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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 4544800" data-attributes="member: 18280">Sure is.  Do you accept that a sword can physically harm you without successfully skewering you?  I sure do.  I've experienced it.  Do you accept that an elephant that tries to step on you can physically harm you without actually succeeding in stepping on you?  Thankfully, I've not experienced that, but I can certainly believe it.The amount of physical damage done by an attack, IRL, is not an on/off, all-or-nothing switch.  A person or creature can fail to skewer/gouge/rip your arm off and still do a heck of a lot of real damage.See above.  And see the 1e DMG.Can I fail to step on you, but still catch you with my heel and cause you physical harm?  Or you me?  Or an elephant either of us with its toes?Have you ever seen video footage of animals attacking people?  There are many, many cases where the animal fails to gore, step on, what-have-you, but still manages to cause injury.When I was in high school in rural Wisconsin, I had a classmate who got pulled into a hay baler.  His dad managed to shut it off before it did any lasting harm -- he wasn't skewered -- but he had a nasty cut along the side of his head near his eye, a wound in his thigh (a few inches north, and it would have been far worse), etc.  The machine failed to skewer him fatally; it certainly did not fail to injure him.Even if "it normally only takes one solid sword blow to take someone down", that does not translate a hit that fails to take someone down into a "near hit"; it translates it into a hit that is not "one solid blow".  Having received a number of hits that cause damage, but are not "one solid blow" over the years, I can safely say that they still cause physical damage.To non-Kryptonians, anyway.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Again, this is a misunderstanding of what hit points are in 1e.In 1e it is possible to be damaged without that damage expending a hit point.  For instance, a wizard with 1 hp doesn't sit on a tack and die from it.  Some damage is simply "below the margin" of substantial damage.Which means that Gary, our 80 hp fighter, and Bob, our 10 hp fighter, might still have some signs of injury when at full hit points.  These injuries are just too insignificant to count.With me so far?Part of what gives Gary 80 hit points to Bob's 10 is that Gary is simply a better fighter.  When he is in top shape, he can really parry and thrust, and he can dodge major injuries (turning them into minor injuries) like nobody's business.  No matter how much Bob rests up, he is never in as good a condition as Gary is.  When Bob is at full, and Gary is at half, Gary is still in better shape than Bob.  The difference is that, some of the damage that is inconsequential to Bob is inconsequential because Bob isn't the finely balanced fighting machine that Gary is.  When a little injury throws Gary off his game, his game is still very much better than Bob's is.  Bob ignores that injury because he isn't good enough for that injury to matter.To use a modern example, if I wrestle Hulk Hogan, no minor cut I have is really going to affect my chances of escaping the punishment coming my way.  I am effectively at "full hit points" because my hit points suck.  And no minor cut Hulk Hogan has is going to affect him either, because even with the cut he outclasses me considerably.  Although Hulk Hogan isn't at full hit points, in this case, he is still very much better than I am, even if I am at full hit points.However, if Hulk Hogan were wrestling someone of equal strength, skill, and talent, that minor cut might well be important.  That injury matters to Hulk Hogan -- where it doesn't matter to me -- because Hulk Hogan doesn't suck, whereas I do.In 1e, you can have injury without hit point loss, but no hit point loss without injury.  Hit point loss always represents injury; not all injury is represented by hit point loss.(This is the same in 3e, btw, where some injury is represented by ability score loss, for example.)RC</blockquote>

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