Hit Points & Healing Surges Finally Explained!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But is it really that small?

Lemme ask: if 4E, instead of using healing surges at all, simply said, "At the end of an encounter, your PC is fully healed," would that bother you at all? If not, okay, but I suspect you'd be in the minority. If so, why?

I am not sure if it would have worried me much. I remember a lot of talk about "encounter based design" and stuff like that, and for "true" encounter based design, this would have been necessary.

But 4E uses a mix of daily and encounter based resources.

I dislike it because I can see now the benefits of having basically two frames to gauge success - the individual encounter and the adventuring "day". It eliminates an aspect of resource management that can be very important for enjoying the game as it provides you a yardstick for your success. 6 encounters per day are an achievement over 3 encounters per day.

But as you see, I totally don't discuss the implications on the game world or believability. I don't expect much from the game world. as long as I can still see that I am fighting a monster and not baking a cake or talking with someone, I think I am good to go.

 

[Imaro]

I've read many things and I actually don't have the books for *any* them with me at the moment. I guess this is surprising to you?

Ok, so it's not "months". Maybe we say "weeks" and go back to the same point. I guess I heal 1 hp a day for 7 days, maybe 5/day for 20 days, and then I heal 193 hitpoints on the 28th day? I can't tell from what you wrote, I guess I am going to have to dig this up and read it again but I don't think the "suddenly super-nova heal on 28th day" rule is going to make all of this understandable. I'm not sure how these details on the periphery of the 1E rules somehow make a substantial difference in how you narrate the game?

Two adventurers are down to 1 hp. One has 8 hp max, the other has 300 hp max. How do the details on page 82 give you a clear way of narrating this?

Here's how I always interpreted that disparity in 3e ... You see one of the adventurers is just starting out and thus he doesn't have the life experience to have alot of moxie, skill, divine favor, luck, etc.. His hit points are almost literally purely physical (with those who have a higher hit die like Fighters and Barbarians having a slightly increased physical capacity.) This is why he can be killed in one blow or by a critical, etc..

The other adventurer has been around, knows what to look for as far as danger, is favored by certain deities, is extremely lucky, etc. So while he might have the same or slightly more actual physical hit points than the first... he has way more of the metaphysical hit points.

Now the length of healing I explain like this...

Adventurer 1 is wet behind the ears, and those 8 hp's are his actual physical healing.... He knows he's a scrub, and knows he was lucky to survive that battle... the fact that he was beaten within an inch of his life and survived is what allows him to even start to amass the extreme metaphysical reserves of someone with 300 hp's so it is not a blow to his ego... and didn't shake the little bit of confidence he had as badly as it would have a seasoned and powerful sword master.

Adventurer 2 on the other hand may have 8 actual "physical" hit points (probably a little more) but he also needs to mentally and spiritually heal. Until now his confidence in his bad-assitude was unshaken, he believed his sword form flawless, his faith in his deities protection unshakeable, etc. Yet he failed, or was mortally wounded, driven to near death. For someone who has amassed 300 hp's that's a major blow to their very being and it's like going through a depression. But when he finally gets right after that month of refocusing, healing his injuries and reaffirming his beliefs... well he's back to bad-assitude land and doing things adventurer 1 could only dream about attempting.

The problem with 4e is that there is no longer a differentiation between the damage types. I can be in numerous life or death fights where I am knocked unconscious and, per the rules, dying in 4e... and 5 minutes later I am totally healed of not just the metaphysical but the physical aspects of that damage as well. In fact as long as I don't run out of healing surges I can go a whole day of fighting and make any longterm damage disappear by tomorrow (everyone really is a spellcaster now.). Finally we have the Warlord whose hollering and postering also heals my wounds both physical and metaphysical. I...feel...any type of verisimilitude...cracking...as my mind tries to connect any of this in a rational way. For me this heads into the realm of cartoons, and I mean Looney Tunes, not Avatar.

 

[gizmo33]

"Conan 4E" with 40 hp and 8 healing surges takes 10 points of damage. The DM says he takes a scratch. The DM says he's feeling tired. At the end of the battle he uses a healing surge. Conan 4E still has a scratch on his shoulder. It doesn't affect his strength, climbing ability, agility, saves, etc. He's going to fight orcs and still kill them. Whatever effect the scratch has is not noticable to the observer. When he fights Thoth Amon he may win or lose, no one really cares about the scratch. If he loses, it turns out that scratch was a lot more serious than anyone thought - perhaps it nagged him the whole battle after all (so he claims).

"Conan 1E" with 40 hp takes 5 points of damage. The DM says he takes a scratch and is feeling tired. It doesn't affect his strength, climbing ability, agility, saves etc. He's going to fight orcs and still kill them. Whatever effect the scratch has is not noticable to the observer (just ask the dead orcs). When he fights Thoth Amon he wins or loses, 5 hp might not make a difference. If it does, he can blame the scratch just like Conan 4E did. Conan 1E might leave the dungeon to get his 5 hp back if he knows (metagaming) that Thoth Amon is a tough customer. The other Cimmerians would laugh that Conan 1E left the dungeon because of a scratch on his shoulder and some whining about the intangible effect on his luck. Still, they would avoid calling him a princess since they all know about the 15 minute adventuring day. Later that night, the other Cimmerians send in 3 orc warriors to assassinate Conan. Conan stops moaning, jumps out of bed, kills all three orcs, and gets back into bed moaning about his sore intangible and how he can't wait for it to heal so he can go kill Thoth.

I say the significant difference here is in the metagaming, not that the DM can more plausibly describe injury in one system than in the other. In fact, I think the main problem here might be that the DMs want to apply 1E injury description strategies to 4E mechanics where there are a few more variables that they would need to take into account. No one is ever going to be physically injured in 4E DnD in a way where there will be any noticable effects that last more than a day. The explanations for this are the same set used in 1E, just applied in different ways.

Then again, I cannot begin to fathom how 1E (page 82 of the DMG or not) ever provided a satisfactory simulation of injury. "Injured" Conan 1E is sprinting out of the dungeon and riding back to the castle unhindered. Met by a few low-level brigands on the road, he'd still kill them all. There are a myriad of physical effects of injury, and none of them are modeled by the system.

If you want to say that Conan with 1 hp left is on death's door that's fine, but nothing about the game really indicates this other than he probably won't win a fight against the 3 orcs. And in keeping the ability to say this, which you'll never use anyway because of healing magic, you're going to have to deal with metagaming Conan fleeing the Castle of Thoth Amon because he only has 90% of his hitpoints left. And a 90% well Conan fleeing the castle is satisfying from a simulationist/narrativist perspective?

 

[maddman75]

Ah! Now I know what Conan has been missing this whole time! He needs a cleric in chainmail, following him around and shouting "Suck it up, princess!" at him intermittently.

Thanks to this thread, I'm going to make my character for Sunday's game a Warlord based on Dr. Cox from Scrubs. "Suck it up, princess" will be about the best they can hope for.

Can't wait.

 

[Scribble]

Then again, I cannot begin to fathom how 1E (page 82 of the DMG or not) ever provided a satisfactory simulation of injury. "Injured" Conan 1E is sprinting out of the dungeon and riding back to the castle unhindered. Met by a few low-level brigands on the road, he'd still kill them all. There are a myriad of physical effects of injury, and none of them are modeled by the system.

This here is probably the biggest reason I have issues with HP being used to model physical injury at all.

By the rules even a direct hit with full damage will not kill the average fighter.

Which just seems strange to me.

HPs are a way to say with 100% certainty that even if the opponent rolls enough to "hit" me, and does max "damage" with his weapon I will not die.

This to me more appropriately suggests a way to model luck or moxie, and not damage. You character is so awesome that at certain time he just cannot be killed.

 

[gizmo33]

Adventurer 2 on the other hand may have 8 actual "physical" hit points (probably a little more) but he also needs to mentally and spiritually heal. Until now his confidence in his bad-assitude was unshaken, he believed his sword form flawless, his faith in his deities protection unshakeable, etc. Yet he failed, or was mortally wounded, driven to near death.

High level 1E adventurers were very emotional insecure I guess. After all, I would think it would be the *guy with 8 hitpoints* that would be hiding under his bed, afraid to back into the dungeon. Not the guy with 300. In fact, that's how it would be in 1E, a low level adventurer with natural healing was at full hp and willing to return to adventuring much sooner than a higher level guy.

I am totally healed of not just the metaphysical but the physical aspects of that damage as well.

There are virtually no physical symptoms of injury in any version of DnD. The only reason that people say there are injuries is because they describe them, it's not actually modeled by anything in the rules. I can say that 1E lets my PC have green hair, while 4E doesn't.

In fact as long as I don't run out of healing surges I can go a whole day of fighting and make any longterm damage disappear by tomorrow

There is no long term damage. One of my points is that you're describing 4E damage in 1E terms. While both systems use the same vagueness, IMO you're describing 4E damage as a lasting effect with no good reason. Now I'll claim that a character in 4E with maximum hitpoints has an arrow sticking through is leg. Now he gets into a footrace with another one and wins. Now explain how 1E differs.

Finally we have the Warlord whose hollering and postering also heals my wounds both physical and metaphysical. I...feel...any type of verisimilitude...cracking...as my mind tries to connect any of this in a rational way. For me this heads into the realm of cartoons, and I mean Looney Tunes, not Avatar.

Because you've made the assumption that you know the nature of the physical wounds afflicting your character. You really don't, I suggest, in any edition of the game. Relax some of your need to spell out things that were always contradictory, and the loony tunes song might fade. In fact, if you've played 1E DnD and had a PC fall off of a 100 ft cliff and live, I would think that the Loony Tunes thing would be something you'd be used to. Two characters caught in the middle of a 40 ft fireball - one is completely incinerated, the other is down about 10% of his maximum hitpoints. How in the world did the "simulationists" out there last so long with DnD?

 

[Gothmog]

Hit points and healing are the only thing in 4e that bugged me and my group. While I understand the reasoning behind healing surges and hit points, someone resting for 6-8 hours and getting up fine bothered us. 4e had no way of implementing long-term injuries or severe bodily damage. Plus, the abstraction of the cleric/paladin vs. warlord healing bugged us.

So we implemented a SIMPLE fix that allowed for a distinction between magical vs nonmagical healing, and didn't require us to monkey with established hit point values, the bloodied condition, and which satisfied our simulationist AND narrativist gaming styles. Here it is:

As an example, per 4e rules, a 1st level fighter has 15 + Con score hit points, and gains 6 hit points per level after that. Our system says a 1st level fighter with a 16 Con has 15 hit points, and 16 wound points. A 10th level fighter with a 20 Con would have 69 hit points, and 20 wound points.

1. When damaged, hit points are shaved off first, and when they are depleted, wound points are deducted.
2. When a character hits 0 wound points, he is unconscious.
3. Characters die at their negative Con score, or on three failed death saves.
4. As a character gains levels, he gains hit points, but only gains wound points if is Con score increases.
5. Hit points can be cured by a warlord or cleric, but only magical healing can quickly restore wound points (equal to the healing surge value). Hit points can be regained by healing surges with a short rest, but natural healing only allows one wound point healed per day of bedrest with a successful DC 10 + 1/2 level Endurance check. (If a trained healer is looking after a recovering character (DC 10 + wound point damage Heal check to treat), he can regain two wound points per day with a DC 10 Endurance check).
6. Finally, while suffering from wound point damage, a character can be at their bloodied value at best.

Hit points in our system represent luck, adrenaline, divine fortune, willpower, minor bruises, scrapes, pain tolerance, etc. Wound points represent actual physical injury, which takes time to recover from. A character still has the same total number of "hit points" as the core rules, and the bloodied value is the same, but some of those points represent real physical damage that take time to recover from.

So far, this system has worked really well for us, with almost no rules tweaking. It satisfies our simulationist tastes, and makes getting severely wounded have consequences that take time to recover from.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Damn, gang. 10 pages+ of this stuff. My head hurts. I mean, really now--healing and Hit Points have *always* been abstract, and wonky in *every* edition of D&D. Wound simulation has *never* been D&D's strong suit, you know? If some "realistic"/more believable simulation of wounds/healing is what you want, well, there are better game systems that do this. Just off the top of my head, WFRP makes characters much more realistically fragile and suffering effects from wounds, poison, lost limbs, etc, much better than D&D.

It doesn't seem to me that D&D has ever represented wounds/effects in a *non-cartoonish* manner. Asking for that or expecting such from D&D just seems like quite a stretch to me.

Healing and wounds is abstract in D&D. Accept it, play the game, and move on.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Celebrim]

It's not that hard to imagine. The character who has lost 7 hit points has taken fewer blows to get there and has fewer aches and pains to get over to be up to snuff than the one who has lost 299.

That's part of it, but if we want an explanation I think we can find there is more to it than that. The explanation is based on the same sort of logic that applies to sports. If an expert billards player, fuseball player, or badminton player inspects the equipment, he'll find more to complain about than a rank novice. That's because, with perfect equipment he's better able to perfectly cause the ball or shuttlecock obey his will. Because of this, even the most minor imperfections in the equipment will be noticed and rued. But the novice, used to the ball or shuttlecock behaving to a large extent randomly anyway, will not notice or care about these problems.

I would say that 'traditionally' the portion of hitpoints attributable to wounds (as opposed to the larger portion that represents the ability to avoid or mitigate wounds) represents in Conan not just the ability to soak up greater damage, but the finer degree to which Conan feels the limitations of his injured body compared to when it is perfectly healthy in comparison to the less keenly honed warrior. Sure, Conan can tough it out through more wounds, but toughing it out is not the same as being in prime condition. Not only that, but he's more fit than a less well honed warrior. Your average person might not find much difference in lifestyle between a couple weeks of rest and what they normally do, but Conan must recover even from the rest to make himself fit again for the rigors of his wild life.

Of course, you could always say, "Well that's not perfectly realistic." or "That's a pretty thin explanation.", and I agree fully. That brings us back to where we started at, the recognition that D&D has always been pretty far removed from 'realism', that 4e more fully embrassed that than any edition thus far, and that if anything that was fully the opposite of the problems I had with the system.

I understand that most people haven't ever played D&D in a more sandbox, simulationist, fully emmersive style and probably wouldn't enjoy it if they did, but 4e basically came out and said, "If you were playing that way, and no one was, then you were playing it wrong. We decided that D&D was only fun played in our way, and well 3e wasn't very fun played in our way, so we made a game that was fun when played our way." Which is fine, and you have to respect the tight focus of the design and how everything integrates with everything else from a purely designer perspective, but I have no interest in running or playing the game.

 

[Harlekin]

Greetings!

Damn, gang. 10 pages+ of this stuff. My head hurts. I mean, really now--healing and Hit Points have *always* been abstract, and wonky in *every* edition of D&D. Wound simulation has *never* been D&D's strong suit, you know? If some "realistic"/more believable simulation of wounds/healing is what you want, well, there are better game systems that do this. Just off the top of my head, WFRP makes characters much more realistically fragile and suffering effects from wounds, poison, lost limbs, etc, much better than D&D.

It doesn't seem to me that D&D has ever represented wounds/effects in a *non-cartoonish* manner. Asking for that or expecting such from D&D just seems like quite a stretch to me.

Healing and wounds is abstract in D&D. Accept it, play the game, and move on.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Of course an abstraction that you had 20 years to get used to may feel more "sensible" then any new abstraction. After all 20 years is a long time to develop rationalizations for all the weird effects that the system may cause. And most of us probably were in discussions where we had to defend the D&D hp system against gamers that preferred other systems.

However, the difference between 3rd and 4th is your familiarity with the rules not the verisimilitude of the game.