D&D 5E How cognizant are you of the rules of the game?

[Maxperson]

Wrong question. The ogre comes later, after the adventuring career has begun.

The character learns about weapons and practices with them repeatedly as she develops her proficiency. By the time the character is undertaking an adventuring career, she should have been sparring with someone with different weapons enough to negate the disadvantage that comes from being born without weapon proficiencies.

None of which teach the PC how to know when a miss is a hit or vise versa. It's impossible for the PC to be able to gauge D&D combat with hit points and damage being abstract.

And, all that assumes that other factors relevant to the real world aren't considered in the damage die type. I mentioned before that in the real world the reach difference between a dagger and a rapier is a very real factor, but it's overlooked in D&D. What if that's not overlooked? What if that superior reach is actually reflected in the larger die type? If that superior reach is reflected in the larger die type then die type becomes an even more easily observable and pertinent factor when making in-game decisions about what weapons to use.

It's impossible for reach to be a part of damage or else weapon damage would be even more variable than it is. That dagger doesn't do more damage against an unarmed enemy, even though it has reach on that enemy. The damage doesn't drop to a d2 against a 15 foot pike.

 

[Maxperson]

The awareness that time passes is in-game knowledge and it's dishonest of you to claim otherwise by spinning the argument as you have.

No. What's dishonest is this claim that awareness of time matters. So what if the PC is aware that 30ish second or a minute has passed. He has no idea how often he has hit during that time or how much damage he has done. Did he hit ten times for 1 damage each, twice for 5 points, or once for 10 damage. Hell, he doesn't even know he did 10 damage at all. All he knows is that eventually the enemy died.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The PC has no idea what a hit is. When he "hits" and does luck damage, the PC registers it as a miss. He swung. He missed. Only the player knows it was a hit for 6 damage. You are establishing some sort of idiot savant omniscience to PCs that somehow enables them to know every miss that is a "hit" and the exact damage, then calculate the math based on full knowledge of monsters' hit points that they don't really have.

As they say in the actual book, different DMs describe damage in different ways. If your DM describes a "hit" as not making contact, and merely eroding luck, then characters cannot observe anything which corresponds to their HP, which means they have no idea when they need to cast a spell or drink a potion.

Of course, that would be ridiculous, which is why nobody plays that way. Either the characters are aware of something which corresponds to their HP, or else it's meta-gaming whenever you want to heal (or otherwise make a decision that takes your current HP into consideration).

The most consistent method, which doesn't require meta-gaming, is to say that every "hit" on the attack roll corresponds to a physical impact from the weapon which creates an observable change-in-state of the victim. If your DM describes damage differently, then whatever weird shenanigans arise as a result are entirely on you.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As they say in the actual book, different DMs describe damage in different ways. If your DM describes a "hit" as not making contact, and merely eroding luck, then characters cannot observe anything which corresponds to their HP, which means they have no idea when they need to cast a spell or drink a potion.

Of course, that would be ridiculous, which is why nobody plays that way. Either the characters are aware of something which corresponds to their HP, or else it's meta-gaming whenever you want to heal (or otherwise make a decision that takes your current HP into consideration).

The most consistent method, which doesn't require meta-gaming, is to say that every "hit" on the attack roll corresponds to a physical impact from the weapon which creates an observable change-in-state of the victim. If your DM describes damage differently, then whatever weird shenanigans arise as a result are entirely on you.

Alternatively, a "hit" corresponds to successfully harrying your opponent, draining them of the stamina needed to remain active in a given fight; too much time (= too many rounds) spent narrowly dodging blows and you're flagging, unable to mount a meaningful defense when the REAL hits start happening. Such a thing made perfect sense in 4e, with the surge/HP distinction. Although hit dice emphatically are NOT surges, in this case, they happen to work similarly enough that I feel this explanation makes sense in 5e too.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Alternatively, a "hit" corresponds to successfully harrying your opponent, draining them of the stamina needed to remain active in a given fight; too much time (= too many rounds) spent narrowly dodging blows and you're flagging, unable to mount a meaningful defense when the REAL hits start happening. Such a thing made perfect sense in 4e, with the surge/HP distinction. Although hit dice emphatically are NOT surges, in this case, they happen to work similarly enough that I feel this explanation makes sense in 5e too.

As long as it's something that the characters are aware of, so that they can make informed decisions about when to drink a healing potion and when to cast a Cure spell, it can work. Even if it's just fatigue, that's still something that the characters can observe within their reality. Fatigue worked pretty well to model HP for PCs, in 4E.

 

[n00b f00]

I'll try to pick the best options for what fits with a given character concept in a vacuum. Not purely optimized, and not a fluff bunny gimp. And depending on the table and setting I'll play it and tweak by ear. There might be something in the system that is incredibly easy to attain with significant gameplay value. But is not ubiquitous in the setting for narrative reasons, such as a cybernetic implant that is uncomfortable and is minorly deforming in a way that has no mechanical drawback. I won't take that unless it fits a really cyber heavy character, or unless the table is about super combat optimization. When in Rome and such.

I think the conversation in the last few pages is one I've seen before that basically comes down to interplay between game reality and rules abstraction. In real life we have only rough ideas of the competing efficacy of similar cartridges. Rough ideas don't work in mechanics. I view the hit dice as an abstraction of a general understanding. Bigger weapons are usually a bit better than smaller ones, people in the setting normally understand this, and yet for reasons matching those in real life their kits are usually not optimized. People fought with what they were trained with, what was popular, what was comfortable, and what they could afford. Sometimes you have professional armies where the kit is built around a macro based metagame, Romans and the gladius, Greeks and the spear. Sometimes you had a band of knights who wielded a bunch of different personal weapons, because they felt mre comfortable with them. Even though by the rules of 5e some of them were making suboptimal choices, because 5e in its simplicity(which I like fyi) doesn't bother to model the real life mechanical reasons why someone who is able to use a greatsword will always be better with a longsword. Maybe he's small, not small humanoid, but maybe he's like 5' 4" has smaller hands and thin frame. He knows how to use a greatsword, but it's uncomfortable, and he's slower with it. In some systems this would be modeled, it's not in this one. I don't think that the system makes those people stop existing, it doesn't make the small guy more effective because there is no favored weapon rule. It doesn't make him stupid because the system doesn't model a common real life issue.

If you feel like the abstraction is not just a general understanding distilled into gameplay, but empirical fact. Something that many primers and papers have been written about, and therefore 95% of warriors pick the best gear they can get proficiency in. That's okay, it's no crime just different strokes. It doesn't reflect our history, but neither does shrugging off an axe to the face, or people who can take 20 times the punishment of a healthy farmhand in martial combat. If you also believe that characters knowledge extends to seeing their companions class features and builds, and knowing that the fighter is an idiot for using a d6 weapon but the monk isn't. That's fine too. For some players getting rid of the body of a murder is a long drawn out affair, it's detailed, there's multiple rolls, chance encounters, and a serious chance of disaster. In some games they say "We dump him in the river," and the GM just nods. Whatever works at your table is fine, we don't all have to play the same way, and clearly that's for the best.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Maybe we should limit weapon proficiency to a favored weapon and add more either at level up or through spending downtime, like with tool kits.

 

[n00b f00]

It's not a bad house rule if you want to model those sorts of situations without breaking the system, and want to have the reality of the character concept be mechanical reality. Something like 4 simple weapons/ 2 martial weapons at level one. With fairly permissive rules about picking up new ones. The rules are pretty tough on a lot of games. Most games won't spend 250 days in one town or city. Still most characters, even most fighters don't really need every weapon to be viable.

For the main rules this complicates things a bit, and for me personally I'm okay with suboptimized characters. But a pretty decent house rule for some tables. I know I have a few of my own.

 

[Maxperson]

As they say in the actual book, different DMs describe damage in different ways. If your DM describes a "hit" as not making contact, and merely eroding luck, then characters cannot observe anything which corresponds to their HP, which means they have no idea when they need to cast a spell or drink a potion.

Contact could be a real miss, though. You can hit shield or armor and do no damage. Unless the DM narrates that every hit point is 100% meat and a hit must strike the body and draw blood, and each hit point draws an exact amount of blood, there's no way for a PC to know how much damage he's doing or when he hits.

The most consistent method, which doesn't require meta-gaming, is to say that every "hit" on the attack roll corresponds to a physical impact from the weapon which creates an observable change-in-state of the victim. If your DM describes damage differently, then whatever weird shenanigans arise as a result are entirely on you.

In my experience, this rarely happens. Even when it does, those DMs also narrate misses as impacting shields and armor, which negates the PCs ability to know when he has hit via an impact. Other than when blood is drawn, though. Even when blood is drawn, the result of a large hit can be a scratch if the creature has a lot of hit points.

 

[Maxperson]

As long as it's something that the characters are aware of, so that they can make informed decisions about when to drink a healing potion and when to cast a Cure spell, it can work. Even if it's just fatigue, that's still something that the characters can observe within their reality. Fatigue worked pretty well to model HP for PCs, in 4E.

PCs can never be aware of that. It's a player construct. Allowing a PC to be healed or drink a potion when low on those sorts of hit point is one of the few forms of metagaming that I am okay with, since it would be silly to not allow the player to be able to effectively keep his PC alive, and it's too much work for me to track all hit points without them knowing. Even so, the PC is unaware since he can't possible know how many luck, skill, fatigue, etc. hit point he has or has lost.