D&D 5E Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[pemerton]

What bothers me about the exhaustion/luck/skill HP thing is that spider/viper bites etc. still inject poison - which implies at least some physical contact. So I think any wound which deals damage has to make some kind of actual contact or injury (however minor), but higher HP characters mitigate it (not avoid it - that's AC).

Gygax discusses just this in his DMG (p 81):

The so called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill, and perhaps a scratch, and thus the saving throw. If that mere scratch managed to be venomous, then DEATH. If no such wound was delivered, then NO DAMAGE FROM THE POISON.​

In other words, you don't have to narrate a given degree of hp loss the same every time. If other mechanical consequences only make sense if physical injury occurred (say, poisoning) then that is part of your narration. If not, then physical contact need not be part of the narration. The narration is flexible, provided only that it conforms to the constraints imposed by whatever the mechanical outcome happens to be.

This is [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION]'s Rorschach test in action; this is what I mean when I say that hp, at least as put forward by Gygax (and then refined in 4e) are not a simulationist mechanic. (One semi-technical label for this sort of mechanic is "fortune in the middle" - you roll the dice first, and then establish afterwards, via narration within the parameters set by the dice - eg the saving throw that failed or not - what happened in the fiction.)

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

There is no internal hemorrhaging in Faerun.

Quote me a page reference that actually says this, I don't even care what edition it is from.

Because, without that page reference of explicit statement to this effect, I believe that the truth is that there is such a thing as internal hemorrhaging in Faerun, but it is abstracted into game rules rather than addressed in specific detail because the authors of the game intend a playable game, not a reality simulation which accounts for the effects of things which they, not being awarded doctorates in numerous fields including but not limited to physics and medicine for their prodigious academic accomplishments, are not actually particularly familiar.

To rephrase to ensure clarity: It's not that the reality of Faerun is actually different - that there is no such thing as internal hemorrhaging - but that discrete representation of the effects of internal hemorrhaging didn't fit into the game as a common occurrence (though it does actually fit into all editions of the D&D game as an explanation as to how exactly a person has died as a result of taking damage from a bludgeoning weapon, especially in the case of any "bleeding out" rules or death saving throws being used).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Gygax discusses just this in his DMG (p 81):

The so called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill, and perhaps a scratch, and thus the saving throw. If that mere scratch managed to be venomous, then DEATH. If no such wound was delivered, then NO DAMAGE FROM THE POISON.​

In other words, you don't have to narrate a given degree of hp loss the same every time. If other mechanical consequences only make sense if physical injury occurred (say, poisoning) then that is part of your narration. If not, then physical contact need not be part of the narration. The narration is flexible, provided only that it conforms to the constraints imposed by whatever the mechanical outcome happens to be.

Of course, Gygax was talking about a different edition of D&D where damage from poison worked differently. In 5E, there is no saving throw against drow elite warrior poison, for example, and "the saving throw" Gygax refers to doesn't exist.

 

[Maxperson]

Not to mention not having any mechanical representation for luck, divine favour and so on.

100% provably false. They were in fact, per Gygax, represented mechanically by hit points.

Clerics did not get extra hit points for being especially pious

They did. They were called hit points when leveling. They got divine favor hit points, while thieves got luck and fighters got skill. Those divine favor hit points, luck hit points, skill hit points and son were in addition to the explicitly limited number of meat hit points that capped out at around 23.

 

[Maxperson]

The only problem I have with 1e hp being 'luck, etc'.. is how slow it was to recover this 'luck, skill, etc' hps, without magic healing that is.

Time heals all wounds. That saying isn't about just the physical. The 1e rules for recovering hit points per day apply to all types.

 

[Maxperson]

Quote me a page reference that actually says this, I don't even care what edition it is from.

Because, without that page reference of explicit statement to this effect, I believe that the truth is that there is such a thing as internal hemorrhaging in Faerun, but it is abstracted into game rules rather than addressed in specific detail because the authors of the game intend a playable game, not a reality simulation which accounts for the effects of things which they, not being awarded doctorates in numerous fields including but not limited to physics and medicine for their prodigious academic accomplishments, are not actually particularly familiar.

Quote me a page reference that actually says that it exists. I don't even care what edition it is from.

Because, without that page reference of an explicit statement to that effect, you are adding it into the game yourself. It is not a part of the game until you do.

There's nothing wrong with adding things into the game, but those things aren't in the game just because there isn't writing saying that they don't exist.

 

[Maxperson]

Of course, Gygax was talking about a different edition of D&D where damage from poison worked differently. In 5E, there is no saving throw against drow elite warrior poison, for example, and "the saving throw" Gygax refers to doesn't exist.

Saving throws do exist in 5e, but work differently, and the example you give changes nothing that Gygax said. He was saying that if poison, then at least a physical scratch to get it there. The 5e drow poison would ALWAYS have such a scratch is all that changed from 1e to 5e.

 

[Shasarak]

100% provably false. They were in fact, per Gygax, represented mechanically by hit points.

But never by Rings of Luck or Amulets of Divine Favour.

They did. They were called hit points when leveling. They got divine favor hit points, while thieves got luck and fighters got skill. Those divine favor hit points, luck hit points, skill hit points and son were in addition to the explicitly limited number of meat hit points that capped out at around 23.

You could make a very convincing argument that divine favour does not give hit points because in truth it actually deducts them since the Cleric has less hit points then the Fighter, and skill takes even more of your hit points and lastly the lucky Wizard has very little hit points remaining by the time we factor in his "bonuses".

 

[Maxperson]

But never by Rings of Luck or Amulets of Divine Favour.

I'll wait while you find the rules that say there is only one type of luck and one type of divine favor.

You could make a very convincing argument that divine favour does not give hit points because in truth it actually deducts them since the Cleric has less hit points then the Fighter, and skill takes even more of your hit points and lastly the lucky Wizard has very little hit points remaining by the time we factor in his "bonuses".

Nope. That argument is too flimsy to hold itself up. First you'd have to establish what amount of hit points was the intended amount for all classes. Second, you'd have to include fighters in that number since I've never seen one that always rolled a 9 or higher on the die, and the number needed would have to be higher than 8, since clerics can cap at 8. For all you know, that number is 2 and even most wizards surpass it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Saving throws do exist in 5e, but work differently, and the example you give changes nothing that Gygax said. He was saying that if poison, then at least a physical scratch to get it there. The 5e drow poison would ALWAYS have such a scratch is all that changed from 1e to 5e.

I disagree. Gygax was discussing a save-or-die mechanic. In 5E, it's all HP-based. Gygax's statement as quoted is irrelevant in 5E, unfortunately.