Schroedinger's Wounding (Forked Thread: Disappointed in 4e)

[GlaziusF]

Forked from: Disappointed in 4e

I recall that I did so ad infinitum ad nauseum before, as did several other people, and have no need to do so again.

The drum being "banged again" seems to be "Prove it!" "Uh, prove it with another example!" "Uh, prove it with another example!" "Uh, prove it with another example!" "Uh, until you supply a fresh example for all my requests, you haven't proved a thing!"

EDIT: The number of suggested house rules to deal with the Schrödinger's Wounding problem, from many EN World luminaries, would seem strange if said problem didn't exist. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if I went back and discovered that you offered a fix or two yourself for a problem that you deny exists.

RC

4E allows you to determine the damage model your character operates under.

• An ancient eladrin wizard borne aloft by a glowing cloud of runes, which start to flicker when he's bloodied and wink out at 0? Sure.
• A paladin of Juste the Martyr God, whose body can be hacked to pieces but holds himself together with divine energy, who will, say, have his forearm knocked off into a corner and replaced with raw divinity when he's bloodied and collapse into a heap of gibs at 0? Why not?
• A tough-as-nails ranger who gets rattled around by blows, but only takes one obvious cut at bloodied and tries and fails to get himself up off the ground at 0? That's fine too.

You've demonstrated that you can construct a damage model for a character which exhibits "Schroedinger's Wounding" - one in which regaining hit points has different physical effects depending on the power source of the healing.

You have not demonstrated that you necessarily must. In fact, all the house rules are guidelines for people to construct damage models for their characters in such ways as to avoid the Schroedinger's Wounding problem.

So, "Schroedinger's Wounding" is a problem, but not an insoluble problem. In much the same way, scurvy is a disease, but not an incurable or inevitable disease.

Certainly scurvy exists, but it is rather silly to tell people not to take long journeys because of the risk of scurvy. Similarly, it's disingenuous (at best) of you to present Schroedinger's Wounding as a necessary drawback to 4E since it's so easy to solve it.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Forked from: Disappointed in 4e

4E allows you to determine the damage model your character operates under.

• An ancient eladrin wizard borne aloft by a glowing cloud of runes, which start to flicker when he's bloodied and wink out at 0? Sure.
• A paladin of Juste the Martyr God, whose body can be hacked to pieces but holds himself together with divine energy, who will, say, have his forearm knocked off into a corner and replaced with raw divinity when he's bloodied and collapse into a heap of gibs at 0? Why not?
• A tough-as-nails ranger who gets rattled around by blows, but only takes one obvious cut at bloodied and tries and fails to get himself up off the ground at 0? That's fine too.

These are very creative!

 

[Scribble]

The thing that bugs me about the supposed "schroedinger's wounding" is that it doesn't really exist.

It only exists if you ignore the fact that you have a limited number of healing surges, that decrease as you take damage and use them to replenish hit points.

You don't go from wounded to 100% because 100% would imply all hit points and all healing surges available. You may have regained your full hit point pool, but you're still down 1 or more healing surges. You are not at 100% so why would a hit cease to be a hit?

 

[Fifth Element]

The thing that bugs me about the supposed "schroedinger's wounding" is that it doesn't really exist.

It only exists if you ignore the fact that you have a limited number of healing surges, that decrease as you take damage and use them to replenish hit points.

You don't go from wounded to 100% because 100% would imply all hit points and all healing surges available. You may have regained your full hit point pool, but you're still down 1 or more healing surges. You are not at 100% so why would a hit cease to be a hit?

I guess that's what happens when you look at 4E rules through a 1E lens?

 

[Delta]

These are very creative!

And utterly convincing that 4E is not a game I would want to touch with a 10-foot pole. I literally flinched when I read that.

Edit: And let me expand on that. This very much reminds me of 2E sensibilities, for example: constructing magic items. They took a fairly concrete system in the prior edition, snipped it out, and said, "you can do anything you want, it's up to your imagination!". Quote from 2E DMG:

The Nature of Magical Fabrication

The construction of magical items is a realm of the AD&D® rules open to broad DM interpretation. Just how the DM decides to approach it will affect the way magic is viewed in his game. There are two basic attitudes toward the making of magical items: The practical method and the fantastic method.

The practical method says that magical item manufacture is somehow tied to common sense; the materials needed to make the item reflect the properties of the item being constructed, and the steps required are fairly well-defined.

For example, a potion of climbing might require the hair of a climbing creature such as a giant spider or the legs of a giant insect. A wand of lightning bolts might have to be carved from the heart wood of an oak struck by lightning. Petrification might require the scales of a basilisk, a snake from a medusa, or a feather from a live cockatrice. Fear might require a drop of dragon sweat or the grave earth of a ghost. In each case, the relationship between the items needed and the object desired is relatively clear...

The fantastical approach takes a drastically different view of magical item construction. Here, when the player says, "I want to create a rope of climbing," the DM provides a list of impossible ingredients. It then becomes the player's obligation to discover the means to collect each ingredient.

Thus, to make the rope of climbing, the DM could require a skein of unspun yarn, the voice of a spider, and the courage of a daring thief. The player would then have to discover the meaning of each ingredient or the means to produce it. This, in turn, could require more research and spells to accomplish the goal...

Combining the practical with the fantastical is a workable alternative to either method. Not every magical item can be created by gathering the organs of creatures or the essences of rare plants, nor does each require the spellcaster to overcome the impossible...

So in the Odd Editions, the core rules give a concrete world-view that everyone introduced to the game can share as a basis. In the Even Editions, you have this attitude towards, "We don't even know what the world is like anymore. It could be (a) or (b) or (c), we don't know. Make it up yourself! It could be anything! Isn't that cool?"

Well, for some of us that's un-enticing. I know a large cohort is in favor of that kind of attitude, but for at least 40% of us it represents too much additional work. I think that "we don't know anymore, you tell us" attitude was a failure for 2E magic items, and was reverted back in 3E with specific prices and manufacturing techniques. We'll see if this attitude again gets shifted back with 5E (if one gets published).

 

[Scribble]

And utterly convincing that 4E is not a game I would want to touch with a 10-foot pole.

Yeah! Creativity is lame!

 

[Scribble]

I guess that's what happens when you look at 4E rules through a 1E lens?

I wouldn't say that... It's just ignoring rules elements to force something absurd.

 

[Andor]

Yeah! Creativity is lame!

Creativity is awesome. Requiring creativity because the system can't handle the mundane is ... weak.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I wouldn't say that... It's just ignoring rules elements to force something absurd.

As I pointed out in the original thread, if you set out to deliberately contrive a situation in which the rules appear to be silly, you'll probably succeed.

 

[Agamon]

The thing that bugs me about the supposed "schroedinger's wounding" is that it doesn't really exist.

It only exists if you ignore the fact that you have a limited number of healing surges, that decrease as you take damage and use them to replenish hit points.

You don't go from wounded to 100% because 100% would imply all hit points and all healing surges available. You may have regained your full hit point pool, but you're still down 1 or more healing surges. You are not at 100% so why would a hit cease to be a hit?

Yeah, one has to realize that a lot of things that do damage sometimes remove healing surges instead of hit points. Healing surges aren't healing potions, they're inner reserves.