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Is it houseruling to let a torch set fire to things?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6885821" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think 4e's version of hp and Gygax's DMG version of hp are more-or-less the same. (Gygax spills more ink on it.)</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what the recovery of hp section has to do with it. Non-magical recovery times are longer in AD&D than 4e but that is not a difference of principle - plenty of people change the short rest and extended rest times in 4e (say, 1 day for a short rest and 1 week for an extended rest), but that is not a difference of principle. It's just about how you want to pace recovery in the fiction.</p><p></p><p>In Gygax's version, zero hp always means <em>in the fiction, the character is dying</em>. Generally, in 4e, zero hp only means <em>in the fiction, the character is dying</em> if the character dies. Otherwise the character had just swooned, like Frodo after being hit by the troll's spear in Moria. But I don't think this is a difference of principle either, just a difference in resolution mechanics - 4e adds an extra buffer (the death save) between hit points and death, and it removes the "hurt enough to be comatose but not dead" condition that is part of the AD&D rules. Plenty of people have reintroduced this latter state into 4e, by use of a disease-style condition track.</p><p></p><p>The principles that are (in my view) constant across the two editions are that hit point loss is not - until the last handful - about significant injury or literally being struck, but is about being worn down, about tiring and losing luck and divine favour, about the momentum of battle running against you.</p><p></p><p>RPGs with different principles are RQ and RM, which both have hit point systems, but in both games hit point loss corresponds to significant physical harm (to a greater extent in RQ than RM, because RM uses a separate debuff mechanic to model physical harm beyond bruising, becoming woozy from pain, and blood loss).</p><p></p><p>I don't know how 2nd ed AD&D framed hit points. A lot of 3E players seem to treat them as being more like RQ/RM hit points than Gygaxian/4e ones.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6885821, member: 42582"] I think 4e's version of hp and Gygax's DMG version of hp are more-or-less the same. (Gygax spills more ink on it.) I'm not sure what the recovery of hp section has to do with it. Non-magical recovery times are longer in AD&D than 4e but that is not a difference of principle - plenty of people change the short rest and extended rest times in 4e (say, 1 day for a short rest and 1 week for an extended rest), but that is not a difference of principle. It's just about how you want to pace recovery in the fiction. In Gygax's version, zero hp always means [I]in the fiction, the character is dying[/I]. Generally, in 4e, zero hp only means [I]in the fiction, the character is dying[/I] if the character dies. Otherwise the character had just swooned, like Frodo after being hit by the troll's spear in Moria. But I don't think this is a difference of principle either, just a difference in resolution mechanics - 4e adds an extra buffer (the death save) between hit points and death, and it removes the "hurt enough to be comatose but not dead" condition that is part of the AD&D rules. Plenty of people have reintroduced this latter state into 4e, by use of a disease-style condition track. The principles that are (in my view) constant across the two editions are that hit point loss is not - until the last handful - about significant injury or literally being struck, but is about being worn down, about tiring and losing luck and divine favour, about the momentum of battle running against you. RPGs with different principles are RQ and RM, which both have hit point systems, but in both games hit point loss corresponds to significant physical harm (to a greater extent in RQ than RM, because RM uses a separate debuff mechanic to model physical harm beyond bruising, becoming woozy from pain, and blood loss). I don't know how 2nd ed AD&D framed hit points. A lot of 3E players seem to treat them as being more like RQ/RM hit points than Gygaxian/4e ones. [/QUOTE]
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