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<blockquote data-quote="WaterRabbit" data-source="post: 7525783" data-attributes="member: 2445"><p>Sorry, but HP are not "Plot Armor". They are an abstraction of damage and perhaps a poor one, but they are definitely not plot armor.</p><p></p><p>Plot armor is immunity from death because they character is so integral to the story that their death would derail it. <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor" target="_blank">https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor</a></p><p></p><p></p><p>--------------</p><p>Character durability is generally represented by two methods: All or Nothing (ie, HP character completely fine until they run out) and Death Spiral (each increment of damage causes a degradation in character abilities). Or sometimes a mix of the two.</p><p></p><p>The reason I look at HP as a method to mitigate damage through combat exhaustion is that if one were to model "real" combat, any wound can potentially take someone out of the fight. Getting hit with a weapon is a traumatic experience that someone just doesn't take lightly. Even if a person survives, they are looking at a long term recuperation.</p><p></p><p>In predator versus prey situations, it is never a fair fight. Predators always have the advantage. Even a minor wound that impacts their ability to hunt is deadly since they then risk starvation.</p><p></p><p>So the best survival strategy for any fight is to not get hit. It doesn't matter if the receiver is a bear, kraken, or puny human. Thus my assumption that all creatures (not objects) have only 1 hp and that rest represent the creatures' ability to negate the damage. If you want to model a bear or a kraken, then DR or DT in combination with HP works better. If all dragons could ignore 25 points of damage per hit then they would be formidable in the sense you are talking about.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that this model doesn't well represent damage that is catastrophic in nature that cannot be mitigated by the character's/creature's skill -- like falling damage or being dunked in acid etc. Those things can be modeled but at an increase cost of complexity to the combat. However, most people prefer the abstract simplicity of D&D instead of a game like GURPS which can model these scenarios.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="WaterRabbit, post: 7525783, member: 2445"] Sorry, but HP are not "Plot Armor". They are an abstraction of damage and perhaps a poor one, but they are definitely not plot armor. Plot armor is immunity from death because they character is so integral to the story that their death would derail it. [url]https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor[/url] -------------- Character durability is generally represented by two methods: All or Nothing (ie, HP character completely fine until they run out) and Death Spiral (each increment of damage causes a degradation in character abilities). Or sometimes a mix of the two. The reason I look at HP as a method to mitigate damage through combat exhaustion is that if one were to model "real" combat, any wound can potentially take someone out of the fight. Getting hit with a weapon is a traumatic experience that someone just doesn't take lightly. Even if a person survives, they are looking at a long term recuperation. In predator versus prey situations, it is never a fair fight. Predators always have the advantage. Even a minor wound that impacts their ability to hunt is deadly since they then risk starvation. So the best survival strategy for any fight is to not get hit. It doesn't matter if the receiver is a bear, kraken, or puny human. Thus my assumption that all creatures (not objects) have only 1 hp and that rest represent the creatures' ability to negate the damage. If you want to model a bear or a kraken, then DR or DT in combination with HP works better. If all dragons could ignore 25 points of damage per hit then they would be formidable in the sense you are talking about. The problem is that this model doesn't well represent damage that is catastrophic in nature that cannot be mitigated by the character's/creature's skill -- like falling damage or being dunked in acid etc. Those things can be modeled but at an increase cost of complexity to the combat. However, most people prefer the abstract simplicity of D&D instead of a game like GURPS which can model these scenarios. [/QUOTE]
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