Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4090018" data-attributes="member: 58197">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.</blockquote>

Verification