HP is common sense?
Using a mechanic that can represent: Physical, Luck or other mystical durability and your saying that someone who misses physically cant damage the other three?
maybe it was a miss because that character used up some of his luck or mystical defenses dodging the fury of the slayer.
Eh, I think we are gonig to have to agree to disagree. I think it makes sense, and you dont. I dont know how else to argue, your just cemented in your ways.
First of all, you don't know what my "ways" are to know if I'm cemented in them or not. Second, there's no reason to be rude about this. (And Yes, it is rude. You could have just as easily said "we" are cemented in "our" ways, but chose not to.) Third, you are comparing one small powerish concept to a much larger concept (the very nature of Hit Points), which is not a valid comparison for the argument you're making.
Hit Points are a much, much, much larger concept than that Reaper ability is. Hit Points are an abstract quantification on purpose, and are always explained right up front in that manner in every edition. There really isn't any way to make Hit Points themselves any less abstract. One can add on other systems, and I do (like Vitality or Condition Tracks), but that definitely is not for everybody. Hit Points are as good as they can get on their own.
However, the Reaper ability we are talking about is not as good as it can be. There's been people in this very thread who have shown how a simple changing of the text can make it work. However, that should be the designers job, not the DM's. And the designers in this case have not done the job to completion. This is feedback that they need to listen to for the reasons listed in this thread.
If it makes sense to you, that's fine. I'm not trying to change your opinion. I'm simply explaining why it doesn't make sense to me, as feedback that I hope the designers pay attention to. And you're not going to change my opinion, though it certainly seems to me as if you're trying to.
What does matter is this: If it makes sense to you now in it's current form, it will likely also make sense to you if the fluff is tweaked a bit to make sense for the rest of us (tweaked as others have given examples of in this thread). If that's not the case, that you'd also find it makes sense with the tweaks recommended in this thread, then I stand corrected. But if it does still make sense to you, and the designers decide that the fact that it doesn't make sense to others is not important enough to address, then that's a significant problem in the likely outcome of 5E. However, I don't think the designers of 5E will make that mistake...or at least I'm choosing to be optimistic that this feedback will be addressed.
