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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6472440" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here is Gygax (DMG, p 61) on the meaning of a successful "to hit" roll:One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of choice with a minimum of complication. . . . The system assumes muc activity during the course of each round. . . . [M]any attacks are made, but some are mere feints, while some are blocked or parried. One, or possibly several, have the chance to actually score damage. For such chances, the dice are rolled, and if the "to hit" number is equalled or exceeded, the attack was successful . . . Damge scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially physical - a mere nick or scratch until the last handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurance, the luck, the magical protections. With respect to most monsters such damage is, in fact, more physically substantial, although as with adjustments in armor class rating for speed and agility, there are also similar additions in hit points.This is pretty unambiguous. It is consistent with the picture of hit point loss that I sketched upthread (post 441). It contemplates that a successful attack might be a near miss, a mere nick or scratch - with the success of the attack consisting not in physical harm to the opponent, but rather in wearing him/her down, depleting reserves of luck and endurance.But in AD&D a saving throw vs poison is not "resisting the poison". Nor is the "damage" physical injury.The DMG again, pp 80-81:By means of skill, luck, magical protections, quirks of fate and the aid of supernatural powers, the character making his or her saving throw takes none or only part of the indicated results . . . So a character manages to avoid the full blast of the fireball, or averts his or her gaze from the basilisk or medusa, or the poisonous stinger of the giant scorpion misses or fails somehow to inject its venom. . . . For those who wonder why poison does either killing damage (usually) or no harm whatsoever, recall the justification for character hit points. That is, damage is not actually sustained - at least in proportion to the number of hit points marked off in most cases. The so-called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill and perhaps a scratch, and thus the saving throw. If that mere scratch managed to be venomous, then DEATH. If no such wound was delivered, then NO DAMAGE FROM THE POISON.The system wasn't written as a model. It was written as a way of determining the outcomes of action declarations. Much as in a wargame, the narration of what happened in the clash of arms was left as an exercise for the imagination of the participants.That Gygax did not intend the "to hit" roll or the saving throw as models is once again shown by what he wrote in his DMG. On page 61, discussing the combat round and the "to hit" roll, he says "One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of choice with a minimum of complication.This allows the DM and the players the best of both worlds." The system doesn't tell you how the sparring, feinting and so on unfolded. It doesn't tell you what form the "to hit" attempt took, nor does it tell you what damage means, except in the limit case of hit point loss the drops the target to 0 or fewer hp.On page 81, discussing saving throws, he expresses the same attitude: "Imagine that the figure [a man chained to a rock and subject to a red dragon's breath], at the last moment, of course, manages to drop beneath the licking flames, or finds a crevice in which to shield his or her body, or succeeds in finding a way to be free of the fetters Why not? . . . Whatever the rationale, the character is saved to go on." The task of narrating exactly what happened is left to the DM and players.This is what Gygax describes as "the best of both worlds", meaning minimum complication - the rules are easy to apply and adjudicate - but maximum choice, in the sense that the rules don't impose any constraints on elaborate narration, nor do they confine the fictional events into any pre-defined, narrow channels. This is what [MENTION=1757]ruleslawyer[/MENTION] referred to above as the capacity of hit points to cover a multitude of sins.The fact that it wasn't written as a model is further demonstrated by the number and extent of "simplifications" - which I regard as distortions - that you have to impose to make it even begin to work: that everyone who is not a mid-level character is a "non-heroic" chump who either suffers minor injuries or dies; that a nick or scratch takes a day to heal on a high level fighter but doesn't affect a peasant at all (being too minor to be modelled by the loss of 1 of 3 total hp); that all injuries that are not potentially fatal can heal perfectly, usually in a pretty short time, with no need for medical or nursing care; that the Heal skill represents low-level magic; etc.You describe these as concessions to playability, but a game with crit and injury rules is completely playable. Rolemaster is not more complex than PF or 3.5E, as best I can judge those systems. RuneQuest is notably simpler. And a wound/vitality system probably even simpler again.Whereas asserting that hit point loss corresponds to injury, but then going on to say that for reasons of playability we ignore the fact that our characters are injured, handwave the healing times (but in arbitrarily different ways depending on class, level, etc) and try not to wonder too hard about how someone can be nicked and scratched to death - to me that is the ultimate disregard of verisimilitude. As I said upthread, I find that style comedic.</blockquote>

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