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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bluenose" data-source="post: 5746663" data-attributes="member: 49017">In every edition of D&D, being reduced to 0 hit points means you can't fight any more unless something is done to get you back into the combat. If this is interpreted as dead/dying/unconscious then you run into a problem. A significant percentage of real fights end with someone giving up. That's observable in medieval literature, whether it's histories about the life and deeds of some individual emphasising their prowess in battle and how they overthrow and capture some enemy, or a battle description where the number and rank of prisoners (and whether they're wounded) is recorded. It's observable in renaissance dueling, where one memoirist mentions how he had to concede a duel because his eye was closing up and he couldn't see properly, after being head-butted at one point. Or there's a Napoleonic memoir, a French cavalry officer describing winning a fight with a Prussian one after they'd both ended up pummeling each other on the ground in the mud and snow. Morale, making someone give up, wins at least as many fights as knocking someone unconscious or killing them. Giving up because you're injured before being unconscious is hardly rare at all.I'm still not persuaded that it's harder to use a weapon to injure someone non-fatally than it is to use it with lethal intent. I see no reason for a penalty, and never did. There's a lot of games which get by without one, without it detracting from their simulationist nature.</blockquote>

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