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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6472201" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't understand why this "weeks to heal" claim keeps getting reasserted. I did the maths upthread. It is impossible for a 1st level MU in AD&D to take damage that is both (i) not potentially fatal and (ii) takes a week to heal, because the maximum hit points for that character are 6 (4 on the dice +2 for CON). For a thief with 16 CON, to take weeks to heal (as in, more weeks than just one) requires having to heal 16 hp (7 per week +2 for CON in the second week). That means a 17 hp character, if the injuries were not potentially fatal. On average, a 16 CON rogue won't have that many hit points til 3rd or 4th level (3rd level is 5.5*3 - 16.5).For almost every person in the gameworld - all 0-levels, and almost all characters with 1 HD - the maximum healing time for an "injury" that is not potentially fatal is a week or less. In other words, those hit point losses aren't modelling serious injury.Golems can heal from having certain spells cast on them (eg fire attacks heal an iron golem). Vampires can regenerate. From memory, a cure wounds spell in AD&D can't heal a creature hit only by magical weapons, which will include all golems and some undead. I don't recall any general discussion of healing for non-living creatures, however.Gygax, in his discussion of saving throws in his DMG, explains pretty clearly that they are a "luck" mechanic as much as a "toughness" mechanic. And he says that one possible narration of a successful poison save is that the poison failed to be delivered because the stinger failed to penetrate the skin.It seems to me that the second half of this quote contradicts the first - namely, the lack of penalty for injury, and the lack of physiological plausible recovery times, does not provide unequivocal support for the view that hit points are "meat". I don't think it provides even equivocal support for that position. I think it is something that those who prefer hit points as meat either have to turn a blind eye to, or hand-wave away using such techniques as those you have indicated above - eg assuming that ordinary healing in the D&D world is somehow more magical than real life, or assuming that "non-heroic chumps" - ie the vast bulk of the gameworld population - never suffer injuries that are serious but not potentially fatal.As to the purpose? In my case, the purpose is verisimilitude.Dissatisfaction with hit points was one major factor that led me to drop AD&D as my FRPG system of choice and adopt Rolemaster instead. Combat in RM includes active defence and armour as damage reduction, so you don't get the two combined into a single AC score modified by both DEX and armour worn. Injury in RM is measured via two, sometimes overlapping, mechanics. There is bruising and blood loss, measured in terms of "concussion hits" taken. These are expressly "meat" - the skill for developing them is called Body Development - but no human-sized creature can have 10 or 100 times more of them than another, although training in Body Development will significantly improve your unconsciousness threshold. A low-level mage will typically have 70 or so concussion hits but fall unconscious if 10 or 20 are taken, whereas a maximally beefy warrior type will typically have 200 to 250 and will fall unconscious when 150 or so are taken. The other system for injury in RM involves debuffs, called "criticals", which take the form of specific injuries plus associated mechanical penalties. Defeats in RM often take the form of inflicting critical penalties rather than wearing down concussion hits.4e showed me that hit points could be a viable combat mechanic when their "metaphysical", non-meaty nature is fully embraced: "healing" is mostly about reviving the spirits (via Inspiring, Healing or Majestic Word), hit point loss corresponds to set-backs, being winded etc rather than serious physical injury, and the game embraces the genre trope that the PCs typically do not suffer serious, debilitating wounds (rather than having it that they take such wounds but heal them at a rapid yet oddly inconsistent pace, with healing being slower for tougher characters). This also made it much easier to treat actual injuries suffered by NPCs in a narrative rather than mechanical fashion, without worrying about how much hit point loss from a blade trap corresponds to a severed wrist, or similar inane conundrums.This is a good summary of what I think the purpose is of treating hit points as primarily metaphysical rather than physical, and for adopting the "flexible"/"mixed bag" approach that [MENTION=1757]ruleslawyer[/MENTION] has set out (following Gyagx).I agree with this. And for me it was 4e that really made this clear to me, and shed practical light on the Gygaxian explanations that, in the past, had not assuaged my dissatisfaction with hit points as mechanic.</blockquote>

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