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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 5954626" data-attributes="member: 11300">Perhaps for the opposite reason you think; to have a playable game that is more believable and intuitive and with more options.Primarily it is because you don't want the recovery of "hit points" held back time-wise by the believable healing of physical damage. This means that the bulk of a character's hit points are returned so they can get back into the action without having to monopolize the resources of the cleric, or the trite use of a wand of cure light wounds or some other unbelievable crutch. Because hit points still act as a buffer, the character is survivable and thus playable. You can go on effectively without having everyone at 100%.A benefit of this is that you can save clerical healing for when a character is actually wounded. A cure light wounds spell means exactly that. However, you can have a mundane healer be good enough the majority of the time - it is expected that PCs will push on, even if they have an injury or two that may mean the PC cannot sprint, and perhaps gets disadvantage if the perform anything dexterity related. [Perhaps this is what makes a fighter special, they don't get wound penalties as often as other classes?] But, you don't have months of recovery time because that is when you decide to utilize the divine power of your cleric to perform an overnight Cure Critical Wounds ritual. The point is that you can focus on believable mechanics to heal characters while still retaining a playable game where divine resources are carefully used like the special thing they are supposed to be rather than ridiculously spammed as an adventuring afterthought. That healing ritual becomes an important strategic decision rather than an expected, unappreciated packet of adventuring band-aids that unfairly eats into the clerics divine resources.Now, the other thing is with physical damage stripped out of hit points, you can allow them to breathe and be fully utilized. This may not be for everyone but you can now affect a combatants hit points through all the different things associated with hit points (luck, toughness, morale, fatigue, divine providence, will to go on, capacity to turn a blow, etc.)For example, just in terms of Morale: * The warlord can keep everyone's spirits up when everything looks lost (giving everyone some hit points). However, he can't directly affect a character's wounding (truly squashing that somewhat ridiculous shouting wounds closed complaint). If though, the PC is injured and has a particular penalty related to that wound, the warlord may be able to give them a boost so that for their next action, they get to ignore any penalties they would normally suffer.* The fighter can demoralize their opponents (stripping them of hit points; the Fighter's Fireball if you will) when she kills their leader. You're not going to kill them with this stuff but you're going to basically turn them into minions (combatants without hit points).* A PC may have lost someone close to them. If roleplayed as a significant loss, it can also be given mechanical weight by capping a character's hit points at three-quarters or even a half. In return, they may get to perform sporadic outbursts of intensified action. Their grief suitably affects how they act. Capping hit points in this way is an interesting mechanic that can represent many ideas (be it related to luck, morale, fatigue, divine connection and so on).You could take this in a stack of different directions and you can believably do it because you don't have physical damage and its slow rate of healing uncomfortably tied to the same mechanic. Without wounds to worry about, hit points have the freedom to fully represent what they are supposed to have since day dot. This option isn't for everyone, but I think it could make a large enough slice of the gaming customer pie happy.Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

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