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

[billd91]

Instead, 5th edition is the first edition ever in which one can't dual wield battle axes or longswords, even with their "super feats" which are supposed to be a one stop shop for getting everything related to that in one go.

That's not true. 1e allowed, as of the DMG's rules on the subject, either a hand axe or a dagger in the off hand. And that was it.

That said, I expect 5e to allow it in some way, shape, or form. Too many people want to play Drizz't-like characters for the ability to not make its way into the rules at some point.

 

[Sadras]

To me, the only hit point that represents physical damage is the first.
Hp no. 2 and up are fictionary, room for description.

This is how we play hit points as well, since we have introduced wounds at our table. Perhaps the reason they never made it temporary hit points is because of a "Vitality & Meat" module in the DMG which might be along our thinking. We will have to wait and see.

 

[pemerton]

Dramatic to the extent that the fighter is getting beat upon and then surges back? Every fight? No. I wouldn't want every fight to have that level of drama and would consider such an adventure to be poorly paced and kind of monotonous.

I play D&D on average for 4 hours every 3 weeks, and very rarely have fewer than two weeks between sessions.

If dramatic things aren't happening every session, I would regard that as "poorly paced and kind of monotonous". I can be bored easily enough on my own time without getting my friends together to share the experience!

Many of the fights in my 4e game, particularly since paragon tier, I've written up and posted on these boards. The PCs have fought undead spiders, a water weird, Kas, Calastryx, some doppelgangers who ambushed them, an army of hobgoblins, undead, beholders, elementals, [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?332755-PCs-bring-destruction-down-upon-the-duergar]demons and other things, including drow, in the Underdark, an alien exarch of the Raven Queen, [/url] Miska the Wolf-Spider, Torog and his shrivers, and an Aspect of Vecna.

Monotony hasn't been an issue, and dramatic recoveries - whether by the fighter, or some other PC - are part of the fun (the Calastryx episode provides one of the best examples). Likewise other dramatic events, like the ranger-cleric grabbing the invoker to save him as both were falling down a pit created by Torog, or the paladin diving down after Vecna like Gandalf after the Balrog in The Two Towers movie.

The idea that recurrent excitement in a game is in fact monotonous I find almost contradictory. The calming monotony is provided by real life on either side of these events. (That's not to say that artistic works like (say) Andy Warhol's movies are of no worth; but I don't feel the need to reproduce that sort of experience in an RPG.)

 

[Paraxis]

I think some people need to realize that certain words in D&D have never meant the real world definition of that word.

A Hit in D&D doesn't mean you hit flesh and blood. It means you get to roll damage that deduces hit points, that is all. You could have not "hit" the target at all, maybe it lost h.p by dodging out of the way. The only time you have to narrate even a little portion of the damage to meat and say a "hit" made contact with flesh is if the attack carries a rider effect like poison or disease.

A Miss in D&D doesn't mean you did not make contact with the target your attack could have bounced off a shield or glanced off someones armor or thick hide.

People thinking D&D uses the same language as the rest of the world is what causes a lot of issues. Hit points, damage on a miss, martial healing, alignment debates, all kinds of things.

D&D has it's own lexicon always has, always will. Yes it is very gamist, that is because this is a game.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=13009]Paraxis[/MENTION] - I think "hit" and "miss" are best interpreted as the player hitting or missing the target number. The rules then tell you what you (the player) should do as a result (normally, on a hit roll your damage dice, on a miss do nothing, but sometimes on a miss apply a smaller amount of damage). Once all the rules have been followed and any damage applied, you can then work out what happened in the fiction (which, as you say, is very flexible).

 

[Uchawi]

A hit means something happened, and a miss means something happened. Since D&D uses dice rolls and exception based mechanics, you are never certain of the results. As to any game being monotonous that is in the eye of the creator, because if you do not like the game, then the players are going to have to be prepared for some boring sessions, because the DM is not willing to make the effort. And the hardest part of any game you try, is throwing away the bias of a previous game you liked. Sometimes we become so practiced in our ways, that it takes some serious effort to try a different approach.

 

[Obryn]

I can. Second Wind is a clear victory for your playstyle over mine, and I don't see them offering any alternatives for controversial stuff that exists in Basic D&D, because it's supposed to be part of the assumed core of the game and you can't get any more core than a level 1 basic fighter.

Put it this way, if there is an alternate Second Wind in the DMG, it would be like them admitting they deliberately chose (which they did), a controversial mechanic for the most basic class of the game which has caused endless debate since the 4e era, as a giveaway to fans of that game to get them on board and buy the books, over the objections of others who have very good reasons to, because HP aren't stamina in D&D. D&D doesn't model stamina in a round by round fashion, never has and never will. It's too boring to even contemplate how tired someone is after 6 seconds of combat or why, if they are incredibly tired after such a short time, are they out adventuring and not in a retirement home for ageing adventurers, or why aren't they taking a -1 penalty to hit after each round of combat. Or why you can swing your sword arm all day but it's only when the giant's hammer hits you squarely on the head do you get tired (because you can now use Second Wind to restore that lost "stamina")

Everything you're saying here goes to prove my point - that it's more about the true heart and soul of D&D than it is about the rule at all.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I think some people need to realize that certain words in D&D have never meant the real world definition of that word.

A Hit in D&D doesn't mean you hit flesh and blood.

Actually, it does. Any time you "hit" it means you hit. Otherwise they need to call it something else. A long sword blow for 5 points of damage to a fighter with 8 hit points, is a grievous wound. A long sword blow for 5 hit points to a fighter with 50 hp is a shallow scratch along the forearm. His skill and luck turned it into a less serious wound, but it's still a hit. He's still bleeding, or at least bruised and can only take so many of those. It ain't rocket science.

This poll is missing an option that second wind should just go away.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Actually, it does. Any time you "hit" it means you hit. Otherwise they need to call it something else. A long sword blow for 5 points of damage to a fighter with 8 hit points, is a grievous wound. A long sword blow for 5 hit points to a fighter with 50 hp is a shallow scratch along the forearm. His skill and luck turned it into a less serious wound, but it's still a hit. He's still bleeding, or at least bruised and can only take so many of those. It ain't rocket science.

This poll is missing an option that second wind should just go away.

Not really true. 5 HP damage on 8 HP cannot be particularly "grievous" because it has no other effects whatsoever, whereas any wound worthy of that epithet certainly would. Especially as in many editions, said 5 HP could be bandaged up with a single first-aid check.

What a hit clearly does represent is SOME kind of physical injury, but it doesn't make the physical severity (as opposed to the metagame severity) clear at all. As someone else said, the first HP of damage is certainly physical, the rest is up for grabs.

 

[darjr]

5hp to an 8hp fighter does have an effect. all you have to do is look at that players face and it'll be clear that it's a grievous wound. not all effects have a solid mechanical basis. sometimes it's the players dread when they only have 3hp left in a deadly fight