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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6620065" data-attributes="member: 6775031">Our characters know a lot about how their world works, and they can see a lot of the details about what's going on in the world, where the players only have some numbers and the DM's description to go by.The biggest factor here is how abstract you make your HP. My character can know for certain that getting hit with a giant's greatsword won't kill her, after she survives a hit from that sword without being cut in half. She can surmise ahead of time that she'll survive the attack, based on the knowledge that it took four hits from an ogre's greatclub before she lost consciousness yesterday, and guessing that the giant in question is probably not more than four times as strong as that ogre.If you're using HP that are substantially more abstract than that, then it raises a lot of other questions that require further meta-gaming in order to deal with. If your character didn't actually get hit by the sword, then you need to figure out what exactly it is that HP represent, which can be restored by healing magic and which is knowable to the characters. Because if your character isn't aware of whatever reality you decide corresponds to HP, then you're forced to meta-game every decision about when to heal and how much.Which is exactly why they included the optional rules for lingering wounds, and slower healing, etc.Moreover, there isn't a rule anywhere which tries to correlate specific injuries with exact damage numbers. Maybe being impaled on a longsword is the equivalent of 20 damage? Or maybe 50? That's up for the table to decide. In any case, though, I would say it's fundamentally weird if a level 9 Fighter can't survive half a dozen arrows in the back without slowing down, considering that her peers are violating the time-space continuum and raising the dead. A warrior with that level of power should be able to survive a quick dip - less than ten seconds - in molten lava. I mean, it's only lava.</blockquote>

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