Disappointed in 4e

[Mallus]

I claimed that the 4e damage and healing paradigm consistently and frequently gives rise to absurd situations in the narrative unless

(1) One chooses not to describe any damage until it has been healed,
(2) One retcons the narrative, or
(3) One simply chooses to close one's eyes to the absurdity (which does not actually make it go away; though it might make it go away for you).

Or (4) the DM narrates the damage as the character perceives it, and as it appears to others, at the moment.

"Grabthar was pierced in the chest, it hurts like the dickens, there's a lot of blood, take 20 points of damage".

Whether that blow pierced a lung or nicked an artery doesn't need to be resolved immediately. Injured people frequently do not know the actual extent and severity of their injuries until some time has passed --particularly when their blood is up, as in professional sporting events or lethal combat.

There, problem solved. No retconning needed.

Also, on the subject of absurdities... it's with a wry smile I realize that every campaign I've played in narrated damage wrong. Wounds were always described as severe --absurdly severe, even-- based on the damage total rolled, not on how close the character was to zero HP. Every single campaign I've played, or run, featured absurd damage narration. Even in the more serious ones combat frequently sounded like an Itchy and Scratchy routine, a celebration of cartoon-level hyper-violence...

... now I can't be alone in this, can I?

 

[Fifth Element]

No matter how much Bob rests up, he is never in as good a condition as Gary is.

Yes, obviously. You see this if you look at hit points bottom-up, and see that Gary's hit points far exceed Bob's.

But from a different perspective (top-down), you see that Bob recovers from being nearly dead in the same amount of time Gary takes to recover from a scratch.

This is what I mean by a difference of interpretation. I think it's valid for you to look at whether your character is "fully healed", i.e., at maximum fighting capacity. And from that perspective you get an absurd result because this wound that you narrated legitimately as a scratch takes several full days of rest to go away.

My point (which you seem to have skipped over) is, an abstract system like this is going to lead absurd results at times. You're looking at the 1E system in a way that leads to a relatively small number of absurd results. But you're looking at the 4E system in a way that leads to a relatively large number of absurd results.

4E has an advantage in the resting-to-full-strength arena, since the hit points you regain are based on healing surges, which scale with your maximum hit points. (I believe they overdid it with the overnight rest healing everything, but that's just a matter of degree.) So if you choose to look at the time it takes to heal wounds in this way, 1E is far more absurd than 4E.

Notice I said if you choose to look at it that way. If you choose to look at 4E's system in a way that maximizes absurd results, you're going to find a lot of absurd results. But that's your choice. Don't assume it's hardwired into the system, because it isn't. I can find all kinds of absurd results in 1E, if I choose to see them that way.

So your constant "you're looking at 1E hit points wrong" assertions really hurt your cause, because the same charges could be leveled at you with respect to 4E. We're looking at them differently than you, but to deny that there are different ways to look at them is folly.

 

[Fifth Element]

... now I can't be alone in this, can I?

No, you're not alone. In my experience the severity of the wound narrated correlates with the amount of damage relative to maximum hit points. We've been doing it wrong for years, apparently.

 

[mmadsen]

Sure is. Do you accept that a sword can physically harm you without successfully skewering you? I sure do. I've experienced it. Do you accept that an elephant that tries to step on you can physically harm you without actually succeeding in stepping on you? Thankfully, I've not experienced that, but I can certainly believe it.

I do not disagree with every single thing you're saying, RC, so repeating back to me that parts I agree with does not address the parts where we disagree.

If you have enough remaining hit points that the elephant's "hit" with it trample attack does not kill you, sure, that means you avoided getting squished. But why does it take so long to heal up from something that didn't really hurt you in the first place?

If we can step back for a moment, many of these problems can be addressed by changing how healing works. (Other problems with hit points can't.) For instance, if magical and mundane healing didn't restore a set number of hit points, but a percentage of total/max hit points, we could conclude that a 50-hp fighter with a 5-hp nick was in similar shape to a 10-hp fighter with a 1-hp nick.

That would still leave the problem of why 10 nicks should add up to a skewering though. If we want wounds to get progressively worse, we should think geometrically, something we hinted at earlier. So cure light wounds might double remaining hit points. Coming back from one hit point to 10, or from 5 to 50, would take just over three such "units" of healing, while coming back from one to 50 would take almost six.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

To use a modern example, if I wrestle Hulk Hogan

You brought him up, so I'd like to point out that the Hulkster used his Second Wind when the going got rough for him (cue wagging finger) and often benefitted from the Mouth of the South's Inspiring Word to get up when other wrestlers of his stature would have been three-counted (zero hit points).

Wrestling may be one of the guiltier pleasures as far as action-adventure goes, but it isn't that far behind the action 4E is trying to emulate.

4E isn't for everybody. Fans of grittier action will not enjoy the speed of healing for heroes. But to label 4E's model of damage and healing as Absurd, Stupid, etc. (all words leveled against it in this thread) is telling others they are having badwrongfun. Even if you try to cover yourself by saying "the rules aren't Stupid/Absurd, they just lead to Stupid/Absurd results."

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

An alternative, that works equally well for 4e and AD&D, is to just be a bit less grim-and-gritty. (That is, embrace the genre assumptions of this sort of high fantasy.) Assume that, after a few encouraging words from the warlord and patches from the first aid kit, that the wound is stitched/set, that determination makes it possible to keep going, and that healing is taking place over time.

Such a wound can even be brought back into the game - the GM can narrate the next hit against the character as "Favouring your injured leg, you mis-step and the goblin catches you with its spear."

Now on this we're agreed.

This is basically the way I narrate 4e damage. The characters in my game are becoming progressively more bruised, cut up, acid-burned, scorched, and frostbitten as they proceed through the dungeon. However, the damage is not reflected by hit points, which indicate only your continued ability to act. The damage is reflected by healing surges, which deplete over time as wounds accumulate. Granted, an extended rest restores these, so there are no six-week bed rest sessions or broken limbs, but I haven't really been interested in that sort of thing since 1e. Once 3.x made healing potions and wands rather affordable, every group I've played with has started each day with full hit points.

I take waking up with a full tank of gas each morning to be a conceit of the genre. Not that I don't describe burns, cuts, and injuries as turning into bruises and scars over time. Adventurers in my games tend to look like they've been run over by trucks several times by about level 10. The wizard in my current campaign has a particular talent for getting acid in his face. This has come up when he tries to engage NPCs in conversation and they notice that he has the complexion of a burlap bag of beans. Fortunately for him, he has a decent Intimidate skill, so it works to his advantage.

 

[billd91]

If you have enough remaining hit points that the elephant's "hit" with it trample attack does not kill you, sure, that means you avoided getting squished. But why does it take so long to heal up from something that didn't really hurt you in the first place?

Now, it seems to me that people are deliberately trying to misinterpret people to make points in their arguments.

Thanks to the abstraction of hit points and D&D combat, if the trampling elephant failed to kill you, it probably means you didn't get directly stepped on in any lethal way. That doesn't mean it couldn't have broken your foot, bruised a couple of ribs as you dodged the foot and got slammed by the elephant's knee, or any number of comparatively minor physical traumas compared to actually being killed. Plenty of things that would still all be reflected as physicals damage and could still be expected to heal with some time or magic. There's no question you got hurt by the elephant... it did damage that takes time to heal.

4e changes that and some of us aren't really on board with it even if the previous system had its quirks. 4e's changes can interfere with what we feel is going on in the long term story outside of the space contained within a single encounter. 4e's compressed healing, internalized within the character rather than by drawing on outside resources or relying on substantial time, is a change to the pacing and feel of a story being told of the campaign compared to previous editions of D&D.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Now, it seems to me that people are deliberately trying to misinterpret people to make points in their arguments.

Now?

I was shocked to learn that arguing pre-4e hp always correlated to some actual damage was somehow arguing that said correlation was not an abstraction.


RC

 

[mmadsen]

There's no question you got hurt by the elephant... it did damage that takes time to heal.

It takes the same amount of time to heal from a 10-hp elephant trampling, whether you started with 11 hit points or 50, even though the first is, say, a crushed thigh, and the second is some scrapes and bruises from jumping out of the way.

That is the point being made. Hit points heal at the same rate, despite the fact that they represent very different levels of injury -- across individuals with different numbers of total/max hit points, and within an individual, depending on the number of hit points remaining.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It takes the same amount of time to heal from a 10-hp elephant trampling, whether you started with 11 hit points or 50, even though the first is, say, a crushed thigh, and the second is some scrapes and bruises from jumping out of the way.

That is the point being made. Hit points heal at the same rate, despite the fact that they represent very different levels of injury -- across individuals with different numbers of total/max hit points, and within an individual, depending on the number of hit points remaining.

Keep in mind that 1 hp for one creature =/= 1 hp for another. Even 1 hp for the same creature =/= 1 hp for that same creature, depending upon hp total at the time.

When all hp are healed, there is no significant injury remaining.....but what is "significant" is variable based on total hit points possible. So, Bob, who was never very good at dodging blows, is not significantly impared by his unhealed wounds....he just isn't good enough for them to matter. Gary, on the other hand, might be somewhat impaired even though he is less wounded than Bob.


RC