How does striking an opponent heal your allies?

[coriolis]

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[jester47]

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.

It would then be a matter of poison taking effect only when con has been damaged, or if the conditions of the delivery method are met (a pinprick when ref save failed, drinking the poison in the cup etc). With harder delivery for posons you can make them tougher. A poison tipped arrow should be bad news, not somthing you can just shrug off.

 

[jester47]

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".

You make some good points KB. Some mechanics would get in the way. While I have thought a lot about this, I have not thought some stuff through- like DR. I would rule that DR no longer applies to HP damage but to con damage. So yeah, you can take down the deamons hit points, but then you have to work through his con, protected by his DR.

Attacks based on improved grab, wow, thats a bag of snakes. I am pretty sure I can come up with a work around.

 

[jester47]

Yuck. If it damages a creature, call it "damage." If it heals a creature, call it "healing." It doesn't have to be complicated.

It's unreasonable to rewrite the entire PHB or slaughter a barnyard of sacred cows, just to explain an ability that doesn't make sense in the first place. Thwacking an enemy with a sword has nothing to do with repairing your comrades' wounds, period. If you are an accomplished necromancer or the high priest of a war god, we can fudge things a bit in the name of "magic," but it takes more than a pep talk to stop bleeding and mend bones.

I think we are talking about two different things. I am not talking about what I think WotC is doing with 4e, I am talking about what I think WotC was going to do with 3e but then backed out of. I have a theory of what this looks like. WotCs 4e mechanic is at this juncture a complete questing beast.

 

[jester47]

If anyone has not put it together, I am still developing home grown alternatives for 3.5...
This thread helps a lot! When I am done, I plan on putting out the system as a free pdf as thanks for all the help.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Attacks based on improved grab, wow, thats a bag of snakes. I am pretty sure I can come up with a work around.

Well, at the point I'm at in the Savage Tide Adventure Path, I am all in favor of destroying improved grab with a very large shocking burst hammer.

 

[WhatGravitas]

You make some good points KB. Some mechanics would get in the way. While I have thought a lot about this, I have not thought some stuff through- like DR. I would rule that DR no longer applies to HP damage but to con damage. So yeah, you can take down the deamons hit points, but then you have to work through his con, protected by his DR.

Attacks based on improved grab, wow, thats a bag of snakes. I am pretty sure I can come up with a work around.

For the DR: It still makes sense: The demon knows of his DR, hence allows attacks to hit him (i.e. he doesn't dodge them with his hp-power). If you still get damage through, it means your attacks are so dangerous, that he has to start dodging, because he cannot rely on his protection any more. For improved grab: Ouch.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Zaruthustran]

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.

This is a great point. But you could also turn it around: instead of the dying person being inspired, you'd have the inspiring person being inspiring.

In other words, instead of:
Dying Guy: Man, if I weren't KO'd, I'd find Bob's shot to be awfully morale boosting. [HEALED!]

You'd have:
Bob: Don't you die on me, Dying Guy! Don't you die! This battle's not over yet! [WHACK!] [HEAL BOB!]

There are plenty of examples in fiction of some hero basically shouting his friend back to life.

But yeah, it all comes back to the undefined nature of both hit points and damage.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

How does a hit to my enemy heal my friends?

4E sounds as if we are finally going to have to let go of the idea that hit points directly measure only physical damage. Back in the days of 1E there was at least a passing nod to the notion that hit points are NOT defined by suggesting that they included not just physical damage but favor of the gods, embodiment of skill, fatigue, etc. In fact in my group we used to joke about taking heavy damage by saying "it's all fatigue." How else could a fighter with 100 HTK get reduced to only 1 HTK and still function normally unless EVERY point of "damage" taken up to that time was all fatigue and favor of gods and so forth? That last hit point can be EVERYTHING...

 

[Scribble]

In all that abstract view of hit points, where does "Bloodied" comes in?

It's something directly connected to hit points, and I'm sure it has something to do with blood, right?...
So you take a lot of damage and you are bloodied. A warlord comes in and says "don't be such a sissy", lifts your morale and what, you stop bleeding?

These concepts must be consistent...
Anyway, I prefer to wait to see the real mechanics

EDIT: There's a new thread about this exact theme With interesting answers also

Sort of...

Ever get an injury that looks much worse then it actually is? As an example I know head wounds no matter how superficial seem to bleed a lot.

So you get stabbed by a Goblin, and see all the blood everywhere... You're sitting there saying "ohmygodohmygodohmygod I'ma gonna die!!!"

The warlord glances at you and says "Nah, suck it up man, that wound isn't as serious as you think. You'll be fine."

Then he slaps you on the back and walks off to kill more goblins...

You're still a mess, but you know your friend knows what he's talking about when it comes to wounds, so you get some confidence back...