Confirm or Deny: D&D4e would be going strong had it not been titled D&D

[innerdude]

Once again, I think you are missing one possibility: that none of that surge expenditure is about healing meat. It's all about regaining grit/mojo.

Oh no no no, I totally get that. I'm just saying, from a narrative perspective damage prevention instead of post-factum healing completely eliminates the ambiguity entirely. You don't lose hitpoints until you're actually, physically HURT. Period. With a soaking mechanic, lost hit points is ALWAYS real injury. Everything before that is grit/resolve.

Even the term "healing surge" seems to cloud that issue. Anyway, I don't disagree.

If something happened where a PC did get seriously or permanently hurt, then spending healing surges or regaining hit points wouldn't help (because these don't alleviate conditions, other than unconsciousness due to hp loss). The Remove Affliction ritual (or something similar, like the daily power of the Essentials cleric) would be needed.

This is EXACTLY how Savage Worlds operates. Bennies NEVER help you actually recover from wounds. Once you're out of bennies and you take real damage, you're hurt, period, end of story. In fact, in Savage Worlds you can still take real physical wounds even if you SUCCEED at a soak check, if the wound you've been dealt is severe enough.

In Savage Worlds are there any penalties for being "beat" in this way? If not, I'm not sure it's a very good model of exhaustion.

Well, it's the same as D&D 4e --- you run out of bennies (healing surges), you're just looking to get into real trouble. Are you actually "hurt," or suffering? Not really, but as a character you'd recognize you're right on the edge---you're in the danger zone where you can no longer reliably discern how well you'll be able to meet the challenges ahead.

However, Savage Worlds does have a separate wound track and fatigue/disease track. Depending on circumstances, it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for a GM to say, "Hmmm, you're out of bennies, and have been in 2 combats in the last 3 hours. Roll a vigor check to see if you now suffer fatigue."

Just as, in 4e, if you want to model injury you need to use lingering conditions (hit points don't model it), so if you want to model genuine fatigue you need to use the disease track (again, hit points don't model it).

Yup. That's exactly how Savage Worlds models it.

 

[innerdude]

.......as long as we assume that the D&D trope of "you remain at full effectiveness until you keel over dead/unconscious" still applies, I honestly don't see what the difference is. Either way, the resource pool is expended, you just change when the expenditure occurs ("Hah! You tried to hurt me and failed!" vs. "Hah! They thought they had me, but I'm better now!")

I don't know why, but creating a narrative resolution for the first ("Hah! You tried to hurt me and failed!") is much easier, more consistent with the other long-term injury mechanics, and ultimately more satisfying.

Personal preference, I guess.

 

[pemerton]

Once you're out of bennies and you take real damage, you're hurt, period, end of story.

<snip>

Savage Worlds does have a separate wound track and fatigue/disease track. Depending on circumstances, it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for a GM to say, "Hmmm, you're out of bennies, and have been in 2 combats in the last 3 hours. Roll a vigor check to see if you now suffer fatigue."

4e doesn't have "real damage, hurt, end of story" - at least not by default. (Plenty of people have houseruled such things in.) That is, unless a character dies.

So (absent houseruling) it doesn't have that "out of mojo but still in combat" phase that you're describing.

That's one of the ways it stays true to D&D tradition, and differs from grittier systems (the ones I know best are RuneQuest, Rolemaster and Burning Wheel).

I've never really tried to get into the "hit points as meat, hit point restoration as (literal) regeneration" mindset - eg I don't really see how it's meant to fit with natural healing of the sort that D&D has always had (no one can "rest a hand back on" anymore than s/he can "shout a hand back on"). But if someone was into that approach to hp, then I think 4e would grate (at the least).

Oh no no no, I totally get that. I'm just saying, from a narrative perspective damage prevention instead of post-factum healing completely eliminates the ambiguity entirely.

Personally, I don't really feel there is any ambiguity. What I like about the recovery treatment are the factors I mentioned above - it emphasises being inspired, reinvogorated, etc, which I think fits with a non-gritty/Arthurian/romantic fantasy approach.

In Savage Worlds, can you regain bennies from other characters inspiring you? My understanding is that they are mostly earned via roleplay, but I don't know the system very well.

 

[billd91]

Laying on of Hands is surgeless healing for the recipient - so it does infuse vigour rather than merely urge the character on. But it drains the spirit of the paladin.

I think it's a nice mechanic.

The inherent sacrifice of the paladin's laying on of hands in 4e is, in fact, pretty much the only aspect of 4e healing surges that doesn't irritate me.

 

[billd91]

Wow, I suddenly have a newfound, deeper appreciation for the Savage Worlds soak mechanic. It was doing so much more under the surface than I ever realized before.

You have to keep it to small doses, particularly when NPC mechanics are involved. Torg pretty much cured me of any great love of soak mechanics.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Even just now, hearing about the 5e low-level fighter makes me think "soaking" damage with "hero points" is the better way to go. Again, from a player's perspective, what's the difference between soaking all the damage using hero points, versus using rests / Second Wind after a battle to regen hit points? None. The HP result for the character is the same, the difference is it makes the narrative MUCH easier to generate.

The difference is that straight-up soaking damage with hero points or a big pool of hit points, like high levels in other D&D editions, means that characters have nothing to fear from most enemies until they get down to their last few points. No doubt this is why early editions have all kinds of SoD effects; they bypass big hp pools, so that there's tension even before the characters get to the big dragon's den with only a few hp left.

Whereas having a relatively small pool of hp plus healing surges that can get a character in tip-top shape after a fight, or be used conditionally within a fight, means that even a first encounter with some goblin goons can be dangerous, even if the characters are at full hp and surges. Without of course running into the 'Greeeeeat, one nat 1, and I need a new character...' issue of SoD effects.

Whether this is all worth it despite your narrative objections to hit points and healing surges is of course your call; but there is a difference in there.

Wow you guys, how the heck have you put up with it all this time??? Don't you just want to go back and SHOOT the 4e designers for trying to shoehorn this round peg of innovative, progressive style of play into an old D&D square peg? Or do you like the fact that it's still kind of / sort of running on a D&D framework? I personally got tired of the D&D framework, but I can see why it would still work for a lot of people. I'd be sooooo frustrated that 4e just can't seem to get out of its own way enough to really let it shine.......

I don't have much experience outside of D&D; a session of V:tM, a scene or two of a pbp Exalted game, a session of an indie rpg called Chaos University, a session of d20 SW, and a few sessions of a [hard?] sci-fi rpg called Blue Planet. I've heard good things about Savage Worlds, but I've never met anyone who played it. So I don't have much context for comparison.

There definitely are traditional D&Disms that I wish the 4e team had pulled the trigger on -- the use of ability scores in addition to ability bonuses comes to mind -- but what bugs me about traditional D&D probably aren't the same things that bug you.

 

[Wicht]

I've never really tried to get into the "hit points as meat, hit point restoration as (literal) regeneration" mindset - eg I don't really see how it's meant to fit with natural healing of the sort that D&D has always had (no one can "rest a hand back on" anymore than s/he can "shout a hand back on"). But if someone was into that approach to hp, then I think 4e would grate (at the least).

I do think it worth noting that while hit points have always been somewhat variable as to specific interpretation (ie. where are you hurt), they have also always been primarily linked to actual physical wounds, albeit in a general, non-maiming (and slightly unrealistic way). (So no one rests a hand back on, but nobody loses their hands either short of vorpal weapons or nasty traps and DM say-so, but if they do lose a hand, regeneration can put it back on.)

The evidence for this traditional approach being appropriate is found not only in the concept itself, but in the healing spells and the game terms. Cure Light Wounds, et.al. all refer to "wounds" which refers to the fact the character has been wounded. Likewise Regeneration grows back body parts, and fast healing heals the body. When you are hit, you take "damage." All these terms cumulatively are, as you rightly speculate, why so many of us have, over the years, mostly associated hp with physical damage, and is also why the idea of a pep talk giving you hp back is somewhat offputting. It is a break with a traditional way of playing.

 

[innerdude]

The difference is that straight-up soaking damage with hero points or a big pool of hit points, like high levels in other D&D editions, means that characters have nothing to fear from most enemies until they get down to their last few points. No doubt this is why early editions have all kinds of SoD effects; they bypass big hp pools, so that there's tension even before the characters get to the big dragon's den with only a few hp left.

Good point, though in Savage World's case this isn't nearly so much an issue due to the way it handles the wound track.

As I mentioned to @pemerton earlier, you can still take wounds (and get started on the wound track) even when you SUCCESSFULLY soak damage, if you get hit hard enough.

And the penalties for taking wounds are severe enough in Savage Worlds that players will expend the resources to avoid it. It actually creates a very real tension at the table during combats that's slightly different for me in play than D&D. In D&D, there's no real tension until a character is down to about 1/3 of their hitpoints. In Savage Worlds, since damage can be somewhat swingy, throwing yourself into the middle of the fray is inherently more dangerous. Yeah, if you've got "hero pool" points left you can still reliably negate some of the damage......but all it takes is one lucky hit and a PC can go down, HARD, and it can happen in the first round of the fight.

It's one of the things I LOVE about Savage Worlds, that D&D just frankly can't model all that well. It's almost impossible for say, a level 5 character in D&D 3.x to take enough damage to go down in the first round of a fight from a single attack, unless the enemy is 5+ levels / adjusted CR higher.

 

[innerdude]

I do think it worth noting that while hit points have always been somewhat variable as to specific interpretation (ie. where are you hurt), they have also always been primarily linked to actual physical wounds, albeit in a general, non-maiming (and slightly unrealistic way). (So no one rests a hand back on, but nobody loses their hands either short of vorpal weapons or nasty traps and DM say-so, but if they do lose a hand, regeneration can put it back on.)

The evidence for this traditional approach being appropriate is found not only in the concept itself, but in the healing spells and the game terms. Cure Light Wounds, et.al. all refer to "wounds" which refers to the fact the character has been wounded. Likewise Regeneration grows back body parts, and fast healing heals the body. When you are hit, you take "damage." All these terms cumulatively are, as you rightly speculate, why so many of us have, over the years, mostly associated hp with physical damage, and is also why the idea of a pep talk giving you hp back is somewhat offputting. It is a break with a traditional way of playing.

Which is why if I'm going to use a "narrative resolution" mechanic to simulate "heroic stamina and grit," the soaking / damage avoidance method works better for me. I know @pemerton has given some examples of how to associate healing surges with the fiction, but it still seems to be too much mental gymnastics for me.

"Hero pool" as damage prevention unambiguously defines that hit points are meat, period. There's literally no other possible interpretation. In Savage Worlds, this additionally carries over into the healing and recovery mechanics in ways I find highly satisfactory.

One of the adjustments I had to make was that if a potential wound is about to happen, I am very careful as a GM and player not to assume ANYTHING about what has just happened in the fiction until any soak rolls are resolved. Just because an enemy rolled a 25 damage attack (which may not sound like much to a level 8 D&D character, but is BRUTAL to a Savage Worlds character) doesn't mean that the character is hurt until any soak rolls are resolved.

That's one of the ways it stays true to D&D tradition, and differs from grittier systems (the ones I know best are RuneQuest, Rolemaster and Burning Wheel).

I've never really tried to get into the "hit points as meat, hit point restoration as (literal) regeneration" mindset - eg I don't really see how it's meant to fit with natural healing of the sort that D&D has always had (no one can "rest a hand back on" anymore than s/he can "shout a hand back on"). But if someone was into that approach to hp, then I think 4e would grate (at the least).

Personally, I don't really feel there is any ambiguity. What I like about the recovery treatment are the factors I mentioned above - it emphasises being inspired, reinvogorated, etc, which I think fits with a non-gritty/Arthurian/romantic fantasy approach.

In Savage Worlds, can you regain bennies from other characters inspiring you? My understanding is that they are mostly earned via roleplay, but I don't know the system very well.

Savage Worlds is definitely "grittier" than D&D......but it's hardly what I'd call a "gritty" system, though it's pretty dang easy to make it grittier if you want to, without running afoul of D&D's inherent hit points / magical healing balance issues.

As far as "inspiration" mechanics giving back bennies, there are already non-magical / mundane edges (feats) where PCs give a bonus to other characters to recover from being "shaken" in combat.

There's nothing that allows a player to generate a bennie directly for another player, but it would be brutally simple to add an edge/feat that acts as a once-per-encounter mechanic......

"Once during an encounter, the PC makes a Spirit check. On a successful check, the PC inspires another member of the party to action. The target of the inspiration check receives one additional bennie that can be used until the end of the encounter. At the end of the encounter, the bennie, if unused, is discarded. If the Spirit check fails, the PC can attempt to inspire a different recipient, but cannot attempt to inspire the same recipient twice in the same combat. The PC is limited to one successful check per encounter using this edge."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do think it worth noting that while hit points have always been somewhat variable as to specific interpretation (ie. where are you hurt), they have also always been primarily linked to actual physical wounds, albeit in a general, non-maiming (and slightly unrealistic way). (So no one rests a hand back on, but nobody loses their hands either short of vorpal weapons or nasty traps and DM say-so, but if they do lose a hand, regeneration can put it back on.)

The evidence for this traditional approach being appropriate is found not only in the concept itself, but in the healing spells and the game terms. Cure Light Wounds, et.al. all refer to "wounds" which refers to the fact the character has been wounded. Likewise Regeneration grows back body parts, and fast healing heals the body. When you are hit, you take "damage." All these terms cumulatively are, as you rightly speculate, why so many of us have, over the years, mostly associated hp with physical damage, and is also why the idea of a pep talk giving you hp back is somewhat offputting. It is a break with a traditional way of playing.

See, the problem is that the concept of "HP" has always been schizoid. It has never had one consistent interpretation, and there is ample conflicting evidence for both things.

You've mentioned the biggest examples of irrefutable evidence that HP are meat: it's referred to as "Curing wounds," recovering them is called "healing," and losing all of them makes you die.

But you're ignoring or dismissing all the *equally* irrefutable evidence that they are not meat. While in the very earliest versions of D&D, you could gain (at best) 3 hp/24 hours bed rest, the most common "early edition" healing rule I've heard is "1 hp per level per day" (possibly with an extra point or two for solid 24 hours of rest and another for sumptuous food/high comfort surroundings/etc.); this essentially worked out to ~(hit die size/2) days to fully recover from 1 HP. Someone who was a cat scratch away from death could bounce back to full health in a week! Even with the 3/day (the ideal healing situation in very early D&D), most characters will be fully healed within two weeks (42 HP) even if they were almost dead. This is clearly nonphysical. Further, you have Gygax himself explicitly pointing out how ridiculous it is that a high-level Fighter--who is physically indistinguishable from a low-level Fighter--able to take as much damage as a draft horse (or perhaps even a TEAM of draft horses with good HP rolls!) *and still keep fighting.* Again, it is clearly nonphysical that a human being, through doing nothing more than killing enemies and stealing treasures, could become more physically durable than a horse.

HP cannot be parsed. They just can't. The PURELY physical interpretation makes no sense, but the descriptions contradict a nonphysical interpretation. Since physical and nonphysical are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, there is no possible interpretation. HP are HP. They model HP, they signify HP, and they communicate HP, and nothing else. Trying to analyze them any further--trying to say that they are meat or that they are not meat--is a fool's errand that will result in nothing but tears and people being equally adamant that they ABSOLUTELY MUST BE [actual wounds||grit and skill], and anyone else is just "willfully ignoring" the enormous preponderance of evidence to the contrary.