D&D 5E Can mundane classes have a resource which powers abilities?

[Ahnehnois]

I've played in games in the past where the DM just came right out and said it. "This is a big tough guy warrior, you can tell by the way he carries his weapon that he's level 10 and has 108 hit points." Not that those numbers mean anything to my character, of course, but it's a kind of short-hand for "this guy is obviously way tougher than you," or "he's obviously the toughest guy in the room, but you could probably take him," depending on how strong my own character is.

I've seen that too, but I'm not a big fan of it. I'd rather talk in terms that the character could comprehend.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I've seen that too, but I'm not a big fan of it. I'd rather talk in terms that the character could comprehend.

That's what I usually do.

I was reading one of the DMGs yesterday, and it even talked about the option of hiding hit point information from the players, except for what the characters can actually see (you can see that you're bloodied / you're on your last legs / you're perfectly fine), but it also mentioned that this is usually more trouble than it's worth. Mostly, because not everyone agrees on what any of those things actually means, so you could tell someone that they're slightly wounded with a gash to the upper arm and they have no idea whether or not they're about to die because they're at 7 out of 99.

In my personal experience, it just leads to the players asking a lot of questions and running around in circles. "Do I feel like I could go a round with an orc wielding a battleaxe?" "What about an ogre?"

 

[LostSoul]

You're referring to the level 7 Young Red Dragon (Solo Soldier), I presume?

Actually I was referring to the level 22 Elder Red Dragon. If you take away its 1/2 level bonus (+11) and its high DEX bonus (+5) you get an AC of 22. Anyway, that's like, what, +3 plate? It makes more sense to me that an Elder Red Dragon's hide offers the same level of protection as +3 plate armour than whatever a +30 natural armour bonus means.

(The Young Red Dragon ends up with a "base" AC of 17 - which is scale armour, I think. That suggests to me that a young red dragon has scales as hard as steel.)

If you look at the monsters in the Monster Vault you get similar values. While the AC values of monsters are set by their level in 4E, the level of the monster seems to be set by their place/role in the game world in a pretty consistent manner.

 

[Hussar]

Can someone please describe a wound serious enough that I can only take exactly one more such wound?

See this is the problem. You'll notice that all the descriptions of wounds are extremely vague because none of us has the slightest idea what a 49 point wound looks like other than one that flat out kills the target.

Why don't we know? Why can't the system give the slightest indication what that looks like?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why don't we know? Why can't the system give the slightest indication what that looks like?

Because it depends on how many total hit points the target has? Because 49/200 is a completely different wound than 49/5?

 

[Hussar]

But that's the point. You can never know the hp total of an individual before you hit him and every individual is completely different.

So what exactly could be observed in the game world?

 

[Manbearcat]

Actually I was referring to the level 22 Elder Red Dragon. If you take away its 1/2 level bonus (+11) and its high DEX bonus (+5) you get an AC of 22. Anyway, that's like, what, +3 plate? It makes more sense to me that an Elder Red Dragon's hide offers the same level of protection as +3 plate armour than whatever a +30 natural armour bonus means.

(The Young Red Dragon ends up with a "base" AC of 17 - which is scale armour, I think. That suggests to me that a young red dragon has scales as hard as steel.)

If you look at the monsters in the Monster Vault you get similar values. While the AC values of monsters are set by their level in 4E, the level of the monster seems to be set by their place/role in the game world in a pretty consistent manner.

Fascinating. I reviewed several entries last night and you are correct. However, it is corresponding with the unscaled mundane portions that you outline. If you include the mundane scaling of the armor through the levels, the math is ever so slightly off at a few levels. But yes, it tracks almost completely; the math and the fictional positioning of PC armor: Monster armor. I would say that the lesson therein is the tighter the math, the easier it is to couple expected fictional positioning and expected mechanical values.

 

[Ahnehnois]

But that's the point. You can never know the hp total of an individual before you hit him and every individual is completely different.

So what exactly could be observed in the game world?

I believe the conventional approach to hp is as a ratio. After all, damage and hit points only produce in-world phenomena when they interact with each other, not by themselves. So a blow that deals 10 damage is not in itself an objective truth; it is considered in the context of what you were attacking. 10 damage dealt to a dragon is a scratch. 10 damage dealt to a kobold is a beheading. 10 damage dealt to an adamantine door is nothing. Someone who has half his hp looks significantly wounded, but still a viable combatant. Someone who has only 10% appears close to succumbing to his wounds. Someone at 80% is noticeably worse for wear but not seriously injured. Relative judgments are much easier to make then absolutes.

I think it's pretty feasible to look at someone and made an intelligent guess as to how they're doing health- and stamina-wise.

 

[Manbearcat]

The major difference being that Gatorade and coffee/tea are fairly cheap, where a healing potion costs enough to feed a small village for a week. I mean, I get that you can make full use of abstraction to hide the causality and make it less weird if you've already made the decision to go with post-hoc narrative justification, but can you see how the alternative makes sense for people who start with an objective reality as a premise? Why it's more satisfying to some people for a magical potion to have an obvious magical effect, so that using it confers the same degree of certainty to both the player and the character, and why it's important that a thing be defined as it occurs rather than in retrospect?

If you don't mind another scenario, what would happen in the first situation you described if you didn't have a healing potion on hand? The player knows that the character has only a few hit points left, and the character knows that he's un-wounded but can't complete his customary ritual. Would the character then decide to not press the fight? Or would you decide, in retrospect, that this time those wounds are real injury and you can't go on because you might die?

On the 1st paragraph:

Even though it is no longer a part of my agenda for a high fantasy, mythic d&d campaign, I can certainly sympathize with folks who consider process simulation and displayed relevance for off screen/backdrop setting components as paramount to their TTRPG experience. I spent a generous portion of my gaming career with these same objectives of the same import.

That being said, that ship has long set sailed for me. There is far, far too much inconsistency with the coupling of d&d mechanics to implied setting physics (laws of CoM and CoE, flying trim characteristics, atmospheric friction and drag, waffling gravity) for me to attempt to try to fit that square peg in that round hole any longer. It is much simpler and more aesthetically pleasing to avert my eyes, rejigger my perceptions and expectations, and pursue a different agenda with systems that propose a different impetus. My GMing experience, and overall gaming experience, has improved dramatically since then.

But make no mistake, I am a veteran of the ins and outs of your preferences. I know what they are and why you possess them.

on the 2nd paragraph:

1) The anecdote in question doesn't include something such as a pathological behavior regime to quaff potions or some kind of dependency. If you have a potion, it works, 100 % of the time, to alleviate a variety of ailments, perceived or real, from failing morale to fatigue to minor soft tissue injury, etc.

2) The question requires controls such as system and genre (among others including group makeup and PC archetype). Let us assume 4e d&d and it's inherent gonzo/mythic fantasy, high action/adventure conceits and tropes. Under those pretenses, PCs have a robust assemblage (some more than other and scaling with level) of resources to call upon in response to escalation and desperation. What's more, the force multiplication and synergy of group play is considerable. As such , there is typically a thematic and mechanical answer to the situation within one of those depos; eg Second Wind or another 1st party HS-accessing ability, deployment of a stance or immediate action that bulwarks the PC, deployment of a game-changer by a teammate, an archetypal suite of contingencies or actions for such a situation (such as a Rogue using an at-will move + stealth effect or a Bladesinger calling upon one of his daily uses of Bladesong and Arcane Strike to become a nigh invulnerable angel of death for 2 rounds).

Actually, this example you gave kind of illustrates the problem. People did not drink Gatorade from the beginning of time; they drank water, even though if you're sweating a lot you do need electrolyte replacement. People did not intuitively know that they needed this; they just knew that they were thirsty.

It was intended as a stand-in for any behavioral regime/contingency that affects, real or perceived, the disposition of the user. "Looking good, feeling good, playing good", is a meme that has application, and legitimate utility, regardless of era. A mental framework is augmented or atrophied by all manner of intangible rituals, visceral feelings (highly applicable to this conversation!), and (borderline silly) buy-in into empirically provable nonsense. Further, confidence born of past success in a crucible of fire, being appropriately (over) armed for the task at hand, and belief that your true destiny will inevitably manifest is a fundamental difference-maker; both for the outlook of the participant and their will to act.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It was intended as a stand-in for any behavioral regime/contingency that affects, real or perceived, the disposition of the user. "Looking good, feeling good, playing good", is a meme that has application, and legitimate utility, regardless of era. A mental framework is augmented or atrophied by all manner of intangible rituals, visceral feelings (highly applicable to this conversation!), and (borderline silly) buy-in into empirically provable nonsense. Further, confidence born of past success in a crucible of fire, being appropriately (over) armed for the task at hand, and belief that your true destiny will inevitably manifest is a fundamental difference-maker; both for the outlook of the participant and their will to act.

If I get what you're going for, you're saying that people can't readily tell correlation from causation, and that they do all kinds of things regardless of whether those things are truly useful or not. Which has some truth to it. However, on aggregate, people can make some useful observations (for instance, it was accurately determined that white willow bark relieved pain long before we knew that salicylates inhibited cyclooxygenases). To be fair, they can also be wrong.

To go back to a point above, if people were truly as clueless as you're implying, they would probably be quaffing worthless nonmagical potions on a regular basis believing they were just as good as the real thing. But that doesn't happen much in my games. Does it happen in yours?

If not, there has to be some rationale for how the characters are so effectual in their actions.