Hit Points & Healing Surges Finally Explained!

[Kzach]

So, what are you guys talking about? I assume there was a podcast of some sort talking about hit points and healing surges, but where? And since I'm at work today and can't listen to audio, what was the meat of their comments?

The recent mailbag podcast from WotC.

One of the questions was how they handle healing surges.

Mike and the new guy described how they go about it and how the system was not meant to be taken literally but was rather a spring-board for the imagination and how context of injuries and situation should overrule the terms damage and hit points.

At least, that's what I got out of it.

It's a schema thing. At my table, the ones who have the most trouble "getting" the new hit-points philosophy are the veterans.

It's ironic that it's always been an abstract system and yet veterans are the most likely to cause the biggest stink over it.

 

[Mallus]

I suppose it's because they are not fighting preconceived (and ingrained over almost a decade) notions of what hit-points are.

Heh... I decided a long time ago that hit points were, first and foremost, expedient. Looked at that way, hit points in 4e are just a different kind of expedient. Which is probably why I don't have a problem with Healing Surges et al.

 

[Kzach]

They also kept joking about the issue for the rest of the podcast. The best line was, when discussing a poison dart trap: "The poison dart RIPS RIGHT THROUGH YOUR EYE SOCKET! TWO DAMAGE! MUHAHA!"

Aww, I didn't hear that

Don't suppose you remember roughly what timestamp that was said at or who said it?

 

[Sir Brennen]

ON topic: The great and mighty Mearls solves nothing. When you use a harpoon with a rope attached, you need to know if the damage you caused was due to hitting the person because you can yank them towards you in your next action. For injury poison to do damage, it has to cause an injury. If you're making a save vs. poison, it can't be paired with sword damage that's described as caused by muscle fatigue.

A harpoon can snag on armor or clothing. A sword delivering poison need only inflict a scratch, and fictional heroes "shake off" the effects of things like poison all the time. These are easy explanations to handle with an abstract HP system.

And if you've been bathed in acid, bull-rushed into lava, sliced with a poisoned knife, thrown off a cliff, and harpooned, you're not going to be better after a few hours of rest. You're not tired and bruised; you're burnt, poisoned, stabbed, exfoliated, and have broken bones.

Total immersion in lava or acid? Well, if the character doesn't take enough damage to go unconscious or even warrant a healing surge (spent surges being a better indicator of the character's actual state of health, as others mentioned), obviously his clothing/armor protected him from the worst of it, or he was able to minimize contact with the substance through reflexes, luck and/or ingenuity.

If the damage is more serious, then sure, the character has burns and serious injuries. And, just like most Hollywood action heroes, after resting a bit, he'll be ready to keep going.

There needs to be a plausible narrative explanation for why you're better. Spells are that widget. A nap is not that widget.

The thing is, most parties did have a healbot, and didn't spend days healing up. 4E recognizes that pattern from previous editions, and abstracted it away, so that parties aren't required to have a cleric to avoid spending days healing up before they can continue the adventure. This is a good thing, IMO.

The real issue is where do you draw the line for your own personal suspension of disbelief, because no D&D edition ever modeled the types of injuries you describe. Your line seems to be recovery time (even if it rarely comes into play due to magical healing.) But was that even realistic? Why did fighters take longer to heal than wizards or rogues, for example? Why did a character reduced to 1 hp always take exactly the same amount of time to heal regardless of the nature of his injury? And if all that damage did represent being burnt, poisoned, stabbed, exfoliated and having broken bones, why were characters perfectly fine all the way to 1 hp, despite having been swimming in lava, then suddenly go to unconscious and dieing from a minor knife wound? Where was the character hobbling on his broken leg, or handicapped by the intense pain of severe skin burns? Not there.

HP's have always had limitations representing what "really" happened to a character.

 

[LostSoul]

ON topic: The great and mighty Mearls solves nothing. When you use a harpoon with a rope attached, you need to know if the damage you caused was due to hitting the person because you can yank them towards you in your next action. For injury poison to do damage, it has to cause an injury. If you're making a save vs. poison, it can't be paired with sword damage that's described as caused by muscle fatigue.

And if you've been bathed in acid, bull-rushed into lava, sliced with a poisoned knife, thrown off a cliff, and harpooned, you're not going to be better after a few hours of rest. You're not tired and bruised; you're burnt, poisoned, stabbed, exfoliated, and have broken bones. There needs to be a plausible narrative explanation for why you're better. Spells are that widget. A nap is not that widget.

So what you're saying is that there is no possible way to narrate these things happening without including massive damage, the kind of massive damage that needs magic to heal?

 

[gizmo33]

When I started playing DnD, it took my a while to get used to hitpoints. For one, I was used to fantasy/folklore stories where the "king was felled by a single arrow". This couldn't happen in DnD.

But then I figured that in that situation, the king had been "hit" several times, just not "hit". Ok, and I won't worry about the fact (as others have pointed out) that if he had been "hit" by a poison arrow, he'd have to make a save against dying, even if he wasn't "hit".

You couldn't hold someone at bay by pointing an arrow at them. At best, the hand-to-hand fight would start with them being 6 hitpoints down.

And as far as evidence that anyone was actually physically wounded in 1E DnD? IME no one ever broke bones, got blood infection, lost an eye or ear, or had any sort of permanent disability. So seeminly *none* of the realistic things that happen to people when they're hit by weapons happen to DnD characters (either PCs or NPCs) in any edition. Your blood doesn't get in your eyes, your perception doesn't decrease, etc. etc. etc.

So a 10th level character resting in bed gets back 1 hp day? I think he used to. Hopefully I don't have to explain why that doesn't make any sense. But getting back your level (or some approx.) per day of rest can be just as weird. After 1 day of rest, your character has more hitpoints than a peasant, and can run the 100m dash in 5 seconds. So why is he lazying around in bed? At that point you'd be justified in calling him a princess or whatever but then he'd get up and whack you at +20 to hit for a huge amount of damage. Which ironically would further the case that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this guy.

I guess he's not feeling as "lucky" as he was earlier - but that's something that a cleric can heal? Can you imagine him laying in a hospital bed somewhere taking away cures from really injured people because he's feeling "unlucky"?

IMO DnD hitpoints = damage is just weird. It has been in every edition. 4E IMO does nothing to change this - it's just that some people have gotten used to not being challenged on a certain set of standard, but illogical, descriptions that they use for it that 4E no longer supports.

 

[billd91]

The thing is, most parties did have a healbot, and didn't spend days healing up. 4E recognizes that pattern from previous editions, and abstracted it away, so that parties aren't required to have a cleric to avoid spending days healing up before they can continue the adventure. This is a good thing, IMO.

One major problem for me is that they have taken a resource that was primarily external and transferable and made it internal and non-transferable. That, I believe, is not a good thing.

 

[Loincloth of Armour]

And if you've been bathed in acid, bull-rushed into lava, sliced with a poisoned knife, thrown off a cliff, and harpooned, you're not going to be better after a few hours of rest. You're not tired and bruised; you're burnt, poisoned, stabbed, exfoliated, and have broken bones. There needs to be a plausible narrative explanation for why you're better. Spells are that widget. A nap is not that widget.

A 20th level character has, through bad rolls and low CON, 21 hps. He falls into acid and with lucky rolls on the 20d6, takes 20 points of damage. He is at 1 hp. A total immersion bath in acid has almost killed him.

A single night's rest returns him to full.

And this is using 3.X's rules.

So a nap can be that widget in any edition.


Hit points: we use 'em because they work, and work well. Not 'cuase they make a lick of sense.

Off topic:

I have to say that I'd find that kind of label for a power just a bit sexist and off-putting.

It might be. It's also a well known phrase, fits the idea of the class, and funny as hell. Humour tends to offend someone, somewhere.

 

[nightwyrm]

Hp in D&D has never modelled long term injury well. If you're hurt enough that you can't just ignore it the next day, you're probably not gonna be able to fight at full effectiveness, which is not something that has ever been accounted for by the hp model. As long as you have 1 hp left, you're fighting at full effectiveness. The "I need to rest for a week to recover, but I can still fight like I was completely uninjured" thing has never quite sit well with me.

If you really want to, one way to incorporate long term injury or poison in 4e is to use the disease track model. If you get dropped to 0 hp, you get moved up the injury track and get some penalties or something.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I have always thought it might be interesting to run it straight, essential making HP and healing surges exactly like what they sound and making the character's men and women part from others. Fated or something similar. The fighter rises Jason Voorhees style after his Boromir style exit. They've already made PCs different, but you can take it a step further and make that a story point. Let them be marked or something similar, and let them be loved or feared in equal number.

D&D as Highlander? Intersting idea!