D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[triqui]

But damage is random... so unless you as a player know exactly what your DM is going to roll or even what die he's rolling for damage(which some/many/most DM's roll behind a screen)... how do you know this for sure as a player? You can make a (sometimes) educated guess... but you don't know for sure.

Because if you fall, the maximum damage roll is 20d6, so if you hav 121 hp or more, you are sure you will survive, no matter of what.

EDIT: Plus what pemerton said, is not that you, as a player, are sure you won't fall in the next hit. He said the opposite, that you know you WILL fall in the next hit. You have 100hp, you have suffered 99hp damage, so you *know* that the next hit will take you out, period. Your character has no way to know in-game that the same is true. This makes for dissociative decisions: your character might trigger a OA if he has 50 hp left, but won't if he has 1hp left. He is making those decisions not because things he knows *in game*, but because things his player knows from metagaming.

 

[Imaro]

Because if you fall, the maximum damage roll is 20d6, so if you hav 121 hp or more, you are sure you will survive, no matter of what.

EDIT: Plus what pemerton said, is not that you, as a player, are sure you won't fall in the next hit. He said the opposite, that you know you WILL fall in the next hit. You have 100hp, you have suffered 99hp damage, so you *know* that the next hit will take you out, period. Your character has no way to know in-game that the same is true. This makes for dissociative decisions: your character might trigger a OA if he has 50 hp left, but won't if he has 1hp left. He is making those decisions not because things he knows *in game*, but because things his player knows from metagaming.

First... How do you know what the maximum damage roll is for damage? We weren't talking about falling, we were talking about an attack. Also what about the massive damage rule?? You still have a chance of dying outright.

Second...no, go back and read my previuous posts in the thread. In 3.0 you're not dead at 0 hit points... you are disabled... there are actually conditional steps with penalties in 3.0 that lead to death.

Third... you are now getting into the realm of how someone chooses to play which is not indicative of the mechanic but of the playstyle of the individual. A player can choose to avoid an OA because he is at 1 hp (metagaming), but that is a playstyle choice and the mechanic isn't forcing that type of action on him. On the other hand he could just as easily choose to take the OA because he and his character think they are that lucky... or because his paladin would never be that cowardly.

 

[triqui]

First... How do you know what the maximum damage roll is for damage? We weren't talking about falling, we were talking about an attack. Also what about the massive damage rule?? You still have a chance of dying outright.

It depends on the attack. But you know that a crossbow does 1d8, for example.

Beyond that, pemerton's sentence you quoted is:
"The point remains the same: the player knows that the next hit will disable him/her (or, at high levels, where minimum damage is more than 10, knows that the next hit will kill him/her). Whereas the PC can't know this."

He is talking about a character that knows the next hit will disable him, not that the next hit *wont*. So you, the player, know that your fighter with 1hp left is going to be disabled in the next hit. The character has no way to know that.

Second...no, go back and read my previuous posts in the thread. In 3.0 you're not dead at 0 hit points... you are disabled... there are actually conditional steps with penalties in 3.0 that lead to death.

I'll post again the sentence you quoted from pemerton.
"The point remains the same: the player knows that the next hit will disable him/her (or, at high levels, where minimum damage is more than 10, knows that the next hit will kill him/her). Whereas the PC can't know this."

Emphasis added. I don't see any difference between the player knowing he is going to die, or the player knowing he is going to be disabled. The dissociated mechanic is that the player knows it, but the character does not.

Third... you are now getting into the realm of how someone chooses to play which is not indicative of the mechanic but of the playstyle of the individual. A player can choose to avoid an OA because he is at 1 hp (metagaming), but that is a playstyle choice and the mechanic isn't forcing that type of action on him. On the other hand he could just as easily choose to take the OA because he and his character think they are that lucky... or because his paladin would never be that cowardly.

No mechanic forces you do anything, ever, in any game or edition. They give you incentives do to so, though. The paladin might take that OA, but maybe he later take a full rest to recover his HP. That's a metagame decision too. The character can run, and jump, and fight. It's the player (or the group) the ones that are opting to rest and recover, because 1hp means he will probably fall.

Other example: that valiant paladin, a few encounters before, jump from a bridge, taking 2d6 damage, to hit a goblin and save his fellow wizard mate. He did so, because he is not a coward, and it was the right thing to do as a Paladin. If the Paladin would had 1hp left... do you think the player would had done the same? Would had he jump from the bridge, knowing that he'll take 2d6 damage automatically, and his character would automatically be lying in the floor, unconscious, dying and unable to attack the goblin and help his fellow wizard? If not... why not? Why did the Paladin jump to do a heroic feat when he was 20 hp left, but wouldn't when he had 1 hp left and the player (not the paladin, the player) knew it would be an automatic failure?

 

[Imaro]

Double Post

 

[Imaro]

It depends on the attack. But you know that a crossbow does 1d8, for example.

Beyond that, pemerton's sentence you quoted is:
"The point remains the same: the player knows that the next hit will disable him/her (or, at high levels, where minimum damage is more than 10, knows that the next hit will kill him/her). Whereas the PC can't know this."

He is talking about a character that knows the next hit will disable him, not that the next hit *wont*. So you, the player, know that your fighter with 1hp left is going to be disabled in the next hit. The character has no way to know that.


I'll post again the sentence you quoted from pemerton.
"The point remains the same: the player knows that the next hit will disable him/her (or, at high levels, where minimum damage is more than 10, knows that the next hit will kill him/her). Whereas the PC can't know this."

Emphasis added. I don't see any difference between the player knowing he is going to die, or the player knowing he is going to be disabled. The dissociated mechanic is that the player knows it, but the character does not.

The player still doesn't know what his condition will be before the damage is rolled. At 1 hit point he is disabled if the attack does exactly and only 1 point of damage... if the attack does 2 to 8 points of damage he is dying, more than that and he was outright killed. In this situation... how does the player know something the character doesn't? He doesn't know what his state will be until after the damage is rolled and applied.

No mechanic forces you do anything, ever, in any game or edition. They give you incentives do to so, though. The paladin might take that OA, but maybe he later take a full rest to recover his HP. That's a metagame decision too. The character can run, and jump, and fight. It's the player (or the group) the ones that are opting to rest and recover, because 1hp means he will probably fall.

This is just wrong. A "fate" point or "drama" point or even an action point in D&D 3e/4e forces you out of your character's PoV and into a metagame viewpoint. Deciding when and where to use it is a purely metagame stance with no corellation with the viepoint of my character in the gameworld... so yes using certain mechanics can force you to do certain things.

A neutral mechanic, like an OA doesn't force youto approach it in a particular way. I can choose to accept or avoid the OA from the point of view of my character and what he/she would do in that fictional situation, or I can step out of the character's point of view and make a metagame decision concerning it whether I shouudl or shouldn't avoid the OA. I can't decide to spend an action point from the PoV of my character.

Other example: that valiant paladin, a few encounters before, jump from a bridge, taking 2d6 damage, to hit a goblin and save his fellow wizard mate. He did so, because he is not a coward, and it was the right thing to do as a Paladin. If the Paladin would had 1hp left... do you think the player would had done the same? Would had he jump from the bridge, knowing that he'll take 2d6 damage automatically, and his character would automatically be lying in the floor, unconscious, dying and unable to attack the goblin and help his fellow wizard? If not... why not? Why did the Paladin jump to do a heroic feat when he was 20 hp left, but wouldn't when he had 1 hp left and the player (not the paladin, the player) knew it would be an automatic failure?

See here we go again with playstyle assumptions... yes, some players would have done it with their paladin with one hit point left. Now I think a more realistic scenario would have been the paladin's player deciding to do it and not knowing the exact damage dice about to be rolled, thus playing from a non-metagaming stance and instead a character viewpoint stance. How would he know the exact damage anyway?

Though it may run contrary to your experiences... I have seen players take an action that would lead to certain death (with no mechanical benefit) in order to stay true to their character. You are assuming everyone plays the same way and you shouldn't.

 

[Emerikol]

Your play exeprience are what they are, but I don't know why you feel they generalise to any significant degree any more than mine (or others') do.

Yeah I get that it's frustrating. Nothing on these boards frustrates me more. Immersion is subjective so I'm not saying anything breaks immersion for everyone.

But if you took all kinds of mechanical examples, lets say 500. And you then ask people like me who do understand what we are talking about even if the title is not perfect, we'd all pick the same ones. If there were 237 dissociative mechanics in my book there would be 237 in the well known blog authors book. There would also be lots of other people who picked the same ones. So trying to argue that there is not a set A distinct from set B which we talk of is crazy. You can argue that i'm unfairly saying set A is dissociative because it is not for you. Blame the name but it was named, fairly or not, based upon the effect it had upon us.

I'm not saying your immersion is affected by these things. All I am saying is that there is a clear and distinct set. This set bothers some people. Why it bothers us is anyones guess. People are different. I only take offense when you tell me I can't tell the different between set A and set B. Even though those of us who agree on what we talk of seem mysteriously to always be on target as to what we are talking about.

 

[Emerikol]

Because if you fall, the maximum damage roll is 20d6, so if you hav 121 hp or more, you are sure you will survive, no matter of what.

EDIT: Plus what pemerton said, is not that you, as a player, are sure you won't fall in the next hit. He said the opposite, that you know you WILL fall in the next hit. You have 100hp, you have suffered 99hp damage, so you *know* that the next hit will take you out, period. Your character has no way to know in-game that the same is true. This makes for dissociative decisions: your character might trigger a OA if he has 50 hp left, but won't if he has 1hp left. He is making those decisions not because things he knows *in game*, but because things his player knows from metagaming.

Hit points are the way we communicate character state to the player. The player can't really feel what the character in that situation would be feeling. So yes it's an abstract that relates to the player what the character is sensing about his own state. While the granularity of hit points is a bit unrealistic, it is not at all unrealistic to know that if you take another hit you may die. Throughout history there have been people fighting on in the face of death or on the brink of death. Not unrealistic at all.

A key point here is that I don't mind if you "abuse a versatile system by thinking dissociatively." (Now thats from my playstyle perspective not yours so no offense intended with the word abuse.) A system that is versatile won't force me to play dissociatively and thats all I care about. I don't care how you use the rules. But 4e made it impossible to avoid without massive houserules. So I hope 5e is a bit less forcing in it's choices.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I guess I'm a Fifth type, who followed 4e design before release, bought the first round of books and read them over pretty thoroughly, and has since run several 4e adventures (but not using the 4e system); and has long ago concluded that while excellent for a convention or one-off game it ain't the 10-year-campaign game for me.
Pretty much sums me up as well, most of the time.

Lanefan

So you have never actually never played 4e?

 

[triqui]

The player still doesn't know what his condition will be before the damage is rolled. At 1 hit point he is disabled if the attack does exactly and only 1 point of damage... if the attack does 2 to 8 points of damage he is dying, more than that and he was outright killed. In this situation... how does the player know something the character doesn't? He doesn't know what his state will be until after the damage is rolled and applied.

The player knows which condition his character *wont have*. He knows he wont be "active". He'll be disabled, or dying, or dead. He knows he won't stand a single hit more, while his character doesn't have that knowledge.

Though it may run contrary to your experiences... I have seen players take an action that would lead to certain death (with no mechanical benefit) in order to stay true to their character. You are assuming everyone plays the same way and you shouldn't.

I have seen players do that too. In various editions, and games. I happen to see it more in, actually, narrative (and thus dissociative) game systems, from players that think the story is more important than his character. I've done seppukku with a character, actually.

However, that *Some* players act this, or that way, does not proves that the *system* is dissociative or not. In D&D, when you (the player) know your character has 1 hp left, and you (the player) know he is going to take 2d6 damage when he drops from the bridge to attack the goblin and save your wizard mate, you are actually in a dissociated situation. You *know* your character will fall unconscius if he try (and won't be able to attack the goblin), while your character doesn't. It does not really matter what you decide to do, the dissociation is there. If you choose not to jump, because you know your mate will die, and you decide to, say, throw a stone to the goblin to try to taunt him, you are using the info in your favor. If you choose to jump, you are staying in character, but you know something your character doesn't: that the action is going to fail. Your character doesn't know that, because he dosen't know he is exactly at 1hp.

. A "fate" point or "drama" point or even an action point in D&D 3e/4e forces you out of your character's PoV and into a metagame viewpoint. Deciding when and where to use it is a purely metagame stance with no corellation with the viepoint of my character in the gameworld... so yes using certain mechanics can force you to do certain things.

Call that "drama" , "fate" or "action" point a "willpower" point. The mechanic stays exactly the same. Is it dissociative?

 

[triqui]

A key point here is that I don't mind if you "abuse a versatile system by thinking dissociatively." (Now thats from my playstyle perspective not yours so no offense intended with the word abuse.) A system that is versatile won't force me to play dissociatively and thats all I care about. I don't care how you use the rules. But 4e made it impossible to avoid without massive houserules. So I hope 5e is a bit less forcing in it's choices.

I take no offense, and that's exactly what I've been saying all the time. The dissociation is there. They might be less clear than in other editions, or maybe they arise less frequently (although being able to survive a volley of crossbow bolts happen really often, so does being chewed by dragons). You don't care about them, because you "feel" it's not that important (although the gorilla is there). Exactly the same happens with 4e. It's only in a different magnitude. You find impossible to avoid the gorilla in 4e's room, because it's too big and clear for you, but other players don't have such problem with it, and they can keep counting balls passing between players, without seeing or being disturbed by the gorilla.