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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7750888" data-attributes="member: 6873517">Sure, which is why I tend to think of them as being grazes or blows that are parried but jar the target. Anyone who's done some sparring and paid attention knows that those start to get to you and will wear you down until you start making real mistakes that leave you open to a bigger, more consequential blow. If you want a good example of how "ablative" combat works IRL, think of things like a group of people hunting large game (elephants, whales, bison, etc.) with primitive weapons like spears or fairly weak bows. Many of the attacks are fairly small, with the purpose of trying to bleed out the beast until it's sufficiently weakened that a killing blow can be struck. Of course, hand to hand "for real" combat among humans is not actually like that from what I understand. It's much quicker, deadlier, and more confusing and humans are both much more fragile and much more resilient than would be expected, but that's not what mid to higher level D&D simulates (to the extent it simulates anything exactly). The problem is that that often really bugs folks in various ways, particularly ones who have (or think they have) a knowledge of combat, often much too informed by Hollywood, where low caliber handgguns are often portrayed as magic wands of death. D&D doesn't really simulate either RL combat or Hollywood combat. Sure, this forum is for a bunch of obsessed freaks <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> but lots of more casual players get bothered too. They may not spend time articulating it on the internet or even know how to articulate it clearly, but they do get bugged. Description of what damage means can also be used to help reinforce a character concept. For example, in a game I play in my Dex build paladin and the high Con/Toughness feat abjurer have roughly the same hit points and if the abjurer is using Shield has roughly the same ACs. However, they're very different characters with very different concepts. The paladin avoids damage primarily by skill, speed, and divine favor, parrying blows with sword and shield, for instance. The abjurer is using magic and, in that character's case, sheer toughness and resilience. The exact same damage can and should be described differently to reinforce the theme of the characters.</blockquote>

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