Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5833803" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>That's actually not true. While there might be problems if you are very specific in your description ("The arrow plunges deep into your shoulder"), most of the time it's not really a problem (The arrow slams into your armor, causing lots of bruising, but you don't think anything is broken).</p><p></p><p>Even in the case where the character goes down ("The troll slams into your with it's huge club, Sir Billingsley crashes to the ground with a sickening thud!") is still fairly easy to narrate ("But, the blow, despite it's power, merely winded you, and you drag yourself to your feet badly battered!")</p><p></p><p>I mean, you only have to look at genre fiction to see thousands of examples of a character taking hits and either fighting through them, or, even after being brought down, shaking his head, standing back up, and keeping going.</p><p></p><p>And this is where the problem with HP=Physical Damage 100% comes in. In that model, anything that drops you below zero hp is always a serious wound. You can't just stand up afterward. Unless, of course, the cleric makes it better. Which removes from the game lots of the very exciting scenes that you see in all sorts of action movies where the good guy or bad guy, gets up after being knocked down.</p><p></p><p>In LotR, when Frodo get's tagged by the Cave Troll (in the movie I'm talking about), you cannot do that scene with the HP=Physical Damage model. Frodo dropped, and certainly not from any non-lethal attack. Without a cleric, he bleeds to death most of the time, or, even if he's helped by friends, he's not standing up without serious bedrest.</p><p></p><p>In Empire Strikes Back, when the Wampus knocks Luke down and takes him out, you can't have the rest of the scene using 3e style HP mechanics. It doesn't work. Luke either bleeds to death, or, he's conscious but below 0 HP, which means he cannot fight, let alone escape.</p><p></p><p>Yes, there are corner cases where you can find the "Schrodinger's Wounds" issue. But, that's almost always caused by DM's being too specific in their descriptions of wounds when it's both unnecessary to be that specific and most likely very unrealistic. </p><p></p><p>In a game where it's perfectly reasonable for a high level fighter to take on an elephant with a sword, are you really going to get hung up on this for realism?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5833803, member: 22779"] That's actually not true. While there might be problems if you are very specific in your description ("The arrow plunges deep into your shoulder"), most of the time it's not really a problem (The arrow slams into your armor, causing lots of bruising, but you don't think anything is broken). Even in the case where the character goes down ("The troll slams into your with it's huge club, Sir Billingsley crashes to the ground with a sickening thud!") is still fairly easy to narrate ("But, the blow, despite it's power, merely winded you, and you drag yourself to your feet badly battered!") I mean, you only have to look at genre fiction to see thousands of examples of a character taking hits and either fighting through them, or, even after being brought down, shaking his head, standing back up, and keeping going. And this is where the problem with HP=Physical Damage 100% comes in. In that model, anything that drops you below zero hp is always a serious wound. You can't just stand up afterward. Unless, of course, the cleric makes it better. Which removes from the game lots of the very exciting scenes that you see in all sorts of action movies where the good guy or bad guy, gets up after being knocked down. In LotR, when Frodo get's tagged by the Cave Troll (in the movie I'm talking about), you cannot do that scene with the HP=Physical Damage model. Frodo dropped, and certainly not from any non-lethal attack. Without a cleric, he bleeds to death most of the time, or, even if he's helped by friends, he's not standing up without serious bedrest. In Empire Strikes Back, when the Wampus knocks Luke down and takes him out, you can't have the rest of the scene using 3e style HP mechanics. It doesn't work. Luke either bleeds to death, or, he's conscious but below 0 HP, which means he cannot fight, let alone escape. Yes, there are corner cases where you can find the "Schrodinger's Wounds" issue. But, that's almost always caused by DM's being too specific in their descriptions of wounds when it's both unnecessary to be that specific and most likely very unrealistic. In a game where it's perfectly reasonable for a high level fighter to take on an elephant with a sword, are you really going to get hung up on this for realism? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?
Top