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<blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 6603405" data-attributes="member: 40398">The difference is that straight-up soaking damage with hero points or a big pool of hit points, like high levels in other D&amp;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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I don't have much experience outside of D&amp;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&amp;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&amp;D probably aren't the same things that bug you.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tequila Sunrise, post: 6603405, member: 40398"] 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. :) 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. [/QUOTE]

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