Do ranged attacks break the hit point mechanic?

[Quasqueton]

Do ranged weapons break the D&D system? All through my D&D "career" (20+ years), the bow and crossbow have shaken my willing suspension of disbelief. I've been looking at the d20 modern rules lately, and guns in that system *break* my WSB.

In a melee fight, I can easily imagine the damage dealt by swords and axes as being cuts and scratches, bruises and fatiguing. I can accept that a 20 point sword thrust to the heart is turned into a bare scratch on the arm for the 10th-level fighter.

I can imagine how a high-level fighter can look at the half-dozen soldiers around him and figure his skill can see him through a fight.

I can even understand how spears and javelins can be dodged or deflected just enough to turn lethal damage into scratchs and pricks.

But when it comes to arrows and bolts (and bullets), I have a very hard time getting my imagination around the dodging and deflecting, and turning major hits into minor damage. I mean, people are trained all the time (in RL) to dodge, deflect, and absorb melee attacks, but no one trains to dodge, deflect, and absorb ranged attacks (other than to make oneself a more difficult or smaller target before the shot is made).

I can't easily take the high-level fighter looking at the half-dozen soldiers with crossbows pointed at him, and thinking, I can survive their first volley and close with them.

Or the two duelists facing off across the glade with their pistols in hand, firing shot after shot after shot after shot, until one is so winded that he can't dodge the next bullet.

This is something that I've learned to just ignore for my D&D game playing. I kind of "blur my eyes" when arrows and bolts go flying in D&D. But I have a hard time doing this with bullets.

Do you have a hard time suspending disbelief with ranged weapons in D&D? Do you have a good description or method for overcoming that disbelief? Those of you who play d20 modern, or other such systems with guns and "hit points", do you have a hard time suspending disbelief with this mechanic?

Quasqueton

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

The hit point mechanic is a little more abstract than that. The bullets don't nick the hero, they outright miss. Hit points are also a reflection of luck and fatigue. They're kept pretty vague.

Or your can play in Hong's game where hit points are a measure of your dude-osity and manifest themselves as a force field with a glowing number overhead.

 

[Voadam]

How about gunshot misses in movies? Those are stretches too, but count those as taking away hit points and the hit point mechanic works. Sort of.

 

[d4]

Those of you who play d20 modern, or other such systems with guns and "hit points", do you have a hard time suspending disbelief with this mechanic?

if firearms are giving you problems in d20M, you could always lower the Massive Damage Threshold. but then everything gets more dangerous.

i play more Star Wars d20 than d20 Modern, and there the difference between "hit points" that represent actual physical injury (wound points) vs those that represent near misses and fatigue (vitality points) is more explicit. given that sidearms also tend to do an extra die of damage and SW is a quite cinematic genre to start with, i haven't had much of a problem with it. people in SW movies dodge blaster bolts all the time.

 

[drnuncheon]

Now we're back to the Great 2nd Ed Hit Point Debates, though, where you have to really juggle wacky and arbitrary circumstances to handle things like, say, poisoned arrows.

 

[Garboshnik]

Its really a threshold where realism is dropped in exchange for characters who don't constantly die to lucky shots. Or just think of it like in the James Bond movies where you're too important for the underlings to shoot anywhere near you.

 

[Aaron2]

Now we're back to the Great 2nd Ed Hit Point Debates, though, where you have to really juggle wacky and arbitrary circumstances to handle things like, say, poisoned arrows.

There's no juggling. You make the save -> arrow missed. Fail the save -> arrow hit.


Aaron

 

[Voadam]

Now we're back to the Great 2nd Ed Hit Point Debates, though, where you have to really juggle wacky and arbitrary circumstances to handle things like, say, poisoned arrows.

Easy, poisoned arrow hits just barely scratch ya.

Everybody knows poisoners are better shots than straight archers (but still not quite good enough to bring down a tough hombre).

 

[Henry]

There's no juggling. You make the save -> arrow missed. Fail the save -> arrow hit.

Aaron

Good point, except for why we don't use reflex saves for getting hit by poisoned arrows.

 

[Quasqueton]

Good point, except for why we don't use reflex saves for getting hit by poisoned arrows.

Not to harp on d20 Modern, but this is one of the hiccups I have with that system. The massive damage save is a fort save. That insinuates that the shot hit solidly, and your physical toughness is the only thing saving you from death or serious injury. But if you make the save, you have no effective injury (still got plenty of hit points left). A reflex save would seem more appropriate for the description of "just missed".

Quasqueton