(Suspension of Disbelief)
This story is about 4e, but it applies to just about any game that uses HP. I was playing a warlord in an Eberron dungeon. During a fight, the avenger gets hit with an ice lance thing, making him bloodied. The DM describes the hit as the ice lance impaling his chest. On my next action I use Inspiring Word to heal him, with role play something like "Tough it out buddy, you've seen worse! Put some ice on it, you'll be fine!"
Can DMs describe non-fatal hits as purely near-hits and flesh wounds? Sure. Can falls into lava rivers be described as last second handholds? Usually. Can we think of creative reasons why undead take extra damage from positive/radiant attacks that hit according to the rules, but don't hit in-game? Yeah.
But ya know what? Every DM I've ever played with [including myself], in the heat of a tense battle, has a tendency at least once in a while to describe hits as hits. This often leads to patently absurd situations where my brain trips head-over-heels, gets up and then says "Oh yeah, this just some doofy game."
Oddly enough, I'm actually working on this for my next game (LoF using the PFRPG full release). HP will basically equate to fatigue (yes, actually incorporating the mechanics of Fatigued and Exhausted states) while true damage will be Con (or possibly Str/Dex if it fits). Beat somebody down long enough, they get tired (i.e. HP drops to 0) and your hits start really counting. Critical hits deal HP damage, plus a percentage as Con. Fall in lava/off 150' cliff = Con damage. Etc.
Of course, I'm also working in rules for spells to use HP as their points (rather than spell slots) and non-casters using HP to pull off fancy maneuvers/stunts. So, all in all this should be a core-rules only lovers worst nightmare...
So basically you just tweaked the Vitality/Wound rules from Unearthed Arcana? That is cool, I always liked them and hated HP though I haven't had much problem since 4E has systematically regulated HP to being more then just about hits. But the SOD can definitely be ruined by the concept of HP, even VP/WP can get alittle hard to describe without "hits" only so many near-hits or just barely blocked fatal attacks before it gets old.
You ever watch a movie where the hero, or even another character, takes a lethal hit, only to have it revealed as a graze? Even if the DM describes it as a direct hit, little did everyone know that the armor (or maybe it was a medallion) deflected the ice lance enough that it wasn't a mortal wound. The avenger thought he was a goner until the warlord snapped him out of it. I can't tell you that it will make things easier for you. If it doesn't work for you, it may never, but things can be consoled after the fact. Whether or not you can accept that explanation is only something you can decide.
So basically you just tweaked the Vitality/Wound rules from Unearthed Arcana? That is cool, I always liked them and hated HP though I haven't had much problem since 4E has systematically regulated HP to being more then just about hits. But the SOD can definitely be ruined by the concept of HP, even VP/WP can get alittle hard to describe without "hits" only so many near-hits or just barely blocked fatal attacks before it gets old.
Weelll, kinda. I've worked with tons of systems over the years, and I've consistently been bothered by the "beat it 'til HP hits 0 to kill it" concept. I live in the south. We hunt deer (well, I don't personally, but my dad-in-law does and that's some good eatin'...). To the point, not to be preemptively punning, the goal is one arrow, one kill. You don't shoot the darn thing 5-6 times to wear it down. Now, I'm not trying to get into the realms of "realistic" RPGs so much as make weapons and armor matter again. And I don't want to get down to a Riddle of Steel level of detail for combat. So, I've been putting together something that will, hopefully, be the best of both worlds--quick, simple, and built on standard d20 mechanics, but at the same time a little more supportive of SoD. We'll see how it turns out in playtest, I suppose.
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People normally don't pay attention to it, but in almost every edition of D&D your hit points represent far more then they're usually given credit for representing.
Since 1st edition they been some kind of combination of your physical endurance, your luck, divine protections and just the sheer willingness a living creature has to continue being a living creature.
The rule of thumb used to be that 3 out of every 10 hit points were actually physical, so in most combats only a truly terrible blow would render any significant wound. A fighter bravely battling a group of opponents would likely only suffer knick and cuts that wear them down until they're overwhelmed.
Most DM's just choose to describe everything as a blow, since well it's easy and that's how they feel in the moment.
Why is this in the 4th edition column, like you said, its a anything that uses hps issue, and I thought that the edition boards, where specifically for those editions.
Possibly - but people eventually just hang out in certain places. I'm not really interested in evaluating whether every post I make belongs in this section of the forums or another section. If its part and parcel of my 4E gaming I'm likely to stick it here whether or not the issue being discussed is particularly relevant to 4E or happens to be relevant to lots of RPGs as well as 4E.
Furthermore some issues might be relevant to many RPGs but have different answers in different systems. In this case for example one of the wrinkles that makes dealing with it a little trickier is that the 'damage' can be healed by a second wind or by the warlords healing power, neither or which are strictly magic. Hence the answers to this problem may vary somewhat from what might give as the answers to the same question in another edition of the game.
(Suspension of Disbelief)
This story is about 4e, but it applies to just about any game that uses HP. I was playing a warlord in an Eberron dungeon. During a fight, the avenger gets hit with an ice lance thing, making him bloodied. The DM describes the hit as the ice lance impaling his chest. On my next action I use Inspiring Word to heal him, with role play something like "Tough it out buddy, you've seen worse! Put some ice on it, you'll be fine!"
Can DMs describe non-fatal hits as purely near-hits and flesh wounds? Sure. Can falls into lava rivers be described as last second handholds? Usually. Can we think of creative reasons why undead take extra damage from positive/radiant attacks that hit according to the rules, but don't hit in-game? Yeah.
But ya know what? Every DM I've ever played with [including myself], in the heat of a tense battle, has a tendency at least once in a while to describe hits as hits. This often leads to patently absurd situations where my brain trips head-over-heels, gets up and then says "Oh yeah, this just some doofy game."
I know what you mean but don't usually have much of an issue with it. I suppose I don't do a lot of descriptions of the hits concentrating, in 4E, on just the hits that bloody and the killing blow.
Hence I guess I'm saying you can defocus the issue by avoiding such descriptions one way or another in your game...but, in all honesty. that's a cure that's worse then the disease - sort of like using beheading to cure acne.
There are better, more realistic feeling, options out there but, having gone down that path in the past, I generally feel that the added immersion during combat is not worth the extra time and energy one spends on tracking it.
My solution would be to stop describing hits as actual grievous wounds. If you find this is becoming a problem in your game, chances are that the combat you are describing to your players is more lethal or brutal than the system is set up to handle.
The majority of hits in 4th Edition (and, I would argue, any version of D&D using hit points) should be described as non-injuries, grazing wounds, or simply vitality-draining evasive moves. If you describe all (or even most) of the hits in the game as grievous or mortal wounds, your suspension of disbelief will suffer as a result.
Hits that deserve to be described as grievous/mortal wounds include: hits that damage (kill) a minion, attacks that reduce a creature to 0 hit points, and high-damage critical hits, especially if they bloody the creature.
If you're having trouble figuring out how to deal with mortal wounds that PCs recover from, there are some good suggestions in this thread. The best place to look would be popular literature or movies, though. Not only can an apparently deadly wound easily turn out to be far tamer than expected, but PCs are heroic characters capable of putting themselves through much more than the average person could take.
One of my favorite ways to describe a PC going down is to have the blow that drops him to 0 hit points smack him upside the head. It will look deadly to those watching, but it's the sort of thing that (with proper coaxing) a heroic character might be able to pull himself out of and struggle to his feet, albeit with blood in his eyes and a ringing in his head.
I would tend to agree. How can someone simply shrug off being gouged with a sword, for example?
If I remember correctly, SWSE uses a hit point system with a "damage threshold." If you take too much damage from a single blow, you move down the condition track, representing lasting injuries and exhaustion. As you move down the condition track, you gather penalties to all your actions until eventually you are knocked unconscious (if you aren't killed outright first).
It's quite an elegant system, and I use it in my games because I think it addresses this issue quite nicely.
I'm a big fan of Saga Editions use of hit points/condition track. So much so that I'll probably incorporate it for other game systems that use hit points.
Why is this in the 4th edition column, like you said, its a anything that uses hps issue, and I thought that the edition boards, where specifically for those editions.
Gamer Life might be more appropriate, but in my sleep-deprived stupor, I decided that this topic is a gamer issue but not really a life issue.
Gamer Life might be more appropriate, but in my sleep-deprived stupor, I decided that this topic is a gamer issue but not really a life issue.
Why is this in the 4th edition column, like you said, its a anything that uses hps issue, and I thought that the edition boards, where specifically for those editions.
It's still interesting to discuss within the framework of 4th Edition, especially given how 4th Edition adjudicates PCs at and below 0 hit points. Unlike previous editions, it is expected that a PC knocked out during a fight will be able to recover and continue fighting the majority of the time, and this impacts how hits and hit points should be perceived.
During a fight, the avenger gets hit with an ice lance thing, making him bloodied. The DM describes the hit as the ice lance impaling his chest. On my next action I use Inspiring Word to heal him, with role play something like "Tough it out buddy, you've seen worse! Put some ice on it, you'll be fine!"
Shouldn't he heal by himself? There's already ice on it.
This story is about 4e, but it applies to just about any game that uses HP.
The main problem there is that unless that Inspiring Word is a "supernatural" ability (meaning something beyond the natural, i.e. magic, psi, voodoo, positive energy, whatever), it doesn't make sense that you can heal a physical wound.
Sure, HP are an abstraction, rolling "vitality points" and "wound points" into one (VP representing the vitality to "roll with the blow", turn hits into near misses or serious injuries into scratches, that sort of thing, while WP represent actual injury), but if you're consistent with your powers, you can lessen the blow to SoD.
A good way to do that would be saying that "natural" healing can only do so much, and for the rest you need medical or supernatural help.
But ya know what? Every DM I've ever played with [including myself], in the heat of a tense battle, has a tendency at least once in a while to describe hits as hits. This often leads to patently absurd situations where my brain trips head-over-heels, gets up and then says "Oh yeah, this just some doofy game."
Yes, SoD can be taxed. But I think that in 3.x, it wasn't so bad: While it didn't use WP/VP, at least all "special" healing was supernatural in nature. Application of magical or supernatural power. Cure wounds, lay on hands, channel energy, soothing performance... Those might come from a number of sources (direct divine magic, others are supernatural application of positive energy, and still others are supernatural music effects), but none of them are a simple pep talk or walking it off. Even fast healing defies nature by its very, well, nature.
If you want to do it the hard way, you need skills and healing kits - and, more than anything else, time.
For me, 3.x's healing works. It's not completely credible, but there's at least an effort to marry the rules and how the world itself actually works.
Is Inspiring Word supernatural in nature?
Is Inspiring Word supernatural in nature?
no.
(Suspension of Disbelief)
This story is about 4e, <snipped for brevity> ... Can DMs describe non-fatal hits as purely near-hits and flesh wounds? Sure. Can falls into lava rivers be described as last second handholds? Usually. Can we think of creative reasons why undead take extra damage from positive/radiant attacks that hit according to the rules, but don't hit in-game? Yeah.
But ya know what? Every DM I've ever played with [including myself], in the heat of a tense battle, has a tendency at least once in a while to describe hits as hits. This often leads to patently absurd situations where my brain trips head-over-heels, gets up and then says "Oh yeah, this just some doofy game."
This is/was an issue for me in every shade of D20/DnD. I handled it in my last campaign by merely describing what the character might have felt, but not mentioning hit point damage. That, I just jotted down on a tracking sheet I kept for the purpose. The rule in that campaign was, if you wanted to stop and see how bad you were while in combat, you opened yourself up for an AoO. The players seemed to like the system as long as I explicitly described wounds and/or effects. Of course, YMMV, but it allowed me to minimize my issues with HP, while at the same time adding some flavor and challenge to the game.
4e gives you a small hint for damage narrative description: when you get a condition of Bloodied. One hit bloodies you: basically you're run through. Many hits to Bloody: small cuts, bruises that slowly fatigue you.
Another issue is how a Bloodied character may just sit down for 5 minutes and "feel OK" with no healing power involved (just surges), but that's not just a game thing, many action movies and novels go like that too. Hero bandages, rests, and ignores most wounds until the action sequence (say, day) ends and aid can be obtained.
I only describe big wounds sparingly, or if actually I houserule some crippling condition.
I tend to think of HP in the abstract sense that it's not dealing with specific injuries, so much as it's a measure of a combination of the character's body and mind's willingness to continue on. This way, both the purely supernatural/magical healing of previous editions and "pep talk"/second wind healing of 4e work fairly well. A lot of times, the mind is willing, while the body is not, and vice versa. If a player's HP are dropped down to 0, it could simply be the point where either their body or mind just "give out" and cant continue.
Indeed, the Condition Track from Star Wars Saga Edition does help make this a lot more believable, though I actually wish there were more of a measure of gradual condition decrease in conjunction with HP loss, for example if you were below half HP, you automatically moved one step down the track, below 25%, move another, etc. It just kills me when I see a character swinging at full skill bonus and moving unhindered, with 1 hp left.
It shows how long we've been batting rules around, that I thought this thread was about Save-or-Die effects....
Me, too. It's all those abbreviations kids use these days. OMG WOW STD LOL, LOF, SCAP, RTTTOEE, SMS, DVDA, ATM, STFU, SOOL....
No time, those youngsters. I blame the rising internet connection speed. Back in the day, all we had were a couple hundred bauds, so we had time writing the whole words down, but these says its megabits and people have to keep up.
The thing that ruins SoD for me is that my DM is neither a voluptuous elf maiden, a crafty old wizard or a power-mad demon-summoning drow cleric. He's just a chubby guy with a beard. Way to fail dnd!!!!
Much like dice Hit Points are merely an abstraction that allows determination of an event...death/unconciousness in this case...simply a mechanic... to allow for things like wounding and actual combat effects I have often implemented a special system
Damage that exceeds half of your HP/or Con Score (Wound Threshold)...whichever is LOWER require a Fortitude Save with a DC = to 10 + the # By which said Damage Exceeds the Wound Threshold. On a failed Save the Target of the the blow receives -1 to attacks, saves, and skill checks until they receive magic healing...
Yes another abstraction but a Good GM can translate this easily into Brokern Ribs, a Head Wounds, a Banged up Knee...etc...