"THIS does only 1d4 damage?!"
- Thread starter Olidammara
- Start date
Aaron L said:
That works quite well and anyway D&D is for playing stuff like Die Hard and Van Helsing not Saving Private Ryan
Also keep in mind that IRL many people have survived horrendous wounds and kept fighting --
I heard of a person who was shot 30+ times and still lived, Rasputin (in D&D IMO a high level high con and charisma person) according to http://www.eurohistory.com/Rasputin.html
"conspirators drugged, poisoned, beat and shot him. Yet the staretz survived all these and actually died by drowning when his body, wrapped in a carpet was thrown into the Moika Canal on the Neva River.--" thats a lot of damage !
people have fallen several miles and lived with nothing but a broken bones or walked for two miels with a severed limb to a hsopital
If you accept that HP are a bit of luck and skill and grit the HP system works fine ---
Just figure that most people have HP roughly equal to CON with penalties if they are hit -- PC grade people get more HP based on level -- not WP/VP per se but a system of minimum HP with penalties and extra HP without
Also I think if you really wanted "realism" in D&D I would use the HP system as above but have various debilitating effects from crits or failed saves and a nasty infection and bleeding system
After all its not usually the stab wound that gets you but the blood loss or mostly the secondary infection -- D&D doesn't have there because A: they aren't fun for most gamers and B: healing magic makes it moot
As long as most people have fairly low HP and injuries have consequence having an extra luck buffer is perfectly reasonable and mpost importantly results in more fun YMMV
painandgreed
First Post
CWD said:
I pretty much follow this line of thought at least somewhat.
HP are a combination of luck, defensive skill, and simply the ability for experienced fantasy characters to survive wounds and damage that would kill the "normal" person. It's all sort of give and take and which one is involved in any particular attack is just flavor text. It's a playable game emchanic, not realistic. Try to pin it down in any particular way and its going to break. If taken as the ability to mitigate wounds, then there are questions as to why a cure light wounds and good nights sleep doesn't put you at peak hit points. I won't even go into examples of various area effect spell damages and their effects on the commoner and experienced character under the same circumstances.
Blade of Desecration
First Post
Just use insta-death! 
Or you could do what I find most enjoyable: giving all the commoners vorpal weapons to hide under their beds, incase the PCs insult them.
Or you could do what I find most enjoyable: giving all the commoners vorpal weapons to hide under their beds, incase the PCs insult them.
Another proponent of the "Dude Factor" here. AC & HP just reflect an aquired ability to "roll with the punch" or avoid it entirely.
And while it is possible to kill someone with a dagger, it isn't easy. Most people attacked with small blades (today, with modern antiseptics, etc) don't die. These days, unless you hit something vital, its difficult to kill someone with one thrust of a dagger.
Compare and contrast that with a longsword that can cleave a torso or run someone through entirely.
Realize, however, even a shot from a .22 won't neccessarily penetrate a human skull, and the infamous Phineas Gage case illustrates that even a rod of steel through the brain is not neccessarily fatal.
For those who don't know the Gage case, he was a railroad worker in the 1848 who had a large (3' 7" inches long, 1 1/4 in diameter, 13 1/2 pounds) spike shoot through up through his jaw and the front of his head as the result of a dynamite explosion. He survived, but his personality was irrevocably altered from a generally liked guy to someone who was extremely agressive.
And while it is possible to kill someone with a dagger, it isn't easy. Most people attacked with small blades (today, with modern antiseptics, etc) don't die. These days, unless you hit something vital, its difficult to kill someone with one thrust of a dagger.
Compare and contrast that with a longsword that can cleave a torso or run someone through entirely.
Realize, however, even a shot from a .22 won't neccessarily penetrate a human skull, and the infamous Phineas Gage case illustrates that even a rod of steel through the brain is not neccessarily fatal.
For those who don't know the Gage case, he was a railroad worker in the 1848 who had a large (3' 7" inches long, 1 1/4 in diameter, 13 1/2 pounds) spike shoot through up through his jaw and the front of his head as the result of a dynamite explosion. He survived, but his personality was irrevocably altered from a generally liked guy to someone who was extremely agressive.
Sigurd
First Post
Its an abstraction in a game
We also seldom deal with the angst characters must feel waking up with no family, home, or significant other. I happen to think that loneliness should do 1hp damage a week to any character with less than a 12 wisdom because it represents the characters inability to cope with the harsh world. Is that HP the same as ones done by the dagger????
When you play the game you accept some of its limitations and subjective calls eg. Dragons fly, accept when they dont, and daggers do 1-4, unless they dont.
Damage and physical trauma is a terrible and unpredictable reality -- some soldiers die of shock from minor wounds, others dont. When was the last time you saw a character worry about complications from a 7hp loss? If you can come up with perfect game mechanics that are unfailingly realistic I'd love to see them -- so long as they are playable.
You ask a good question, I think everyone who plays the game has asked it in one manner or other. My group could never agree on how much damage a bullwhip should do - we settled on the 'official' number because it was impersonal and the game went on. Some of the rules are weaker than others but the total is fun.
Sigurd.
We also seldom deal with the angst characters must feel waking up with no family, home, or significant other. I happen to think that loneliness should do 1hp damage a week to any character with less than a 12 wisdom because it represents the characters inability to cope with the harsh world. Is that HP the same as ones done by the dagger????
When you play the game you accept some of its limitations and subjective calls eg. Dragons fly, accept when they dont, and daggers do 1-4, unless they dont.
Damage and physical trauma is a terrible and unpredictable reality -- some soldiers die of shock from minor wounds, others dont. When was the last time you saw a character worry about complications from a 7hp loss? If you can come up with perfect game mechanics that are unfailingly realistic I'd love to see them -- so long as they are playable.
You ask a good question, I think everyone who plays the game has asked it in one manner or other. My group could never agree on how much damage a bullwhip should do - we settled on the 'official' number because it was impersonal and the game went on. Some of the rules are weaker than others but the total is fun.
Sigurd.
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Hida Bukkorosu
First Post
here's a way to picture it... in LOTR:FOTR, orcs get taken out with single hits and stuff, but Boromir took a lot of arrows to kill cause he was high level and had a lot of hit points.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
The best part is people quoting posters that haven't been around for ages.Trainz said:
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