Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lurker37" data-source="post: 4286035" data-attributes="member: 9522">No, I think you are getting worn down by the effort of dodging that sword blow so it's just a glancing blow, putting out the fire on your armour before your skin blisters etc.  (BTW, if a character or monster was every engulfed in flames but was still able to fight, I had trouble imagining that. Did you?) You're assuming that every attack that hits is hitting full on for full damage. That every sword strike impales or at least bites deep. That the target's skin burns and blackens from every fire spell. The whole point of the hit point system is, and always has been, that the target of these attacks is avoiding this, but that the effort is something you cannot sustain indefinitely. Eventually you'll be worn down by exhaustion and minor flesh wounds to the point that an opponent can bypass your defences and land a potentially fatal blow.The problem has never been with the combat system - it was the wonky healing system that never managed to point out that hit point damage could mean superficial flesh wounds and fatigue. This left us with an impression of healing that was directly at odds with the descriptions of what hit points represented. As a result, people were asking how high level characters could barely survive a fight against a giant with a greataxe, and just sleep their injuries off in a week without any healing at all. 4E isn't changing the hit point rules at all. It's just bringing the healing rules into line with how hit points have always worked. It even has a mechanic to announce the first time you even score a visible hit on your foe - that you have drawn blood. At that point you've already worn through half their hit points.Unfortunately it's a jarring transition for anyone who put more stock in heal spell descriptions that the actual text on what some game stats were meant to represent. That's a failure of previous editions - not this one.</blockquote>

Verification