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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8410444" data-attributes="member: 87792">OK. So you're a mind reader now. You were actually sitting round the table when 4e was created.Right, gotcha. Oh, so what you are saying is that hit points are a purely gamist construction with no actual in-universe description, just a technical effect.You are also by the same token saying that a to hit roll is a purely gamist construction that does not have an in-universe justification, just a technical effect. You roll to hit and you succeed in hitting but you do not actually hit or produce any marks on the foe's body, merely taking away their divine favour or luck despite the mechanics saying you hit. And this is entirely and completely expected. At this point how do you not think that the entire thing is purely an excercise in gamist abstractions?Since your version of D&D has combat where neither the hit points nor the to hit rolls have any resemblance to what is actually happening and are merely the abstract numbers produced by pieces on a board where do you have a problem with 4e making what those pieces on a board do interesting?Which power was it? I genuinely didn't notice the named powers.You're talking about Temporary Hit Points here? Something with no actual plausible justification, just a technical effect. And not even an interesting one.You mean that there's less confusion round the enemy so they are easier to target? This is not the opposite.Nope. That's cinematic. Rushing towards the enemy and having the team rush. I don't know if you have ever watched water move, but if you rush forward the whole thing can be laminar or turbulent - and this is turbulent. You give everyone speed to go where would do most good. Sweeping isn't always in a straight line.So what you are saying is that temporary hit points are neither more nor less than a gamist construct?No I don't. They are far less grounded in reality and far more gamist than moving around the battlefield. I consider that there are gamist elements to 4e - and hit points and temporary hit points are among the biggest. The G in RPG stands for Game - and I don't consider this a problem. You apparently do.And 4e is the single version of D&D where hit points are the least abstract and gamist. In every other version of D&D hit points are a purely and completely gamist construct where you belly up to the enemy and mechanically play patty-cake while your abstract gamist hit points go down the way they do in a computer fighting game. You hit each other (and the rules say you hit) like unfeeling, untiring robots who are completely as mechanically capable on 1hp as full hp.4e on the other hand is a game where you explicitly get blooded. It's a game where you tire (using up encounter powers and even dailies) over the course of the fight. It's a game where stamina management is a thing - and where you actually need time to recover properly from a fight. You aren't an effectively untiring robot able to fight all day at peak efficiency even if you don't get "hit" (whether or not those hits mark you).It's definitely "Batman has no superpowers while in the JLA, honest" level."Are known as healing". If I were being pedantic I'd point out that you wouldn't need to say "they are known as healing" if they actually all caused physical healing. From a gamist mechanic they have similar effects - but bandaging wounds doesn't immediately make them closed. It does cover them and leaves them less vulnerable but that's not instant healing.Sorry, but all editions of D&D combat by your description is purely and completely 100% gamist by your standards. You are "schrodinger hit" - hit but not hit in a way that costs you hit points but might not even mark you. And the effect is precisely the same as in a video fighting game; you belly up to each other and exchange attacks with some getting through until one of you reaches 0. At that point that person falls.Again "are known as" is different words from "are the same as" and claiming they are plainly the same thing is simply wrong.So stop doing so. And stop doing that with hits and claiming that you can be hit hard and not even marked. Or is having your cake and eating it only a problem with hits and hit points only a problem when someone else is doing it? Or is the real problem here that as far as hit points are concerned 4e is less gamey and gives you something concrete to hold on to rather than simply being a hacked tabletop wargame with almost no concessions to reality? oD&D was a hacked tabletop wargame, called itself a wargame, and the combat is purely gamist. The hit point model used is precisely the same as that in a video fighting game where things are called hits, have the same effect as hits, may even call themselves critical hits, and may even show x-rays of bones breaking in Mortal Kombat. But the effect is absolutely nothing until the last sliver of that health bar vanishes.4e by contrast is the least purely gamey version. Rather than just about the whole thing being abstract gamist mechanics it's far closer to cinematic fiction.</blockquote>

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