D&D 5E (2024) Is 5E better because of Crawford and Perkins leaving?

[Maxperson]

To make this work a single stab from a dagger needs to be able to kill a 20th level PC and it needs to be able to kill them in a statistically significant fashion.

If it can't kill you then there is no logical reason to fear it.

Yep. And if your 20th level PC stands there and lets someone stab him, he will probably die.

IRL I am not terribly afraid of being stung by a yellow jacket and that is probably comparable to what a 20th level PC probably feels from someone shoving a dagger into his chest. Do it 50 times or so in a minute and I might just die from being stung, just like that 20th level PC might just die from 50 stab wounds.

This is false, since hit points =/= meat. It would only be true if hit points were entirely meat and skill, luck, etc. played no part in them. Instead, the overwhelming majority of hit points are not meat, which is why you barely get anything more than scratched until you reach 0 hit points, and you don't even get touched by the attacks until 50% hit points.

Also hit points are an abstraction and your thematic description of what hit points represent (luck, skill, blessings) is fine, but it is one of many possible thematic explanations.

Not according to 5e RAW. 5.5e does not contradict that.

I could just as easily say hit points are due to thicker skin and more robust or even multiple organs offering combat redundancy and that "explanation" is every bit as valid as yours.

Not according to 5e RAW.

 

[Lanefan]

To make this work a single stab from a dagger needs to be able to kill a 20th level PC and it needs to be able to kill them in a statistically significant fashion.

To make it work, certain attacks need to be able to bypass hit points and go direct to some other effect. Example: slitting the throat of a defenseless humanoid-ish target with a sharp implement should kill it outright even if the target's otherwise at full hit points, regardless of how many hit points "full" might be.

IRL I am not terribly afraid of being stung by a yellow jacket and that is probably comparable to what a 20th level PC probably feels from someone shoving a dagger into his chest.

Where a yellowjacket stinging me probably means a trip to the hospital; not from physical damage but from an effect (severe allergy) that bypasses any hit points I might have at the time.

 

[CreamCloud0]

To make it work, certain attacks need to be able to bypass hit points and go direct to some other effect. Example: slitting the throat of a defenseless humanoid-ish target with a sharp implement should kill it outright even if the target's otherwise at full hit points, regardless of how many hit points "full" might be.

Where a yellowjacket stinging me probably means a trip to the hospital; not from physical damage but from an effect (severe allergy) that bypasses any hit points I might have at the time.

i feel like all characters, PC or NPC ought to start out with like, 12~HP and that should be the baseline for truly 'defence bypassing' attacks, enough to take one hit from most any basic weapon once(without additional modifier damage) but enough to fall to two to three or a crit, maybe you get +1 HP to that undefended pool for each level up but it's never going to be as huge a safety net as your regular HP.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

MUD's where the first MMO's, Everquest started development in 1996, Runescape, and the first ever graphical MMO Neverwinter Nights...which was literally D&D online from 1991-1997

You were hardly the first one to come up with the basic idea of MMO's lol.

Again, that was my POINT. I was trying to illustrate that it wasn't so sophisticated a concept that there was no way that they could have thought of it. I was NOT patting myself on the back for being clever.

Zeesh, you've all been a tough crowd here.

I thought it was a pretty basic concept: D&D had everything it needed (both TSR and WotC) to be huge in the Video Game world (though I would argue other media as well). Many things that were shockingly successful were directly inspired by D&D.

It obviously didn't happen that way, and I simply suggest that it could have if D&D had been more correctly managed.

I'm more than done defending that idea.

 

[fettpett]

Again, that was my POINT. I was trying to illustrate that it wasn't so sophisticated a concept that there was no way that they could have thought of it. I was NOT patting myself on the back for being clever.

Zeesh, you've all been a tough crowd here.

I thought it was a pretty basic concept: D&D had everything it needed (both TSR and WotC) to be huge in the Video Game world (though I would argue other media as well). Many things that were shockingly successful were directly inspired by D&D.

It obviously didn't happen that way, and I simply suggest that it could have if D&D had been more correctly managed.

I'm more than done defending that idea.

Nobody is saying you're wrong that it COULD have been better managed. If it had WotC never would have been able to buy TSR in 1997. Gary and Lorraine Williams both screwed up managing the company during the 90's. This isn't exactly a hot take or a new one.

What YOU are missing is the fact that they WERE in those sphere's. There were at least a dozen PC and console games based on the IP. There WERE attempts to get into other media. Ultimate the problem was that TSR was a family run business from Lake Geneva, WI a city of 4,000 people. I literally grew up 20 mins from there my friends dad who was also my Boy Scout leader who WORKED for TSR. They didn't have the business acumen nor experience to properly take advantage and profit off brand or license the IP into other media. The closest they got was when Gary went to Hollywood and got the cartoon on air and the video games that did make it to market.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Try Dragonbane or Shadowdark. People in those communities actually like the games they play, instead of whining all the time.

Maybe because both of those games adhere to a design philosophy, instead of to a marketing philosophy?

I think we also experience a not-insignificant number of posters who do not actively play the D&D game they are actively complaining about. Yet its hard to parse that out since they don't necessarily identify themselves as such.

Those other communities just don't seem to draw D&D fans intent on yucking their yum in the same way. Maybe its just the size of the flame that draws the most moths? And some moths are happy moths and some, not so much.

 

[Lanefan]

i feel like all characters, PC or NPC ought to start out with like, 12~HP and that should be the baseline for truly 'defence bypassing' attacks, enough to take one hit from most any basic weapon once(without additional modifier damage) but enough to fall to two to three or a crit, maybe you get +1 HP to that undefended pool for each level up but it's never going to be as huge a safety net as your regular HP.

That, or some sort of wound-vitality or body-fatigue points system where your wound/body points (everyone has these) are mostly meat and your vitality/fatigue points (that you get by gaining levels) are mostly not-meat. Then, certain attacks could go straight to body points, bypassing fatigues.

 

[ECMO3]

Not according to 5e RAW.

If we are talking RAW laying down and letting someone stab you in the heart will not kill you.

It is disingenous to bring up RAW to defend part of your hypothesis and then ignore RAW for another part of it. It is simply not possible RAW for a high level character with full hit points to be killed from being attacked by someone with a dagger, nor is it possible RAW to die from jumping off 100 foot cliff.

Moreover RAW 5E does not say (as you did) that your actual "meat" hit points are only your constitution bonus. What it says is:

"Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. "

On my 150 hp fighter that could break down into 147 hit points of physical durability, 1 hit point of mental durability, 1 hit point of luck and 1 hit points of will to live

 

[Maxperson]

If we are talking RAW laying down and letting someone stab you in the heart will not kill you.

Yes it will, because if they have hit points left, it does not strike the heart or even the body if they have enough hit points. The person rolls over in their sleep and the attack "misses" for the amount of damage the attack does, or some other luck, skill, divine intervention hp damage description. The only time you get struck for huge gory wounds like a stab in the heart is when you drop to 0.

It is disingenous to bring up RAW to defend part of your hypothesis and then ignore RAW for another part of it.

I'm ignoring nothing.

It is simply not possible RAW for a high level character with full hit points to be killed from being attacked by someone with a dagger, nor is it possible RAW to die from jumping off 100 foot cliff.

Did you miss the part where I said I do that for my game? I never claimed it was RAW for me to ignore hit points when someone acts stupidly enough that they would be giving up their hit points.

It is RAW, though, that the hit that brings you to 0 is the one that does the real damage to you.

 

[ECMO3]

t is RAW, though, that the hit that brings you to 0 is the one that does the real damage to you.

Please provide a citation for this.

5E (2014 or 2024) to my knowledge does not say (as you did) anywhere that your actual "meat" hit points are only your constitution bonus or that they are some small other number. What it says is:

"Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. "

On my 150 hp fighter that could easily break down into 147 hit points of physical durability, 1 hit point of mental durability, 1 hit point of luck and 1 hit points of will to live.

In YOUR game you are free to use whatever framework to explain that abstraction, just as anyone else is in their game.

P.S. Note it does not actually mention the gods or blessings or divine intervention.