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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6991814" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know how familiar you are with RM. It's damage system is different in kind from D&D, not just degree.It does not use hp, the loss of which can corresond to X, or Y, or Z, depending on the circumstances of the fiction and the mood of the participants.It uses debuffs which are expressed in concrete terms ("bruised rib", "broken shield arm", "severed tendons", ect), and "concussion hits" which are a direct measure of pain, bruising and blood loss - these are acquired by developing a skill called "body development", and the typical fighter at mid-levels will have about twice as many as the typical magic-user, and - more significantly - will have proportionately lower penalty and unconsciousness thresholds and hence is not only physically bigger/tougher but is less likely to falter or collapse when hurt.If the rules don't tell you which rib was bruised, or which arm broken, you can roll a die to determine - and sometime that will matter (eg whether a left or right arm is broken certainly matters for swordplay, unless the character is ambidextrous). In AD&D knowing the hit location etc is, as Gygax said, "not germane", because nothing would turn on it.There's a reason the slogan for RM was "Get real, get Rolemaster!" It is expressly designed for those players - of whom there were many in the late 70s through mid-to-late 80s - who found D&D's comat system, saving throw system, class-and-XP system, and spell system, too "unrealistic". (It's no coincidence that these are the systems for which Gygax offered non-simulationist explanations in his DMG. He was articulating his game against alternatives, including - at that time - C&S and RQ, and later including also RM, Hero, DragonQuest and GURPS.)I'm not sure what the basis is for that guarantee. As a matter of practicality, most RM players that I've played with would prefer to lose 10 hp than take a -10 penalty, unless very close to being knocked unconscious.I think this is repeating something that [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] said upthread, and my response is similar: if it makes no difference to the unfolding of the game whether I imagine the "hit" as inflicting a wound that needs healing in the literal sense, or as causing the character who is "hit" to dodge, thus using up "luck" or "divine favour" or some unspecified and otherwise irrelevant "reserves" (eg using up these reserves won't penalise saves or movement), then it is all epiphenomenal.In RM, I know that my character needs healing with a spell cast from Bone Law rather than Blood Law because, in the fiction, I have a broken arm rather than a bleeding vein. In D&D, I know that my character needs Cure Light Wounds rather than Cure Serious Wounds because I look at my hp total. The fiction doesn't mediate between the hp depletion and the healing spell.(Contrast, say, being struck by a Sword of Sharpness and needing a Regeneration spell; or being petrified by a basilisk and needing a Stone to Flesh spell. In these cases, there is mediation through the fiction - the successful attack brings about a known change in the fiction, that then determines how healing will take place.)</blockquote>

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