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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 9758174" data-attributes="member: 6667921">For me, a “hit” depends entirely on how the system defines what happens after the roll. I don’t think there’s one single answer that applies everywhere.The “to hit” roll itself is just a binary check: did the attack overcome the target’s defense? If yes, you move on to damage. The margin of success usually doesn’t matter, so the roll doesn’t say how the attacker succeeded—just that they did. The real meaning comes from what the system does with hit points, or whatever resource stands in their place.In a game like D&D, hit points are so abstract that I don’t see a reason to pin them down. They can be wounds, stamina, luck, grit—it doesn’t really matter, because the game doesn’t separate those ideas. So when I play that kind of system, I treat a hit as “a successful attack that reduced the pool,” without worrying too much about whether it literally drew blood.In contrast, I like when a system actually separates those effects. If it distinguishes between stamina and health, or has wound tracks, then the attack results are a lot more explicit. I don’t have to interpret whether the hit was exhausting or injuring—the rules already tell me.Daggerheart is a good example of how I prefer it to work. An attack roll checks evasion: if it succeeds, the defender didn’t avoid it. From there, damage is translated into wound severity—minor, major, or severe—based on thresholds tied to the character’s class, heritage, and armor. Armor points can even downgrade the severity. That whole chain of resolution makes it crystal clear: the blow landed, here’s how serious it was, and here’s how armor changed the outcome.So in my mind, a “hit” only really makes sense when you look at how the system resolves it. If the game uses an abstract HP pool, I treat it as a simple success state. If the game offers more nuance, I let that structure tell me whether the hit was a glancing blow, a draining effort, or a serious wound.</blockquote>

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