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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5600384" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'd have to reread REH to see.  But a combat system that does Tolkien well can't necessarily do Robert Jordan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Terry Brooks to name a few off the top of my head.Besides, my argument is that it fits Tolkien or REH well enough despite their differences.   If you want to argue that the combat in various fantasy is generic enough that a generic system works, then you are conceding my points for free.What's really ironic of course is that when you get around to actually objecting, it's precisely on the claim that combat systems aren't generic that you object, quote:"If the game made hits very, very rare, but very, very deadly, then you would regularly win fights without taking any damage."That would be one example of how two different authors approach combat narration in their story.Nonetheless, I still consider this a very weak objection.  Not only do hit points do a good enough job of simulating that the hero rarely takes damage in systems were the narration is "hits are rare, but when they happen they are lethal", but it does a better job of simulating the plot protection enjoyed by most fantasy protagonists than directly implementing the obvious mechanic like "hits are rare, but when they happen they hurt".   The obvious mechanic results in random and unpredictable deaths of the protagonists that just doesn't match up with the source material.   The real strength of hit points is predictability.You aren't saying anything new.  Read 'The Deed of Paksenarrion' and get back to me.  Hit points only push the game toward more frequent healing if the protagonist expects combat to come so regularly that they will have no time to recover from battle AND if he also expects that in a given battle he'll lose a large portion of his hit points.  If you pace the game diferently, such as the game time year that Paks spends campaigning in a mercenary company to go from 1st to 2nd level, then the notion that frequent magical healing is required goes away.  Natural healing is available and works just fine so long as the pacing of the game changes.Possibly.  We are engaging in a counter factual here.  Boromir wasn't given a draught nor was a master healer like Elrond on hand, so we don't know.  LotR is such a low magic campaign, that miruvor might well be a healing potion that only heals non-lethal damage, or possibly Boromir was at -9 bleeding out and no healing was available and the DM just gave him a 'Last Gasp' round to do a purely RP death scene in.  In any event, we've now moved from, "Well potions don't exist in the source material.", to "Well the potions in the source material aren't always exactly like those in D&D."  We've moved from "can't" to "can't do it well enough".  I can just as easily counter that Edmond was as badly injured as Boromir at the end of Lion Witch and Wardrobe and the potion DID bring him back from the brink.  Was that right about the time that Raistlin cast sleep on the goblins, or when he tried the same thing on the Draconians and whispered, "Magic resistance!".   And did you read the books before or after playing the campaign?Magicians, shamans, socerers, wise men, witches and priests - some armored and some not - with the power to rebuke spirits and drive them away are ubiquitous throughout literature, myth, and legend and in myth and legend in particular little distinguishment is made between them.   Moreover, in literature myth and legend the sort of spells that magicians cast are much more often of the subtle curse, hexes, and blessing sort than the flashy pyrotechnics of the D&D Wizard.   Historical conceptions of magic are almost always based on calling up and binding spirits, which the cleric does just as well and if not better than the Wizard.   Necromancers?  Clerics do it better than Wizards.  Witches?  Clerics do it better than Wizards and frequently Witches were concieved as priestesses of some deity (which hasn't changed much to the present day).  About the only sort of magic that doesn't fit the cleric better than the Wizard is D&D inspired Wizardry - ei "Fireball!".Virtually every magic user of history or legend is better presented as a cleric than a wizard.  And the 2e notion of specialist clerics and the 3e notion of domains makes this even more true.Merlin is a half-demon or fairy being, whose historical origins appears to have been in part a prophet (ei cleric) and who from the account of the literature would be at least as well concieved if not better as a druid (ei cleric variant) than a wizard.   His more modern depictions in child friendly modern media are typically santized of any occult references, helping to create the wholly modern conception of a Wizard that D&D has helped promote perhaps better than any other medium (with the possible exception of Disney).  However historically the practice of magic is tied to the innovacation of spirits and divine power - the very sorts of things we associate with clerical magic in D&D.  And indeed, the clerical spell list is much more closely aligned with the sort of powers that historical magicians (and their literary counterparts) claimed to have - killing with a touch, healing disease, calling down curses, exorcising evil spirits, etc.Gandalf is an angel whose powers appear to be of divine origin and innate.  But to the extent that I agree that Gandalf can be well simulated by a D&D Wizard, that again involves you conceding my point about D&D being able to do multiple sorts of source material rather than undermining it.</blockquote>

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