In the heat of battle, is hit point loss a wound?

[Mercutio01]

This serves to underscore why I think it's just easier to assume all hit points involve some physical component. Rather than look at the whole pool of hit points and say the first x hp are luck, the next y hp are morale, and the final z hp are physical or what not, I prefer to think in that way per individual hit point. A hit point may be mostly morale, luck, and divine grace but it's also a small fraction of physical. Thus, all hits involve some physical beatdown, though not necessarily much. It may be a bruise, a welt, a scratch, a scrape, a gash, a puncture, a strained muscle, a slightly turned ankle, whatever. I don't really care much about specifics. What I really care about is that every hit that penetrates the PC's protection has a physical effect.

I think this makes the game a lot easier to visualize consistently and design around consistently rather than have some hit points be one factor (morale) and others another (divine grace) and yet have both healed with something that is described as healing wounds.

I wish I could XP you because that's exactly how I look at it. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

[Dannager]

Because the admonition from hits/=hits crowd invariably points to "stop narrating the hit as a hit, and all your problems are solved."

Yes. Whenever anyone like me expresses an intense dislike for super-fast mundane healing, the answer is invariably along the lines of "stop describing every hit as a hit" or "hits are near-misses, and the only hit that's a hit is the last one." Both of those phrases have indeed been said, if not in this thread specifically, definitely in other threads on HP and D&D.

Right, we're saying to stop describing every hit as dealing physical damage. We're not saying that no hits deal physical damage. But for some reason, you're telling us that that's exactly what we're saying. We're not.

No one is telling you that a hit never results in physical damage. We're telling you that one of the problems with the inability to reconcile rate of D&D healing with the rate of hit point loss in combat is that you are narrating every hit as dealing a physical injury. Stop doing that, and you will no longer have this narrative dissonance. Narrate some hits as dealing physical damage, and some hits as other things (like tumbling out of the way, or a lucky break, or a jarring strike, or a glancing blow, etc.).

This isn't all or nothing, and it was never supposed to be.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Right, we're saying to stop describing every hit as dealing physical damage. We're not saying that no hits deal physical damage. But for some reason, you're telling us that that's exactly what we're saying. We're not.

No one is telling you that a hit never results in physical damage. We're telling you that one of the problems with the inability to reconcile rate of D&D healing with the rate of hit point loss in combat is that you are narrating every hit as dealing a physical injury. Stop doing that, and you will no longer have this narrative dissonance. Narrate some hits as dealing physical damage, and some hits as other things (like tumbling out of the way, or a lucky break, or a jarring strike, or a glancing blow, etc.).

This isn't all or nothing, and it was never supposed to be.

I agree to a point. The damage inflicted by a hit is relative to how long that damage takes to no longer affect the injured character/creature. This is a process that D&D has not done well with in the more recent editions and it would be nice if they could fix this up in 5e. Some issues:

[3e]The feebly insipid low con but high level wizard can heal to full capacity in a day or two. The hale high con low level barbarian on the other hand can take several weeks to heal back to full capacity in comparison.

[3e]The stabilize as a standard action was just dumb.

[4e]Everyone can heal from the worst position health-wise to premium combat primed and ready in under two days.

If you don't want to cause issues with your flavour not meshing with the mechanics of hit point restoration, don't narrate injury that the mechanics of natural healing do not support.

Essentially, hit points do an excellent job of representing luck, morale, toughness, divine providence, and skill (culminating under the umbrella of "screen-time" but do a really crap job of representing physical injury. I'd love it if physical damage was stripped out of hit points and just left to a simple gauge (or set of wound points) representing how badly wounded the character was. That way, the character can still use their restored hit points as usual despite being wounded (perhaps receiving some form of wounded penalty to their actions, but otherwise leaving them free to adventure with the party). That way, you know when to describe something as a physical injury and when you don't.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Mercutio01]

If you don't want to cause issues with your flavour not meshing with the mechanics of hit point restoration, don't narrate injury that the mechanics of natural healing do not support.

And for almost 30 years and the four editions I've played (Mentzer Basic, 1E, 2E, 3E) the way I narrated and played worked perfectly well. It was only in 4E that I was presented with this problem, and the options presented left me in the position of playing something other than the current edition of D&D. So I did and do. But DDN is actively looking to woo me back into the fold, and as a long-time fan of D&D, I'd like to do that.

I deleted a long involved response to [MENTION=73683]Dannager[/MENTION] a few times, and I'll just keep it simple instead. I think mundane healing in 4E was a mistake and that it changed D&D for the worse (IMO). So I moved to a competitor (several of them, in fact) who gave me the gameplay experience I desired. Now D&D wants me back as a customer and is giving me the opportunity to voice my opinion, with the hopes that I might begin giving them my disposable income rather than sending it to their rivals.

I realize some people like what 4E did. I don't, and I'd like it to not be repeated in DDN. And, if DDN does deliver on modularity, then it will have done what a lot of people have asked for: support people who disliked 4E and invite them back into the fold while simultaneously not pissing off fans of 4E.

 

[Blood & Bones]

Just because a thousand people say something, does not make it right. A hit point loss is always a wound, though doesn't necessarily mean blood. It could be a bruise or welt. ... <snip>

Actually, seeing as I was trying to get a pulse on how players think about hit points in the heat of the game, I think it is right... and would be more right the more people who say it, statistically speaking.

I'm amazed that this thread is still going...

 

[Dannager]

Actually, seeing as I was trying to get a pulse on how players think about hit points in the heat of the game, I think it is right... and would be more right the more people who say it, statistically speaking.

Not only from the perspective of a playtest, but for language in general.

"The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn't know where it was or where it led to." - E.B. White

By the way, it is apparent from the results of this poll that a majority of respondents (or very close to it, depending on where those in the "PB&J" category truly fall) operate from the perspective that hit point damage is not always the result of a physical wound; it is likely that their style of play would be negatively impacted by the definitional shift of hit points invariably representing physical injury.

 

[Mercutio01]

Yeah, the take away appears to be 49% have some hits as hits and some as misses, and 32% have hits that always hit, with 19% special snowflakes.

 

[Blood & Bones]

Not only from the perspective of a playtest, but for language in general.

"The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn't know where it was or where it led to." - E.B. White

By the way, it is apparent from the results of this poll that a majority of respondents (or very close to it, depending on where those in the "PB&J" category truly fall) operate from the perspective that hit point damage is not always the result of a physical wound; it is likely that their style of play would be negatively impacted by the definitional shift of hit points invariably representing physical injury.

Interesting quote...

And you are right. As much as I'd hate to admit it, you are right... I'm beginning to think that the definition of hit points need to be flexible enough to accommodate the whole spectrum.

HOWEVER - in my games, hit point loss will always mean some form of physical trauma.

 

[Obryn]

I'm amazed that this thread is still going...

Me too, but there you have it.

I try not to overthink perfectly good mechanics. The simple fact is, as far as I can see, for every argument proving what a hit point is, there's a perfectly good counter-argument proving that it's not. It's insanely abstract - it doesn't represent anything in particular other than how close you are to dying.

I get that some people are confused about how to narrate hit point loss and reconcile it with system mechanics. And I honestly understand why - the system actively works against any realistic narration of combat, given that there's no possible physical representation of a hit point. Me? I just narrate it however it feels right at the time. Neither my players nor I get hung up on the details, as long as it doesn't get too silly - no limb severing, organs falling on the floor, eye loss, etc. This isn't something new we picked up with 4e; it's how we did it in 3.x, Arcana Evolved, SWSE, and AD&D 1e. I don't remember ever doing it differently, or playing in a game where such vagaries had any import whatsoever.

-O

 

[Lanefan]

There is nothing about this that requires extrapolating to non-poisoned weapons for the sake of consistency.

Now that's kind of a backwards argument, in that it is in fact the preservation of consistency that requires the extrapolation.

If every hit with a poisoned weapon has a physical damage/injury component, however minor, then consistency requires the same effect be applied to the same event when the weapon is not poisoned.

The presence or absence of poison should not make any difference whatsoever to the narration of the actual damage, though obviously it might make a significant difference to the narration of what comes next.

Lanefan