Camping: It does a body good!

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Those who are really, really bothered by the "resting=healing" thing could explain it easily enough.

"Though advanced healing techniques often require in-depth knowledge of herb lore, there are a few recipes commonly known throughout the land. For example, the flower Heartbloom can be dried and boiled into a tea that makes common wounds heal at an accelerated rate. The only trouble is that this flower only thrives in areas verging on the strange and oft-deadly Feywild, making it too expensive for most commoners to use except in the most dire emergencies. However, no adventuring party worth its salt would even consider braving a strange tomb without an ample supply. (Heartbloom costs 1 silver per pot's worth of herb, and one pot can heal 4-7 people.)"

So as long as the party has their supplies and the ability to boil water, they can each drink a cup of this quasi-magic tea and go to sleep, and they'll wake up reinvigorated and ready to fight.

Obviously this still depends on HP not representing physical wounds - it would be dumb for a common herbal tea to mend up all your broken ribs, etc. - but if you MOSTLY buy the "abstract HP" thing and just consider full HP at resting a step too far, this could help.

 

[Just Another User]

I was thinking along similar lines. Impossible to say how exactly to implement the change until the rules are out, but it might make for a grittier and more believeable game. From a dramatic perspective, I think there's a lot to be said for PCs to sometimes wake up still wounded and feeling awful.

I was thinking "recover only CON modifier healing surge" and 1/4 HPs .

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Which Die Hard movie was it where McClane was rendered unconscious by a wound significant enough to put him potentially only several seconds from death? And then was up and completely active again in six hours? I think I missed that one.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

It's distinguishable visually because your opponent doesn't wince as much as they should, or don't get as deep a flesh wound as you anticipated.

Not that hard.

Um, right. "He dodges aside and is off balance - but not really off balance. Sort of like he would hav been off balance, but was immune to the unballancing effect of a slashing weapon. Because, you know, he was really off balance when he dodged Joe's mace...."

No, it doesn't work. It's not "hard" or "easy" it's just silly.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

As I said in another thread, hp as purely "last-minute dodges and parries" break down just as completely as hp as "every successful attack is a bleeding flesh wound." It is, as it always has been, up to the DM to describe successful attacks in a way that is logical and interesting. If an attack hits, and that attack has a rider that causes bleeding damage, obviously you don't describe that particular blow as a near miss. "The assassin lashes out with his dagger and scrapes it along your ribs. The cut doesn't look that bad (10 damage), but a moment later it begins to bleed copiously."

Abstract hit points are not the same thing as "no damaging attack actually hits until you die." The latter is exactly as concrete as "every hit is a physical wound on your tender adventurer flesh." "Abstract," by its very definition, means that hit points don't represent any one thing. Sometimes it's a flesh wound, sometimes it's a last-second dodge,sometimes it's just pure, heroic moxie that lets you keep fighting even when you've got a sword sticking through your torso.

But then the different justifications for healing won't always work, depending on the circumstances where you took the damage. :\ The more this gets talked around in circles, the more "abstract" sounds like a way to make "we don't have a clear model of damage and healing that the system builds up from" look like a feature instead of a bug.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

The more this gets talked around in circles, the more "abstract" sounds like a way to make "we don't have a clear model of damage and healing that the system builds up from" look like a feature instead of a bug.

Or, as some people have argued, makes it sounds like HP don't actually have anything to do with wounds or injury, and are purely a way of "keeping score." You could, according to that model, just as easily use "luck bucks" as "HP," and "pay the bank" when you "take a hit" and get a payment from the bank when you "healing surge." And, of course, your account balance resets every six hours.

But that's idiotic, and Mearls and Company are not idiotic, so I choose to believe the people arguing that model of HP-as-not-wounds are probably wrong. Again, I think it's likely there will be some way to model longer-lasting incapacitation in the game, other than "DM fiat" (a.k.a., "DM screwage"). I just wish they'd show it to us.

 

[Umbran]

Again, I think it's likely there will be some way to model longer-lasting incapacitation in the game, other than "DM fiat" (a.k.a., "DM screwage"). I just wish they'd show it to us.

I wish simply to note that it is screwage whether the DM does it or the rules do it.

 

[Betote]

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?

I'm not

Level + Con modifier (min 1hp/day) is the way to go for me.

Con modifier takes into account the "life juice" part of hps, and level the "roll with the punch".

 

[Kordeth]

But then the different justifications for healing won't always work, depending on the circumstances where you took the damage. :\

Umm--you seem to not be grasping the "abstract" part--the part where we don't actually track what each individual lost hit point represents. We're assuming that any damage suffered is a combination of physical wounds, exertion, minor aches and sprains, and even just the gradual depletion of a character's heroic luck. Ergo, why would some kinds of healing not work?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Umm--you seem to not be grasping the "abstract" part--the part where we don't actually track what each individual lost hit point represents. We're assuming that any damage suffered is a combination of physical wounds, exertion, minor aches and sprains, and even just the gradual depletion of a character's heroic luck. Ergo, why would some kinds of healing not work?

I'm afraid you don't "grasp" the difference between understanding and agreement, so we're done here.