D&D 5E Should the Fighter's "Second Wind" ability grant temporary HP instead of regular HP?

[JRRNeiklot]

So polling is invalid, but anecdotes are valid? Yeah, I don't think so mate, but maybe you're not saying that.

You may be right re: the fate of 5E, but I honestly doubt it, and it will have more to with marketing than rules, either way, I would suggest. PF's success is very much one of marketing and exclusivity (of Paizo's fairly high-grade APs).

No, I'm not saying my anecdotal experience is universal, but it's a lot wider than just one small town. I'm in north Alabama, and I've played as far south as Birmingham, north to Florence, KY, and east to Atlanta, and several places in between. Everywhere I've played, Pathfinder/3e ruled, OD&D had a strong presence, and 4e was an anomaly.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

People made the same complaint about 3e and I found it as baffling then too.

Translation: I'd rather see D&D dead than in the arms of another player. Gotcha.

Since I know realize I'm arguing with someone irrational, I can ignore further posts. Good day.

You can ignore me, period as far as I'm concerned. I'm doing the same with you. You can disagree with me all you like, but insults are the weapon of a child. I do not argue with children. Congratulations, in 15 years, you are the 2nd person to make my ignore list.

For what it's worth, I do NOT want D&D to fail. I want it to succeed. I didn't want 4e to fail, either. The criticism for 4e was even worse than what we are seeing now. Not just from me, but from a substantial portion of WOTC's customers. They ignored us then, and 4E DID fail, and miserably. I am BEGGING WOTC to take my money, but that involves them making a product I can actually use. All my criticism is in the hopes of D&D being a SUPPORTED game I can play until I'm in the grave. 5E ain't it. And so I discuss improvements here and elsewhere. Funny, I thought that what a discussion forum was for.

 

[Nikosandros]

To be fair, that's not true. 3e had proportional healing. You healed (natural healing anyway) faster the higher level you are. To the point where a wizard would be virtually impossible not to fully heal in a day or two at high levels. With any sort of heal check, a wizard heals in one day that the most at pretty much any level after first.

Fighters are a bit slower, but, apparently that's fine.

This does, OTOH, illuminate a rather glaring inconsistency in HP. A 10th level wizard has 30 HP. A 3rd level fighter has 30 HP. An Ogre can have 30 HP (29 by 3e MM, we'll give him a bonus one HP). All three characters are hit with exactly identical attacks. Let's say a really big axe hit with power attack and a critical that does 29 points of damage. The wizard, without help, is back to full HP in three days, one day with a heal check. The fighter takes 10 days to heal, 3 with a heal check, and the ogre takes a month to heal (he's only 1st level), 8 days with a heal check.

How do those who claim that HP are consistent rationalise this? How is it that my spindly, aged wizard is back on his feet in 1/3 the time the fighter takes and 1/10th the time the ogre takes?

That's why I greatly prefer a system in which healing is proportional to the amount of HP. IMO, 3e wasn't proportional in the sense that I'm talking about because healing scaled (slowly) with the level and not with the maximum HP.

 

[Lanefan]

Abstained from voting as there is no option for "this ability should not exist at all".

Lan-"specialist in separating monsters from their hit points since 1984"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

5. Should recovery be proportional to max hit points?

My answers are...

5. Yes.

If I had answered no to question #5 then I would have been in perfect alignment with the old school rules. I am open to #5 though because I accept the proportional arguments. I could live with #5 being no in the game though. It's not a deal breaker for me.

We do most things pretty old-school here but we did implement a small amount of by-level h.p. recovery in that if you are not too badly hurt (i.e. haven't been below 0 h.p. recently) an overnight rest will get you back 1/10 of your h.p. rounding *all* fractions up (so someone with 10 h.p. gets back 1 while someone with 11 h.p. gets back 1.1 which rounds up to 2).

Magical healing doesn't care what level the caster and-or recipient are, and nor should it.

Lanefan

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Abstained from voting as there is no option for "this ability should not exist at all".

Lan-"specialist in separating monsters from their hit points since 1984"-efan

wait, am I really reading this right... you are not just saying you don't want your fighter to have the ability, but you can't imagine letting ANYONE have it???

 

[RotGrub]

Abstained from voting as there is no option for "this ability should not exist at all".

Lan-"specialist in separating monsters from their hit points since 1984"-efan

Exactly.

 

[Lanefan]

wait, am I really reading this right... you are not just saying you don't want your fighter to have the ability, but you can't imagine letting ANYONE have it???

As a tack-on module, or part of one, sure; we can all then choose to include or ignore it as we like and no harm done. But it has no place in the basic game where it can't be ignored without possible unforeseen knock-on effects elsewhere.

Lanefan

 

[RotGrub]

At this point, it's obvious that a small lawful evil cabal of posters are artificially keeping this topic alive on the forums everywhere. The survey data, which was peer reviewed and published, showed absolutely no interest or need for alternative options to second wind and other like mechanics.

 

[pemerton]

Does this change anything about what I actually posted? I don't think so. That's still ample evidence that hit points have always (or at least since 1e) involved some modicum of physical harm (or "meat" as the term goes around here) - exactly what Nikosandros was asking about.

I'm not sure how [MENTION=7993]Nikosandros[/MENTION] sees things, but when I think of "hp as meat" I think of a claim stronger than that each hit that deals damage deals some trivial physical harm like a graze or a scratch.

I think of posts I read which assert or imply that a hit for N hp to a given character always does the same amount of physical harm, whether those are the first or the last N hp taken; and hence that damage-dealing hits other than the last can still deal serious physical injury.

For me the model I've just described works fine for damage to objects, like chopping through a door or sawing a log, but it makes no sense at all for combat with a person.