D&D 5E (2024) Is 5E better because of Crawford and Perkins leaving?

[Maxperson]

To make this work a single stab from a dagger needs to be able to kill a 20th level PC and it needs to be able to kill them in a statistically significant fashion.

If it can't kill you then there is no logical reason to fear it.

Yep. And if your 20th level PC stands there and lets someone stab him, he will probably die.

IRL I am not terribly afraid of being stung by a yellow jacket and that is probably comparable to what a 20th level PC probably feels from someone shoving a dagger into his chest. Do it 50 times or so in a minute and I might just die from being stung, just like that 20th level PC might just die from 50 stab wounds.

This is false, since hit points =/= meat. It would only be true if hit points were entirely meat and skill, luck, etc. played no part in them. Instead, the overwhelming majority of hit points are not meat, which is why you barely get anything more than scratched until you reach 0 hit points, and you don't even get touched by the attacks until 50% hit points.

Also hit points are an abstraction and your thematic description of what hit points represent (luck, skill, blessings) is fine, but it is one of many possible thematic explanations.

Not according to 5e RAW. 5.5e does not contradict that.

I could just as easily say hit points are due to thicker skin and more robust or even multiple organs offering combat redundancy and that "explanation" is every bit as valid as yours.

Not according to 5e RAW.

 

[Lanefan]

To make this work a single stab from a dagger needs to be able to kill a 20th level PC and it needs to be able to kill them in a statistically significant fashion.

To make it work, certain attacks need to be able to bypass hit points and go direct to some other effect. Example: slitting the throat of a defenseless humanoid-ish target with a sharp implement should kill it outright even if the target's otherwise at full hit points, regardless of how many hit points "full" might be.

IRL I am not terribly afraid of being stung by a yellow jacket and that is probably comparable to what a 20th level PC probably feels from someone shoving a dagger into his chest.

Where a yellowjacket stinging me probably means a trip to the hospital; not from physical damage but from an effect (severe allergy) that bypasses any hit points I might have at the time.