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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7539127" data-attributes="member: 6775031">Agreed. The rules in the book aren't actually the laws of the alternate world, but they do approximate those laws. It's not true that every human in the game world literally runs exactly 60 feet in six seconds; but if we treat that as the case under typical adventuring conditions, then the end result will probably be close enough for whatever purpose we need it for; if the basic assumptions don't apply, because we're actually doing a foot race where nobody is wearing armor or dodging fireballs, then it's no longer a reasonable approximation, so we should probably figure out some other rules which better model the situation at hand.Well, we know that there are alternative physics in effect here, because we have things like giants, and dragons that can fly through an antimagic field. We don't really know the specifics of those alternate physics, except where they intersect with typical adventuring conditions, when we can see the types of game rules which are deemed reasonable approximations of those physics. Whatever is going on with the atmospheric density, the net result is such that a fall from 210 feet is not more lethal than a fall from 200 feet, at least as far as adventurers are involved. If falling from 1000 feet was more dangerous than falling from 200 feet, then the rules in the book would not be a reasonable approximation.The basic assumption is that adventurers are constantly using their skills, and constantly getting into (and avoiding) fights, over the course of an adventure. Experience Points from killing monsters, or overcoming challenges in general, are a convenient metric for how much the character is able to learn along the course of adventure.It can get pretty silly, if you slaughter a thousand boars and suddenly get better at playing the lute, but that's a degenerate case where the basic assumption no longer holds. That's the equivalent of using combat movement to judge a foot race. The DM should do their best to prevent that from happening, or come up with appropriate rules to handle it when it does.As for HP and falling, it is objectively true that a high-level character can survive a fall from any height without dying. That's weird, sure, and I wouldn't normally assume it to be the case for any given fantasy setting; but given that it is objectively true in that world, my options are either to accept it, or to live in denial. You can't claim that it isn't actually true, if you then use the rules in the book to adjudicate it, where the rules say that it actually is true. If it's true, and all observations are consistent with it being true, then denying it would be like being an atheist in Discworld. If you think it's too silly, and you aren't willing to suspend your disbelief that far, then you should work up some house rules to address it (for example, any fall from over 1000' is automatically lethal).I hope I've explained this sufficiently by now, but the exact numbers aren't important, as long as the underlying trends are knowable. Saying that something is a 70% chance is not terribly meaningful, except in that I understand it will probably be successful (but I shouldn't be too surprised if it happens to fail), which is the same qualitative assessment that the character could reasonably make from their observations. If physical strength is a factor, or encumbrance, then the character would be aware of those facts; especially given that the system only has 5% granularity, which means it only accounts for factors which are large enough to really matter. As an aside, one of my annoyances with the Pathfinder (1E) ruleset is that it accounts for a lot of things that don't matter, and which may not reasonably be observable to the characters. I was looking in a supplement for animal companions and familiars, and they had chew toys for sale. I think it was something like 2sp, and all it did was add +1 damage to the animal's next successful bite attack.You can certainly play a character who is more or less knowledgeable about certain things, based on various factors, but the level at which the player understands the rules is a solid baseline. That's the level at which the player processes the game, by default, so playing the character at that level of awareness would require the least amount of work. More advanced players may seek a challenge by playing characters who are disadvantaged in such a way.I don't know if it will mean much to you, but around the circles I travel, most players have at least one horror story of some time they were playing with a ... let's say, "less than fully invested" player ... who tried to do something moronic because they didn't really understand the rules. Usually, someone at the table will try to explain why their proposed course of action would be ill-advised, but they push forward anyway and their character dies. Those players tend to not last long.</blockquote>

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