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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5716535" data-attributes="member: 42582">A good bias. I don't think any edition of D&D has ever made the extent and consequences of injury part of the fictional positioning (except perhaps in some very marginal cases, like the rules for caltrops in Unearthed Arcana), but I could be forgetting something.The most obvious difference that I see in action resolution is that the 4e mechanics make a whole lot of choices about how to gain access to a PC's surges very important - whereas, back when I played AD&D, recoving hit points during combat was at best a very minor element of play.The dying rules also make a big difference to choices too. Being knocked unconscious, in 4e, is closer to being stunned or paralysed in earlier editions of the game, than to being knocked to negative hit points.And I'm sure there are a lot of other differences too.I've also treated Remove Affliction as what is required to restore severed limbs, heal major organ damage etc.My take on maiming in 4e is that, so long as action is being resolved in accordance with the combat resolution mechanics, then no PC can be maimed by an attack, and no assailant can maim an NPC with an attack other than by dropping that NPC to 0 hp or below.So I've had the PCs meet, and help, maimed NPCs, but that maiming was not the result of the application of the combat rules. (Also, the players had no trouble with the ruling that their Healing Words and the like couldn't restore missing limbs - they accepted it as obvious that healing which simply triggers a surge can't do that, since a surge can be triggered by getting one's Second Wind, and getting one's Second Wind obviously cannot regrow a limb.)The way I run my game, I would be obliged to narrate that the PC moved his hand to dodge the goblin attacks. If he also failed his climbing check and fell, we would know why! If he didn't, that would mean that he was able to get his other hand up before dropping, and the goblins weren't quick enough to chop it off!</blockquote>

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