Camping: It does a body good!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

During the day, your PC fighter faced a dozen swordsman and suffered being hit by 3 fireballs. One night of camping later, after an "extended rest," he's back to full hit points. How are you, as a DM, are going explain this crunch narratively?

Warning: Hit points have always been abstract, of course, so I'm curious for pro and con views, not slamming the edition.

Apology: I'm sorry if this has been debated before. I generally don't go in this part of the forum, so I wasn't able to easily find it if it had been debated already.

He still looks roughed up, but he feels no pain (at least nothing worth worrying about). It might still take a few weeks till his eyebrows and beard is regrown, but he feels fine.


The real question might be: What will represent actual, longer-lasting injuries in 4E? The Simulationist in me demands to now. But he can't really scream for information, since he's hiding from the strong muscled Gamist in me, and fears he could alert him.
I am not surprised that this hasn't come yet during the DDXP. The storyteller (the other guy in me - He's not in hiding, but he has a light build and a weak voice) in me says that lasting injuries should occur rarely and have a significant impact of the story (just like death,the ultimate permanent condition - except in D&D, off course).


Addendum:
I can see as a possible house-rule for the more simulationist inclined that not all Healing Surges return each day, but instead only one per day. "Healing Surges left" now represent your lasting injuries. It's off course grittier, and you might want magical effects that replenish the "lost" surges.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I can see as a possible house-rule for the more simulationist inclined that not all Healing Surges return each day, but instead only one per day. "Healing Surges left" now represent your lasting injuries. It's off course grittier, and you might want magical effects that replenish the "lost" surges.

Wow, I like that much better than my idea. Each critical hit you take and each hit you take that takes you below 0 subtracts 1 from your max number of healing surges. You can recover one of those for every X days of real rest.

 

[Mentat55]

I think that the main difficulty is just getting used to it, after years of treating HP as actual damage.

Now that natural healing is brought into the discussion, I cannot deny that the 3e natural healing rules make little sense: if damage is real physical injuries, then 3e natural healing is way too fast; if damage isn't real wounds, then 3e natural healing is way too slow.

It's difficult to get used to it, but once we do, the 4e idea seems to work much better.

This is a super-excellent point. If you don't look at hit points as tracking physical damage, then you cannot apply natural human regenerative or reparative capacities to the 'healing' gained during an extended rest.

I might have gone in a slightly different direction, like heal 50% of your maximum hit point total. That way, if you have been bloodied, then damage done beyond being the bloodied cutoff sticks around (representing at least a superficial laceration or more long-lasting injury), and the rest was just fatigue, (ignorable) bruises, and fleeting pain.

 

[RigaMortus2]

There is an extreme but effective way out of the problem:

describe only killing blows as an actual hit, everything else is just a near-hit that wears you down during battle

After all, most hits by a sword or axe in real life would cause the target to die.

So if you have 50 hit points, and get knocked down to 25 (half hits, also known as 'bloodied' condition), the "hits" and "damage" you took that knocked you down to 25hps weren't really hits at all? Just near misses? How can a near miss make you bloodied?

 

[malraux]

But even going by you rexample Plane Sailing, after six hours of rest they suddenly find their cuts, scrapes , singes and bruises all magically healed up? In SIX hours?

Wjhy didn't they just cut down on the damage capability, instead of giving everyone and their grandmother healing surges, healing class abilities, and ability to recover all that AND your hp in SIX hours?

The bruises might not be gone, but to the point of turning other colors, the cuts and scrapes are bound up and/or scabbed over, etc. HP reflects your ability to take on more damage, but full HP doesn't mean that you can't have a black eye or a big cut or two.

In practice, this is how I've found 3rd edition works anyway. When its time to rest, the cleric burns all his remaining spells into cures s.t. everyone ends up at full HP the next morning anyway. If that's how most people play, might as well codify it in the rules.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

But even going by you rexample Plane Sailing, after six hours of rest they suddenly find their cuts, scrapes , singes and bruises all magically healed up? In SIX hours?

Wjhy didn't they just cut down on the damage capability, instead of giving everyone and their grandmother healing surges, healing class abilities, and ability to recover all that AND your hp in SIX hours?

Just because your at full hitpoints doesn't mean you appear completely healthy. You'll still have bruises, bandages, and the like, but they don't compromise your ability to stay up in a fight.

And the "fast" healing basically means that recovery is at long last as abstract as damage. It works for me.

 

[Fifth Element]

So if you have 50 hit points, and get knocked down to 25 (half hits, also known as 'bloodied' condition), the "hits" and "damage" you took that knocked you down to 25hps weren't really hits at all? Just near misses? How can a near miss make you bloodied?

"Bloodied" is a bad word for this interpretation. But think of bloodied as "worn down" or "fatigued" or "winded" instead, and you're all set.

 

[Wulfram]

All combat is illusory, and all damage is purely psychosomatic. A good nights sleep cures your mind of the trauma, and leaves you refreshed and ready to face a new day.

 

[Thaniel]

So if you have 50 hit points, and get knocked down to 25 (half hits, also known as 'bloodied' condition), the "hits" and "damage" you took that knocked you down to 25hps weren't really hits at all? Just near misses? How can a near miss make you bloodied?

Because 'bloodied' is just a game term. You're worn down. You're getting exhausted. That's what the 'bloodied' status means.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Maybe you even have some blood exiting your body. I've been losing blood in my life without much reduction in ability and recovered quickly. Of course, I've also been losing blood in a manner that incapacited me and took a while to heal.

The former is modeled by 4e (and IMO, every incarnation of D&D), the latter is not (likewise with other incarnations of D&D).