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Mondos123 wrote:

That's your prerogative to do that. If you want to make a fighter like that go ahead, just don't be surprised if the DM doesn't accept it.

It's like making a gnome with 60 strength than complaining about how that doesn't make sense.

If you feel it doesn't make sense, than just don't do it.

Also to use your analogy of a weak and sickly fighter, chances are he's going to have low strength and dexterity due to being sick.... and weak.... with cancer, and I can't imagine a weak person being able to move in heavy armor, let a lone
light armor.

So ya, I can't really see someone like that living for long. If your not roleplaying with the stats in mind as well, all I can say is tough luck really.

Not to mention that you can change how hitpoints are represented in the game. If you want to have every hit draw blood, than so be it.

You just shouldn't do something senseless than complain about how it's the rules fault later.

Uh, it's not the rules fault. That definition of how my HP works is explicitly defined as one of the ways HP works in 4e. HP can represent luck. It's right there in black and white in the PHB.


Another example of the "Old\Feeble Luck\Experience Based Fighter" would be Cohen and his horde from the Discworld series.

enlightened wrote:

I understand that in D&D (every edition), HPs are abstract.

But I, personally, prefer to use them the way they are in Hackmaster and GURPS, in that, HP lose always necessarily means actual physical damage.

I know it's not the standard D&D way, but it feels better* to me that way.



* Please note that I did not claim that it's more logical. It's not.

Oh, I generally describe them as physical damage as well. Fortunately, my gaming group isn't the sort to scream at me when they come to the realization that I've described their characters as having lost an inhuman amount of blood.

What can we say, we don't take the game as seriously as some apparently do.

Fabius Maximus wrote:

I never said that it was otherwise. Most people just forget that many players learned to play under 3e, never knew another definition of hp, and now think the one 4e uses is silly.

I just think the new/old definition is too heady, too metyphysical to be applied to a game where you shouldn't have to think long about how the rules work in correlation with the game world. That's why I opted for a change in terminology, i.e. "fatigue points".


@crazysamaritan: No, I did not. I agreed with another poster that the term "hit point" is misleading and should be renamed to "fatigue point", along with an additional system for wounds. (The latter was my addition.)

Then I said that the definition of hp in 3e is different, and allows players to imagine that they get actually hit, instead of additional effects a 'hit' may entail.

If that's the case, there isn't really a problem. There's nothing stopping any individual party from treating hit points as actual damage. 4th Edition hit points are as realistic (or equally unrealistic) to all prior editions of D&D. Even counting healing surges, hit points haven't become more or less ludicrous. I still to this day am bothered by the fact that 3rd Edition could potentially allow a 10+ level barbarian to fall from a spelljammer at the very edge of the atmosphere, with no protection whatsoever, hit the ground at terminal velocity, and only take 20d6 (maximum 120 damage, average 70 damage) upon impact at absolute worst... which is enough for him need a few potions when he lands, but with his hit points at that level, not enough to likely scare him (unless he lands in the enemy rather than near). I find that far more ridiculous than any issue that healing surges might cause.

That said, D&D has always been the game driven by cure light wounds and magical potions. Other than second winds and short rests, this largely hasn't changed. Players don't have the ability to charge themselves up too often mid-combat without the same heal pots or healing spells we always used back in the day. The biggest function of healing surges is to restrict the number of heal potions and prayers you can have casted on you in any given day. Now if you lose too many hit points, it doesn't matter if the cleric still has more heal prayers... you still need to rest.

PheonixIV wrote:

Uh, it's not the rules fault. That definition of how my HP works is explicitly defined as one of the ways HP works in 4e. HP can represent luck. It's right there in black and white in the PHB.


Another example of the "Old\Feeble Luck\Experience Based Fighter" would be Cohen and his horde from the Discworld series.

I'm not complaining about the rules. I don't think there is anything wrong with the rules surrounding how to describe hp. I'm complaining about your complaining about the rules allowing you to have a character like that. Unless your not complaining about the rules? The "ffs" you put at the beginning of your post led me to believe that you thought having a fighter like that is/would be stupid. If you weren't actually complaining about the rules, then I'm sorry.

Decivre wrote:

I still to this day am bothered by the fact that 3rd Edition could potentially allow a 10+ level barbarian to fall from a spelljammer at the very edge of the atmosphere, with no protection whatsoever, hit the ground at terminal velocity, and only take 20d6 (maximum 120 damage, average 70 damage) upon impact at absolute worst... which is enough for him need a few potions when he lands, but with his hit points at that level, not enough to likely scare him (unless he lands in the enemy rather than near). I find that far more ridiculous than any issue that healing surges might cause.

Sure, it is ridiculous. That's why in a case like that, the character should be dead. No roll needed. Every player that thumbs RAW if that happens should be hit over the head with something heavy.