What constitutes a "hit" in your mind?

[billd91]

I think prior posts are right that it depends a lot on the game involved. In Call of Cthulhu, I generally consider a hit to involve contact since the hit points ablated are so few, based on physical stats, and don't change as an investigator gains in skill and experience.
In D&D or Star Wars Saga Edition, where the hit points increase with level, there's obviously a complex variety of factor that complicates the whole issue. But regardless of the idea that hit points represent some physical, some luck, some divine providence, some skill, etc, I treat each hit point as being a mix of all those factors (in proportions that may change over the course of the PC's career). So that means all hits involve something physical - maybe it's a hit to the armor that jars the person inside (as opposed to one that doesn't because it's a "miss"), maybe the dodging the target did put some strain on a joint or muscle so their defenses are degraded (hit points ablated), maybe the blaster bolt came so close that they felt the scorching heat or were showered with hot sparks as it interacted with their cover, etc.
And the more there's a follow-on effect of the successful attack roll - like a poison or some other rider, the more that narration HAS to involve some level of physical contact. The venomous jaws of the formidable grumwizzle may not have directly punctured their target, but the maw came close enough in a glancing blow to splat some of the toxic material on the PC in such a way that it still has a credible effect (the degree of such being dependent on how much damage was rolled).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As far as I'm concerned, a hit is a hit. It may only leave a scratch, but it connects.

First, it's incredibly asinine to use the words "hit" and "miss" to describe mechanics and then say that, well, actually, a hit is usually a miss. Second, there's the issue of rider effects like poison and life drain. It makes no sense for these effects to trigger unless the attack made contact.

Yeah, I feel the same way. Even in D&D and similar games I describe hit as an actual blow that connects, and loss of HP as an actual injury, though it might be very slight. I also use gritty rests, so the characters are not perfectly fine next day, so it is easier to sell the HP loss as something concrete.

 

[GM Lent]

A "hit" in my games is "causing damage." So a character might make a failed attack roll against an enemy and have the blow just glance off armor or a shield; a successful attack roll means the attack penetrated defenses and caused damage and/or another desired effect.

 

[pemerton]

In a D&D-style hit-points and armor-class system, what I'd like, but don't think I could sell my players on, is a "hit" being an attack close enough to feel or otherwise sense. So it's a hit if an arrow that whizzes by the ear of an unarmored character, close enough for the character to feel its passage. But it's a miss if the arrow hits the armor of a heavily armored character and bounces off without the character noticing the impact.

But there's a strong intuition that there must be blood, and a sense of disappointment if a successful attack only causes a bloodless loss of hit points. Players are disappointed when monsters don't bleed when hit - so much so that they'll embrace having their own characters bleed as the price of avoiding this disappointment.

You could adopt the approach taken in Gygax's DMG, of narrating differently for high hp PCs (and NPCs) compared to most monsters.

 

[corwyn77]

The weird thing about scaling narration as you gain more hp is that if you take 1 damage out of 100 hp from a poisoned weapon, you can still die from poison even though it was a "narrow miss" or whatever.

For the record, since I play GURPS and Savage Worlds almost exclusively, a hit is most definitely a palpable hit.

 

[pemerton]

The weird thing about scaling narration as you gain more hp is that if you take 1 damage out of 100 hp from a poisoned weapon, you can still die from poison even though it was a "narrow miss" or whatever.

But why would anyone narrate that hit as a narrow miss?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I would argue that at the end of this Inigo is at zero hp and Wesley has lost a lot also.
But yes, different folks can have legimitely different opinions as to what hp and hits are in D&D or other rpgs. Some other rpgs are more one thing or another though.

 

[aramis erak]

Is every "to hit" roll actually physically contacting a character in the game? Or are they whittling down their opponent's energy and luck and only the last few "hits" are actually drawing blood?

varies by game.
Most of the time, I assume HP are physical injury, so a hit roll is actually connecting at least once. Often more than once.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

But why would anyone narrate that hit as a narrow miss?

Because if the weapon weren't poisoned, it would be a narrow miss, and simply putting poison on a weapon shouldn't make it more likely to inflict an actual contact hit as opposed to a narrow miss.

It's a point where narrativism and simulationism come into conflict, and some of us prefer to come down on the side of simulationism on this point.

Now I'd be willing to go with a rule that a poisoned weapon is a bigger threat and thus causes more hit-point loss (whatever hit point loss represents) - just like a bigger, sharper weapon is a bigger threat and causes more hit-point loss whether or not it makes actual contact. But in that case, unless there is a crunchy rule to say "hits at this point represent actual pointy-object-piercing-skin" (e.g. hits when the character is down below half hp) then there should be no save vs poison damage, but also no "special poison" damage or effects from poisoned-weapon attacks.

 

[pemerton]

Because if the weapon weren't poisoned, it would be a narrow miss, and simply putting poison on a weapon shouldn't make it more likely to inflict an actual contact hit as opposed to a narrow miss.

It's a point where narrativism and simulationism come into conflict, and some of us prefer to come down on the side of simulationism on this point.

I'd be way off the hit point bus at this point. But if I'm on that bus, then I'm following Gygax's advice on how to narrate hp loss.