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Are Hit Points Meat? (Redux): D&D Co-Creator Saw Hit Points Very Differently
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8436686" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Well, consider how 4e handled Hit Points vs Healing Surges.</p><p></p><p>Things attacking your surges don't kill you (and are pretty rare and difficult to exploit). Only losing HP kills you. <em><strong>But</strong></em>, having surges makes it a hell of a lot easier to get back up and not just die. While it's obviously fantastical, this isn't <em>too</em> far off from how fatigue works in real people: most of us can't do a ton of effort all at once, but give us a break and a snack, and we're often back to almost-normal very quickly. It's why marathons are such a huge impact on a person, they force you to tap on <em>everything</em>, and you can quite literally collapse, even <em>die</em>, if you try to do that unprepared.</p><p></p><p>In 4e, only death saves (or massive damage, which is how my first death occurred!) can cause you to die, and you only deal with either when you're at or below 0 HP. Surges have nothing to do with that system. And poisons, etc., attack hit points--your "easy to gain, easy to lose" resource <em>is</em> the thing that keeps you alive, but Surges allow you to have a semi-inaccessible pool of <em>extra</em> HP, just out of reach unless you have help...from a support character ("Leader" role, in 4e terms.) Since all healing restores you from 0, no matter what your 0-or-less HP were, this means a Surge-based heal gets you back in good enough shape that you can usually continue fighting, or have enough HP to run away if you need it (and yes, sometimes, you SHOULD run away from 4e fights).</p><p></p><p>And then, at very high level in 4e (specifically, mid/high Epic tier), characters literally start getting features that <em>only</em> trigger when a character dies--in other words, you're <em>supposed</em> to be dying every now and then, because a mere <em>one</em> death a day is nothing for an Epic-tier character.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I think this rather neatly weds the benefits of HP (straightforward and familiar) with most of the benefits of a VP/WP system (there's a buffer beyond just your "frontline" points, and once that buffer's out, you really <em>should</em> rest if you can.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8436686, member: 6790260"] Well, consider how 4e handled Hit Points vs Healing Surges. Things attacking your surges don't kill you (and are pretty rare and difficult to exploit). Only losing HP kills you. [I][B]But[/B][/I], having surges makes it a hell of a lot easier to get back up and not just die. While it's obviously fantastical, this isn't [I]too[/I] far off from how fatigue works in real people: most of us can't do a ton of effort all at once, but give us a break and a snack, and we're often back to almost-normal very quickly. It's why marathons are such a huge impact on a person, they force you to tap on [I]everything[/I], and you can quite literally collapse, even [I]die[/I], if you try to do that unprepared. In 4e, only death saves (or massive damage, which is how my first death occurred!) can cause you to die, and you only deal with either when you're at or below 0 HP. Surges have nothing to do with that system. And poisons, etc., attack hit points--your "easy to gain, easy to lose" resource [I]is[/I] the thing that keeps you alive, but Surges allow you to have a semi-inaccessible pool of [I]extra[/I] HP, just out of reach unless you have help...from a support character ("Leader" role, in 4e terms.) Since all healing restores you from 0, no matter what your 0-or-less HP were, this means a Surge-based heal gets you back in good enough shape that you can usually continue fighting, or have enough HP to run away if you need it (and yes, sometimes, you SHOULD run away from 4e fights). And then, at very high level in 4e (specifically, mid/high Epic tier), characters literally start getting features that [I]only[/I] trigger when a character dies--in other words, you're [I]supposed[/I] to be dying every now and then, because a mere [I]one[/I] death a day is nothing for an Epic-tier character. Personally, I think this rather neatly weds the benefits of HP (straightforward and familiar) with most of the benefits of a VP/WP system (there's a buffer beyond just your "frontline" points, and once that buffer's out, you really [I]should[/I] rest if you can.) [/QUOTE]
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