4e Hit Points and pre-4e Hit Points: A Comparison

[Hussar]

mmadsen - I believe he's referring to some mythical poster who argued something that wasn't really argued and he heroicly defeated in a masterful stroke of logic.

In other words, I've been wondering that myself for a while.

In accordance with what you say below, I disagree that being hit by a sword and surviving is an indication of your physical resilience. There's something else going on there. Find me a human that can take a good hit with a sword and not simply die. In this case HP represents your ability to turn major damage into minor damage. The sword found the hole in your armour, but you managed to twist away so that it left a deep nick rather than an opened artery.



Which has always been true. D&D has always been a game, and has always required some level of simplification in order to prevent us from becoming bogged down in the depths of overwrought simulation.

Oh, yes, I agree with you 100%. I was just trying to give fairly clear cut examples where hit points could be one thing or another.

We play a game where you can reasonably expect to kill an elephant with a sword at a certain level. This is just way off the scale for realism. Now imagine that elephant is a 100 feet long and virtually immortal and you get the idea of how unrealistic it is that you could actually damage a dragon with a sword. It would be like someone trying to kill you with a pin. Might hurt, but, probably not going to happen.

Hit points can represent physical wounding. Sure. No one is arguing otherwise I think. However, hit points can also represent more intangible qualities. 4e makes this more explicit, but, IMO, does nothing to really change that paradigm.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

If I learned one thing from my Sense of Wonder threads

I don't recall having participated in your Sense of Wonder threads in any meaningful way, so I'm not sure why you're directing this at me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't recall having participated in your Sense of Wonder threads in any meaningful way, so I'm not sure why you're directing this at me.

I'm not directing this at you. I'm explaining my reasons for taking a "wait and see" approach to this issue.


RC