April 3rd, Rule of 3

[FireLance]

Under either situation you described, 24 hours later the fighter's wounds are gone even if he is alone and naked in the woods. There is no cause and effect. This isn't a big problem for scenario A but the price for that is restricting that only scenario A ever happens.

The convolution only comes in if you say that HP loss is *real* wounds and yet surges don't heal them. The fighter is still healed 24 hours later, so instead of flashing healed at the second he surges, he flashed healed some time later when his surges came back. Same narrative problem, only now it is convoluted over when, how and why the wounds went away.

Nope, in the second scenario, the wounds are still there. His reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed, though. If you're willing to accept that the fighter can ignore his wounds and press on five minutes after he has been injured, surely he will be able to do even better after eight hours of rest. (And let's not bring infection into it. The pure hit point system has no mechanism for tracking festering wounds, even for a fighter alone in the woods with no healing skills beyond the basics any adventurer should be expected to have.)

 

[Balesir]

It has been ages since I played OWOD but I am pretty sure the health tracker was different levels of physical damage with accompanying penalties (though it is possible I am thinking of NWOD). Savage worlds pretty much functions on similar premise. Our games have three stages of wounding (-2, -1, and incapacitated). Now those aren't granular wounding systems (though savage worlds has a chart you roll on that can cause real lasting wounds), but they are death spiral wound systems in my book.

Ah, OK - that's not what I'm referring to when I say "wound systems" here, at all. I mean something like HârnMaster, where a character might, theoretically, have hundreds of wounds and not be dead. The chances are high that they would be in danger of dying - through failed shock rolls, infection or bloodloss - but the wounds themselves do not reach any "critical level" where the character dies. There is no resource - call it "wound capacity", "hit points" or whatever - that one more wound will cause you to reach the end of, thus killing the character.

 

[Balesir]

Nope, in the second scenario, the wounds are still there. His reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed, though. If you're willing to accept that the fighter can ignore his wounds and press on five minutes after he has been injured, surely he will be able to do even better after eight hours of rest. (And let's not bring infection into it. The pure hit point system has no mechanism for tracking festering wounds, even for a fighter alone in the woods with no healing skills beyond the basics any adventurer should be expected to have.)

I couldn't XP you, but this is getting to the nub, I think.

BryonD's issues seem to revolve around (a) a dogged insistence that only prolonged "natural" healing and divine magic are eligible candidates for causing wounds to heal, and (b) despite having realised that having lost hit points does not necessarily mean a creature has physical injury, still not grasping that a creature with full hit points might still have physical injuries.

Hit points represent the mechanical effects (where there are any) of a range of "damage", including but not limited to physical injury, not the presence of such "damage" when it has no mechanical impact.

 

[BryonD]

Nope, in the second scenario, the wounds are still there. His reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed, though. If you're willing to accept that the fighter can ignore his wounds and press on five minutes after he has been injured, surely he will be able to do even better after eight hours of rest. (And let's not bring infection into it. The pure hit point system has no mechanism for tracking festering wounds, even for a fighter alone in the woods with no healing skills beyond the basics any adventurer should be expected to have.)

He can ignore his wounds and "press on" five minutes after he receives them and he can ignore his wounds and press on a day later.
No problem.

And if he gets hit again 5 minutes later the effect of being wounded makes him less capable of continuing to press on. A later strike is more likely to take him out. With surges the next morning the character in either scenario is back to full capacity.

There is more than one element of being damaged and you are only attending to one of them. Your system still fails for the issues you have ignored. Yes, you can role play still being wounded, but the mechanical behavior of the system, treats this guy exactly the same as a fully healed guy because as far as the system claim he *IS* fully healed.


The 5 minutes after being hit guy is just as good at striking and avoiding as an unwounded guy. But but there are differences between this guy and a truly unwounded guy in other parts of the system. In either scenario the guy is just like unwounded guy the next morning. There are other systems which are superior for handling this situation and therefore the surge options is unacceptable.

 

[BryonD]

ByronD's

It is Bryon.

issues seem to revolve around (a) a dogged insistence that only prolonged "natural" healing and divine magic are eligible candidates for causing wounds to heal, and (b) despite having realised that having lost hit points does not necessarily mean a creature has physical injury, still not grasping that a creature with full hit points might still have physical injuries.

I grasp that point. But I think you fail to grasp that this point has been addressed many times before and there are vastly better systems for modeling he issue.

You can say "this guy is wounded". But if one model treats the wounded guy as being absolutely in ever way identical to a fully healed guy and just asks you to act otherwise (and to be clear 4E makes no such request, treating the character a truly and fully healed has been the standard position of 4E fans for the past few years of debating this topic) and another system treat a wounded guy as being in some way different than a perfectly healed guy, then it is reasonable to consider the second system to be superior.

The situation you offer starts to go sideways in a hurry anyway.
Say I've got 20 HP and I take 19 pnts damage on day 1. But on the morning of day 2 I'm back to 20 HP. Now, you and I agree that I'm still "wounded" from Day 1, but mechanically there is no evidence of this. Now on Day 2 I take another 19 points of damage. And on the morning of Day 3 I'm back to mechanically equal to a character who has never been touched. I take 19 damage on Day 3, and Day 4, and Day 5. Why is there no cumulative effect? The answer is: because the system presumes I really AM fully healed every day.

Yes, I can pretend anything I want. My ability to pretend and you ability to pretend are things we both bring to the table. A game system brings a mechanical model to the table. I want a model that does a decent job of getting things correct.

Hit points represent the mechanical effects (where there are any) of a range of "damage", including but not limited to physical injury, not the presence of such "damage" when it has no mechanical impact.

But one of those effects is the reduced capacity to absorb future wounds. You are missing that part.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It is no use to dispute the benefits, or lack thereof, to various hit point models in regards to pacing (combat, adventure, and otherwise), when one side believes said pacing is important and the other side finds it, at best, a subordinate thing that emerges from whatever hit point model one adapts for other reasons.

 

[Balesir]

It is Bryon.

Sorry - noted and corrected.

But if one model treats the wounded guy as being absolutely in ever way identical to a fully healed guy and just asks you to act otherwise (and to be clear 4E makes no such request, treating the character a truly and fully healed has been the standard position of 4E fans for the past few years of debating this topic)

I think a key strength of 4e is that it doesn't demand that the guy with any amount of HP be assumed to be either physically wounded or not. That is a world issue, not a system issue. The system need only say - and in 4e does only say - whether the "damage" the character has sustained affects him or her in a mechanically significant way. There is no reason why each player should not decide for themselves whether they envision the character as physically wounded or not - provided only that they acknowledge that any physical (or other) wounding present has no mechanical effect.

I want a model that does a decent job of getting things correct.

I don't think there is any such thing as "correct". There are only a plethora of opinions about what is "correct" and what is not. This, among other considerations, is why multiple roleplaying systems exist.

But one of those effects is the reduced capacity to absorb future wounds. You are missing that part.

No - I'm not missing it. There are 4 possible states, here:

1) The creature has physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

2) The creature has physical wounds and does not have a reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

3) The creature does not have any physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

4) The creature does not have any physical wounds and does not have a reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

Creatures (2) and (4) have full hit points (including any healing surges, if used), creatures (1) and (3) don't.

 

[Guest 85555]

Ah, OK - that's not what I'm referring to when I say "wound systems" here, at all. I mean something like HârnMaster, where a character might, theoretically, have hundreds of wounds and not be dead. The chances are high that they would be in danger of dying - through failed shock rolls, infection or bloodloss - but the wounds themselves do not reach any "critical level" where the character dies. There is no resource - call it "wound capacity", "hit points" or whatever - that one more wound will cause you to reach the end of, thus killing the character.

I see what you mean. I tend to include that in this category, with harn master being on the gritty, granular end of it and something like vampire being on the light end. The key commonality (for me) that makes it a wound system in both cases is that physical damage impacts your performance (so there is an attempt to simulate being hurt). Wheras a game like D&D doesn't really do that.

 

[FireLance]

He can ignore his wounds and "press on" five minutes after he receives them and he can ignore his wounds and press on a day later.
No problem.

And if he gets hit again 5 minutes later the effect of being wounded makes him less capable of continuing to press on. A later strike is more likely to take him out. With surges the next morning the character in either scenario is back to full capacity.

There is more than one element of being damaged and you are only attending to one of them. Your system still fails for the issues you have ignored. Yes, you can role play still being wounded, but the mechanical behavior of the system, treats this guy exactly the same as a fully healed guy because as far as the system claim he *IS* fully healed.

That is partly an issue with the base hit point system. Apart from the ability to avoid taking or succumbing to future wounds, a character with 1 hp remaining is no different from the same character when he is fully healed. As mentioned in the previous post, you can flavor this one of two ways: either he has taken no serious wounds, or he has taken serious wounds, but is otherwise able to act as if he had not.

The 5 minutes after being hit guy is just as good at striking and avoiding as an unwounded guy.

The striking bit is due to the base hit point system. Avoiding is only applicable if we define hit points as the ability to avoid serious injury (the first scenario), and if we do so, the character would not have sustained any serious injury in the first place.

Alternatively, it is possible to take a hybrid approach in which hit points can be defined as either the ability to avoid serious wounds or the ability to press on despite them. You can still get a consistent narrative, although once a character is narrated as having taken a number of serious wounds, it is probably more plausible to narrate subsequent "hits" as being minimized or avoided instead of sustained and ignored.

But but there are differences between this guy and a truly unwounded guy in other parts of the system.

Such as? Apart from the ability to avoid future wounds (the first scenario) or the ability to press on unhindered despite the sum total of the wounds already sustained (the second scenario), I am unable to recall any significant part of the system that treats a character at full hit points and one down to 1 hp any differently.

In either scenario the guy is just like unwounded guy the next morning. There are other systems which are superior for handling this situation and therefore the surge options is unacceptable.

Yes, after an extended rest, the character's vigor, luck or whatever it is that allows him to avoid taking a serious wound in the first place are restored (the first scenario) or his reserves of willpower and determination, or whatever allows him to ignore the wounds, have been refreshed (the second scenario).

As I mentioned in my earlier post, while it might not be an approach you are used to or are comfortable with, I don't think it's fair to say that it is dysfunctional, convoluted or unacceptable.

 

[BryonD]

I think a key strength of 4e is that it doesn't demand that the guy with any amount of HP be assumed to be either physically wounded or not.

Strictly speaking this is true. But only to the same extent that it is true in prior systems. However, the 4E surge system dds obligation that force you to choose demands that were previously absent.

If you DO choose to have "physically wounded" then you are required for the naked fighter in the woods to go back to fully charged the next morning despite having been "physically wounded".

Or you can avoid that issue by choosing to forego ever having "physical wounds".

I have freedom to select whatever I want in the system I use with no requirement of choosing one of those restrictions.

Until a couple days ago I was saying those were the only options. Now suddenly (after years of debates...) a third option is being presented. That is the option that a character with full hit points and full surges can still be "wounded" and not actually healed. In this case the model is making zero mechanical distinction whatsoever between a wounded character and fully healed character. While my gut reaction is to call that "even worse", it si really just shades of unacceptable.

I don't think there is any such thing as "correct". There are only a plethora of opinions about what is "correct" and what is not. This, among other considerations, is why multiple roleplaying systems exist.

All the options identified are "incorrect" for cause and effect simulation.

I won't dispute that "correct" for gaming is subjective taste. But there are very clear and significant differences.

No - I'm not missing it. There are 4 possible states, here:

1) The creature has physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

2) The creature has physical wounds and does not have a reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

3) The creature does not have any physical wounds and has reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

4) The creature does not have any physical wounds and does not have a reduced capacity to avoid/absorb fatal injury.

Creatures (2) and (4) have full hit points (including any healing surges, if used), creatures (1) and (3) don't.

But the problem is 4E *DOES NOT* have these four states.
I could grab a character sheet up in the middle of a 4E game and show it to you and it would be completely impossible for you to tell if a character was in state (2) or state (4). They are mechanically indistinguishable.

And even that isn't really saying it right. It isn't that they are indistinguishable, it is that they are one and the same.