D&D 5E Assumptions on Hit Points and Armor Class...

[Hussar]

How is it 100% supported by the rules, [MENTION=31754]Lord Twig[/MENTION], when you flat out admit you're handwaving things? And, how is it supported by the rules when you had to dig into optional DMG rules in the first place to get to where you want things to be? Obviously, if it was 100% supported by the rules, you wouldn't be using optional rules and handwaving.

 

[Lord Twig]

How is it 100% supported by the rules, [MENTION=31754]Lord Twig[/MENTION], when you flat out admit you're handwaving things? And, how is it supported by the rules when you had to dig into optional DMG rules in the first place to get to where you want things to be? Obviously, if it was 100% supported by the rules, you wouldn't be using optional rules and handwaving.

I am not handwaving any rules. The rules have no explanation of how or why HPs are recovered during 8 hours of rest, just that they are. It is left up to the DM/table to decide what that actually means. That's the handwavy part.

And you must have missed the part where my players rejected the optional rule I wanted to use. We play it with no optional rules, despite me wanting to.

So it is 100% supported by the rules because I am not handwaving any rules nor am I using any optional rules.

 

[Hussar]

Aren't you handwaving the healing spent?

But, in any case, you are right. I do have a big chip on my shoulder on this. And it tends to come out and I appologise for that. It's just that the argument, "If you do this, then you invalidate my play style" means that your play style becomes prioritized over mine. Because, honestly, I don't have any problems with any of these things. But, we can't add any of these things because your insistence that adding these things invalidates the way you want to play. Even if the additions are 100% optional. You've closed off an entire design space simply because of how you interpret HP.

And it's an interpretation that doesn't really carry a whole lot of water in 5e. Not when HP return after a long rest and we have Hit Dice and things like a Fighter's Second Wind. We have non-magical healing in the game that make absolutely no real sense in the game fiction. My fighter can take 10 damage, Second wind, short rest and repeat infinitely so long as I keep rolling higher than my damage on my second wind. What happens in the game fiction? Who knows? There's no way to narrate that.

And before anyone says that Hit Dice represent meat, I would ask, why can't they be healed? I can use the most powerful healing spells in the game, Heal or whatnot, and not a single Hit Die is EVER replaced. The only thing that recovers Hit Dice is time. Two days at most, but, it will not replenish any other way. So, it's not actually wounds that are being recovered, because then healing magic would work. It's 100% plot armor.

The whole HP=Meat line just makes so many inconsistencies in the narrative of the game. Trying to directly apply HP to the in game fiction doesn't work. Not beyond anything other than the most casual of examinations.

But, despite that, we are not allowed to have certain mechanics? Why not?

Like I said, you lost this argument the second 5e hit the shelves. You really did. There are far too many inconsistencies in the idea of HP=Meat for it to actually work without a LOT of blinders being applied. OTOH, if you follow what's said in the PHB and presume that HP are whatever is needed at the time, you open up all sorts of design spaces that people can choose to use if they wish, or ignore if they wish.

 

[Tony Vargas]

**Warning, this post contains no positive, nor even useful contributions, just grumpy greybearded gorgnard snark.**

So don't read it.

[sblock=Seriously]


...OK, fine, but you've been warned.

This came to me this evening: what are "Hit Points" and what is "Armor Class"?

Extremely abstract components of D&D's combat sub-systems originally lifted from a naval wargame in the 70s.

The key phrase there is actually "..in the 70s" - nothing good came out of the 70s (except Star Wars).

(Sorry Gen-X'ers born in the 70s. That was just uncalled-for.)

Now bear with me, I'm not sure I've completely thought this thru. But long story short: how can Dexterity give you a similar bonus to AC as, say, Chain Mail? Actual Attributes notwithstanding, but it seems as if one's ability to evade an attack (Dex AC modifier) is equated to one's ability to abstain from injury (Chain Mail absorbs the hit) and to me this seems like comparing eeple's and baneenee's. What if Armor instead granted you Temp HP instead?

Also ideas that have been around since the 70s. 'Ablative' armor? Sure. Other systems have used that concept (Traveler even). More often, though (RQ for instance), the armor just absorbs the first few points of damage on each hit.

D&D has even gone there in the past...

And so when you use Hit Dice to "heal" you could actually just be doing routine Armor maintenance. Seems radical to an old grognard like me, but it somehow makes so much more sense. I don't know.

In 1e UA, the Field Plate and Full Plate Armors introduced both absorbed hp damage up to a limit before requiring repair. Of course, they also gave you higher ACs than Plate Mail.

And, of course, 5e has a feat that lets your armor give you a little resistance to damage.


Actually replacing Armor's contribution to AC with resistance or temp hps, though, would require radically re-jiggering the game. Other sources of AC are designed with the idea of either supplementing armor or being alternatives to it (or to heavier armor), each of those will have to be revisited, monsters may have to be re-written, etc.

Also, AC stands for Armor Class so armor having nothing to do with it would be a little silly - though I guess, not by D&D standards. ;P

[/sblock]