What is a Wound? An attempt to bridge the divide.

[Bedrockgames]

Totally agree with this.

Where I tend to disagree is when perfectly reasonable work arounds are proposed and rejected, simply because they don't baseline to a particular viewpoint. 1 day healing as a baseline is more flexible. It's much easier to simply slow it down, since, for most players, it doesn't really matter - it's going to be one day whether by rules or by spending healing resources. If we baseline a much slower healing rate, the only way to get a faster healing rate is to introduce a higher baseline of magic. Which has all sorts of knock on effects for campaign design. This was largely the default in 3e and earlier editions.

I think your assumptions here are not correct. For most people natural healing time does matter. That is why we have these constant back and forths. It was one of the central points of dispute in the controversy over 4e. Really all you are saying here is we should accept 1 day heals and work around them with modules. While that is exactly what I plan to do, I think one day heals bother enough people that having that as default is a terrible idea. It will only serve to drive away potential players. It is very easy to do baseline natural healing that is inline with previous editions (days to weeks) and simply have an optional 1 day heal rule for people who want it. That is incredibly simple.

I'm just trying to see if the base problem is simply trying to use HP for something that another system might be better at tackling. I do honestly believe that wounds are better modeled with the disease track. It opens up all sorts of interesting goodies when you decouple wounds from hit points.

But lots of us keep saying we don't want a wound system. We are happy with the simplici of traditional Hp and think it works just fine when used to loosely model physical damage. The only problem I have with the Next system is the HD mechanic and one day heals. Take those out and I am a happy man. The last thing I want is more fiddly bits surrounding HP.

Since the link was always tenuous to begin with, I'm not seeing what's being lost.

Simplicity and functionality. Tack on wounds to Hp and the game not only gets more complicated, it plays differently (some of the d20 variants showed this). That is all fine on its own, but it isn't what I want from D&D. Like I said before. I am totally fine with pre-4e style HP and heaing. I thought it worked great for what it did. They could easily satiafy both camps by making that baseline, and just hacing 1 day healing and HD as add on optional rules (and if they prove popular they will become defacto core over time -like NWPs in 2e).

 

[Bedrockgames]

You are overlooking that there is also a group of players that would have liked to keep full 4th healing rules in place that allow you to go into multiple combats a day with full HP. They are as unhappy by the HD/heal overnight rules as you are, but they want them to change in the opposite direction. Maybe the present rules are a compromise between all these fractions.

I can easily see that this may be a compromise that satisfies no one, but that is one of teh many impossible goals D&Dnext is trying to archive.

I do see this and realize there are more than two camps.

This just shows how the mushy middle solution isn't a good one. They should give clear and focused options (standard pre-4e healing for people like me, 4e healing for people like you, etc).

 

[Harlekin]

We are not going to be able to arrive at a definition of wound or hp everyone here can agree on. That is clear from the multiple threads on the subject that just result in both sides attacking each other's assumptions. The only solution that will work is if D&D Next is able to support both ends of the spectrum. If you favor one, or try to meet half way, you will just displease a large number of players.

The secret to these debates is, instead of trying to get the upper hand through definitions and deconstructions (i.e. But if you think a wound is x, surely healing surges are not a problem because of y), people should just sincerely try to understand why the other side takes its position and hwy their assumptions matter to them (instead of trying to understand only with the intend of uprooting the assumption). I get that people who like one day heals or like 4e healing surges do so for a range of completely reasonable assumptions about what is more realistic and what works well in play. I could attack these assumptions, but there is no reason to. Everything fails under scrutiny, because we are dealing with abstractions, but that doesn't make them unreasonable to hold their position. Likewise people like me, who feel the physical component of hp is key and who feel longer natural healing times are better for realism and game play are holding an equally reasonable position. But there is little point in me trying to convince the other side of my point of view. The best thing we can do is say what our preferences are, say what we'd like to see in Next, and hope WOTC makes a hp/heaping system in next we can live with. But these discussions about the nature of hp, the nature of wounds, etc just muddy the waters. All that matters is how many people like hd and one day healing and how many don't. That is what wotc will base their decisions around, not arguments for why one approach is better than the other.

Unfortunately, I think you are right. As Wotc is mainly interested in getting money from all the people that have some connection to D&D now, they need to follow closely to the majority opinion and avoid as many potential points of contention as possible.

If Wotc wanted to design a version of D&D that would attract new players and be a cornerstone to build the brand's future on, the situation would be different. Then they should very much be interested in the rationale for different preferences and determine which version of the rules makes for the best game for the most people.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Related to my above post (and perhaps clarifying it a little):

Anything that can do HP damage can kill you.

So anything that heals HP damage needs to be able to actively remove things that can kill you.

That is, if a hit with a sword deals HP damage, it can kill you. And if an effect heals HP damage, it can mend sword wounds. Permanently. You get those points back, after all.

This looks at the debate in a slightly different light: anything that heals HP is an effect that undoes something potentially fatal. Even if everything but your last 1 HP is all luck and plot points, if a shout from a warlord heals HP it does undo the wound that drops you from 1 hp to 0. You don't just ignore it, you don't just power through it, it effectively never happened.

If HP damage can kill you, then HP healing can undo fatal things.

It's possible to design a game without these assumptions, but D&D definitely has them, and if you want to keep HP as they have been, you need to make sure that (1) nothing is dealing HP damage that is not in some way deadly (forex, cat scratches), and (2) anything that is healing HP is something that can heal potentially fatal injury (forex, magic, guts, regeneration, etc).

 

[Herschel]

Except that doesn't take in to account what's "really" going on with HP. It's kind of like falling: It's not the fall itself that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom.

I do think Incapacitated is a more accurate term than unconscious. That was a good call Angry Mojo.

 

[Deadboy]

Related to my above post (and perhaps clarifying it a little):

Anything that can do HP damage can kill you.

So anything that heals HP damage needs to be able to actively remove things that can kill you.

That is, if a hit with a sword deals HP damage, it can kill you. And if an effect heals HP damage, it can mend sword wounds. Permanently. You get those points back, after all.

This looks at the debate in a slightly different light: anything that heals HP is an effect that undoes something potentially fatal. Even if everything but your last 1 HP is all luck and plot points, if a shout from a warlord heals HP it does undo the wound that drops you from 1 hp to 0. You don't just ignore it, you don't just power through it, it effectively never happened.

If HP damage can kill you, then HP healing can undo fatal things.

It's possible to design a game without these assumptions, but D&D definitely has them, and if you want to keep HP as they have been, you need to make sure that (1) nothing is dealing HP damage that is not in some way deadly (forex, cat scratches), and (2) anything that is healing HP is something that can heal potentially fatal injury (forex, magic, guts, regeneration, etc).

I disagree that D&D has those assumptions and would argue that you're building a ton of assumptions into the system that frankly just aren't there.

Worse, taking such a regimated view of what a HP is totally de-abstracts them, which is not a particularly good thing for either side of the argument.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I disagree that D&D has those assumptions and would argue that you're building a ton of assumptions into the system that frankly just aren't there.

What I'm saying is that this is what HP does, functionally. Regardless of your view of the fiction, mechanically, loosing HP kills you. Thus, regardless of your view of the fiction, mechanically, restoring HP removes the effects of things that can kill you.

By that functional definition:
If it can't kill you, it shouldn't be dealing HP damage.
If it can't repair a mortal wound, it shouldn't be restoring HP.

If you want to change those facts, you have have to change what HP does mechanically (such as not letting 0 hp be the prelude to death).

Worse, taking such a regimated view of what a HP is totally de-abstracts them, which is not a particularly good thing for either side of the argument.

If we're going to talk about these things, we should at least anchor the convo in what they do in the game by the rules.

Then we can see what we might need to adjust to represent different things.

Things like making 0 hp nonfatal, or adding CHA or DEX to HP instead of CON might help to model an abstract/luck/chance model better.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

But, even that rationale doesn't always work.

My character takes 1 point of damage. Now, by your definition, I've been wounded and this will not heal overnight. Only thing is, it does. I could be wrong, but I think pretty much every edition gives you at least 1 HP per night.

Therefore, 1 HP damage isn't actually a wound.

And it gets a bit trickier from there. If I have proper bedrest, I heal faster. Makes sense, totally believable. But, now, at least 2 HP of damage disappear overnight. That's a REALLY comfortable bed if a wound disappears.

No, it's not realistic, but it's a hell of a lot closer than all wounds healing overnight. I can make a concession for speedier gameplay, but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, it's not realistic, but it's a hell of a lot closer than all wounds healing overnight. I can make a concession for speedier gameplay, but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

This is basically where I stand on the issue. Others don't have to agree. I am not terribly interested in persuading anyone to take my position, but at least understand this is where we are coming from. I am totally willing to play Next and work around HD and 1 day heals by houseruling them away, but they are glaring issues for me and I would be much happier if they were not baked into the core as default.

 

[nnms]

Sure. In say Rolemaster, you can have broken ribs, that stab you in the lungs, and cause internal bleeding. But the system also allows for healing broken bones, organ damage, and bleeding. Historically that's not D&D, and it is highly doubtful D&D would adopt such a system. I made the assumption we were talking about D&D here.

Remember, Rolemaster started as a product that supplied optional rules modules for AD&D. Similarly, Runequest started as house rules for D&D (it also has more specific wounds and damage by location). So the traditions of these approaches are part of D&D, back to its early years.