Condition track - wishful thinking, rumor or confirmed?

[JRR_Talking]

HP till i die

D&D uses HP, and nothing else

I play other things when i require -15% penalty due to arm bruise.

 

[KarinsDad]

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.

Actually in 4E, early indications are that rolling a 4 will result in partial success.

This discussion is like the 3.5 discussions on Tumbling and Combat Casting. The rule is the way it is, but for some people, that does not make sense. For other people, they defend the way the rule is written, merely because that is the way the rule is written.

Static DCs (e.g. your climb rope example) should be against objects.

Dynamic DCs (i.e. the DC changes based on the abilities of the opponents, usually via an opposed roll, e.g. the way Tumble should be) should be against creatures.

And it looks like this might be occurring within 4E as well to some extent.

It's a matter of rule logic vs. rule balance vs. rule simplicity. Tumbling in 3.5 was simple, but it wasn't balanced. Once assassins got good enough to Tumble Past every single time, the very REASON that Tumble was put into the game (i.e. to mitigate the problem of opponents getting way past a line of defenders in a circular initiative system) is totally avoided.

Ditto for Second Wind as I explained above.

When discussing metagaming rules (like Second Wind and Tumble) whose sole purpose is to address a gaming issue, the designers have to ensure that the gaming issue is handled in all cases.

Not in some cases, in all of them.

Otherwise, the game starts to develop flaws and issues.

Ditto for feats, special abilities, and equipment.

The moment they introduce ways that allow a player to sidestep some metagaming rule, they introduce problems into the game.

For example, drawing a potion is a move action in 3.5. There are good solid design reasons for this. So what do the designers do? They introduce fast draw type pouches to allow anyone to get the equivalent of a mini-Fast Draw feat for potions. All for the cost of a handful of gold.

This is silly. It breaks the original design and sidesteps a rule that was put into the game for a very important balance reason.

They have to stop doing this. They have to carefully screen feats and special abilities and equipment so that they don't sidestep carefully designed, balanced, and playtested rules.

Just because an idea is cool does not mean that it is balanced.

And, they have to come up with meta-design rules about how to design the game. One such rule is that all conflict with a creature should result in a Dynamic DC (i.e. an opposed roll of some sort or a roll against a variable aspect of that creature, e.g. BAB) whereas all conflict with an object shoudl result in a Static DC (i.e. the DC is always the same shy of situational modifiers for simplicity).

Without such meta-design rules, Grapple is totally mechanically different than Trip which is totally mechanically different than Turn Undead which is totally mechanically different than Tumbling Past.

And when this happens, cracks seep into the design of the game so that players can take advantage of rules loopholes.


In the case of Second Wind, when your player wants to stab himself with a dagger before going to bed at night, just so that he will have more hit points in the morning, there is a design flaw in that rule and it is not accomplishing the metagaming goal that it is designed to accomplish.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

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!"

Seriously, if it's that big an issue with metagaming, I think it would be just as good to house rule that the abilities that can be used while Bloodied can be used unbloodied by taking a full round action (or if it's already a full round action, 2 rounds). The increased action represents the character mentally 'psyching himself up' to emulate the stress conditions that Bloodied abstracts.

(And I do think it's metagaming to a large extent. A person who manages to lift something heavy in a house fire to escape is not going to say "hey, I should totally be able to lift that much when I want to! Fine, can I set the weight sets on fire?!?!" The image of a barbarian intentionally slicing a gash across his chest to draw on that deep energy is compelling, but a specialization of a character, not something a normal (sane ) person does because the player wants an early boost. Take a "self bloodied" feat, or make a concentration check without it if you want to self mutilate.)

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

You know, reading the debate on second wind before/after Bloodied I was on the side of after only. I mean, heck, it's supposed to be a dramatic thing you can do when the chips are down and in a system with granularity you've got to expect a quantitative threshold now and then just as you have them for hitting, getting dropped, succeeding on a skill, etc.

But then that line about a player wanting to injure themselves to reach the threshold--ouch. That's a good point. Sure, it's metagaming to ask for that silly option but if you know you're about to do get serious damage that could kill you, for instance rushing through a high-damage area effect to do something heroic, you can hardly blame the player.

That said, I really like the idea of a (house)rule that 2nd wind heals a proportion of damage that happen to equal the intended amount if you are at 1/2 hitpoints. The more of a wuss you are (i.e. wanting your second wind when you're just scratched), the less it does for you. The worse off you are when you "cash in" the more value you get--you'll need it!

 

[Mika]

Conditions other than Bloodied

i think at this point we have established that the Bloodied condition is the only condition that can be reached solely by inflicting hit point damage down to a certain threshold. Conditions defined on the SWSE condition track may well exist, but they must be reached by effects that specifically inflict those conditions or decrement the condition track status. Have I missed anything here?