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sotp_seamus wrote:

OK, but take into account the notion that you could get hit and emotionally (queer as it sounds) beat up by a bunch of kobolds to the point where they can move in for the kill. A few things:

1) They keep hitting. Your character feels a pass across his mind, like how do they keep getting at me? Before long, they're upon him, and all he can do is brace himself, and face it head on. There's your healing surge.

2) Realistically, by my experience, kobolds are really the redheaded stepchildren of any encounter, unless they have character levels. I know this idea is changing, but, nonetheless, it will continue that kobolds are significantly weaker. I saw it in the demo I played.

I think, on some level, we'll have to accept that part of the beating a character takes is to his or her willpower.

You can accept that, I really don't have to at all. Sure overwhelming odds or a SERIES of defeats can be demoralizing to a party, but that isn't hit point damage. I can go through 10,000,000,000 campaigns and never need to force depression and/or emotional helplessness on my PCs(baring magic/powers) when I describe hit point loss.

NthDegree256 wrote:

This is why Mike Mearls' Kobold Victory Chart should be put into play.

There were kobolds in the Magic Kingdom books by Terry Brooks. THOSE were some nasty kobolds.

sotp_seamus wrote:

OK, but take into account the notion that you could get hit and emotionally (queer as it sounds) beat up by a bunch of kobolds to the point where they can move in for the kill. A few things:

1) They keep hitting. Your character feels a pass across his mind, like how do they keep getting at me? Before long, they're upon him, and all he can do is brace himself, and face it head on. There's your healing surge.

2) Realistically, by my experience, kobolds are really the redheaded stepchildren of any encounter, unless they have character levels. I know this idea is changing, but, nonetheless, it will continue that kobolds are significantly weaker. I saw it in the demo I played.

I think, on some level, we'll have to accept that part of the beating a character takes is to his or her willpower.

Alright, I guess I can kind of buy the brace-yourself-and-face-it way of rationalizing healing surges. And if they give you back HP, then it seems like HP has got to be something other than just raw physical health. Because otherwise, your body is spontaneously regenerating and the only way to explain 4e is if all characters have troll heritage.

Anyway...

The disconnect for me comes in comparing the rationalization for Healing Surge to the effects of combat, or HP loss. The main way to lose HP is through combat, specifically, Attack (Success) + Damage = HP Loss. There is no mechanic on the attacker's side to support the notion that he is demoralizing you or anything except cutting you with his claw attack.

For some reason, when I read this stuff about kobolds, I started thinking about the scene in Jurrassic Park where the two kids are in the kitchen getting hunted by the raptors. They ran all around that kitchen, and each time the raptors attacked, they failed. But I could see the kids maybe getting "worn down." If HP represent something more than health, more like your spirit or energy or something, than these kids probably would have been losing HP. But they weren't because they never got hit by the raptors. Damage is the only thing that makes you lose HP.

Which takes us back to the idea that HP measures health. And if HP measures health, then Healing Surges are wacky. Of course, maybe there's some perfectly sensible explanation in the 4e PHB.

Maybe the combat section will say, "Combat is resolved in a blow-by-blow fashion, with each attack being rolled, followed by damage. However, these rolls and actions are abstractions and should not be taken literally. A successful attack and damage combination does not necessarily incur a physical wound. Instead, your "hit" may have just been a glancing blow. A target loses HP equal to the damage taken, but this does not necessarily represent physical wounds. Taking damage can mean mental anguish or a loss of will to live."

OK, that's pretty weak. But if they have a statement like that about attacks, damage, HP, etc. then it will at least be internally consistent.

Scaramouche wrote:

there seems to be this default assumption that hp as health makes perfect sense. Which, of course, it clearly does not.

I think HP as health is the default assumption by most people who play D&D. That's how DMs describe damage dealt. It's how the 3.5 PHB describes HP. And in 4e, when you get to 1/2 your total HP, you reach a stage called "Bloodied." Plus, when you run out of HP, you die. I think the link between HP and health is well established.

What most people are trying to say, I think, is that HP is *more* than just health. It's your spirit, vigor, luck, and will to keep up the fight. You can use a Healing Surge to grit your teeth and bear through the pain to keep fighting. That's all well and good until you stop to think about how you lose those HP in the first place. You didn't lose your luck or spirit when you got stabbed -- you lost blood!

Scaramouce]If the argument is simply 'I am accustomed to X and not yet accustomed to Y' that's fine. But assigning one interpretation to logic instead of the other doesn't work very well.

That's not the argument at all.

Attacks deal damage, which reduces HP. Attacks almost always come from things like blades, claws, fiery magic. So when I get cut, ripped, and burnt, I am losing HP. I am taking damage. I am getting hurt. After a bit, I am bleeding, and if I get hurt much more, I will be *dead*.

So far, "HP as health" is sounding like a fine way to understand the system. If i was explaining the game to a new player, it would make sense for me to say, "So as I damage you with my longsword, you lose HP. Lose all your HP and you die." He's going to think of HP as his health.

But then I tell him he can pause mid-battle and regain a bunch of HP. Since the *loss* of HP was from battle wounds, then it seems like *regaining* HP should be from healing those wounds. In fact, the power itself is called Healing Surge! Even it admits it's a heal.

But other people want us to accept that it's not a heal at all. "It's regaining vigor, stamina, and fighting determination," they say. So when I *lose* HP, it's from getting hurt by blades and bites, but when I "regain* HP, it's my spirit and stick-to-it-iveness that's getting the boost? I want my HP to come back up the same elevator they went d wrote: