NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 6065752" data-attributes="member: 57383">Yup, that's pretty much how I take it. Provided it's consistent any I can come up with a reasonable model as to what's going on in the "game reality" it doesn't matter to me if the same events would be unlikely or impossible in "real-life reality".My favoured explanation for the "fighter surviving a tank shell to the face" problem is that D&D characters are like those martial adepts in a Shaw brothers film who can focus their "chih breath" enough to make a sword blow bounce off their naked neck. Hit points are some kind of life energy, and D&D adventurers literally have a life energy force field that protects them from harm. Once they run out of HPs, they're like a Star Trek ship whose shields have run out - the next attack could kill them.That's the explanation that I think best fits the observed behaviour. The argument that HPs are in part (or mostly) a character's ability to dodge or evade attacks doesn't match how the rules work very well. If that was the case, shouldn't the HP damage depend on how hard to avoid the blow is, so an easy-to-dodge blow from a clumsy ogre's club would do less HP damage than an expert goblin archer's arrow? Also, if HP = dodging, why doesn't it cost HP to make a Reflex save?It's quite possible to come up with variant rules for D&D that have more "realistic" injuries - some kinds of Vitality/Wound system with armour as DR can work pretty well. I've also run variant D&D games where the HP/wound damage varied with the attack roll.If that's what some people prefer, go for it. Different strokes for different folks and all that.</blockquote>

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