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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 6148639" data-attributes="member: 2303">The problem is that continuous time action (as opposed to segmented time action à la DnD) is generally much harder to do, and rarely gives a better or more dramatic feel. Also, it never really is continuous - it is almost impossible to make a continuous time model, because of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes" target="_blank">Zeno's paradoxes</a> and related problems of infinite division.The to-hit model permerton quotes above also has the problem that it does not take into account fatigue and the somewhat vague notion of "advantage" in combat. The superior side in any challenge can force the weaker side to exert themselves more and more to counter feints and blows designed specifically to stretch the weaker side's limits. A hit is generally only scored after your opponent's guard has been worn down - all the attacks prior to that are really preliminaries, not really made to hurt but to force the target to take more and more extreme defensive actions. I believe this is most easily observed in tennis - how the player who has the initiative (or advantage - no relation to DnD initiative) forces his opponents to run further and further with each ball, and finally sends the ball to the opposite side of the court from where his opponent is, making that ball impossible to catch. It is not any single ball that is impossible to catch, it is the sequence of balls that builds a pattern where the opponent is forced into an impossible situation.Ok, DnD's combat system does not model this very well either (best was perhaps 1E and 2E with 1-minute combat rounds), but that's not what I was trying to say - I'm merely saying that continuous time and discrete time combat systems are both so far from the "real" that we might just as well arbitrarily pick the one we feel is the most fun.I do think that the above can be used as an explanation for hit points and why there is no physical damage until you reach zero hit points - any damage before that point simply represents building advantage. In my homebrew, I also use this assumption to motivate why hits below that threshold is recovered very quickly.</blockquote>

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