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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4005628" data-attributes="member: 4937">Why do we even have hit points?Surely the argument that 'Bad things shouldn't happen to my character because it precludes me having fun' can be applied universally to any bad thing that can happen to a character?  For example, you could attack and miss 10 times in a row too, and surely that wouldn't be fun either?  You could die, and that's not fun either.  Heck, you could fail a search check and miss out on cool treasure, and that's not fun either - especially if you learn about what you could have had later.  This whole definition of 'fun' is a rather subjective one.  I'm rather skeptical of a social contract that requires 100% success, which is essentially what is being demanded at the end of the slope when you ask that your character never be useless.  I can't help but think that there is a little bit of self-deception going on here, in so much as this level of expectation about what should be fun seems to me to be one created by the designers and the line about where we should stop bad things from hurting the character is set at some arbitrary level set by those designers and then vigorously defended by the community.  Actually, that's probably true of both sides of the debate.  Why stop here?  If its true that a player should always have the oppurtunity to contribute at all times, doesn't this logically preclude character death?  Doesn't this logically preclude unconsciousness when you reach 0 hit points?I'm inclined to think that what really bothers the opponent's of stunning, unconsciousness, paralyzation and the like is not in fact state of not being able to act itself, because they are fully willing (well, most of them) to accept some other effect (like losing hit points) that would put them below hit points.  I don't really think many people here are really saying, "The potential to have my character to do nothing in a round is an absolutely bad thing", and if they are they better think carefully through the implications of that.  Rather, I think this whole movement against 'stuns', 'panic', 'paralyzation', 'domination' and anything else that effectively takes away the player's choice for some period of time is actually motivated by how easily these effects occur and how few choices exist to actively defend against them.But, just to jump on the bandwagon, me, I'm against drowning.  Nothing is worse than drowning.  Water is scarier than fire, because fire only consumes hit points.  Water doesn't even give a saving throw.</blockquote>

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