I was unconsious 20 minutes ago, but I'm ok now..

[Hairfoot]

Might I suggest...

That has potential. The difficulty for me is that I like the simplicity of D&D in regard to hitpoints and generic-ish combat actions (please, no more Rolemaster! I repent!), but the lack of verisimilitude with wounding and healing irks me.

With healing surges it's becoming more - yes - computer gamey. When I first read about surges I thought immediately of the healing packs in the Tomb Raider game I'd played the day before: get hurt, heal up, performance unaffected. House rules are the reasonable answer to this, but it's always nice to have it "official" to avoid arguments with rules lawyers.

 

[Lackhand]

I think my point is that (for me at least) what I want is not "you got hit so the rest of the combat is harder" but "you got really chewed up in that last adventure, so you need to spend a week or two of downtime not getting stabbed. What do you want to do in that time?"

Thus, it doesn't need hard-and-fast rules in the same way that training doesn't; it's a social construct which the players and DM use to together control the pace of the campaign.

Again, this is driven by my wants: butt-kicking action scenes that move "rest and recuperation" offscreen. If you want something else, your mileage may vary, but I know that as a player, I'd end up resting up as often as possible to avoid those very penalties, if they were large enough to matter. And since the real-world rest times for mortal wounds are months-to-years, and adventurers are assumed to spend much of their time in life-or-death struggles, the rules need to be a bit cartoony/videogamey/whatever -- or character churn is basically required by statistics, as each character is permanently marred.

 

[Surgoshan]

Regarding the title, I just have to say that every day I lapse into unconsciousness, suffer vivid hallucinations, and am perfectly fine within a few minutes of waking.

Yeah, I'm a smartass.

 

[Vomax]

Hasn't the '20 on a stability roll -> 1/4 health' thing been disproved? I'm almost certain I recall reading something (on these boards no less) where it was said that that particular feature had been removed.

 

[DreamChaser]

I think my point is that (for me at least) what I want is not "you got hit so the rest of the combat is harder" but "you got really chewed up in that last adventure, so you need to spend a week or two of downtime not getting stabbed. What do you want to do in that time?"

Try this:

Fixing 4e hit points

Honestly, to me, what you're describing is not a "rule" of hit points, as it were, but a plot point. Use the above thread stuff or just say, "Thrug, as you rest up from the battle from with the priest of Bane, you realize that the slash in you side is much worse than you thought. Adrenaline must have kept you from noticing but now you realize you can barely lift your sword arm."

DC

 

[Lackhand]

Try this:

Fixing 4e hit points

Honestly, to me, what you're describing is not a "rule" of hit points, as it were, but a plot point. Use the above thread stuff or just say, "Thrug, as you rest up from the battle from with the priest of Bane, you realize that the slash in you side is much worse than you thought. Adrenaline must have kept you from noticing but now you realize you can barely lift your sword arm."

DC

"Yup". Though the specifics of that thread are anathema to me, yes, what I'm talking about here is precisely plot point-ish.

 

[The Little Raven]

To quote Katt Williams...

"I've been knocked out before, and it really wasn't that bad. I woke up in the club, well-rested."

And personally, I've been knocked out before in both accidents (rode my skateboard straight into the side of a tree once... it seemed like a good idea at the time) and fistfights (make sure you can beat someone up before picking a fight), and I was fine within a couple minutes of waking up from unconsciousness (which only lasted a minute or so each time).

 

[LowSpine]

I have fallen off some railings head first. I pitched so fast I didn't have time to put my hands up to potect myself. I must have been knocked unconscious because some people had instantly disappeared when I got up (probably to get help, lol.)

I got up and went about my business. The nly thing that I had as after effects were my shins felt like they were broken, as that is where my shins had smashed against the railings.

If I can just carry on then I'm sure a fantasy hero can.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Gamism has trumped simulationism in 4E, if you want long term injury effects (ie HP loss means something more than just HP loss) you are going to have to house rule it just like you would have in 3E

Another repetition of untruth.

Every edition of D&D had long-term injury effects. HP loss took time (or magical healing) to heal. 4E has changed that by making HP recovery virtually instantaneous, thus removing a possible state ("injured and healing with time") from the game.

Stop repeating the same old untruths, and I'll stop pointing it out when you do. I promise. It would really be so much more honest to say, "HPs have never been particularly realistic. 4E just decided to scrap a little more verisimilitude in favor of ease of play, which a lot of people favor." There's no effective argument against that, mostly because it's true.

 

[Naathez]

Off the top of my head...

We already will have to learn how to introduce a somewhat arbitrary "time unit", the ENCOUNTER. (And I LIKE that.)

How about introducing another arbitrary (as in "not fixed, as long as narrative logic requires), longer unit called the ADVENTURE? Not necessarily meaning the same thing as Adventure means in "published adventure"; for example, if a published adventure includes investigating the sewers looking for the thieves guild, following the trail deduced by the notes found there to the bandit king castle, and storming the castle, each of these three "items" could be an "Adventure".
Once we introduce the concept, we might simply say that DM keeps track of the total number of healing surges a character uses during the "Adventure"; once the Adventure is over, the adrenaline that's kept the PC standing and fighting and pushin onward is REALLY exhausted. He (she) needs rest for a day for each healing surge used (or something like that). Healing surges activated by magical healing do not count for this calculation.

This seems to me not to add any unnecessary bookkeeping (counting healing surges is as simple as putting a small cross on the character sheet every time one is used) and does model, a little, the "we need to rest and recuperate" which I think CAN HAVE a place in the game.
Modifications might be made to the rate (don't know, maybe one rest day per 2 healing surges, for faster recuperating), or to the factors (if you've been hit by any number of criticals, that alone requires, say , a week's rest).

Just making suggestions, of course.