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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5880916" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here are some passages from The Phoenix on the Sword:The king took Ascalante's point in his left arm, and the outlaw barely saved his life by ducking and springing backward from the swinging ax. . . .

Ascalante leaped like a wolf, halted almost in midair with incredible quickness and fell prostrate to avoid the death which was hissing toward him. He frantically whirled his feet out of the way and rolled clear as Conan recovered from his missed blow and struck again. This time the ax sank inches deep into the polished floor close to Ascalante's revolving legs.Clearly when Conan is stabbed by Ascalante, he has (in D&amp;D terms) been hit and suffered hit point loss.But what about when Ascalante ducks and springs backward, then falls prostrate, and then whirls his feet out of the way?In the fiction this is Conan missing. But mechanically, what is going on? Is Conan missing - or hitting, and causing Ascalante to lose hit points, but not delivering fatal damage?I think the latter, because otherwise Ascalante would - like everyone else in Conan except for Conan! - be a one-hit kill. And Conan would be rolling far too many 1s on his d20!But I'm curious about other opinions. After all, the interpretation of &quot;hit&quot;, &quot;miss&quot;, &quot;damage&quot; and &quot;healing&quot; seems to be one of the things that is causing a lot of angst for D&amp;Dnext dicsussions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5880916, member: 42582"] Here are some passages from The Phoenix on the Sword: [indent]The king took Ascalante's point in his left arm, and the outlaw barely saved his life by ducking and springing backward from the swinging ax. . . . Ascalante leaped like a wolf, halted almost in midair with incredible quickness and fell prostrate to avoid the death which was hissing toward him. He frantically whirled his feet out of the way and rolled clear as Conan recovered from his missed blow and struck again. This time the ax sank inches deep into the polished floor close to Ascalante's revolving legs.[/indent] Clearly when Conan is stabbed by Ascalante, he has (in D&D terms) been hit and suffered hit point loss. But what about when Ascalante ducks and springs backward, then falls prostrate, and then whirls his feet out of the way? In the fiction this is Conan missing. But mechanically, what is going on? Is Conan missing - or hitting, and causing Ascalante to lose hit points, but not delivering fatal damage? I think the latter, because otherwise Ascalante would - like everyone else in Conan except for Conan! - be a one-hit kill. And Conan would be rolling far too many 1s on his d20! But I'm curious about other opinions. After all, the interpretation of "hit", "miss", "damage" and "healing" seems to be one of the things that is causing a lot of angst for D&Dnext dicsussions. [/QUOTE]

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