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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6209791" data-attributes="member: 42582">I have never heard the word "scratch" used to describe wounding that can lead to fatal blood loss.Once we remember that, in the typical D&D combat, this will be delivered via 4 to 6 hits, we're talking "scratches" that, when taken in lots of 5, are fatal. Those aren't scratches - they're major injuries! (Also, I thought you were against "Schroedinger's wounds". Hence, you are committed to the severity of the scratch from the moment damage is dealt. Hence, given that - up until the death blow is delivered - it would be mechanically possible for the target of the damage to walk away essentially unimpeded, presumably none of the prior events of hit point loss can be narrated as involving potentially fatal blood loss.)As for the consistency of damage - a 10 STR mage hits a 100 hp target for 4 hp of damage (lucky d4 roll). The target has 96 hp remaining. A 20 STR fighter hits a 100 hp target for 8 hp of damage (unlucky d8 roll, and I'm assuming +2 damage bonus coming from somewhere or other). The target has 92 hp remaining.What is "clearly happening" in these scenarios? What difference is "great strength and physical force" making? I can't see it. We have two foes, essentially - in the fiction - uninjured. (Certainly neither is suffering a "scratch" from which fatal blood loss might result.) And even though mechanically one is slightly closer to death than the other, the vagaries of damage rolls are such that it is quite likely that the additional 4 hp loss at this point make no difference to the final outcome. (Overkill by 4+ hp is pretty common, especially one the game is featuring opponents with 100 hp.)Consistent with what? The unrelenting fighter is certainy consistent with a certain, fairly pervasive, conception of the "dreadnought" or "ultra-tank" fighter.As for "backwardsness", when someone rolls 5 damage against an as-yet uninjured 100 hp opponent, they have to start at the mechanic before establishing a narrative. This is typical of fotune-in-the-middle mechanics, which injury in D&D has always been, precisely because the in-fiction meaning of hit point loss cannot be known simply by reading it off the damage dice.Fate points don't model anything as far as I'm aware. That's what makes them metagame mechanics. But if you want to think of them as modelling luck, then this fighter is very lucky. Or if you want to think of them as modelling control, then this fighter has great control - nothing gets away from him/her.Huh? The fiction doesn't require fate points. Rather, the player of the character wants to create a certain fiction - namely, of the unrelenting figher - and the mechanics of the game (based around hit rolls and damage rolls) can't deliver that fiction without granting the player a fiat override of the base mechanics - ie the fate point in question.Last I checked, no one is hijacking your game. And no one is jumping into their time machine to try and change history. WotC is publishing a new game. Much like they published 3E, which (in my personal opinion) abandoned some of the more attractive features of AD&D for little gain that I can see.It's a commercial venture by a commercial publishing house. It's not a moral issue.Furthermore, we can see in this thread that those with process-sim preferences but who, for whatever reason, choose not to play genuinely process sim games seem to have persuaded themselves that hit points are process sim with no fotune-in-the-middle component. I am pretty confident that if the game is published with this ability, those same players will find ways to give this ability, the fighter's trip ability, Ace in the Hole, Action Surge etc process-sim interpretations.</blockquote>

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