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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 5712972" data-attributes="member: 9053">I really have to agree with you here: no matter the edition, hit points effectively measure the same thing: how much of a fight you have left in you. What seems to change in the game is the resource mechanic you have to use to get over a battle, and ready to go with the next one. Each edition is really only dealing with different ways to get to the same thing.With 0E to 2E you have cure spells and clerics, the limit is how many healing spells your caster can prepare. So your resource to track is "spell slots." You also have healing potions, so I suppose you measure "magic items," as well.With 3X, the limit is either cure spells or the cost of wands, which you can purchase, and that has the effect of adding "gold" as the resource you have to track. With 4E, you largely remove magic items from the healing curve but you add a hard cap of "healing surges." So that's the resource you end up tracking.The thing is: hit points end up being the same thing in each edition, it's just a question of what you have to manage to deal with them. Each edition it's gotten easier to do more, and you've had more resources available to heal yourselves... but the hit points have been the same. Thinking that there's some realism factor over injuries in earlier edition is ... odd. The only thing that really has changed from a "realism" factor is how long it takes to recover, with each edition taking less time to replenish back to full. Are healing times from earlier editions "more realistic?" I sure don't think so, but then I'd argue that there's nothing in hit points that model real physical trauma or realism ... from 0E onward.</blockquote>

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