D&D 4E 4e Healing as Plot Device

[PeelSeel2]

Hit points are fine the way they are.

If you want to be simulationist with HP and 4e, you can enact attacks that give certain conditions that act outside of hit points.

The Flu:
+10 vs. Fortitude
Hit: Character is fine for 24 hours after being hit. During the 24 hours after he/she is hit character makes attack roll against other people he/she interacts with for more than 10 minutes. After that the character has contracted the flu. Character gets a save everyday. If he/she saves, the flu goes away. While having the flu the character is helpless. Character cannot use healing surges. Character can only be healed through magical disease healing.
Miss: Character is fine.

Broken Clavical:
Character is out of the game for 4-6 weeks. If character adventures in that period, he can take no healing surges, has an effective 1/4 hitpoints, and may reset his condition of reduced below zero.

 

[fuindordm]

Then there's the Riverworld scenario: the PCs do not actually inhabit a Mortal plane, but some wierd, Life-enhanced purgatory.

All PCs (or everyone in the world!) are resurrected immediately upon death. Always in the same "safe" place, mind you, in the same imperishable flesh and with all their memories intact. So "death" still means you miss the end of the adventure, most likely. No one in the world knows why this happens; in fact, everyone remembers their first life on some other world where injuries are messy and death is permanent. No one has babies on this world, but occasionally one person will "pass on" permanently and new people arrive.

All people are reincarnated immediately upon death. There is no afterlife; souls migrate to their next birth in mere instants. Bodies are not imperishable, but still more than mortal and heal incredibly rapidly. The most influential priesthood specializes in keeping track of your past and future lives, reviving memories of past lives, etc. People passing a certain "karma threshold" heal more easily and have more personal power.

All PCs carry a fraction of divine blood that grants them extraordinary endurance and healing power, not to mention access to Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. Side effect: the gods of this world regularly prance around seducing mortals and interfering in their affairs. They keep track of their offspring, but may not bother to tell you where you came from.

----

Personally, however, I prefer to have some simple mechanisms in place for more persistent injury. I'll probably start with the idea that critical hits and going below zero HP each take away a surge, and have surges recover at only 1/day. (Get full HP after an extended rest, use any number of surges to recover HP in a short rest.)

Crazy Jerome's idea is pretty good too.

 

[Stogoe]

Character fall 120 feet, lose all HP but 1. Not physical damage ?

Well, he survived, didn't he? Maybe he's got a dislocated shoulder, his whole body is going to be bruised for several weeks, a dozen or so cuts and scrapes. But give him a couple minutes to bind his wounds, and he's ready to go on. Why? Because he's a big damn hero, that's why.

Character is burned by fireball, is dying but stabilize. Not physical damage ?

His hair may be singed, his eyebrows may be gone, he's covered in ash, but he's still a hero. Give him a few minutes to get himself together, and he's ready to go on. Because he has to. Or the world will end.

Character is at the receiving end of a critical hit with great axe. End uncounscious and dying. Not physical damage ?

That depends. If he makes his saving throw, he was just knocked out temporarily. If he doesn't and he dies, it was a serious internal injury.

Sure, it's a tiny bit of physical damage. Cuts, scrapes, bruises mostly (which is how poison works). You don't really get run through or charred into ash until your narrative immunity points run out.

 

[Dausuul]

I used to hate 4E hit points, but I'm coming around. I think I've worked out an acceptable explanation for what's going on.

When you lose hit points, you are taking injuries, but they're minor ones--bruises, scrapes, and cinematic "flesh wounds." When you drop below zero, however, that's when you've taken a serious hit. You are severely wounded and barely clinging to life. Death is reaching out its claws for you.

If nobody helps you, you'll probably die. On the other hand, intervention by your companions can strengthen your weakening grip on this world. The cleric can call on her deity to heal your wounds; the warlord can inspire you to fight your way back on your own. Either way, you summon up your heroic fortitude and stagger to your feet.

Now, in the case where the warlord inspired you, or you yourself used a healing surge, has your ghastly injury vanished? Of course not. You've still taken a dagger in the belly; but you've overcome the first shock, yanked it out, and jammed your fist into the wound to stop the worst of the bleeding. Barring magical intervention, it will be days or weeks before you fully heal, but you're tough enough that you can battle on anyway... at least as long as you keep on chanting, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

(Notice how every time Inigo says that, he gets stronger? He's using healing surges on himself.)

In the event that you get repeatedly dropped into negatives within a few days, of course, it starts to become a bit implausible that you're walking around with half a dozen mortal wounds. In that case, it's more likely that battle fatigue and minor injuries drained your stamina, to the point that you succumbed to the wounds you already had.

And you certainly aren't unaffected by it. When combat ends, even if you've surged yourself back up to full hit points, you'll be stumbling along, your hands red with your own blood, gritting your teeth to keep moving through a haze of pain. It just won't have any game-mechanical effect.

In fact, as I think about this... this opens up some nice opportunities for role-playing. It will depend on how often people go negative, of course, but I'm thinking that whenever a character is dropped to negative hit points, the player declares what sort of wound it was, and marks it down on his/her character sheet. Again, no game effect, but you may spend the next several days or weeks healing, and the DM keeps it in mind when describing action scenes.

Plus, maybe once per 3-4 levels, you can declare yourself scarred, and get a small XP bonus by describing what kind of dramatic scar or maiming you've suffered--missing eye, severed fingers, lightning-bolt mark on the forehead, whatever.

(No, you can't have your friends knock you into the negatives and then rack up XP by scarifying yourself. Get real.)

And of course, players must decide how they trigger their healing surges. The typical surge is probably a battle cry of some sort, but players can choose other things if they want.

 

[Lizard]

Lizard- That is a very clever idea! I like it. A little concerned that tracking multiple wound conditions could become cumbersome but that is more an implementation concern than a swipe at the concept.

As for "only pc's get healing over night"- I could go either way on this. On one hand, having every peasant recover from being kicked by his ox by resting a day is hard to swallow (except in the case where the god of healing makes it so ) recurring villains become a ton easier to manage. And I am a BIG fan of recurring villains.

I always assume what can be called "PC-class beings", which includes the actual PCs and all "important" or "major" villains/allies/NPCs. To ease bookkeeping, you can presume a "PC Aura" which extends to anyone they travel with, so Fred the Torchbearer wakes up refreshed after that goblin beaned him the day before.

I am very interested in seeing the actual rules for NPC healing. There might be a surprisingly elegant solution.

 

[Surgoshan]

Jerome cursed under his breath as he stalked further into the forest.

"Small-minded fools!"

He heard the sharp sound of a branch snapping behind him and whirled to face his pursuer, bracing one foot behind him in a secure stance. That he saw no one mattered little, as the ferns he had been pushing through had been hiding a ravine!

His rear foot slid rapidly on a scree of mud, small stones, and rotting leaves. His shock was quickly eclipsed by the insult to the powerful muscles of his thighs as they tried to keep him upright at the gap's lip. With a small scream he curled up and fell to his side, his downward motion unchecked.

A sapling spun him wildly when his neck struck it; the pain shocked him into panicked motion. He scrabbled wildly at the rocky slope, to no avail. His efforts cost him several fingernails and his attempts ceased as rapidly as they began.

He rolled painful down the steep slope; he screamed again as a protruding rock dug painfully into his back, causing him to briefly arch backward, until further minor assaults caused him to once again curl into a ball. With a last despairing wail, Jerome flies into space as the steep slope beneath him becomes a shear wall.

He lets out one last piercing shriek as he lands on his right hip and the pain causes him to momentarily black out. He awakens shortly in agony, bruised and bleeding, shaking from the overload of adrenaline in his system, speechless. Shortly he recovers enough to pull himself to the minor shelter offered by an overhang at the base of the ravine, a few feet high and deep. He continues to shiver convulsively, staring at nothing, until a healing sleep overtakes him.

--------

Otiluke walks forward, sword in his right hand and shield strapped to his left forearm. Behind him, Bigsby holds his torch high; Otiluke's shadow dances before him, describing odd shapes and forms, distracting him from the task of keeping a careful watch for whatever creatures may lurk in this dank hole.

His reflex causes him to pulls his arms in and crouch down in surprise, thus the first creature lands solidly on his shield, its claws scrabbling at the hardened leather covering his shoulders. Otiluke* throws it off and assumes a more aggressive stance, at an angle so as to be fully behind his shield with his right arm up to threaten over the shield with his sword.

There are three of the creatures; the one he threw to the ground regains its balance as a second attacks him and the third attempts to rush past him to attack his less heavily armored companions. He quickly lashes out to check the third's advance, then strikes the second with his bulk, pushing it back.

Otiluke sees a flash from the corner of his eye as Bigsby lashes out and feels a puff of wind as Tenser sends an arrow into one of the snarling homunculi before him. The creature squeals and pulls the arrow from its rags with its jaws. The arrowhead sheds a drop of blood before the creature snaps the shaft and leaps forward again.

He strikes out to his left with his sword and quickly balances the awkward motion be lashing out to the right with his metal clad foot. He feels both blows land and one of his foes staggers back, squealing. Otiluke then lets out a brief yell as a javelin slams into his exposed torso. It fails to penetrate his hardened leather shell, but several ribs complain and he staggers, gasping in pain as several sensitive organs register the shock.

The screeching demon to his right, favoring its leg and scorched on its face launches itself at Bigsby, only to collapse to the ground as a glowing orb strikes it in the head. Shards of light fly past Otiluke and shred the squealing creature he so recently shoved backwards. Meanwhile, Tenser launches an arrow into the throat of the demon he had so recently annoyed.

Gasping slightly, Otiluke jogs forward for the creature that struck him with the javelin, only to have another land in his shield. He lets out another grunt of agony as his left shoulder is cruelly wrenched and he turns slightly to the side. The creature flies out of the darkness, dagger in hand and plants it in the exposed flesh of Otiluke's upper arm.

He staggers backward briefly, howling, then steps forward and slams his sword into the creature's side. Bone crunches under the layers of rags it wears and he flings it into the wall, where it slumps unmoving

Otiluke leans his arm against the wall and presses his face into his forearm, sobbing in rage.


-----

I'm just trying to imagine a few scenarios. In the first, some guy fails a reflex dojigger, then fails a few more as he falls. He receives some minor injuries while sliding (such that if he'd manage to catch himself before the big fall, he wouldn't have escaped unscathed), then sustains a major blow when he freefalls to the ground. He ends up below 0, but stabilizes, regains consciousness, and crawls away to use up all his healing surges.

In the second, you've got a dwarven fighter in the lead with a controller and a striker behind him. He's the only one able to act in surprise, uses a free action to stop a kobold attempting to move past him, then uses some sort of per-diem thing that lets him do two things at once (I'm really fudging, here). The controller and striker take care of eliminate the melee slitches. So he charges at the skirmisher and gets hit. Then he uses a "when bloodied feat" to get a bonus and the scenario ends.

Even though Jerome (the faller) never suffers a serious injury until the end, the sum total is enough to shock him and leave him open to attack. The final one leaves him unconscious and completely helpless. Would it have done so without the previous injuries? If Jerome's player had failed to stabilize him, maybe it would have meant that at some point one of his injuries opened a serious internal bleed that simply wasn't obvious. But he made his save, so it looks like that didn't happen.

Likewise, Otiluke was still able to fight, but at the same time he'd been hit pretty hard. The first kobold landed on his shield and scrabbled, right? So it didn't hurt him, it still tired and distracted him, and he's lucky he landed that AoO that stopped the kobold trying to rush past him. The he used a Tide of Iron to keep the other two clear. But then he was weakened further while attacking. He's obviously still able to attack and move, but his ability to defend himself is going to be hampered. Then he's got another serious wound that keeps him from using his sword effectively, then another that hampers his shield. Even though a cut on the arm isn't life-threatening, the next blow (that never happened) might just have gotten through and hit him in the neck!

Instead, Otiluke gets his arm bandaged and carefully applies a hot compress to his shoulder to keep it from stiffening. The next day he's almost as good as new. And if he doesn't get to rest? Then he's low on surges, weak, and open to "serious" injury.


Suffice it to say that you don't have to get seriously hurt for a hurt to leave you open to a serious hurt. Don't think of HP as a collection of wounds. Think of it as a collection of minor injuries that, together, leave you open for the one that kills you.



* I know Otiluke was a magician, hence his Resilient Sphere, but .