D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Cadence]

5e very specifically does not have all meat hit points. You don't even take so much as a scratch before half your hit points are lost, and you don't take a direct hit until you are reduced to 0.

So no one is beaten, bludgeoned, cut, or burned down to death's door. Instead they are skilled, lucked, and winded down to half hit points. Then almost as skilled, almost as lucked, and almost as winded down within range of 0, showing scratches and bruising as a result. Then that last hit is a solid strike that cuts deep, burns badly, etc.

"Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

Right. In the 2024 rules, any DM-favored creature or one with a PC aura who is knocked to zero from bludgeoning, slashing, piercing, whatnot and doesn't die, can rest for 1-4 hours and then an hour more after waking and pop up mostly restored (sometimes), or rest for 9-12 hours and pop up completely recovered.

Reading the rules, is boxing also really, really dangerous unless the DM particularly favors boxers or they have a PC aura?

 

[Cadence]

We apply movie logic to this.

Protagonists donning bandages, slight limps etc. while fully competent in the next scene.

Regardless, I think most people suspend their disbelief with this game, whether they accept HP as "abstract fatigue and luck" or "meat points". Either way, the rules create strange events that contradict either viewpoint.

I do the same when I play 5e and have no problem with it usually. My big complaint (after getting in 5e mode) is when we would like to go try to revive an NPC or monster who just got knocked to 0 (maybe an enemy to question or ally to save) and the DM has them all just be dead at 0 like RAW, unlike the PCs would be.

I liked some things about how this part of the game worked in the older versions better, but such is life.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think it makes a difference either! The minions rules expressly preclude knocking a Minion out. That specific overriding the Knocking Creatures Unconscious general. (I'm mildly curious what other explanations folk might conjure for that specific text in minions?)

There's nothing in the minion rules precluding being knocked out.

Destroyed = killed. Killed = being able to be knocked out. Without some specifically defined meaning for destroyed that does preclude it, it's just another way to say killed, which in 4e means reduced to 0 hit points.

 

[Maxperson]

Is it right to say that you see the text as an observation? Whilst I see it as a rule.

How do you consistently identify which game text is observation and which rules?

Definitions. Rules define what they do. Being destroyed has no definition and doesn't tell you what actually happens, so we have to default to the general rule of destroyed equaling killed, which in turn equals being reduced to 0 hit points.

Edit: or put another way, if any damage destroys a minion and that's the specifics, then they wouldn't have bothered to give it 1 hit point. If it has a hit point, it can be reduced to 0 of them.

 

[clearstream]

There's nothing in the minion rules precluding being knocked out.

Other than the literal text. Minions go straight to destroyed/killed.

Destroyed = killed. Killed = being able to be knocked out. Without some specifically defined meaning for destroyed that does preclude it, it's just another way to say killed, which in 4e means reduced to 0 hit points.

The meaning of destroyed is clear. Minions are always and only destroyed/killed when they take any amount of damage.

 

[clearstream]

Definitions. Rules define what they do. Being destroyed has no definition and doesn't tell you what actually happens, so we have to default to the general rule of destroyed equaling killed, which in turn equals being reduced to 0 hit points.

That argument is tautological. Because you think the text doesn't do what it literally says, you interpret it as an (entirely unnecessary) observation by the designers.

 

[Maxperson]

That argument is tautological. Because you think the text doesn't do what it literally says, you interpret it as an (entirely unnecessary) observation by the designers.

See my edit to that post. If you are correct in your assertion, then they would not have been given hit points. You don't give hit points to something that goes to instantly destroyed. You only give them to things that can have their hit points reduced.

Destroyed = killed via hit point loss in 4e. There is no separate rule for destroyed that you have shown.

Further, objects are destroyed when their hit points are reduced to 0, do destroyed doesn't prevent hit point reduction to 0, which kicks in the unconsciousness rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

5e very specifically does not have all meat hit points. You don't even take so much as a scratch before half your hit points are lost, and you don't take a direct hit until you are reduced to 0.

So no one is beaten, bludgeoned, cut, or burned down to death's door. Instead they are skilled, lucked, and winded down to half hit points. Then almost as skilled, almost as lucked, and almost as winded down within range of 0, showing scratches and bruising as a result. Then that last hit is a solid strike that cuts deep, burns badly, etc.

"Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

Unless you take a damage type to which you are resistant, immune, or vulnerable. Or poison. You have to be contacted in those situations or it doesn't make sense.

 

[clearstream]

See my edit to that post. If you are correct in your assertion, then they would not have been given hit points. You don't give hit points to something that goes to instantly destroyed. You only give them to things that can have their hit points reduced.

Destroyed = killed via hit point loss in 4e. There is no separate rule for destroyed that you have shown.

Further, objects are destroyed when their hit points are reduced to 0, do destroyed doesn't prevent hit point reduction to 0, which kicks in the unconsciousness rules.

It may be that you are reading "destroyed" and "killed" as processes rather than states. Consider the rule for objects "An object reduced to 0 hit points is destroyed". For an object, "destroyed" is the state that results from being reduced to 0 hit points.

So for minions, destroyed is the state that they go to from taking any damage. Consider this question: once a creature is in the state "killed" can it be knocked unconscious? No, because it has already been killed. What the Knocking Creatures Unconscious rule does is allow players to choose between going to one or other of the unconscious or killed states. Not to undo killed.

With minions, players have no such choice because minions are destroyed by taking any amount of damage. That specific overriding general per the principle on PHB 11.