Why Not Just Call Them Stamina Points?

[Jeff Wilder]

Funny this is exactly the same logic that I use to rationalize the new healing rules. And it works for exactly the same reasons.

That's because the change is only the elimination of the "licking their wounds for days or weeks" part. Other than that, 4E HPs are pretty much the same as 1E-3.5 HPs.

 

[bramadan]

Taking DnD aside, can anyone mention to me an example in fiction or movies where Hero takes a noticeable physical injury (one that would take more then a night's rest to recover) and not have that injury affect their immediate combat performance.

Sure, they sometimes triumph over the adversity of their wound but the (serious) wound is never presented as being irrelevant.

Reason that is so is that the human pin-cushions that keep on going in the style of Holy Grail's Black Knight kill suspension of disbelief much more quickly then any sort of healing.

Now, in game terms having wounds act in the way they do in fiction/real life creates the death-spiral and is considered a bad thing. Therefore DnD chooses to end the combat when the first "real" injury happens.

Therefore only inconsistency in the system is that it does not demand magical healing or long rest once a character has been reduced to 0 HP. If you value verisimilitude demand this as a house rule and you have got a very decent combat system simulation.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Taking DnD aside, can anyone mention to me an example in fiction or movies where Hero takes a noticeable physical injury (one that would take more then a night's rest to recover) and not have that injury affect their immediate combat performance.

The general problem here is that people in movies don't make skill checks, we don't get to see their rolls, modifiers or DCs. It's all flavour text

 

[Corinth]

Yes, you're right, and the game-designer who created the rules and described them is wrong.

*rolleyes*

What someone claims to be true isn't valid when the actual result that emerge from their use contradicts those statements. Deeds, not words, matter and that's how and why a designer can be--and has been--wrong about their own works. This is the case here; the evidence produced from the system's work denies the engineer's stated hypothesis.

 

[Kzach]

What someone claims to be true isn't valid when the actual result that emerge from their use contradicts those statements. Deeds, not words, matter and that's how and why a designer can be--and has been--wrong about their own works. This is the case here; the evidence produced from the system's work denies the engineer's stated hypothesis.

No, it really doesn't.