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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5710804" data-attributes="member: 54877">This is why I said that if this system were used, that "surges" and "hit points" would be renamed to "hit points" and something else, respectively.   I kept them named the same in this topic to relate to existing 4E mechanics. However, this is not a wound/vitality system.  It has some aspects of that, in that the "hits" represented by surges are the more serious hits (and are a much smaller number), but don't stop there.  As in the title, this is a nod to simulation.  It is not meant to address every simulation objection to 4E mechanics.  Rather, it is meant to make narration of hits somewhat more palatable to simulationists--or maybe, I should say immersionists.   But beyond that, the use of "surges" to restore "hit points" is a deliberate sticking with 4E mechanics over wound/vitality systems, and it does represent something useful from gamist, narrative, and simulationists perspectives.  All those minor cuts and bruises and sore muscles and busted luck and so on--that are the non-physical parts of hit points?  To get those back relatively quickly, in the "Die Hard" mode, a character has to but a serious drain on their reserves (absent good healing magic).   When the warlord tells Bob to shrug off the fatigue and get back into the fight, Bob does.  He can do that several times.  But each time he does, his ability to withstand serious injury is notably impaired.  And you know, from the simulation bent, that's how it goes with things that wear you down.  The guard goes down a bit, reaction times slows slightly, and suddenly that blow that would have done little before is more serious.  Unless, of course, the group is adjusting those levers I mentioned to Jester.  Then you go back to the 4E model. That is, one of the issues with the current 4E model, from the "dial" perspective, is that you can easily house rule what "dying" means to make it more gritty, and maybe even layer a wound system on top of that using a disease track type mechanics.  But you can't much change what losing hit points while still in the fight means, short of crimping surge recovery.  And in the current system, this affects balance too much. One of the reasons that it does is that monster hit point pacing is too different from character hit point pacing.  The game is optimized for the 4E model, and this has left out a few key levers needed to vary this part of the mechanics easily.  By putting the levers back in, and making the default somewhere in the middle of the 4E model and something with a bit more grit, it becomes much easier for optional rules to move the pacing where the group wants it.</blockquote>

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