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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ipissimus" data-source="post: 4033659" data-attributes="member: 41514">Now THIS is more like it! -applauds the article and the mechanics-This handles things more elegantly, though it certainly requires a shift in thought particularly for DMs. Reading this thread, I think you can see how combat flavor needs to be re-packaged for the new paradigm (and that most of the problems are rooted in metagame thought).For example, the 200hp fighter on 5hp who gets stabbed for 6 by an orc, then makes his save and goes back to 50hp. Sure, if you look at it from a metagame standpoint, he's just been healed by being stabbed. As some people pointed out, the better way is to look at it as 'the orc simply ticks the fighter off and (most likely) subsequently gets mauled'. The point is that all rules are just numbers, pretty dull and lifeless if you look at them as they are, it takes some creative packaging to make hit points and combat exciting, and I've found it to be that way since 1e. What it means exactly to have 25% hp is pretty nebulous anyway, we've never had mechanics for broken bones or internal injuries and we really don't want to start down that path now for DnD. If you want excrutiating detail, play GURPS.Of course, as someone said above, you can't just say 'the blow caves in your ribcage' anymore, since the PCs have a chance to get up again. Rather than gristly descriptions of death, you've got to play up the unknown angle. "You see the dragon's tail arc towards you a moment before it slams into your chest, knocking you aside! You think you hear your bones pop and crackle under the blow." Now, the PC will either die, remain stable until someone heals him (somehow) or pick himself up to fight on and you've left the avenue open for that to happen.For those who want a more realistic bent to explain why a character gets back up, what about self treatment? Who said that being down negative hp meant being unconscious, necessarily? Yet another action movie trope is the hero that pulls the bullet out, patches himself up by tearing up his shirt to bind the wounds, maybe cauterizes the wounds with some fire and a knife, then goes back into the fray.DnD's always been more cinematic than realistic, that's one if its strengths in the market. I'm afraid that realism in RPGs is a niche market, if you want it DnD isn't for you, you'd be happier playing something that uses condition monitors instead.Now, I think the two things that are missing from the article (not a complaint, more of an observation) are the rules for Healing (mundane and magical) and the rules for Coup de Grace. The article doesn't mention specifically that Coup de Grace is gone, and that might take care of the problems with monsters who want to finish off characters.Of course, I'd question the sanity of anyone who ignored the alive and well people with the big pointy things trying to kill them to make sure that the one that was down and not fighting was really dead. But then, not all NPCs are sane.The problem without Coup de Grace is the same as the previous editions, only amplified since everyone has more negative hp. If an evil cleric of Tharizdun decides he's going to slit the throat of the downed Paladin (definitely in character for the NPC), it doesn't make much sense for it to take several rounds since the downed player can't effectively struggle (and when you're bleeding out, struggling to retain your grip on reality, you can't). When we learn what they've done with Coup de Grace, I think this hole will be plugged.</blockquote>

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