D&D 5E Should martial characters be mundane or supernatural?

[Micah Sweet]

But the rules aren't specific because it's a game. Detailed damage and real world wounds don't make for an easy to run enjoyable game for most people. In any case, there's always going to be some level of abstraction, modeling damage to a human (much less any of the imaginary creatures D&D uses) would require a supercomputer. Even then it would be an approximation.

They may have gone too simple for you, I haven't seen a system that works better. It's why most FPS video games have adopted HP.

Video games use it because it's simple. So does D&D. There are other ways to handle it, and those games are still games. D&D using hit points is because they chose to use hit points, not because "it's a game". That's far too reductive an answer to just let go.

 

[Micah Sweet]

HP loss means whatever the people at the table decides it means. There is no bloodied status.

From the PHB (emphasis added)

Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. ​

​

Which is followed by one way of describing it:

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.​

​

Ah, quotes from the text. That'll solve the hit point argument once and for all!

 

[Maxperson]

Logic suggests you are correct, but the rules are maddening vague.

Not really.

"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."

That's pretty clear.

 

[Oofta]

Video games use it because it's simple. So does D&D. There are other ways to handle it, and those games are still games. D&D using hit points is because they chose to use hit points, not because "it's a game". That's far too reductive an answer to just let go.

I disagree. It's easy, it's simple to grasp, there's no death spiral, it keeps the game moving along. I think it's one of the reasons D&D is as popular as it is.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah, quotes from the text. That'll solve the hit point argument once and for all!

No, it won't, but it does show what 5e intends hit points to be. Above half there will typically(unless spider bite, etc.) be no signs of injury. Below half you get cuts and bruises. At 0 you get something big that can possibly kill you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not really.

"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."

That's pretty clear.

But none of that (except the unconscious condition) means a darn thing mechanically.

 

[Maxperson]

HP loss means whatever the people at the table decides it means. There is no bloodied status.

From the PHB (emphasis added)

Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. ​

​

Which is followed by one way of describing it:

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.​

​

You're adding there stuff that isn't there. The different ways are not, lose either a handful of HP because game or that way described above. The different ways mentioned, when taken in proper context and not out of context like you are doing, means that while you might describe a sword hit under 50% as leaving a cut behind, I might describe it as hitting the shield so hard the arm becomes bruised. That's the variety of ways being mentioned there.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, it won't, but it does show what 5e intends hit points to be. Above half there will typically(unless spider bite, etc.) be no signs of injury. Below half you get cuts and bruises. At 0 you get something big that can possibly kill you.

I have to wonder if people don't seem hurt until they've lost half their hit points, why would the healers heal them and why would they drink a healing potion?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I disagree. It's easy, it's simple to grasp, there's no death spiral, it keeps the game moving along. I think it's one of the reasons D&D is as popular as it is.

Did you actually read what I was objecting to? I know it's easy, because I said exactly that. I was objecting to the idea that D&D uses hit points because "it's a game". That is strictly incorrect.

 

[Remathilis]

okay yes, there aren't explicit rules for mining through stone in the current game and using the existing gear would be hideiously inefficient, but weren't talking rules we were talking concepts, the concept of a warrior taking a pick to a wall and burrowing tunnels through stone by the sweat on their brow is a perfectly fitting one for the kind of worlds DnD presents us.

But that's the issue, isn't it? Its always some theoretical "uber edition" of D&D that will fix all these problems with some amazingly elegant solution that isn't going to bog the game down with determining wall thickness and looking up the rules for pickaxing. Yes, the theoretical fighter could theoretically use a pickaxe to mow through a theoretical wall with as much speed and ease as a wizard player looking up passwall in the PHB, but when asked for how that looks, there is a lot of "shrugs" and "they'll figure it out" or "well, it will be like passwall except the casting time is 1 minute the the material component is a pickaxe".

I'm not taking this out on you personally, but hypothetical "what if" fixes aren't fixing anything. And every time this topic is broached, there is a lot of people discussing what a fighter ought to be doing without talking about how its being done. So having the fighter with a class ability to channel the ancient bloodline of the Gods into a massive strike that deals siege weapon damage is as fine an answer as pickaxing.

What I would do for my game is give a solid stone wall 25 hit points per inch of thickness and the AC of 17 and resistance to the damage(no damage from something not designed to break stone) and then go from there. That 9th level fighter would still get through it a whole faster than in real life, but it will still take a while to get through the effectively 300 hit points of the wall.

Admittedly, I was kinda shocked when I started looking into this answer and discovered that the rules on busting through a stone wall are remarkably inconsistent. The DMG guidelines don't even align to Wall of Stone, let alone scenarios presented in various modules. If there is one area you might want work on clarifying WotC, it giving some clearer rules on this stuff. I don't need a complex subsystem, but how about just better examples and tables?