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<blockquote data-quote="jrowland" data-source="post: 5957238" data-attributes="member: 94389">I agree most D&amp;D players would not find THAT cleaner abstraction pleasing, but I think you could &quot;fix&quot; the current abstraction of the process-driven attack to avoid the pitfall.It depends on what a to hit roll means, I suppose. If a to hit roll reveals one of three states: Miss, Hit, or Crit then the abstraction hole is 'evident if the damage for these states overlap: Miss might do more damage than a hit that in turn might do more damage than a crit. As long as the damage space for each &quot;to hit&quot; state is distinct and fits the fiction of the three states, there is no hole. Some &quot;hits&quot; might do more damage than other &quot;hits&quot;, and if you want to narrate that you have to wait for the damage roll. But it likely won't matter: A slash for 15 damage and a slash for 10 damage don't really need further fiction distinction, but if you want to describe one as &quot;cutting a crimson ribbon across the chest, exposing the fat beneath&quot; and the other as &quot;cutting a crimson across the chest&quot;, then at least the damage can guide the fiction without worry of falling into the abstraction holeHowever, if a to hit roll means a sliding scale of success where a hit on a 15 is better than a hit on a 12, then essentially you have a sliding scale of states. This is better for the fiction, since you can describe a miss on a 9 as a hit with no damage but a miss on a 3 as hitting air. Same for hits. However, the damage doesn't fit this fiction. A hit on 12 can do more damage than a hit on 15. I can see no way to resolve this when each point in &quot;to hit&quot; represents a marginal increase in the effectiveness of the strike in the fiction.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jrowland, post: 5957238, member: 94389"] I agree most D&D players would not find THAT cleaner abstraction pleasing, but I think you could "fix" the current abstraction of the process-driven attack to avoid the pitfall. It depends on what a to hit roll means, I suppose. If a to hit roll reveals one of three states: Miss, Hit, or Crit then the abstraction hole is 'evident if the damage for these states overlap: Miss might do more damage than a hit that in turn might do more damage than a crit. As long as the damage space for each "to hit" state is distinct and fits the fiction of the three states, there is no hole. Some "hits" might do more damage than other "hits", and if you want to narrate that you have to wait for the damage roll. But it likely won't matter: A slash for 15 damage and a slash for 10 damage don't really need further fiction distinction, but if you want to describe one as "cutting a crimson ribbon across the chest, exposing the fat beneath" and the other as "cutting a crimson across the chest", then at least the damage can guide the fiction without worry of falling into the abstraction hole However, if a to hit roll means a sliding scale of success where a hit on a 15 is better than a hit on a 12, then essentially you have a sliding scale of states. This is better for the fiction, since you can describe a miss on a 9 as a hit with no damage but a miss on a 3 as hitting air. Same for hits. However, the damage doesn't fit this fiction. A hit on 12 can do more damage than a hit on 15. I can see no way to resolve this when each point in "to hit" represents a marginal increase in the effectiveness of the strike in the fiction. [/QUOTE]

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