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Hp as meat and abstraction
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6257702" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Yes, they were.</p><p></p><p>The only times the idea didn't work was when it was completely implausible that there was no way that you could move (or otherwise react) in a way that would dampen the amount of damage you'd hit. You can spread out to try and catch more air to slow your fall and/or land on your feet as opposed to your head. You can twist so that the dragon bites your arm rather than your neck. You can take a hundred flesh wounds from a sword before the combined tissue damage is enough to fell you, etc.</p><p></p><p>You didn't fall off hundred-foot high cliffs or take a dip in lava in every combat. In fact, you almost certainly only had that come up a handful of times over the course of a campaign. These gaps were simply not put front and center enough to ruin suspension of disbelief.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This paragraph has a number of problems. It presumes that this was "almost anything" at high levels, without citing examples. It keeps on using the "hit points as pure meat" option when I just laid out why that was a mistaken way to look at it. It says that this was a "common complaint" without citing any sources - I can hold that it was a rare complaint from a vocal minority and be just as right if we're going to just presume that we're each speaking for the crowd as a whole.</p><p></p><p>Finally, the issue of "hit point extremes" is, to me, only a problem when you demand that simulationism be taken as far as can possibly be imagined. At some point you have to say that there are places where the idea doesn't work (e.g. the swimming in lava thing) but they're rare enough that it's not a big deal. The problem with things like "missed sword swings killing you" doesn't meet that level of rarity, meaning that they come up again and again, and so disbelief can no longer be suspended under a repeated assault.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Except that's clearly not true, since someone can yell at you and suddenly those hit points are back.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't disagree that it's an abstraction, just with the characterization of the abstraction. I think that the best way to go about that is to assign your fantasy character action hero-levels of personal physical resiliance, rather than saying that there's an unspecified mixture of non-physical erosion of combat effectiveness and physical damage being represented by the same pool of hit points.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6257702, member: 8461"] Yes, they were. The only times the idea didn't work was when it was completely implausible that there was no way that you could move (or otherwise react) in a way that would dampen the amount of damage you'd hit. You can spread out to try and catch more air to slow your fall and/or land on your feet as opposed to your head. You can twist so that the dragon bites your arm rather than your neck. You can take a hundred flesh wounds from a sword before the combined tissue damage is enough to fell you, etc. You didn't fall off hundred-foot high cliffs or take a dip in lava in every combat. In fact, you almost certainly only had that come up a handful of times over the course of a campaign. These gaps were simply not put front and center enough to ruin suspension of disbelief. This paragraph has a number of problems. It presumes that this was "almost anything" at high levels, without citing examples. It keeps on using the "hit points as pure meat" option when I just laid out why that was a mistaken way to look at it. It says that this was a "common complaint" without citing any sources - I can hold that it was a rare complaint from a vocal minority and be just as right if we're going to just presume that we're each speaking for the crowd as a whole. Finally, the issue of "hit point extremes" is, to me, only a problem when you demand that simulationism be taken as far as can possibly be imagined. At some point you have to say that there are places where the idea doesn't work (e.g. the swimming in lava thing) but they're rare enough that it's not a big deal. The problem with things like "missed sword swings killing you" doesn't meet that level of rarity, meaning that they come up again and again, and so disbelief can no longer be suspended under a repeated assault. Except that's clearly not true, since someone can yell at you and suddenly those hit points are back. I don't disagree that it's an abstraction, just with the characterization of the abstraction. I think that the best way to go about that is to assign your fantasy character action hero-levels of personal physical resiliance, rather than saying that there's an unspecified mixture of non-physical erosion of combat effectiveness and physical damage being represented by the same pool of hit points. [/QUOTE]
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