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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IanArgent" data-source="post: 4285747" data-attributes="member: 21673">I would say this is a fallacy. A stone capable of doing 1 HP of damage is one coming out of a sling aimed with deadly intent. (I will allow you the small child). The putative victim with 1 HP is too exhausted to dodge effectively. He's probably battered and bruised from a long and arduous fight. But given a bit of a breather (6 seconds) he pulls himself together and is now not so bone-tired and battered that he'll miss a slung stone coming for his temple before he can duck/block, etc.Only if you torture the HP analogy; and make an unfair cross-system comparison. A healing potion no longer imposes healing from outside - it taps into your own reserves. If you've run those reserves dry (and it'll take a long day's adventuring to do so - you had to run through up to 3 times your total HP capacity or more to have exhausted your stores of healing surges if you're a fighter).  I would say the HP system is more consistent that it's ever been before in 4E. All it takes to kill someone is to do one HP of damage to them. It's just that some people have enough endurance to be able to stave of that last, physical point of damage for several minutes of deadly melee.I don't know if you've read the Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. The main character is the Roman general Belisarius, in an alt-history saga in which Rome and an Indian empire clash. There's a battle in Persia described in the 4th book (The battle of the Pass if you've read the series) which is described in exacting detail. At one point the narrator notes that the elite Greek cataphracts pace themselves during the fight, resting when they can. But when they are fully engaged, they essentially die of exhaustion. Their swordwork is a little slower, their shieldwork a little sloppier - and the attacks that they would have otherwise parried with their swords or blocked on their shields slip through and are disabling or deadly. But given the chance to retreat, rest and reform; within a few minutes they are capable of fighting again.From my own experience as a wrestler in high school I can say that during the match you are going at ten-tenths capacity - the match is at most 5 minutes of maximum exertion, and by the end of a full-length match you are wrung out and making mistakes. But a few minutes of rest and you're back up and ready to go.</blockquote>

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