Cabled said:
Well, think of it this way...there's a 5% chance that you weren't hurt as badly as it seemed, just knocked out by the blow. Given the nature of hit points (often debated, but certainly moving more towards the camp of "more than just physical damage" in 4e), this doesn't sound unreasonable. Considering we don't really know anything about the power or availability of healing in 4e as it compares to 3e, it's hard to say if it's better to wake up on your own or not. It looks like hit points get something of a boost in 4e, but so might damage, and healing.
But, the same question can be asked another way.
What happens if the PC was just knocked out by the blow (as per your assertion here)? If he gets healed, he has fewer hit points than if he would have just woken up on his own. The issue remains, regardless of the spin put on the phrase "hit points".
This concept of hit points being "more than physical damage" has issues like this. If they want both stun and body points (or vitality and wound points) or whatever, they should just bite the bullet and add them to the game system.
Hit points really do mean damage, not anything else, regardless of debates to the contrary. A sword hit damages someone, it does not tire him out or stun him. The non-lethal type of damage in 3.5 is called nonlethal for a reason. Normal hit point damage is lethal, even in 4E.
I think that most of the rules here are fine, but the PC should wake up at 1 hit point, not 25% of his max, if he were merely knocked out. If he went to -50 hit points, he still got the stuffing knocked out of him.
These are the type of "specific details" that we will not know until 4E comes out. Hopefully, this 25% on a 20 rule is not part of 4E, but it probably is because it is in this 3.5 adjusted version. Sigh.
The 4E concept of "It should be COOL" is a factor in a rule like this one. It's cool to jump up to 25% of hit points from a freak die roll, but it's silly from a conceptual standpoint. A cool rule for the sake of introducing a cool rule, but a lame rule otherwise.
And for my game, the problem with "the cool rules" is that they make it difficult to house rule them away. The players become disappointed when the DM decides to remove the silly or illogical cool rules like the player jumps to 25% of his hit total, just because he rolled a 20. Why? Because the rule says so, not for any real valid logical reason.
Another thing that I find interesting about this new system is that PCs are MORE likely to die when in negatives in 4E than in 3.5 in many cases.
The only time in 3E where the chance of dying was greater was when the PC was hit for high negatives. But at -1 to -5 hit points, the chances to die in 4E are greater than in 3.5.
In 3.5, a PC at -1 hit points had a 61% chance of self stabilizing. A PC at -5 hit points had a 41% chance of self stabilizing.
In 4E, a PC at -whatever has a 14.26% chance of surviving and a 12.5% chance of dying after 3 rounds. After 4 rounds, it becomes 17.9% chance of survival and ~28.2% chance of dying. 5 rounds, 20.6% and ~40%. Overall, the odds are about 35% of self survival and 65% of death (shy of fellow PC assistance). And these odds are identical, regardless of whether the PC is at -1 or -50.
So, 1 unconsciousness in 8, a PC will die if a fellow PC does not get to him in 3 rounds. 1 in 6 if not within 4 rounds. For a TPK or near TPK, each PC has a 2 in 3 chance of dying.
This hardly agrees with Andy's statement:
Among other problems, this also meant that characters effectively had no way to “lose” a combat except by being killed. This removes a lot of dramatic possibilities for the story—for instance, the classic scene of the characters being captured and thrown in a cell from which they have to escape using only their wits and a pack of chewing gum (or whatever).
If the math doesn't work for unconsciousness (i.e. most PCs will die, not survive a TPK for such a classic scene), what other math does not work in 4E?
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
