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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wuzzard" data-source="post: 6862584" data-attributes="member: 6774923">I came to a realization a few years back during one of the great HP/meat debates on the WOTC boards. HP is just pure abstraction. It's not the meat. There is meat, but its not what the HP represents. HP is just a mechanic to help the players know the risks and make judgement calls. But HP is not everything. Use it to help move the story forward, but don't be a slave to it. The important part to understand is that abstraction (and mechanics) is not the only part of the game. The other part is the part where you establish the fiction. You know that thing that the DM does (primarily). When a creature is hit by an attack and takes damage the DM is in the role of describing that outcome, and what is said becomes the truth of the game. If the DM's says the creature is impaled by a spear, or an arrow, or that sword chopped off a chunk of its ear, then that's what happened.  The damage roll doesn't tell you that. The HP level says nothing about this.  Its the established fiction that does.You probably don't play this way, or even if you do it doesn't happen all that often, but consider that the DM is free to adjust the outcome and impose additional mechanics like status effects, that allow the established fiction to have consequences beyond just RP.  For example, even if your attack action against that Orc doesn't have a prone status in the written rule as part of the outcome, the DM can certainly decide that here and now and given the situation in this environment that the Orc, once struck, slips and falls to the ground.In this way, its perfectly reasonable for the DM (or equivalent) to dictate the outcome of the attack, and claim that the creature's leg is broken or injured in such a way that movement is hampered. There is no rule that's going to tell you this happens. It's only in the fiction.If you are not doing this or allowing your DM this freedom, you are missing out on the biggest part of the game that leads to fun and interesting stories.</blockquote>

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