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Apr 17, 2012 -- 8:30AM, wrecan wrote:

I don't understand your confusion, then.  If you wanted him to be able to discern the PCs killed his drakes, then let them.  If they complain that the healign surges covered the injuries, explain to them, that hp do not directly correlate to physcal injury.

The point is that as a DM I don't ever want things.  I create npcs that want things.  I'm not interacting with the players being like "hi, I'm the DM, I want you guys to go to the tavern".  I don't try to push the game anywhere except by having a plethora of npcs with lives, attitudes, desires, motivations, and problems for players to fix.  But most NPCs are just there because they make sense.  Why would I want this guy to catch them?  I'm not a  ****. I want what would realistically go down to happen, so they can have fun in the world I've made.  So they can assume it works like a world and so they can really feel like they can do whatever they want.

"can be" and "is" are different words with different meanings.  Stop gunning for a fight that doesn't exist!

I don't see why you think this is a fight.  It's a fun discussion.  As long as people have opinions and ideas about why hit points need to be abstract, I'll probably have some reasons why they don't have to be.  It's a voluntary back and forth discussion.

Apr 17, 2012 -- 8:25AM, Frostball wrote:

Apr 17, 2012 -- 8:01AM, dmgorgon wrote:

As much as some of the more gamist grognards try to deney it,  players and DM's will always describe damage as physical damage.    I can't think of any game in which the DM described a critical hit with a greataxe as a miss.     Heck, even the old description of Cure Light Wounds mentioned that it healed broken bones and physical wounds.    

HP can work for describing only physical damage.  You only need lower the number to something more reasonable, maybe 10 HP or use the character's CON score.  

You can then create an AC system that incorporates avoidance, absorption, and deflection.    If you let the AC system do all the grunt work then you don't need an abstract notion of HPs.   In this kind of system,  a guy in full plate might absorb 6 damage from slashing weapons;  a wizard might deflect most attacks with a shield spell; The druid might absorbe 4 points with his barkskin spell, etc.   You could also give martial types a parry chance per round.     

I do recal playing in a 2e campaign in which we did exactly what I just described and it was very interesting.   I like this method alot more because the system naturally describes what happens during combat and you don't need to justify or rationalize anything.     

I'd argue that you don't even have to lower hit points.  You can just raise your idea of what a fighter can do in the D&D universe.  Just assume that martial characters go far beyond the limits of humans in our world.  A fighter can take arrows, axe wounds to the chest, fall 100 ft and still live because he's quite superhuman compared to anybody in our world.  If you can't accept a fighter is that tough, then you are accepting that the fighter is superhuman in every other way.  If it's not his Hit Points that are unreal, it's his ability to dodge blows, get lucky, and kill things that are crazy.  Can a boxer who's trained all his life fight 20 orcs and win?  A 20th level fighter could without breaking a sweat.  Heck, he could probably kill 100.  The fighters are already much more powerful than people in our world, why can't they be ridiculously durable?

I agree, but I guess you could use magic to explain Hit Points.   I do recall reading an old dragon magazine article that explained Hit Points and Levels as a magical concept.     I guess in world in which magic and the gods are real, the notion of Hit Points and Levels is acceptable.  

However, that concept doesn't mean that your character must be a superhero from level 1.   Personally, I don't like the idea that D&D characters are superheroes.   I think they are normal people with above average abilities struggling to become heroes.    That's mostly because I like low magic campaigns that are closer to historical medieval fantasy.  

You could however argue that once a character reaches 20th level he is a demi-god or at least approaches that power level.    At that point, previous editions of the game encouraged you to retire your character and start over at level 1.     

In 2e, I've always felt that once you became about 16th level the campaign was nearing its end.   Having 9th level spells like Wish meant that you could do just about anything you wanted.   

Apr 17, 2012 -- 8:21AM, dmgorgon wrote:

Your opponents' jabs don't wear you down.  Your own jabs wear you down.  It's the physical exertion of your own swings that tires you.  That's why fighters are taught how to draw out your opponent to make ineffectual hits.  In a long fight, the less tired boxer is more likely to win.  And you tire your opponent out, not by hitting him repeatedly, but by getting him to hit you repeatedly.  The trick is getting him to hit you in places that won't cause you to get a concussion.

Watch Tyson vs Lewis.  All Lewis does is jab him to death with his 84 inch reach.     He does this in all his fights and those jabs do bugger up his opponents faces.      Lewis can jab all day and it doesn't wear him out.    Your own Jabs don't wear you down.   

Now, if you want a mechanic to represent fatigue, it will look very different from hp.  We could give you an energy pool.  Every time you make an attack, you draw on that energy reserve.  When you're out of reserves, you're fatigued and your defenses and attack rolls get penalized.  That would be a fine mechanic for a ame in which you want fights to look like boxing matches, where the combatants warily circle each other for several rounds, making Insight and Perception checks, possibly with some light test jabs to gauge your opponents' speed and agility, to discern the other side's stengths and weaknesses before even attempting an action.  That would be a fun system, but it wouldn't look like D&D combat from any edition.

Yes, nothing wrong with rules for that.    2e players option books had stamina and fatigue optional rules.  If I recal, even spell casters could become exhausted.