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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5986370" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you are making an error here. You are correct that the PC is hoping s/he can pull it off again next turn. And for all we know, she can. For example, after hitting with Brute Strike (1st level 3W fighter daily), she may crit with an opportunity attack and do the same amount of damage: thus the character has pulloed off the same manouevre again, even though - at the mechanical level - a different mechanical path delivered the result.Given that 4e has a number of features that encourage specialisation - from the weapon tables to magic items to the feat structure - this sort of effect overlap between different abilities is quite common.Correct. And if the dice come up lucky, s/he may well do it again.All you are pointing out is that there is no 1:1 correlation between the mechanical procedures and the fiction. But that is obvious. We didn't need Justin Alexander to invent a new and pejorative term ("dissociated mechanics") to tell us what we already knew - that some RPG mechanics are metagame mechanics, and involve fortune-in-the-middle resolution. In fact, D&D has always had fortune-in-the-middle mechanics - hit points are one obvious example - and metagame mechanics - what does rolling initiative] (in any edition), or taking your turn (in 3E) correspond to in the fiction? That's right, it doesn't correspond to anything at all (unless your gameworld is a world of stop motion pieces on a chessboard like grid), yet it is mechanically crucial to action resolution.Except for some reason they seem not to notice that hit points, initiative, taking your turn (in 3E), and saving throws (in classic D&D) are also examples of metagame and/or fortune-in-the-middle mechanics. From which I infer that "dissociated mechanic" means "metagame and/or fortune-in-the-middle mechanic that I'm not familiar with and don't especially care for". That is, it's not a very helpful label.I'm not sure what the measure of "degrees of dissasociation" is, but I agree with the general thrust of this. Hit points are obviously fortune-in-the-middle, and very arguably metagame as well.Beside the starvation example already given, there is the fact that psionics and the Phantasmal Killer spell can both do hit point damage in AD&D. I'm sure there are other examples, too, that I am not remembering at the moment.This doesn't work at all.I am a first level fighter with (let's say) 10 hp. I trip over a cobblestone and suffer a modest graze to the knee that very mildly impedes movement, making me favour my other leg. Let's be very hardarse about that and say I'm now down to 9 hp.You are a 10th level fighter with (let's say) 70 hp. A hobgoblin attacks you with a sword, and hits for 7 hp. You ducked and took a very minor graze to your knee. You are now at 63 hp.All each PC knows is that s/he has a graze to the knee. But what the player of me knows is that a lucky hit with a sword, or two ordinary hits, will kill me. Whereas what the player of you knows is that even 5 or 6 lucky hits with a sword can be survived, unless the sword-fighter has superlative strength and skill.That is not knowledge of levels of health. That is knowledge of how much fate/luck/divine favour/sixth sense your PC has left. It is metagame.It's important to notice, in reaching this conclusion, that being high level is not the same as just being better at dodging. Because a high level fighter can still be killed by a sword (the 7th lucky hit, for example). Which means that last blow will not just be a graze. (No one ever died just from nicks, scratches and grazes.) So the high level fighter's luck/sixth sense/etc will run out. The player can tell when this is happening - the hp numbers on the sheet get low! But what does anyoen imagine the PC knows? Do the Norns send a message to his/her pager to let the PC know that the skeins of his/her life are about to be cut? If so, does the PC still get this information inside an anti-magic field?The only way hit points can be run as simulationist/immersive mechanics is some form of "hit points as meat" - so that PCs are a bit like walls of stone, and have bits of their physical body slowly hacked away until they eventually topple over. Does anyone really think of the fiction in that way? Doesn't sound very immersive to me!</blockquote>

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