Camping: It does a body good!

[Lonely Tylenol]

When the DM starts using Sergio Leone-style closeups on the face, that's when they're bloodied.

Or when you throw him down on the mat and he waits until after "2" to kick out of the pin, then he's bloodied.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well the difference be that yes for both Bloodied and not Bloodied he be; "Oh, he's bruised, battered, with a gash under his eye."

However when he is Bloodied, "he can barely keep his head up, his sword hand trembles and he seems on the edge of collapsing."

So both are beat up, but when not Bloodied he still looks more in the fight then when he is Bloodied.

 

[Nytmare]

In short, in order for camping to work in the way it was intended to, as the reset button, the DM is going to have to create a "special snowflake" rule that applies just to the PCs and their selected villains or bust world-building plausibility wide open.

Do you find that action-film conventions, like having Die Hard's John Mclane limp broken and bloody and scorched from one terrorist butt-kicking to the next, busts plausibility beyond the point where you're able to enjoy the movie? It would be worse, I think, if after every fight, he took a week off to go sit in a hospital bed attached to an IV before he kicked the next butt.

Just because you're at full HP doesn't mean that you're shiny and polished and unblemished. You're still beaten up, you still almost died the day before, and you still might die today. You just don't have to exchange your usefuleness for the cleric's and wait an extra day before you move on.

Personally, as a DM who's been running E6 with the death flag rules for the past half a year, I don't understand what the big deal about lethality is. There are plenty of important ways that the PCs can fail that don't involve death.

 

[Kordeth]

DMs have always been able to do that. That's not what the designers have said. They've said that the Bloodied condition is a deliberate signal that the creature has clearly taken significant damage in combat. They've said this is a few ways in a way places.

Your rationale for the 6HM ("six hour miracle") is contradictory to what they've said. By your rationale, a fighter that has benefited from the 6HM always looks like he's Bloodied. So under your rationale, you can't just say, "Oh, he's bruised, battered, with a gash under his eye" ... you have to add, "But he's not Bloodied. Because you probably thought he was."

Erm--did you miss the entire part of my post where I gave examples of how to describe bloodied versus hurt-but-at-full-hp? Because I pretty much addressed that problem. If a DM doesn't feel like putting the time and effort into that much description, there's absolutely nothing wrong with "yeah, he's bloodied" or "he looks pretty rough, but he seems to be at full strength."

And given that the designers were talking about players telling when monsters are bloodied, I'm about 99% sure they were speaking from the assumption of within an encounter--as in, "congratulations, you've just inflicted half the dragon's hp in damage, and hacked into its shoulder producing a spray of gore" and not "you see a guy. He's got some wounds. Is he bloodied? Who knows?" So I'm really not that worried about the issue. If it's ever unclear and a PC's power use or abilities depend on it, I'm not such a jerkstore DM that I won't give an honest answer to the question "is he bloodied?"*

(*That's not entirely true--feigning weakness with Bluff could, IMHO, trick someone into thinking that you're bloodied. But that's a specific case.)

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Do you find that action-film conventions, like having Die Hard's John Mclane limp broken and bloody and scorched from one terrorist butt-kicking to the next, busts plausibility beyond the point where you're able to enjoy the movie?

Not to that point, no. But then, I missed the Die Hard in which McClane was stabbed in the gut for a near-fatal wound (say, 1 HP away from dying), and then was 100 percent active and effective for the next scene set six hours later.

Which movie was that in?

And why do people keep assuming that McClane is getting HP restored somehow? Doesn't Die Hard work perfectly well if McClane starts at 80 HP and steadily loses them until, at the end of the movie, he's barely standing?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No I don't. I guess it's going to have to be an "agree to disagree" situation, because I have no problem with the new system whatsoever, and I'm a DM who actually prefers gritty realism. Personally I find it EASIER to realistically explain with the 4e mechanic than the 3e one.

In third, you have exaclty ONE mechanical point in which any serious injury is done to your character... the point at which he drops below zero. (Okay, AT zero could be considered another, lesser one, but mathematically rare.) At that point, he's been injured, and is dying, and WITHOUT magic it is extremely difficult to save him. There is NO point at which he's INJURED, but in no danger of dying. (Loss of HP does not come with any minusses, you see.)

YES you can "fluff it away" and role-play injury that's not mechanically there.

In 4E there are TWO points. The shot that drops you to bloodied, and the shot that drops you below zero. The bloodied shot shows that you've been injured, but nothing that's life-threatening. It can be role-played in any way that would make sense based on the situation at hand. The shot that knocked you below zero hit you for a wollop, stunning you, and making you think that this might be it for you. If you survive then it wasn't as bad as you thought.

As far as being "fine" the next day goes, well, there are MANY MANY ways to explain it, and it's all dependent on the situation that caused the damage, and the thing that healed it. Clerics STILL cast healing spells, so that's STILL one way to explain it.

In the case mentioned above: Falling 120' and being hit by a fireball. Well first off, whichever edition you're playing, if you fall 120' and DON'T DIE, you're pretty damn lucky! But for now let's say that the situation in 3E you have 80 HP and you took 50 damage from that fall. Then the bad guy hit you with a 36 damage fireball, and you were at -6. No one has a problem with the believability of the cleric healing you so let's say that you ARE the cleric and you're lucky enough that the ranger can bandage you up, to stabilize you.

Well, frankly the fall did NOTHING to you 'cause you had 30HP left, so you could have picked yourself up and fought on, but let's just say that the player role-played a broken leg. Then you were hit with the fireball and the player role-played "singed to a crisp". The ranger put a buncha salves in with the bandages and over night you heal what (I'm rusty on 3e healing) your level (12 or so, right?) plus con?

So breaking your leg and getting 3rd degree burns heals all up naturally in 5 or 6 days. But of course, on day 2 you're gonna cast all your healing spells and be fine anyway.

It's all a matter of how you explain it. If you want to call the fall a broken leg, and the fireball 3rd degree burns it's totally UNREALISTIC in either system.

However, in 4E you at least you'll likely get bloodied from the fall.

Let's call you the Warlord, so we don't even have MAGIC healing.

If you don't die from a 120' fall, then you were really lucky, as we stated above, so why wouldn't you explain it in a more realistic way than a 120' free-fall. You fall off a 120' cliff, but you hit some trees on the way down, getting scraped up and landing in a relatively soft patch of mud at the bottom. "Bloodied" then the fireball bursts around you and, sure, you get burnt, and colapse with the last thought in your head being "This is it!" Then the ranger gives you a medic check (activating a surge) and you come to, shaken, bloodied (and burnt!) and you rest for six hours, the wounds bound. Let's call you the Warlord, so we don't even have MAGIC healing.

Next day you're sore, bandaged, salved, and don't have any eyebrows, but you're experience as a seasoned vet makes you soldier on, ready for another day of combat.

Fitz

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In third, you have exaclty ONE mechanical point in which any serious injury is done to your character... the point at which he drops below zero. [...] There is NO point at which he's INJURED, but in no danger of dying. (Loss of HP does not come with any minusses, you see.)

This is where and why you're wrong. You are assuming that "injury" equates to "minuses." It's a faulty assumption, and has never been true in D&D. Instead accept that "injury" equates to "needing significant time or magic to recover," and 3E models injury just fine.

(4E doesn't. In 4E there is no injury ... only "fine and dandy" until "dead." If that works for you, cool. Maybe you can accept that it doesn't work for lots of folks. Maybe even understand why.)

 

[Jim Williams]

Consider the finest heroic action movie of the last 25 years, Die Hard. John McClane gets the ever-loving crap beaten out of him on several occasions, and yet he always manages to shake it off and get back into the fight. In 4E terms, he takes a "short rest," blows a few healing surges, and gets himself back up to full hit points. He's still battered all to hell and back, still suffering from cracked ribs, slashed-up feet, concussions and God knows what else, but he's such a big damn hero (and now I'm mixing metaphors) that he just refuses to let those injuries slow him down.

This is an awesome description of the 4E hp and healing mechanics.

And why is it that posts such as these that make such fine points get ignored and the debate continues back and forth as if no one had ever seen them?

Because Kordeth's description was beyond reproach.

When the DM starts using Sergio Leone-style closeups on the face, that's when they're bloodied.

Dude, this was hilarious!

 

[hong]

In short, in order for camping to work in the way it was intended to, as the reset button, the DM is going to have to create a "special snowflake" rule that applies just to the PCs and their selected villains or bust world-building plausibility wide open.

PCs and selected villains already are special snowflakes, by having action points.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

This is where and why you're wrong. You are assuming that "injury" equates to "minuses." It's a faulty assumption, and has never been true in D&D. Instead accept that "injury" equates to "needing significant time or magic to recover," and 3E models injury just fine.

I'll give you that, although a few days to naturally heal from the effects of a 120' fall is pretty darn fast, but you're right that it's better than six hours. Of course, who knows what the falling rules are like in 4E? I don't.