D&D 4E 4e Healing - Is This Right?

[Khaim]

Moving 70 feet diagonally when the character can only move 50 feet is inconsistent with vertical or horizontal movement.

It is not inconsistent. Taxicab geometry is a perfectly valid metric and is probably more consistent than you are capable of understanding.

I, for one, welcome our new L1 overlords.

 

[Stalker0]

While I will concede that 4e has lost some "realism" in the area of long term recovery, I think we all can admit it has fixed some of the realism problems 3e had.

In 4e, a high level fighter no longer takes days and days to rest while a 1st level adventurer is ready to go after a good solid day. No longer does the 20th level barbarian moan and groan in bed for days while the wizard is good to go in a much shorter time.

And 4e does have a mechanic to model the effects of injury, the bloodied mechanic....its a simple and elegant way that at least give some nod to the fact that your character's ability has been affected by injury.

To steal an analogy from Jeff, I think Ol' Veril would wag at this one.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is not inconsistent. Taxicab geometry is a perfectly valid metric

*snip*

supported!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_(mathematics)

to be a valid metric it needs to satisfy following conditions:

1) if you move, the distance between startpoint A and endpoint B is always non-negativ
2) if you don´t move, the distance you cover is 0
3) the distance between A and B and the distance between B and A is the same.
(counter-example: the watch hands of a clock have a longer way from 1 to 12 as from 12 to 1)
4) if you make a detour it is never shorter (it may be the same distance as in 4e metric)

 

[Storm-Bringer]

And in 1E and 2E, how is it that a character with 1 hit point left out of 100 can spend entire days performing the most strenuous physical tasks with no impairment whatsoever to his ability to perform those tasks?

The only answer that makes any sense is that he's not really injured. Hit points are an abstraction, and they've always been an abstraction. 4E is no different from any previous edition of D&D in that regard.

If I may interject: spending the time performing tasks meant you recovered one hit point per day, maximum. So, roughly three months to recover, assuming no further damage. Strenuous activity meant no healing whatsoever.

So, technically, there was impairment built into the system.

 

[AllisterH]

I don't think hp = injury in 1E/2E.

Simply put, a mage could have a maximum of 20 hp, be reduced to 1 hp and then take 10 days to recover, yet however, a fighter of the same level with a maximum of 44 hp, could be reduced to 22 hp and take 11 days to recover.

That kind of indicates hp != injury since the fighter only suffered half as many injuries as the mage (half of his max, compared to almost 100% for the mage), yet it takes him longer to reach peak health?

There's a big disconnect there, Jeff and Karinsdad, which I pretty much didn't look too closely at.

 

[KarinsDad]

No, it is not misrepresenting.

Don't change your argument after its logical flaws have been pointed out.

You have directly implied that the injuries represented by hit points in previous editions are serious, because you speak of them requiring weeks or months to recover from. I've never seen scrapes and grazes that took that long to heal, and I've gotten my share of cuts, including one in the flesh of my knee from a chainsaw. If they're minor injuries, they're going to be healed enough to function as normal in a day or two at most, not after weeks or months of complete bed-rest.

Directly implied?

Where the heck does that come from in a debate? And I did not change anything. You'll have to quote where I changed my stance as opposed to just claiming it. And, your inferences on what I meant as opposed to what I said are irrelevant.


But by definition, hit points could take weeks or months to heal in 1E or 2E, so by definition, they were damage. How serious is dependent on the amount of damage inflicted.

In 3E where damage heals naturally at a per level rate, it heals faster than in 1E or 2E. But, it is still damage and without assistance, it would still typically take about 4 days of bedrest to heal up (class and CON dependent).


If it heals in 6 hours like in 4E, it's so fast that it can barely be considered damage. More like fatigue or lack of will or even 3E nonlethal damage.

But, everything about hit points in the 3E rules indicate real lethal damage for hit points:

Nonlethal Damage with a Weapon that Deals Lethal Damage
You can use a melee weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage instead, but you take a -4 penalty on your attack roll.

Lethal Damage with a Weapon that Deals Nonlethal Damage
You can use a weapon that deals nonlethal damage, including an unarmed strike, to deal lethal damage instead, but you take a -4 penalty on your attack roll.

Quote a 3E rule that indicates that hit points do not represent damage or the lessening of damage.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't think hp = injury in 1E/2E.

Simply put, a mage could have a maximum of 20 hp, be reduced to 1 hp and then take 10 days to recover, yet however, a fighter of the same level with a maximum of 44 hp, could be reduced to 22 hp and take 11 days to recover.

That kind of indicates hp != injury since the fighter only suffered half as many injuries as the mage (half of his max, compared to almost 100% for the mage), yet it takes him longer to reach peak health?

There's a big disconnect there, Jeff and Karinsdad, which I pretty much didn't look too closely at.

And that disconnect is explain in the 1E DMG and the 3E rules:

Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

Hit points represent both in 1E, 2E, and 3E.

This point is no different than Cure Light Wounds. It helps the heavily damaged Wizard more percentage-wise than it helps the heavily damaged Fighter, but it does not mean that the PC is not damaged because the mechanics have such a flaw.

 

[scholz]

Since this thread isn't long enough I thought I would throw my two cents in.

When, in a game, would you want to keep players injured for more than a day?
I can certainly recall lots of games that involved holing up to heal, resting a night, healing again, then resting again to bring the Cleric's spells back on line (back in 2E).

In 3E we just had stockpiles wands of cure light wounds for that.

I can certainly imagine fun storylines involving injured or tired people. But it seems to me that the hitpoint mechanic is a bad way to do it.
1. Characters of equal level but fewer hitpoints (mages, rogues) heal up faster than fighters, which strains my suspension of disbelief.
2. Hitpoints in every RAW system ae generic. 100 applications of a 1 hit point cure is ultimately the same as one 100hit point heal spell (except in tedium). So as soon as you permit magic items that head and such, you get rid of that problem (unless you take them away).
3. When spells are the main way to restore hitpoints the party will be unbalanced, since spell casters will be blowing spells (and resources) to elevate the the other players to fighting ability. So the cleric is down to few spells while the fighters are ready to go.

I think a better technique would be, for those wanting more grit, would be some kind of mechanic specifically for wounds. For people who want wounds to make you less effective, there could be a system for that, for those who want to simulate the 'wearing down/time to recover aspect there could be a system for that.

i am a fan of optional wounds/fatigue as a player option. So for example, a PC can either go to negative hitpoints, or at her option sustain some lasting injury. Then a player can decide, is it worth being hampered with a broken limb, or partial blindness, to stay in the fight for a few more rounds, or should I go down, and hope my buddies can either defeat the baddies or get me healing. Alternatively give bonus healing surges that fatigue, exhaust or knockout a person (after the encounter).

 

[AllisterH]

But by definition, hit points could take weeks or months to heal in 1E or 2E, so by definition, they were damage. How serious is dependent on the amount of damage inflicted.

In 3E where damage heals naturally at a per level rate, it heals faster than in 1E or 2E. But, it is still damage and without assistance, it would still typically take about 4 days of bedrest to heal up (class and CON dependent).


.

As I pointed out, the natural healing rules and the interaction between high HP characters and low HP characters tended to indicate that Loss of HP != Injury since for lower HP characters, it was easier to get back to full HEALTH than it was for high HP characters EVEN if the lower HP character had suffered a more grievous set of injuries (been taken down to 1 hp) than the high HP characters (been taken to 75% of their max)

As to your point about the explanation in the DMG. That makes no sense and you basically have to accept it.

There's no reason why a CLW should be more effective on a lower HP character than a high HP character.

 

[Grog]

Because he's a hero. Everybody knows heroes don't like to let on that they're hurt.

That's ridiculous. Regardless of whether or not someone lets on that he's hurt, the fact is that serious injuries impair the human body's ability to function effectively.

Since there's no impairment in any previous edition of D&D, it follows that there is no serious injury.