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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 9229742" data-attributes="member: 87792">If hit point loss can represent entirely different things then I see no reason why hit point recovery can't. If a sword thrust, many poisons, fireball, and a psychic attack like phantasmal killer all take away hit points despite doing different things I have no problem with there being many ways of getting them back. In addition it's entirely clear under the pre-4e model that hit points aren't real injury; they do not have any effect as long as you have a single hit point left. There's no exhaustion component and no debilitation component. Finally you completely missed the important thematic part of the mechanics. Spends a recovery. Healing Word does not provide the healing energy, it enables the target to dig deep and use their own resources. Inspiration, both in fiction and real life, can cause people to dig deep into their own resources. It also can in 4e (but not really other D&Ds). Meanwhile there is magical healing in 4e; Cure Wounds actually provides the resources for the target to heal without spending a surge. Healing Word doesn't.It always was multiple separate things. Because bodies are complex. 4e simply much better reflects the way the real world works and the way fantasy fiction does than "sword thrusts, fireballs, and Phantasmal Killers all do the same thing and are all healed by the same type of magic but none of them ever impede the target unless they are reduced to 0hp".So either Cure Wounds is a universal cure despite being a first level spell in your world or psychic damage, surface burns, and sword thrusts don't have interactions. And you are actively and directly ignoring the 4e mechanics to create this example.In 4e you don't have one hit point track but two. You have hit points and healing surges. Your hit points are effectively a stun and shock track, while your healing surges are your resilience. And, more importantly, you do not die at 0hp so asking "how are you still alive?" is simply a strawman question. What is happening in 4e with the use of either Inspiring Word or Healing Word you are not significantly less injured. What you are is less stunned or shocked. But you have still taken the injury because your  healing surges are down. If you want to actually cure the injury rather than just be able to handle it then you need toI mean sure. The cognitive gap has widened because (a) you created a strawman of dying at 0hp and (b) you ignored the actual mechanics, pretending healing surges are not a thing that is written on the character sheet and that have been depleted. If you want "true" healing you need to either replace the healing surges or to recover the hit points without spending surges the way the Cure Wounds or the Paladin's Lay on Hands (or whatever it is called) does. There are therefore three fundamental problems here.<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">That 4e doesn't clearly explain the role of Healing Surges in endurance and recovery</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">That you come up with strawmen and ignore the actual mechanics</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">That more than 15 years after the launch of 4e you are still coming up with the same hoary old misrepresentations.</li> </ol>Indeed. There are simply just about no instances of "hit points other than the last are injury" in the entire rules. Hit points are as ephemeral and consequence free as a video game health bar and their only effect is to say "how long until this character falls over?" There is just about no time in any version of D&D save 4e at which loss of any except the last hit point can be seen to be significantly more debilitating than a papercut.And this does not get supported by the mechanics. There have been almost no "normal injuries" because normal injuries hurt and impede people. What we're dealing here is fluff that's largely disconnected from the mechanics. Either you're fine or you're at or below 0hp. Or you've taken effects that Cure Wounds won't solve such as stat penalties.It's not that there's no "cognitive gap" here. It's simply that you don't look at it. 4e has less of one - but by actually having a more consistent and more coherent model 4e forced you to look at it.A "mere scratch" is all it can be unless the character has been reduced to 0hp. D&D characters get hurt like action movie characters. There are death scenes. There is being taken out of the fight. And there's cosmetic scratches.Once more you are pretending that Healing Surges do not exist. 4e characters dig deep to overcome shock. Meanwhile characters in other D&Ds prance around with no effects. If you have lost Healing Surges you are not fully healed. You are just fighting fit even if you are still bandaged up.Indeed. And even when it has dealt with it you still get a cadre of people who, even fifteen years after launch, selectively ignore the mechanics that provide the solutions to their "problems" and then are surprised that when they ignore the mechanics they have problems understanding what is going on.Clearly. And more than fifteen years after launch there are still upset fans, edition warring about their selective readings when their entire point is that they haven't actually understood the rules.And that it is only shows exactly how unwilling to read the rules and how willing to make strawmen people are.Now if you'd come up with a critique of the idea of Healing Surges I'd have more sympathy - but your entire critique here rests on the foundation of ignoring core 4e recovery mechanics. And that you have to ignore core 4e recovery mechanics after fifteen years shows that the problem is not so much with the rules but a mix of the presentation and how intransigent some of the players are.</blockquote>

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