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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6289429" data-attributes="member: 2067">This is part of why D&D feels like a heroic fantasy game to me -- you are playing people who do not die from being hit by dudes swinging swords at them. Normal people die when they are hit with a sword, sure. You are not playing the role of a normal person, you are playing the role of a fantasy hero, and part of what that means is that you can survive getting hit with a sword. That is because when a fantasy hero gets hit with a sword, they turn that potentially lethal blow -- a blow that would kill any normal person -- into something lighter. It might not be much -- a cut, a graze, a scrape, a nick, a "flesh wound." Being a fantasy hero means being superhuman, being able to take a slice with a blade without falling to pieces.I like that, because it makes D&D feel like a game of fantasy heroics. That's part of what HP functions as for me -- a genre mechanic. It's pulpy. It's unrealistic in the best way. In the story, your fantasy hero looks at the legion of town guards with blades flashing in the moonlight and knows that they can get out of this (though maybe not without a few cuts and bruises). As a player, you look at 4 1st-level guards armed with longswords, and your own HP total, and you know that even if they all hit and deal max damage, you aren't going down. You and your character are thinking the same thing. Roleplaying!.That issue is pretty much pure theorycraft, though. It's not something that ever comes up in actual play because the players are not deer hunters, they're adventurers. If you're not into the rules-as-physics, this is a non-issue.But okay, sure. Lets say that there's a problem with that verisimilitude. There's a few reactions to this and I think all of them are acceptable:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Go With It: In this world of heroic fantasy, deer are pretty much all heroic, fantastic deer, so common hunters who are not fantasy heroes have to content themselves with smaller prey. Killing a deer in this heroic fantasy world is not something hunters regularly do. Venison is prized. Maybe those who hunt deer do so in groups (more attacks, more damage). Maybe they use traps. This is awesome because it makes everything legendary and amazing, and adds some interesting texture to the world.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Deer don't have that HP total: We can presume the ponies in the MM are more robust than a common deer (deer being gracile, wild animals, ponies being domesticated laborers). Deer might be 1 HD animals (4 hp), possibly even with a CON penalty. Ponies are hardier. Part of why they make better pack animals. This is awesome because it gives some meaningful distinction between creatures you might encounter in the game. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> NPC's have special abilities, too: Even without an ability score bonus (presuming all 10's), there's no reason to presume that an NPC hunter has no special skill. Perhaps NPC hunters have something like a ranger's <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm#favoredEnemy" target="_blank">Favored Enemy</a>, and/or maybe something like the rogue's <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#sneakAttack" target="_blank">Sneak Attack</a>. Perhaps they have some other ability that induces a bleed. Or maybe they make special arrows that deal ongoing damage. This is awesome because it means the world doesn't live just for the PC's and their experience, and builds out elements of the world that interface with them -- sure, you could get a +5 damage bonus vs. deer, if you wanted, but it's very specific. Maybe you could get your hands on those arrows -- sure would be useful!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Use the Proper Rules: A hunter can kill a deer with a DC 10ish (maybe 12, 14) <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/survival.htm" target="_blank">Survival check</a>, which gives them enough food for themselves for a day. 12 or 14 because deer are kind of big and might provide enough food for a few folks. They don't need to roll attacks and damage because those rules aren't for hunting, they're for fighting. If a rampaging deer was coming at you with antlers bared and hooves glinting with blood in the moonlight, we're talking about a different kind of event than if a deer is trying to eat some grass or get a mate and some guy sneaks up on him and shoots him in the back. One is handled with combat rules, the other is handled using the rules for "getting along in the wilderness"</li> </ul>None of which is really even needed to enjoy a game of D&D, if you just accept the initial proposition that the numbers aren't the absolute physics of the world and that the rules for what happens offscreen don't matter a great deal. Which is fine, too. Personally, I find that diminishes my feeling of high adventure, because then what my character feels and what I feel are in conflict, rather than in harmony as representing heroic fantasy heroes. I feel like a dude with Asperger's at a party: always aware of the rules on display, never able to just feel them. And that's less fun for me.Others ain't got that hang-up, though.</blockquote>

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