Condition track - wishful thinking, rumor or confirmed?

[KarinsDad]

Why is he dead at -10 hit points and not at -9? Why does he hit if he rolls a 28 but not a 27?

It's a game, and it uses numbers; there's got to be boundaries somewhere.

This particular boundary does not need to exist at all.

A PC has 50 hit points. He should be able to do Second Wind anywhere from 1 hit point to 49 hit points. If he has an ability, he should be able to use it.

An arbitrary "can only do this at half or less hit points" rule is an additional unnecessary rule. The 4E designers are claiming that they are trying to simplify the game. Fine. Remove rules that do not need to be there at all. IMO.

Can you come up with a reason for why this rule NEEDS to exist?

The only reason for it is because some game designer thought of it.

 

[The Little Raven]

Can you come up with a reason for why this rule NEEDS to exist?

The only reason for it is because some game designer thought of it.

Because sometimes when your life is truly at risk, you reach into yourself for reserves of energy you didn't know you had (aka Second Wind).

I've seen a schoolyard bully pick on a kid smaller than him, right up until he punched the kid in the face and bloodied his nose... then the kid went nuts and kicked the living crap of out the bully. Without the injury, the kid would have never raised his fist in anger towards the bully.

I know, because I was that bully.

 

[KarinsDad]

Because sometimes when your life is truly at risk, you reach into yourself for reserves of energy you didn't know you had (aka Second Wind).

Semantics.

Why is 20 out of 40 hit points "your life is truly at risk" and 21 out of 40 hit points "your life is not truly at risk"?

Because of a rule.

Not because it makes sense, but because of a game rule.

It's funny how many people try to justify the rules (no matter how they are written) as opposed to analyzing them for quality.

 

[The Little Raven]

Because of a rule.

Yeah, games have rules. Sure, you could say "Hey, Bob, you can use Second Wind at 21 instead of 20." But then, soon everyone will start to demand that you ignore the rules for them as well. "I don't care about Second Wind, but I want to ignore this rule I don't like. You let Bob ignore the requirements for Second Wind, so its only fair that you let me ignore the requirements for this rule."

And also... hit points themselves don't make sense. They're an abstraction. You can accept the abstraction of hit points, but can't accept the abstraction of Second Wind only being usable at 50% hit points or less?

 

[nerfherder]

Semantics.

Why is 20 out of 40 hit points "your life is truly at risk" and 21 out of 40 hit points "your life is not truly at risk"?

Because of a rule.

Not because it makes sense, but because of a game rule.

It's funny how many people try to justify the rules (no matter how they are written) as opposed to analyzing them for quality.

Mourn just gave you a plausible reason for why the designer created that rule - to simulate reaching into your reserves when you take significant injury.

It's funny how some people think that a rule makes no sense as opposed to thinking that maybe the designer has a different opinion about something than they do.

 

[KarinsDad]

And also... hit points themselves don't make sense. They're an abstraction. You can accept the abstraction of hit points, but can't accept the abstraction of Second Wind only being usable at 50% hit points or less?

Nope.

To me, it's nonsensical and totally random as a rule.

When my PC is injured at 21 out of 40 hit points, if he has an ability to overcome adversity or whatever it is called, he should be able to use it.

Otherwise, he is not overcoming adversity.

The explanation for what the rule does, does not match the hit point abstraction for me as a player. 48% damaged is still damaged. IMO.


And, the reason for the rule is total metagaming. Like Action Points, it's there to protect PCs and to help players avoid having a PC die and forcing the player to create a new PC. But by definition, it sometimes fails this goal because it has the 50% limit. A PC that is 48% damaged and seeing a bunch of bad guys coming for him cannot use it to "go to the well". Hence, it can fail to accomplish the metagaming goal it is designed to accomplish.

So if one is going to put in a metagaming rule to help mitigate random bad rolls, it should at least be written so that it can be used at any time the player wants to use it. Again, IMO. Otherwise if it cannot be used in some cases to mitigate the scenario that it is attempting to mitigate, why put it in at all?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nope.

To me, it's nonsensical and totally random as a rule.

When my PC is injured at 21 out of 40 hit points, if he has an ability to overcome adversity or whatever it is called, he should be able to use it.

Otherwise, he is not overcoming adversity.

The explanation for what the rule does, does not match the hit point abstraction for me as a player. 48% damaged is still damaged. IMO.


And, the reason for the rule is total metagaming. Like Action Points, it's there to protect PCs and to help players avoid having a PC die and forcing the player to create a new PC. But by definition, it sometimes fails this goal because it has the 50% limit. A PC that is 48% damaged and seeing a bunch of bad guys coming for him cannot use it to "go to the well". Hence, it can fail to accomplish the metagaming goal it is designed to accomplish.

So if one is going to put in a metagaming rule to help mitigate random bad rolls, it should at least be written so that it can be used at any time the player wants to use it. Again, IMO. Otherwise if it cannot be used in some cases to mitigate the scenario that it is attempting to mitigate, why put it in at all?

When a first level Fighter in heavy armor and heavy loaded with the corpses of two of his comrades fail to climb a knotted Rope by rolling just a 4 on his Climb Check instead of getting a 5? His result is so close, why doesn't that count for something? Sure, he can try again next round, but unfortuantely, that means the 4 Goblins behind him will catch up to him and probably kill him.

Why does a Shadowrun Character with 2 boxes of damage not suffer an injury penalty, but one with 3 boxes does? What if this penalty will mean that he has no chance to succeed on his next Dodge roll since his enemy has more successes than he has dice now?

Rules in roleplaying games will always have a point where you can do something, and where you can't just because of a tiny difference. But that doesn't invalidate the rules, since the rules manage to simulate something important for you.

A condition like Bloodied is such a rule. It allows you to define an important turning point for a PC or NPC. It might be the point where you can tick out and get an extra benefit. At might be a point where you are particularly weakened and an enemy might be able to use your condition to his advantage. It might be the point where an important ability is no longer available.

The point of using a condition like Bloodied as such a mark is there to add a certain dynamic in combat that simply did not exist before. Sure, it is a metagame tool. But a lot of of design decisions and rules are made exactly for that - XP gain for overcoming challenges, class balance. There is nothing in the reality that says that a Longsword and a Battleaxe are equally valid as meelee weapons, but they are in D&D.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If 4e says you can only get second wind while bloodied, it is likely to be one of my first houserules.

I'd be comfortable with allowing PCs to choose when they want to do it. Heck, if a PC is on 7 out of max 13 hp and wants to take it, I'd let them. If a PC is on 90 out of 100hp I'd let them.

(otherwise you'll have PCs asking whether they can stab themselves for 1pt damage in order to get bloodied and be able to take their second wind!)

(edit: this is as a result of experience with SWSE... and recognizing that things might be different in 4e)

 

[FireLance]

If 4e says you can only get second wind while bloodied, it is likely to be one of my first houserules.

I'd be comfortable with allowing PCs to choose when they want to do it. Heck, if a PC is on 7 out of max 13 hp and wants to take it, I'd let them. If a PC is on 90 out of 100hp I'd let them.

(otherwise you'll have PCs asking whether they can stab themselves for 1pt damage in order to get bloodied and be able to take their second wind!)

(edit: this is as a result of experience with SWSE... and recognizing that things might be different in 4e)

Actually, there are some abilities which I'd be okay with the PCs injuring themselves to activate; barbarian rage, for example.

I do agree that a "healing" ability that incentivizes a character to injure himself so that he can use it sooner seems rather silly. I'm not sure how Second Wind works in SWSE, but one way around the problem is for the healing ability to be usable at any time (within the limits of a number of times per encounter or per day), but to be more effective as the character gets more heavily injured. For example, if it restored half the amount of damage taken by the character, he could choose to use it when he's taken only 20 points of damage to restore 10 hp, or he could decide to wait until he's taken 40 points of damage to restore 20 hp.

 

[erf_beto]

(otherwise you'll have PCs asking whether they can stab themselves for 1pt damage in order to get bloodied and be able to take their second wind!)

As much as I like the idea of doing something only when you're almost down, self mutilation will problably happen in some groups (my little cousins, online players, will do it often ), so I'm ok with people fearing the HP condition track... specially if this bloodied condition triggers some abilities that can be used out of combat or to get out of it...

"Oh No! The Dragon is coming!"
"I dont have more healing spells"
"Quick! Whack the Wizard, so he can teleport us!"
"What? AAAGGHT! Ok, I'll do it!"