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

[Lanefan]

It doesnt neccesarily, any more than a dagger sticks in you every time a melee weapon attack scores a 'hit'.

Remember - RAW Hit Points represent 'luck, resolve and the will to live' (in addition to health). They also represent fighting skill and experience (which is why martials get more, and you get more as you advance in experience level).

In case my previous posts haven't already made this obvious: in cases like this I don't really give a tinker's damn what the RAW says.

When what's written in the rules fails to pass the reality test then out go those rules, to be replaced with something better and (I hope) more sensible.

Among other things Hit Points are also 'Luck points' and 'Fighting skill and experience at avoiding blows points'.

An attack roll that scores a 'hit' against your AC might not actually strike you at all, instead being parried or dodged (using your experience and fighting skill) at the last second, or luckily glancing off armor or striking a nearby wall or door frame, or be resolutely stared down instead of striking you.

Its a question of narration.

And of changing what were once simple definitions of the words 'hit' and 'miss', which I decline to do.

If I 'hit' something that means that I, or my weapon, somehow made enough actual contact with the target to reduce the target's ability to withstand further such contact.

Otherwise you're left trying to narrate a damaging hit as being in fact a miss, which (99% of the time) doesn't make sense at all.

When you read a DnD novel and read Drizzt whirling around parrying blows and dodging attacks, and blows glancing off his armor, he's losing hit points. Thats just how the 'hits' are narrated.

He has a lot of Hit Points, so he dodges and parries blows and gets lucky with attacks glancing off armor, and demonstrates resolve to keep fighting for a long time and the like constantly.

Yeah, you really don't know me very well, do you?

(hint: there is no character or persona in all of gaming that I detest more than I do Drizzt, thus using him as an example to make a point is, with me, invariably going to have the opposite effect from what was intended...)

 

[PsyzhranV2]

(hint: there is no character or persona in all of gaming that I detest more than I do Drizzt, thus using him as an example to make a point is, with me, invariably going to have the opposite effect from what was intended...)

Hot take: nobody cares, get the stick out of your behind, address the actual point. Or should we autocorrect "Drizzt" to "Winnie the Pooh"? That make you happy? Mutilate Salvatore's fingers and knock him upside the head enough times that he can't spell D-R-I-Z-Z-T ever again without seizing?

In case my previous posts haven't already made this obvious: in cases like this I don't really give a tinker's damn what the RAW says.

When what's written in the rules fails to pass the reality test then out go those rules, to be replaced with something better and (I hope) more sensible.

Imagine being so much of a stick in the mud that abstraction breaks your brain. If you won't at least acknowledge RAW then is there any common ground to speak on? Or is this the Tower of Babel?

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you think you can expand on this without it sparking a derail argument?

Haha I doubt it given the track record of discussions about the matter on these boards, but I'll give it a try.

I’m just having trouble seeing the difference, in terms of immersion, between “best effort” and other methods.

Well, like I said, I would consider a clear understanding of my character's capabilities, and an ability to reliably predict, with reasonable accuracy, what the likely results of my actions will be to be key components of immersion. It is difficult for me to "get into my character's head" when I don't have a clear sense of what my character can and can't do. It is difficult for me to conceive of the game world as a place that functions under rational rules if I can't make reasonable cause-and-effect predictions. When one roll represents the character's best efforts, it's much harder to do those things. My character might effortlessly break down a door one moment, and be completely unable to open an identical door the next, and these outcomes are both meant to represent the best my character can do? If I accept that, how can I have any confidence in my estimation of my character's competence? How can I have any confidence in the internal consistency of the world?

 

[Lanefan]

Mutilate Salvatore's fingers and knock him upside the head enough times that he can't spell D-R-I-Z-Z-T ever again without seizing?

Too late now. 30+ years ago, before any of those books came out, I'd have been all for this if I'd had the foresight.

Imagine being so much of a stick in the mud that abstraction breaks your brain. If you won't at least acknowledge RAW then is there any common ground to speak on? Or is this the Tower of Babel?

I acknowledge RAW, in this case, as being flawed enough so as to be meaningless; and then dismiss them.

 

[Lanefan]

Haha I doubt it given the track record of discussions about the matter on these boards, but I'll give it a try.


Well, like I said, I would consider a clear understanding of my character's capabilities, and an ability to reliably predict, with reasonable accuracy, what the likely results of my actions will be to be key components of immersion. It is difficult for me to "get into my character's head" when I don't have a clear sense of what my character can and can't do. It is difficult for me to conceive of the game world as a place that functions under rational rules if I can't make reasonable cause-and-effect predictions. When one roll represents the character's best efforts, it's much harder to do those things. My character might effortlessly break down a door one moment, and be completely unable to open an identical door the next, and these outcomes are both meant to represent the best my character can do? If I accept that, how can I have any confidence in my estimation of my character's competence? How can I have any confidence in the internal consistency of the world?

For me, I don't equate these things.

In real life it's entirely possible you could try to bash down five identical doors and only be able to get through three of them, due to a host of random factors. Thus, this same thing happening in the fiction doesn't break consistency at all.

Which brings up a tangential but related point: a character isn't a robot and thus can't realistically be expected to perform exactly the same way every time in a repeating situation. Take-20 type rules overwrite this and tend to turn the characters more into robots that will always perform exactly the same in a repeating situation; hardly realistic.*

* - unless one's character is a Warforged

 

[Flamestrike]

In case my previous posts haven't already made this obvious: in cases like this I don't really give a tinker's damn what the RAW says.

This is a thread about what rules break immersion.

Yet you're literally ignoring the rules as written, and then complaining that when you do, your immersion is broken!

Can you not see the disconnect there?

You: 'This rule breaks my immersion'.
Me: 'Thats not what the rule says'
You: 'I agree thats not what the rule says.'

Doesnt that perhaps indicate to you that it's not the rule thats breaking your immersion; the problem lies elsewhere?

Its a little like someone in this thread complaining that the rule that requires them to use a d4 to make attack rolls breaks their immersion. That rule doesnt exist.

 

[Campbell]

@Charlaquin

I largely agree. It is about the laziest and least interesting way to make failure consequential. It does not actually represent any meaningful change in the fiction. Same door with same lock and same lock picks. If it was possible before why is it not possible now? It makes the whole thing feel like a video game in the worst possible way.

 

[Laurefindel]

Voluntarily jumping down 30-40 feet, in full armor, because “you can easily take 3 or 4d6 damage”, and resume running as if nothing happened.

Yes, I understand the nature of hit points - and I have no problems with 1d6 per 10 ft fall - but it bugs me when characters voluntarily jump down potentially lethal heights without even a strained ankle. It would be like ramming and tackling a spiked door to get it open, or putting you hand under the axe to protect the log.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Voluntarily jumping down 30-40 feet, in full armor, because “you can easily take 3 or 4d6 damage”, and resume running as if nothing happened.

Yes, I understand the nature of hit points - and I have no problems with 1d6 per 10 ft fall - but it bugs me when characters voluntarily jump down potentially lethal heights without even a strained ankle. It would be like ramming and tackling a spiked door to get it open, or putting you hand under the axe to protect the log.

This bugs me too. When i dm (and ive gotten dms i play under to add this for realism too because they see the point. I enjoy playing with the handicap as well.) If the fall is big enough i have people roll a height based reflex and fortitude save as well as a jump check. Depending on the result of the rolls they are, in addition to the damage, one, none, or a combination of either hobbled, dazed, stunned, and/or staggered. So much more satisfying and immersive. Whether im dming or playing. Either way. Makes you take heights seriously for the danger that they really are.

 

[CleverNickName]

Your luck is running out.

Yeah, I've heard it before. It's the option (a) I mentioned earlier, which requires me to believe that those arrows didn't really hit me after all. (Also, sleeping replenishes luck?)

Seriously, I've read just about every possible explanation about damage, hit points, and the nature of their relationship, and none of them make sense in an immersive way. So I've learned to just live with it.