D&D 5E ludonarrative dissonance of hitpoints in D&D

[FrogReaver]

im going to add this here, theres a reason why damage mechanics seem to reflect bodily harm being done to a character rather than being completely abstract, that reason is because injuries give a lot more options to a game designer to create complex gameplay, this is why things such as multiple types of weapon damage exist in 5e, why there's so many types of elemental damage, why weapons deal different kinds of damage and have different properties. its interesting to a player, but additionally it does reflect the nature of what those attacks actually do. no fluke of game design that these elements are here in a way that very much reflects how they would act when compared to all the other weapons in the game

Welp we all have heard your case now and completely disagree with it. What now?

 

[Arch-Fiend]

You mean the one where you tried to dismiss them by saying something akin to "but damage isn't abstract"

If that's the one then you certainly didn't address my rebuttal that was in the points you skipped past in order to make your personal point about me.

i hadent seen that when i was typing my reply, but ill rebut it now, arguing "this is just how it is" isint a very good argument i based my argument on the entire thesis i wrote as the first post on this thread about what narrative damage reflects best in this game, your going to have to do the same if you want to win any points here. not to mention your argument about how poison works by not being abstract but actually requires an injury no matter how small does not bode well for whatever attempt you might make to refute all the other instances in the game where damage and its relationship to the other mechanics of the game does not appear particularly abstract.

Welp we all have heard your case now and completely disagree with it. What now?

"Welp" come on man i cant compete with that, your quips are to strong for me potion seller.

 

[Don Durito]

what? you never looked at 5E - Realistic/Historic armor for D&D (Homebrew) ? you know its fun right? im not supose to give my opinion, but give it a look, and then you can tell me if its good or not. not convinced yet? ok ill cut you a deal the homebrew is available for free, and thats a great price!

I looked through it when it first came out.

It seems unnecessarily complicated. I think if you want to model armour that well and combat that clearly you should look at Mythras.

It also has balance problems against existing armour. Full AC for Plate is no higher than it is now - but instead of a hit lower than that doing no damage you now have fixed damage resistance. That resistance does not scale. So if an Adult Red Dragon rolls a 17 to Hit a high level fighter in plate under the current rules that Fighter takes no damage. Under your armour rules they take 25 damage (35-10) which means they're significantly worse off. That's an extreme example - but as soon as monsters start doing more than 10 points of damage you are runnning into balance issues against existing armour.

In order to balance Plate with your rules you need to significantly increase the full AC (and probably add proficiency to all DR). Even then it will come at the cost of making low-level fighters in Plate invulnerable to low level foes unless they roll a 20 to hit (which destroys bounded accuracy).

In short - as always with DR in D&D you run into scaling issues.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Welp we all have heard your case now and completely disagree with it. What now?

Please stop posting as if you speak for "we all". I am certain you simply mean it as an expression for emphasis, but you certainly don't speak for me--I do.

Thank you.

so did the axe shattering deal piercing damage as shrapnel or slashing? because if it didint doing slashing then it wasent the axe that hit you, but something DID clearly hit you in that example in order to deal damage. so how do you use the rules for damage in D&D as if nothing ever hits your character until the attack that knocks them into death saving? yes weapon damage does not HAVE to be damage made by the weapon, but the way weapons are designed, and the way damage is implied to work is all reflective of a narrative where your being hit by the weapon. you can play the game as if its not hitting, because hitpoints are ultimately abstracted (so you think) to the point of being whatever you want them to be regardless of what removes them. my thesis doesent say damage has to be what damage is, my thesis says damage looks best to resemble doing "blank" and thus does not reflect well on the idea that hitpoints represent "blank".

Weapons (of whatever nature) were given damage types because they can represent physical damage. My point was they don't have to. This is why I find it better to think of things such as damage and hit points as the effect they have regarding combat effectiveness.

The rock in my example (not an axe, by the way... ;-) ) does its damage in this case by threatening physical harm which the character avoided by skill and luck (i.e. expending the hit points required by the rock attack). You seem to be stuck on the idea that a "hit" for an attack actually has to make contact with the target, and that simply isn't the case for D&D. You can narrate hit points in D&D as a bank of energy and such that is expended until depleted, at which point you are hit and dropped by the damage that remains or is done next.

You can, of course, say all damage is physical as well if you choose, but I don't think many people will agree in the 5E framework. It would require a character with over 100 hp to be able to take a ridiculous amount of physical injury (equal to dozens of sword hits) before even going unconscious. If that is the style you want to play, cool. But while it is a valid point of view, it wasn't IMO want the designers intended or how most tables run.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

I looked through it when it first came out.

It seems unnecessarily complicated. I think if you want to model armour that well and combat that clearly you should look at Mythras.

It also has balance problems against existing armour. Full AC for Plate is no higher than it is now - but instead of a hit lower than that doing no damage you now have fixed damage resistance. That resistance does not scale. So if an Adult Red Dragon rolls a 17 to Hit a high level fighter in plate under the current rules that Fighter takes no damage. Under your armour rules they take 25 damage (35-10) which means they're significantly worse off.

In order to balance Plate with your rules you need to significantly increase the full AC (and probably add proficiency to all DR). Even then it will come at the cost of making low-level fighters in Plate invulnerable to low level foes unless they roll a 20 to hit (which destroys bounded accuracy).

In short - as always with DR in D&D you run into scaling issues.

the ac of full plate is 10+18, i think thats 10 higher than it is in the base game, but i could be completely wrong.

also you forgot to add the metal bonus to plate armor it would actually be be 35-12 and thats just the lowest quality of plate armor, which is 200gp lower than default plate which is would make the armor protection 14. and you can certainly go higher. youd probably have better armor at the level your fighting adult red dragons

 

[FrogReaver]

i hadent seen that when i was typing my reply, but ill rebut it now, arguing "this is just how it is" isint a very good argument i based my argument on the entire thesis i wrote as the first post on this thread about what narrative damage reflects best in this game, your going to have to do the same if you want to win any points here. not to mention your argument about how poison works by not being abstract but actually requires an injury no matter how small does not bode well for whatever attempt you might make to refute all the other instances in the game where damage and its relationship to the other mechanics of the game does not appear particularly abstract.

All I have to do is propose a proper HP theory that works in the current game. I have. It's that HP is abstract and that the DM takes everything into account to create a fictional narrative that makes sense regarding each instance of damage. There's no logical flaws with this theory. It's very robust and works with any imaginable example you want to throw at it.

Look, I'm sorry you've mentally grabbed hold of a flawed hp theory and used it as a premise that everything else in this discussion hinges on.... especially sorry because there is a perfectly viable alternative that's been brought up by me and multiple other posters. Please consider the alternative before drastic changes to the game.

"Welp" come on man i cant compete with that, your quips are to strong for me potion seller.

lol. All I'm saying is that you are trying to force assumptions onto the meaning of hp and damage that aren't necessary. All I have to do to show that is to provide a viable alternative. Once there is a viable alternative that doesn't run into the issues that your assumptions cause then it seems to me that means no real issue.

 

[FrogReaver]

Please stop posting as if you speak for "we all". I am certain you simply mean it as an expression for emphasis, but you certainly don't speak for me--I do.

Thank you.

I'm sure I don't always but in this case as you are agreeing with me....

Or is it that I'm agreeing with you.... hmmmmmmmm

 

[Arch-Fiend]

Weapons (of whatever nature) were given damage types because they can represent physical damage. My point was they don't have to. This is why I find it better to think of things such as damage and hit points as the effect they have regarding combat effectiveness.

The rock in my example (not an axe, by the way... ;-) ) does its damage in this case by threatening physical harm which the character avoided by skill and luck (i.e. expending the hit points required by the rock attack). You seem to be stuck on the idea that a "hit" for an attack actually has to make contact with the target, and that simply isn't the case for D&D. You can narrate hit points in D&D as a bank of energy and such that is expended until depleted, at which point you are hit and dropped by the damage that remains or is done next.

You can, of course, say all damage is physical as well if you choose, but I don't think many people will agree in the 5E framework. It would require a character with over 100 hp to be able to take a ridiculous amount of physical injury (equal to dozens of sword hits) before even going unconscious. If that is the style you want to play, cool. But while it is a valid point of view, it wasn't IMO want the designers intended or how most tables run.

im not going to argue to say that damage definitively represents weapons dealing physical damage, the majority of my thesis is on the idea of what it strongly resembles compared to what it doesn't strongly resemble, however the game can be played however it is desired. im not sure why many people will wouldnt agree that the way 5es damage mechanics work and how weapon properties including damage and how weapons can deal critical hits, and how poison is delivered, and how resistances, vulnerabilities, and immunities works, reflects damage being physical., but so be it. i do think most people new to the game often look at the rules and see it that way, i dont think the reason this is a contentious issue is because all of us oldtimers have a switch that goes off in our head that we want to buck the system, sure some might, but damage as physical damage is a common trope in gaming, it does happen to be called damage and not "hitpoints lowering" thus by name alone it harkins to the idea of what the definition of damage is.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'm sure I don't always but in this case as you are agreeing with me....

Or is it that I'm agreeing with you.... hmmmmmmmm

Well, I certainly don't "completely disagree" with the OP as you suggest. I think there are other ways to implement a physical damage mechanic as other house-rules have done that would work better. His other thread creates a system for AC that is more complex than I would want to play in, but he has points worth discussing. Which is why I am here...

 

[Don Durito]

the ac of full plate is 10+18, i think thats 10 higher than it is in the base game, but i could be completely wrong.

also you forgot to add the metal bonus to plate armor it would actually be be 35-12 and thats just the lowest quality of plate armor, which is 200gp lower than default plate which is would make the armor protection 14. and you can certainly go higher. youd probably have better armor at the level your fighting adult red dragons

Ok so you add at least 10 to all the armour is that what you're saying? In which case you've completely blown bounded accuracy as I've said.

This means the lowest full AC anyone will have is 27 - why even bother with this? Just say you only bypass DR on a natural 20 and be done with it.

I didn't add the metal bonus because you haven't explained any metal bonus (at least so far as I can see) - so obviously I can't add it. But in any case a DC of 28 to bypass Armour and 10 DR makes lots of low enemies irrelevant - if the actual DR is higher that just compounds the problem at the lower end.

Again. Scaling is the issue. That's why if you do something like this you need to work with the resistance mechanic - as it scales with damage across all levels and scales equally across all attack types (singular high damage ones and multi-attacks).