Hit points & long rests: please consider?

[Walking Dad]

Yes, so if you cast those spells to heal someone, you are then out those spells until your next long rest.

Which would be another gamist reason for a non-magical healing option. That said, spending all spells on healing will allow the group to reenter the game faster than to use it for anything else. For what would you want to use the spells instead? If you don't want to split the group you have to wait for the slowest recuperating member.

Maybe/maybe not, but leaning towards maybe not. That said, that's a flavor thing and far easier to just house rule without impacting the mechanical implications of the game.

So the long rest mechanic would look like this?

Long Rest
After a long rest, regain full Hit Points. This requires the expenditure of one healing kit. You also regain all your Hit Dice.

I might be able to get behind that. Maybe.

I hardly doubt either option (slow or fast natural healing) will have a strong effect on most games (with most games I mean games with magical healing available). At least since 3e, healing wands are a very popular magic item to avoid loosing the days to rest or using up spells between fights.

Since I live with "slow healing" since 2nd edition (to young to played it before), I can tolerate it for one more edition.

 

[The Little Raven]

That means that bracketed bit in the middle there--you know, the one set off by hyphens--is a dependent clause that is attached to the piece before it. Thus, physical ability to represent damage is indicated by the Con bonus.

I noticed that you cut out the sentence right after that one, which further clarifies the relationship between Constitution and ability to take physical damage.

Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by
constitution bonuses - and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

According to this taken as a whole, Constitution is partially ability to withstand physical damage (physique) and partially skill/luck/whatever (fitness).

Now, let's break it down using some numbers. Here are the assumptions made in the following breakdowns:

Average hit points.
Constitution 18.
Equal weight given to physique and fitness as defined above.

[sblock]
Cleric
Class: 4.5 per level.
Con (18): 2 per level.
Physical Hit Points: 1 per level.
% of Physical Hit Points: 15%.
Summary: More

Fighter
Class: 5.5 per level.
Con (18): 4 per level.
Physical Hit Points: 2 per level.
% of Physical Hit Points: 21%.

Thief
Class: 3.5 per level.
Con (18): 2 per level.
Physical Hit Points: 1 per level.
% of Physical Hit Points: 18%.

Wizard
Class: 2.5 per level.
Con (18): 2 per level.
Physical Hit Points: 1 per level.
% of Physical Hit Points: 22%.
[/sblock]

 

[Neonchameleon]

Now I know you're full of crap. You're blowing individual words out of a list and changing an ambiguous paragraph to phrase your personal opinion to pretend it is somehow unambiguous.

Pray tell, which part of the following is ambiguous?

Originally Posted by AD&D 1e DMG, page 61
Damage scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially physical - a mere nick or scratch until the last handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections.
​

That's garbage. Your own cherry picking does exactly the same thing. You want all hit points to never represent damage, so you pick phrases that support your cause while simultaneously ignoring the ones that say damage = physical damage.

But they don't. They say that physical damage is one component of hit points. This is not the same as hit points = physical damage. And when you use the p61 text I am quoting for the third time in this thread, what you get to is that the physical damage component is the final component of hit points. You take the physical damage after you run out of skill, luck, and fatigue.

Here are some more cherry-picked definitions from other editions (AD&D, RC, 2E) -

AD&D PHB Pg 105 Damage - If any creature reaches 0 or negative hit points, it is dead.

AD&D PHB Pg 105 Healing - There are numerous ways to restore lost hit points. The most mundane is by resting and allowing time to do the job. For each day of rest, 1 hit point of damage is restored.

Rules Cyclopedia Pg 7 Roll for Hit Points - Your character's hit point score represents his ability to survive injury.

Rules Cyclopedia Pg 16 Third column - In battle itself, fighters have a better chance at surviving physical damage, since they have more hit points than most other classes.

AD&D 2E Hit Points defintion - Hit points-a number representing: 1. How much damage a character can suffer before being killed, determined by hit Dice. The hit points lost to injury can usually be regained by rest of healing.
​

Well you've just clearly illustrated one of the many reasons I consider 2e to be a weak edition that coasts through on the work of Gygax and not understanding how it works. 2e changed the definition of hit points from 1e - and many other little details (such as relegating XP for GP). I hadn't seen that one before, thanks.

The rest of those quotes are either ambiguous or (as in the case of the AD&D PHB quotes) irrelevant about whether hit points are raw physcial damage or a mix of damage, fatigue, luck, etc. And yes, you need a long period of rest to recover fatigue - see my quote about runners.

You want to talk about undercutting your own arguments, you keep insisting that hit points don't represent actually being hit, and yet you have not even addressed the actual terms we use. To wit: Hit points (points from being hit), damage (physical evidence of being hit), and healing (the act of the body being repaired from physical damage).

I keep insisting that hit points are ultimately if you want any degree of realism in your game at all the way E. Gary Gygax defined them and I have quoted above in this post. Barely parried scratches until the last one or two hits. Either that or the whole thing runs under Holywood Physics and you take damage like John McClane. In which case I don't see why you strain at the lack of resting.

And you still haven't answered my orc example - how anyone can survive the actual direct damage done by an orc rolling maximum damage or a critical hit with an axe without being incapacitated.

stop trying to convince me that you are by cherry picking pieces and deliberately ignoring information even in the same sentences that contradict you.

And once more you are point blank lying about what I am saying and doing. PC Hit points are, as defined very clearly by Gygax, a mixture of things including damage, fatigue, luck. And as equally clearly defined by Gygax it's only the finishing blows that are fully taken as physical damage - the rest are "a mere nick or scratch".

1e was very clearly the way I'm describing it. 2e changed the rationale without changing the mechanics, leaving fighters who make John McClane look fragile. 3e fudged between the two - taking something close to the Gygaxian definition but never producing anything that quantified what was what. And 4e embraced holywood physics rather than pretending it was a dirty secret.

 

[Mercutio01]

I noticed that you cut out the sentence right after that one, which further clarifies the relationship between Constitution and ability to take physical damage.

We've now shown contradictory pieces of Gygaxian prose from several different locations in the same book. At this point, Gygax has done more to confuse the issue than clear it up because he was wishy washy on a clear definition (see my comment way earlier in the thread about Mearls definition being the first clear one in the game's history).

First, how on earth are you calculating Con 18 as only giving 2 HP per level? Con 18 would give HP per level, so you'll have to double all your Physical HP per level, and also incorporate all the initial HP from starting out (which always represent physical damage. At least, they do if you consider Gygax's prose about the 1st level fighter who dies after one hit.

Next, now you're going to argue percentages? Cool with me. At least you're willing to admit that some hits will be actual honest-to-god hits that do honest-to-god damage. That's a step in the right direction. that means that ~30% of hit points for all the characters except the fighter (whose stats don't change) are actual physical damage.


@WalkingDad - You're right. That's a gamist reason for non-magical healing, thus a reason for me to not like non-magical healing. I don't need or want gamist healing, which is why I keep stating the point that it breaks D&D's verisimilitude for me and others who think like me. I'm not a hardcore simulationist, as I don't really like wound/vigor systems or save/stun systems for D&D (they're fine for Star Wars or superhero games), but I also don't accept pure gamist reasons for hit points.

 

[Mercutio01]

Originally Posted by AD&D 1e DMG, page 61
Damage scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially physical - a mere nick or scratch until the last handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections.
​

It's not. But it's contradicted in other places even on the same page. One cherry-picked quote might be unambiguous. I've demonstrated that I can cherry-pick quotes, too. This is like the people who cherry pick pieces of religious works to insist on one reading, but not accepting the others which change context or add ambiguity. If you choose to use that one, and only that one, quote to drive all of your opinion on hit pionts, then of course you'll come to that conclusion. But if you take in all the text on hit points Gygax (and other creators who had as much to do with D&D as he did), it's a far looser picture. Even just taking the great Gygax at his word and his word alone, in the aggregate it's way more open to interpretation than that one quote.

And you still haven't answered my orc example - how anyone can survive the actual direct damage done by an orc rolling maximum damage or a critical hit with an axe without being incapacitated.

Because a portion of those hit points is not physical.

And once more you are point blank lying about what I am saying and doing.

Lying is a strong word. You sure you want to use that? I'm not even stretching the truth.

PC Hit points are, as defined very clearly by Gygax, a mixture of things including damage, fatigue, luck. And as equally clearly defined by Gygax it's only the finishing blows that are fully taken as physical damage - the rest are "a mere nick or scratch".

Clear in one quote. Not clear in a dozen others. Why is that quote the right one, and the others not? What makes that one phrase, which is only used in that particular place, the definitive, when he described it differently himself, including on the same page? Is it because that's the one you personally have chosen for your own games?

And 4e embraced holywood physics rather than pretending it was a dirty secret.

Yes, it did. And I don't like it. Thus, I don't like its presence in D&DNext either.

 

[Tovec]

The 1e example you quoted fits the exact definition for 3.5 Hit Points. Substitute the words "sword thrust to the heart" for the words "serious blow" (since I'm pretty sure getting stabbed in the heart is a serious blow) and the words "less serious blow" for the words "graze" (getting graze by a sword is less serious than stabbed in the heart by one).

3.5: Hit Points are the ability to turn a [serious blow] into a [less serious blow].
1e: Hit Points are the ability to turn [a sword thrust to the heart] into a [graze].

WHICH IS NOT THE SAME.

Again, 1e turns a stab THROUGH THE HEART into a light graze. 3.5 turns a STAB IN THE CHEST ... into a STAB IN THE CHEST THAT DOESN'T KILL YOU. See the difference? One is changing what the effect actually was, the other it isn't it just changes the severity. Besides, the only way you get anything close to a stab in the heart in 3.5 (which still wouldn't happen this way but w/e) is by a crit. Not a regular attack, which is what I have been describing all along.

The words in the sentences might be the same but the intention and the way the rules work in those editions are not.

Moreover, this is flavour text to describe how the game is supposed to work. It is not however how the game actually works. As said earlier, if every attack (that were above bloodied) were dodged, parried or somehow missed - then how do you explain poison, falling damage and alike?

 

[Eridanis]

Let's keep this discussion polite. Please don't be tempted to resort to personal attacks.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you read the quotes you will quickly see that HP aren't the same in 1e as in 3.5 and PF. Certainly it is said in those AD&D quotes that HP work a certain way.

Actually, AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e work in completely opposite ways. 3.0, 3.5, and PF fudge and duck the question.

What about a fighter with a bow? Problem solved.

A fighter with a bow is only doing half the job he should be - that heavy armour proficiency isn't for nothing. It's about the equivalent of a wizard relying on cantrips

Actually I've rewatched the die hard movies and come to the realization that John Mclean must have died at some point in the first one. It is IMPOSSIBLE to not be dead after the amount of damage he suffered in each movie. He gets shot like 18 times in each film and just keeps on coming. He isn't human, he's a terminator.

Which is how I feel about the 2e hit point rules

Thank you for bringing up GURPS and the issue of taking an axe hit to the chest, it raised a curious point I want to discuss.

Wouldn't MOST of the issues you describe above be solved by them reducing the overall number of HP?

If they then added a shock mechanic, yes. But you'd have to reduce them low enough to radically change the nature of D&D IMO

Says all available data which shows Pathfinder gaining more marketshare than 4E.

Given how few books for 4e WoTC puts out of course PF does. [/rant] Before the 4e release schedule dropped to utterly anaemic, 4e was beating pathfinder with about half the releases. But part of the anaemic release cycle is that 4e is almost a completed game. I can see room for a grand total of about two playerside books (a Unearthed Arcana equivalent, the Urban Adventurer's Handbook). But it's a done game. Still, it's lasted longer than 3.0 did and probably than 3.5. (And yes, I consider them separate editions - if you're changing the shape of a horse, that's some pretty big changes).

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's not. But it's contradicted in other places even on the same page. One cherry-picked quote might be unambiguous. I've demonstrated that I can cherry-pick quotes, too.

You'e demonstrated that you can cherry pick quotes from AD&D that are ambiguous. You've given me nothing unambiguous from 1e. There's a huge difference here.

2e I'll grant is unambiguous.

Which means that my claim is that the definition of hit points changed between 1e and 2e.

Clear in one quote. Not clear in a dozen others. Why is that quote the right one, and the others not?

Um... because it's the clear one? Because it's the one that specifically deals with the issue and when used as a lens doesn't contradict anything else? Because it was what he said to clarify exactly that point?

WHICH IS NOT THE SAME.

Again, 1e turns a stab THROUGH THE HEART into a light graze. 3.5 turns a STAB IN THE CHEST ... into a STAB IN THE CHEST THAT DOESN'T KILL YOU. See the difference? One is changing what the effect actually was, the other it isn't it just changes the severity.

I'd disagree. 1e changes a stab through the heart into a light graze. 3.X just mumbles something and tries not to make obvious that there are two conflicting definitions.

then how do you explain poison,

The point of poison is that it will take effect even on a graze.

falling damage and alike?

It takes stamina to roll with a fall. But I agree that falling damage is the elephant in the room for the 1e definition of hit points. And the 2e escalating toughness definition of hit points. Both fail in different ways.

 

[Lanefan]

Can I just raise my hand here and point out that you guys are arguing about the wrong thing!

Instead of arguing about what hit points represent:

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution. This character would have an average of 5% hit points per die, plus a constitution bonus of 4 hit points, per level, or 95 hit points! Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm - the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment.

The discussion should revolve around this:

However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points.

What defines "a long period of rest and recuperation"?

To me the answer is much longer than one night.

And yes, in my game people are not always at the peak of health when they set off in the morning.

================
And on a few other topics...
================

On any healing when below 0 auto-getting you up to 0: No. It should stabilize you, yes; but at whatever h.p. amount the spell or effect leaves you at. So if the cure gets you up to -4 you're stable there...for a while, then if not tended further you'll start bleeding out again.

On fixed-rate overnight healing: Bad idea. As someone already pointed out, any sort of fixed rate (e.g. Con bonus + level) is going to heal a wizard much faster than a fighter. The answer is to base the heal rate on a flat percentage of your normal maximum, so everyone recovers at roughly the same rate.

Lanefan