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<blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4034827" data-attributes="member: 47776">You refine the rules, you don't ignore them.&nbsp; You look for precedent.For instance, you note that, under good conditions, the orc has a chance of critting with the dagger and causing 2d4+2xStr damage.&nbsp; Call it 5+6, or 11 damage.&nbsp; Under the 3.5 rules, that is plenty to kill the average person in the game world (or at least render them rapidly bleeding to death).How many of you have actually tried to cut someone's throat in the middle of combat?&nbsp; It's difficult; imagine cutting meat, but with a tough layer of skin over it, and the meat trying to get away and poke you in the eyes instead of being neatly sawn through.&nbsp; You can do it, of course, especially if you have the muscle mass to tear through flesh easily, or you are trained, but the fact that you can't automatically kill someone with a knife to their throat is a feature, not a bug, if you are looking for realism.Besides, remember again that heroes with class levels start out exceptional, move rapidly to world-class and quickly end up in legendary.&nbsp; The rules say that character's ability to (when aware) avoid death through general injury are not up to GM fiat, but a strict measure of how deadly the injury was and how many hit points the character had.&nbsp; A high-level knight that is thrown from his horse will suffer injury, but if he is at full hit points, he won't break his neck.&nbsp;&nbsp; The hit point systems do not allow for the GM to declare arbitrary death from such things.You don't like this, fine.&nbsp; But annouce that you're gutting the HP rules and replacing them with the &quot;Whatever I feel like, which resembles the HP rules in combat, except when I think otherwise.&quot;And a lot of players will be fine with that, and will appreciate the fact that there is explicit narrative control.&nbsp; A lot of other players will, at that point, pack up and leave while making snide comments about writing a novel, instead.&nbsp; The important thing, however, is to remember that the default assumption present in D&amp;D is that the world does actually look a hell of a lot more like OotS than reality, and that regardless of what you find believable, this is what people mean when they talk about D&amp;D.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="robertliguori, post: 4034827, member: 47776"] You refine the rules, you don't ignore them. You look for precedent. For instance, you note that, under good conditions, the orc has a chance of critting with the dagger and causing 2d4+2xStr damage. Call it 5+6, or 11 damage. Under the 3.5 rules, that is plenty to kill the average person in the game world (or at least render them rapidly bleeding to death). How many of you have actually tried to cut someone's throat in the middle of combat? It's difficult; imagine cutting meat, but with a tough layer of skin over it, and the meat trying to get away and poke you in the eyes instead of being neatly sawn through. You can do it, of course, especially if you have the muscle mass to tear through flesh easily, or you are trained, but the fact that you can't automatically kill someone with a knife to their throat is a feature, not a bug, if you are looking for realism. Besides, remember again that heroes with class levels start out exceptional, move rapidly to world-class and quickly end up in legendary. The rules say that character's ability to (when aware) avoid death through general injury are not up to GM fiat, but a strict measure of how deadly the injury was and how many hit points the character had. A high-level knight that is thrown from his horse will suffer injury, but if he is at full hit points, he won't break his neck. The hit point systems do not allow for the GM to declare arbitrary death from such things. You don't like this, fine. But annouce that you're gutting the HP rules and replacing them with the "Whatever I feel like, which resembles the HP rules in combat, except when I think otherwise." And a lot of players will be fine with that, and will appreciate the fact that there is explicit narrative control. A lot of other players will, at that point, pack up and leave while making snide comments about writing a novel, instead. The important thing, however, is to remember that the default assumption present in D&D is that the world does actually look a hell of a lot more like OotS than reality, and that regardless of what you find believable, this is what people mean when they talk about D&D. [/QUOTE]

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