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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5432834" data-attributes="member: 42582">My point was that 4e - by already having multiple options available for interpretation of 0 hp, and by giving the player the choice of which option actually results when the &quot;killing&quot; blow is delivered - makes it very easy to introduce blinding as an alternative. It will have zero effect on the mechanical balance or smooth running of the game.3E will, in my view, not make it so easy. First, 0 hp and below in 3E have definite meanings - disabled and dying - and inflicting subdual damage has a distinct mechanical meaning and incures a penatly to hit (-4, I think). Where would you insert blinding a foe into 3E as part of the combat mechanics, without having to think about how it interacts with these existing features of the mechanics?I want to stress - this is in no way a criticism of the 3E mechanics. Exactly the same issue arises in respect of any rule set in which the combat attrition mechanics have a rules-mandated ingame interpretation. So the same issue would arise in Rolemaster and Runequest, for example, neither of which is a game I want to criticise.3E is manifestly a more simulatonist ruleset than 4e (likewise RM and RQ). That difference has consequences. One is that introducing blinding as simply a player-stipulated consequence of reduction of a foe to 0 hp is not as mechanically straightforward to do.The issue for me here is similar to that with respect to blinding a foe. It's not about hewing to or departing from the published rules. It's about integration into the rest of the game. For example, in 3E, is the &quot;magic spoon&quot; rogue unable to do this trick within an antimagic field? 4e has been deliberately designed so as not to give rise to such questions - another way in which its mechanics are in much looser fit with the ingame causality of the gameworld.Entirely agreed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5432834, member: 42582"] My point was that 4e - by already having multiple options available for interpretation of 0 hp, and by giving the [I]player[/I] the choice of which option actually results when the "killing" blow is delivered - makes it very easy to introduce blinding as an alternative. It will have zero effect on the mechanical balance or smooth running of the game. 3E will, in my view, not make it so easy. First, 0 hp and below in 3E have definite meanings - disabled and dying - and inflicting subdual damage has a distinct mechanical meaning and incures a penatly to hit (-4, I think). Where would you insert blinding a foe into 3E as part of the combat mechanics, without having to think about how it interacts with these existing features of the mechanics? I want to stress - this is in no way a criticism of the 3E mechanics. Exactly the same issue arises in respect of any rule set in which the combat attrition mechanics have a rules-mandated ingame interpretation. So the same issue would arise in Rolemaster and Runequest, for example, neither of which is a game I want to criticise. 3E is manifestly a more simulatonist ruleset than 4e (likewise RM and RQ). That difference has consequences. One is that introducing blinding as simply a player-stipulated consequence of reduction of a foe to 0 hp is not as mechanically straightforward to do. The issue for me here is similar to that with respect to blinding a foe. It's not about hewing to or departing from the published rules. It's about integration into the rest of the game. For example, in 3E, is the "magic spoon" rogue unable to do this trick within an antimagic field? 4e has been deliberately designed so as not to give rise to such questions - another way in which its mechanics are in much looser fit with the ingame causality of the gameworld. Entirely agreed. [/QUOTE]

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