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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4225478" data-attributes="member: 47776">If something exists and is measurable in the game world, it's a game element.  If the GM is attached to an NPC and will alter the rules of the world on the fly to preserve that NPCs existence and awesomeness, then that NPC's immortality / competence are game elements.  Likewise, if certain characters are never slain by a 2d4+5 damaging attack when they're at full health, there is no reason why this would not be noticed and remarked upon.  In the real world, experimental observation confirms that injury is very swingy; sometimes a blow with a certain weapon, at a certain force, targeted at a certain area instantly kills or incapacitates, and sometimes merely slows down the victim, and sometimes can be completely ignored in the heat of combat.  We put this down to luck, as there do not appear to be a consistent set of factors that combine to make all potentially-mortal blows merely injurious.  A person can survive a blow rated to be very deadly, then two weeks later suffer a freak accident and get stabbed in the heart by a needle.In D&D, there is a factor that determines whether a given blow will slay you or not; it's called hit points.  Hit points can be determined, tracked, and the conditions that grant or remove them can be observed.  If it's ridiculous to assume that characters know about the rough theory of character levels and hit points in-game, I claim that it is likewise ridiculous likewise for them to know about the existence of magic.</blockquote>

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