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Well, going back to articles that The Gygax wrote about these issues and OD&D and AD&D, the to hit roll is a way of abstracting the chance that some portion of the flurry of attacks lands a telling hit, and hit points equal the abstract effect on the target's ability to avoid death. Gygax...

I was trying to figure out what that had to do with Brian Doyle Murray. Besides, "Leaf on the Wind" makes me think of Wash in Serenity.

Ah, sadly 'tis PC only. Need to snag a copy of Parallels desktop some day to get some of that sweet freeware PC mapping software.

Academic advisor at a large public research university and recently returned to graduate school for my Ed. D. so that I can become a corrupt high-level college administrator or institutional researcher.

Jeez. I have a hard time finding my way back to threads even when I'm posting actively. ;) My fuzzy long-term memory leads me to think of complaints on realism regarding diagonals counting the same as other squares for movement, using squares for movement, the "new" abstraction of hit points...

Corathon, I think you missed some background here. Having lurked in what I suspect are some of the same threads as James, I think his point was that some posters in other threads seemed to discuss the lack of "realism" in 4e with the greater level of "realism" in earlier editions. I'm...

Assuming this is true, then I still don't see any problem. The kobolds have nothing of value on them. The PC says they were armored. As a DM you can go with what you described them as wearing -- assuming low-level kobolds are wearing metal armor -- and point out that the metal is low-grade, of...

There was a debate about this? I think it's reasonable for a character to take kobold armor and try to make use of it. Of course, the realistic thing to do is to point out that melting down scrap metal in a village blacksmith shop isn't very likely without very hot heat (more appropriate to...

Your strawman argument is filled with fallacious hyperbole, ergo it lacks verisimilitude.

First, what hong said, this isn't a new issue to 4e -- with classed characters or the like, there are often surprises. (And based on your response, there are rumors regarding every classed orc in a tribe? "The tribe has a great chieftain, and a pair of really tough guards that watch the back...

Yes, we must. This is the internet, after all.

I would more say that its influences are now newfangled things that these youngsters like today and not the stuff that old grognards found fascinating. Pop culture has changed, and the conception of what a fantasy setting has changed, and I think that's where the transformation of D&D has really...

Obviously, if you ask Hero or GURPS or Rolemaster players or whatever else you choose, many would not choose to describe D&D as realistic. But D&D players have invested time in learning the system and adapting it. They have learned to tweak and to adjudicate around the rules to make what they...

Of course, the rules include items of questionable historical accuracy in defining armor types and weapons, mixes armor and weapons available only in the late middle ages after the advent of black powder weapons, etc. So historical accuracy was clearly secondary to cool factor... and the fact...

Of course, those old-school tactics only work as much as the DM allows it to. There is not consistency with physical laws within the rules, only within the DM's ad-hoc adjustment of the game and the ability of players to learn to maintain consistency with the DM's interpretation of how things...

I would argue that modeling a consistent world has never existed in the rules. Hit points, leveling, classes, falling damage, class abilities, etc. have all been criticized for a long time for good reason. AD&D is not a simulation even of a fantasy world. This is not a criticism, but holding up...

I guess I'm baffled. Ever since I first started playing D&D in junior high, back in 1980, D&D has clearly not supported roleplay over combat within the mechanics of the game. I'm not convinced that's a problem. Back when I played 1e, we had combat rules and samples mixed with puzzles and rules...

I swear I saw damage by class in one version of the Basic Set years ago... certainly there are traces of it in the AD&D 1e Monster Manual damage for different humanoids, so this doesn't seem like a crazy idea.

Ah, but he wasn't in a flashforward that episode. That was the trick to the editing, it appeared that, Jin was in a flashback, Sun in a flashforward, and that Jin was at least treated as if her were dead by Sun. We don't know that Jin is alive or not, but Sun made sure he had a memorial....