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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 8046674" data-attributes="member: 75787">I think t's pretty clear to everyone on this thread that using just one value to represent ability to stay standing is a to really going to be realistic. Everyone who has seriously fought knows that a combination of energy, bruising and injury are at least three ways of measuring ability to stay standing, and we've all had the experience of losing fights because of each one individually. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I have fought with a severe cold, defended fine until I just had no energy left and was taken out.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I fought a weak fighter with a punch like a freight train who didn't score on me at all and I could dance around all day, but he put enough bruises on me that although I won on points (easily) it felt like a loss. The next round was not a good one for me.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And I've lost because I broke a bone in my foot and couldn't kick with that side for 2 rounds, enough to lose the fight.</li> </ul>Some systems combine energy/bruising -- which works pretty well. In Fate your two tracks are stress + consequences; in Rolemaster it's concussion hits + a ton of status effects; In Savage Worlds it's "shaken" binary status + wounds. In Star Wars Saga in was hit points + wounds.D&D doesn't have this and so it really is at a huge disadvantage for simulating reality. Hit points are, I would argue, the aspect of the game most removed from any attempt at simulation reality in the whole system. It fundamentally does not bear any attempt at scutiny from a simulation point of view.Which is why versions before 4E were very vague and handwavey. They were trying to be good simulations, but hit points are completely incompatible with that POV, so hit points and healing have this "don't ask, don't tell" feel to them -- "ignore the fact that they make no sense and carry on with the simulation!". 4E, being primarily concerned with being a game, has no problem with hit points as an abstract gamist concept and that's why it works so well. 5E lives in a middle world, but has turned its back solidly on the simulationist approach of 3E and so it's not too bad either. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In 3E if you heal hits, you are doing one of fixing wounds, healing bruises or recovering energy -- but we can't say which because hits are used for ll three purposes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In 4E if you heal hits, you are increasing your hit point numeric score, which is an abstract representation fo how close you are to falling over. Feel free to describe it any way you like because the game doesn't care.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In 5E, you're following the 4E system, but the GM is allowed to describe it differently depending on the current story. The same healing is OK to be described as sewing sutures, shaming an orc into fighting on, or magically giving them Red Bull.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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