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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5874126" data-attributes="member: 42582">They didn't. Natural healing could return you to full, given enough time. (After a month, I think, in AD&D, anyone returns to full - I'm going from memory here.)My contention is that this falls so far short of recovering from something like a ruptured lung or broken limb that it cannot have been intended as a model of that. It's modelling recovery from bruising and light bleeding, in my view.As I've said, I find the first sufficiently implausible that I favour the second as the interpretation of hp loss (short of death). Mojo, in particular, can also permit pushing on despite moderate bruising and superficial cuts and scrapes - the PC looks beaten up but is unimpeded in performance.In case it's ambiguous - I find that the second interpretation is the one that gives the greater nod to realism. I can see a nod to realism in pushing on through minor wounds. I can't see any nod to realism in recovering from ruptured organs (as mentioned by another poster above) or even deep wounds after a week of rest.Well, it was suggested upthread (by Andor, at least), that a crit from a charging lance means that the PC's chest has been run through and lung ruptured. I'm not sure if Bedrockgames agrees fully, but the phrase "deep wound" was used just above.My view is that, because the healing times are so short, no amount of hp loss short of death can be reflecting these sorts of traumatic injuries. As I posted above, my model is REH's Conan - who is bruised and bloodied but does not suffer broken bones or the severing of major vessels, let alone rupturing of organs - or Frodo's survival of the blow from the cave troll.This is all true. But what does it tell us about the physical consequences of hit point loss? For me, it is a series of reasons to adopt the approach that hit point loss short of death does not represent serious injury. To put it another way - the game's strategy for maintaining engagement is to ensure that, as long as your PC is not dead, s/he is not too badly hurt.I don't see the game as one in which we assume that PC's have ruptured lungs, broken limbs and the like but just (i) ignore this when it comes to resolving actions, and (ii) pretend that these sorts of injuries can be recovered from in a week or two of rest.</blockquote>

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