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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 4037335" data-attributes="member: 32164">I can see the distinctions more clearly now. It boils down to how you answer various questions.1) Is the high-level hero like Superman, in being actually invulnerable to certain kinds of injury, or is he like Batman, who is just "narratively" protected from those forms of injury?2) As a corellary to the above, what do hit points represent in the gameworld?3) Does the DM need to create a mechanical resolution system for every possible eventuality he wants to have occur in the game world?4) Is it more troubling to your "suspension of disbelief" for PCs to be "narratively special" or for the game world to "operate under physics substantially divergent from our own?"Back to point 3, I could, as a DM, decide that if you fall off a  horse, a natural 1 (5% chance) on your REF save forces you to roll on a d% table. And that a result of 00 (1%) on this table means you have potentially suffered a serious injury from this inconsequential fall and must roll on a second table. And that a result of 00 (1%) on that second table means the character has suffered causing a broken neck resulting in either instant death (failed save), or long-term injury (successful save). After all this, the chance of this happening to a PC is a game-acceptable (to me) 1-in-a-million (or less). However, it is now, by the rules, possible for any character to break his neck falling off a horse, and so my NPC king can bite it that way. But I have to wonder, is this houserule (which just about everyone says I have every right to make) worth the effort? Since I have no plan for this rule to apply to the PCs, my gut instinct says "no." Too much effort for too little reward. Especially when there's a simple solution: it happened to this NPC because that's my plot hook. Since it's narratively unsatisfactory, I, as a DM, will never do this to a PC. However, the player may make that decision if he wants, just as he could choose to have his character lose an eye, get scarred, or whatever. I'd do all of the above without penalty (unless the player wanted one). However, in the interests of "realism," if a player wants his swordsman to lose his dominant hand, I'd have to impose at least a temporary penalty until the character had some time to train. It might, for example, last until he went up a level or maybe even took a feat of some kind. But I imagine a player who decided to have his character lose his dominant hand would expect, and even want, a penalty like this.Just to cover point 4 in slightly more detail, I'd add this. By the rules of Point 4, if I game in the Forgotten Realms, my PCs are "special" in a way that, for example, Elminster and Drizzt are not. As the "main characters" in my game, the PCs just have narrative protection that NPCs lack. On the other hand, I usually have a "Lois Lane" exemption too. Which is to say this: an important supporting character won't be killed off in an arbitrary way. In other words, it's fine for the game if Lois Lane dies, as long as Superman at least has a chance to save her. But Lois slipping on a bar of soap and cracking her head open isn't "cool."Basically, I hold the view that when characters are offstage, their campaign "significance" is more relevant than their in-game stats. KM, I know you don't share this opinion but I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree here.</blockquote>

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