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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6299731" data-attributes="member: 27160">Oh - we are comparing D&D to reality - this should be fun.First point - pain is a side-effect of "getting hit"; the primary effects are complex but include contusion and muscle, nerve, blood vessel, organ and other damage. None of which primary effects, note, are at all well modelled by a depleting pool of points by any stretch of the imagination.Not really. Unconsciousness can have a range of causes, but simply "getting hurt a lot" will not do it on its own. There is a reason that anaesthetics are used during operations. About the only variable that might be modelled by a points pool and is related directly to unconsciousness (and death) is the level of blood oxygen/blood volume. But those aren't really related to "getting hurt" in a linear (or even a regular but non-linear) way.Hit points are not any kind of simplification, approximation or representation of reality on any rational scale whatever. They are a contrived method for making some characters or creatures last longer in a fight than others. ANY creature made of flesh and blood (which are the only kind of creature we have any real-world reference for at all) can be dropped by one solid, well-aimed blow with a sword, axe or spear. That includes elephants and buffalo. A complicating factor, however, is that very few creatures will remain still to receive a solid, well-aimed blow if they feel threatened. That commonly changes the nature of the blow they take, but it does not change how many blows it takes to disable them.If you want a damage system that provides some model of reality, it's not that hard. Treat injuries as individual events - attachments, if you like, to the creature injured - that give a chance that the host creature will die (a) immediately, (b) in a few minutes, (c) in a few hours and (d) in a few days. Hit points don't do this, because they do not model real-world injury, and they were never designed to, according to the original designer (EGG).It has allready been pointed out that non-physical things did do HP damage in 3.x, but regardless to conclude from "only physically damaging stuff did hit point damage" that "hit points therefore model physical damage" is a non-sequitur by any analysis.During play to-hit is the more optimisable, true, but in character design damage is much more optimisable, so it depends which player resources you are talking about. The party could, in theory, make killing the minion much easier by to-hit boosting, but they would typically only do so if they knew that the creature was a minion; multiple damaging strikes is generally a better way to go against Standard monsters not too far above your level. This is a playstyle issue. I don't, personally, tell players any monster stats (apart from what their characters' passive monster knowledge tells them). This is mainly because the players enjoy finding out what the monster's stats are through play (which relates to the ways I find 4E play highly comparable with the Gamist play that   [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] talks about, but that's an aside). If you told the players the giant was a minion, however, they might optimise their tactics against it; but, then, the same is true of Standards, Elites and Solos, as well, since deployment of Encounter powers, Daily powers, magic item powers and the like are much more worthwile against these, and dazing, stunning and dominating powers are less worthwhile against (modern) Solos.I think that depends on the situation. The 3.5 Hill Giant does wildly varying damage depending on whether it has its greatclub and/or a supply of rocks handy (this sort of thing is a large part of why CRs are so inaccurate in 3e). If it had to rely on smashes, or it it was at range without a good source of handy rocks, I think its 102 hp would look vulnerable to sustained shooting. Still likely some PC death(s), but maybe a dead giant, too. In a twenty foot dungeon room with a greatclub, however, the PCs are meat unless the Cleric gets off a Command spell and/or the Wizard has Colour Spray handy (the giant has only a +4 Will save).Fair enough that you "don't get it", but the XP value is absolutely calculable from two pieces of information: the creature's level and its type (Solo, Elite, Standard or Minion). Done this way, the level on its own relates to the level of PC party the monster is most suitable to engage (in combat - all this only applies to the combat statblock aspect of the creature in any case, which is not the only aspect the creature has). The type of monster then tells you how many of such creatures the party might engage with a reasonable chance of survival/success/resource expenditure in the form of surges and Daily powers, etc.An ox can be felled with one solid hit with a pollaxe - a creature of roughly comparable size. So can an elephant. Size alone isn't really a determinant of whether a creature is felled by a hit - and neither is "toughness". Thos are contrivances of heroic fantasy/action adventure. Of course, you might be unlikely to get a solid hit in on a Hill Giant (were they to exist) because it would likely be defending itself - but that is hardly something well modelled by hit points.So does 4E. DMG page 104. In fact, the language used there is not even as prescriptive as it is in the 3e DMG (which I gave earlier):This is followed by a table showing "Encounter Difficulty" from Level-1 to Level+3 in what can only be seen, given the above text, as an example distribution. The other text in the section warns against including too many easy encounters (more than about one per level can get boring) or using monsters that are individually outside the range Level-3 to Level+4, but that is mainy for the reasons I explained with the Hill Giants, previously.Fair enough - I really don't feel that way or "get" why anyone would, but if you do feel that way you could just use low level Standard monsters. You will get battles where the monsters whiff a lot, the PCs don't but there's a bit of grind to blow away all those hit points - pretty similar to 3e, as I remember it.</blockquote>

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