D&D 5E Characters are not their statistics and abilities

[jasper]

KATANAS WOULD BE WINNING EVERYTHING, EVER!!!111!!!!!!!

And slamming back his Pabst Blue Ribbon, Karl Katana!

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sorry, I don't buy your goal post shifting. You said take various swords and go at a cutting mat and see how deeper they cut. For one, you can't *see* in game. It's all pretend. There's nothing there to physically look at so your statement makes no sense for an in game only context. Your language suggests examing real life examples.

I never said "cutting mat" because I don't know what a "cutting mat" is. I said sticks or barrels or hay or something. I don't remember, and it doesn't matter.

The in-game reality is that damage corresponds to damage. If you hit something and do a lot of damage, then it is physically deformed more than if you hit and deal less damage. This is what the DM will describe that your character sees when they perform these actions. If your DM does not describe it in this way, then your experience is so far removed that we have no common ground for discussion, and I would ask you to kindly stop replying to my posts.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In-game. Take your in-game long-sword out to an in-game tree, and hack at it. Then repeat the process with your in-game scimitar. The long-sword will cut deeper, because of the in-game reality which corresponds to dealing more damage.

Give your in-game scimitar to the little child with good balance though, and it'll cut much deeper into the tree than your longsword swings though.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This all relies on such awareness of the game mechanics on the part of the characters....some of which is observable, yes, but quantifiable? Not sure.

I prefer for the rules to be a representation of some kind of physics, rather than determining the physics. Most of the time, when someone is hit or stabbed by a sword, they suffer a wound. The severity of the wound has as much or more to do with the location of the hit, the strength of the attacker, and other factors as it does with the weight and/or design of a blade.

For me this applies equally to the aspects of the game that are purely fictional...when a cleric looks at a wounded ally he doesn't think "wow, he's down 53 HP, I better cast Cure at 4th level!" Instead, he sees a gravely wounded fellow, and decides to expend more of his magical energy to heal his friend. I mean, people don't generally take 8 to 16 hits from a longsword before finally dropping dead...so the rules are clearly meant to be a representation, and designed with providing a fun game in mind. I don't think we're supposed to assume you should alter what we know about human physiology and so on in order to match the rules.

So really, for me, having a character view another character's choice of weapon as being a poor one because they picked the less damaging weapon is pretty silly. It's the tail wagging the dog.

A player can complain about it as a suboptimal play option....but given that we're talking about a maximum damage differential of 2 points, they're being pretty nitpicky at that point, in my opinion.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I never said "cutting mat" because I don't know what a "cutting mat" is. I said sticks or barrels or hay or something. I don't remember, and it doesn't matter.

The in-game reality is that damage corresponds to damage. If you hit something and do a lot of damage, then it is physically deformed more than if you hit and deal less damage. This is what the DM will describe that your character sees when they perform these actions. If your DM does not describe it in this way, then your experience is so far removed that we have no common ground for discussion, and I would ask you to kindly stop replying to my posts.

That even makes less sense then. Hey look, I rolled a 1 for damage with my two handed sword, and a 2 for my dagger on tree stump. That means the dagger has more stopping power! Of course, that's assuming I believe you when you said you were only talking about in game examples anyway, which I don't because your language was implying real life.

And sorry, but on a public forum, you don't get to dictate who responds to your posts or not. Don't like me? Then you can ignore me yourself.

 

[jasper]

What Saelorn is missing other than cutting mats. Is it would take Charles from the Cleric Investigation Services a grant from King Kerry Krazy Kutter to study the exact science of cutting to come up with exact numbers. But Catherine of Cleric Investigation Services Desert will be out of luck because ain't many trees in the sand or Palm trees cut different. Or only Saelorn Sycamore Tree are the only tree in his world. But what is really bad is we have not heard for the Angry Axemen Of Ashville.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This all relies on such awareness of the game mechanics on the part of the characters....some of which is observable, yes, but quantifiable? Not sure.

Everything in the real world is quantifiable, because the real world operates on math at a fundamental level. Most of the time, we're unaware of the math, because it's easier to categorize it qualitatively.

The game world works the same way. You look at a wound, and you can see that it's really bad or not so bad, but you don't need to assign it a number to know what your in-game response is going to be. You qualitatively throw the appropriate amount of healing mojo, based on your qualitative assessment of how bad it is. You swing a sword and it causes a wound of some sort, with the severity depending on the location of the hit and how hard you can swing it, along with the basic properties of the weapon.

But given that knowledge as a base, you have enough information to tell that a long-sword hits harder than a scimitar when wielded in the same way. Where you hit is still a factor, of course, and that's out of your control during a fight (represented by the roll of the damage die); but over the course of several swings, the long-sword will average wounds of greater severity than the scimitar. The characters don't need to see the numbers, because they can see the actual in-game effect; the number is just for our benefit, so the DM doesn't have to explain the in-game difference between a 7-point wound and an 8-point wound in order for us, the players to understand what the characters can see with their own eyes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Everything in the real world is quantifiable, because the real world operates on math at a fundamental level. Most of the time, we're unaware of the math, because it's easier to categorize it qualitatively.

The game world works the same way. You look at a wound, and you can see that it's really bad or not so bad, but you don't need to assign it a number to know what your in-game response is going to be. You qualitatively throw the appropriate amount of healing mojo, based on your qualitative assessment of how bad it is. You swing a sword and it causes a wound of some sort, with the severity depending on the location of the hit and how hard you can swing it, along with the basic properties of the weapon.

But given that knowledge as a base, you have enough information to tell that a long-sword hits harder than a scimitar when wielded in the same way. Where you hit is still a factor, of course, and that's out of your control during a fight (represented by the roll of the damage die); but over the course of several swings, the long-sword will average wounds of greater severity than the scimitar. The characters don't need to see the numbers, because they can see the actual in-game effect; the number is just for our benefit, so the DM doesn't have to explain the in-game difference between a 7-point wound and an 8-point wound in order for us, the players to understand what the characters can see with their own eyes.

I get your point, but I just see things differently. I run my game with different expectations. But I definitely understand your views better.

 

[Ancalagon]

Your example seems backward to me. The bard isn't making any obvious mistakes, the way that the fighter is. I mean, your health isn't exactly something you can control, and they're making the smart move by going into a support role that doesn't involve front-line combat. You can't exactly blame the character for not being born a dwarf, after all.

To contrast, the fighter is choosing the objectively inferior weapon for her fighting style, because... sentimental value? She basically sounds like the guy who uses a katana because he thinks it's cool, which is always a good way of identifying someone who has no idea what they're doing.

The character doesn't choose their stats, but the player does, esp if it's a point system. The player also chose not to invest *any* resources in defense for their character. It would have been trivial to raise the defenses of the character from non-existent to mediocre - still need to hang in the back line, but not critically weak.

My alchemist had triple the hitpoint and 6-18 more AC than she did, depending on how thickly he weaved his defenses. He *was* a defense specialist mind you, but it illustrates the gap (this was in 3.5 with a bit of pathfinder btw).

There are tons of in-game reasons the fighter would have picked a scimitar over a long sword. Perhaps longswords weren't available in the area of the world where she grew up. It is a player stylistic decision that slightly weakens the character, but the impact is minor.

It sounds to me like you're looking at it from the character's point of view. Right? That these are the decisions of the character?

But I took [MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION] to be describing things as the decisions of the player playing the game.

Looking at it that way, one does have control over one's health. And for a character, why would a scimitar be suboptimal compared to another weapon? A character would be unaware of their damage output as a numerical statistic.

So the choices are being made made by the player in the examples given, and it's through that lens that we'd be viewing their effectiveness.

Exactly, thank you.