Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

But the 10th level fighter is wearing armor, and what would happen if they weren't wearing armor is irrelevant. If a ruleset is going to be efficient, then we need to track which assumptions are in play, and that's one of them.

did you read what you quoted? I said they are both wearing armor, yet one can withstand 2 arrows and the other can withstand 20 arrows. The armor makes no difference in that.
How is the 10th level fighter able to take 10x as manny arrows while wearing the same armor?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

In the game world, you get tougher by surviving fights, regardless of how many (non-fatal) injuries you recover from along the way. The game models your growth from a chump who can't take a hit, to a champion who can. It's not unreasonable of them to declare that an experienced fighter is inherently tougher than a novice fighter, even if it isn't strictly realistic.

I agree, but the toughness is experience in avoiding injury, not magically having 10x the density or something truly bizarre as you seem to be claiming

 

[The Crimson Binome]

did you read what you quoted? I said they are both wearing armor, yet one can withstand 2 arrows and the other can withstand 20 arrows. The armor makes no difference in that.
How is the 10th level fighter able to take 10x as many arrows while wearing the same armor?

Sorry, I was distracted by the claim about the armor being irrelevant. If you can accept that they're both wearing armor, and that armor is why they aren't impaled by every arrow that hits them, then the difference between someone who falls from the second (instance of blunt trauma as a result of strong impact against armor) and someone who falls from the twentieth (instance of blunt trauma as a result of strong impact against armor) is exactly the same as the difference between a chump boxer who crumples after two solid body blows and a much tougher boxer who can withstand ten times as many impacts before falling.

Hit Points are literally a measure of physical toughness. Prior to 4E, it was obviously true, because every rule in the book was consistent with that fact. After 4E, there is no explanation of HP which is consistent with every rule.

 

[Aldarc]

Hit Points are literally a measure of physical toughness. Prior to 4E, it was obviously true, because every rule in the book was consistent with that fact. After 4E, there is no explanation of HP which is consistent with every rule.

You have a nasty habit of ignoring evidence that proves each of your claims here are demonstrably false.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You have a nasty habit of ignoring evidence that proves each of your claims here are demonstrably false.

And you have a nasty habit of trolling, which is why I keep you on ignore.

As for the topic at hand, though, the logic is irrefutable. We've been down this road a million times, and nobody has ever presented a valid argument for why Hit Points are inconsistent with physical toughness in AD&D 2E. If you've been following this specific thread since it derailed (not sure, since I keep you on ignore), the arguments to the contrary are either (utterly fallacious) Appeals to Authority, or completely abandoning the Good because the Perfect is unattainable. If you have a valid point that doesn't fall into either of those categories, then feel free to put it forth. Maybe I'll see it, if someone reputable finds it worth quoting.

 

[CapnZapp]

If anyone responded to me or actually want to discuss Pathfinder 2 or the review thereof, please know that I've left this thread after it was hijacked to discuss unrelated topics. Please report your comment or question here instead:

Pathfinder 2E - Regarding the complexity of Pathfinder 2

Breaking this out from the "Is this a fair review" thread for all of us not interested in discussing the nature of hit points. Cheers, Zapp

www.enworld.org

Thanks.

 

[Aldarc]

As for the topic at hand, though, the logic is irrefutable. We've been down this road a million times, and nobody has ever presented a valid argument for why Hit Points are inconsistent with physical toughness in AD&D 2E. If you've been following this specific thread since it derailed (not sure, since I keep you on ignore), the arguments to the contrary are either (utterly fallacious) Appeals to Authority, or completely abandoning the Good because the Perfect is unattainable. If you have a valid point that doesn't fall into either of those categories, then feel free to put it forth. Maybe I'll see it, if someone reputable finds it worth quoting.

You say that the logic is irrefutable, but fact of the matter is that HP has never been purely physical toughness in the history of D&D. Meanwhile you are blaming 4e for something that was already in the game. There are a number of citations we have from Gygax and Co. that directly debunk this idea. And people have presented valid arguments contrary to yours, but you have purposefully chosen to ignore it, which is hardly a new and startling trend when it comes to discussing TTRPGs with you. If you want to argue in favor of your preference of HP representing purely physical toughness, then that's a separate argument from one that can be disproven through prior literary evidence.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Sorry, I was distracted by the claim about the armor being irrelevant. If you can accept that they're both wearing armor, and that armor is why they aren't impaled by every arrow that hits them, then the difference between someone who falls from the second (instance of blunt trauma as a result of strong impact against armor) and someone who falls from the twentieth (instance of blunt trauma as a result of strong impact against armor) is exactly the same as the difference between a chump boxer who crumples after two solid body blows and a much tougher boxer who can withstand ten times as many impacts before falling.

No worries.

What you are describing is not hit points as “meat points” and actual hits. You are in fact describe hit points as skill, endurance, and luck to avoid deadly blows. So I guess we agree that hit points don’t represent “meat” and successful attacks don’t = meaningful hits.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No worries.

What you are describing is not hit points as “meat points” and actual hits. You are in fact describe hit points as skill, endurance, and luck to avoid deadly blows. So I guess we agree that hit points don’t represent “meat” and successful attacks don’t = meaningful hits.

Am I? I guess it depends on how you define "meat" and "meaningful" in this context. Blunt trauma as a result of an impact against armor is certainly meatier and more meaningful than an arrow that doesn't make contact, due to luck or divine intervention. Endurance to withstand a hit certainly has more to do with the toughness of your meat than endurance to dodge does.

Most importantly, though, blunt trauma as a result of armor impact can result in eventual incapacitation as a result of cumulative wounds; and it can't reasonably be seen to vanish over the course of five minutes or an hour. In that way, every hit you take is very meaningful (even if it's not as meaningful as a hypothetical arrow through the torso would be).

 

[GrahamWills]

the difference between someone who falls from the second [successful hit] and someone who falls from the twentieth [successful hit] is exactly the same as the difference between a chump boxer who crumples after two solid body blows and a much tougher boxer who can withstand ten times as many impacts before falling.

And this will be my last post in this thread also, as no progress is being made. In Real Life, this is not the difference between a starting fighter and an experienced fighter. In fact it is the exact reverse. I have been both and when I was a young inecxperienced fighter, I could physically take injuries more easily than I can now. In fact that's one reason why I quit -- injuries became much more serious when I was hit.

The difference between an experienced fighter and a beginning fighter is that they don't get seriously hit. Their skill allows them to dodge more blows, or take them as superficial. They know which attacks are not actually dangerous and don't spend energy avoiding them. They stay at the range where a simple sway avoid contact, and they step into some attacks so the impact is weak and ignorable.

It's not even close. If hit points model real life even slightly, then the reason that an experienced fighter can take 20 of the same attacks that fell a beginner is not that they allow themself to be punched on the chin 20 times but just "tough it out". That is a ludicrously silly point of view that no actual fighter would ever consider. The reason is that they minimize or avoid those attacks. If hit points measure anything, they cannot measure your ability to take damage, because that, fundamentally, changes very little. They must measure your ability to avoid damage.