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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 4560946" data-attributes="member: 11300">This is the difficulty of combining physical health and skill, inner power, luck, resolve into the one stat. However in both cases, the character takes a while to get back to their best, but for different reasons. One has the character up and about but at a point where another hit could kill them. It takes a while for the character to get back to their skilful best. Sure they've taken some bumps and bruises but not enough to force them into unconciousness. For whatever reason though, they're out of luck, don't have as much will power, are fatigued enough to not be able to defend themselves as well as previously; to turn serious blows into lesser ones.The other has the character attacked and injured into unconsciousness (into the negatives). The 9 days to recover this time is attributed moreso to the injury inflicted.And here is the crux of the argument. 3E's natural healing mechanic where healing is based upon level is not a realistic one. You could further exacerbate this by having the fighter have a hale constitution (large positive modifier) and the wizard a poor consititution (negative modifier). In this case, the fighter would take even longer to heal naturally, whilst the sickly 2nd level wizard will take even less resources to fully "heal". So, in terms of the wizard, the 3E natural healing mechanic produces a different frame of reference. Since a wizard can retain their health quickly (4 days in your example if healing without assistance and with all rolls going their way), you would be more inclined to say that a blow that puts them into the small negatives was not serious, while any sort of serious blow will more than likely kill them. Even at -9 and stable, your wizard will only take an extra day to naturally heal (with full assistance - that is first aid and long-term care). And this is the other factor that makes 3E natural healing unrealistic, that such assistance could speed up healing (or return of health) so dramatically.However, what happens when not receiving assistance? Whilst in the negatives, our wizard has to make repeated stabilizing efforts (10% every hour) or lose a further hit point (and thus get progressively worse). Perhaps then with the wizard, a blow that gets them into the small negatives is not that bad taking into account how little "healing" is required to get them back to their best. However, if in the deep negatives and with a lack of increase in hit points (in fact the character will more than likely go backwards), I think it fair enough to then say the wizard was significantly wounded. However, I think you do have a case for saying that a wizard who is badly injured, is badly injured because they're about to die from those injuries as in 4E. For low hit point characters, their exact situation and what can be considered "badly wounded" is different to high hit point characters. So fair enough, there is more to it than just being in the negatives.Yes. It makes you then say that the wizard could not have been that badly injured. There is more to it than just being in the negatives. It is also within the context of time taken to return to full health.More than likely true.This requires both first aid and long term care, something the rest of the party may not be guaranteed of providing.Now, the first aid and long term care is assumed to be automatic and successful. In 3E, only a fraction of the hit points were regained. The significance of this fraction is dependent upon how successful the healer was and that the injured character is able to get full bed rest. In 4E this is assumed to be automatic and successful. So yes there is a difference here.However, there is a further and more dominant factor here that while not explicit in the rules, is implicit within the context of general gameplay. In the majority of cases in 3E, magical healing is both accessible and often used. This is to the point where I cannot specifically remember a time in a 3.x game I have played where if a character was forced into the negatives, someone did not come along with a magical potion, spell or wand to "save" the character. Because of this, a DM could describe some truly horrible injuries, safe in the knowledge that magical healing was on the way and that the plausability factor of the event would not be undermined (if anything, the horrid injury description would hasten the other PCs to assist).In 4E though, magical healing is nowhere near as pervasive as it was in 3E. Natural healing is the most common form of healing in 4E. As such, moderation is required in description less the plausibility of the description be undermined. Describe what you want but if it is more than what a PC can recover from whilst returning to unhindered performance in a short space of time, then there will be a disconnect between your description and what is reasonable. As such, in 4E you can never validly describe a character as badly wounded, unless they then die from the injuries (but not until they die).All told, there is a significant difference between the editions. However, I think it is also fair to say that neither edition deals with hit points/damage/healing very well. There are lots of anomalies that are easy enough to find. The only way to fix these is to separate hit points into its constituent parts, so you can separately track a characters health, and their skill, luck, divinity, inner power, ability to turn blows and more. See my thread on a hit point solution if you're interested.Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

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