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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7168149" data-attributes="member: 996">It is, but it's not a rule.  The DM can say you were stabbed in the stomach, the rules never dictate that such has happened.The rules just aren't deterministic that way, they way they are with death at -10 or three failed death saves or whatever.  And you can't argue from 'well, getting stabbed in the stomach does such-and-such, realistically' to 'this rule is wrong because it doesn't do such-and-such,' because the rule isn't for being stabbed in the stomach, there is no such rule, it's visualization.   So, when the game gives you results inconsistent with being stabbed in the stomach, don't visualize it as getting stabbed in the stomach.   Sure, yes, all true. In fairness, EGG's treatise on hit points was pretty clearly in response to the fairly virulent mocking the very concept of hps had been getting.  Back in the day, I remember people joking about characters becoming denser or bigger as they leveled, or drinking many fatal doses of poison or whatnot, to illustrate just what a no-good/stoopid/very-bad game D&D was... Actually, also in the 1e DMG, a closely-related treatise on poison saves (appropriately enough given the topic), makes it clear that taking damage doesn't always mean taking an actual wound.  (Really, the hp treatise also strongly implies that.) Hmm... it also eschews 'death spiral' mechanics, which is kinda heroic (doesn't block the heroic come-from-behind-wind trope), and good for playability.  Lots of things kill people.  Poison. Disease. Drowning.  Ligature stangulation. Smoke inhalation.    Falling from a great height.  Tripping and hitting your head on a rock.  Choking on a chicken bone.  Guns. Swords. Knives. Rolled-up newspapers.  Hat pins.  So, you get poked with a hat pin.  d2 damage or save-or-die?But it could kill you! Maybe they were all 0 level and his poison just automatically did 10 damage no save? OK, in D&D, 10 years ago, or PF, today.  More recently, D&D poison has just done hp damage (like an RQ 'blade venom' c1978, way to innovate, D&D), or even /just/ inflicted a condition that weakens you (no ability drain, no death).  It's too quick and lethal even to be realistic - the fastest poisons take something like 30 seconds to kill. That's 5 rounds, most combats'd be over.  (Mind you, they may be debilitating faster than that.)But, just in general, something can kill you, use a mechanic that kills people.  In D&D, hp damage, in Hero, a Killing Attack, etc...Now, poisons can also do interesting thing in genre.  Like kill very slowly, but inexorably.  Or be stopped by an antidote.  Slow poison with the possibility of an antidote could be the mundane answer to a Geas or curse.</blockquote>

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