The D&D game has never really been like the EverQuest/Warcraft model of 'must have tank, healer, enchanter or we can't go,'...
I really disagree with you. Back in 1e AD&D, where there were limited options and a cleric was a cleric was a cleric, you had to fill the roles. If you didn't have a thief, you were screwed on traps. If you didn't have a cleric, no healing. If you didn't have a magic user, no offensive spells, and if you didn't have a fighter, no real hand-to-hand combat ability.
Roles come from the roots of the game.
Having said that, I like the versatility that 3.5e offers, but to say that D&D was never role defined is really not correct.
Greg
I'm not surprised by anything said here, again. WotC is telling me I can now do something I've been doing in 3.5 for 8 years with little or NO effort for me and my players with NO trouble whatsoever. But now apparently I need a whole new system to do it. No THANK you. :-)
So I'm pulling Jeff's quote out here because it's emblematic of a series of posts by various people, not to pick on Jeff.
I think that you present a very pessimistic view of what is being said here. While it may be true that you've seen this kind of mechanic (by which I mean running D&D without the need for magical healing) before, it wasn't part of the core D&D game experience. Now, it may not seem that important, given that very few people run core only, and I can understand why you'd say such a system was "old hat." However, the more important part of such changes is that, with these ideas being integrated into the core of what 4th Edition is, it allows those assumptions to be used in a whole variety of supplements, adventures, and sourcebooks. Also, since no change exists in a vacuum, having non-magical healing (to continue using the example, though it can certainly be applied to dozens of other concepts being used in 4E)) integrated into the core rules means that every auxiliary system in the game has been tweaked and balanced to play well with those rules. While it's easy to say, "Here's a nonmagical healing system" off the cuff, it's more difficult to predict how that interacts with the various other systems in the game.
Compatibility is a big part of why integrated various concepts, some of which have been around a while, into the core rules is so important. It might be easy for me to try and run a game with no divine magic if I'm doing it in isolation with only a few books, but if I try and run Age of Worms with no divine magic it can become tricky, because many supplements and adventures have only the core rules baseline to go off of. It's not that the idea of non-magical healing is revolutionary, it's that, by making it a core assumption, you open the door for new campaign worlds and adventures that also make that assumption without the need for a designer to design a whole new healing system or take into account the healing methods when designing their new core class/feat/spell/whatever.
Like the old saying goes, there's nothing new under the sun, but I think the way D&D takes the best ideas and puts them toward promoting the D&D experience is its biggest strength.
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A lot of people have good points, but I don't buy that one. If your suspension of disbelief is still going strong when you're pretending to be a fictional person in a land of magic, elves, and dragons, dying on the ground while, in reality, you sip Mountain Dew and munch on some chips at a comfortable table with your friends, it's not going to be broken, suddenly, when the Warlord yells at you (or does whatever it is that he does) to get up and you manage to fight on, ignoring some of your wounds. It's different to what we are all used to, but it's no worse than anything else we imagine every day while playing an PnP RPG.One of the nice things about the roles is that they let you play around with power sources without messing up the basic structure of the game. You can totally do a no magic game with the PH by sticking to the fighter, rogue, warlord, and ranger. You wouldn't have a controller, but it is possible to create a martial one.But this was possible in 3.5. It just hurt without any healing. Can it be done in 4th without healing?
Oh wait... Nevermind. I forgot the Warlord could convince you to run a marathon on two broken legs.
Carry on.
That's exactly why non-magical healing totally breaks suspension of disbelief for me. I'm unconscious and possibly dying from multiple serious injuries, and I jump up like nothing's wrong if some guys he calls himself a warlord tells me too. How can that be possible without magic? I know hp can be more than physical health, but if you are in the negatives hp-wise, you have some serious physical injury.
Well, for me it does. All of the things you mention do make sense in the context of how things work in D&D (obviously not the real world). Things like non-magical healing (beyond what a heal check can do in 3.5) from simple words of encouragement from a warlord don't make sense in the context of D&D as it has been played up until now. Paladin smites that heal someone 30ft away also fall into this catergory.
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A lot of people have good points, but I don't buy that one. If your suspension of disbelief is still going strong when you're pretending to be a fictional person in a land of magic, elves, and dragons, dying on the ground while, in reality, you sip Mountain Dew and munch on some chips at a comfortable table with your friends, it's not going to be broken, suddenly, when the Warlord yells at you (or does whatever it is that he does) to get up and you manage to fight on, ignoring some of your wounds. It's different to what we are all used to, but it's no worse than anything else we imagine every day while playing an PnP RPG.I think if you frame healing magic as repairing physical injury, non-magical healing creates a suspension of disbelief problem. That being said, 4e is not framing healing magic as being about repairing physical injury. 4e hit points appear to be so far abstracted away from wounds and healing that they should almost abandon the terms wounds and healing.
4e's healing system is an entirely different level of abstraction from any prior edition. Any argument that proceeds from the assumption that healing and hit points mean the same thing between editions is flawed from the get go. If you don't want more abstract combat, you won't like 4e because the various "healing" abilities are not actually healing anything. However, with that in mind, it's not really a fair criticism of 4e to frame healing in 3e terms and then complain that 4e is doing something absurd (e.g., causing your broken arm to heal because your friend shouts out "you rock!" during combat) when it operates completely differently in game terms (e.g., you are exhausted and find it difficult to continue fighting and your friend shouts out "you rock!" and you decide to press on because he has inspired you). 4e healing makes sense in the context of 4e damage.
It's funny because the same strawman would frequently come up in people's complaints about 2e round lengths. Each round lasted a minute...
Here's my problem with separating hit points from physical damage. If you aren't being hurt, how do you die or get near death? Do you get fatigued or disheartened to death? You see how ludicrous that sounds. It might be possible to die of exhasution, and you are less likely to recover from physical trauma if you are "depressed", but D&D characters don't die or have a brush with death due to fatigue and moral. They get crushed, cut, stabbed, burned, poisoned, or disintigrated. Likewise, your opponents don't die because you intimidated or exhausted them to death. They die because you have beaten, slashed, pummeled, torched, or electrocuted them. I think you get my point.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Here's my problem with separating hit points from physical damage. If you aren't being hurt, how do you die or get near death? Do you get fatigued or disheartened to death? You see how ludicrous that sounds. It might be possible to die of exhasution, and you are less likely to recover from physical trauma if you are "depressed", but D&D characters don't die or have a brush with death due to fatigue and moral. They get crushed, cut, stabbed, burned, poisoned, or disintigrated. Likewise, your opponents don't die because you intimidated or exhausted them to death. They die because you have beaten, slashed, pummeled, torched, or electrocuted them. I think you get my point.
How do people die in movies? Do they get their arms and legs crippled, actually slow down as a result of injuries, and then through cumulative damage die? Villians in particular get beaten up, seem to be dead, get back up again as if they are not hurt, seem to be dead, get back up again as if they are not hurt, and then finally take a bullet to the head and a witty comment. That's the model your looking at - the last killing blow is the stab in the heart, the decapitation, etc. Everything before that is just some minor cuts and scratches. It's a cinematic style of combat.
How do people die in movies? Do they get their arms and legs crippled, actually slow down as a result of injuries, and then through cumulative damage die? Villians in particular get beaten up, seem to be dead, get back up again as if they are not hurt, seem to be dead, get back up again as if they are not hurt, and then finally take a bullet to the head and a witty comment. That's the model your looking at - the last killing blow is the stab in the heart, the decapitation, etc. Everything before that is just some minor cuts and scratches. It's a cinematic style of combat.
*The light spell just went off over the kobold's head.*
Now it makes sense to me. That's not what I am looking for in a D&D game. If I want cinematic, I'll play exalted or d6 star wars or another game like that. With D&D, I like grit in my teeth.
I can see that, but sometimes, even in movies, people just get crushed or shot and they are history. I guess it just depends on what type of feel you are after.
they would probably be NPC's in 4e (die at 0 hp) :P
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Even though it really doesn't work for D&D, I love movies where someone just gets shot in the face and dies. Taxi Driver, Chinatown etc.. I hope 4th edition can find a happy medium between cartoon and realistic violence. For some reason "healing magic" just makes sense when compared to "shouts"(GW fans) of encouragement that lift a bleeding PC off his feet and push him back into the fray.
I really don't understand how people can qualify the HP system of 3.5E as gritty or lethal... HP has alway been a cinematic and abstract way of covering damage... You want to kill a character with a gun shot to the head? Try that against a level 10 fighter with 110hp and explain to me how DnD 3.5E damage are gritty instead of highly cinematic? Good luck! Dying in 3.5 is pretty tough.. mid level resurection are so commun and easy to cast that they are boring...I don't see any change in 4E lethaly level.. only more option...a little more cinematic maybe... But if you want gritty death try Warhammer Fantasy RPG or Dark Heresy...
I really don't understand how people can qualify the HP system of 3.5E as gritty or lethal...
Well... A couple of things here.
First, compared to many other "popular" (as popular as you can be without being D&D) RPG's, D&Ds HPs are gritty. Or, at least were.
Second, I am willing to bet that most of the people that want "gitty" D&D use a modified critical system (such as this). It is true that these systems could be used in 4th - from what we know so far - but it seems that more than any other edition doing so would be against the spirit of the edition...
Dark Heresy isn't that gritty, from what I have read. Particularly if you factor in the fact it is supposed to be a high tech universe (and for some reason, high tech is always more gritty than high fantasy). If WFRPG is a similar system, I won't call it that gritty either. But, I don't think a game is gritty if you can't die with one hit.
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Even though it really doesn't work for D&D, I love movies where someone just gets shot in the face and dies. Taxi Driver, Chinatown etc.. I hope 4th edition can find a happy medium between cartoon and realistic violence.
Umm, I know you're trying to make an example here, but it's just not working for me. In the closing shootout of Taxi Driver, most people take a significant amount of punishment before falling, and the "hero" takes like 9 bullets and then fails to kill himself. Chinatown, I'm not really sure, but the closest I can think to your point is Faye Dunaway's character, and she's both a low-hp commoner and offed by DM's Fiat anyway.
Both those movies have a gritty atmosphere to them, but both also feature exactly the sort of "heroic last stand" cinematic sequences that people are talking about here.
As for "realism," it's actually pretty darn hard to kill a person through trauma. A "realistic" game setting would feature very few hit points, and a really big "negative hp" gap before actual death. Non-magical healing would feature a long series of "save or die," "save against brain damage," "save against crippling," "save against prolonged coma," etc. rolls. That doesn't sound like a very fun system to me, but I wouldn't want to speak for your game table.
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I think if you frame healing magic as repairing physical injury, non-magical healing creates a suspension of disbelief problem. That being said, 4e is not framing healing magic as being about repairing physical injury. 4e hit points appear to be so far abstracted away from wounds and healing that they should almost abandon the terms wounds and healing. …it's not really a fair criticism of 4e to frame healing in 3e terms and then complain that 4e is doing something absurd (e.g., causing your broken arm to heal because your friend shouts out "you rock!" during combat) when it operates completely differently in game terms (e.g., you are exhausted and find it difficult to continue fighting and your friend shouts out "you rock!" and you decide to press on because he has inspired you). 4e healing makes sense in the context of 4e damage.Without seeing the full rules text, it’s impossible to say if this breaks my suspension of disbelief. In order to work for me as a ‘morale boost’, it would need to specify that it affected only allies who were
- conscious,
- within earshot,
- not blinded/deafened,
- and who shared a language with the inspiring character.
Otherwise, how would you know to be inspired?
If, however, it’s explained as a wave of positive energy, then I believe the designers and I have a difference of opinion over what it means to be a ‘non-spell-caster’ in a ‘non-magical’ game.
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Umm, I know you're trying to make an example here, but it's just not working for me. In the closing shootout of Taxi Driver, most people take a significant amount of punishment before falling, and the "hero" takes like 9 bullets and then fails to kill himself. Chinatown, I'm not really sure, but the closest I can think to your point is Faye Dunaway's character, and she's both a low-hp commoner and offed by DM's Fiat anyway.
Unfortunately (or not, depending on your take on things of course) the D&D hit points have always been too simplified to model this kind of thing. I certainly don't think the 4e model as presented solves the issues I have, but perhaps the Bloodied state does (I don't recall seeing a rules-effect definition of it, though, so I can't be sure). When the system (and I think almost all systems do this, so it's not limited to D&D) has a HP pool, which you can fully deplete without any effect on your character's abilities, mobility, or anything else, that's an issue. Even in 4e you are just as capable at 193 HP as you are at 1HP (unknonwn Bloodied rules may change this statement), and then suddenly WHAM you're down.
Even in protracted gun battles or other combat scenes in movies, the very first drawn blood usually causes some impairment to the person who suffers it. Sure the hero or the BBEG can continue to fight on with 8 bullets in his belly, but even the first one probably made him fall over and bleed, unable to react for several seconds.
I can see what they're going for in 4e with this ability to almost never be really dead, and have a reasonable chance of coming back into the fray, but I don't think the way they've done it makes any more sense. It addresses one of the things they felt needed to be addressed but doesn't bring it any closer to "reality" (which I'm sure wasn't a concern anyway, understandably, since, as you noted, realistic HP models are very deadly and 4e was going for just the opposite).
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Dark Heresy isn't that gritty, from what I have read. Particularly if you factor in the fact it is supposed to be a high tech universe (and for some reason, high tech is always more gritty than high fantasy). If WFRPG is a similar system, I won't call it that gritty either. But, I don't think a game is gritty if you can't die with one hit.
Not sure how you are using "gritty". In WFRP and DH a PC can die with one shot/swing. Using the critical hit system PCs can also become mangled wrecks.
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If 4e has attacks that cause gaping head wounds and lets the Warlord heal said gaping head wounds with really inspirational words that will be a problem for my suspension of disbelief.
Will rogues/assassins/scouts/ninja still have Sneak Attack (or their equivalents)?
Because if they do, the extra damage has always been described as being due to the extra physical trauma of striking vital areas. Will this damage be subject to non-magical healing via inspirational speeches, or not?When my PC gets sneak attacked, I certainly view it as a ‘gaping wound’, or equivalent real injury. It’s not an attack on my self-confidence, or a blow to my ego. I do not get dismayed to death, or die of ennui.
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How do people die in movies? Do they get their arms and legs crippled, actually slow down as a result of injuries, and then through cumulative damage die? Villians in particular get beaten up, seem to be dead, get back up again as if they are not hurt, seem to be dead, get back up again as if they are not hurt, and then finally take a bullet to the head and a witty comment. That's the model your looking at - the last killing blow is the stab in the heart, the decapitation, etc. Everything before that is just some minor cuts and scratches. It's a cinematic style of combat.*The light spell just went off over the kobold's head.*
Now it makes sense to me. That's not what I am looking for in a D&D game. If I want cinematic, I'll play exalted or d6 star wars or another game like that. With D&D, I like grit in my teeth.
PING! Got it. I just hit the same note.
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PING! Got it. I just hit the same note.*The light spell just went off over the kobold's head.*
Now it makes sense to me. That's not what I am looking for in a D&D game. If I want cinematic, I'll play exalted or d6 star wars or another game like that. With D&D, I like grit in my teeth.
This is exactely what I feel!
4th edition will be a great game with smooth mechanics and the DMG will even cook coffee for you.But it is not what how I like to play D&D.
Gawds. This supports 100% MY ongoing contention:
4E will be a MEDIOCRE game, primarily because 4E will bear little or no resemblance to anything previously known as Dungeons & Dragons.
....
-DM Jeff
I disagree! I've played D&D basic, D&D expert, 1st AD&D, 2nd AD&D, 3rd D&D, 3.5 D&D. Each were different. D&D basic had dwarf and elfs as classes. My 1st AD&D wizard had ONE spell at first level. I crossed reference an attack roll with the appropriate attack table to see if a charcter hit. I had to roll a ten sided die for surprise, and I think a twelve sided die for initiative low was better. I had to figure in speed factor for my weapon, to figure out when I get to go in a round. Oh and this happens every round. My Ac was low. My Thief (not a rogue), rolled percentile dice while picking pockets and finding traps. OH and Paladin was a super rare PC, because you needed a 17 Charisma. Does any one recall 18/00 strength score? Truly this was the D&D experience I fell in love with decades ago..
Not! Those were just rules to help facilitate the game stories. Throwing fireballs, hacking through orcs, using my mighty wand of illusion to beat down the minions of the Slavelords Yeahhh!!!!! Nothing I have seen in the previews of 4e is going to take that away.
P>S> In our gaming group, most cut there role playing teeth with D&D 3e and are reluctant to try a new edition. Not because "Thats not DnD as I know it", but because they are reluctant to buy new rule books and learn new rules. Me I've played through 4 and a half Dnd versions and they have only gotten better with each new edition.
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When my PC gets sneak attacked, I certainly view it as a ‘gaping wound’, or equivalent real injury. It’s not an attack on my self-confidence, or a blow to my ego. I do not get dismayed to death, or die of ennui.
That is one way to look at it. You could also see it as a destabilizing attack that throws your opponent off balance, setting him on his heels so to speak. Or you knocked the wind out of him causing him to lose confidence in his ability to defeat you.
Of course seeing it as a wound is also legitimate since HP are still an abstraction and at least some could be seen as physical damage.
I'm still dont get it. If 3.5E hit point system is not already cinematic, how do you explain the following:
Over the course of a few rounds a lvl 10 fighter with 115 hit point has been hit 10 times by axes and swords, including 1 critical and 1 sneak attack for a total of 114 point of damage... If hit points are not a cinematic reprensation of a mix of dodge, combat exerience, second wind, etc.. how do you explain that the damage have absolutly no game effect on the Fighter... Even if the Fighter has only 1 hit point left he could fight as well as if he didn't received a single hit...
I really don't see how second wind or morale boost consider the hit points system as a totaly different concept from previous edition... hit point has never been wounds! Now 4E offert other option to regain those hit points with something else than a healing spell...
At least, 4E will probably use the damage track of SW Saga Edition, reflecting different state of injury...
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hit point has never been wounds! Now 4E offert other option to regain those hit points with something else than a healing spell...
At least, 4E will probably use the damage track of SW Saga Edition, reflecting different state of injury...
I think the linkage comes from Cure spells. You can recover all of your HP through their use. Even though you are correct that HP have never really been all about physical damage the game mechanics have always treated them as such.
I disagree! I've played D&D basic, D&D expert, 1st AD&D, 2nd AD&D, 3rd D&D, 3.5 D&D. Each were different. D&D basic had dwarf and elfs as classes. My 1st AD&D wizard had ONE spell at first level. I crossed reference an attack roll with the appropriate attack table to see if a charcter hit. I had to roll a ten sided die for surprise, and I think a twelve sided die for initiative low was better. I had to figure in speed factor for my weapon, to figure out when I get to go in a round. Oh and this happens every round. My Ac was low. My Thief (not a rogue), rolled percentile dice while picking pockets and finding traps. OH and Paladin was a super rare PC, because you needed a 17 Charisma. Does any one recall 18/00 strength score? Truly this was the D&D experience I fell in love with decades ago..
I as well have been through most of those versions/changes. And while each new system felt a little different as far as what you rolled to hit or what you rolled to open a lock there was still enough similar to not make it feel like D&D was diverging from its roots.
From what I have heard so far about 4E they have made enough drastic changes that it feels like it is truely diverging. Magic being totally changed is a big one for me. Fighters (or all classes possibly) pulling off Power Ranger moves is another one. Hit points becoming so abstract they almost feel like everything is non-lethal until you get into the negatives. Races that I have been familar with for so long no longer being a core race feels strange.
I'm not saying that 4E will be bad I'm just saying that's why I feel more and more like 4E will not feel like D&D but a totally new fantasy game.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Will rogues/assassins/scouts/ninja still have Sneak Attack (or their equivalents)?
Because if they do, the extra damage has always been described as being due to the extra physical trauma of striking vital areas. Will this damage be subject to non-magical healing via inspirational speeches, or not?
When my PC gets sneak attacked, I certainly view it as a ‘gaping wound’, or equivalent real injury. It’s not an attack on my self-confidence, or a blow to my ego. I do not get dismayed to death, or die of ennui.
This false dichotomy is getting annoying. It's not as if combat is either all phyiscal injury or all morale and any combination of the two is impossible. As many posters have pointed out, the hit point system itself isn't terrific at modeling "real" damage because there is no mechanic to represent the toll of injuries on your abilities (which games like Shadowrun or WoD employ). Hell, I've seen the exact same argument you make here about the 2e hit point system, so it's not as if this is entirely new to 4e. It's just that 4e has extended the abstract damage system over to the healing system.
Seriously, just watch any action movie and see how any fight proceeds. It's not as if the fights are with nasty words. But, they're also not with limbs being cut off, punctured lungs slowing down breathing, or any other actual physical trauma. Just about every climactic battle in any action movie goes like this:
Protagonist and Antagonist fight. They use guns and shoot near each other, around each other, whatever. Someone might get hit in the shoulder, but even if they do, it doesn't slow them down. Eventually they get disarmed and they fight hand to hand using whatever additional weapons the environment provides (including nailguns, boards, chairs, the dropped guns, etc). Protagonist gets in some good hits (physical hits that do damage to to the antognist but do not actually slow him in the way a real injury would). Then, the Antagonist turns the table, beats the Protagonist up badly. Protagonist is on the ground, Antagonist gloats about how he will kill Protagonist's dog and everyone in the 213 area code. Protagonist pulls himself up and fights Antagonist better than before, overwhelming him and emerging victorious.
Show me where there is a bad physical wound. Show me where an action movie where the protagonist actually goes to a hospital to get medical attention after a fight (the modern day equivalent of healing magic). Show me where ennui, dismay, self-confidence, etc come into play. Action movies are chock full of non-magical healing and recoveries and that's the model we're talking about.
What you see is abstract combat with abstract injuries. You see sudden recoveries. You see people inspired to fight further after learning that their dog will get killed.
That's what we're talking about. Sneak attack is just a good hit, it's the nerve pinch in Serenity, it's a lucky punch. It's only a gaping wound if that's how you describe it.
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Protagonist and Antagonist fight. They use guns and shoot near each other, around each other, whatever. Someone might get hit in the shoulder, but even if they do, it doesn't slow them down. Eventually they get disarmed and they fight hand to hand using whatever additional weapons the environment provides (including nailguns, boards, chairs, the dropped guns, etc).
This is in 3rd edition rules. It's called nonlethal damage. I'm okay with a punch to the gut not causing huge wounds.
But getting hit with a battle axe should do more than make you sad.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Protagonist and Antagonist fight. They use guns and shoot near each other, around each other, whatever. Someone might get hit in the shoulder, but even if they do, it doesn't slow them down. Eventually they get disarmed and they fight hand to hand using whatever additional weapons the environment provides (including nailguns, boards, chairs, the dropped guns, etc).This is in 3rd edition rules. It's called nonlethal damage. I'm okay with a punch to the gut not causing huge wounds.
But getting hit with a battle axe should do more than make you sad.
Huh. I didn't know getting hit with a battle axe in 3e caused nonlethal damage. Would you care to elaborate on what effect such a wound has in that system? Does it cause you to move slower? Swing less accurately? What does it do that indicates "real" damage to you.
And way to invoke the false dichotomy! Anymore strawman arguments you want to offer up, or do you want to actually engage in an intelligent discussion?
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One of the most common recurring themes in D&D HP damage discussions is whether HPs represent physical damage, luck, skill, endurance, etc. or some combination. This has been true in every edition of D&D, with many people unsatisfied by the fact that a character with 110 HP (a lot in 1st edition where a Huge Ancient Red Dragon had 88 HP) is just as ready for combat as a fighter with 1 HP. With regard to the rules, there is no difference save for the distance to 0 and below.
D&D has always been a cinematic system and not a gritty one. This is intentional, but I won't let my argument stand upon my own assertions alone. Let's see what good ol' Gary had to say back in Dragon #24 (ah, that CD rom collection is awesome):
This melee system also hinges on the number of hit points assigned to characters. As I have repeatedly pointed out, if a rhino can take a maximum amount of damage equal to eight of nine eight-sided dice, a maximum of 64 or 72 hit points of damage to kill, it is positively absurd to assume that an 8th level fighter with average scores on his or her hit dice and an 18 consititution, thus having 76 hit points, can physically withstand more punishment than a rhino before being killed. Hit points are a combination of actual physical consititution, skill at the avoidance of taking real physical damage, luck and/or magical or divine factors. Ten points of damage dealt to a rhino indicated a considerable wound, while the same damage sustained by the 8th level fighter indicates a near miss, a slight wound, and a bit of luck used up, a bit of fatigue piling up against his or her skill at avoiding the fatal cut or thrust. So even when a hit is scored in melee combat, it is more often than not a grazing blow, a scratch, a mere light wound which would have been fatal (or nearly so) to a lesser mortal. If sufficient numbers of such wounds accrue to the character, however, stamina, skill, and luck will eventually run out, and an attack will strike home . . .
I am firmly convinced that this system is superior to all others so far concieved and published. It reflects actual combat reasonably, for weaponry, armor (protection and speed and magical factors), skill level, and allows for a limited amount of choice as to attacking or defending. It does not require participants to keep track of more than a minimal amount of information, it is quite fast, and it does not place undue burden upon the Dungeon Master. It allows those involved in combat to opt to retire if they are taking too much damage — although this does not necessarily guarantee that they will succeed...
My favorite part is the assertion "even when a hit is scored in melee combat, it is more often than not a grazing blow, a scratch, a mere light wound which would have been fatal (or nearly so) to a lesser mortal."
That sentence by itself describes D&D HP as cinematic.
BTW, a lot of this discussion is the same as what happened when 3rd edition decided that characters would roll HD for every level.
Nothing new under the sun, not even in what perturbs players.
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I'm okay with some hit points (maybe even the majority) being luck, skill, fatigue, and morale. What I can't get around is having hit points be all of these things while being completely divorced from real, physical damage. It seems that is the direction they are going with 4th edition, because nonmagical, encouraging words from a warlord can only affect morale and maybe fatigue. There is no way they can close up a sucking gut wound. If the last 10 percent or so of your hit points are real damage, and the rest a combination of these other factors, that's something I can live with.
I disagree! I've played D&D basic, D&D expert, 1st AD&D, 2nd AD&D, 3rd D&D, 3.5 D&D. Each were different. D&D basic had dwarf and elfs as classes. My 1st AD&D wizard had ONE spell at first level. I crossed reference an attack roll with the appropriate attack table to see if a charcter hit. I had to roll a ten sided die for surprise, and I think a twelve sided die for initiative low was better. I had to figure in speed factor for my weapon, to figure out when I get to go in a round. Oh and this happens every round. My Ac was low. My Thief (not a rogue), rolled percentile dice while picking pockets and finding traps. OH and Paladin was a super rare PC, because you needed a 17 Charisma. Does any one recall 18/00 strength score? Truly this was the D&D experience I fell in love with decades ago..Not! Those were just rules to help facilitate the game stories. Throwing fireballs, hacking through orcs, using my mighty wand of illusion to beat down the minions of the Slavelords Yeahhh!!!!! Nothing I have seen in the previews of 4e is going to take that away.
P>S> In our gaming group, most cut there role playing teeth with D&D 3e and are reluctant to try a new edition. Not because "Thats not DnD as I know it", but because they are reluctant to buy new rule books and learn new rules. Me I've played through 4 and a half Dnd versions and they have only gotten better with each new edition.
You probably mostly hack&slash and not much story development in your games, it seems. My games will be ruined by 4th Edition.
The principles of Law&Chaos in the cosmos is utterly destroyed for no apparent reason. Yugoloths are suddenly demons, the Abyss is gone and Elemental Chaos reigns. Dryads turn Super Saiyan when you anger them. Dwarves suddenly lose darkvision, elves only live 200 years. A huge host of extraplanar creatures suddenly disappear (modrons, guardinals, eladrins, archons), all of which are heavily invested in my gaming. The Wish spell, and many others, are gone. Magic schools, something I've invested heavily for story, are gone. A host of classes in my game, suddenly gone. No longer can I use my bard, druid, or monk NPCs (I have to wait a very long time and dish out, yet, more money) or can my players use them.
I can go on.
The whole starting over thing needs to be stopped, no matter what, I believe. I may have started over in 3rd Edition, but within a year I was able to convert what was left over from my old campaign and was able to more properly convert more as the years went by and more books were released. Now I have to do it all over again, and worse, with absolutely nothing from previous editions being compatible or convertible with the new edition on top of all that? (the other 3 editions all had the same mythology and compatibility and consistency, except for the obvious changes to the cosmology which crapped on the Planescape setting).
4E is not D&D, bottomline.
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Protagonist and Antagonist fight. They use guns and shoot near each other, around each other, whatever. Someone might get hit in the shoulder, but even if they do, it doesn't slow them down. Eventually they get disarmed and they fight hand to hand using whatever additional weapons the environment provides (including nailguns, boards, chairs, the dropped guns, etc).This is in 3rd edition rules. It's called nonlethal damage. I'm okay with a punch to the gut not causing huge wounds.
But getting hit with a battle axe should do more than make you sad.
Huh. I didn't know getting hit with a battle axe in 3e caused nonlethal damage. Would you care to elaborate on what effect such a wound has in that system? Does it cause you to move slower? Swing less accurately? What does it do that indicates "real" damage to you.
And way to invoke the false dichotomy! Anymore strawman arguments you want to offer up, or do you want to actually engage in an intelligent discussion?
You totally missed my point. The part of the action movie where the heroes get disarmed and punch it out. That, in 3E would cause nonlethal damage. What you want in the game is already there.
I'm saying that in 4th edition. If a battle axe is swung with force and hits somebody, it should do more than demoralize them. Axes should cut flesh. I think we agree on that.
From now on I'll try to spell things out better.
And if you really want an rpg that works like a buddy cop movie, maybe you should find something other than D&D.
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If the last 10 percent or so of your hit points are real damage, and the rest a combination of these other factors, that's something I can live with.
See...this is where you and I disagree, and I'm not talking about in just 4th edition. When you make damage "abstract" the way that D&D does, the rules aren't accounting for 10% -- or any other percentage for that matter -- to be "real damage." They are abstract and only when you reach 0 or lower are you suffering any real damage.
Even given that, let's take what we know (which is almost nothing) about the Marshal. It is likely that his ability allows people to use their own in class healing abilities more often (like Star Wars' second wind) and thus won't come into play at negative HP. Even if it does, then it is like the hero who has taken a massive wound who gets back up to fight because the world needs him/her. It isn't narratively implausible in a fantasy setting. It is highly implausible in reality, but these games aren't a representation of reality. They are representations of heroic fiction.
I actually find your need for a specific quantified amount of "real damage" in D&D irritating. I don't find you irritating -- I actually find you to be very polite -- just the need for specific quantified amount of real damage in D&D, which you aren't alone in desiring. It isn't how the system was designed. There are games, Hero System, that do that. D&D isn't, and never has been, one of them.
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I was just throwing out that 10 percent as an arbitrary number. I know the game doesn't specify what percent of hp is real damage versus other abstract factors. This would be something that I would use personally to come to terms with abstract hit points. Maybe, in game, I would house rule that the warlord can never heal you completely and can't heal you when you are unconscious with his warlord abilities. I'm just saying that the game has to acknowledge that real, physical damage is part of hit points. Otherwise, no one could die from loss of hit points. There is no reason to call it healing if there is no injury to heal. 4th edition seems to avoid this, which is really annoying and a major strike against it in my book.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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You totally missed my point. The part of the action movie where the heroes get disarmed and punch it out. That, in 3E would cause nonlethal damage. What you want in the game is already there.
No, you didn't have a point to be missed. 3e damage functions the same way as 4e damage. Feel free to explain how a battle axe causes any "real" harm in 3e. Last time I checked, getting hit for 3/4 of your hp doesn't effect how fast you move, how well you swing, etc. You can fall 20 stories and get up again - no broken bones, no internal injuries, nothing. Gosh, that sure is realistic.
Hit points don't model reality. Hell, even Gary Gygax makes that claim as quoted above. The closest hps come is to modeling action movie/fiction effects. D&D in any incarnation models that reality more so than the strawman argument you presented of an axe causing "real damage".
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Well, in the action movie, the protagonist wouldn't get hit full force with the axe. He might get grazed by it, or jabbed with the handle, but he won't take an axe swing to the head or chest. He'll probably take the axe away from the bad guy and hit him full force with it, thus killing him and ending the fight. In the movies, they don't survive injuries that they couldn't possibly survive without some reasonable explanation, even if that explanation is only inferred. If they get shot, it's not in a vital area or the bullet hits something like a badge or bullet-proof vest that absorbs most of the impact. If they fall from a high building, they catch themself on the edge of cliff, or they land on an awning. The list goes on and on. I guess that really is how combat and hit points work in D&D, but I'ver never really pictured it that way.
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Even though it really doesn't work for D&D, I love movies where someone just gets shot in the face and dies. Taxi Driver, Chinatown etc.. I hope 4th edition can find a happy medium between cartoon and realistic violence. For some reason "healing magic" just makes sense when compared to "shouts"(GW fans) of encouragement that lift a bleeding PC off his feet and push him back into the fray.
Play (pre-4th edition) Shadowrun. Seriously. Some of the math behind the system is a little fuzzy, but there's nothing like dropping some poser with a lucky shot to the eyeball.
Well, in the action movie, the protagonist wouldn't get hit full force with the axe. He might get grazed by it, or jabbed with the handle, but he won't take an axe swing to the head or chest. He'll probably take the axe away from the bad guy and hit him full force with it, thus killing him and ending the fight. In the movies, they don't survive injuries that they couldn't possibly survive without some reasonable explanation, even if that explanation is only inferred. If they get shot, it's not in a vital area or the bullet hits something like a badge or bullet-proof vest that absorbs most of the impact. If they fall from a high building, they catch themself on the edge of cliff, or they land on an awning. The list goes on and on. I guess that really is how combat and hit points work in D&D, but I'ver never really pictured it that way.
And that is most likely the source of your problem. Not that I'm trying to single you out or anything. Hell, in games I play in, I describe characters getting hit, pieces being ripped off and thrown against the wall, all types of stuff. But really, none of that description fits what the game mechanics are really representing.
In another thread on this same issue (I second whoever mentioned that the same complaints and dissents seem to come up every edition switch) someone suggested people who dislike the abstract HP system DnD uses come up with a description for what is happening before the final outcome is known, while those more able to accept it wait to see what happens. Character hit but doesn't drop? He was grazed, or dodged just in time (but it was a close one!) Character dropped but not outright dead? On the ground, sword/arrow in him or maybe just a little smokey.
Someone heals him in time (be it Cleric or Warlord)? Wasn't as bad as it looked at first, as he gets up and dusts himself off/damps out his still smoking hair.
I'll have to rein in my more gorey battle descriptions to make the Warlord make sense, but thats a cost I'm willing to incur for 4E. I expect it to be pretty good! (Sorry if that hurts my credibility any!):)
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From what I have heard so far about 4E they have made enough drastic changes that it feels like it is truely diverging. Magic being totally changed is a big one for me. Fighters (or all classes possibly) pulling off Power Ranger moves is another one.
Sadly fighters or any class in my campaign are pulling off Power Ranger moves. I encourage my players to describe what thier character is doing in combat; and who under thirty hasn't seen Power Rangers.
I'm not saying that 4E will be bad I'm just saying that's why I feel more and more like 4E will not feel like D&D but a totally new fantasy game.
I agree with the 4e a new fantasy game. New rules. New "core" setting. But for me it still feels D&D. there is still six ability score, hitpoints, armor class, levels, etc. From Greyhawk to Ebberon through Dark Sun and Planscape, D&D has always been able to handle diverse settings. I haven't seen anything stating that you cannot play campaigns with such diversity in 4e.
P>S> I really feel for Forgoten Realms fans. WotC was brutal in beating the Forgoten Realms into shape of the 4e "core" setting. OUCH!!!
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Even though it really doesn't work for D&D, I love movies where someone just gets shot in the face and dies. Taxi Driver, Chinatown etc.. I hope 4th edition can find a happy medium between cartoon and realistic violence.Umm, I know you're trying to make an example here, but it's just not working for me. In the closing shootout of Taxi Driver, most people take a significant amount of punishment before falling, and the "hero" takes like 9 bullets and then fails to kill himself. Chinatown, I'm not really sure, but the closest I can think to your point is Faye Dunaway's character, and she's both a low-hp commoner and offed by DM's Fiat anyway.
Both those movies have a gritty atmosphere to them, but both also feature exactly the sort of "heroic last stand" cinematic sequences that people are talking about here.
As for "realism," it's actually pretty darn hard to kill a person through trauma. A "realistic" game setting would feature very few hit points, and a really big "negative hp" gap before actual death. Non-magical healing would feature a long series of "save or die," "save against brain damage," "save against crippling," "save against prolonged coma," etc. rolls. That doesn't sound like a very fun system to me, but I wouldn't want to speak for your game table.
As I said, it doesn't really work for d&d. Watch Taxi Driver again and look at Bickle in the end scene. Far from shouts of encouragement. Every baddie dies fairly quickly as well. Chinatown= nose slice, fights, bruises that stay, and end gunshot. A very far cry from the DieHard style. Bickle end run lasts all of 45 seconds, not the whole movie.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 8
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Star Wars d20 (and RCR) used Hit Points and Wound Points (HP was like normal and Wound Points equaled a person's CON score).
I believe the option was also explored in Unearthed Arcana for D&D.
This was grittier. Normal attacks affected HP until it ran out. This was the cinematic, flesh wound grazing level. After HP ran out, then Wound Points were hit being actual injuries, those bullets to the chest, etc.
Critical hits would bypass the HP and affect Wound Points immediately. This is the cinematic point blank bullet to the face, de-limbing or decapitations.
That could get gritty. Healing in Star Wars RCR was also difficult at best along these lines, your HP would recover at a normal rate (like D&D) and Wound Points would recover at a rate of 1 per day.
Forgive me if any of these mechanics are wrong, I only played 1 series of games in RCR, SAGA is much better for Star Wars. I am not quoting the books but am giving examples from memory. Correct me if I am wrong.