Falling Icicle
Adventurer
AndrewRogue said:
Translation: anything makes sense if you just will yourself into believing it.
essenbee said:
That's because the use of the word "realism" derailed into nit-picky debates about semantics.
D&D 4E How does 4E hold up on verisimilitude?
- Thread starter Hairfoot
- Start date
Translation: anything makes sense if you just will yourself into believing it.
That's because the use of the word "realism" derailed into nit-picky debates about semantics.
Let's do a quick scenario with three participants: Alice the Archer, Bob the Brawler, and Chuckles the Chump. Alice and Bob are teammates, they've engaged Chuckles in combat. Bob and Chuckles are going toe-to-toe, while Alice is standing a ways off and taking potshots at Chuckles.Lanefan said:
At one point, Chuckles takes a big swing at Bob and misses badly, throwing himself badly off balance. Chuckles isn't too worried, though, because Bob's going to need a moment to recover from dodging. However, Chuckles didn't account for the arrow Alice just fired. Chuckles becomes aware of the arrow because it's headed straight for his right eye. In the split second before it reaches him, he has two choices. He can:
a)Stumble a few steps to his left, or
b)Take the arrow through the eye.
4th edition makes the simplifying assumption that creatures in Chuckles' situation will take option a.
That's how something that happens over *here* is able to force someone over *there* to move somewhere.
Otterscrubber
First Post
essenbee said:
Ya, that and "internal consistency" are the buzzwords du jour here on the forums. They get tossed around pretty frequently, and from what I can tell inaccurately.
GnomeWorks
Adventurer
Hairfoot said:
I'm okay with HP being more than just physical wounds, but this definition of their abstract-ness frustrates me to no end.
Let's say Bob has 30 hit points and an 18 AC. George the Goblin rolls a 19 to hit, so that hits Bob; George then deals 8 points of damage.
Assuming that when you hit bloodied is when you first take actual damage (seems a legit assumption), that means that Bob was not actually hit by the weapon - he dodges, or it's a near miss, or George screwed up his swing a bit, something.
...but isn't that represented by the attack roll?
It's a question of correspondence. What does the attack roll represent? What does the damage represent? Some people are okay with these things being nebulous, and that's cool, but these things irk me. I want these things - HP, attack rolls, damage, AC - to be relatively "concrete" things. Abstract is fine, but the abstract definitions shouldn't overlap, which seems to be happening here.
And just in case... hong, I have no interest in hearing your mantra again.
GnomeWorks said:
I guess the simple answer would be that HP are more akin to stamina or energy then actual life points, and as such, a hit that doesn't bloody or kill would be something that forces you to defend yourself - be it a dodge, parry, something - enough that you expend a fair chunk of energy.
A miss is an attack that requires no real energy to avoid: an actual whiff, or a blow that bounces off your armor or shield with no effort on your part whatsoever.
ForbidenMaster
Explorer
GnomeWorks said:
The attack roll represents an attackers variable chance at harming (with the most looseness of the term) his opponent.
AC represents a defenders static ability to defend himself.
HP represents how well any given character is doing in combat with regards to staying in the fight. Too much bad luck, low morale, physical wounds, or any combination there of puts you out of the fight.
At least thats how I view things.
EDIT:
In combat terms, the act of me trying to attack you is not constant. There are many variables in how well I am going to be at attacking you in any given situation. Your ability to defend yourself, while also highly varied, averages to a simple static ability. If my ability to attack you is greater then your ability to defend yourself, I "hit." Now what does that actually mean in game? Nothing what so ever.
HP cannot be modeled what so ever in game. It is an out of game concept used to evaluate how well you are doing in a fight. Now as this is a game after all we may say that I smash my axe into your chest, but in game that never happened. If I really smashed an axe into your chest, you would be dead. Plain and simple. It doesnt matter if you are epic or heroic, if a axe smashes into your chest, a dagger is stabbed into your kidney, your head gets chopped off, you die.
Now abstractly you can represent it as luck, morale, etc. try to explain it as I did above, but in the end it doesnt exist. You dont fall unconscious from a lack of morale. You dont die from a guy shouting at you. We use these terms to equate to ourselves, just as we do with physical attacks, how well we are doing in a fight.
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GnomeWorks
Adventurer
Aegir said:
...but a hit can still miss. If you roll higher than my AC, you have hit me, have you not? Yet in 4e, HP is such that you could roll low enough on damage that you have effectively "missed" me.
Your answer might be workable, but I'll have to mull it over.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
The rogue 1st level daily power which enables you to make an attack with your ranged weapon against every target in a 'close burst 3' strains my credibility a little.
Whether it is in terms of reloading and using your sling or light crossbow that quickly, or - for your dagger throwing rogue - how he manages to attack up to 9 people with his four throwing daggers
Whether it is in terms of reloading and using your sling or light crossbow that quickly, or - for your dagger throwing rogue - how he manages to attack up to 9 people with his four throwing daggers
