Is it ever a good idea to hit the party?

[Majoru Oakheart]

Hp is a measure of how cool you are at not dieing, same as other defenses.

Yeah, this is my philosophy behind it as well. My characters KNOW they are that cool. They've stood up to giants with clubs bigger than they are and survived when they just narrowly missed due to extreme luck(they did damage, but never killed him). He's had fireballs thrown at him and barely ducked at the last second(taking damage but not dying).

All my characters know that they have the skill and luck to survive things that would for sure kill normal people. They might not know the EXACT amount of hitpoints they have. They do know approximately the amount of damage things do in comparison to their hitpoints.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Our 4e wizard has used Twist of Space more times than I can count specifically intending to hit and hurt party members... but intending that little hurt to teleport them out of the way of a big bad that was going to kill them the next round. The characters involved were very, very thankful. It doesn't have to be metagaming.

On the other hand, my current ranger loves to step off tall objects as the quickest way to get down somewhere. He's insanely good at acrobatics and has catstep boots, and really wants to be Batman falling from the sky to kick some ass. So maybe I'm metagaming my hitpoints... or maybe it's just that cool.

Besides, I view D&D as spiritual kin to Die Hard. The stuff in that movie was all likely to kill McClaine, but he took the pain and kept fighting.

 

[Akaiku]

Come to think of it, the game would probably be more thematic if they called HP awesome instead. You lose points of awesome when attacks would otherwise cripple you.

It'd make martial healing make more sense too, healing surges being reserves of untapped awesome.

 

[Obryn]

I can see where the folks who think in IC terms would have a problem with it - after all, would you throw a grenade near your friend? - but I don't think they take into account the imagined experiences of the PCs themselves in IC terms. (Insofar as we can talk about what an imaginary thing "experiences" )

A Wizard in D&D knows that he can get the Fighter in his fireball, and that the Fighter will walk away. He knows that it has never killed the Fighter and never will, unless the Fighter is really banged up already. If we assume that characters in the game "experience" what's going on mechanically at some level, then they know their limits for friendly fire.

I think the root issue isn't one of IC vs. OOC decision-making - it's that the characters' imagined IC experiences are incongruous with what we, living in the OOC world, would expect.

-O

 

[jmucchiello]

Besides, I view D&D as spiritual kin to Die Hard. The stuff in that movie was all likely to kill McClaine, but he took the pain and kept fighting.

Yes, but when does McClaine rely on being unbreakable... er.. wrong movie. When does HE rely on his plot immunity to escape what would kill a normal man. There's a difference between surviving the unsurvivable through luck and plot and knowing you won't be harmed through luck and plot. McClaine never shows himself to be genre savvy. And this is what the players are doing, playing their PCs as being genre savvy.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yes, but when does McClaine rely on being unbreakable... er.. wrong movie. When does HE rely on his plot immunity to escape what would kill a normal man. There's a difference between surviving the unsurvivable through luck and plot and knowing you won't be harmed through luck and plot. McClaine never shows himself to be genre savvy. And this is what the players are doing, playing their PCs as being genre savvy.

That's not entirely true. In a couple of the movies, the plans he puts into effect would be completely insane for anyone who didn't think they had the ability to survive them. That's HOW he gets all of those injuries that he survives.

I mean, "I'm going to drive this car at high speeds at that barrier then jump out at the last minute" is only a good idea if you assume you have either the skill or luck to jump out of a moving car without accidentally getting run over or breaking a bunch of bones by hitting the ground at high speeds. All the time you need to worry about avoiding all the shrapnel from the resulting collision when the vehicle hits the barrier, a possibly exploding vehicle, and a possibly exploding helicopter(causing more shrapnel).

He survives and none of those things kill him, of course. But those are the list of reasons no one ever tries something like that in real life. He does it because he knows he'll survive.

 

[Zanticor]

While not exactly friendly fire, I colour sprayed my parties assassin on multiple occasions. There was no way he could ever make the save but the same was true for the opponents so tactically it was quite sound. Last time my wizard got dominated he decided it was payback time so he argued it was fine to sneak attack me even after the enemy was killed and I was freed of the domination. "Oh sorry I failed my sense motive" was his excuse when I was dropped to -8 hp (could have been worse). So I would say that friendly fire is only ok if you don't mind it coming back at yourself. Or maybe just if it's targeted at the lawful stupid paladin.

Zanticor

 

[delericho]

In 4th ed, hp isn't flesh wounds. If you have 50 hp, 8d6 sword stabs ALWAYS miss, just some miss much less then you'd want them to.

That's an... interesting interpretation, but it does lead to some very significant problems. If I coat my blade with contact poison, does the poison take effect when I beat my opponent's AC, or when I reduce them to 0 hit points?

In any case, it still hit my big problem: a sufficiently high-level character can throw himself off a 100 foot cliff and walk away sufficiently unharmed that taking an "extended rest" cures all his injuries - and he can do so reliably, not just as a statistical blip.

Now, I get why the rules work as they do. And, if I squint a bit and don't look too close, then it all kinda-sorta works. But bring too much attention to it and my suspension of disbelief goes, and with it much of my interest in playing the game. But that does rely on the players not engaging in shenanigans of this sort - so don't go throwing yourself off cliffs on a daily basis, and don't casually ignore those crossbows the bandits are pointing at you, and don't ask the wizard to deliberately fireball you. Yes, the rules say you can, but it's just poor form.

(In my game, in my opinion, and YMMV, of course.)

 

[Storminator]

That's an... interesting interpretation, but it does lead to some very significant problems. If I coat my blade with contact poison, does the poison take effect when I beat my opponent's AC, or when I reduce them to 0 hit points?

In any case, it still hit my big problem: a sufficiently high-level character can throw himself off a 100 foot cliff and walk away sufficiently unharmed that taking an "extended rest" cures all his injuries - and he can do so reliably, not just as a statistical blip.

Now, I get why the rules work as they do. And, if I squint a bit and don't look too close, then it all kinda-sorta works. But bring too much attention to it and my suspension of disbelief goes, and with it much of my interest in playing the game. But that does rely on the players not engaging in shenanigans of this sort - so don't go throwing yourself off cliffs on a daily basis, and don't casually ignore those crossbows the bandits are pointing at you, and don't ask the wizard to deliberately fireball you. Yes, the rules say you can, but it's just poor form.

(In my game, in my opinion, and YMMV, of course.)

In 1e I had a PC throw himself out of the Cloud City because he couldn't possibly die...

PS

 

[Pseudonym]

In 1e I had a PC throw himself out of the Cloud City because he couldn't possibly die...

PS

I did something similar in 1E. We were going through Dungeonland and my cavalier drank the shrink potion only to find himself really tiny on top of the table, so naturally I said "Okay, I'll hop down" taking a large amount of damage, but walking away because Unearthed Arcana cavaliers had an insane amount of HP, plus back then full plate absorbed damage.