Warlords Heal?

[Relique du Madde]

Sooo... does that mean that the Warlord has killed both the Paladin and the Bard and took their stuff?

 

[tenkar]

Sooo... does that mean that the Warlord has killed both the Paladin and the Bard and took their stuff?

He killed the Bard but he only robbed the Paladin...

 

[Li Shenron]

HP as an abstraction make even less sense to me then a martial class magically healing wounds in a non-magical way. I get hit by a fireball and burned and I.. am not burned? I'm just discouraged? That's pretty absurd, IMHO.

You know, every single rule in the game is absurd if you think too much about it

 

[FireLance]

Sooo... does that mean that the Warlord has killed both the Paladin and the Bard and took their stuff?

I think he killed the crusader, not the paladin.

 

[mhensley]

He killed the Bard but he only robbed the Paladin...

I have to like anything that killed the Bard.

 

[allenw]

And in a mechanical context these issues clearly delineate morale and luck as seperate from HP. Otherwise they would affect HP, so if it isn't morale and luck and being struck with weapons reduces it HP must represent actual physical damage. Now this is inherently unrealistic but as a factor that's also coming into play at a level by which game play is modeling something more like comic book superheroes than anything remotely plausible. The problem of versimilitude from people who have to tie mechanics into a reality they aren't intended to model is what caused the bit about "abstraction" to pop up.

It's occurred to me more than once that PCs are not unlike Highlander-style immortals. They kill things and take their stuff, including XP = "life energy" = hit points (eventually).

 

[king_ghidorah]

Of course, you realize that the explanation of hit points being an abstract combination of more factors than just your ability to deal with damage goes back to essays by Gygax, and pretty much has been part of D&D since... well, D&D. Hit points being abstract has been an official part of AD&D, AD&D 2nd edition, AD&D 3rd edition... that's pretty old fashioned in my book.

And the problems with this abstraction are also pretty old-fashioned, too.

But if you accept the rules as they are, you really need to accept that HP are not intended to and do not actually model sheer physical injury.

I'm a bit old fashioned (?) and like to think hp as something that drops when something actually damages you. After all, if it's basically your morale, will to fight, luck etc then why don't spells like bane, crushing despair, ray of exhaustion and fear do hit points damage? They are reducing your will to fight and are an opposite to inspirational boosts.

Furthermore, shouldn't spells like bless, good hope and prayer give you extra hp to reflect inspiring presence of divine? They are giving you "morale bonus" after all. Shouldn't they be able to heal as well as "cure light wounds" spell can?

That being mentioned. Why is cure light wounds able to cure all hp damage if some of the damage is supposed to be representing bad luck, bad morale and exhaustion with real physical damage coming into play only when you are really low on hp? If it's the inspirational boost coming from healing, shouldn't spells like restoration also heal?

It might very well supposed to represent all what you said above and maybe I'm thinking things too far, but in my head mechanics and naming doesn't seem to support hp as mere "abstract" for damage, mental and physical exhaustion, morale etc.

 

[shilsen]

It's occurred to me more than once that PCs are not unlike Highlander-style immortals. They kill things and take their stuff, including XP = "life energy" = hit points (eventually).

IIRC, the Birthright setting actually took that into account, with PCs and creatures that had the right bloodlines gaining power from the death of others.

 

[JohnSnow]

Of course, you realize that the explanation of hit points being an abstract combination of more factors than just your ability to deal with damage goes back to essays by Gygax, and pretty much has been part of D&D since... well, D&D. Hit points being abstract has been an official part of AD&D, AD&D 2nd edition, AD&D 3rd edition... that's pretty old fashioned in my book.

And the problems with this abstraction are also pretty old-fashioned, too.

But if you accept the rules as they are, you really need to accept that HP are not intended to and do not actually model sheer physical injury.

I'd disagree with that - sorta.

Things like poison that requires you to do HP damage to take effect implies that hit points do, in fact, model physical injury. What they do not do is model the degree of physical injury. You haven't lost half of your "life energy" when your hit points are down by half. You've lost half of your ability to avoid serious injury.

And to me, that's what hit points represent - your ability to avoid serious injury when you get hit. They're a "heroic buffer" to serious injury that represents grit, toughness, determination, divine destiny, and pure f'ing luck.

D&D is not a realistic game. It never tries to be. It's a game intended to model heroic fiction. And in heroic fiction, the hero is never down until he's actually DEAD. He might seem to be down, but you never know whether this really is his "last stand" or whether he's going to recover and win. There's a lot of good cinematic examples of characters "getting better" for no reason...

Emmet pulling off his head bandage in Silverado (which ought to be required viewing for D&D players).
Inigo recovering after taking a knife to the gut in The Princess Bride.
Darth Vader, who's nearly dead when he goes down in Jedi recovering and chucking the Emperor down the shaft.
John McClane in Die Hard - too many times to count.
Aragorn in the film version of The Two Towers - over a cliff and recovers.

And countless others.

The way I see it, a character can be at "full hit points" but still sporting visible injuries. They could also have lost hit points but be "uninjured." The point is that the injuries are just not life threatening, for whatever reason: they stopped bleeding (either on their own or they were treated), they missed all major organs, they didn't sever any tendons, etc. As long as no poison is involved, a character can have lost hit points without ever taking a cut. And all poison requires is a superficial scratch (so that it at least makes sense).

Very similar injuries could turn out to be minor (a clean cut, or stops bleeding on its own), severe (it severs a muscle or tendon, or the bleeding has to be stopped with treatment), or deadly (it gets infected, gives the character tetanus, goes gangrenous, or the bleeding just can't be stopped).

You can determine that all damage is of the first type, but it makes more sense to me to only decide that after the fact. Think of hit points as a storytelling aid and they make much more sense. They're a seemingly simulationist element that only make sense when you look at them in a narrativist way.

And, viewed from that perspective, there's nothing wrong with nonmagical healing, morale boosts that give you extra hit points, abilities like second wind, or even reserve points. They're just gamist elements that enable story.

 

[see]

Let's get totally old-school. Let's quote Gary Gygax, AD&D Player's Handbook (1978), p.34

"Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment."

"Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces."

"Rest also restores hit points, for it gives the body a chance to heal itself and regain the stamina or force which adds the skill, luck, and magical hit points."

So, anything can be justified as restoring hit points if we can explain it as healing actual wounds, restoring stamina, or supplying magical force. A morale effect that inspires a person to draw on reserves of energy they cannot otherwise tap (whether those are bodily reserves, magical ones, or spiritual ones) accordingly makes perfect sense as a way to restore hit points.