No, of course not, that is ridiculous. Hit points in D&D have always been an abstraction, and you can check page 82 of your 1e DMG if you don't believe me:
It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" whith warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).
So, you know, even Gary Gygax agrees with me.
However, as an intellectual exercise, let's consider a world where the Grognards were right. I mean, what if your wounds do close, as if by magic, simply because someone "yelled at you"? What if every time you were hit for 4 hit point by a sword, it really was representative of being gutted by a sword?
Okay, here is my pitch for this bizarro-4e: You play a REVENANT, cursed to suffer grievous pain and injury, but at the same time, nearly unkillable. During the course of your career, you will break all of your bones, puncture your organs, and spill buckets of blood, but because of your terrible curse (Healing Surges) you can knit your wounds back together and keep fighting. As you get stronger (Go up in level) the amount of horrible injuries you can sustain increase, (HP increases) but beware, because enough damage can eventually cause your body to fail on you. (Reaching 0 hit points) Even then, sometimes the terrible curse will allow you to keep fighting! (Death Saving Throw) Some Revenants have the ability to use divine magic to knit wounds back together (Clerics) or conjure spirits of healing (Shamans) or even use the fabled Shout-o-mancy to regenerate your flesh (Warlords).
All of a sudden, the power level of PCs makes sense: they're immortals who have had decades to hone their skills! Their constant urge to delve into caverns and fight dragons make sense: they want to die in honorable combat against fierce opponents, and their hoarding of treasure is because, being a thousand years old, they're all hedonists and degenerates who need excessive money to support their decadent life styles.
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| "Don't worry about it, I've still got my Second Wind!" |
There's no question that you can't have a hit point conversation until you agree on what hit points represent. Even the stiffest grognard out there would agree with EGG's statement that HP are an abstraction, which is why D&D doesn't have Runequest-style maimings and GURPS-level lethality. In those games, character skill and tactics, not HP abstractions, prevent lethal injury. But D&D has always favored the abstract approach in many areas, eschewing a simulationist model in favor of game flow, ease of play, and DM customization/fiat. This is why OD&D/1st Edition doesn't have detailed rules on perception, armor-as-damage reduction, skills, etc. As the game editions evolved, more and more of these simulationist concepts have been grafted to the game.
ReplyDeleteMy personal objection to healing surges is not one of grognard "purity" but rather one of taste and style. I play in a regular 4e game, and the gamist/simulationist style of play takes me out of immersion. Healing surges are but one of the most blatant examples of this, a clunky game mechanic injecting itself into my imaginary fantasy world. For me, D&D is best experienced as "theater of the mind," so less is more. Fewer rules, fewer battlemats ... more interaction.
Here's hoping 5e allows for this "back to basics" approach.
See, I don't know if I can agree! I grew up playing Dungeon Vietnam style D&D, and I actually like Healing Surges because, to me, they manage to be both a way to make combat more dramatic while at the same time continuing the resource management that D&D is famous for. It lets people play Clerics as something other than Healbots, or even adventure without a Cleric, and, besides, I've always felt that, since HP is just an abstract, why isn't healing an abstract? It's Cure Light Wounds, not Restore Divine Favor, Magical Protection & Luck. While I agree with you that D&D is best when it isn't clogged up with rules, I really hope Healing Surges come back, because they're a simple and elegant way to bring healing into the same abstract design space as HP.
DeleteAnd if you don't think there are scads of people out there shouting that HP directly represent physical injuries, clearly you aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel by browsing ENWorld and RPGSite ;)
I have played a 4e cleric, and frankly I felt less useful than I would have liked. The multiclassing rules allow everyone to get some ghetto healing; stack that with surges, and I was only responsible for about 1/3 of the total healing in a party of six. As I opted for a non-min/maxed build (16 STR and 16 WIS) and had some STR-based abilities, I also found that many of my powers that delivered healy bits often couldn't hit. The buff spells worked well, though.
DeleteJust my $.02. FWIW, I never minded being a pre-4e cleric. I viewed healing as a part of the repertoire but not the only task. Besides, in 3.x you could always crank out a wand of cure X wounds, scribe scrolls for your infrequent spells, memorize buffs and, offensive spells, and spontaneously heal as necessary. The pure healbots were never playing smart, at least in 3.x.
Lastly, and back on point, I also have an issue with the magnitude of healing surges. A 25% heal is huge at mid-upper levels. In prior editions, you would have to spend a 3rd or 4th level spell to get that quantity of healing, and the "bind wounds" of the Rules Cyclopedia would give you 1d3 hp back after a fight.