Paul Farquhar
Legend
multiple post
Have you ever played another ttrpg than D&D and other hit points based games?
Assuming you're talking about things like how 5E allows you to move out of total cover, shoot, and move back again (only exposing you to reaction attacks and melee charges), that is not damage models and hit points, then yes.You could also hack the action economy to make more robust use of bonus actions and reactions. Plus allow multiple attacks to be spread out of different initiative steps. For example, if everyone could use a bonus action (or reaction) to dodge in some way, they'd be more likely to try and move. Better mechanics for overwatch fire would help too, as would more granular rules for using cover. I think the basic tools are there in 5E, they just need to be tweaked into form.
That only some but not all arguments against hit points in a game with firearms can be easily dismissed as holding melee and ranged to different standards.You are not the only one.
What point is he trying to make?
Yes of course. I have never said you can't or shouldn't.You can't ever have guns and HP in the same game?
I never claimed hit points are bad because they can't handle every trope.No game system can handle every trope. I don't "expect" the PCs to act in any particular way. If I have a scenario where there's a lot of ranged combat (whether that's arrows, bullets or spells) and plenty of cover people can take advantage of it.
But you seem to be fixated on this idea of cover. Guess what? Probably 90% of what people use for cover on TV is BS. Cars (other than engine blocks) do not stop bullets. Neither do most walls, conference tables or that couch everybody hides behind so the special effects department can put squibs in the cushions. I remember watching some movie on TV where there's a shootout in a convenience store and the detective ducks behind bags of cheetos which of course stop every bullet. My wife and I looked at each and rolled our eyes.
As far as every hit being possibly deadly ... that's just not how D&D or most combat related video games work because it's not fun for the protagonist to die with one lucky shot. One solid hit with a sword will kill you just as dead as one lucky hit with a bullet. HP is just a mechanism to extend how long a person (or creature) can last in combat. Expecting it to be realistic is unreasonable. You can narrate that as the attacks being deflected by armor, dodging at the last second or sheer luck. I just reject that it's any more or less realistic in one type of combat but not another.
It's about whether you want heroes to move about in order to not get shot.
In the Western genre it's important that each shot has a chance of killing you, however small (for the heroes). A game without levels or massive hit points, but with something like fate or drama points to separate the heroes from the mooks works better because you have changed the genre.
*That's* why firearms has never felt right in D&D.
It's about whether you want heroes to move about in order to not get shot.
...so any hit could be impactful, not just the last one...people seeking to get "the drop" on their foes...want to kill the monsters before they reach you...acting the way many people expect you to act in a firearms-enabled game.
getting shot at means risking a Dodge check, and possibly having to pay a rare Fate Point.
The entire *point* of having hit points in fantasy RPGs is to enable mighty melee heroes.
In real life, entering a sword skirmish is incredibly risky, and the notion that "as long as you're skilled you'll do alright" is nonsense. The reason "name" characters survive medieval fights is because they're kept out of the worst fighting.
You're talking about the ducking and weaving that's implied but not actually governed by the rules.Why does this matter with guns and not melee weapons? In a melee, you will very rarely, if ever, see one swordsman run up to another one, stop adjacent to him, and then have the two just hack at each other without moving about in order to not get chopped. They will be moving forward and back, sideways, turning in circles and so on.
Why a desire to see PCs move about over guns, but not move about over melee weapons?
Only that I'm not taking sides, though I admit it can look that way when I'm attacked.So what am I missing? You want any single shot to matter whether it's the first or the 20th. In addition you want to elevate ranged combat and cover. You want a system that