D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Eric V]

HP isn't wholly "not wounds" either. It's meant to be whatever the DM deems them to be, though there's the common explanation of "a combination of wounds, luck, stamina, and other things (even if it's made weird that that's the explanation considering you can apparently heal Luck using Cure Wounds).

There is no 'healing' with Cure Wounds, so there's no issue over 'healing Luck.'

"A creature you touch regains a number of Hit Points equal to 1d8 + your Spellcasting ability modifier."

 

[Eric V]

If you regain hit points, by any means, that's healing.

Why is it 'healing?'

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why is it 'healing?'

Because some portion of any hit point loss represents physical damage or illness. Thus, replenishing those hit points heals you. As I said above, many sources of damage have to represent physical contact, at least in part.

 

[Eric V]

Because some portion of any hit point loss represents physical damage or illness. Thus, replenishing those hit points heals you. As I said above, many sources of damage have to represent physical contact, at least in part.

I don't see the bolded part as being true, at least as far as the rules are concerned. There is no mention of healing.

Does one 'heal' from an illness or 'recover' from an illness?

 

[Minigiant]

Because some portion of any hit point loss represents physical damage or illness. Thus, replenishing those hit points heals you. As I said above, many sources of damage have to represent physical contact, at least in part.

I don't think part of every loss of damage is physical damage of illness. Some part of the 50 hit points of a 50 HP fighter is physical. However the 10 damage from a orc's axe could be physical or luck or skill or stamina.

It's is essentially Schrodinger's Damage. The damage is both physical and not physical until an effect forces it to require physical contact.

So the hiit point regain can be healing ofwounds, recovery of stamina, or rebalancing of luck.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't see the bolded part as being true, at least as far as the rules are concerned. There is no mention of healing.

Does one 'heal' from an illness or 'recover' from an illness?

How do you cure wounds if there are no wounds?

 

[tetrasodium]

You've erected a strawman of Calvinball to say that there's no GM authority that works the same as 1e. Here's the thing, though, Calvinball absolutely existed in 1e. I ran into it first with 1e (which was the edition I started with, even though I owned a Red Box before that). Calvinball is not an example of badness unique at all to 5e vice 1e. That said, 5e absolutely relies on the GM to define how the game works at almost every moment of play (especially outside combat) because the game has been designed to do this. I mean, look at the 3 paths of play presented in the DMG and you can see 3 radically different games assumed by the same set of rules! So, no, it is not a coherent argument to suggest that 5e is either less GM friendly than prior editions or devolves to Calvinball. You haven't made your case.

As far are new GM's making mistakes that disrupt the game, holy cow man, 1e was NOT any better about this at all.

I disagree. The set of tools in question that were removed were powerful & diverse. Simply declaring that the GM can rely on "GM says" to makeup for that belies the never ending application of "GM says" as if it were something that could be a one & done replacement.

Oh, um, advantage/disadvantage was in 1e? CR was in 1e? Encounter budgets were in 1e? Short rests? Yes, no new tools for a GM to play with pacing and challenge at all.

advantasge/disadvantage is one tool not two & it replaced a far more versatile set of linked tools that were deleted. I'm surprised that you didn't mention attunement slots too since they deleted & replaced the far more powerful & versatile body slots with slot affinities. Between first & 5th edition there was 1e+UA, 2e 2e+player options, 3.0 3.5 3.5+UA, & theoretically something called 4e with the d&d name. Modern d&d has all of those to change from. Why does every comparison of modern d&d need to immediately jump to 1e?

No, the complaint you're making is that you can't run the exact same game you did back then with 5e. This is a complaint I don't really get someone making -- it's not the same game, man. Of course you can't blow the dust off your old 1e notebook and have it work exactly the same! You couldn't in 3e or 4e, either, and both of those ACTUALLY reduced GM authorities! Instead, there's this odd complaint that a new edition doesn't work exactly like the old edition in some way? News at 11, man.

I do so love the experience GM canard. There are more new players, and new GMs, in 5e that ever before in any edition prior. It's clearly not that hard or that bad. 5e is the most popular RPG on the market. This doesn't mean it's best (and you will not catch me making that argument), but it does mean that it can't be fundamentally broken and hostile to new GMs in the way you're presenting or else it wouldn't be successful! Unless you're prepared to argue that D&D will be successful because of the trademark even if it's a lousy game? I'd very much like to see that argument made, but only out of a sense of schadenfreude.

Look, man, I have a rep about pointing out problems in 5e. I'm rather disliked by a pretty wide contingent of posters because I say blunt things about the 5e. This, though? Not biting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think part of every loss of damage is physical damage of illness. Some part of the 50 hit points of a 50 HP fighter is physical. However the 10 damage from a orc's axe could be physical or luck or skill or stamina.

It's is essentially Schrodinger's Damage. The damage is both physical and not physical until an effect forces it to require physical contact.

So the hiit point regain can be healing ofwounds, recovery of stamina, or rebalancing of luck.

But you have to assume some part is, because you never know what you're healing.

 

[Eric V]

How do you cure wounds if there are no wounds?

One can have a wound of the spirit, I suppose.

Just pointing out that the game's official rules don't use the word 'healing' so there's no need for some weird crisis over "How is luck healed?" It's not that game. Never has been.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One can have a wound of the spirit, I suppose.

Just pointing out that the game's official rules don't use the word 'healing' so there's no need for some weird crisis over "How is luck healed?" It's not that game. Never has been.

I'll begrudgingly accept that, but let me ask you this: why does the same "healing" spell, that recovers the same number of hit points, recover drastically different percentages of total hp based on how many hp the target has?