D&D 4E The problem I've having with 4e.

[Ourph]

This is misunderstanding the nature of abstraction. What you're describing here is not "abstract," it's "undefined."

Your Charisma score is an abstraction. It encompasses such things as physical attractiveness, social graces, force of personality, and magnetism.

I think you may be confusing the term "abstract" with "ambiguous". Charisma isn't abstract, it has definable, though ambiguous, gameworld counterparts. If HP are acting as an umbrella term that encompasses all the things you mention, but each individual application of HP loss or gain is definitely composed of some or all of those things, then HP are simply ambiguous. We would know what makes up HP but we couldn't measure how much luck (for example) is represented by 1 hp.

Abstract, on the other hand, means the metagame terms and mechanics have no gameworld counterparts. Abstract HP describe various metagame results of the gameworld action (or, actually, vice versa - HP tell us how the gameworld action plays out based on metagame results) but there is no gameworld, in-character description that can fully encompass HP. This is the more accurate description of D&D HP because the functioning of HP requires ignoring certain gameworld realities like cause-and-effect and the linear, one-way flow of time.

So the question is, what are the factors that are abstracted into hit points and healing surges? I'm not asking for an answer on this--we've seen quite a few put forward already--but pointing out that it is a legitimate question and that merely saying, "It's an abstraction," is not a sufficient answer.

No, the question was, what are the physical manifestations and causes of regaining HP through a Second Wind or through a short rest period in the gameworld. In other words, what does a character experience when he regains HP. If HP are abstract, then it's not possible to answer that question, it will be different every time and the whole point of the abstraction is that the rulebooks aren't required to answer those questions. If the players are interested, the abstraction allows them to decide on their own.

 

[Zimri]

So my character is now aware of these reserves?

I am not a hero nor do I play one on TV.

I know that if I am jogging to the store odds are at some point, which will vary based on weather, obstructions, my mood, etcetera, that I will need to stop and suck in some air with my hands on my sides or knees. After 30 seconds to a minute I'll be fine and dandy again. I also know that in the run of a errr run to the store and back or whatnot, given my current lack of fitness I can do this 3 or 4 times before a more extensive rest is needed (like 30 to 40 minutes) and I can probably do that a couple times before the time required to rest gets into the "done for the day" category of needing a few hours. Even knowing all that to be true if I come across an event that "needs tending to" for instance a robbery, a fight, think something where there really is no way around it, it will happen and I will be involved but I'm tired so it's best to end this quickly I can get up and go. Aggravating me with punches, cuts, etcetera that isn't immediately fatal is likely just going to make me more angry and determined to stand up and end this. anything that doesn't require professional medical attention will make me sore a day maybe two.

I am not a hero, I don't play one on TV, magic quite frankly has been suplanted by science (much to my dismay) But I know these things about me and can chalk them up to a combination of willpower and "just the way I work". I see no reason why any person real or otherwise, especially a Hero in D&D can't know the same things about themselves.

 

[Toras]

The trick between the notation in the first edition dungeon masters guide and fourth edition is that the told me what hit points approximately where. I don't mind an abstraction but what we've been dealing with so far is less abstract and more undefined. It is all well and good to define it for myself, but what happens if my team has a different definition, and the DM has a third.

If they did what First Ed did, and included just that much detail, that would be enough. That's really all I want, that and consistency.

As for not noticing hitpoint loss, that's beyond foolish. My fighter, who's life depends on this knowledge, is unaware that he is fatiguing and slowing down? Bleeding from a number of shallow cuts or the like. If I cannot sense the degradation, it would create a great deal of difficulty for a fighter and more for a cleric.

More over, how would I know if I was in trouble? What tension would there be if I went from fine to dead in the span of a single point. A range exists for a reason.

 

[Sunderstone]

edit* nm

 

[Zimri]

The trick between the notation in the first edition dungeon masters guide and fourth edition is that the told me what hit points approximately where. I don't mind an abstraction but what we've been dealing with so far is less abstract and more undefined. It is all well and good to define it for myself, but what happens if my team has a different definition, and the DM has a third.

If they did what First Ed did, and included just that much detail, that would be enough. That's really all I want, that and consistency.

As for not noticing hitpoint loss, that's beyond foolish. My fighter, who's life depends on this knowledge, is unaware that he is fatiguing and slowing down? Bleeding from a number of shallow cuts or the like. If I cannot sense the degradation, it would create a great deal of difficulty for a fighter and more for a cleric.

More over, how would I know if I was in trouble? What tension would there be if I went from fine to dead in the span of a single point. A range exists for a reason.

Seriously if I (in rl) can tell what my limits are without having a character sheet or codified rules, why is your professional warrior having trouble with it ?

How would "YOU" know you were in trouble ? YOU would look at the character sheet and interpret the rules and situation.

How would your CHARACTER ( a professional warrior) warrior know he was in trouble ? "Well I've been being beat on or exerting myself alot and I've sucked wind (or hulked up or shrugged it off) a few times already, It's starting to stick (those scratches are starting to bleed more, It's effecting my morale, I'm starting to think I should have stayed in bed ) I should probably find some place to hole up and rest for the day maybe tomorrow will be better (unless my name is Jack bauer)

 

[Dausuul]

I think you may be confusing the term "abstract" with "ambiguous". Charisma isn't abstract, it has definable, though ambiguous, gameworld counterparts.

We appear to be using different definitions here. What you consider "abstract," I consider "undefined," and what you consider "ambiguous," I consider "abstract."

Regardless of what you call them, I find "undefined" (or "abstract," if you prefer) elements to be a major issue with my ability to imagine the game world as a coherent, if imagined, reality. Player characters routinely demonstrate that they know about hit points--they don't have a digital readout in their heads, of course, but a PC knows when he's in danger and when he isn't. How do I know that? Because he's making decisions on that basis! A fighter with full hit points is apt to stand and fight, where a fighter in single digits may decide to turn and flee. If hit points are purely metagame, and don't describe anything in the game world, that decision has no basis.

You can shove that decision-making back to metagame level, too; maybe it's the player making the decision, and the low-hit-point fighter is just experiencing a sudden sense of his own mortality. But the more you do that, the more of a gulf you open up between the player and the PC, and the harder you make it to get into character. A system that pushes players to this level of metagaming is a system with problems.

There will always be some undefined elements, but I'd prefer to minimize their impact. Experience points are undefined, or at least extremely ill-defined, but they seldom have much impact while the game is actually being played (and to the extent that they do have an impact, it's usually bad--PCs seeking out fights they could have avoided, for no other reason than to push them over the threshold for the next level).

Hit points are something PCs deal with constantly during play. They affect every aspect of combat. Something so pervasive should not be a purely metagame concept.

 

[Ourph]

The trick between the notation in the first edition dungeon masters guide and fourth edition is that the told me what hit points approximately where. I don't mind an abstraction but what we've been dealing with so far is less abstract and more undefined. It is all well and good to define it for myself, but what happens if my team has a different definition, and the DM has a third.

It won't matter at all, because your definition, and the other players definitions and the DM's definition don't have any impact at all on the way the game plays. The definition is just how you imagine the gameworld to be functioning in your own head.

As for not noticing hitpoint loss, that's beyond foolish. My fighter, who's life depends on this knowledge, is unaware that he is fatiguing and slowing down? Bleeding from a number of shallow cuts or the like. If I cannot sense the degradation, it would create a great deal of difficulty for a fighter and more for a cleric.

Your character can easily sense fatigue, slowing down, cuts, bruises, injuries, all of which you can imagine him experiencing during combat. The point is that HP are not directly tied to those things in any meaningful way. The HP define a narrative and you are free to interpret that narrative however you want in your own imagination. Your fighter doesn't need a way of understanding or sensing HP, you the player, the one making the decisions about the character's fate are the only one who needs to track those things. You make decisions based on your character's HP, but the character's motivations aren't based on HP, they are based on whatever narrative you've constructed of the ongoing action in your head. If you decide, based on the abstract measure of HP, that your fighter character needs some help from the party Cleric, you can imagine any reason for this you want (a nasty gash, a stunning blow, etc.) to justify the character asking for help.

More over, how would I know if I was in trouble? What tension would there be if I went from fine to dead in the span of a single point. A range exists for a reason.

You, the player, know the character is in trouble when HPs run low. Your character knows he is in trouble when you, the player, decide he knows. The rationalization you come up with for deciding your character thinks he's in trouble is up to you. It could be he's feeling tired. It could be he feels the life draining out of him. It could be that he just feels like he's lost his mojo. The point is, HP don't represent any concrete thing in the gameworld other than your character's ability to continue to participate in the fight. Whatever HPs tell you about the results of combat is simply slotted into the narrative which you create in your own imagination.

Who says you went from fine to dead? You do. If you have a problem with it, then it's your job as the player to imagine a different narrative within the gameworld. HP are there to tell you when your character is bloodied, unconscious and dead, nothing more. If you are having trouble with the idea that a character who is very physically injured (i.e. at 1hp) spontaneously healing his physical injuries through sheer willpower (Second Wind) then stop imagining a character being reduced to 1hp as "very physically injured" and Second Wind as "healing physical injuries through sheer willpower". No one is forcing you to define HP in that way, in fact, from what I've seen of the 4e rules, they actively encourage you not to. Everyone agrees that a single sword stroke can kill a perfectly healthy man, if it hits in the right spot. Did that sword stroke do 500hp damage to a guy with 499hp, or did it do 2hp damage to a guy with 1hp? That's a metagame question, in the gameworld, the effect is exactly the same.

 

[Zimri]

What are your hit points in RL ? what about your stamina, strength dexterity ? DO you have a numerical readout for any of those ? Do you keep track ? What level are you ? How do we compare those ?

I would imagine that very few of us know, or think about any of those things in any "real" sense and yet we make judgements based on them each and every day in Real Life. Why does it break people verisimilitude to acknowledge that fantasy people who rely on these same things even more than us can't ball park it just as well as we can or even better.

If I fail a dexterity check while walking a balance beam at the gym I get humiliated, if a rogue fails one while walking a spiders web over a chasm she falls to her doom. Why can I judge my ability better than her ?

 

[The Little Raven]

Eladin: I can accept that athletes have reserves of energy beyond what they would normally use in a given day and if we accept hitpoints as the ability to defend one's self and resist damage. I don't have a problem with that assumption either. I just want to know what is actually happened.

You want an in-character example?

Inigo Montoya is laying with his back against a wall in Florin Castle, with a Florinese dagger in his gut, courtesy of Count Rugen. He feels his life ebbing away and apologizes to his father's spirit for failing in his quest... who responds with anger for not giving up 20 years ago and letting Domingo Montoya rest... and Inigo's teacher's spirit shows up to yell at Inigo for not remembering what you do with a wound: cover it... Inigo sinks his hand inside his gut to stem the flow of blood from the gaping wound, uses the wall to push himself to his feet, and face's Count Rugen's surprised expression with a simple phrase, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Or the cliche moment in any action movie where the bad guy is winning and he says the wrong thing to the beaten hero, who impossibly pulls himself up from his injury and saves the day.

 

[JohnSnow]

The trick between the notation in the first edition dungeon masters guide and fourth edition is that the told me what hit points approximately where. I don't mind an abstraction but what we've been dealing with so far is less abstract and more undefined. It is all well and good to define it for myself, but what happens if my team has a different definition, and the DM has a third.

If they did what First Ed did, and included just that much detail, that would be enough. That's really all I want, that and consistency.

"Abstract" and "Consistent" are, to a certain extent, mutually exclusive terms.

What First Edition had was a detailed explanation that basically amounted to "hit points are abstract, and represent a combination of factors, including: sheer toughness, luck, the blessing of the gods, and whatever other abilities the character has to turn a lethal blow into a nonlethal one."

It then went into ridiculous detail about recovery of hit points, including justifying things like the amount of time it takes "to reach the physical and metaphysical peak..."

I would like it if Fourth Edition has an explanation somewhat along the following lines, originally written by Mike Mearls for Iron Heroes, to which I have made no other changes beyond cutting out a lot in the middle and substituting the Fourth Edition phrase "Healing Surges" for IH's "Reserve Points" (since they basically amount to the same thing).

"Hit points measure your toughness, endurance, and tenacity. They are an abstract measure, one put in place to enable heroic action in a roleplaying game. They are not supposed to be realistic — no matter how many hit points you lose, your character isn’t hindered in any way until your hit points drop to 0 or lower. Healing Surges represent your resiliency, toughness, and willpower. Since hit point damage has no effect on characters until they reach 0, most effects that damage you cause no more than superficial bleeding, minor scrapes, and bruises. While these injuries can prove life threatening if you sustain many of them in a short period, you can rally your strength quickly if you have time to rest. (Healing Surges) represent your capacity to recharge your energy and shrug off the effects of minor injuries."

Since that's what Mike wrote for Iron Heroes, and he's one of the Fourth Edition developers, I fully expect to see a similar explanation in the Fourth Edition rulebooks somewhere. It may also bear strong similarities to the description for hit points given in Star Wars Saga Edition, which I don't have handy at the moment.

As for not noticing hitpoint loss, that's beyond foolish. My fighter, who's life depends on this knowledge, is unaware that he is fatiguing and slowing down? Bleeding from a number of shallow cuts or the like. If I cannot sense the degradation, it would create a great deal of difficulty for a fighter and more for a cleric.

More over, how would I know if I was in trouble? What tension would there be if I went from fine to dead in the span of a single point. A range exists for a reason.

Of course the fighter knows that he's fatiguing and slowing down. He's also aware that as this happens, he's more vulnerable to serious injury. Furthermore, he realizes that if he could take some time to recover, he'd be able to keep fighting. He also knows (maybe) that he has a number of shallow cuts and bruises. I say "maybe" because like the person who gouges their leg on a hike, the fighter might feel a burn in his side, but not know it's an open wound until after the battle when he has time to check it.

But the range of hit points exists for the player's benefit. What the fighter doesn't know is that one sword strike can't kill him. He just knows that the first one (or 6, or whatever) probably won't do it, assuming he's fresh and alert.

Make sense?