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Xeviat-DM wrote:

I agree that the disease track could really be used to mimic this. I too liked the simulationist aspects of 3E, but I never wanted to port over to a more complex system.

What were these "simulationist aspects"? I hear peopl say this all the time, but I never saw them.

Rustmonster wrote:

What were these "simulationist aspects"? I hear peopl say this all the time, but I never saw them.

I think it might refer to things like "heal 1 hp per level per night" and the ability to craft or whatever.

Rustmonster wrote:

First, you do realize that HP does NOT represent only physical damage, right? Just so we are on the same page.

Second, in the same vein, healing all HP does NOT neccesarily mean all of your wounds heal up. It means you fight through the pain. You had a jolly good rest, and you feel much better. Your stamina and courage is back. You are focused and alert, so you have an easier time avoiding blows.

HP are a HEAVY abstraction. They always have been. They don't represent how many swords you can take to the face. Someone like you who values "realism" should realize that usually, one sword = dead. That is why it sounds silly when you look at it as healing surges and rest closing up gapping wounds. That's just silly. But whne you look at HP as it is, a combination of various factors like stress and tiredness, then it looks fine.

Third, what you described is called a "story element". 4E does not subscribe to the 3E philosophy that there is no story without mechanics. Tales will still be told like that, because you don't need a mechanic to tell you it took a long time to heal his wound (may I add that "wounds" have never existed in D&D unless they come from a special attack or effect.). You just say that happened. If you are going to play a roleplaying, story driven game like D&D, you have to sometimes allow things to happen because the story dictates it, regardless if there is a mechanic for it.



One other thing you have to realize about 4E that healing is no longer just the real of magic. Casters are no longer the sole pervayers of HP gain. For example, the Warlord can recover the HP of allies, and anyone can use a Second Wind in battle to use a healing surge.

Remember all that stuff about "HP not being only physical damage"? I know the use of the word "healing" is confusing. That just became a convention. But if you look at it again from the "not just physical" angle, gaining HP without magic seems alot more believable. The Warlord makes his allies fight on through stress, pain, and fatigue by bolstering thier spirit. Isn't that also a troupe of fantasy?


Again, the "deeply wounded but then fine after sleep" thing is outrageous. However, that isn't even how it is presented as working. The only reason this is a problem for you is because you visualize HP lose as giant gapping wounds. I have to say, for someone who finds healing surges so "unrealistic", viewing the loss of HP as huge gashes from getting pummeled by swords all day seems a bit unrealistic too, don't you think?

A simple change of perception could do the trick. Try it out. Describe your battles with most HP lose as near misses, dodges, parries, knicks, or bouncing off armour. The hit that drops you to 0? THAT was a "hit".
Even Gary Gygax said, refering to older editions, that only the last 6 or so HP are physical. Thinking that you can live through 50 sword hits and still keep trucking is not realistic.

If you really can't stand the D&D HP abstraction, then you may want to try a "grittier" game altogether. D&D is High Fantasy. It isn't supposed to neccesarily be hyper realitic. Hence why there isn't, and never has been, a wound system. It is about heros doing great things. If you die the first time someone gets a successful attack roll, you can't really do anything heroic.

Everything you said above is right. It's why (after quite a bit of thought) I decided I don't really have a problem with healing surges. BUT the way the Warlord boosts his allies' fighting strength (HP) is by using his allies' healing surges, their own personal reserves that they already have in them. This is not a problem. The problem I have is that you gain all that reserve back every day. It really is "near death and fine the next day" if you've spent all your healing surges and have 3hp left. I'm just not cool with that. To really fix this, you'd need to change magical healing so that it can grant healing surges, not just HP, but that's a pretty big change in the mechanic.

Am I making sense here? Yes, hit points and healing surges are an abstraction. No, they do not represent solely--or even firstly--actual wounds. Instead, hitpoints represent energy, skill, resolve, etc. But once you've spent all your surges, or in battle when you're down to your last few HP, you're now dealing, as you said, with actual, physical, deadly damage. You can't say that never happens in the game world; that's just stupid, or how else do we kill bad guys? But even at that level, when you're at death's door, the next day you're at 100% and ready to go again. Does that make any sense at all?

I would lower the healing surge value, and say they have to spend their healing surges for healing before they refill their surges during the extended rest. Like say.. Make healing surges only restore a number of hit points equal to your constitution modifier + 1/2 your level. On average that should double the number of surges it takes to heal, so if they use any through the day, they're going to end the day without enough to fully heal themselves. Extended rest comes, they use their 2 remaining.. They're not fully healed, and then they regain their healing surges but can't use them until their next rest or second wind.

I'd advise against a single healing surge per day, on grounds that a lot of magical healing requires you to have them, not all, but a lot. And if I'm not mistaken raise dead requires the target to have a healing surge remaining. You could half the number of healing surges though. That would lead to them not having enough for a full healing at night a lot more often.

Summary:
Healing surges at half listed value in the book
Healing Surge value equal to Constitution Modifier + 1/2 level.

And that's my

Edit: Ahah, I should have read the post just above mine. Assuming you let them build up extra healing surges that would remedy the raise dead issue, since I assume no one dies without a second wind first.. everyone dead would stay dead normally in that situation.

catzo wrote:

Go play GURPS: Dungen Fantasy. It has everything you look for.
A system with a really good simulation of realisme, while still having fantastic D&D like characters. And at the same time the most versatile character-creation rules ever... you can truely create every imaginable character.


Trying to apply logic and realisme to D&D tends to fail as it is so far away from what the system is supposed to do.
I like D&D, especially 4e, but I do not use it for anything that has to resemble realisme, for that I use GURPS.

I used to be a GURPS fanboy but it's hard to get into during actual play; the rules are frickin' complicated.