D&D 5E what is it about 2nd ed that we miss?

[Water Bob]

That's the section I'm familiar with. I guess I just mis-understood what you meant by 'continue' - apparently you just meant survive, unconscious, rather than 'continue to act.' Sorry for the confusion.

No, that was my fault. I remembered the section incorrectly. I thought I remembered a character continuing to act while int he negatives instead of what it is--conditions assigned to certain hp counts.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But this is the bit that I don't understand. In this case, why can't the hp recovery be recovery of the capacity to go on despite the physical injury?

The biggest issue is that it makes the physical trauma disappear from the model, such that the model no longer reflects the reality.

A good way to visualize the old model that I (and those like me) used during 2E and 3E is to think of two separate tracks. The first track is your maximum HP, which represents your personal capacity to withstand physical trauma - how much of a beating you can take before you fall unconscious. The second track is the damage you have taken, which is how beaten up you currently are. Unconsciousness happens when the second track extends beyond the first track. (You could also think of HP as a bucket, and damage as water which can fill that bucket, with unconsciousness happening if the water overflows the bucket.)

The value of your maximum HP represents a combination of different factors that aren't really worth tracking individually. These are your skill, your actual physical toughness, etc. This number goes up when you gain a level, or when your Con score changes, or you are under the effects of certain spells.

The amount of damage you have taken is only that one thing, though. It goes up when you suffer physical trauma. It goes away when that damage is healed, either naturally over time or instantly through magic.

Inspirational healing (including things like Second Wind) attempts to change the first thing (your capacity to withstand trauma) by instead changing the second thing (the amount of trauma you are currently suffering), under the logic that the only thing we really care about is how those two values relate to each other. And that logic just doesn't hold, because some people actually do care about whether someone is hurt-and-fighting-through-it or not-hurt-at-all. Those are two vastly different narrative states, and a good model should be able to distinguish between the two.

Aside from that conceptual issue, the most obvious gameplay problem occurs when you look at the characters deciding who to heal. With our traditional model, they can look at someone who is beaten up and immediately determine that they need healing. With inspirational healing, they can look at someone who is beaten up and not know if they need healing, or if healing would even do anything. An injured character who has been inspired up to full is incapable of benefiting from healing magic, because their wounds are strictly cosmetic at this point.

For RP purposes, you might still want to heal those wounds anyway, but we don't have any information about how bad those wounds look, since the rules of the game - our language for understanding how the world works - all agree that the character looks just fine. It also creates a conflict between the character who wants to help their friend, and the player who wants to conserve resources in order to increase the chance of survival, and it's never a good idea to exacerbate the gap between player and character.

 

[Water Bob]

So unless you make every single "real" hit a death blow that theory doesn't work in 2e by default.

Let's not forget that it's not only Hit Points that are abstract. That attack roll is abstract.

A melee attack can mean a single blow is attempted, or it can mean that several attacks are made during the round.

 

[Maxperson]

Off the top of my head I'm reminded of the 2e falling damage rules and mention of someone surviving a 33,330 foot fall.

Well, duh! If you want to kill someone, it takes at least 33,331 feet. Seriously, though, I'm okay with that every once in a while. It does happen.

http://www.today.com/news/skydiving-miracle-man-falls-two-miles-2D80556106

Once you get past that first mile, it's all the same

I just want to know who you have to piss off to fall 2 miles into a THORN bush.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Perhaps the combat roll is just as much an abstraction, and that rather than have you role +10 when you're at full HP, and then gradually dropping to +2 when you're nearly at 0 HP, you just get to roll +6 all along.

That abstraction fits perfectly with the HP abstraction. Or it doesn't...whatever you prefer. I think it's pretty clear at this point that HP mean different things to different players.

 

[pemerton]

This is a test post to see if I can somehow get past post 480 to the more recent posts (including a reply to me from [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]).

OK - I can see my test post, which is number 556, but not the intervening 75 posts!

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]: I was able to see your post by opening a "reply" window. I wanted to respond to this bit:

With our traditional model, they can look at someone who is beaten up and immediately determine that they need healing. With inspirational healing, they can look at someone who is beaten up and not know if they need healing, or if healing would even do anything. An injured character who has been inspired up to full is incapable of benefiting from healing magic, because their wounds are strictly cosmetic at this point.

I don't agree that the PC can't see who needs healing. I explained my narration of this upthread (post 447, and I think one of the posts I can't see): the cleric, warlord or whomever can see whose spirits are flagging, who is slowing down, etc, and speak a word of inspiration or benediction that restores hope/courage/resolve.

For RP purposes, you might still want to heal those wounds anyway, but we don't have any information about how bad those wounds look, since the rules of the game - our language for understanding how the world works - all agree that the character looks just fine. It also creates a conflict between the character who wants to help their friend, and the player who wants to conserve resources in order to increase the chance of survival

Once the wounds are "cosmetic" (as you put it) - ie they don't have any mechanical impact - than healing (in the natural language sense, not the mechanical sense) can be handled without too many mechanical worries, can't it?

(Also, the character won't look fine, of course - s/he will look injured - but ex hypothesi will not be impeded by those injuries.)

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't agree that the PC can't see who needs healing. I explained my narration of this upthread (post 447, and I think one of the posts I can't see): the cleric, warlord or whomever can see whose spirits are flagging, who is slowing down, etc, and speak a word of inspiration or benediction that restores hope/courage/resolve.

Minions aside, 4E was actually super consistent about HP for anyone who wanted to play damage and healing as 99% avoidance, and you could also fit that model into 2E or 3E if you were so inclined. It's just that, if you wanted to view wounds and healing as primarily physical, which wasn't much of an issue in 2E or 3E, then inspiration healing didn't jive so well with that.

Once the wounds are "cosmetic" (as you put it) - ie they don't have any mechanical impact - than healing (in the natural language sense, not the mechanical sense) can be handled without too many mechanical worries, can't it?

No, because that whole world model doesn't jive with the idea of cosmetic wounds. It doesn't accept that something as significant as a wound can exist if it isn't reflected in the model - if you actually are wounded, then it would be reflected somewhere; if the rules don't reflect it, then it can't be the case. If you have one fighter who looks super beaten up, and another who looks just fine, then there should be a mechanical difference between them.

I mean, I can get why some people wouldn't care about that sort of thing, but it feels like it comes from the same place as re-fluffing and re-skinning that is anathema to simulation.

Edit: I'm also only seeing the first 48 pages of this thread. It says your post was 480, but then mine was 554. There's definitely something weird going on with the forums.

 

[Psikerlord#]

All I know is, as a player and GM, I like to describe serious swords wounds etc once a target is bloodied, and then again when reduced to zero hp. Very slow natural healing seems to fit this model better than overnight full reset. And that's why I prefer slow healing.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

.... and that rather than have you role +10 when you're at full HP, and then gradually dropping to +2 when you're nearly at 0 HP, you just get to roll +6 all along.

I actually proposed something like this ("to hit" scaling with the current shape of the combatant, i.e. HP) on the BioWare forums, back in the day when they were designing DAO and during that discussion it became apparent that it would lead to some unwelcome mechanics. Like accelerated defeats (the side that loses, will loose ever faster as the battle progresses), accelerated victories and protracted stalemates (when to sides fight at roughly the same level, their fight will likely last much more longer as their TH factor drops with their HPs.