How does striking an opponent heal your allies?
- Thread starter Sir Sebastian Hardin
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Wolfspider
Explorer
Vigilance said:
Hmm. Well, if I were on fire, a broken leg would be the least of my worries, it's true....
Heck, there are multiple times hockey players have done that for themselves.
Here are some comments I posted here about four years ago, which are applicable to the current debate.
Hit points don't represent skill, luck etc so much as scale with these things.
Every hit deals at least some real damage (evidence: if a high-level fighter takes 100 seperate 1 hp bites from poisonous snakes, he has to make 100 seperate Fortitude saves, not some smaller number).
However, at higher levels you get better at avoiding damage; a 10 hp hit represents less damage when it happens to a character with 150 hp than it does to a character with 15 hp.
This doesn't mean the first character is physically tougher. (Actually, he probably is, but not by nearly enough to explain having ten times as many hit points).
It also doesn't mean that there are seperate hit points for luck, skill, divine favor, physical damage, willpower and so on. That "flavoured hit point" model leads to silly results as soon as you look at it for too long, the fact that the first-edition DMG seems to endorse it notwithstanding. Luck, for example, does not ablate as it is used, on most understandings of what luck is.
It means the 150 hp character, by whatever means, manages to mitigate some of the damage the 15 hp character would have taken. The correct model is not {hit points} = {physical damage} + {luck, skill etc}, it is more like {hit points} = {physical damage} x {luck, skill etc} - combat skill and so on act as a scaling factor, which in practice is approximately equal to experience level.
I believe that this model has two advantages over every alternative model I have seen: it is (at least tied for) the most consistent with the rules as written, and it is the least weird in terms of what hit points correspond to from an in-character standpoint. The only thing in the game this fails to model is healing spells, which need serious work to make game-world sense no matter what model of hit points you use.
Regardless, I am of the opinion that as long as you have one or more hit points remaining, you aren't too seriously injured; it's only once you hit zero or negatives that you can be considered badly hurt.
(As posted by Jeff Heikkinen to the ENWorld message boards 10/5/2003, with minor clarifications added since.)
(And here's Bradd W Szonye, more recently and on a different list)
Gamers frequently complain that D&D lets heroes soak up ridiculous
amounts of damage, even though the rulebooks say otherwise. Hit points
do represent the ability to survive attacks, but that doesn't
(necessarily) mean that characters take it on the chin and then soak the
damage! For most heroes, it means that they deflect the blows or roll
with the punch, or the bullet hits the cigarette case in his pocket, or
"two inches to the right and I would've been dead." Attacks do /not/
cause serious harm unless they take the character to 0 hp or below.
Anything less than that gets parried, dodged, lucked out, divine
favored, fated away, or anything else appropriate to the character.
(Maybe even soaked up, if you're playing that kind of hero.) There's no
single rationale for this; the rules say to use anything that makes
sense for your character.
....
It's no different from creating a character for an action movie. You can
come up with rationales for his amazing feats, you can just shrug and
accept it, or you can whine about how it's not really logical. I know
which kind of person I /don't/ like to sit next to in a movie theater.
Here are some comments I posted here about four years ago, which are applicable to the current debate.
Hit points don't represent skill, luck etc so much as scale with these things.
Every hit deals at least some real damage (evidence: if a high-level fighter takes 100 seperate 1 hp bites from poisonous snakes, he has to make 100 seperate Fortitude saves, not some smaller number).
However, at higher levels you get better at avoiding damage; a 10 hp hit represents less damage when it happens to a character with 150 hp than it does to a character with 15 hp.
This doesn't mean the first character is physically tougher. (Actually, he probably is, but not by nearly enough to explain having ten times as many hit points).
It also doesn't mean that there are seperate hit points for luck, skill, divine favor, physical damage, willpower and so on. That "flavoured hit point" model leads to silly results as soon as you look at it for too long, the fact that the first-edition DMG seems to endorse it notwithstanding. Luck, for example, does not ablate as it is used, on most understandings of what luck is.
It means the 150 hp character, by whatever means, manages to mitigate some of the damage the 15 hp character would have taken. The correct model is not {hit points} = {physical damage} + {luck, skill etc}, it is more like {hit points} = {physical damage} x {luck, skill etc} - combat skill and so on act as a scaling factor, which in practice is approximately equal to experience level.
I believe that this model has two advantages over every alternative model I have seen: it is (at least tied for) the most consistent with the rules as written, and it is the least weird in terms of what hit points correspond to from an in-character standpoint. The only thing in the game this fails to model is healing spells, which need serious work to make game-world sense no matter what model of hit points you use.
Regardless, I am of the opinion that as long as you have one or more hit points remaining, you aren't too seriously injured; it's only once you hit zero or negatives that you can be considered badly hurt.
(As posted by Jeff Heikkinen to the ENWorld message boards 10/5/2003, with minor clarifications added since.)
(And here's Bradd W Szonye, more recently and on a different list)
Gamers frequently complain that D&D lets heroes soak up ridiculous
amounts of damage, even though the rulebooks say otherwise. Hit points
do represent the ability to survive attacks, but that doesn't
(necessarily) mean that characters take it on the chin and then soak the
damage! For most heroes, it means that they deflect the blows or roll
with the punch, or the bullet hits the cigarette case in his pocket, or
"two inches to the right and I would've been dead." Attacks do /not/
cause serious harm unless they take the character to 0 hp or below.
Anything less than that gets parried, dodged, lucked out, divine
favored, fated away, or anything else appropriate to the character.
(Maybe even soaked up, if you're playing that kind of hero.) There's no
single rationale for this; the rules say to use anything that makes
sense for your character.
....
It's no different from creating a character for an action movie. You can
come up with rationales for his amazing feats, you can just shrug and
accept it, or you can whine about how it's not really logical. I know
which kind of person I /don't/ like to sit next to in a movie theater.
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I think the 'bloodied' condition comes into play at some point in this. It just occurred to me that the paladin ability is, "a strike...that heals bloodied allies." More on that later… While the explanations jeffh gives are very good, they are (IMO) insufficient to explain why high-level fighter can wade through pool of lava without ill effect other than hit point loss. No amount of luck or skill or toughness can protect you from that kind of damage. Add in inspirational healing and you really start to stretch things. Enter the 'bloodied' condition; this could even be a modification of the wound/vitality mechanic. I think there are different rules for bloodied characters than others. Perhaps once one passes that threshold, inspiration will only help so much (perhaps healing you up to that point, usually 1/2 hp). The paladin ability could be fluffed with 'divine magic' to justify the ability to actually knit your allies body back together. I'm not sure where this leaves the warlord but perhaps he's more of a 'buffer' while the cleric, and to a lesser degree the paladin, are more 'healers'. Each role can easily have a number of sub-rolls within which any given class could excel.
Hussar
Legend
On wading through the pool of lava -
The simple answer is "he didn't." That's not what happened. You're describing the action without taking into account the mechanics and that's a no no. We don't talk about how hard a weapon strike was before we rolled damage. And, unless you killed the monster, you would never describe your attack as a killing blow.
So, the fighter didn't actually wade through the lava. The high level fighter actually found the few cool spots on top of the lava and walked across it Jedi style. Make your narrative fit the mechanics, not the other way around.
The high level fighter didn't jump off the 100 foot cliff and free fall all the way to the bottom. He actually slid down the side of the cliff, caught a few trees and shrubs sticking out to slow his fall and finally came to a stop on top of a very thick pile of pine needles.
And then he walked away.
The simple answer is "he didn't." That's not what happened. You're describing the action without taking into account the mechanics and that's a no no. We don't talk about how hard a weapon strike was before we rolled damage. And, unless you killed the monster, you would never describe your attack as a killing blow.
So, the fighter didn't actually wade through the lava. The high level fighter actually found the few cool spots on top of the lava and walked across it Jedi style. Make your narrative fit the mechanics, not the other way around.
The high level fighter didn't jump off the 100 foot cliff and free fall all the way to the bottom. He actually slid down the side of the cliff, caught a few trees and shrubs sticking out to slow his fall and finally came to a stop on top of a very thick pile of pine needles.
And then he walked away.
.:avatar:.
First Post
If you assume HP as a box with inside "health, dogde abilities, sixt sense ecc.", how do you explain healing in general?
I mean, if a character with 5|10 hp is hurth as much as a 50|100 hp one, why does the latter need more healing spells?!
The 100 hp guy shoul less hurt than the inexperienced one (and thus with less hp), because he reduced most of the killing blows into simple scratches... and yet he needs a magic of such a power that could heal a dozen wounded 1st level cohort.
This is the thing I never understood about healing magic, even more than the possibility of a healing smite!
Maybe a healing magic that works with pc levels and costitution could make more sense?
Not that IMHO, HP as this ever made sense... we already have distinct values for dodging (AC), experience (more feats&abilities, some of them defensive) and luck (the dice roll). This is Gigax legacy!!!
I mean, if a character with 5|10 hp is hurth as much as a 50|100 hp one, why does the latter need more healing spells?!
The 100 hp guy shoul less hurt than the inexperienced one (and thus with less hp), because he reduced most of the killing blows into simple scratches... and yet he needs a magic of such a power that could heal a dozen wounded 1st level cohort.
This is the thing I never understood about healing magic, even more than the possibility of a healing smite!
Maybe a healing magic that works with pc levels and costitution could make more sense?
Not that IMHO, HP as this ever made sense... we already have distinct values for dodging (AC), experience (more feats&abilities, some of them defensive) and luck (the dice roll). This is Gigax legacy!!!
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FireLance
Legend
Tongue firmly in cheek: 
Characters in the D&D world are actually living batteries of a mysterious force called "positive energy". Positive energy protects a character in many ways. It allows him to stave off the effects of dangerous liquids such as acid and lava so that he can swim in them for short periods of time, to twist and turn in mid-air so that he lands on a flexible tree that breaks his fall or catch hold of rocky ledges or the sides of cliffs to slow his descent, and to turn otherwise lethal strikes with weapons into near-misses, bruises or cuts (positive energy is smart enough to know when the character is affected by injury poison and needs to be cut). However, doing all of these things expends positive energy, and when a character's reserves of positive energy are low, he can be killed. Spells such as cure light wounds restore positive energy, but because high level characters have greater reserves of positive energy than low-level characters, it takes more applications of that spell to fully restore a high-level character than it does for a low-level character.
Characters in the D&D world are actually living batteries of a mysterious force called "positive energy". Positive energy protects a character in many ways. It allows him to stave off the effects of dangerous liquids such as acid and lava so that he can swim in them for short periods of time, to twist and turn in mid-air so that he lands on a flexible tree that breaks his fall or catch hold of rocky ledges or the sides of cliffs to slow his descent, and to turn otherwise lethal strikes with weapons into near-misses, bruises or cuts (positive energy is smart enough to know when the character is affected by injury poison and needs to be cut). However, doing all of these things expends positive energy, and when a character's reserves of positive energy are low, he can be killed. Spells such as cure light wounds restore positive energy, but because high level characters have greater reserves of positive energy than low-level characters, it takes more applications of that spell to fully restore a high-level character than it does for a low-level character.
Wepwawet
Explorer
FireLance said:
This is definitely the best explanation ever.
HP as Qi, Kundalini or Life-force makes some more sense than luck-morale-health-dodge mixed stuff.
This also explains why someone with 50|100 hp needs more healing magic to recover than a character with 5|10 hp. Although they are damaged relatively the same, the first one has a bigger reserve, or a stronger Qi.
EDIT: Like, the positive energy is what keeps your body, siprit and soul and all together. Depletion from that life force takes the form of fatigue, wounds or pain, or even luck
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