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Hey guys! Cool to see Hasshodo's long awaited playtest reports. It's been fun going over.

Dealing with the division between Slayer and Intoxication here's my POV on it:

I like the rules for being Intoxicated because they're fun and represent the core idea of being drunk (stupid and resistant to damage) in an elegant simple way. It's been a joy to use in the game.

Slayer has not been a joy. It's been hard to try and come up with new narrative tricks to represent the three damage a round on every missed blow. I'll narrate how the fighter's miss narrowly whisks past an enemy's face--and then have to be reminded that I need to include something in there that does 3 points of damage, so I have to go back and try to shoehorn in a 3 hit point kicker...every time. If it was a second roll, and on a hit it did a d4+Strength as a free improvised attack every round I wouldn't mind it at all. If it was an auto hit for 3 points of damage, but was limited to a certain number of uses (maybe once a fight or 4x a day) I would take that too. Having auto damage every round got hard to deal with--and didn't feel much like a "Slayer" to me. Another idea I've been tinkering with, to get a more "Slayer" flavor is maybe taking the best of two rolls whenever the fighter inflicts damage--the idea that a Slayer has the ability to get a little more out of his weapon than other folks, and is thus better equipt to go after big scary foes.

That said, I would like to see different lethality modules as the rules modules roll out--so we don't have to disagree about what hit points mean. People who want more of a "meat points" (that's funny by the way, hadn't heard that one before) system can go with a small pool of Bloodied hit points and use regular hit points for purposes like subdual, intimidation and fear effects and the like. People who want beefier, more legendary characters who can get dropped off buildings or eaten by dragons and cut their way out can use the big hit point stacks--like 50 to start or so, and wade in hacking.

Rules modules will be the salvation of this edition, and hopefully the end of all this edition war nonsense.

Jul 1, 2012 -- 10:51AM, Rustmonster wrote:

No, you really don't. The damage caused represents how even when his attack fails, he is still wearing the foe down. You don't have to narrate anything special, just make sure that everyone knows that the Fighter is that good. Saying your "whisks by the face" thing would be good enough, or even adding something as simple as it whisking by causing the opponent to stumble. If you're seriously narrating something like "the fighter's attack narrowly whisks past an enemy's face" for every single attack anyway, I find it very hard to believe that just keeping in mind that the Fighter's "misses" are more dangerous than any other characters "misses" should be a problem. If the auto-damage DROPS an enemy, you get to have even more fun describing how the foe can simply no longer take the barrage of deadly strikes flying at him and either finally gets hit, simply collapses from exaustion, or how the Fighter barely nicked the neck of the opponent, which in short time gushes forth in a shower of gore.

That's all you need to do really.

Jul 1, 2012 -- 10:51AM, Rustmonster wrote:

It only becomes difficult to narrate when you think of HP as purely physical damage, which has never been the case.

The issue in part is that what HP were supposed to be and what they were described as has changed over the years.

Not to mention that AC does a lot of what HP is supposed to do as well.  They're two separate mechanics that overlap for the same result:  Character Not-Dead.

Let me clarify.

HP is a combination of health, morale, guts, skill and luck at avoiding most of the blows coming your way.

AC is a combination of natural dexterity, guts, skill, luck, weapons and armour to avoid blows coming your way.

See?  Confusing as two seperately determined mechanics do more or less similar things. 

I think we should really get a module that tweaks what "Hit Points" and "Armor Class" really mean and are, if for no other reason just to simplify the mechanics and streamline the game. I really agree with CVB a couple of posts up. HP is a bunch of stuff that keeps you from dying, whereas AC is a bunch of stuff that keeps you from dying. While that's true it doesn't satisfy me much.

I'd like the idea of introducing (at least in a module, if not in the core game) the idea of Armor instead of Armor Class. Armor negates a certain amount of damage equal to its rating plus a ability bonus (usually Con, but maybe Dex or Wis to reflect less beefy people who maximize their soak by rolling and tumbling with blows).

You could also have Wounds or Bloodied HP, which would be much what they were in 4e--a chunk of your hit points--ideally decided by race rather than class, so halflings would have less and burly half-orcs would have more. These would be the physical damage part of your hit points. That way you can still be injured without hitting 0 hp and getting put into Dying (which seems way too binary for me--either you're fine or you're dropped and rolling each round to live). The other hit points can be whatever you like--and you can use them or not. Maybe they're for subdual damage. Maybe you lose them to Psychic damage like intimidation or fear auras too. Or if you want a big vintage feeling abstract damage system you can use them just like you always have.

I guess my point isn't that in the history of D&D hit points have ever been anything but abstract. They've never represented physical injury in a clean way--it's always been a lot of handwaving. My point is I'd like to see that changed--at least as a possibility, in some kind of rules module, for those of us who have really had headaches because of it.

Jul 2, 2012 -- 4:51PM, PinkRose wrote:

I think we should really get a module that tweaks what "Hit Points" and "Armor Class" really mean and are

Or we can just use the actual wording of what Hit Points really mean.

Hence the rules module. Some folks can use the classic idea of what Hit Points "really" mean and some folks can go with a system that measures the physical punishment axis with one pool of Hit Points (Wounds, or Bloodied HP) and the sixth sense and luck axis using another (Subdual, or Dramatic HP).

It's clear there's been different schools of what Hit Points should mean right from the beginning of the game--and now we have a game logic that allows each of us to run the game using modules so it plays the way we want it to. Seems silly to fight over it anymore--now that everyone can win.

Not officially officially, but it was on the Ask a Simple Question forum--and from the adjudication there the thought was not to concider alchohol a poison. I think immunity to poison's a little extreme anyway. I'd like to see it go back to the Iron Stomach mechanic in 4e.