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<blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 177412" data-attributes="member: 1645">A lucky crit from a longbow is a 1-in-400 event (if our hero has a high AC).&nbsp; It does 2d8 damage, averaging 9 points of damage.&nbsp; Against a 10th-level Fighter with 79 Hit Points, well, I'm not impressed.&nbsp; A lucky crit that then does max damage (16) would be even more freakishly unlikely (1/400 x 1/64 = 1-in-25600) -- and it would still hurt no more than two points of damage against a 10-hp Fighter.First, the main point is that vastly increased Hit Points aren't the one and only way to make characters more powerful.&nbsp; It's equally easy to increase AC.Second, a horde of warriors is not a &quot;minor case of a bunch of losers&quot;; it's a staple case that doesn't work the way people'd like under the current rules.Third, many, many people have complained about how Hit Points play out:&quot;How can my Fighter take a dozen sword blows?&quot; &quot;Oh, well, he's not actually hit just because he's, er, 'hit'&quot; &quot;Huh?&quot; &quot;Well, those hit points represent the fatigue of dodging blows and the minor scratches he takes as he rolls with attacks that would've skewered a 4-hit-point Commoner.&quot; &quot;Then why does he have to heal these hit points over days and weeks? And why doesn't a healing potion heal those little scratches? Or a healing spell?&quot; &quot;Why don't you just play GURPS and leave us alone!&quot;With higher-AC and lower-hp, hits are hits, and misses are misses.&nbsp; The game mechanics match the visual people want, there's no healing conundrum, players can't meta-game away things that should be major threats, we don't need special-case rules, etc.Monte's point was that Hit Points made D&amp;D popular and that people who complain about Hit Points want a complicated system that's more &quot;realistic&quot;.&nbsp; My point is that we've got a false dichotomy here: simple, unrealistic, heroic system vs. complex, realistic, gritty system.&nbsp; We can just as easily have a simple, realistic, heroic system (where &quot;realistic&quot; means &quot;makes sense&quot;) by increasing AC a lot and compressing hp progression a bit.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="mmadsen, post: 177412, member: 1645"] A lucky crit from a longbow is a 1-in-400 event (if our hero has a high AC). It does 2d8 damage, averaging 9 points of damage. Against a 10th-level Fighter with 79 Hit Points, well, I'm not impressed. A lucky crit that then does max damage (16) would be even more freakishly unlikely (1/400 x 1/64 = 1-in-25600) -- and it would still hurt no more than [i]two[/i] points of damage against a 10-hp Fighter. First, the main point is that vastly increased Hit Points aren't the one and only way to make characters more powerful. It's equally easy to increase AC. Second, a horde of warriors is not a "minor case of a bunch of losers"; it's a staple case that doesn't work the way people'd like under the current rules. Third, many, many people have complained about how Hit Points play out: [COLOR=silver]"How can my Fighter take a dozen sword blows?" "Oh, well, he's not actually hit just because he's, er, 'hit'" "Huh?" "Well, those hit points represent the fatigue of dodging blows and the minor scratches he takes as he rolls with attacks that would've skewered a 4-hit-point Commoner." "Then why does he have to heal these hit points over days and weeks? And why doesn't a healing potion heal those little scratches? Or a healing spell?" "Why don't you just play GURPS and leave us alone!"[/COLOR] With higher-AC and lower-hp, hits are hits, and misses are misses. The game mechanics match the visual people want, there's no healing conundrum, players can't meta-game away things that should be major threats, we don't need special-case rules, etc. Monte's point was that Hit Points made D&D popular and that people who complain about Hit Points want a complicated system that's more "realistic". My point is that we've got a false dichotomy here: simple, unrealistic, heroic system vs. complex, realistic, gritty system. We can just as easily have a simple, realistic, heroic system (where "realistic" means "makes sense") by increasing AC a lot and compressing hp progression a bit. [/QUOTE]

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