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<blockquote data-quote="jmartkdr2" data-source="post: 8498311" data-attributes="member: 7017304">There's a change that, while not objectively better would impact the feel of the game: hits become more important and a big deal, rather than the expectation. This frees you to narrate them as, well, a big deal rather than needing to describe them as scratches, exhaustion, etc. Basically it lets hit points more closely resemble meat points, which is indeed easier to grok.The downside, as you noted, is a lot more turns where nothing really happens because you rolled to hit and didn't. In a game with even somewhat long turns like 5e (to say nothing of 3e, 4e, or PF) that's really bad and definitely something to avoid. If I need to wait 15 minutes for my turn to come around, I don't want to roll one die and then nothing happens. But if you can get turn times down (which old-school simplicity allows even if it doesn't guarantee) then this isn't nearly as much of an issue.I've read that the current hit rates (65%) were specific targets based on market research - that is, WotC is certain that the 5e approach is more popular than the alternative. Sales figures prove they're not way off at least. But that doesn't matter for one's home game, really.You can split the difference by adding a layer and having something like Warhammer's setup: you roll to hit then roll to wound then there's an armor save - even if each has a 3/4 chance of working for the attacker, that's a 27/64 chance of doing real damage. But it doesn't really feel like 'nothing happened' if the armor save is why they're not dead. Sort of - I myself wouldn't prefer this, but I'm not really an OSR&nbsp; guy.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jmartkdr2, post: 8498311, member: 7017304"] There's a change that, while not objectively better would impact the feel of the game: hits become more important and a big deal, rather than the expectation. This frees you to narrate them as, well, a big deal rather than needing to describe them as scratches, exhaustion, etc. Basically it lets hit points more closely resemble meat points, which is indeed easier to grok. The downside, as you noted, is a lot more turns where nothing really happens because you rolled to hit and didn't. In a game with even somewhat long turns like 5e (to say nothing of 3e, 4e, or PF) that's really bad and definitely something to avoid. If I need to wait 15 minutes for my turn to come around, I don't want to roll one die and then nothing happens. But if you can get turn times down (which old-school simplicity allows even if it doesn't guarantee) then this isn't nearly as much of an issue. I've read that the current hit rates (65%) were specific targets based on market research - that is, WotC is certain that the 5e approach is more popular than the alternative. Sales figures prove they're not way off at least. But that doesn't matter for one's home game, really. You can split the difference by adding a layer and having something like Warhammer's setup: you roll to hit then roll to wound then there's an armor save - even if each has a 3/4 chance of working for the attacker, that's a 27/64 chance of doing real damage. But it doesn't really feel like 'nothing happened' if the armor save is why they're not dead. Sort of - I myself wouldn't prefer this, but I'm not really an OSR guy. [/QUOTE]

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