns are addressed. To OP, suspension of disbelief solved.

I'm definitely using it in with 4ed.

While there are some upsides to the Wound/Vitality system, I don't think you can fairly say it's strictly "better" than the hit point system. Yes, it's "better" for certain styles of play, but not for others.

For example, how much do you like "swinginess" in your combat system? For some people, the answer is "a lot." For many (most?), the answer is "not much."

Because the wound/vitality system has critical hits bypass vitality points, there is always the chance of a "luck shot" that takes someone out of the fight - or possibly even kills them. Whether you think that's good, bad or neutral is mostly a matter of taste. However, it's not particularly "Star Wars-y", which is why they ditched WP/VP in favor of hit points for Star Wars Saga Edition.

Personally, I think the "confusion" related to hit points is caused by three factors:

The name - to some people, "hit points" has to do with "number of hits you can survive" or is synonymous with "health points."

"Cure X wounds" spells. To the average modern person who's never been "wounded," the minute you say "wound," they think "gaping bleeding injury," rather than "battered, bruised, scraped and tired."

Falling damage and other corner case things (lava and so forth). Too many people think that those things have to be "raw, physical injury." Therefore, the reasoning goes, since hit points can save you from a fall, they must be that as well.

The last is largely the fault of Gary (and other designers) not really emphasizing that hit points are a way of modelling all the factors that prevent heroic characters from dying. The 20th-level fighter who falls over a cliff and survives a titanic fall, is battered and bruised, but somehow survived. How? Partially, this is one of those times where hit points start to reflect nothing but pure luck - there was soft earth at the bottom, a tree broke his fall, he managed to grab the cliff and slow his fall somehow on the way down, or whatever.

You ever watch Mythbusters? They've shown repeatedly that many of the falls that, for example, Indiana Jones takes should kill a normal person. But Indy lives through them, and we buy it. Why?

This isn't "D&D embracing the paradigm of Dragonball Z," rather, it's D&D embracing the paradigm of every piece of heroic (not superheroic, just heroic) fiction that's been written for the last 4000 years.

This is the source material on which our game is based. I fail to see the problem people have with the game playing like its source material?

Oh, wait, I know. "D&D isn't a novel, blah, blah, blah..."

For the most part, "realism" won't make the game more fun. And frankly, if the physics of "adventure fiction" make the game more "fun," those should be the default.

And, as with all heroic tales, some level of "suspension of disbelief" is going to be involved on the part of the audience (or, in this case, those playing the game).

 

[KarinsDad]

Who's doing that? Mostly those pointers were intended to correct the OP's misapprehension as to what hit points represented in 1e-3e.

They did a poor job of it then.

1E hit points were always a combination of both the ability to take real damage AND luck, skill, etc. The pro-4E willpower / endurance hit point camp keep conveniently forgetting that and quoting some sections from 1E and ignoring others. 1E did not have a concept that it was only the last hit that damaged the PC, earlier attacks gradually damaged the PC in 1E (1E just had the concept that the last hit killed the PC).


Combined 1E rules: "Orange is made from Red and Yellow".

Pro-4E Camp: "1E DMG said that Orange was made from Red, so it's ok for Red to represent 4E Orange".

Pro-damage Camp: "Orange was always made from Yellow".

Pro-4E Camp: "No it wasn't, 1E DMG said that Orange was made from Red. You are mistaken".


Err, no. It was both in 1E.

4E yanked out Yellow completely and supporters of this claim it was never really there.

 

[TwoSix]

4E yanked out Yellow completely and supporters of this claim it was never really there.

Who really likes Yellow, anyway, besides that creepy guy in Curious George?

 

[Stogoe]

It's just that 3e veterans have become sufficiently used to that system's rationalisations that they barely even notice them, which makes it harder to accept a system which uses a different set of rationalisations.

What's the quote again? "You seem to have internalized the flaws of 3e so deeply that you mistake them for virtues."

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Vitality/Wound system > Hit Point system.
...
I'm definitely using it in with 4ed.

I think you're on to something. I imagine third parties will jump in on this; it seems like a great fit.