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<blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 5871315" data-attributes="member: 70707">I'm not proposing anything new there. I'm talking about what Gygax himself said about HP.&nbsp; There's no &quot;set&quot; number of &quot;physical&quot; hit points.&nbsp; It's just that they're abstract.&nbsp; It's fluid which HP represent intangibles, and which represent actual damage.&nbsp; As they've always been in D&amp;D.That may be how some prefer to narrate that, but as far as I know, none of that has ever been established by any rules.To me, it's silly to say that every hit is an insignificant scrape or bruise, then suddenly a hit incapacitates someone.&nbsp; It's hard to make contact with someone's skin with a weapon, and not do real damage, even if you're trying to avoid hurting them.&nbsp; Having it happen constantly, by sheer luck or something, when the combatants are trying to kill each other, strikes me as incredibly unrealistic.&nbsp; Near misses, and non-physically-damaging glances off armor, that require extraordinary effort from the defender, make much more sense to me.I also find it silly that a character can't get back the 90% of an HP that might represent non-physical damage non-magically simply because 10% of the HP represents a little scrape.&nbsp; Why is defensive skill, luck, and divine favor inextricably linked to, and limited by, superficial little scrapes and bruises?&quot;Heal&quot; is a simple and evocative term, that has always referred to increasing HP, in some way.&nbsp; If we have to switch to &quot;recover HP&quot;, then we are now using a more cumbersome, less evocative term.&nbsp; And it has to be applied to all HP recovery, and never using the term &quot;Heal&quot; for HP recovery.&nbsp; If a Cleric &quot;Heals&quot;, while a Warlord &quot;recovers HP&quot;, and both are doing the same thing, then you haven't actually gained anything, because &quot;Heal&quot; is still being used to refer to something that does not mean fixing physical damage, since the Warlord can do it too.The only difference between 4E, and previous editions', use of the term &quot;Heal&quot; was making it consistently a true counter-part to the term &quot;Damage&quot;.&nbsp; Just as &quot;Damage&quot; has always included lose of intangible things keeping us safe, &quot;Heal&quot; now also refers to regaining intangible things keeping us safe.&nbsp; And by the sounds of it, WotC is wisely keeping that consistency in 5E.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="dkyle, post: 5871315, member: 70707"] I'm not proposing anything new there. I'm talking about what Gygax himself said about HP. There's no "set" number of "physical" hit points. It's just that they're abstract. It's fluid which HP represent intangibles, and which represent actual damage. As they've always been in D&D. That may be how some prefer to narrate that, but as far as I know, none of that has ever been established by any rules. To me, it's silly to say that every hit is an insignificant scrape or bruise, then suddenly a hit incapacitates someone. It's hard to make contact with someone's skin with a weapon, and not do real damage, even if you're [i]trying[/i] to avoid hurting them. Having it happen constantly, by sheer luck or something, when the combatants are trying to kill each other, strikes me as incredibly unrealistic. Near misses, and non-physically-damaging glances off armor, that require extraordinary effort from the defender, make much more sense to me. I also find it silly that a character can't get back the 90% of an HP that might represent non-physical damage non-magically simply because 10% of the HP represents a little scrape. Why is defensive skill, luck, and divine favor inextricably linked to, and limited by, superficial little scrapes and bruises? "Heal" is a simple and evocative term, that has always referred to increasing HP, in some way. If we have to switch to "recover HP", then we are now using a more cumbersome, less evocative term. And it has to be applied to [i]all[/i] HP recovery, and never using the term "Heal" for HP recovery. If a Cleric "Heals", while a Warlord "recovers HP", and both are doing the same thing, then you haven't actually gained anything, because "Heal" is still being used to refer to something that does not mean fixing physical damage, since the Warlord can do it too. The only difference between 4E, and previous editions', use of the term "Heal" was making it consistently a true counter-part to the term "Damage". Just as "Damage" has always included lose of intangible things keeping us safe, "Heal" now also refers to regaining intangible things keeping us safe. And by the sounds of it, WotC is wisely keeping that consistency in 5E. [/QUOTE]

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