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

[pemerton]

Ah, the ever-debatable verisimilitude of falling (and surviving) in D&D

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I remain untroubled by game narratives and mechanics that imply some amazing/heroic/unbelievable-in-the-real-world experiences can happen.

You seem to have missed my point.

I am not troubled by hit points as a game mechanic. My point was simply that they do not satisfy the test for "feel" set out in the Legend and Lore column that was linked to in the OP. That is, the hit point mechanic leads to the player engaging in reasoning that the character does not and cannot.

Because how many spells you can cast in a day is something your character knows. How many HPs your character has actually isn't. You may have a general idea of how tough you are, due to being very constitutional, but your character doesn't know they've got exactly 30 HP.

That's my point. Hit points don't satisfy Mearls's "feel" test.

That's not an objection to hit points. Rather, it's a reason to doubt the merits of the "feel" test, given that this core D&D mechanic does not satisfy it. (There are plenty of others that don't also, I think - like rolling for initiative, and the action economy more generally - but hit points are the most obvious.)

 

[Manbearcat]

You seem to have missed my point.

I am not troubled by hit points as a game mechanic. My point was simply that they do not satisfy the test for "feel" set out in the Legend and Lore column that was linked to in the OP. That is, the hit point mechanic leads to the player engaging in reasoning that the character does not and cannot.

That's my point. Hit points don't satisfy Mearls's "feel" test.

That's not an objection to hit points. Rather, it's a reason to doubt the merits of the "feel" test, given that this core D&D mechanic does not satisfy it. (There are plenty of others that don't also, I think - like rolling for initiative, and the action economy more generally - but hit points are the most obvious.)

This. The above reasoning captured by Mr Strickland is a smidge untenable. Espousing the virtues of extreme outliers' ability to lie within the fundamentals of phenomena is just a tad off-kilter. You're going to have a wee bit of trouble depicting this event as representative of normative physical process when it is multiple orders of magnitude removed from the standard deviation of the mean response.

A character jumping off a cliff would never be in the same mental framework as a player imposing the fictional positioning of the character jumping off the cliff. Whats more, a character grounded in understanding of real-world phenomena would certainly never think; "Well, once upon a time I heard legend of a guy who fell off a floating earthmote and hurtled to the ground unimpeded. This guy bounced and survived without a scratch. I guess that means there is a good percentage chance I will survive the same. Sounds like a plan, lets do it." The extreme majority of other people who have fallen to their death, or grave injury, from much more minor falls would disagree with him...and probably label him insane.

HP couldn't possibly satisfy Mearls's "feel" test and that should be without controversy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That is, the hit point mechanic leads to the player engaging in reasoning that the character does not and cannot.

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?

 

[Manbearcat]

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?

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?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

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?

You're right, maybe that spell shouldn't deal damage

 

[Bluenose]

You're right, maybe that spell shouldn't deal damage

Maybe people should just stop thinking and talking about Hit Points in D&D. It never ends well.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Ah, the ever-debatable verisimilitude of falling (and surviving) in D&D:

On 26 January 1972, an explosion on JAT Flight 367, while over Srbská Kamenice in Czechoslovakia caused the plane to break apart. Vulović, 22 years old at the time, was a flight attendant on board...Vulović fell approximately 10,160 metres (33,330 ft). She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae (one crushed completely) that left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, and two broken legs. She was in a coma for 27 days...The man who found me, says I was very lucky...Vulović continued working for JAT at a desk job following a full recovery from her injuries. She regained the use of her legs after surgery and continued to fly sporadically...Vulović was awarded the Guinness Record title by Paul McCartney at a ceremony in 1985. (Wikipedia: Vesna Vulović)
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Also, regarding hit points as an abstraction for surviving injuries, I years ago met a friend of a friend who had suffered almost 50 deep stab wounds while initially sleeping--inflicted with a kitchen knife by a deranged lover. He took his shirt off to show a bunch of people and there were numerous, inch-long, wide-ish scars all over his chest, abdomen and back. He said he was rushed to the hospital and almost died, but he did, in fact, survive.

Consequently: I remain untroubled by game narratives and mechanics that imply some amazing/heroic/unbelievable-in-the-real-world experiences can happen.

There is a significant difference between miraculous survival and something that happens 10 out of 10 times. The key part of the issue is CAN happen. Static fall damage vs hit points creates a WILL happen scenario. I'm fairly certain that during that fall, this lady wasn't thinking " no problem, I got this".

Whats important is not making falls over X distance unsurvivable ( this example disproves that possibility), but making such dangerous occurances a thing of uncertainty for both the character and the player. Exploding dice make it impossible to just know the worst possible outcome at a glance. If such a mechanic at least gives players something to consider before having their characters make dangerous jumps as a routine thing then it has done its job.

 

[billd91]

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?

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).

 

[Manbearcat]

You're right, maybe that spell shouldn't deal damage

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!

 

[Imaro]

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?

Because the character's confidence and faith have been shaken by the spell (i.e. hit point damage) to the point that he or she is unsure of her own capabilities?? We all know HP's don't equate on a one for one basis as purely physical damage (though I am of the mind set that some percentage of them must be physical damage in order for their loss to cause death), so perhaps the character's faith in himself, a divine being, etc. has been shaken by the damage said spell has caused. There are definitely cases where one's mental framework can affect whether one survives injuries or not.