How does striking an opponent heal your allies?

[Geron Raveneye]

Hit Points: The amount of physical damage and resulting pain a character can sustain before dropping dead. More Hit Points mean more damage-dealing capacities.

If an action from an ally causes an adrenaline shot in yourself, it could have the effect of raising your pain threshold, effectively giving your character more Hit Points.

 

[TheSeer]

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)

Well, considering that HPs are abstract...haven't you ever seen a movie where there is a firefight, things are going badly, people are falling all over the place, and THE HERO steps up and takes out a Big Bad in a flashy way which inspires the troops to fight on despite their wounds and exhaustion?

Same Difference

 

[WayneLigon]

'It's Magic' is a disingeneous answer, I'm afraid.

Naw, I think they're finally going to pretty much own up to the fact that HP's are entirely abstract and have very, very little to do with the actual health of your PC.

I think this will be entirely correct.

Here's the best quote I've seen on hit points. Given that this comes from an article on Star Wars Saga, I think we can safely bet that this line of thinking has been uppermost in the designers thoughts. Same thing with fighters doing a little damage on a 'miss'; I think it will represent a fighter that is so good that no-one can simply ignore his attacks completely.

Hit points (sometimes abbreviated "hp") represent 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 graze or near miss. As you become more experienced, you become more adept at parrying strikes, dodging attacks, and rolling with blows such that you minimize or avoid significant physical trauma, but all this effort slowly wears you down. Rather than trying to keep track of the difference between attacks and how much physical injury you take, hit points are an abstract measure of your total ability to survive damage. ...

Over the years, some players have developed a terrible misconception that a character with 100 hit points can be shot almost a dozen times in the chest. Not true! Both a high-level soldier with 100 hit points and a stormtrooper with 10 hit points will be grievously injured and possibly killed by a single blaster wound to the chest. However, the high-level soldier will dodge the first nine shots, and the stormtrooper won't. (If it helps, imagine that a high-level hero has a reserve of "virtual hit points" to offset attacks that would otherwise be lethal. Once he has exhausted his reserve, the blow that finally reduces him to 0 hit points will solidly connect and cause serious physical trauma.)

So, striking an opponent could bolster your allies and change the course of the battle or give them a second wind or whatever: all of these can be represented as hit point loss or gain. I predict we will see a number of special abilities or powers that deal with this more abstract notion of 'hit points'.

 

[Wepwawet]

If an action from an ally causes an adrenaline shot in yourself, it could have the effect of raising your pain threshold, effectively giving your character more Hit Points.

But Temporary Hit Points, nevertheless. Adrenaline is never permament.
It could work as the Aid spell.

 

[Drammattex]

Naw, I think they're finally going to pretty much own up to the fact that HP's are entirely abstract and have very, very little to do with the actual health of your PC. So, seeing Mr Battleaxe totally splat the baddie makes you feel just a bit better about yourself.

No magic needed.

If all of these rumors are true, I hope they justify it well. Your explanation works for me; I hope they really get behind something similarly sensible and not "A bright flash of white light explodes around the party as you strike the orc. Your party is HEALED!" That would be incredibly video-gamey and make me work hard to come up with other flavor to help maintain the suspension of disbelief... which is what this is all about for me.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I am more bothered by this because it is an abstract. Right now HP are both morale and wounds. When you reach -10 hp you are dead (or wherever they set it in 4E). With this new thing you can take someone who is -9 hp and a tick bite away from death and bleeding out and somehow inspire him enough that he can keep on going and no longer be bleeding to death. When healing is only straight up magic this is not an issue because it is magic. When you start defining it as inspiration and morale boosts you have to break the morale part from the wounds part and start using a wound/vitality system instead.

 

[med stud]

But Temporary Hit Points, nevertheless. Adrenaline is never permament.
It could work as the Aid spell.

Maybe it does. The playtest didn't mention the specifics behind the healing. I don't think it is temporary HP though.

Two more explanations:

1) Your goddess is so satisfied with your smiting of her enemies that she gives your side a greater chance of victory.

2) A variation of the above: by that hit you altered faith slightly in your favour, increasing the chance of victory and protecting your own.


I really think you should leave physiology out of D&D. A clean hit from a medieval weapon on an unarmored person would take anyone out of a fight, dead or without a limb. A glancing hit just has to get about 2 inches under the skin to incapacitate just about anyone. As the SWSE quote above stated, 100 hit points can't mean that you can take 15 cuts from a sword to your body and if it doesn't mean pure physical injury that means that magical healing doesn't have to mean healing of just the body.

By Brown Jenkin

I am more bothered by this because it is an abstract. Right now HP are both morale and wounds. When you reach -10 hp you are dead (or wherever they set it in 4E). With this new thing you can take someone who is -9 hp and a tick bite away from death and bleeding out and somehow inspire him enough that he can keep on going and no longer be bleeding to death. When healing is only straight up magic this is not an issue because it is magic. When you start defining it as inspiration and morale boosts you have to break the morale part from the wounds part and start using a wound/vitality system instead.

I think they will go the SWSE route, that you don't have negative hit points. If you reach 0 you fall unconcious unless you reach 0 HP by a large margin, then you die.
Then again, how do you restore someone to consciousness by raising morale? Well, that's a good question. Hopefully they come up with a logical explanation.

 

[Hussar]

As far as the -9 thing goes, there is a bit of a disconnect here. AFAIK, SWSA doesn't have negative HP's. Maybe 4e will go the same way. -1=dead. No more dying condition. Thus, no worries about having that comatose comrade suddenly spring up because you smooshed the demon really well.

Or, looking at it another way, the -9 guy, just before losing conciousness, sees you smooth the demon in such a spectacular way that he fights through and gets back to his feet, WWE style and starts kicking butt.

 

[Anthtriel]

IMHO game effect of inspiring blows and such would probably be better represented by morale bonuses to attack and maybe AC. But not hit points...

Then again, there's the old question "what do hit points stand for?"

Forget it, the Warlord has confirmed healing, so healing by improved morale is definitely in.

And I believe it's a good thing, not only is healing more exciting than giving +1 on attack (the whole thrill of healing in time before the guy dies), it also can be done more often in combat. Plus, it helps abolish the misconception that Level 20 Fighters can take multiple hammer strikes on the head.

All that's left is severly increased natural healing. Like some hitpoints per level per hour.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think they will go the SWSE route, that you don't have negative hit points. If you reach 0 you fall unconcious unless you reach 0 HP by a large margin, then you die.
Then again, how do you restore someone to consciousness by raising morale? Well, that's a good question. Hopefully they come up with a logical explanation.

If that's what can happen with any non-magical/non-divine healing at all.