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

[Mercutio01]

Because that's the point of abstraction (for HP, round length, position, monetary systems, etc). It frees the DM and players to imagine the game in a way that makes sense at the moment and keep it manageable.

That's true, but then the problem becomes, only in 4e mind you, that imagining and describing the game one way becomes an impossibility with mundane restoration to full hit points and shout-heals. So the imagination of the game at the moment (the hit was a hit) is negated a moment later (the hit really actually didn't hit), and this problem is only present in one edition of the game.

Again, it's a playstyle difference. I don't like 4E's playstyle. I'm not interested in changing how I've played since I was 11. The way I narrate every hit as a hit (ie, it leaves a mark) has worked for me in every game I've played over nearly 30 years. Until 4E. And thus after a year of playing 4E, I stopped.

 

[Uller]

That's true, but then the problem becomes, only in 4e mind you, that imagining and describing the game one way becomes an impossibility with mundane restoration to full hit points and shout-heals. So the imagination of the game at the moment (the hit was a hit) is negated a moment later (the hit really actually didn't hit), and this problem is only present in one edition of the game.

Again, it's a playstyle difference. I don't like 4E's playstyle. I'm not interested in changing how I've played since I was 11. The way I narrate every hit as a hit (ie, it leaves a mark) has worked for me in every game I've played over nearly 30 years. Until 4E. And thus after a year of playing 4E, I stopped.

Oh, I don't think it's only a problem in 4e. Before 4e, if a giant "hits" a 10th level wizard for 15 hp damage (enough to outright kill a low level fighter) the wizard still can act as if he is completely unhurt (did the giant actually hit him? How did the wizard survive?) and then a cleric "heals" him with a "cure" spell, what the heck does that even mean? Nothing at all other than changes in a number on your character sheet. If I look at it as morale or luck and you look at it as somehow he took a bump but managed to roll with it, fine.

Yes, 4e introduced a very different play style and I agree, it's a little too easy to jump right back up into the fight. 5e seems to take a step back toward older editions. But I have no problem seeing someone inspiring a comrade to shake it off and get back into the fight and having that be reflected in an hp gain (or temp HP or a bonus to defenses or grant a free save or what have you)

Sure...it's play style. To each his own. But when someone (no, not you) says that another person's way of looking at a game where adults pretend to be wizards who shoot lightning from their bums is "silly", well...it's a game.

 

[Lanefan]

It doesn't need to. All the yelling needs to do is to make the injuried character recover some HPs to be able fight a little longer.

OK, I've loudly recovered some hit points - but I won't be much use fighting until someone fixes this ankle that won't support my weight; oh, and I think a couple of gods named Tommy and John want a word with my right elbow too.

Lan-"ouch"-efan

 

[Herremann the Wise]

OK, I've loudly recovered some hit points - but I won't be much use fighting until someone fixes this ankle that won't support my weight; oh, and I think a couple of gods named Tommy and John want a word with my right elbow too.

Lan-"ouch"-efan

Please excuse me for hopping back into a hit point discussion thread. I know I shouldn't but sometimes I can't help myself. [Disclaimer: I believe splitting hit points into "wounds" and "everything else hit points represent" is the only way of solving the many various issues of hit points.]

Now, where does it say that a loss of hit points causes ankle or elbow issues? When my character loses hit points, the DM may narrate such things and if I'm a good boy, I'll roleplay them. But mechanically speaking, the quality of my guy's actions at 1hp is just as good as at full hit points. If there was a mechanical penalty representing such physical injuries, then I'd be inclined to agree that a warlord yelling at me to move my arse is not going to make this penalty go away (wound damage in my preferred wound/hp system).

However, if hit points are partly represented by my character's will to go on, I can see the warlord giving my guy a buff here. For example, if my character's ankle was a little sore, the warlord reminding me that Joe over there who's in far worse condition but still up and fighting most likely encourages my guy to ignore the ankle and focus on killing that Orc over there who's about to smash Joe's braincase in. The warlord does not heal, he just encourages or inspires characters to give a little more. Now I think this is better represented by temporary hit points rather than formal hit points but heh, you get the idea.

And so, my main point is that the warlord does not make the wounds go away, he or she just helps the character get up and ignore/cope with the pain for just a little longer. Now this would be fine if physical injury was stripped out of hit points and the remainder of hit points (leaving us with luck, skill, divine providence, morale, will to go on, capacity to turn a serious blow into a less serious one, mental and physical toughness etc.)
In this case, the warlord or even just a regular joe fighter or paladin could have a similar influence on their allies when they down the enemy leader and turn the tide. Giving your allies hit points in this case makes a little sense and is a cool extra.

However, while physical injury and everything else hit points represent are uncomfortably combined into the one mechanic, this discussion is going to keep going around and around and around. The feedback from WotC as discussed by Mike Mearls in several places is that the current hit point healing mechanics are not satisfying everyone and they need to go back to the drawing board (the tome podcast most recently). Surely it is time to split physical injury out of hit points!!! Do this and hit points have the room to actually represent what everyone says they represent without physical injury getting in the way. This way, the mechanics can tell you that your ankle's stuffed and it will be mechanically represented so. A room full of win I say... and sorry for the broken record.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[pemerton]

Even if we allow for the idea that HP are a mix (as Gary noted in AD&D, but not, interestingly, in OD&D), when pressed, not a single one of the mix proponents has agreed to what the ratio is/should be, and, in a great many cases, thinks that even that is too complicated

There is no general ratio. It's free narration within the parameters established by the mechanics (in 4e those parameters can include things like being bloodied, swooning/being knocked down, suffering a poisoning, running in fear, etc).

There are other systems for me when I do want to go gonzo Looney-Tunes-Daffy-Duck-shotgun-to-the-face-instant-healing.

For this, I would run 3E with hit points as meat. Because a high level 3E fighter will have no trouble taking multiple shotgun blasts to the face and keep going.

To flip it around: the main incentive on my part for rejecting hit points as meat is that it mandates that my game include stupid things like high level fighters taking multiple shotgun blasts to the face.

Whereas hit points as morale and heroism (including morale and heroism in the face of moderate but not debilitating physical injury) makes the mechanics and the narration work together, rather than push against one another.

Before 4e, if a giant "hits" a 10th level wizard for 15 hp damage (enough to outright kill a low level fighter) the wizard still can act as if he is completely unhurt (did the giant actually hit him? How did the wizard survive?) and then a cleric "heals" him with a "cure" spell, what the heck does that even mean? Nothing at all other than changes in a number on your character sheet.

Exactly. I can understand how those who are wedded to Rolemaster or Runequest-type simulation might bridle at hit points (in either the AD&D, 3E or 4e version).

But I don't understand what AD&D and 3E players think is going on in the sort of scenario that you describe that is so radically different from 4e.

 

[pemerton]

I believe splitting hit points into "wounds" and "everything else hit points represent" is the only way of solving the many various issues of hit points

<snip>

Surely it is time to split physical injury out of hit points

I think this would be an utterly huge change for D&D, and very risky.

Letting hit points be equivocal between meat and morale is utterly crucial for a range of approaches to play. Just consider the reasonably common ENworld poster who seems to fit the following criteria:

* doesn't like "wuxia", "arrow-cutting", etc;

* doesn't want high level fighters to be killed or seriously impeded by a single successful arrow shot;

* doesn't like the fiction of his/her PC running around stuck with arrows like a pincushion.​

Once you separate hit points from wound poins you can't have all of these - either all successful arrow attacks deal wounds (and high level fighters either die from single shots, or can take multiple arrow wounds without flinching), or high level fighters are arrow-cutting machines until they run out of hit points.

Whereas the current melange allows my hypothetical player to equivocate, from episode to episode, and even between narrations of the very same episode, over what exactly is going on when a high level fighter takes 20 arrows hits from 100 arhcers and then proceeds to charge in and cut them all down.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I think this would be an utterly huge change for D&D, and very risky.

Letting hit points be equivocal between meat and morale is utterly crucial for a range of approaches to play.

Sure, but a distinction between hit-point-damage-causing-mechanical-penalty and hit-point-damage-without-mechanical-penalty doesn't preclude any particular existing interpretation of hit-point-damage-without-mechanical-penalty.

At the moment, Lanefan's PC can take damage resulting in a twisted ankle... but it's a twisted ankle that doesn't affect his movement rate, his Dexterity, his Tumble skill, his AC, or anything else.

With Herreman's proposed split, Lanefan's PC can still take damage which imposes no penalties and call it a twisted ankle. But if he takes damage which does impose a penalty, maybe he can instead call it a badly twisted ankle.

Since whatever interpretation of hit point damage people currently have imposes no penalties, and since Herreman's split continues to allow for hit point damage which imposes no penalties, there's room in Herreman's split to accommodate any interpretation which currently exists. His proposal simply adds the additional capability for the system to handle hit point damage which imposes penalties.

-Hyp.

 

[pemerton]

Sure, but a distinction between hit-point-damage-causing-mechanical-penalty and hit-point-damage-without-mechanical-penalty doesn't preclude any particular existing interpretation of hit-point-damage-without-mechanical-penalty.

That's true, but I think it applies a degree of pressure that has the potential to be destabilising (particularly where the coherence of a player's current narrative for hp loss is teetering on a precipice).

This pressure comes out in the very first (as far as I know) treatment of the issue, in Roger Musson's "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive" (White Dwarf, c 1980). On the ground that a giant slug "never parried anything in its life", Musson suggests that all its hit points be treated as wound points. And, having stated as one of the motivations for his system that it's silly that a chained fighter's "abstract" hit points let it survive a direct breath from a dragon, he then struggles with how to make dragon breath and fireball - which against most targets are going to deal pretty serious physical damage - work in his system without being completely overpowered.

You might feel that this pressure could be resisted, or even that I'm exaggerating its force. I don't think I am, but I could be wrong. I think it's a big risk, but I wouldn't bet my house on it being a failure with the fans.

 

[Hypersmurf]

And, having stated as one of the motivations for his system that it's silly that a chained fighter's "abstract" hit points let it survive a direct breath from a dragon, he then struggles with how to make dragon breath and fireball - which against most targets are going to deal pretty serious physical damage - work in his system without being completely overpowered.

Maybe that's why I don't see the problem - I have no trouble with abstract hit points letting someone survive a fireball, so I don't feel the pressure to define fireball damage as automatic wound points.

To be fair, 'wound points' wouldn't actually be my choice for modeling consequential injuries. I described earlier a spitballed system I could get behind, which makes incurring a consequential injury a meaningful narrative choice on behalf of the player. Under that system, any attack dealing damage could be a serious wound, but no attack must be a serious wound.

Sometimes a player might be in a position where he has to choose between taking a long-term injury versus winding up unconscious or dead. And it leaves room in the system for special attacks which say "deals 3d6 damage and causes an injury".

-Hyp.

 

[pemerton]

I described earlier a spitballed system I could get behind, which makes incurring a consequential injury a meaningful narrative choice on behalf of the player. Under that system, any attack dealing damage could be a serious wound, but no attack must be a serious wound.

Sometimes a player might be in a position where he has to choose between taking a long-term injury versus winding up unconscious or dead. And it leaves room in the system for special attacks which say "deals 3d6 damage and causes an injury".

[MENTION=11300]Herremann the Wise[/MENTION] can correct me if I'm wrong, but given that in another thread Herreman is on the anti-encounter-power-because-too-metagamey side of a conversation, I suspect he wouldn't be the biggest fan of an injury system based on player narrative choice.

Now obviously Herremann's not dictator of D&D, but in the current post-4e design climate, I wouldn't expect to be seeing a narrative, player-metagamed injury system in a hurry!