D&D General If you could put D&D into any other non middle ages genre, what would it be?

[CapnZapp]

How do your players feel about their epic god-slaying hero being murdered in their sleep by some punk with a knife, with their only possible defense being a Perception roll (at Disadvantage) to wake up in time?

I believe the point is that you aren't playing an epic god-slaying hero, but a mortal gunslinger?

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you're the hero behind an outhouse, and you need to Sprint across open ground to the next cover where your friends are, the excitement is whether you will make it without getting shot.

If you're watching that scene in the movie, do you really expect the hero to get shot dead in that moment? Seriously?

On the contrary: As I've explained, it's at the core of the issue, since plot armor is only part of the problem, and many players simply can't marry hit point loss with the sensation of danger.

That's not to the contrary, at all. That's what pemerton would call 'orthogonal.' It's really nothing to do with it. Whether you conceive hps as 'plot armor' (they represent narrative reasons why your character won't die) or 'luck' or skill or 'ability to defend yourself' or whatever, the /function/ is the same: you don't die until you run out of them. That's it.

Pick the explanation of hps that works best for you - and the genre - because functionally, they're all doin' the same job.


And, if hp loss doesn't give you a sense of the character being in danger, functional alternatives, like Fortune Points or the like, aren't likely to, either.

 

[robus]

I believe the point is that you aren't playing an epic god-slaying hero, but a mortal gunslinger?

My point was that HP should only come into play when the defending character is putting up a fight. They don’t model a character’s ability to dumbly absorb damage, but to actively resist damage.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My point was that HP should only come into play when the defending character is putting up a fight. They don’t model a character’s ability to dumbly absorb damage, but to actively resist damage.

I suppose that's varied a bit from one edition to the next. Back in the day, there was a rule along the lines of "sleeping or otherwise helpless creatures can be slain at a rate of 1/round." In latter eds, there were 'Coup de Grace' rules that made it a lot more likely, but not guaranteed, that you could kill a helpless victim. In 5e, hitting a downed character will kill it pretty quick.

But it's an adequate way of visualizing hps in an action scene. The hero who is up & running is harder to shoot dead than the one who's exhausted, propped up against the side of the barn, waiting for you to finish him off (if his last desperate trick doesn't work, that is).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I believe the point is that you aren't playing an epic god-slaying hero, but a mortal gunslinger?

I see the confusion. The title of this thread refers to the middle ages as though it was a genre; which is problematic, because the middle ages is just a setting, and the genre of D&D is high fantasy. In light of that, the conversation has forked between people carrying genre conventions into different settings (What if D&D, but in the Old West instead of Pseudo-Medieval Europe?), and actually changing genre conventions (What if D&D, but in the Western genre instead of the Fantasy genre?).

Because if I was playing in a "D&D, but in the Old West instead of Pseudo-Medieval Europe," then I would fully expect my epic gunslinger to slay at least one god.

 

[MarkB]

Prof to AC as long as you move on your turn could work.

I'd probably go with some basic boost to AC for moving, and the standard bonuses for cover, and then have provision for different builds to specialise further in either evasive movement or hunkering down in cover - much the same as the choice between light or heavy armour in the standard rules.

 

[Oofta]

So let me get this straight. HP works for flying arrows, being cut to bits or run through by a sword, bludgeoned by maces, ripped to shreds by dragons bigger than a city bus ... but not for bullets? Real world stories of people being shot 20+ times mean nothing because in some movies of a specific genre bullets are always 100% lethal. Except when it's "just a flesh wound" but apparently we're ignoring those. Bullets are never shown to simply bounce off or be stopped by body armor because we couldn't possibly have the equivalent of kevlar for armor (or just high quality steel) in a fantasy setting where we have made up metals like mithral and adamantium. There has never been a case were police fired nearly 2,000 rounds trying to take out a pair of bank robbers. Well except for this one.

Bullets are magical death delivery devices that never miss unless you are behind cover. Unless of course you're the hero of virtually every action movie ever made.

Is the concept of HP a simplification of tracking damage? Sure. But as far as I can tell the basic concept has been adopted by nearly all video games that feature modern or futuristic weapons. So why is it they won't work for D&D again? Admittedly a lot of video games also throw in armor that can take damage, but pretty much all of the games I've ever played also have underlying HP that needs to be reduce to 0 to kill off your avatar.

 

[77IM]

If you're watching that scene in the movie, do you really expect the hero to get shot dead in that moment? Seriously?

No, but they might face a real cost, such as a serious injury that slows them down later, or maybe getting pinned down (unable to sprint across open ground because it's too dangerous), or maybe getting shot and toppling over and next thing you know there are four bandits standing over the protagonist with pistols and a length of rope...

 

[77IM]

In addition to examining the genre implications of hit points, we should also think about the implications of healing. Because maybe getting shot and simply having your hit points lowered from 64 to 56 would be a big deal if healing that damage was impractical. Like, imagine there was no cure wounds and a short rest took a week and a long rest took three months, or something ridiculous. So over the course of an adventure, your HP would gradually decrease, and the effective "danger level" would ramp up. Yes, you can charge in recklessly during the early encounters since you know you won't die, but then you're wasting a really precious resource. Or, maybe you heal automatically whenever you do something suitably heroic. So now, managing your HP as a resource introduces an interesting trade-off -- the reckless charge might get you some damage, but it might also get you some healing... How do you like them odds, cowboy?

 

[Tony Vargas]

No, but they might face a real cost, such as a serious injury that slows them down later, or maybe getting pinned down (unable to sprint across open ground because it's too dangerous), or maybe getting shot and toppling over and next thing you know there are four bandits standing over the protagonist with pistols and a length of rope...

Nod. None of those eventualities would be accomplished by simply giving the guns in question moar damage - That'd simply result in a dead hero, or, if the numbers added up just right, an unconscious one, in 5e making death saves.

Now, there have been moments here & there in D&D history when a weapon attack might do something aside from just hp damage. In 5e that's locked in the BM subclass.