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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 4:01AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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There’s a problem with healing and hps from the start. • They fail to render the fact that being wounded doesn’t stop a trained combatant to rest and resume combat the next day without problem after a more difficult wake up that usual, provided the wounds are not too serious (or critical in game term), if you do not allow to recover all hit points during a long rest.
• They also fail to render the fact that some wounds are so serious that they won’t allow even a trained combatant to resume combat unhindered without stopping all strenuous activities, often for days, if you simply allow to recover all hit points during a long rest. Edit : Wounds, here, are as abstracted as hit ponts. I could (and should) have said loss of hit points instead.
If you favor one of these two points, you leave all realism behind. The first point has the minor drawback of turning the adventurers into super-heroes like Spider-man that can heal any wounds overnight. The second point has the severe drawback of putting all the ability to simply go adventuring in the hands of a sacrificed player, the legendary healing bot. I think it’s possible to solve these two points without going back to video game critical hits from 3rd and 4th editions (my favorite editions ! I don’t want to start an edition war !), with thunder, lightning and go-go dancers when you roll a natural 20 with a big weapon. The idea is to keep simple hit points as an abstraction and simple critical hits as max damage.
The added complexity is to keep track of the critically lost hit points. Hit points lost by critical hits cannot be recovered overnight and need special care. Other hit points losses are recovered after a good sleep. From the critical hit point of view itself, it could be interesting to render the physical shock by having disadvantage on the next roll within one or two rounds. Edit 2 : Death: a minor point I forgot to adress 
Zero hp or less by normal loss of hit points : incapacitated with no risk of death by itself.
Critical wounds equal to max HPs: instant death.
All damages while at zero or less hp are considered critical wounds.
Zero hp or less by a mix normal loss of hit points and critical wounds : you (critically, see above) lose one hp per round.
It’s the kind of hit points management I would like to see in the next edition. Even if it’s an added complexity for players, it doesn’t impact much the DM side and can keep us from the DREADED HEALING BOT with some alternate options depending on the nature of the wounds.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 4:15AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Mar 29, 2005
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I suggest you read the description of "hit points" in ANY edition of D&D. You'll find a single common thread: None of them are meant to represent solely physical wounds.
Also, your suggestion is terrible, and won't solve any problems (in fact, it would exacerbate some of them).
Ever feel like people on these forums can't possibly understand how wrong they are? Feeling trolled? Don't get mad. Report Post.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 4:26AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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I suggest you read the description of "hit points" in ANY edition of D&D. You'll find a single common thread: None of them are meant to represent solely physical wounds.
Also, your suggestion is terrible, and won't solve any problems (in fact, it would exacerbate some of them).
That's why I said "The idea is to keep simple hit points as an abstraction and simple critical hits as max damage" 
I can accept that my suggestion is terrible, but only if you take the time to precise something, anything...
I can't discuss anything about this point, then !
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 6:55AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2004
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I also like this idea, or at least a version of it. The point is that you need some kind of "wound" system to distinguish genuine physical damage from abstract hp. The simplest I can think of is what you suggest, but I'd phrase it as wounds lowering your max hp, and being more difficult to recover.
We differ in what we think a wound is... I've never particularly considered a crit to be more wounding than regular hit. To me, when you're really hurt is when you're reduced to 0 hp. So I'd like to see a sytem where any time you're reduced below 0, your max hp goes down. Recovering them takes more time and effort than healing hp does.
For instance:
- Any time your hp are negative, your max hp are reduced by that negative amount. So if you normally have 50 hp, and a blow takes you to -10, your max hp are now 40. If another hit takes you to -5, your max drops to 35.
- Your max hp increase by 1 per level during a long rest, or 2 per level with care and a heal check.
- Cure spells specify both hp healing and restoration of max hp. So Cure Light Wounds might restore 1d8+Wis hp, and increase your max hp by your Wis. Healing potions might not affect your max hp at all. Restoration might raise your max hp by 2d8+Wis; Regeneration might entirely restore your max hp to your healthy value.
If you thought that crits should do this, then it's easy to add.
I like this because it lets hp be abstract without losing the realism that real injuries exist and are hard to recover from. But injuries will be relatively rare, and only come from fights where things have gone more or less badly. It makes getting knocked unconscious more scary, but doesn't start a death spiral in that particular fight like penalties would. A minor injury would not be much of a handicap, but a party with a severly injured character will clearly be impacted.
The same mechanic could also be applied to poisons, disease and energy drain. It is pretty easy to understand, doesn't involve complicated penalties to track, but still provides a meaningful longer-term effect than hp damage.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 7:39AM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 16, 2004
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Any "problem" with healing starts with the narrative. If you describe hp loss as "wounds" you are less flexible. A more abstract narrative (hp as luck, stamina, morale etc.) gives you more room to navigate.
For me, it has always helped to say "hp loss" instead of "damage" and "hp gain" instead of "cure" or "healing".
5e seems to have a "problem" with hp recovery on a mechanical level for some, though. It arises when a PC drops to -1 hp or lower, which is considered to be a major injury that stops the character from doing anything, falling to the ground, unconscious. After 2d6 hours, he recovers from that injury through mundane means, is at 1 hp an can rest for another 8 hours to have full hp again. For some people, that does not seem realistic and is hard to navigate around by a narrative based on the description of hp in the 5e playtest mechanics.
Healing by magical means in this situation seems to be no problem for those people.
I only see one way to solve this problem for this target group: an option to limit "quick" healing from below 0 hp to magical means combined with an option to increase the amount of hours it takes to heal from below 0 hp to 1 hp by mundane means to a week, a month or something like this, instead of 2d6 hours. I am sure, people opposed to mundane healing within 2d6 hours will be happy to let a diceroll decide (so 1d4 weeks or something like it could be ok for them).
Those of us who have no problem with this get the full bandwidth of mundane healing that makes Warlords in 4E such an attractive class to play and can offer story possibilities without clerics or healing potions. As long as we can generate a narrative that we can use, those people will be fine, I think.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 8:41AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2004
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If I understand, your suggestion is that "wounded" is just a binary condition: if you're below 0 hp, you're wounded, above you're not. I get the idea, but I guess I would like to see an intermediate stage between healthy (above 0 hp) and completely incapacitated (below 0 hp).
Also, I disagree that magical healing poses no problem... there is a lot of disagreement about how available and effective magical healing should be, and how that ties into the requirement to have a magical healer in the party.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 8:56AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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I suggest you read the description of "hit points" in ANY edition of D&D. You'll find a single common thread: None of them are meant to represent solely physical wounds.
Also, your suggestion is terrible, and won't solve any problems (in fact, it would exacerbate some of them).
That's why I said "The idea is to keep simple hit points as an abstraction and simple critical hits as max damage"
I can accept that my suggestion is terrible, but only if you take the time to precise something, anything...
I can't discuss anything about this point, then !
Don't listen to him I like the idea. I also would like adding that any time you drop to negative hp you take note of them. The negative hp are added to the crit hp and lets call em wounds for now. Every day you recover back to full minus any wounds you have.
I think hp is a little bit abstract and a little bit life force. Otherwise why have damage at all? Crits matter! Dying matters! You heal a number of wound points equal to your Con modifier (min 1) per day of complete bed rest.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 9:06AM
#8
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I personally prefer the idea of HP and wounds. Whenever you take damage > 1/4 your max HP you suffer a wound. You also suffer a sound whenever an attack drops you below 1 HP. Each long rest allows you to make a DC 15 Con check to recover 1 wound. A player can only take a number of wounds equal to 3 + Con mod before dying. Magic can heal wounds (hopefully out of combat) but HP should represent mostly fatigue (mental and physical) so can be healed by martial healing, second winds, etc. This system could allow you to just ignore negative HP as each time you take damage would just cause another wound. HP should have some means to recover quickly out of combat (but hit dice are definitely no the way to go). If you want a grittier game have wounds give a cumulative -1 to all d20 rolls.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 9:12AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2012
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I believe the original poster is looking for a way to apply Con damage instead of HP damage. Con damage does a great job of representing serious wounds that would hinder a combatants ability. This mechanic was used in a d20 game, but I cannot thick of which one. It may have been Gamma World that had both HP damage and Con damage. There were other damage types that attacked Strength and Dex. A DM could generate a curve that indicates additional damage to stats as there is an increase in Con damage. When reaching 4 points in Con damage then the character also suffers 1 point in strength damage. When reaching 5 points in Con damage then the character suffers 2 points in strength damage. This could continue to 8 points in Con damage, 4 points in Str damage, and 1 point in Dex damage. Contine the curve to your hearts content.
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12 months ago ::
Jun 23, 2012 - 9:17AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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Ah, yes, I considered "wounds" as an abstraction as HPs were, but if I don't say it, it doesn't help anyone  @snot elemental : The downside of "seriously wounded under 0 hps" is that you can't function at all (under the current rules). My proposition is to allow to function even while beeing seriously wounded, but without beeing able to fully recover. It's dangerous, particulary for melee classes, but the choice is here. @ Jaelis : I really wanted to keep things as simple as possible to make a difference between the "normal wounds" coming from fatigue from dodging, painful but minor hits ore being out of luck, and "critical wounds" coming from big loss of blood, cruel loss of confidence, or other serious medium or long term hindrances to the character recovery. I considered things like progressive maluses to hit or to movement, but it attacked too much the iconic "D&D hit points system". I think that more complex rules about hp loss and recovery would only be accepted as optional rules from most players and DM. PS: I'll edit my first post about wounds as abstractions.
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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