How does striking an opponent heal your allies?

[CleverNickName]

I mean, I've seen this mechanic a lot lately. They say it started with the Crusader but I haven't read the whole ToB. I know that you probably need to balance things with this "roles" stuff, so a Cleric doesn't lose actions to heal his buddies, but... How does a hit to my enemy heal my friends? Probably a force comes from within me and stuff, but... Maybe as a necromantic effect you could heal yourself by hitting a foe, but an ally? I don't know.... It doesn't make much sense.

(I'm really exited about 4E, don't get me wrong. I haven't complained much before. But This bothers me)

I'm with you on this...the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense. I suppose you can explain any strange occurance in D&D as being "magic," but that seems weak...especially for a non-magical character class.

The argument that hit points represent psychological AND physical fortitude is the best I've heard yet, but it still feels weak. An adrenaline rush is a great way to explain how characters gain temporary hit points, but not actual healing...an injured soldier might be inspired to ignore his wounds and press on, but at the end of the battle he is still gravely wounded. No actual healing took place.

I don't mind special abilities being tacked on to melee combat...really, I think they are a great idea. Abilities like "hit your opponent and knock it prone," and "hit your opponent and get a free move action" give a cinematic feel to the game that I really like. But stuff like "hit your opponent and the guy across the street bursts into flame" or "hit your opponent and everyone gets a cookie" ruins my suspension of disbelief.

That's just my opinion, anyway.

As for the ability itself, I wonder how they are balancing it? It seems like such an ability would be easy to abuse. Suppose the party is injured by a collapsing ceiling...could I heal everyone by sparring with another party member for a few minutes?

 

[Beregar]

I am more bothered by this because it is an abstract. Right now HP are both morale and wounds.

Hmm, morale and wounds you say. I argued this earlier already but... well, if this is the case, then why don't bless, prayer, good hope, bard song etc also provide healing? As far as I know, they just provide morale bonus to certain actions. Similarly why don't spells like fear, doom and bane cause hit points damage through demoralizing opponent?

I can accept (in current edition) that hit points represent your ability to turn a deadly blow into glancing one (not completelly evade it since that's what AC is for), but I find it hard to associate hp with morale and being inspired by something because there aren't game mechanics that support such interpretation.

If 4E hit points are to truly present morale and wounds, then I think non-magical inspirational healing is a good choice. It just needs to be consistent with magical healing and inspirational spells. I.e. I'd except a "good hope" spell cast by a wizard or a bless spell cast by a cleric to heal if warlord/paladin can heal through inspirational attacks. Of course the opposite should also be true: a necromancer casting doom or fear should damage opponent by demoralizing him or her.

 

[Tewligan]

It's simple. If you hit the enemy hard enough, he erupts in a gout of delicious LifeJuice(tm). When the LifeJuice(tm) spatters on your nearby companions it immediately starts working, seeping into their skin for a quick-acting pick-me-up that you just can't get anywhere else. If you don't have time during your dungeoncrawl to rest, make LifeJuice(tm) your healing source of choice!

"LifeJuice - mm mmm, that's good healin'!" (tm)

(LifeJuice is a registered trademark of Hasbro and its subsidiaries, including but not limited to Wizards of the Coast and Pelor. Some users of LifeJuice may experience dizziness, nosebleeds, erectile dysfunction, nausea, and advanced spontaneous combustion. Consult with your cleric before using LifeJuice.)

 

[jester47]

This is from the 3.5 SRD; Note the "What Hit Points Represent" line:

INJURY AND DEATH
Your hit points measure how hard you are to kill. No matter how many hit points you lose, your character isn’t hindered in any way until your hit points drop to 0 or lower.

LOSS OF HIT POINTS
The most common way that your character gets hurt is to take lethal damage and lose hit points
What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

This is from the 3.0 SRD;

HIT POINTS
All characters (and some items) have a certain number of hit points. Hit points represent a character's luck, health, and basic physical condition.

So we see there is a precedence for hit points not being a measure of injury, but also of luck and skill in avoiding damage.

There is a sidebar in the 3.0 or 3.5 DMG or PHB (I can't remember where) that elaborates on this. Basicly is all comes up to the idea that you have not gotten injured until you reach below 0. So adding morale to the grocery basket of representation that is the hit point does not seem too far out to me.

 

[jester47]

I find many remnants in 3.0 and 3.5 to a much cooler damage system that seemed to have gotten scrapped.

Take for instance the wounding weapon trait. When it did damage it would do a point of Con damage. Also take for instance the Vampire, draining blood did Con damage. However normal injuries don't cause blood loss and con damage? Whyzat?

Here is what I think happened. I think hit points at one point durring 3.0 dev were morale, luck, divine favor, stamina, training, expereince, all rolled into one. When somone got a crit, you lost hit points but took some (1?) con damage (this from the wounding weapon trait). When you ran out of hit points you got hurt and instead of going into negative numbers you lost Con (this derived from blood drain from Vamps).

But I think this got changed because of sacred cows. The sacred cows I thinlk were three: -10 hp death, the various spells Beregar mentioned, and also the sacred cow that when you lost con all stats affected by con had to change to reflect that change.

Thus because the sacred cows prevailed we were stuck with a more physical interpretation of the hit point.

 

[jester47]

A fourth sacred cow that kept us in the physical hit point paragdim: Cure light wounds.

So, in closing- I think the best way to get people to understand how damage might be interpreted in the future is to stop using the term "healing" to refer to hp replacement. "Damage" makes sense because it is the adjusting the hit point total negatively and has game mechanic conotations, but the natural opposite word for it is either repair or healing. The word "healing" is the loaded one because while "damage" may not connote injury, "healing" does. So what I think we will see is the language change from "damage/healing" to "reduction/boost." Cure light wounds might stick around in the form of a spell that keeps you from being bloodied. But most morale spells will probably simply give hp boosts or reductions.

Welcome to the age of "boost/reduction."

 

[Kahuna Burger]

So we see there is a precedence for hit points not being a measure of injury, but also of luck and skill in avoiding damage.

It's the "also" the matters to me. I will never accept a theory of hp in 3x that claims you can be "hit" and lose 15 hp but you really dodged the blow. There are just too many other rules that make the difference between a miss, a hit and a hit that does damage mechanically significant to accept the "you dodged the first 9 shots and are in perfect physical health at 1/10 hp" idea. By the same token, "inspirational healing" that brings you to full would not be acceptable to me under the 3x model.

Now if 4E wants hp as abstract as some would like, fine - but they need to have that in mind from the ground up when designing DR, poison, improved grab, and any other similar concepts. Any attempt to just throw it on top of a detailed system like we have now I will dismiss as fully as I dismiss claims that a current edition character can lose hp from a "near miss".

 

[howandwhy99]

How does striking an opponent heal your allies?

Think about it. Really, swordplay or firebombing someone else has nothing to do with healing others.

Edit: Well... Maybe healers are now Vampires?


It's all about the Hack & Slash. If your character isn't the one "laying the smack down" on the enemy, you've got an "unfun" character. And nobody wants that. So all archetype abilities are now "laying the smack down":
Rogues open doors by killing enemies
Bards inspire others by killing enemies
Clerics heal allies by killing enemies
Druids talk to animals by killing enemies
Rangers track by killing enemies
Wizard learn spells by killing enemies

 

[Nikosandros]

The problem with the fully abstract view of hit points is that poison and similar attacks affect the victims whenever a hit is scored and not only when HP are low.

 

[Midknightsun]

Honestly, it seems 4e is trying to pull away from the "cleric as heal-bot" issue by providing other ways for other characters to "heal" the party. I think the concept is a good one, if I'm right. Of course, for this to work, many of the healing methods will have to assume that Hit Points are at least partially a morale/pain threshold/psychological thing in order for it not to be cheesy and result in the "blinding flash of healing" because the warlord smacked someone real good like. I highly doubt that would be the way they will go. The whole "You regain hit points due to the morale boost offered by seeing your party member cleave one of your enemies like a block of cheese" seems reasonable, if Hit Points are indeed kept abstract.