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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 4198641" data-attributes="member: 32164">Of course there is. A couple very good reasons.First off, I didn't say "dodging." I said "avoiding taking serious injury from..." That's a whole different kettle of fish. Secondly, we're not talking about the sport of modern fencing, we're talking about a fight to the death in which you are as concerned with not getting hit as you are with scoring a point. That's a much different form of fighting than winning a fight via right-of-way. The fighter who gets stabbed solidly without right-of-way is just as dead.A rapier - not a fencing foil, a rapier - is a thrusting weapon which can also inflict surface scratches. Assuming you are not entirely naked, most rapier slashes are surface wounds. They fatigue you, wear you out, and tire you, but they won't for the most part, kill you. The thrusts are another matter. However, D&D also uses "rapier" for the earlier weapon that the Italians called a "Spada da lato" ("sidesword" in English). That's a heavier weapon that uses just as much cutting as thrusting. A slash from a sidesword can kill you.I admit to having never fought an ogre using a club. However, I can tell you that fighting with longswords (what D&D would call a "bastard sword") and backswords (heavier arming blades), as well as against them, is harder than fighting someone with a rapier. Rapier combat is quick, no doubt, and can be fatiguing for that reason, but those heavier blades have to be blocked or evaded, rather than just parried. That's a LOT more work.Also, speaking from personal experience, rolling with a blow from a rapier in order to minimize damage is comparatively easy. With a greatsword, not so much. Even a glancing blow can lay you out.However, your last point is correct. The recovery of hit points has always been the thing that was "out of sync" with the rest of the system. Fix that, and the system works just fine, and jives much better with Gary's explanation of hit points waaaayyy back in the first edition AD&D Dungeon Masters' Guide (page 82). That passage has been quoted here a few times since Fourth Edition previews started, initially by me, but others have picked it up of late.I beg to differ. From what we know, in Fourth Edition, AC scales just fine. It escalates at precisely the same rate that attack bonus does. However, you're mistaken. AC doesn't model your ability to avoid serious injury, it models your ability to avoid being injured at all. All hits below your AC either miss or glance off your armor. They don't "drive the rings of your mail shirt into you skin and bruise your ribs." They "absorb the blow." Likewise, the blow to your helmet that brought stars to your eyes didn't not damage you, even if it failed to split your skull open.If hit points weren't abstract, you'd have to build a fatigue tracker (and trackers for all kinds of combat impairment) into the D&D combat system. Characters would become more likely to take serious injury as they got more tired (or saw spots, or whatever). On the other hand, such a system wouldn't need to have hit points escalate, because, let's face it, even the most experience fighter dies if you put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Bodily resistance to injury doesn't increase. And while a system like this can be made to work fine for humanoid vs. humanoid fights (see Riddle of Steel), it totally sucks for fighting monsters. The abstract nature of hit points lets you make combats vs. monsters more interesting than "miss, miss, miss, miss, you die...", and still works just fine for humanoid vs. humanoid contests if you let it.</blockquote>

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