Hits, misses and hit point loss in REH's Conan

[Klaus]

You know the flip side that most people ignore when narrating hp loss as a near miss, are D&Ds armour rules.

In 3e if my knight has a 10 dex and full plate that brings his ac to 18 then rules as written an attack of 1-9 is a clean miss, 10-17 bounces of his iron waistcoat and 18 or above hits and does damage.

It is strange to me that the narrative damage school of HP would claim that a 17 hit but was absorbed by armour, yet an 18 was a miss that somehow was more taxing than a mace to the gibblets.

Reinterpret the numbers to suit your favorite D&D edition.

As for REH he was not narrating a D&D reality with large HP totals, he was narrating life as it was familiar to him where a stab wound puts most men out of a fight.

Because the attack roll alone isn't the ultimate measure of a hit, it's the damage roll relative to the target's remaining hit points.

If I roll a natural 19 and deal 1 point of damage to an 80 hit point fighter, it is barely noticed, maybe he just got a bit winded, or bit his lip. If I roll a 10 (but enough to match the AC) and deal 4 points of damage to a 2 hit point fighter, I might as well have decapitated him.

 

[Izumi]

Because the attack roll alone isn't the ultimate measure of a hit, it's the damage roll relative to the target's remaining hit points.

I agree with Klaus-sama.
The successful attack roll is not a guarantee of actual physical wounds to the foe in the game world. The terminology of the system gives many false impressions to those who take them literally. The "hit" is merely earned removal of some of your foe's ability to keep fighting before being overcome and killed. Damage roll determines how effective he continues to be. The extent of actual physical wounds before and including the characters total loss of fighting ability and subsequent death are purely up to DM determination.

 

[Savage Wombat]

The thing is, people, that you make these statements as if they were obvious and universally agreed with.

The fact that there are so many people in these threads vehemently arguing that point means that it's not universal.

We don't need more people asserting one interpretation - even the one I agree with - we need people discussing how to design the game so that the intended definition of "hit point" is supported by the system and the language of the game.

 

[Greg K]

Note that it's certainly possible to create a balanced and cinematic combat system with hit points that distinctly represent physical damage. Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader does it pretty well.

I attack, and if my attack is on target (I roll under my Weapon Skill rating on a d%), you can dodge (try to roll under your Dodge skill on a d%, but only once per round). If you don't dodge, I roll damage. Armor soaks damage. Most people have, like, 15 HP to start with, and most weapons do 1d10 or 2d10 damage.

Where as I never liked how dodge worked in Warhammer. Your odds of dodging with the dodge roll stays the same regardless of who is attacking you. I would have preferred it subtracting directly from the attacker's roll.

 

[pemerton]

If hit points represent near miss, I wonder if applying Dex mods to HP would be just as applicable as adding Con mods?

Yeah, definitely drop Dex from AC (since it's kind of weird that it goes into it anyways...) and just use it for HPs.

I remember wondering about this back when 3E came out. 3E had at least three forms of "roll with/absorb a blow": CON bonus to hp, DEX bonus to AC, and barbarian DR.

You know the flip side that most people ignore when narrating hp loss as a near miss, are D&Ds armour rules.

In 3e if my knight has a 10 dex and full plate that brings his ac to 18 then rules as written an attack of 1-9 is a clean miss, 10-17 bounces of his iron waistcoat and 18 or above hits and does damage.

But Ascalante, in the story, is unarmoured, so the armour rules aren't applicable to this particular scenario.

As for REH he was not narrating a D&D reality with large HP totals, he was narrating life as it was familiar to him where a stab wound puts most men out of a fight.

Sure, but D&D is meant to replicate Conan-esque adventure, isn't it?

One thing I noticed in Phoenix on the Sword is that everyone but Ascalante is a minion (and if the misses really are misses, then even Ascalante is a minion): a single hit kills them.

 

[pemerton]

we need people discussing how to design the game so that the intended definition of "hit point" is supported by the system and the language of the game.

Are you saying there should be a single definition of what hit point loss consists in? Or that the game should support the same range of interpretations as are in use by different people at the moment?

 

[pemerton]

I never liked how dodge worked in Warhammer. Your odds of dodging with the dodge roll stays the same regardless of who is attacking you. I would have preferred it subtracting directly from the attacker's roll.

That is Rolemaster/HARP: quickness bonuses and parry bonuses to defence are subtracted directly from the attack roll.

Rolemaster also has inconsistencies, though. Superior armour, for example, really should act as damage reduction, but mechanically gives the same sort of bonus as dodging or parrying.

 

[Greg K]

That is Rolemaster/HARP: quickness bonuses and parry bonuses to defence are subtracted directly from the attack roll.

I played a lot of RM my first year of college and, again, from 1998 (or 1999) to 2004 when I switched, exclusively, to 3e with the release of Unearthed Arcana

 

[Savage Wombat]

Are you saying there should be a single definition of what hit point loss consists in? Or that the game should support the same range of interpretations as are in use by different people at the moment?

Yes, I think I am saying that. It would clear up the disputes we've seen too many of here already. It would mean that the rules aren't as "fuzzy" about what's going on.

An explicit module for "if you want it to work differently" would be fine.

 

[Ramen]

well in D&D ac is both your ability to dodge hits but also the ability of your armor to protect you from them. since combat rounds are loose periods of time using a "fill in the detail" format these scenarios could mechanically be that he was hit bit not significantly enough to bother with hit points or he was hit and took some damage but not enough to kill him.

Dex based AC represents you not being there when the sword connects or getting a mild boo boo because you got out of the way just in time. AC from armor represents you getting hit and not getting hurt by it.

Hit points are a second layer of ablative defense. If an attack roll is successful you actually took significant damage from an attack. 1D6 damage with a result of 5 could have been one heavy blow or 5 light blows in that 6 second period. You could even extrapolate that farther by thinking of hit points as plot armor. Your barbarian is not supposed to go down with one hit so he has more hit points to represent his role in the story.

I guess what I'm getting at is that AC, Damage, and Hit Points can reflect a lot of different situations in a role playing game depending on how you think about them.