Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 5707833" data-attributes="member: 11300">I don't particularly like how damage and healing is presented in either 3e or 4e. I don't like that skill, toughness and divinity are mixed in with capacity for damage through hit points alone. An ideal system for me is one that separates the "D&D definition" of hit points from the physical capacity for damage.As such, narratively speaking I like neither but I have particular narrative issues with 4e. My main narrative issue is that any damage that puts a character into negatives (that is knocks them out or playing around with it incapacitates them for an undetermined period of time) is either going to kill the character or be recovered from in a day. Both these options are at either end of the spectrum with nothing in between. 3e at least allows the capacity for the in between (taking days or perhaps weeks to recover) and as such has a greater narrative playground with which to describe wounding as well as a greater range of effects.A 4e fix for this is easily enough done by having certain "injuries" (I think this has been done using a disease track) restrict how quickly healing surges are recovered. This requires bashing the system around a little and certainly changes the feel from traditional 4e to something a little more gritty.[DM]You duck but the troll's fist thumps into your brain case with a gout of blood spraying in all directions. You fall to the ground with blood pooling under your unmoving skull.This could be potentially lethal.It has conveyed an incapacitating wound but not immediate fatality.The wound could take days or even weeks to heal unassisted.The hit could be described exactly the same but without the pooling blood which would seem to indicate a longer term or possibly fatal wound. As we don't wish to convey a long term or fatal wound when the PC could literally get up and after a short rest be acting at capacity (and be at full capacity within a day), the narrative space for something seriously grizzly but not fatal is restricted with 4e RAW.In 3e, because in practice healing magic was abundant, the DM would feel free to perhaps be a little more gonzo with their wound description (such as steeldragons above) knowing that either:a) You would have a TPK and the troll a belly full of PCs - and thus the description does not matter orb) The rest of the party pulls through and heals the savagely wounded PC immediately with magical healing (they are not going to let him heal naturally with abundant healing resources typically available).In 4e, the narrative spectrum can be further compromised in practice by the presence of a warlord (possibly as the only "healer"). If a stern or encouraging talking to can get a fallen PC up, then the DM is going to be especially wary with their wound descriptions, perhaps just leaving the description until after the fatality or otherwise of the damage has been established. As a DM, I don't like having my hands tied this way and as indicated above, I prefer the divorcing of skill/toughness/divinity from physical damage so the system informs me exactly of the physical damage I have to describe.Sorry Hussar but I think you are wrong on this one.Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

Verification