EyeontheMountain
First Post
Quite and interesting thread.
For me D&D first became popular due to the fact it was the only thing outthere at first, and then when it started getting popular, retailers were only willing to try the biggest of this new hobby, due to worries about having stock sitting on their shelves until they went bankrupt. Taht same phenomena can still be seen and it explains why many people still do not use much 3rd party stuff, despite the huge amount of quality stuff out there.
As for hit points, the argument between D&D and computer gmaes is a bit simplistic. Many video games, and I will use Diablo because I know it best, use an incredible amount of behind-the-scenes math to do a massive amount of calcualtions. More than any D&D player could ever do in combat. In a compuer gmae this is feasable, and preferable to random appearing damage like a hit chart, which would annoy players to no end if they were suddenly killed by a head shot ather than lightly wounded by a hit to the chest. Espeically if the roll were behind the scenes. First person shooters get around this by using physics and aiming to make the casue and effect easy to see and accep.
But for D&D I am happy with hit points, though I think the resulting high numbers, and the resulting incredible damage done by monsters, spells and feat combinations to keep up is well over the edge. In my last campaign, my 27th level gesalt guy had 400+ hit points. Sure, he was geslalt, but evven 200 hit points is a lot for the game to absorb.
Overall it is a good game, to keep this kinda short, and works well.
For me D&D first became popular due to the fact it was the only thing outthere at first, and then when it started getting popular, retailers were only willing to try the biggest of this new hobby, due to worries about having stock sitting on their shelves until they went bankrupt. Taht same phenomena can still be seen and it explains why many people still do not use much 3rd party stuff, despite the huge amount of quality stuff out there.
As for hit points, the argument between D&D and computer gmaes is a bit simplistic. Many video games, and I will use Diablo because I know it best, use an incredible amount of behind-the-scenes math to do a massive amount of calcualtions. More than any D&D player could ever do in combat. In a compuer gmae this is feasable, and preferable to random appearing damage like a hit chart, which would annoy players to no end if they were suddenly killed by a head shot ather than lightly wounded by a hit to the chest. Espeically if the roll were behind the scenes. First person shooters get around this by using physics and aiming to make the casue and effect easy to see and accep.
But for D&D I am happy with hit points, though I think the resulting high numbers, and the resulting incredible damage done by monsters, spells and feat combinations to keep up is well over the edge. In my last campaign, my 27th level gesalt guy had 400+ hit points. Sure, he was geslalt, but evven 200 hit points is a lot for the game to absorb.
Overall it is a good game, to keep this kinda short, and works well.
