Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6289993" data-attributes="member: 2067">That ALL sounds like fantasy heroics to me! That's awesome. That's the kind of ballsy, fearless hero that it is a lot of fun to play! Head and shoulders above other mortals, he takes flying leaps and ballistae bolts and charges a wall of archers because he is Just. That. Skilled. It makes me laugh and smile at the awesome possibilities that this hero can realize. It makes me feel powerful, heroic, mighty, and incredible. I eat the impossible for breakfast and laugh in the face of death! These are all positive things for a game of fantasy heroics in my mind!Yeah, verisimilitude breaks in different ways for different folks, and not everyone wants to play the kind of heroic pulpy mythic fantasy where you play Achilles and you wrestle rivers (certainly LotR was not really of this flavor). I'd encourage those groups to look to systems other than hit point damage to make big things threatening. A ballistae or a fall from a 60-ft. cliff or even a bow pointed at your head probably shouldn't just deal HP damage in those games, they should just be outright deadly in some way, a la poison or disintegrate in early e's. Bypass HPs if high-level guys shrugging it off is something you don't want to have happen. The fact that falling deals HP damage to me implies a model of heroic fantasy where falling is the kind of thing you WANT high-level folks to be able to walk away from with nothing more than some bruises and scrapes. Which is AWESOME.Well, what do you call a guy who can withstand dragon's breath, endure a 60-ft. fall, mostly defelct a ballistae, and has no fear of being shot in the head by a trained archer? What would you say an invulnerable person who saves villages and fights evil is, really? The person in that world knows how people describe them, the effect they have on the populace, the whispered awe they address him with. They know the stories spread in taverns about their exploits. They certainly know they're not like most other people. Yeah, [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] 's description is pretty much what I would use. And I don't need impediments beyond that low HP, for three main reasons:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Big Invincible Fantasy Heroes can ignore injuries that aren't lethal: The genre demands that someone whose knee is at 85% still has no problem running and jumping and climbing at full capacity. There might be winces and favoring, but they're heroic, they're mighty, they're invincible, they can take ballistae and 60-ft falls, they can sure as heck grit their teeth and perform whatever amazing feats of athletics and agility that their circumstance demands.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Low HP means their injuries make them vulnerable: Since, in part, HP reflects your ability to turn aside a lethal blow, when your knee is at 85%, you can't as well turn aside that blow -- if someone goes for the weak knee, or hits you in a way to exploit that, you're more likely to succumb to their attack. That's the only effect of the injury that you can't really just ignore because you're a fantasy hero. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Injury mechanics don't add anything: Because my verisimilitude doesn't demand it (aforementioned big dang heroes), there's not much to be gained for me with fiddly floating little modifiers to assorted checks. Bleh. Yeah, my fantasy hero can ignore that weak knee until some goblin exploits it. Sounds like enough of a description of that wound to me. </li> </ul>Again, people have different things that break their suspension of disbelief, so that probably isn't for everyone. For them, adding more detailed injury mechanics would probably help. Alternately, dividing HP into "wound" and "vitality" (or somesuch) might also help. It works just perfect for me, though. Rules-light, makes sense, reinforces genre, and keeps me thinking like my character. No special rules needed.</blockquote>

Verification