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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7590918" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>Yeah, I really don't recognize myself in any of this. </p><p></p><p>D&D is a game. Games have meaningful interactions. </p><p></p><p>The idea that if a fighter parries a blow, or if a thief picks a lock, that should succeed pretty much automatically just because they're trained at what they do... is incomprehensible to me. Talk about entitlement!</p><p></p><p>No no no - the game's spectrum of results should be just wide enough for the trained fighter to stand a great chance of parrying that blow while the thief might just fail to do so. A Ranger should be able to pick that lock... but stand a greater chance of failing (=taking longer).</p><p></p><p>Why even pick up dice if all you want is "rolling a d6, succeeding on 1 through 6"?</p><p></p><p>And no, "rolling a 1 is always an automatic failure" is not good enough.</p><p></p><p>In fact, that brings us back to what was trying to say previously: the ends of the die outcomes should pretty much always be open... that is, reaching a success on 17 or 18 should be considerably more difficult/expensive.</p><p></p><p>That's pretty given. Makes for a much better game, with smoother probabilities and therefore much easier to balance. </p><p></p><p><em>The whole point</em> of giving the fighter 140 hp is precisely so he has no cause for complaint when the goblin manages to stab him for 4 damage. </p><p></p><p>Again, if you want your character's defense to be 99.9% solid, where each 4 damage always means the same amount of hurt, I refer you to games where you still have the same 12 hit points you started with at the end of a long campaign (or close to it).</p><p></p><p>And even there, it really does not apply if said game allows you to keep fighting at peak efficiency up until you lose your last hp. (If going from 12 to 8 hp means nothing, the clearly that stab did not damage you nearly as much as the stab that takes you from 3 to -1 hp)</p><p></p><p>You really need to look into more involved games (maybe Hârnmaster) where each hit point lost represents a tangible penalty, which is the same for the first and last such hp lost. Only problem is: games like that - games that approach realism - aren't very popular, since it's so very difficult to remain heroic when you have huge penalties to everything you do.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 7590918, member: 12731"] Yeah, I really don't recognize myself in any of this. D&D is a game. Games have meaningful interactions. The idea that if a fighter parries a blow, or if a thief picks a lock, that should succeed pretty much automatically just because they're trained at what they do... is incomprehensible to me. Talk about entitlement! No no no - the game's spectrum of results should be just wide enough for the trained fighter to stand a great chance of parrying that blow while the thief might just fail to do so. A Ranger should be able to pick that lock... but stand a greater chance of failing (=taking longer). Why even pick up dice if all you want is "rolling a d6, succeeding on 1 through 6"? And no, "rolling a 1 is always an automatic failure" is not good enough. In fact, that brings us back to what was trying to say previously: the ends of the die outcomes should pretty much always be open... that is, reaching a success on 17 or 18 should be considerably more difficult/expensive. That's pretty given. Makes for a much better game, with smoother probabilities and therefore much easier to balance. [I]The whole point[/I] of giving the fighter 140 hp is precisely so he has no cause for complaint when the goblin manages to stab him for 4 damage. Again, if you want your character's defense to be 99.9% solid, where each 4 damage always means the same amount of hurt, I refer you to games where you still have the same 12 hit points you started with at the end of a long campaign (or close to it). And even there, it really does not apply if said game allows you to keep fighting at peak efficiency up until you lose your last hp. (If going from 12 to 8 hp means nothing, the clearly that stab did not damage you nearly as much as the stab that takes you from 3 to -1 hp) You really need to look into more involved games (maybe Hârnmaster) where each hit point lost represents a tangible penalty, which is the same for the first and last such hp lost. Only problem is: games like that - games that approach realism - aren't very popular, since it's so very difficult to remain heroic when you have huge penalties to everything you do. [/QUOTE]
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