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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 4043946" data-attributes="member: 32164">Emphasis Mine.You're right. That's the crux of the problem. But the notion that hit points are abstract is hardly new. Most of those of us who regard hit points as abstract have been playing the game for decades. And we can support our view of hit points as being "mostly abstract" based on information from the first Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Gary never believed that hit points represented the character's ability to take actual physical damage. Back then, hit points were mostly abstract, especially at high levels.The notion of hit points as being anything but abstract is mostly confined to one book in the history of D&D - the Third Edition Epic Level Handbook.From what I've heard, some people have embraced that notion, but others (myself included) have rejected it entirely. We like and embrace the abstract nature of hit points, which is much more consistent with how they've been portrayed for the bulk of the history of the game. So we see the Fourth Edition approach as being more in tune with the D&D we know. Basically, all they're doing is reconciling the power-based recovery of hit points with the way they're been portrayed in all other aspects of the game.</blockquote>