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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9203003" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Yup.  Every edition has this same issue.  It's inherent to the concept of Hit Points.  The ability to disregard cognitive dissonance from this is IMO MOSTLY just a matter of how well players either a) accept the ambiguity and roll with hit points representing different things at different points, or b) pretend the ambiguity doesn't exist.Or ten seconds, like in B/X, BECMI, and RC D&D.  I think that's arguably the best/most playable/most verisimilitudinous version.As Thomas and others pointed out, the rules for ammunition (missile weapons take a defined and specific number of actual shots in OD&D and AD&D, unlike melee weapons which allegedly work more abstractly) and poison (if an envenomed blade "hits" and that means there's a possibility of blood contact, there must have been a concrete hit, right?) have always run afoul of the 1 minute abstract combat round.Exactly.  I carried a Swiss army knife for years.  Victorinox makes a lot of good multi-tools.  A multi-tool will get you by fine in a lot of situations and if I need a screwdriver it's always going to be more useful to me than a chef's knife.But when I want to cook a meal, I'm always going to want a chef's knife over a Swiss army knife.  It's not an apples to apples comparison of the multi-tool or the specialized tool universally being better.5E literally does, though.  With HP recovery by Second Wind, by Short Rest and Long Rest, 5E uses hit points ambiguously to cover some unspecified mix of fatigue/luck running out/actual wounds like every other edition does.I will grant that it does so a bit less than other editions in that it uses the separate Exhaustion track for travel in extremes of heat or cold, unlike, say, 1E doing that with hit points.Damage on a miss was novel in the way that it violated the accepted status quo for the Group B folks, but it's no more "having hit points perform double duty" than the AD&D 10th level Fighter getting hit with a greatsword vs first level Fighter getting hit with a greatsword example is.  Neither Fighter is apparently suffering any actual wounds (beyond maybe superficial scratches or bruising) until they drop at 0HP.I get you.  And I am familiar with the AD&D texts and I can see why you choose to disregard Gygax's explanations of what hit points actually are and represent in AD&D and OD&D.But I still disagree.  As with the 10th level vs 1st level Fighters examples (getting hit with greatswords or fighting a giant wielding a tree trunk for a club), which demonstrate that the same issue of hit points representing multiple things simultaneously has always been there.Great post.</blockquote>

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