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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7840298" data-attributes="member: 996">Had to look that one up. As usual the videogame industry is years ahead of TTRPGs in scholarship. :sigh:Anyway, it sounds, at a glance, to be more about theme than simulation or abstraction.&nbsp; So a classic example would be DM trying to run a campaign about selfless heroes struggling against overwhelming odds to save the land from terrible evil, while the game gives exp for acquiring treasure, power for acquiring magic items, and the best chance of defeating enemies when jumping them with overwhelming force then hiding away to recharge. &nbsp;Anyway the points you make seem to be mainly about abstraction, simulation, and visualization.Briefly, yes, hps in D&amp;D are mostly about avoiding or minimizing harm rather than enduring it.&nbsp; And, yes, you can resist or be vulnerable to specific types of damage, and greater forces do greater damage, even when they might not seem any harder to avoid.That means that some attacks are greater threats than others, and some are greater threats to certain creatures than others.If you're being attacked by a strong man with a huge axe, you have to get out of the way, if it's a kid with a sharp stick, you just need to make sure he doesn't poke you in the eye.If you have a ring of fire resistance, you can just walk through some fires without harm, and have less to fear from even those that can hurt you - so, you need expend less effort to avoid fire damage.&nbsp; So, yeah, all those points about damage figures representing what attacks would do if they hit you is perfectly consistent with them also corresponding numbers of hps as you avoid/minimize that danger.And, though you didn't get into it, the standard model of hps is for PCs, and some monsters may have very different meanings for theirs - a golden for instance, may not avoid attacks at all, you just have to physically destroy it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7840298, member: 996"] Had to look that one up. As usual the videogame industry is years ahead of TTRPGs in scholarship. :sigh: Anyway, it sounds, at a glance, to be more about [I]theme[/I] than simulation or abstraction. So a classic example would be DM trying to run a campaign about selfless heroes struggling against overwhelming odds to save the land from terrible evil, while the game gives exp for acquiring treasure, power for acquiring magic items, and the best chance of defeating enemies when jumping them with overwhelming force then hiding away to recharge. Anyway the points you make seem to be mainly about abstraction, simulation, and visualization. Briefly, yes, hps in D&D are mostly about avoiding or minimizing harm rather than enduring it. And, yes, you can resist or be vulnerable to specific types of damage, and greater forces do greater damage, even when they might not seem any harder to avoid. That means that some attacks are [I]greater threats[/I] than others, and some are greater threats to certain creatures than others. If you're being attacked by a strong man with a huge axe, you have to get out of the way, if it's a kid with a sharp stick, you just need to make sure he doesn't poke you in the eye. If you have a ring of fire resistance, you can just walk through some fires without harm, and have less to fear from even those that can hurt you - so, you need expend less effort to avoid fire damage. So, yeah, all those points about damage figures representing what attacks would do if they hit you is perfectly consistent with them also corresponding numbers of hps as you avoid/minimize that danger. And, though you didn't get into it, the standard model of hps is for PCs, and some monsters may have very different meanings for theirs - a golden for instance, may not avoid attacks at all, you just have to physically destroy it. [/QUOTE]

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