D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[CleverNickName]

In 5e, a character is not even visibly wounded until they’re at half-HP. And at that point they’re not necessarily seriously injured, they’re just visibly battered, bruised, and bloody. It’s not until hitting 0 HP that a character takes a potentially life-threatening wound.

Yeah, this falls under (a) on my list: those six arrows didn't actually hit me. Except they hit me. But not really (but kinda...) Ugh.

Personally, the idea that a human(oid) can take six arrows to the chest and survive to even take an 8-hour rest is far more immersion-breaking than the idea that those six successful longbow attacks were not actually direct hits, but narrow grazes and glancing blows that left you harried and worn down but not injured badly enough that a night’s rest won’t have you back on your feet. But to each their own.

I agree completely. That's similar to (b) on my list: the rest was so refreshing I forget all about those arrows, which means the arrows probably just made me tired, which means they probably weren't lethal, except they were...but but not really...

If that paradigm of HP breaks your immersion, I understand.

Like I said, I just learned to live with the broken immersion. There is no way of explaining damage/hit points/wounds in a way that makes real-world sense to me, so I just shake my head and update my character sheet. If I can accept dragons exist and magic is real, I might as well get used to hit points while I'm at it.

 

[Arvok]

A pet peeve for me is being injured so badly you fall unconscious, then the cleric casts the weakest healing spell he has and you're back on your feet in time to take your next turn (I guess taking turns in combat is also a pet peeve, but I can put up with it for the sake of speed at the table--rolling for initiative each turn does slow things down quite a bit). I can see if the healer burns a heal spell or some other magic that is sufficiently powerful, but I have trouble believing that the blow from that frost giant's axe that knocked you into a coma can be overcome with a spell the temple acolyte can cast.

 

[Bardic Dave]

Not so. PCs that have been reduced to 0 hp need to gain at least one HP, either via an external source of healing, or by being stabilized and then naturally gaining 1HP after 1d4 hours.

Yes so. I understand the hair you're splitting—that technically you need to regain a hit point by external means first—but I really don't see what difference that makes. Imagine this: you fall down a mine shaft, taking 20d6 damage. You're reduced to 0 hp. Mercifully, you succeed on 3 deaths saves before 3 failures, and so become stable. 1-4 hours later, you come to with 1 hp. You doze for 8 hours at bottom of the shaft, and then you're fit as a fiddle! I don't see how quibbling over what HP actually represent helps address the absurdity of that situation. That was my point.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes so. I understand the hair you're splitting—that technically you need to regain a hit point by external means first—but I really don't see what difference that makes. Imagine this: you fall down a mine shaft, taking 20d6 damage. You're reduced to 0 hp. Mercifully, you succeed on 3 deaths saves before 3 failures, and so become stable. 1-4 hours later, you come to with 1 hp. You doze for 8 hours at bottom of the shaft, and then you're fit as a fiddle! I don't see how quibbling over what HP actually represent helps address the absurdity of that situation. That was my point.

So, first of all, I acknowledged in my post that either interpretation requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Is it unbelievable that a character could fall 200 feet and survive? Yes. That said, I don’t know about you, but my PCs get hit with swords a lot more often than they fall down mine shafts, and it is equally unbelievable that the character survive being run through with a sword, let alone being hit by blow after blow with one. So in my estimation, the “only the hit that brings you to 0 is a serious injury” interpretation (the one supported by the rule book) requires less suspension of disbelief. Furthermore, the patten of play in 5e indicates that the DM describes the results of the PCs’ actions, possibly relying on the roll of the dice to help them determine the outcome. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need dice to determine the outcome when someone falls 200 feet. That character is dead, I don’t care how many times you roll 10+ on a d20.

 

[Dave Goff]

Magic everywhere. Magic just isn't magic in most D&D settings.
If you were in a tavern and someone transformed into a giant spider and walked out the door you might spend the next few minutes arguing about how it was done but not a single person would even be startled. Too much magic makes magic less magical.

 

[Ratskinner]

The biggest one for me is recovering all hit points after an 8-hour nap. This forces me to believe that either (a) those six arrows didn't really pierce my skin and all that damage was in my head somehow, (b) I woke up so refreshed that I no longer care about all the bleeding arrow-holes in my body, or (c) my body's natural healing rate is faster than Jesus's.

Yes, I've heard all of the "hot takes" on hit points and the nature of damage. They don't help. So I've learned to just live with the broken immersion.

The HP system in general has always had this effect for me. Different editions seemed to emphasize different problems with HP, but there's always something.

 

[Bardic Dave]

So, first of all, I acknowledged in my post that either interpretation requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. Is it unbelievable that a character could fall 200 feet and survive? Yes. That said, I don’t know about you, but my PCs get hit with swords a lot more often than they fall down mine shafts, and it is equally unbelievable that the character survive being run through with a sword, let alone being hit by blow after blow with one. So in my estimation, the “only the hit that brings you to 0 is a serious injury” interpretation (the one supported by the rule book) requires less suspension of disbelief. Furthermore, the patten of play in 5e indicates that the DM describes the results of the PCs’ actions, possibly relying on the roll of the dice to help them determine the outcome. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need dice to determine the outcome when someone falls 200 feet. That character is dead, I don’t care how many times you roll 10+ on a d20.

Replace "fall down a mine shaft" with "get stomped by an ogre" or "run through with a spear" or "incinerated by a gout of lava". It really doesn't matter. Here's a quick recap: Clever listed his beef with fast HP recovery; you decided to criticize his comment with "but HP aren't meat points (except when they are!)"; I chimed in to point out how your critique wasn't helpful in this instance, and kind of misses the point.

I feel like you're still missing the point in your follow-up responses, so I'm just going to leave it at that. Agree to disagree!

 

[Charlaquin]

Replace "fall down a mine shaft" with "get stomped by an ogre" or "run through with a spear" or "incinerated by a gout of lava". It really doesn't matter. Here's a quick recap: Clever listed his beef with fast HP recovery; you decided to criticize his comment with "but HP aren't meat points (except when they are!)";

That’s not at all what happened. Clever lifted his beef with fast HP recovery. I cited what the rules say about describing damage, and said that I, personally, find that easier to suspend disbelief for than fast HP recovery. If you continued to follow that conversation, you’d have seen that he responded that he finds them both equally unbelievable, but that he’s learned to accept it.

I’m sharing my own opinion and my reasons for it, not critiquing anyone else’s.

 

[darjr]

I think this thread just goes to show that a game can’t be all nailed down. The rules need to allow for multiple interpretations.

 

[Flamestrike]

The biggest one for me is recovering all hit points after an 8-hour nap. This forces me to believe that either (a) those six arrows didn't really pierce my skin

Thats the actual rules. Those 6 arrows didnt pierce your skin. They likely glanced off your armor, or you dodged them at the last second, or deflected them away with your weapon (losing HP in the process).