Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?

[Dausuul]

The discussion is not complicated enough...

...let's add coup the grace to the fray!

My proposal: If you get coup de graced, your hit points drop to zero and then damage is applied from there--kind of like 4E's "healing counts up from zero," but in reverse.

This assumes the coup de grace is performed as a standard action in a combat situation. If somebody has time to pause, get in a good position, and then slit your throat, no mechanic is necessary. You just die.

 

[Kingreaper]

Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm—the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter’s exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points."

You'll notice the bold part. Every hit deals some damage. Yes, luck, divine providence, skill, etc is a part of it. But every hit deals damage. It's never just damage. It's never NOT damage. It's both. 4e changed that, and ended up with pretty speeches closing sucking chest wounds.

So say people who don't actually understand 4e.

You say it was never just damage. Okay then. So, let's start: why is that a sucking chest wound, rather than, as used in the rest of your post, a nick, scratch or bruise?


Why is it being healed, rather than, as used in the rest of your post, ignored/overcome?

I mean, the surge is still lost, the damage is still lasting, but you choose to narrate it as a speech closing a sucking chest wound.

The only plausible interpretation is that either A) you want to make 4e look silly, because you want an excuse to hate it.
or
B) you were convinced that that's what 4e entailed by someone who wanted to make you hate it.

I'll be charitable and assume it's B.

So here's an education. In 4e:

Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm—the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter’s exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises."

He will not have a sucking chest wound.
As such, when the warlord gives him an encouraging speech, he will feel restored, and the HP will be back, but the wounds will remain (in the form of a lost surge)

 

[Libramarian]

The way I think about/narrate HP is...

First of all, I make a distinction between killing blows and nonkilling blows. Killing blows are suitably dramatic. Nonkilling blows are sometimes narrated sometimes not. I don't relativize nonkilling blows much by the target's remaining HP. A roll of 8 with a 1d8 weapon is always a solid blow, a 1 is always a weak blow. If you don't relativize the damage roll, then you can let it "speak for itself" without narrating the damage.

High level characters are able to keep fighting with more damage sustained. High level monsters/animals can do this because they are physically larger. High level PCs/NPCs can do this because...a little bit of a) physically tougher, b) better training, c) spiritually driven.

Low level characters have "glass chins". It doesn't take that much damage to throw them off their game such that the next blow is a killing one. High level characters get beaten within an inch of their life and still keep fighting.

So I don't actually have a problem with morale/spiritual HP effects. What I DO have a problem with are effects that key off of a percentage of HP, like a healing spell or rest restoring 25% of HP. I think of high level characters @ 25% HP as being in worse shape than low level characters @ 25% HP. So it should take more time/magical oomph to heal them.

Unfortunately I suspect we'll see that idea (percentage HP) quite a bit in 5e.

 

[Libramarian]

But in that moment of the combat how is the difference described? Describing something way after the fact is a little difficult unless you are writing down each how much damage each "hit" does seperately. I think most of us just subtract hit points from the total hit point pool, we don't have a list of the damage we have taken.

Hmm, though what if we did? Just trying to think of other ways to deal with hit points here ...

I occasionally count damage up to a kill value instead of down to zero, as a house rule.

What if any hit that did less than 1/4 of your hit points in damage got recovered immediately after an encounter? That type of damage could reperesent the ability of a character to shrug off the minor bruises and cuts and move on. Any hit that does more that 1/4 damage would actually need rest or first aid or magical healilng to recover from?

Nah like I say I don't like fractional HP effects.

High level characters don't have a more efficient engine; they have a larger tank of gas. You can go on for longer, but when you stop it takes more money to fill it up. I like that both in terms of "fluff" and in terms of "game".

 

[Libramarian]

Either we change HP scaling completely, making it much much slower, and increase defense scaling to compensate.

OR

We have a world where a fighter with 27 arrows in him is able to carry on fighting just fine.

Classically a PC gained the ability to withstand one more hit per level, up to name level, and then HP gain slowed down after that.

So a 10th level character would be able to fight with 9 arrows in him, which is heroic but not completely unreasonable.

50 cent survived being shot 9 times.

I likewise don't consider falling damage to be so nonsensical when HP scaling is kept in check.

It is possible, though unlikely to die from a 10 ft fall, and possible, though unlikely to survive a 60 ft fall, particularly if it's down a ravine or waterfall as is often the case in a game of D&D, rather than the experimentally controlled straight drop onto concrete as people often seem to assume when discussing this issue.

Toning down the scaling solves many problems. It is a Good Thing.

(You don't necessarily need to increase defense scaling to compensate for reduced HP scaling. You just need to reduce damage scaling.)

 

[Kingreaper]

It is possible, though unlikely to die from a 10 ft fall, and possible, though unlikely to survive a 60 ft fall, particularly if it's down a ravine or waterfall as is often the case in a game of D&D, rather than the experimentally controlled straight drop onto concrete as people often seem to assume when discussing this issue.

It's possible, though rare, to survive a fall during which you reached Terminal Velocity.

It requires a heck of a lot of luck though

 

[bert1000]

Wow, sacred cows and naming conventions really did in the 4e method, even though I think it is pretty good.


Imagine a 4e where instead,


Hitpoints are called "Heroic Points" and measure your ability to keep fighting baring some intervention (this means all the abstract stuff that hit points traditionally represent)


Bloodied is called "Extended" and represents you wearing down in a fight and can trigger stuff as ususal in 4e


Healing surges are called "Heroic Surges'' and represent an intervention (e.g, magical healing, self-motivation, being rallied by an ally) that allows you to extend your ability to keep fighting


You have a number of "Hit Points" equal to your Heroic Surges left. When your Hit Points and Heroic Points are 0 you die. Hit Points represent your physical condition/wounds.


This is basically 4e but if painted like this might not have rubbed some people the wrong way (or not...).


4e does allow all Healing Surges (Hit Points in the alternate naming) to be regained in one night but it's an easy house rule to slow down the rate that Healing Surges (Hit Points in the alternate naming) are regained depending on your taste (only by magic in one night, much slower through natural healing). You could also tie these new "Hit Points" to a condition track if you wanted to.

 

[Kingreaper]

You have a number of "Hit Points" equal to your Heroic Surges left. When your Hit Points and Heroic Points are 0 you die. Hit Points represent your physical condition/wounds.

Why do you track "Hit Points" and Heroic Surges as seperate things if they're always equal?


For flavour, I prefer modifying surges into wounds to calling surges Hit Points. If nothing else, letting hitpoints remain hitpoints seems like it'll ease entry. Although Heroic Points are, at least, still "HP"

Wounds are what surges generally are, underneath all the dust, in 4th ed.

The other good renaming option I've seen is having Heroic Surges, but making them less tied to healing than 4e ones, and more usable for other heroic deeds.

 

[JonWake]

Wounds are what surges generally are, underneath all the dust, in 4th ed.

Hot damn, that right there is a revelation.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Classically a PC gained the ability to withstand one more hit per level, up to name level, and then HP gain slowed down after that.

So a 10th level character would be able to fight with 9 arrows in him, which is heroic but not completely unreasonable.

50 cent survived being shot 9 times.

I likewise don't consider falling damage to be so nonsensical when HP scaling is kept in check.

It is possible, though unlikely to die from a 10 ft fall, and possible, though unlikely to survive a 60 ft fall, particularly if it's down a ravine or waterfall as is often the case in a game of D&D, rather than the experimentally controlled straight drop onto concrete as people often seem to assume when discussing this issue.

Toning down the scaling solves many problems. It is a Good Thing.

(You don't necessarily need to increase defense scaling to compensate for reduced HP scaling. You just need to reduce damage scaling.)

You are absolutely correct on what you say here. The only real issue though is one of amount.

50 cent getting shot nine times and surviving or a heroic fighter being embedded by nine arrows and continuing on are possible... but rare. However, in D&D the way the game itself works is that a fighter takes nine arrows to the chest, survives, gets touched on the head by a Cure Light Wounds wand 15 times, then gets back up and within 15 minutes gets into another fight where he gets embedded by nine arrows again and somehow survives it again.

And this happens over and over and over.

It's ironic that for all the talk of finding ways to cut back on the '15 minute work day'... the game instead sets up a situation where it expects warriors to get wounded and on the verge of death 2, 3, 5, 10 times in a single day. How ridiculous is that? I mean, just think about the psychological issues of being severely injured and in unimaginable pain several times a day (even if you then get 'healed' right afterwards.) Ever been burned alive? I haven't... but I imagine that if I was once... I'd never want to go through that agony again. And yet our D&D characters sit right in the middle of fireballs that drop them to 0 how many times during the course of a campaign? They get caught up in traps that make the Saw movies look quaint... and yet right before they die the cleric runs up, pats him on the head, and removes all the physical injury in a few seconds and the guy somehow says "Whoa! Glad that's over! Okay, onto the next room with the 15 orcs with battleaxes!", completely forgetting how much pain and suffering he was just in.

This is why we make the claims that hit points shouldn't be actual physical wounds (ones that require magical healing or week-long bedrest.) Because just as 'immersion-breaking' the healing surge mechanic is... the 'attack damage cause physical wounds' concept is just as ridiculous (if not ten times worse).