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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7361014" data-attributes="member: 7006">Devil's advocate here... out of curiosity, was CON your highest stat?  Were you a Barbarian?  Were you a Hill Dwarf?  Did you start at 2nd level when everyone else started at 1st?  Because any number of those things would have given you more hit points than the other PCs.  Because if you were using HP as your determination of whether you were "tough"... any of those probably could have done just as good (if not better when used in combination) a job at distinguishing you as being "tougher" than your compatriots than the feat.  If you didn't have any of those other options, why not?  If they would all give you mechanically higher HP totals and you decided that that was what you were using as your determination for "toughness"... then you obviously were choosing not to make yourself as "tough" as you could have been.Here's another way to look at it and a question that we can all ask ourselves:  If the 'Tough' feat gave the exact same mechanical features as it has right now (HP max increased by 2 points per character level) but the feat was called 'Energetic'-- under the flavor assumption that HP is as much energy and stamina as it is bodily health-- would you still have taken it?  Would you still think being "tougher" as a character concept just meant having the most HP, regardless of how the game fluffed the HP gain?  Or would the correlation between "toughness" and "higher HP" fall by the wayside because of how the game chose to identify what high levels of HP meant?  Maybe you would!  I don't know.  That's up for you to decide-- whether your character would take a feat called 'Energetic' but it would actually infer character toughness.If not though... that's really my point.  All these feats really do is give us game mechanics.  Game mechanics which have no story.  Any story that comes from game mechanics and math are the ones that we collectively have agreed upon to use as part of this game called 'Dungeons & Dragons', and we give these mechanics funny little names to help denote and remind us of what we've agreed all this math is supposed to mean.  But all these little names we've given to all this math is fungible.  They don't really matter.  The math doesn't care, and when we use the math the little names don't impact anything.  We can call hit points "ablative armor" and damage "dents" and the game mechanics work exactly the same.And thus... any story that comes out of our game sessions really comes from how we choose to narrate it.  How we choose to play it.  Someone above said that you can't play a "tough" character if you have a low CON and small hit die (like a Wizard) even if you wanted to, because the game mechanics didn't match up.  Really?  Then how come a 20th level Wizard has way more hit points than a 1st level fighter, even with a low CON and small hit die?  Is the wizard actually tougher now because they gained all those levels?  Is your 1st level fighter NEVER a "tough guy" because their hit points are lower than 95% of all the other PCs out there of a higher character level?I would submit that no... you can STILL claim your 1st level Fighter as a "tough" guy, because it's how you roleplay and narrate the character, and not based upon the numbers on your sheet.  You DON'T need to take a feat to play your character concept.  You can play your character concept however you'd like, completely separate from what the math says.  Because anyone who says "My character concept is that I'm the greatest swordfighter in the land, and thus I require to have X, Y, and Z game mechanics in order to represent it"... but that character is still 1st level?  Nope, sorry!  You ain't.  If the game mechanics are what you think you need to make it true... you're going to find your rear end handed to you by a 17th level divination wizard wielding a dagger every single time, proving in fact that your character is not the greatest swordfighter in the land because the math isn't going to hold up its end of the bargain.Game mechanics can help support your concept.  They can reduce the number of times that weird instances that don't make sense occur.  But the game mechanics are just math, and the math can screw you over all the time.  Two PC warriors standing next to each other but one has 10 more hit points than the other and so the player thinks their character is "tougher".  Doesn't mean a whole lot when their PC takes a single critical hit and drops to 0 HP while the "less tough" PC absorbs three hits and doesn't fall.  Right then and there the game mechanics and math have blown your character concept away.But if you just roleplay your character as a "tough guy"... and narrate everything that happens to him through that lens... the story will always be pertinent to you and the game despite those times than the game mechanics fail.  Get knocked to 0 HP?  Fall to your knees in a fog and daze, then as soon as you get a bit of healing you jump right back into the fray with little thought to personal safety or mechanically "how close to 0 are your HP".  Run into rooms and take blows that the other players might not choose to subject their characters to.  When you are at the tavern, take 10 shots of whiskey when the other PCs are merely nursing their drinks.  Play up the fact that you have no fear.  ANY of those kinds of things will get across in the game that your character is a "tough guy" much, much better than any math.</blockquote>

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