Please take the whole "Hit Points and Regaining Hit points" back to the drawing board

[Ratskinner]

Actually no it didn't. They have always been a bit abstract but not as bad as presented now. I have played D&D since the basic boxset and I don't remember hit points ever being like this.

I think they are exactly as abstract as they have always been, in fact, a good deal less so. Now they give you guidelines for how "beat up" you are vs. just running out of gas. Before, you had to wait until you were healed to find out, if then. They are not any less abstract than before...however, they seem to be defined as representing less physical damage than before. That is, they are more towards the stamina and ability end of the spectrum. The idea that "the only hit which does a big amount of physical injury is the one that takes you below 0HP" has been a long-standing interpretation.

I like the current playtest system as it seems imminently modifiable. Just reading it gave me several ideas for how to tweak it in different directions.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Look at the old Cure Light Wounds and Regeneration. It actually says in the description that it causes wounds to close and regenerate lost limbs.

So does the D&D Next Playtext version of CLW.

I don't like the concept of your condition changing whether it's from, fatigue or you were actually hit, because of the spell you cast or ability you use.

It sound to me like you just hate hit points. Hit points have always been a miasma of crazy psychosis. It's the ridiculous gaping hole in "simulationist" D&D arguments.

Let's haul them all out.

Surviving Falling Damage
Poison Save From a 1 hp wound.
House cats.

It's not worth worrying about. It's a house of cards and a pile of doublethink and intellectual reacharounds.

A parting quote:

If you're wondering how he hurts and heals
And other hit point facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a game,
I should really just relax"

 

[Remathilis]

Actually no it didn't. They have always been a bit abstract but not as bad as presented now. I have played D&D since the basic boxset and I don't remember hit points ever being like this.

Funny thing about memory; its unreliable.

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" whith warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

 

[Transformer]

I say scrap the whole current concept and start over. I don't like how they describe hit points and how they work in the game. It sounds to me like they are just hitting each other with foam bats until someone passes out from exhaustion.

The rules explicitly say that dropping to 0 or less represents the landing of a significant wound, not passing out from exhaustion. As for it feeling like they're hitting each other with foam bats, if it feels like that, then every edition has felt like that, because there have never been consistent scaling negative effects from hit point loss.

I also don’t like the concept of regaining all of your hit points after a full rest. I prefer to gain hit points at either a slow rate or at a faster rate with magic.

The days where every party had to stick someone with playing the healbot cleric, or carry around a ridiculous sack of potions or wands of cure light wounds, are over; 4e killed them and they're not coming back. I'm not saying hit points should all regenerate overnight, because they shouldn't, but there needs to be some reasonable mundane healing mechanic. The one this playtest contains is as good a one as we've ever had. It eliminates the metagamey problems with 4e's healing surges by decoupling magical healing from daily limitations and by requiring actual medical supplies.

It sounds to me like the whole “Healing Surge” type mechanic that is built in with your HD is supposed to represent healing as the stamina part. I don’t know, it all just seems very clunky to me.

It isn't clunky. It's a straightforward and simple mundane healing mechanic, directly tied to an important pre-existing concept (hit dice).

I want them to go back to gaining your Con mod along with your HD when gaining HP per level.

Why? Why is this so important, when you get your full Con score at first level? Con is already hella important to hit points, right from first level.

Please scrap the three death saves as well. I want dying to be a bit easier. I don’t want to have to jump through five different hoops in order to kick the bucket – In my opinion, it takes away a lot of the danger.

This... is a pretty reasonable request. I wouldn't mind a mechanic that makes going down more of an "oh s*** oh s***" moment.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Funny thing about memory; its unreliable.

You do realize that you helped my argument. Thank you!

I had already stated that hit points have always been a bit of an abstraction. Gygax pretty much had it at 50/50.

 

[Fifth Element]

I think the implementation is quite good, but healing all HP in addition to HD overnight is too much. Put me down for just recovering your HD with rest.

I liked 4E's system in principle, but characters got too many surges and recovered HP with rest too quickly. 5E is somewhere in between right now, and if the HP recovery is slowed could be just right.

Keep death saves, for heaven's sake. I've found they add quite a bit to the experience.

 

[jeffh]

You do realize that you helped my argument. Thank you!

I had already stated that hit points have always been a bit of an abstraction. Gygax pretty much had it at 50/50.

Had WHAT at 50/50?

And more importantly, how does the abstraction Gygax describes differ from the abstraction Mearls et al describe by enough for one to be okay and the other to be objectionable? They look pretty much the same to me.

 

[Slander]

The chosen description of HP is largely irrelevant. HPs are a mechanic for which I've always had to make excuses, but since D&D is on the cover, I'm ok with that.

I am also not a fan of full HP/HD recovery after a full rest. To much, to fast. As long as there are ultimately good guidelines describing how tweaks to the recovery mechanism will change gameplay and DMs are free to fiddle with that particular dial, I'm alright with the underlying principal.

I'm up in the air about the HD mechanic. I really like the idea of mundane healing, and this is far better than the 3.x skill check. I'm just not sold on its elegance.

I far prefer the new method of HP gen. I'm all on board the flat-math and suppressing needless numerical bloat.

I'm with you on Death saves; I tried that rule out in our 3.x campaign. It basically wound up being an excuse for party members to delay dealing w/ downed members. Something about the constant -1 HP/round while dying rules seem to light a fire under the PCs posteriors to aid downed allies.

Speaking of downed allies, I have to add, I do NOT LIKE that healing spells bring you from negative up to 0 and then heal for the rolled amount. Not. At. All. If they want to get away from having to heal all of the negative HP, I'd be alright with the first application of a healing spell bring someone up to 0 (no matter how much/little). I prefer a little more wobble to my PC weebles than the current healing rules provide.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Funny thing about memory; its unreliable.

Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" whith warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection.

Notice the bolded and enlarged part. This means EVERY hit does some physical damage. And therefore requires healing, which requires either time, or magical aid.

 

[jeffh]

Notice the bolded and enlarged part. This means EVERY hit does some physical damage. And therefore requires healing, which requires either time, or magical aid.

Your conclusion is correct, but it doesn't follow from your premise. For all Gygax says, it could just as easily be that some hits affect one and some affect the other.

The reasons your conclusion is correct are found in things like how poison works - any hit from a giant centipede involves a chance of being affected by its poison, not just some of them. (Which is still true.)