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

[Hussar]

We can play quote the books and rules all day, and for every insistence you guys have that hit points never represent wounds and a hit is never a hit, I can find something that says differently.

Hang on. Wait... what? Who's saying hit points NEVER represent wounds or that a hit is NEVER a hit?

What is being said is that a hit MIGHT be a hit or it might not. Depends on what's going on in the game.

However, you are stating, quite emphatically, that a hit MUST ALWAYS be a physical hit. That is, I think, what is being objected to.

AFAIK, no one is saying that hit points can never be physical wounds. That would be reasonably easy to show - after all, every definition of hit points includes that option. However, there is nothing precluding the OPTION of a hit not actually making contact and providing a wound.

Of course, we can get really, really nit picky and talk about "nicks and scratches" but, that gets wobbly too. No one ever dies from nicks and scratches. Yet, somehow, I can be nicked and scratched to death? Well no. Whenever that blow drops you below zero hit points, you KNOW that it connected somehow.

But, that's the only time you can definitively say that it did. Any other time, you can't prove it either way.

Then again, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mercurio01 isn't listening to me, so this is going to fall on deaf ears.

 

[Naszir]

And the wording continued for 30 years. The term hasn't changed. As I said above, I'm not interested in changing how I've played since I was a kid. For that, I've got other games to play.

Fair enough. And I'll agree that I don't particually like that all damaged is healed fully with a single nights rest (unless magically aided).

However, I also do not like every "hit" being considered as physical damage. It's imaginitively restrictive and mechanically restrictive.

 

[Nytmare]

Just to see where everybody stands:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/324520-hit-point-narration.html

 

[Mercutio01]

AFAIK, no one is saying that hit points can never be physical wounds. That would be reasonably easy to show - after all, every definition of hit points includes that option. However, there is nothing precluding the OPTION of a hit not actually making contact and providing a wound.

It started with the objection to mundane healing. People objected to the idea of sleeping healing wounds. People who don't like hits as wounds said "I don't narrate hits as wounds and I never have a problem. Only people who narrate hits as wounds have a problem with mundane healing." That is probably true. But then that argument gets larger and becomes "And you should, too." That's the breakdown. I cannot accept mundane healing as fixing up cuts and bruises and making characters completely healed simply by sleeping. And the response to me has been, unequivocally, "Stop calling a hit a hit." I'd look back through multiple threads if I had the time, but that's been the general answer. That's not a good answer.

Whenever that blow drops you below zero hit points, you KNOW that it connected somehow.

Except when the Warlord shouts at you and you magically get up.

Then again, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mercurio01 isn't listening to me, so this is going to fall on deaf ears.

Works both ways, Hussar. Works both ways. I'm not willing to embrace mundane healing to full hp simply by sleeping for a night. It doesn't fit how I play, and doesn't fit the rules as written from OD&D to 3.5, and it breaks immersion. The response has been to stop narrating the hits as hits and the damage as damage. Or to just play it as a boardgame without engaging in description. Or just pretend its super gonzo and the wounds do magically heal over night. None of those suggestions work for me.

The only thing that will work for me is a slowed return of hit points via mundane healing. That said, I've said it (and I know you have, too), modularity is the only real answer that will satisfy both of us. I'm hoping we see some of that soon.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The response has been to stop narrating the hits as hits and the damage as damage. Or to just play it as a boardgame without engaging in description. Or just pretend its super gonzo and the wounds do magically heal over night. None of those suggestions work for me.

Or that a long rest is an indeterminate period of time, potentially much longer than 8 hours. Or that damage does represent real physical wounds, and those wounds do vanish overnight, and it's not magical, but no one in the game-world ever mentions it cause they don't lampshade hang.

 

[Mercutio01]

Or that a long rest is an indeterminate period of time, potentially much longer than 8 hours. Or that damage does represent real physical wounds, and those wounds do vanish overnight, and it's not magical, but no one in the game-world ever mentions it cause they don't lampshade hang.

The first would be okay, but I don't think that slowing spell replenishment also is the answer. I did mention the second one as being completely unacceptable. If I wanted to play a cartoon world, there are systems that do just that (Cartoon Action Hour for one). Furthermore, in a world where all wounds vanish after sleeping, why in the hell would there be a cleric who performs healing? I understand that there are people who actually like that idea. I'm not one of them.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Is mundane healing a major issue in most peoples' games? I'm not sure, but as far as I can recall, the large majority of healing has been magical in our pre-4e D&D games.

 

[Mercutio01]

I'll just make use of this double post--

Is mundane healing a major issue in most peoples' games? I'm not sure, but as far as I can recall, the large majority of healing has been magical in our pre-4e D&D games.

When it's magical, it doesn't bother me. It's magic. It requires someone to cast a spell. And none of this circular argument to wands of CLW (which was never really an issue in my experience). That's a separate issue that could be solved in a different manner.

 

[BASHMAN]

They should change the name of the spell from "Cure Light Wounds" to "restore light luck / endurance".

If they keep the name of the spell "Wounds" and the players insist that HP only represents luck and endurance until 0HP, I will insist that clerics only know to use the spell when they actually SEE blood come out of the character in question. if they try to cast a Cure Wounds spell on a character who isn't below 0 HP, I'll rule it "out of character knowledge".

Now if you think that sounds ridiculous, consider the alternative. HP represents luck and endurance, but if you lose some, a cleric can cast a healing spell on you that "cures wounds", and for some reason, even though you haven't been wounded, it makes you luckier?

 

[billd91]

They should change the name of the spell from "Cure Light Wounds" to "restore light luck / endurance".
<snip>

Now if you think that sounds ridiculous, consider the alternative. HP represents luck and endurance, but if you lose some, a cleric can cast a healing spell on you that "cures wounds", and for some reason, even though you haven't been wounded, it makes you luckier?

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.