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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7615344" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I still think that Gygax was perfectly justified in, and he certainly hit common usage squarely, when he described hit points as a combination of things and implied that 'hit' and 'miss' are simply conventions, not literal rigid narrative. It isn't all that easy to come up with ANY really consistent single interpretation of D&D rules, and I don't think it is worth doing, really. Saying you can only play with people who imagine it a certain way definitely strikes me as quite rigid, and odd for play of a game of pure imagination.So, in the end, IMHO all 4e did was be more consistent about utilizing hit points as 'measure of defeat' rather than being all over the map in terms of what they're doing in any given situation. That is greatly helped by a consistent set of mechanics. Much easier to construct an interesting narrative with this sort of wiggle room, IMHO.</blockquote>