Quote from: jadrax;632096See, I would argue that Gygax got there first with Hit Points simulating action and adventure movies. It is the people who make Hit Points = real damage who are not letting D&D be D&D.

Of course hit points are cinematic. Thats how a high level fighter gets "hit" 6 times with a heavy broadsword and keeps on coming.

Magic exists to instantly fix these things. Having the effects just vanish overnight sans magic is beyond cinematic. That is a cartoon universe.

Quote from: elfandghost;632099Would it not be easier (and to keep everyone happy) to divide Hit Points into Hit Points and Wounds as core.

HP being metaphysical, wounds being 'real' - when they've gone you are dead, when HP run out you are into your Wounds. For those that want more realism ditch HP or reduce them. Anyone could recover HP; in an instant if you like because they aren't real! HP are also there to separate the PCs, NPCs and unique monsters and creatures against everyone else. Wounds on the other hand can only be magically healed (by a Cleric) or regained after a significant amount of time, most folk only have Wounds - they don't have HP. Is that too simple?

Then wounds would become the new HP and bitching would erupt if there wasn't a way to non-magically just recover those too.

Whiny bitches aint gonna be happy with anything that just might mean that the adventuring day could start without a PC being topped off in HP, wounds, or whatever you care to measure. They want all vitality as a per-day tactical resource.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;632104Then wounds would become the new HP and bitching would erupt if there wasn't a way to non-magically just recover those too.

Whiny bitches aint gonna be happy with anything that just might mean that the adventuring day could start without a PC being topped off in HP, wounds, or whatever you care to measure. They want all vitality as a per-day tactical resource.

You are right, but that game aint the D&D I remember. Maybe that's the problem? There is the D&D anime superhero game where everyone has cellular regeneration and D&D the medieval fantasy game of dark dungeons, deadly traps and the chance of death. You can't make those two camps happy.

Quote from: elfandghost;632099Would it not be easier (and to keep everyone happy) to divide Hit Points into Hit Points and Wounds as core.

HP being metaphysical, wounds being 'real' - when they've gone you are dead, when HP run out you are into your Wounds. For those that want more realism ditch HP or reduce them. Anyone could recover HP; in an instant if you like because they aren't real! HP are also there to separate the PCs, NPCs and unique monsters and creatures against everyone else. Wounds on the other hand can only be magically healed (by a Cleric) or regained after a significant amount of time, most folk only have Wounds - they don't have HP. Is that too simple?

Been doing it for years (see various posts) but the trouble is very people who want HP to heal slowly tend to not want too much complexity and don't like death spirals (ie wounds inflict penalties which in time lead to more wounds as you are less effective in combat etc.)

The balancing act is to have a system that has the ease of use in play of HP but makes some nod to simulation.

I based my HP paradigm on 1e Villains and Vigilantes where there was a power stat whcih you could use to absorb damage by 'rolling with the punches' . That to me meant I could see why a 10th level fighter had 3 times the Hit points of a large horse.

I don't see why it has to be so difficult.  We all agree that HP are abstract, right?  And they've been that way from the beginning, less so at low levels and more so at high levels.  Why not just keep it simple and say half hp loss is reflected by things like fatigue, and half from wounds.  That way when you do your long rest, you can never regain more than half of those lost.  No need for another category, algebraic calculation, or whatever.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;632277I don't see why it has to be so difficult.  We all agree that HP are abstract, right?  And they've been that way from the beginning, less so at low levels and more so at high levels.  Why not just keep it simple and say half hp loss is reflected by things like fatigue, and half from wounds.  That way when you do your long rest, you can never regain more than half of those lost.  No need for another category, algebraic calculation, or whatever.

That works fine except that algebra come sin when you are involved in many fights .

Say you have 32 HP.

You get into a fight and loose 10 HP.

Then you regain 5 HP resting

Then you get into another fight and loose 12 HP.
Now logically you can regain 6 of them but becuase now you have lost 17 HP overall but we are counting them in one pile of HP you can actually regain 9HP through resting (half the toal damage).
etc

So the only way to make your method work consistently is to either
i) track each wound - I tried that for a while but its a nightmare to manage
ii) Have 2 types of HP - Stamina and Physical - and take damage of the two stacks equally.

Which is why I went to HP & wounds which required you beign able to take 30% of your HP from any one blow. (so 32 HP means you can roll with upto 11 points of damage). But it is cumbersome sometimes and has other impacts to the wider system.
 
So what I have been looking at is adding a d6 at 0 level.

This is then your wounds the real physical damage.
HPs are the skill stuff.
Basically if you loose these last few HP then they are real wounds with minuses.
Imagine HP as a life bar and the last 6 squares are Red and if you get there then you are taking real damage and you coss out those points. They don't come back except slowly so you track them separately (maybe you lost 3 and then you rested and got back the rest of your HP) as the minus continue until they are healed.
The rest of the time HP act in just the same way as they always did.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;632104Then wounds would become the new HP and bitching would erupt if there wasn't a way to non-magically just recover those too.

Whiny bitches aint gonna be happy with anything that just might mean that the adventuring day could start without a PC being topped off in HP, wounds, or whatever you care to measure. They want all vitality as a per-day tactical resource.

Sure there are people like that but they can use the straight up system right, and its not whiny its more as you say They want all vitality as a per-day tactical resource.

Then thewre are people like me that actually want to sort HP out from a simulationist perspective we actually want to understand them and make them made some sense. Also from my perspective at least I want to have the option of removing magical healing and not have the game totally fall over.
I don't want a massive sword cut to the warrior to heal in a day but I don't want it to heal in a week either I want it to take a month, no matter if he is 1st level or 12th,  and I don't want him just chugging back 3 healing potions, available at all adventurer stores, to make the big cut go away and I don't want miraculous saints curing the lame and healing the sick at every small village chapple as it is was a totally mundane issue of no note and not have the existance of magical hospitals available to all have any impact on the worlds economy, population or lifestyle.

Well, I am going to ignore your setting assumptions (magic potion shop and healers casting CLW everywhere) as a universal issue and actually try to help you with your desire -- within the D&D HP chassis.

Sounds like you want more combat in your tactical HP usage, while at the same time taking time to recover fully from great damage. I assume this is your desire, clarify as necessary:

Given that we know higher HP pool in practice represents greater injury capacity, and therefore also allows greater tactical flexibility, this will let more encounters to be "violently" engaged.

So next, since altering all the weapons are a greater effort than altering Hit Die level rolls, you must figure out what level of HP pool cushion would accommodate your campaign's expected aggressiveness.

For simplicity's sake let's try double regular HD rolls. i.e. Warrior rolls 2d10 instead of 1d10. Overall it will add HP but not all that much. A possible rule of thumb for campaign design (not that I'd use, but for others) is one class HD per "expected encounters a day."

Since D&D doesn't do wound tracking and its death spiral (except as optional rules), the main advantage of high HP is access to attempt more danger before resting in safety. It also means that there is little advantage to having maxed HP at the start of every adventure day. The reason for 'always max HP' behavior was fear that low HP risked death and slowed down deeper exploration.

However you want injuries to take around a month or so to heal. That effect should likely still be present with the current rate. Retain current 1 HP day/ 3 HP full rest day to see if it already works well with this new higher HP pool. Double it if you need more heroic HP management.

(FYI, NWP Healing & Herbalism is said in PHB 2e that it "can also" help with healing, versus written as "can instead." Depending on GM judgment, since it is an optional system, that means another 1 HP day/ 2 or 3 HP full rest day for up to 6 people automatically. That tallies to 2 HP day / 5 or 6 HP full rest day for up to 6 in a party. And any class can cross-class NWP for one extra slot...)

I do find it interesting just a week ago the guys who were gloating and the guys who were in a panic were just about reversed...
RPGpundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;632681I do find it interesting just a week ago the guys who were gloating and the guys who were in a panic were just about reversed...
RPGpundit

Me too

Quote from: Opaopajr;632333Well, I am going to ignore your setting assumptions (magic potion shop and healers casting CLW everywhere) as a universal issue and actually try to help you with your desire -- within the D&D HP chassis.

Sounds like you want more combat in your tactical HP usage, while at the same time taking time to recover fully from great damage. I assume this is your desire, clarify as necessary:

Given that we know higher HP pool in practice represents greater injury capacity, and therefore also allows greater tactical flexibility, this will let more encounters to be "violently" engaged.

So next, since altering all the weapons are a greater effort than altering Hit Die level rolls, you must figure out what level of HP pool cushion would accommodate your campaign's expected aggressiveness.

For simplicity's sake let's try double regular HD rolls. i.e. Warrior rolls 2d10 instead of 1d10. Overall it will add HP but not all that much. A possible rule of thumb for campaign design (not that I'd use, but for others) is one class HD per "expected encounters a day."

Since D&D doesn't do wound tracking and its death spiral (except as optional rules), the main advantage of high HP is access to attempt more danger before resting in safety. It also means that there is little advantage to having maxed HP at the start of every adventure day. The reason for 'always max HP' behavior was fear that low HP risked death and slowed down deeper exploration.

However you want injuries to take around a month or so to heal. That effect should likely still be present with the current rate. Retain current 1 HP day/ 3 HP full rest day to see if it already works well with this new higher HP pool. Double it if you need more heroic HP management.

(FYI, NWP Healing & Herbalism is said in PHB 2e that it "can also" help with healing, versus written as "can instead." Depending on GM judgment, since it is an optional system, that means another 1 HP day/ 2 or 3 HP full rest day for up to 6 people automatically. That tallies to 2 HP day / 5 or 6 HP full rest day for up to 6 in a party. And any class can cross-class NWP for one extra slot...)

So here you have an issue with levels and the scaling nature of D&D combat.

Your argument which is basically HPs mean you can take on more challenge and survive works if the oponents stay constant. However in D&D oponents scale with level (always fighting orcs?)

If your 10th level fighter was indeed fighting orcs then the fact that his HP were higher would mean that he could indeed fight rest continue longer ents and be far more effective than the 1st level guy, obviously. However, he isn't he is fighting Hill Giants who deal far more damage and hit far more often. So in effect the risk has scaled with the experience.


A fight between a warrior say and a well matched opponent will see the warrior taken down to about 50% of hits typically. Now using the AD&D paradigm for 1hp per day that 10th level fighter isn't going to be back in a position where he can deal with similarly matched oponents for the full 31 days (remember in AD&D you heal 1hp per day or 2 with full bed rest but after a month you get all your remaining hp back in one go)

Now compare that to a 1st level figther who has fought an orc and will be fully recovered after 3 or 4 days.

If you increased HPs say to 2d10 per level you just make the numbers bigger.

What I want to do, and this is totally for my own use I don't want to force it on any one else and my explanations are simply that explanations for reference, I want to come up with a way where inside a recognisably D&D format I can have a fighter take on a giant and if he manages to avoid getting 'wounded' he can fight a giant again tomorrow but if he does get wounded he will have a broken leg or cracked ribs or whatever and will have to cope with that injury for a "realistic" length of time a week , a month or whatever.  

So for me to get my head round HP like I said I need to think of HPs as skill that stops you getting hit or the whole lot as a %. So either HP are skill and wounds are separate or HP are HP but you heal at a % rate so a cure light cures 10% of your total Hits and you regain hp through healing at a % rate say 5% HP per day or something.
In each case a sword swing that does 9 hp of damage to 1st level guy is toally diffeent to a 9 pnt wound to a 60hp point guy.
The % system still doesn;t deal with any effects of wounds but maybe that is okay in D&D terms.

Quote from: jibbajibba;632711Your argument which is basically HPs mean you can take on more challenge and survive works if the oponents stay constant. However in D&D oponents scale with level (always fighting orcs?)

Perhaps this is true in WOTC D&D (especially in 4e where it seems to be baked into the design), but it was far less true of TSR D&D (especially 0e, 1e, and B/X) where random encounters were normal and widely variable as to their "combat challenge level". Even in dungeons where the average encounter "power" was set by the dungeon level, you could get monsters well below or well above the party's level. In the Wilderness, the party's level had nothing to do with what was encountered, it was random based on what was common in the terrain. In TSR D&D, 10th level fighters did encounter goblins and 1st characters did encounter dragons.

I've never really run into the problem of high-level fighters healing at a disproportionately slow rate.  Usually, by the time a fighter reaches level 9 or 10th level, the party has so much magical healing going for it that everyone's hit points are rapidly restored anyway.  The biggest factor is how fast the healer types get back their spells.

Also, if a party has to pull out for an extended rest / recuperation period, I'm not sure, from the vantage point of most of us amateur DMs, whether it really makes that much difference if they are out for a day, three days, a week or whatever.  If they have to withdraw, they are going to lose initiative and surprise and the opposition will be tougher the next time around.

I'm hoping they keep the default (basic) rules as simple as possible.

Quote from: RandallS;632747Perhaps this is true in WOTC D&D (especially in 4e where it seems to be baked into the design), but it was far less true of TSR D&D (especially 0e, 1e, and B/X) where random encounters were normal and widely variable as to their "combat challenge level". Even in dungeons where the average encounter "power" was set by the dungeon level, you could get monsters well below or well above the party's level. In the Wilderness, the party's level had nothing to do with what was encountered, it was random based on what was common in the terrain. In TSR D&D, 10th level fighters did encounter goblins and 1st characters did encounter dragons.

Quite true. TSR D&D was much more setting focused. The PCs were part of a fantasy world and not living in a bubble of "appropriate challenges".

Quote from: RandallS;632747Perhaps this is true in WOTC D&D (especially in 4e where it seems to be baked into the design), but it was far less true of TSR D&D (especially 0e, 1e, and B/X) where random encounters were normal and widely variable as to their "combat challenge level". Even in dungeons where the average encounter "power" was set by the dungeon level, you could get monsters well below or well above the party's level. In the Wilderness, the party's level had nothing to do with what was encountered, it was random based on what was common in the terrain. In TSR D&D, 10th level fighters did encounter goblins and 1st characters did encounter dragons.

Sorry I wasn't clear.
I wasn't talking about wandering monsters which are themselves tied tot eh 'level' of the dungeon which is typically tied to PC level, as you get more experienced you go deeper in search of richer rewards. Wilderness encounters are more random I agree, but again wandoering monsters are not the point i was making.  I was talking about the targeted challenges you face. If you play G1 - Steadying of the HIll Giant chief the main oppoents you face will be level appropriate to the party. TSR did not design modules for 10th lvel parties populated by orcs. to say they did is disengenuous.