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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Regicide" data-source="post: 4873184" data-attributes="member: 67552">Well, lets look at that for a second, shall we?  HPs include "fatigue."  Reasonable to think since resting gets you back healing surges which means you get your HPs back I suppose.  But lets look at things that fatigue people.  Climbing, jumping and oh, say... running an ultra marathon.  These things cause fatigue, do any of them cause HP loss in 4E?  No.  No they don't.  I think it's pretty believable that someone that just ran a marathon, swam a lake, kayaked up a rapids, swung a sword for 10 minutes and climbed a cliff is not in the same fighting shape as someone who didn't.  But there are no rules in 4E for physical or mental exertion reducing HPs.  In previous editions exhaustion and the like often gave a penalty to attack and skill rolls.  So I think it's pretty clear that HPs and fatigue are not in fact related at all.    HPs include "moral."  Well whats the most obvious case of moral break?  Fear.  What does fear from, say, a dragon do in 4E, does it reduce HPs?  No, it involves an attack penalty, much like previous editions.  In some cases it involves stunning or running away, but nowhere does loss of moral cause HP damage.  Likewise a successful intimidation check against bloodied opponents doesn't drop them to the ground dead.  So again, it seems pretty clear HPs and moral are completely unrelated according to the actual rules of 4E.  What causes HP damage?  Being hit with things, fire, hostile magic and magical effects, falling off a cliff and all things that we associate with wounding, bone breaking and the like.  Additionally removal of things required to sustain human life such as starvation, suffocation and dehydration will also, unsurprisingly, cause HP loss.  Although debates like this happened in previous editions because HPs are an odd abstraction, they were nothing like what we get in 4E with the addition of the utterly bizarre healing surge mechanic which has no parallel in real life.  The only answer is to accept that it has no parallel, stop trying to call it moral or make some other excuse for it being a simplification or abstraction for something because it's not.  Just accept it's a game mechanic and move along.  NPCs are for killing or getting plot hooks from.</blockquote>

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