D&D 5E L&L December 16th Can you feel it?

[Stalker0]

I still don't buy this. The character knows how hale and hearty they are, how much danger and stress and difficulty they can face. They've got a rough (since damage is random) idea of the kinds of bodily trauma they can successfully walk away from, and those they can't.

Characters totally know when they're on their last legs. That's in-character knowledge. That's also low HP.

Why wouldn't they?

I think there are two different notes to discuss here.

The first is that feel in this case is not "realistic", in fact we do not want a realistic feel from the character. We don't want the character to be terrified for their life in every fight, we want the fighter to bravely jump into danger again and again. That is the feel that Dnd invokes in general, and HP provide that advantage.

The second note is the problem with HP "regularity". People can except the regularity of HP in combat as a fighter's skill. He always survives because he is "just that good". That feel is acceptable to most. The problem occurs in situations where we know skill doesn't really play in....such as surviving a 1000 foot fall. A person can learn to fall, but being able to fall that distance everytime is a stretch to the "feel". Some people have more issue with it than others...but it is a common enough source of concern for people that I wouldn't mind seeing a new rule put in place.

In conclusion, I don't think HP are the main problem....there are simply some corner cases when using HP that perhaps could be handled with new, superior rules.

 

[Manbearcat]

It's not that mysterious. Every time he jumps down those 30 foot ledges, he's feeling some effects. His knees ache, he's battered by the drop and roll he goes through to ameliorate the damage of just dropping, his heart races from the adrenaline. He knows he's going to be too worn down to do it all day. It's the same after he suffers the intense fright effect of the phantasmal killer. His muscles have clenched and all ache on release. His heart races, maybe his chest aches from the effect of being almost frightened to death. He feels he needs to lie down for a while to recover, yet maybe he needs to press on in the dangerous adventuring environment. In any event, having gone through that wrenching experience, he doesn't feel he is fit enough to jump down the 30 foot drop without some recovery time first (i.e. healing).

That explanation of mechanical interaction and fictional positioning is plausible and sensical but a contest of a physical stat versus Will to wrongfoot or goad into conflict is somehow well off the reservation?

This is where I know we are both on opposite ends of the rabbit hole, looking at each other, blinking in disbelief, mutually assured that never the twain shall meet. And not really sure why.

 

[Sadras]

In conclusion, I don't think HP are the main problem....there are simply some corner cases when using HP that perhaps could be handled with new, superior rules.

Perhaps superior rules (modules) are needed but there are many instances where they are required, so I do not think it is right to be label them corner cases:

i.e. damage from illusionary constructs, poison, falling, petrification, disintegration...

 

[Ratskinner]

A player whose character who has more than 6 hp remaining knows that the character's neck cannot be broken by a 10' fall. And, at least in my experience, players act on that sort of knowledge - much of the combat system in fact seems to be predicated on the assumption that players will use knowledge of their hit points remaining to tactical effect.

But what knowledge on the part of the character does this correspond to? How can the character know that s/he cannot be killed by an unexpected 10' drop, or that s/he cannot be killed by a goblin's sword blow?

This is a big part of why I no longer see D&D as appropriate for running story-oriented games. At least with mechanics like Fate points, there's never a reason for the character to be aware of the metagame. HP, and spell slots, and AC, and...well a lot of D&D's little 'abstract' mechanics make it very hard to conceive of a D&D world where the characters aren't keenly genresystem-saavy like the characters of Order of the Stick or Goblins.

Character decisions are just too tied into mechanical information that they have no real reason to be aware of. I can't say how many times (especially back in the day) I saw fighters swinging newly-found magical swords trying to determine if it made their attacks 5% or 10% more accurate (god only knows how they determine its effects on damage, given HP).

Whoa, it's good to see you're not holding back!

Out of curiosity, what was the third thing - spells, sneak attack, ?.

They're not necessarily what he called out. To me, the article read like:

• D&D magic and why it can't feel like genre-fiction magic.
• D&D's game worlds' arms and armor can be nothing like reality or even genre-fiction. (in the ironically named Choices and Consequences section: Do you want the +1 armor or the +2 armor which are otherwise identical?...Gee, lemme think).
• I want to say that combat should be fast and interesting, but I know it won't be.
• People like "immersion", but I won't use that word. (Is "Narrative Cohesion" somehow more politically correct?)
• Narrative Cohesion and why the Rogue/Thief classes make it impossible in D&D. ...or...
• We don't have a clear concept of how to make the Rogue work within other D&D conceits.

So, I guess 5 things really.

Also, the last three articles have felt really apologetic to me. Like the titles should be Elegance and why we can't have it in D&D, The feel of D&D IS clunky, and D&D is its own genre now so deal with it. I just get the subtle undercurrent of a feeling the Mike feels that 5e can't satisfy some of the more "sophisticated" folks out there and is trying to excuse the design team.

Which I find very odd, given the state of the playtest. My group has been trying different systems for the last few weeks, and Next is honestly one of the better iterations of D&D we've played recently. Certainly, given the understanding that a D&D designer is a bit hampered by that chain of sacred cows dragging behind him like the Ghost of Jacob Marley's sins, we can't expect a Cortex+ or Fate out it. Nor, honestly, should we, IMO.

 

[Ratskinner]

Ah, but could you jump up and carry on at full effectiveness? Or would you most likely suffer some sort of injury that impedes your further movement.

...kinda weird that HP allows either full effectiveness or KO, but not "I sprained by ankle", then, innit?

 

[delericho]

...kinda weird that HP allows either full effectiveness or KO, but not "I sprained by ankle", then, innit?

Well, yes, exactly.

I did think 4e was perhaps on the right lines with its "Bloodied" marker - which perhaps could have been connected to a -1 penalty to certain rolls or something.

Having said that, I'd be very wary of introducing anything that looks like a "death spiral" to D&D - unrealistic as it is, the fact that hit points don't have such a thing built in probably makes for a better game.

 

[Ratskinner]

For certain genres I would be inclined to agree with you! But only if we could double down and remove falling's interaction with the HP system. And how about stabbing and crushing too! And maybe burning for good measure! I think the "feels" thesis might then consistently stand up to critique!

Lately I've been thinking that the only way to make HP works is to use them as a "combat only" mechanic. Outside combat your HP don't exist. Some non-combat actions/failure (falling and traps), and dropping to 0 HP in battle would trigger injury mechanics (probably saves in D&D parlance). Sneak attacks on unsuspecting NPCs just kill them. Sneak attacks in combat do extra damage.

HP would then represent "will or ability to keep fighting" and nothing else. By default wounds would reduce your starting value for each combat (which normally refreshes to 100% after each short rest.) Some wounds might also hamper your movement, or reduce the number of "hands" you have to wield a weapon/shield/implement. This would also allow a lot of SoD effects to be implemented via HP damage with special triggers for reaching 0 HP.

A Medusa might have an aura that reads:

Petrifying Visage All sighted characters within 30' of the Medusa take 2d4 Petrifying damage/round. If this damage reduces a character to 0 HP, they are Petrified or turned to stone, rather than injured.

Sleep might read:

Sleep Puts creatures to sleep, they may make a Wisdom save to resist. In combat, it deals 2d8+10 Enchantment damage to all creatures in a small area. Creatures reduced to 0 HP are not injured, but instead fall into a magically induced slumber.

 

[Cyberen]

HP...
IME, the feel of HP is right during combat :
1) defeat by attrition
2) interaction between attackers
3) basis for informed tactical decision

what is not right is the feel of "exploration damage", such as falling, because HP are often used out of their scope. It's one of the tech Next should borrow from 4e : Healing surges provide a simple solution to handle damage taken out of combat.

I like this article : it helped me nailing down what I dislike in some D&D mechanics (namely, AEDU and Initiative not determined randomly every round).

Edit : Ninja'd by Ratskinner

 

[I'm A Banana]

KM, what in the world is happening in the below scenario that makes any sense?

Jack the Fighter has 31 max HP. He regularly jumps down 30 foot ledges and survives (3d10). Uh oh! Illusionist hits him with a phantasm of a big scary monster/his loved one dying/pitch black darkness (whatever fear he has). He takes 15 (Fear? Morale? Shame for losing his cool when he's a big tough guy?) damage. What in the world is happening, physically, in the fiction that would now convince him that the (reproducable) phenomena of him leaping from this 30 foot ledge has moved from trivial to mortal? Obviously the player is aware of this. How in the world are the character and the player in the same mindset?

There's a lot of great points above, but where the rubber meets the road for me here is this:

Running out of HP kills you. So if something deals HP damage, it's possibly deadly. So if that illusion deals 15 damage, it would have given some lesser mortal a fatal heart attack. Jack's no wimp -- he had a heart attack, but he's still pushing on. Still, he can't deny that spell had an effect on him...he's a little more winded, a little more cautious, a little less able to exert himself. He'll power through (he's a big dang hero, so we don't need a death spiral mechanic or anything), but maybe if he jumps from the roof of the inn tonight, before he gets some rest, his reaction time will be slower, his muscles will be more tense, his mind more prone to making a mistake...and there's a good chance he won't land right, this time. If that illusion hadn't have stopped his heart for a moment earlier, he probably could take that fall. It'd hurt, but yeah, he could take it.

For certain genres I would be inclined to agree with you! But only if we could double down and remove falling's interaction with the HP system. And how about stabbing and crushing too! And maybe burning for good measure! I think the "feels" thesis might then consistently stand up to critique!

I don't think all that is really necessary. HP is your resistance to things that might kill you. A gal who slays dragons and takes their stuff probably has a rough idea about what it would take to kill her. So does the person at the table pretending to be her.

...kinda weird that HP allows either full effectiveness or KO, but not "I sprained by ankle", then, innit?

A sprained ankle doesn't need to slow down a big fantasy hero who can push their limits and give it their all 'till the moment they drop dead, though. Lost HP, in a sense, *is* the sprained ankle. It's how you know that the goblin's blade is going to bite deeper than it otherwise would.

The first is that feel in this case is not "realistic", in fact we do not want a realistic feel from the character. We don't want the character to be terrified for their life in every fight, we want the fighter to bravely jump into danger again and again. That is the feel that Dnd invokes in general, and HP provide that advantage.

So far so good! The player and the character are thinking the same way, because they are both brave and bold and ready to step into danger, but if they've had some trouble already, maybe they are a little more cautious.

The second note is the problem with HP "regularity". People can except the regularity of HP in combat as a fighter's skill. He always survives because he is "just that good". That feel is acceptable to most. The problem occurs in situations where we know skill doesn't really play in....such as surviving a 1000 foot fall. A person can learn to fall, but being able to fall that distance everytime is a stretch to the "feel". Some people have more issue with it than others...but it is a common enough source of concern for people that I wouldn't mind seeing a new rule put in place.

Personally, this still seems fine to me. Falling damage doesn't break my verisimilimeter -- someone who is "just that good" can also be "just that good" at surviving a faceplant from 50 feet.

But I think this is more a case for HP damage not being the right way to get the "feel" of falling. Similar to what [MENTION=69074]Cyberen[/MENTION] is saying. If the feel you want is that both the player and the character are afraid of dying from a significant fall, you might want something more like lava rules rather than traditional dice of damage ("you fall more than 40 feet, you die"). Rolling damage is a great feel for something potentially deadly. For something DEFINITELY deadly, rolling damage is inappropriate.

I'm cool with falling being something that is only potentially deadly. I get that reasonable people might not be cool with that. Rolling damage probably isn't the best way to represent a fall if you're in that camp.

 

[Manbearcat]

HP...
IME, the feel of HP is right during combat :
1) defeat by attrition
2) interaction between attackers
3) basis for informed tactical decision

what is not right is the feel of "exploration damage", such as falling, because HP are often used out of their scope. It's one of the tech Next should borrow from 4e : Healing surges provide a simple solution to handle damage taken out of combat.

I like this article : it helped me nailing down what I dislike in some D&D mechanics (namely, AEDU and Initiative not determined randomly every round).

Edit : Ninja'd by Ratskinner

Yup. This is a good post and I agree here and your bridge from [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION]'s post. This is precisely what I use Healing Surges for in 4e noncombat conflict resolution. They are basically "HPs that don't exist" as Ratskinner put it. I tax PCs with Healing Surge loss on all accrued failures and these represent various impediments, ailments, setbacks, and other intangible "damage", etc. It works quite well as a fictionally malleable, noncombat ablation scheme.

Ratskinner, what you mention above regarding SoD interacting with HP thresholds is something the 5e devs were fiddling around with for a bit. I think it got some bad feedback from certains groups because either (i) they felt it was too fiddly or (ii) they want SoD to be swingy and punitive and (iii) a strategical win button. Personally, I'm a fan but it took a nosedive off a cliff and got dashed on the rocks.