# Salvageable Innovations from 4e for Nonenthusiasts



## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

Something said in the _Edition Wars_ thread (tongue-in-cheek) really made me think during dinner, which is good, because that is why I participate in these discussions.

Pawsplay said: _"4e is not ever going to be an optimized experience for me... D&D 4e can never be that for me. First of all, it's only somewhat D&D to me. It's the first edition of D&D I know of where you need a different set of miniatures because the characters and creatures have changed so much. You could play 3e with AD&D official miniatures, or AD&D with the Giants of Legend set. Any given 4e-inspired set, however, is full of things that make me scratch my head.... No session of 4e is going to convince me that the Elf/Eladrin split is a good idea, that 1st level "elf" PCs should have magical teleports, or that tieflings or dragonborn are plausible core races for any of the campaigns that interest me. It is never going to escape my attention that 4e started off with a a "two ability score" paradigm and later switched to a "Nevermind, just pile most of your points into your prime ability" paradigm, with several classes stumbling through the transition. "Starleather" is not my cup of tea. I hate game-centric economies with stupidities like selling valuable, reusable magical artifacts for 20% of their nominal value. There are plenty of people for whom those aren't issues, and 4e is meant for them. Not for me._

_The reason edition wars happen is because some people will not leave well enough alone. It's okay that I don't like 4e. It's okay others like it. It is preposterous to think I am going to become a convert. ... At the point at which I get insulted for stating I will not be converted, that's when I get angry. I am not clinging to 3e, nor am I blind to 4e's innovations. It's very clear to me, simply, that 4e is not going to be the game I want."_

My first thought was (right or wrong): _4e isn't about any of those things. That's the trappings and WotC's presentations getting in the way._ But pawsplay did say he/she recognized 4e's innovations. My question is (assuming you agree that 4e had innovations), as a 4e nonenthusiast, what are these innovations?

For me, 4th Edition is 4 things at its core:

1. Customizable roles/characters using defined mechanics (typically level and class, but can also include 1 or more of: race, theme, background, subclass, build, paragon path, epic destiny, and more that haven't been invented yet; nonmechanical layers are also available such as gender, clan, etc.)

2. A story resolution mechanic typically referred to as d20 (20 sided die, with modifiers versuses a determined difficulty class, including Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will as different ways to attack another creature)

3. Defined actions or choices available to a character during a "round" using an established action economy (Currently the action economy consists of standard, move, minor, immediate, opportunity, and free; a round could be anything from 6 seconds, to 5 minutes, to a day, to a week, to a year, etc.) This action economy is typically utilized during an "encounter" which could be a combat, a conversation, a trap or series of traps, a skill-based challenge, or something as large as running a kingdom for a year. Not all parts of the came occur during an encounter, however.

4. Options for every type of character that consist of effective and flavorful options that can be utilized at-will, once per "encounter"/scene (either for narrativist, simulationist, or gamist reasons), and once per day/session/act. These are typically called "powers" and are formatted using the green/red/black distinction, but I consider this presentation and not essential to the 4e experience.

There are a number of things I think add to the system, but are not part of the 4e core:

1. Resource management, including health/hitpoints, action points, limited use actions, item usages, charges, and consumables

2. Differintiated types of classes (currently called roles) in which each category of class has identifiable strengths and weaknesses that are best covered by playing with other classes and adding to cooperative nature of the game. The exact nature of these strengths and weakness are just trappings and can be changed as gameplay desires change.

3. Differentiated combat and non-combat options available during both character creation and in play.

4. Resolution and gameplay based on the assumption that the "classes" and their overall options in creation and in play are balanced, both against each other, and the desired challenge of the GM.

5. Some kind of overall flavor desired by the players and GM by which to get into character and tell the story (the default presented is fantasy, including teleporting Eladrin, but can also include the presentation of Dark Sun, War of the Burning Sky, Gamma World, Zeitgeist, Santiago, Paizo's Kingmaker, etc.)

In a later post I can list my specific house rules that have built upon 4e mechanics if any one is interested. (For example, no half-level bonuses for a flattened attack curve and more stable skill DC table; properties and powers for every item no matter how mundane, such as backpacks, trail rations, and whetstones; and additional powers and options for noncombat encounters).


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

Maybe I can get the ball rolling by offering more specific examples:

Does any one like the 4th edition death and dying mechanics?

Does any one like action points as presented in 4e?

Does any one like healing as a minor action?

Does any one like some of the newer innovations, such as themes, both those currently presented, or others that might be developed, such as blacksmith, performer, or royalty?


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## Lanefan (Jun 17, 2011)

Well, were I to do a(nother) major overhaul of my system, about the only 4e developments I think I'd give a long look to would be:

- movement effects in combat.  4e overdoes it, and there needs to be occasional risk involved for the person doing the moving and more frequent risk for the person being moved*; but if kept to a dull roar and only within reach (no moving someone who is 30 feet away from you) there's something to be said for it.
* - an example might be trying to push someone off a cliff; if you succeed, over they go, but if you fail there's a clear risk you've gone over the side yourself.

- marking in combat.  Again, 4e overdoes it; but the idea of forcing someone to fight you rather than anyone else makes sense for leader-type classes like Paladin and Cavalier.  I'd only allow it to work on other warriors.

- 4e has some yoink-able magic items I've not seen anywhere else.

At first thought that's pretty much it, if anything else leaps to mind I'll chuck it in later.

Lan-"would that rename Holy Avenger to Magic Marker?"-efan


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## Stormonu (Jun 17, 2011)

If your asking what I would take away from 4E for other versions, there are a few things (though I wouldn't necessarily call them innovations, just the first time they've appeared in D&D).

1) Minions - cheap monsters meant to distract, make the characters look more badass and quickly add numbers to a combat.

2) Bloody value -it works as a simple sort-of critical hit location system you can use to signify a shift in the struggle of a battle.

3) Monster schticks - things like kobolds shiftiness, with small special mechanics that differentiate them from each other.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/pawsplay/1102-what-3e-gamer-can-learn-4e.html

A summary:
- Monsters are simple
- Some monsters are for killin' (minions)
- Solo critters
- Scenery is cool
- Loot > shopping
- Make it visual (use props and info cards)
- Change stuff (death to sacred cows)


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Well, were I to do a(nother) major overhaul of my system, about the only 4e developments I think I'd give a long look to would be:
> 
> - movement effects in combat. 4e overdoes it, and there needs to be occasional risk involved for the person doing the moving and more frequent risk for the person being moved*; but if kept to a dull roar and only within reach (no moving someone who is 30 feet away from you) there's something to be said for it.
> * - an example might be trying to push someone off a cliff; if you succeed, over they go, but if you fail there's a clear risk you've gone over the side yourself.
> ...




Thank-you so much for posting.

Very interesting, as well. Forced movement and marking are certainly very prominent in 4e, and I agree that they appear too much in the system (forced movement because its the thing that makes the system hardest to play without miniatures and marking because its a powerful effect that may not be realistic with some playstyle preferences). Also, its interesting you mention items, because item dependency (with regards to weapon/implement, armor, neck) is something I change when I play the system.

Just curious, what type of resolution system and action economy do you use with your system? Is there anything similar to "powers" in it? I know that some of these things are not innovations to 4e, but I still like to see what others like to use and how similar it may or may not be?


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## Greg K (Jun 17, 2011)

If I were to do a renovation, it would look more like Savage Worlds or True20 and add in a lot of IP (the demons, devils, mind flayers, etc.).  Barring that, I would go back to 3e and incorporate the following aspects that I like about 4e

1. Removal of level drain
2. Removal of 3e XP costs
3. Elf/Eladrin split
4. Removing most non-biological aspects of race and making them feats
5. Armor, Weapon and save bonuses from class only apply to level 1 characters and are not gained by multiclassing at heroic tier.
6. Toning down the spellcasters
7. Single save progression
8. Second Wind.  However, I would prefer an approach like True20/Mutants and Masterminds where it is triggered by a hero point like mechanic
9. Martial types get more cool things to do, but I would prefer a Book of Iron Might approach.
10. Death and Dying (prefer 3e Unearthed Arcana approach)
11. Disease Track
12. Rangers as non-spellcasters by default rather than an option in a supplement. 
13. Sample builds for the classes


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/pawsplay/1102-what-3e-gamer-can-learn-4e.html
> 
> A summary:
> - Monsters are simple
> ...




Just to further discussion, pawsplay, do you mind telling me what you do or do not like about the four mechanics I presented in my second post?


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## amerigoV (Jun 17, 2011)

The main thing I took from 4e back to my 3e game (before chucking it all for Savage Worlds) is emphasizing the monster's role and shtick. Separating how monsters are built vs.PCs, while still having a framework to build them, is good work.


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## Krensky (Jun 17, 2011)

Frankly, I can't think of a single thing in 4e that some other game (and often an OGL/d20 one at that) hasn't done before. 

So I don't thin 4e really has any innovations.

Still a fun game for those that like what it's doing


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 17, 2011)

> Does any one like the 4th edition death and dying mechanics?
> 
> Does any one like action points as presented in 4e?
> 
> Does any one like healing as a minor action?




Of those, I only like the action points.

Things I think 4Ed got right or at least headed in the right direction:


"Dead levels" basically non-existent
Rituals for magics that are primarily out of combat or touch other class' roles
Some clearer nomenclature for mechanics: you get your 3rd level spells at 3rd level
Certain weak or poorly defined classes got upgraded


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 17, 2011)

- PCs being able to do things on *other* character's turns besides OA/AoOs. [_Our warlord's turns take so long because the warlord is making all the *other* characters move around the battlefield and attack, and we all love it!_]
- Tied to that, more abilities triggered by certain effects or benchmarks [_Someone used an action point, triggering such and such; ally gets bloodied, triggering something; ally bloodies foe, triggering something to happen;_].
- Saves don't separate widely at high levels [Good vs. Poor spread].
- "Replenishing hit points" isn't only the purview of divine magic (or resting for days).


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## Herremann the Wise (Jun 17, 2011)

For me there are several things that 4e has shone the torch on but there is one that stands head and shoulders above the rest and that is focusing play on teamwork rather than individual contributions. And that is *one action can achieve two results*.

In previous versions, one action will get a single result and thus is focused on achieving what the instigator wishes. However, by having a one action has two results approach, both the instigator achieves what they want, but they also get this bonus extra result that other players can have their characters take advantage of. In this way, by performing an action, your character gets what they want, but as well somebody else's character gets a leg up too mechanically fostering teamwork like no other D&D edition to date. Where previous editions were a case of help someone else or help yourself (and thus your group), 4e really focused on getting both; having the cake and eating it too so to speak. Changing healing to a minor action is a corollary of this.

A close second is taking some advantage out of the loose definition that "hit points" has. While 4e does not overly capitalize on this in my opinion, I think it certainly pushes things in the right direction. Hit points need to be divorced from physical, action-affecting damage. 4e got hit points right but they got the damage component completely out of whack.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Lanefan (Jun 17, 2011)

Herremann the Wise said:


> In previous versions, one action will get a single result and thus is focused on achieving what the instigator wishes. However, by having a one action has two results approach, both the instigator achieves what they want, but they also get this bonus extra result that other players can have their characters take advantage of. In this way, by performing an action, your character gets what they want, but as well somebody else's character gets a leg up too mechanically fostering teamwork like no other D&D edition to date. Where previous editions were a case of help someone else or help yourself (and thus your group), 4e really focused on getting both; having the cake and eating it too so to speak.



A question: is it good that the secondary effect is always a benefit?  Should there be instances where the secondary effect might be less than advantageous, to further add to the element of choice/risk?

Also, Herremann, if you divorce hit points completely from physical damage then what do you replace them with in order to quantify actual physical damage/condition?

Lan-"I'm the secondary effect you didn't want"-efan


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## Lanefan (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> Also, its interesting you mention items, because item dependency (with regards to weapon/implement, armor, neck) is something I change when I play the system.



I don't care about item dependency so much, as magic items tend not to last all that long in my game in any case.  But when I find new ideas for items I use 'em, and 4e certainly has some of those.


> Just curious, what type of resolution system and action economy do you use with your system? Is there anything similar to "powers" in it? I know that some of these things are not innovations to 4e, but I still like to see what others like to use and how similar it may or may not be?



I don't have powers as such, or anything remotely close.  My system is based on 1e.  We roll d6 initiative each round except if you are doing two things e.g. you get two attacks each gets its own initiative; spells take a certain amount of time (varies by spell) to cast and can be interrupted; movement and other actions are dealt with pretty much case by case and if there's a variable involved e.g. how long will it take to dig a potion out of someone's backpack we just roll a d20 to give a rough idea relative to what might be normal and go with that.  Things can and do happen simultaneously.

Not quite sure what you mean by "action economy".

Lanefan


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## Herremann the Wise (Jun 17, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> A question: is it good that the secondary effect is always a benefit?  Should there be instances where the secondary effect might be less than advantageous, to further add to the element of choice/risk?



I think a secondary effect that was a disadvantage would be very interesting. The biggest change that the game has to make in a future edition (at least according to the system I'm developing at the moment) is to go from a binary resolution system to a ternary resolution system. By having three possible results rather than two, you can really get some funky stuff happening (such as what you suggest above). When I've got my system written up, I'll attach an alpha of the rules here at EN World. I've only been working on it for about 6 years. 



Lanefan said:


> Also, Herreman, if you divorce hit points completely from physical damage then what do you replace them with in order to quantify actual physical damage/condition?
> 
> Lan-"I'm the secondary effect you didn't want"-efan



*Hit Points*
In an ideal system (again speaking from the personal ideal I'm currently forging), hit points represent what they have always meant: the capacity to turn a serious blow into a less serious one, luck, endurance, a handful of scratches that stings but nothing that a kiss won't fix, divine providence, inner strength, the will to keep going. Hit points are readily "restored" with a quick break or rest. The beauty is, that you can also "spend" hit points to do particularly exhausting actions or actions that require a special degree of effort.

*Wounds*
Real physical damage however is represented by wounds which for example are represented numerically by points of damage - a 10 point wound. Without assistance, a wound heals by 1 point every day - so as to define what a point means. And so healing from a wound is slower than restoration of hit points. If the total number of wounds equals a particular amount, then your character is incapacitated which typically means they can't do very much except feel a stack of pain. If the total number of wounds equals or exceeds a further amount, your character is irrevocably dying. It might take them a little while to go but at this point mundane healing (as well as most kinds of divine healing) cannot work. Great for last dying words and so on. Consciousness is a different effect that does not rely on hit points or wounds.  

*Hit Points and Wounds*
The thing that makes the whole thing work is the capacity to transfer wound point damage into hit point loss. In this way, a potential wound is instead a fairly harmless scratch that as hit point loss is easily restored. This is something most can readily achieve in combat. There are instances where the capacity to transfer may be denied (typically with critical hits [soft,standard or hard] and "unavoidable" physical damage) although even then, there are a bunch of things that help protect a character from taking a wound even under the worst circumstances.

By well and truly dividing the two, all the silly conundrums that come up in regards to Schrodinger's cat, healing, the "bloodied" condition and so on are instantly negated, including the need for a party to have a divine healer (although a mundane healer outside of combat helps get the troops back in fighting trim). So yeah... that's what I'm doing. 

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 17, 2011)

The HP/Wounds dichotomy isn't all that rare, either.  HERO- my favorite system- has STUN and Body, for instance.  Taking STUN hurts.  Taking Body can kill.


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## Stalker0 (Jun 17, 2011)

There's also the vitality/wound system in star wars.


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## Argyle King (Jun 17, 2011)

I'd keep the idea of passive scores.


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## Starfox (Jun 17, 2011)

Overall, I think 4E had some great ideas (if not original) but that the implementation is horrible. Sad if this became pretty anti-4E, but thats in the nature of the topic for me.

Things to salvage from 4E:

The idea of tiers of play. I like how this was structured, and how to style different adventures into different parts of the PCs career.

The cosmology. I like the feywild and the shadowfell. I like the Astral Sea (I don't find it incompatible with the older systems). I like the elemental chaos after some consideration, tough I still have regions where one region is dominant. And I like the backstory of the god-primordial war and the role of giants, elementals, and demons in the cosmology.

The idea of an action economy - but NOT the implementation. Too many kinds of actions slows down play.

The diversification of the elves - elf/eladrin/dark elf. I've taken this further IMC. But I still kept them as one race, just with divergent abilities. The proliferation of races has always been one of DnDs weaknesses - I prefer 20 different orc tribes with different traditions to 20 separate races of evil humanoids. However, this is not a 4E issue.

The simplified monster generation - when it works. 

Minions - but implemented differently. Having them be BOTH harmless and defenseless made them less than terrain.

The idea of at-will magics, spells you never run out of. But again, the implementation is horrible. Powers with restricted uses should be situational, not all-around more powerful. Running out of them should not mean the game slows down to a pillow fight.

The structuring of various (martial) stunts into powers is interesting and encourages these of stunts. But again the implementation is lacklustre and encourages repetitive gameplay. You may not do the same trick twice in a fight, but instead you do the same trick EVERY fight. This mechanism can be salvaged, but must be rewritten.


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## Neonchameleon (Jun 17, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> A question: is it good that the secondary effect is always a benefit? Should there be instances where the secondary effect might be less than advantageous, to further add to the element of choice/risk?




A question: Why do you think the secondary effect is always a benefit?  To name two of my favourite PCs:

The first was a Malediction Invoker.  She spent more of the fight dazed as a backlash of her own spells than she did undazed (and would routinely cast more magic than her body could take, hurting her).

The second was a Bravura Warlord who dived into combat almost heedlessly.  One common secondary effect of his powers was to offer the enemy free attacks on him.



			
				Redbadge said:
			
		

> Maybe I can get the ball rolling by offering more specific examples:
> 
> Does any one like the 4th edition death and dying mechanics?




No.  But I don't like any D&D death and dying mechanics.



> Does any one like healing as a minor action?




If you are going to have healing in combat *yes.*  Having to give up all your actions to just heal someone in combat is annoying.  And is why the Cleric was often disliked in AD&D - and overpowered in 3E.  Of course you could just take the idea of healing in combat outside and shoot it and I wouldn't object.



> Does any one like some of the newer innovations, such as themes, both those currently presented, or others that might be developed, such as blacksmith, performer, or royalty?




Yes.  They seem pretty popular - separating your approach to the world and focus (your class) from your social role or background (your theme).


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## Tuft (Jun 17, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> If you are going to have healing in combat *yes.*  Having to give up all your actions to just heal someone in combat is annoying.  And is why the Cleric was often disliked in AD&D - and overpowered in 3E.  Of course you could just take the idea of healing in combat outside and shoot it and I wouldn't object.





I played a pixie sorceress in a 3E campaign. We did the Savage Tide campaign arc from 1-20 at half recommended XP + lots of additional side adventures. (I was one of those that clamored at the DM to give us _less and less_ XP for each adventure - we did not want the campaign to end...)  She had picked up a few healing spells, partially by some house-rule feats and partially by being where persuasive at magic items, and some of the most fun in-combat moments were flying full-tilt straight across the battlefield to apply some crucial healing. This tended to result in that you ended up next to the very monster that necessitated the healing in the first place, which was especially nail-biting with low HD, not much Con bonus, and an ECL modifier... 

There was especially the time where our fighter had been mind-controlled and was on the way back into the previous room, which would anger the high-level undead demons we had just negotiate safe passage from, not to mention that the fight would probably be a loss without him. Just managing to reach him with that _so_ needed Panacea... Brings a warm feeling in my heart and a nostalgic smile to my lips just writing this.

Compared to this, playing a Bard lvl 1-26 in 4E was a pure snooze-fest, especially as (A) the others preferred triggering their own surges through magic items rather than wait for me, (B) you did not have to maneuver to provide it, and (C) you needed healing less and less as the levels progressed. I barely had to give out any healing at all at levels 20-26. It was all very non-dramatic, and well, dull.


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## Neonchameleon (Jun 17, 2011)

Tuft said:


> I played a pixie sorceress in a 3E campaign. We did the Savage Tide campaign arc from 1-20 at half recommended XP + lots of additional side adventures. (I was one of those that clamored at the DM to give us _less and less_ XP for each adventure - we did not want the campaign to end...) She had picked up a few healing spells, partially by some house-rule feats and partially by being where persuasive at magic items, and some of the most fun in-combat moments were flying full-tilt straight across the battlefield to apply some crucial healing. This tended to result in that you ended up next to the very monster that necessitated the healing in the first place, which was especially nail-biting with low HD, not much Con bonus, and an ECL modifier...
> 
> There was especially the time where our fighter had been mind-controlled and was on the way back into the previous room, which would anger the high-level undead demons we had just negotiate safe passage from, not to mention that the fight would probably be a loss without him. Just managing to reach him with that _so_ needed Panacea... Brings a warm feeling in my heart and a nostalgic smile to my lips just writing this.
> 
> Compared to this, playing a Bard lvl 1-26 in 4E was a pure snooze-fest, especially as (A) the others preferred triggering their own surges through magic items rather than wait for me, (B) you did not have to maneuver to provide it, and (C) you needed healing less and less as the levels progressed. I barely had to give out any healing at all at levels 20-26. It was all very non-dramatic, and well, dull.




The thing is what you describe isn't a healer doing their thing.  What you describe is when the regular healing has been blown through and it's all hands to the pumps to rescue a situation from going pear shaped.  I've had _exactly_ the satisfaction you describe with using a 4e Invoker to tip a healing potion down the throat of the fallen Warlord (or the Fighter; my invoker did it a few times).  When healing isn't so critical it's just tedious.

As for your 4e Bard, that sucks.  I take it this was pre-MM3 math.  And your DM wasn't biringing the hammer down.  Unless it's needed, healing's pointless.


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## Imaro (Jun 17, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> If you are going to have healing in combat *yes.* Having to give up all your actions to just heal someone in combat is annoying. And is why the Cleric was often disliked in AD&D - and overpowered in 3E. Of course you could just take the idea of healing in combat outside and shoot it and I wouldn't object.




There is another viewpoint... the one where having to choose whether to attack or heal gives meaning to the actual choice...  If I can heal and hit... well what's the actual choice here?


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## Greg K (Jun 17, 2011)

Starfox said:


> Things to salvage from 4E:
> 
> The idea of tiers of play. I like how this was structured, and how to style different adventures into different parts of the PCs career.



I would like to see heroic and paragon extended, but without paragon paths



> The cosmology. I like the feywild and the shadowfell. I like the Astral Sea (I don't find it incompatible with the older systems).



I knew I left somethings of my list.  I like the Feywild.   The Shadowfell I don't mind.


 I like the elemental chaos after some consideration, tough I still have regions where one region is dominant. And I like the backstory of the god-primordial war and the role of giants, elementals, and demons in the cosmology.

The idea of an action economy - but NOT the implementation. Too many kinds of actions slows down play.



> Minions - but implemented differently.



Yep



> The idea of at-will magics, spells you never run out of



Agreed


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## Crazy Jerome (Jun 17, 2011)

I like 4E. So my stealing runs the other way. I'd like to steal the idea of positioning rules from Burning Wheel and use them in 4E. IMHO, they are a better fit for the 4E model than forced movement.

What I like here is that 4E cares about making characters want to move. I guess this puts me in the like the idea, not the particular implementation camp.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> Does any one like the 4th edition death and dying mechanics?




They're pretty good, at least as good if not better than 3e or any of the optional 3e rules with which I am familiar.



> Does any one like action points as presented in 4e?




No.



> Does any one like healing as a minor action?




Hate it.



> Does any one like some of the newer innovations, such as themes, both those currently presented, or others that might be developed, such as blacksmith, performer, or royalty?




Themes are really good. If they had been presented early on in the development cycle, circa PHBII or so, I'd have had less to criticize about 4e. They create a lot of breadth while presenting few balance problems, and restore a lot of the flavor that tends to be stripped out of 4e's 30 level, lock-step advancement scheme.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Starfox said:


> Things to salvage from 4E:
> 
> The idea of tiers of play. I like how this was structured, and how to style different adventures into different parts of the PCs career.




While I thik it's generally true, I think hard-coding it into levels is a mistake. What if you want to run a Planescape-centric low level campaign, for instance? I also like more gradual shifts in campaign tone.



> The cosmology. I like the feywild and the shadowfell. I like the Astral Sea (I don't find it incompatible with the older systems). I like the elemental chaos after some consideration, tough I still have regions where one region is dominant. And I like the backstory of the god-primordial war and the role of giants, elementals, and demons in the cosmology.




... I'm actually kind of pissed about 4e stealing my ideas about giants and elementals before I could get them into print! Cross Mystara with Talislanta and Disney's Hercules, and it's time to disco. I like the idea of a more dreamlike but also more primordial "fairieland."



> The idea of an action economy - but NOT the implementation. Too many kinds of actions slows down play.




Agreed. 



> The diversification of the elves - elf/eladrin/dark elf. I've taken this further IMC. But I still kept them as one race, just with divergent abilities. The proliferation of races has always been one of DnDs weaknesses - I prefer 20 different orc tribes with different traditions to 20 separate races of evil humanoids. However, this is not a 4E issue.




This is not a bad thing... it worked for Tolkien. But I don't think "teleporting elves" are a serious concept for my favorite flavor of high fantasy. It's a little too Saturday morning for me.



> The simplified monster generation - when it works.




See: Basic D&D, Fantasy Craft. Both did it, and did it better. But kudos to 4e for heading in the right direction. Dropping keywords for monsters was a mistake, though.



> Minions - but implemented differently. Having them be BOTH harmless and defenseless made them less than terrain.




Yeah, a near-hit there.



> The idea of at-will magics, spells you never run out of. But again, the implementation is horrible. Powers with restricted uses should be situational, not all-around more powerful. Running out of them should not mean the game slows down to a pillow fight.




Both like and don't like. I think it fits for a 33-style warlock or even some archetypes of sorcerers, but I don't like it as the default for wizards. I think it takes something away from the Gandalf-Merlin archetype if they go around zotting absolutely everything.



> The structuring of various (martial) stunts into powers is interesting and encourages these of stunts. But again the implementation is lacklustre and encourages repetitive gameplay. You may not do the same trick twice in a fight, but instead you do the same trick EVERY fight. This mechanism can be salvaged, but must be rewritten.




I think this idea would have worked better as "let's make martial feats better." None of this "tactical feat" crap; a third tier feat should knock your socks off! See: Pathfinder.


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## Lanefan (Jun 17, 2011)

Herremann the Wise said:


> I think a secondary effect that was a disadvantage would be very interesting. The biggest change that the game has to make in a future edition (at least according to the system I'm developing at the moment) is to go from a binary resolution system to a ternary resolution system. By having three possible results rather than two, you can really get some funky stuff happening (such as what you suggest above). When I've got my system written up, I'll attach an alpha of the rules here at EN World. I've only been working on it for about 6 years.



My only concern might be the slippery slope leading to 4, 5, 6 results from a single action leading to massive overcomplication.


> *Hit Points*
> In an ideal system (again speaking from the personal ideal I'm currently forging), hit points represent what they have always meant: the capacity to turn a serious blow into a less serious one, luck, endurance, a handful of scratches that stings but nothing that a kiss won't fix, divine providence, inner strength, the will to keep going. Hit points are readily "restored" with a quick break or rest. The beauty is, that you can also "spend" hit points to do particularly exhausting actions or actions that require a special degree of effort.
> 
> *Wounds*
> Real physical damage however is represented by wounds which for example are represented numerically by points of damage - a 10 point wound. Without assistance, a wound heals by 1 point every day - so as to define what a point means. And so healing from a wound is slower than restoration of hit points. If the total number of wounds equals a particular amount, then your character is incapacitated which typically means they can't do very much except feel a stack of pain. If the total number of wounds equals or exceeds a further amount, your character is irrevocably dying. It might take them a little while to go but at this point mundane healing (as well as most kinds of divine healing) cannot work. Great for last dying words and so on. Consciousness is a different effect that does not rely on hit points or wounds.



So far, this is surprisingly close to the fatigue point/body point system we've used for 30 years.  The differences: we don't have fatigue points as a spendable resource, nor would I ever want to see this - it feels just a bit too over-the-top for me.  Also, consciousness is directly tied to your remaining BP via a die roll.  And your "irrevocably dying" doesn't fit; if the character is still alive at all then there's curing that can make it more alive (I'd like it to be different but this is one case where rules trump realism and I can't come up with a fix that works) and I don't even want to think about how that would interact with spells like _Death's Door.




*Hit Points and Wounds*
The thing that makes the whole thing work is the capacity to transfer wound point damage into hit point loss. In this way, a potential wound is instead a fairly harmless scratch that as hit point loss is easily restored. This is something most can readily achieve in combat. There are instances where the capacity to transfer may be denied (typically with critical hits [soft,standard or hard] and "unavoidable" physical damage) although even then, there are a bunch of things that help protect a character from taking a wound even under the worst circumstances.
		
Click to expand...


I don't understand this.  In our system with extremely rare exceptions you cannot take BP damage until you have run out of FP; and you hit point total is defined as BP + FP.  It seems you have HP and WP operating independently of each other, which if nothing else requires the players to each keep two separate tracks; I know in my game this would prove a headache. 

But how do you transfer HP to WP and back in your system?




			By well and truly dividing the two, all the silly conundrums that come up in regards to Schrodinger's cat, healing, the "bloodied" condition and so on are instantly negated, including the need for a party to have a divine healer (although a mundane healer outside of combat helps get the troops back in fighting trim). So yeah... that's what I'm doing. 

Click to expand...


You'll still need a battlefield healer unless you're implying WP cannot be recovered by any means other than rest.

Lan-"Death's Door is the bane of so many death-and-dying systems"-efan_


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 17, 2011)

> Both like and don't like. I think it fits for a 33-style warlock or even some archetypes of sorcerers, but I don't like it as the default for wizards. I think it takes something away from the Gandalf-Merlin archetype if they go around zotting absolutely everything.




Well, if the At-Wills were not all pure combat spells...

For example, a wizard who was a "specialist" in TK/force effects might have an At-Will that did about as much damage as a punch- 1d4 + Int bonus?- but could also grasp things and move them (treating Int as the Str score) would be just fine both mechanically and thematically.  Ditto a DEFENSIVE At-Will...maybe +N to all defenses, increasing as you level.

And/or At-Wills that did almost no damage, or were entirely non-combat related (though unless they had a high "Kewl factor," I wouldn't expect too many players to take those).


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Dropping keywords for monsters was a mistake, though.




What do you mean by _keyword_s?

I suppose you don't mean origin or type. And I guess you probably don't mean 4e mechanical keywords that certain types of creatures share (such as ooze, mount, etc.). Could you clarify?


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, if the At-Wills were not all pure combat spells...
> 
> For example, a wizard who was a "specialist" in TK/force effects might have an At-Will that did about as much damage as a punch- 1d4 + Int bonus?- but could also grasp things and move them (treating Int as the Str score) would be just fine both mechanically and thematically.  Ditto a DEFENSIVE At-Will...maybe +N to all defenses, increasing as you level.
> 
> And/or At-Wills that did almost no damage, or were entirely non-combat related (though unless they had a high "Kewl factor," I wouldn't expect too many players to take those).




Well, my complaint is not that they are combat abilities. Magic is supposed to be _hard_. "I am a gushing font of barely controlled wild magic" is a great character concept, but should not be the default caster.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> What do you mean by _keyword_s?
> 
> I suppose you don't mean origin or type. And I guess you probably don't mean 4e mechanical keywords that certain types of creatures share (such as ooze, mount, etc.). Could you clarify?




I mean that in being designed differently than PC abilities, they don't have as much information. Something like the 3e Spellthief is essentially impossible to implement in 4e.


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I mean that in being designed differently than PC abilities, they don't have as much information. Something like the 3e Spellthief is essentially impossible to implement in 4e.




I'm not trying to prove you wrong in this instance, but wouldn't the "Darkcloaked Spellthief"s  signature power be something like this:

*Steal Spell* (Free Action, Recharge 4+):
_Trigger: _The spellthief hits a creature granting combat advantage.
_Target: _Close burst 6 (the creature in the burst that was hit)
_Effect: _The spell thief can forgo its _sneak attack _damage. If it does so, the spellthief may choose one unexpended at-will, encounter, or daily power with the arcane, divine, shadow, or primal keywords that is possessed by the creature. The target can no longer use that power until it has taken an extended rest. In addition, the spellthief can choose to either gain an action point, recharge one of its expended powers, or gain the stolen power. If it gains the stolen power, once before the end of the encounter, it may use the power as if it were the original target, including the target's ability score and other static modifiers, but using the spellthief's own temporary modifiers, such as combat advantage and power bonuses.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> I'm not trying to prove you wrong in this instance, but wouldn't the "Darkcloaked Spellthief"s  signature power be something like this:
> 
> *Steal Spell* (Free Action, Recharge 4+):
> _Trigger: _The spellthief hits a creature granting combat advantage.
> ...




I don't think that would work on an NPC, though, would it?


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I don't think that would work on an NPC, though, would it?




It would if the NPC had any unexpended at-will, encounter (includes recharge), or daily powers with the listed keywords.

Also, this was just an example and needs some clean-up. But thank-you very much for the idea. My group is opposing a powerful defiler in our Dark Sun campaign, and I was having a tough time coming up with something suitably _defiled_ that my players would absolutely loathe (they include a preserver, a primal shaman, and a primal warden/defender of the land).

I think this power will capture the feel of really stealing there essence/power and using it against them once I reflavor it a bit.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> It would if the NPC had any unexpended at-will, encounter (includes recharge), or daily powers with the listed keywords.




Admittedly, I'm not a 4e player, but I don't think any NPCs have those keywords. Can you show me an example of a monster with an arcane keyword?


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Admittedly, I'm not a 4e player, but I don't think any NPCs have those keywords. Can you show me an example of a monster with an arcane keyword?




I typed "arcane" into the compendium and grabbed the first creature (of hundreds). Sorry about the formatting. As you can see, each power has keywords.



*Human Street Entertainer
Medium natural humanoid , human
Level 1 Skirmisher XP 100 *

*Initiative* +3        *Senses* Perception +0
*HP* 29; *Bloodied* 14
*AC* 15; *Fortitude* 12, *Reflex* 14, *Will* 13
*Speed* 6





*Quarterstaff* (standard, at-will) 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


*Weapon*
+6 vs AC; 1d8+4 damage. 




*Blunder* (standard, at-will) 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


*Arcane, Charm, Implement*
Ranged 5; +4 vs Will; 1d6+5 damage and the entertainer slides the target 2 squares. 




*Vicious Mockery* (standard, at-will) 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


*Arcane, Charm, Implement, Psychic*
Ranged  10; +4 vs Will; 1d6+5 psychic damage, and the target takes a -2 penalty  to attack rolls until the end of the entertainer’s next turn. 




*Surprising Shout* (standard, encounter) 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


*Arcane, Healing, Implement, Psychic*
Ranged 10; +4 vs Will; 2d8+5 psychic damage, and the target is dazed until the end of the entertainer’s next turn. 
*Alignment* Unaligned       * Languages* Common, Elven
*Skills* Acrobatics +6, Arcana +7, Athletics +6
*Str* 10 (0)       *Dex* 12 (+1)       *Wis* 11 (0)
*Con* 13 (+1)       *Int* 14 (+2)       *Cha* 18 (+4)
*Equipment*: leather armor , quarterstaff .

Edit: I'm not sure why Surprising Shout has the healing keyword, since  it doesn't heal hitpoints, grant temporary HP, or otherwise actually _heal_.


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## Gryph (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> Maybe I can get the ball rolling by offering more specific examples:
> 
> Does any one like the 4th edition death and dying mechanics?




I'm pretty neutral about them. But I've never loved any editions death mechanics.



Redbadge said:


> Does any one like action points as presented in 4e?




Very much actually, I also like the strict action economy of a turn.



Redbadge said:


> Does any one like healing as a minor action?




In the broader context of the action economy I think a minor action is the best place for them.



Redbadge said:


> Does any one like some of the newer innovations, such as themes, both those currently presented, or others that might be developed, such as blacksmith, performer, or royalty?




I'm still old school enough that I want a class to be a class with less variation between characters of the same class not more. So no, I don't much care for themes or even feats. When I want high customization in character creation I play HERO.


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## Celebrim (Jun 17, 2011)

I have my own D20 variant which most closely resembles vanilla 3.0 D&D, plus a little bit of Arcana Unearthed and so forth.  It works for me, but I'm always fiddling with it.

I found very very little in 4e that provoked serious thought in me and from which I got a salvagable idea or mechanic.   Personal preference only, but I think it is just about the most boring rules set with the most boring write up I've ever seen in my years of gaming.   It may play pretty well, but its painful to read through and offers fewer moments where I thought, "That's pretty creative" than just about anything I've read.   I'd rather use HERO, GURPS, BRP, Tri-D, D6, Savage Worlds, True 20 or just about anything over 4e.  YMMV.  It's just a largely uninformed opinion.  If you love 4e, don't hate me for not loving it.

I look at pawsplays blog and while some of that may be good advice, it's not stuff I learned from 4e but things that I'd brought to my 3e game from 1e.  So maybe 3e is guilty of not teaching DM's how to play or of teaching DM's to use the tools it brought to the game well.  I don't know, because a lot of the sterotypes about the 3e game I hear just seemed to describe a game that was virtually unrecognizable to me.   Maybe I just didn't play at enough 3e tables.

Just for example, let's look at the implications of his advice:

1) Monsters are Simple: Are there really DM's who were afraid to just cut down a monster to what they immediately need to know?  At times in 3e I've ran monsters and NPC's knowing little more than thier attack bonus and hit points, either because I need stats on the fly or else that's all I'd written was (F3) and I'd needed a generic fighter on the fly that was close enough to accurate for our purposes.   Surely not every DM out there was stopping the game for an hour to elaborately stat an impromtu monster?   Besides, I reject the notion that 4e monsters are simple.  4e monsters have a lot of subtleties in their design that you have to pay attention to really take advantage of the system.
2) Some Monsters Just Need Killing: Are there really a lot of DM's that needed this advice?  If you are running any kind of simulationist world (something 4e supposedly gets away from) you know that most things out there are mooks.
3) Solo Critters: I read this entry as "The CR/EL system is broken." plus some useful advice for accounting for this fact.  I didn't need 4e to tell me that, nor is 4e less broken in this regard.  I do imagine however that a lot of DMs got stuck in CR formalism and got into minor difficulties with challenges being stronger or weaker than they expected them to be.  It's an interesting topic, and 4e does - if properly examined - show good understanding of the issues in challenging PC's, but those same features are what makes 4e monsters so complex.
4) Scenery: Yes, this is good advice.  I didn't learn it from 4e though.  And while the pre-release talk of things like this gave me hope for the 4e DMG as an excellent general DMing resource, that hope didn't pan out.
5) The Best Magic Item is a Found Magic Item: Yes, good advice, but I didn't learn it from 4e.  For that matter, 4e didn't learn it from 4e.
6)  Make It Visual: Also good advice.  I didn't learn it from 4e though, nor for that matter did 4e learn it from 4e.
7) Don't Be Afraid to Change Stuff:  How many DM's in the history of D&D have been afraid to change stuff.  D&D is notorious as a game system where every DM has his own house rules.  Did 3e come out and say, "Be afraid to change things?" or was D20 known for its lack of variation?

More importantly, few if any of those things are directly tied to 4e's rules innovations.

Off the top of my head the only thing the 4e rules really challenged my thinking on was the notion that your hit points had to be tied closely to your HD.  In 4e they have this idea that even if you are a 1st level character, you don't need to have 1 HD.  In fact, you might have hitpoints corresponding to 3 HD while having the powers associated with a single HD.  

While the particular implementation of this seemed arbitrary and gamist to me, the gamist idea it was trying to solve was an important one (how to make 1st level more fun and less random) and it seemed also to address a serious simulationist issue that's been famous in D&D from its early days - the House Cat Problem.   

My ultimate implementation was to give bonus hit points to a creature based on its size class, which is nothing like 4e, but was inspired by the 4e rules innovations.

The only other one that I might adopt is the notion of trained and untrained uses of a skill.  But, that might actually not be a 4e innovation either.


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> I typed "arcane" into the compendium and grabbed the first creature (of hundreds). Sorry about the formatting. As you can see, each power has keywords.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Do the monsters in the original MM have those notations?


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Do the monsters in the original MM have those notations?




Wow you make a really good point here as I go to look at my MM monsters. It seems they had much sparser use of keywords to start with (just cold, fire, gaze, etc.) I can't find a single caster in the original MM that has the arcane or divine keywords. In H1, Kalarel's powers all have necrotic, but none of them specify arcane, divine, or shadow, for instance. In fact it seems the first super prolific use of keywords on powers was in H2, where the casters do have all the proper keywords.

I see now why we were on different waves with regards to 4e keywords. I just had never noticed it before (the keywords rarely come up in play except for resistances and immunities or if an adventure or my notes specifically call them out, i.e. homebrew anti-magic zones).


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## pawsplay (Jun 17, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> Wow you make a really good point here as I go to look at my MM monsters. It seems they had much sparser use of keywords to start with (just cold, fire, gaze, etc.) I can't find a single caster in the original MM that has the arcane or divine keywords. In H1, Kalarel's powers all have necrotic, but none of them specify arcane, divine, or shadow, for instance. In fact it seems the first super prolific use of keywords on powers was in H2, where the casters do have all the proper keywords.
> 
> I see now why we were on different waves with regards to 4e keywords. I just had never noticed it before (the keywords rarely come up in play except for resistances and immunities or if an adventure or my notes specifically call them out, i.e. homebrew anti-magic zones).




I didn't think I was crazy. And apparently I'm not the only one who realized a problem with that approach.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 17, 2011)

4e has made use of some brilliant ideas, but I'm not certain that WotC has made the best use of them.

I am partial to the idea of healing surges, though my own Shake it Off is very different.  Same concept, different beast.

4e Cosmology?  http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/86639-cosmology.html
4e Rituals?  http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/97608-spell-question-speak-dead-6.html; http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/96893-rituals-before-spells.html
4e Dwarves?  http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/137567-my-worlds-dwarves.html
Force others to move?  http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/152928-shadowfist-build-comments-please.html

The tiers of play come from BECMI.

So, yeah, lots of ideas in 4e I like!

RC


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## Redbadge (Jun 17, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I didn't think I was crazy. And apparently I'm not the only one who realized a problem with that approach.




On that note, do you have any comments or suggestions wrt my 4e spellthief? I know you don't play this edition, but I mean come on, you inspired a cool 4e power without even trying. I want to see if I can get anything more from you along this same line.

Thanks.


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## pawsplay (Jun 18, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> On that note, do you have any comments or suggestions wrt my 4e spellthief? I know you don't play this edition, but I mean come on, you inspired a cool 4e power without even trying. I want to see if I can get anything more from you along this same line.
> 
> Thanks.




Stealing an at-will seems pretty potent. Something that also strikes me is that monsters generally have recharging powers, rather than encounter or daily usages.


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## Starfox (Jun 18, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> 2) Some Monsters Just Need Killing: Are there really a lot of DM's that needed this advice?  If you are running any kind of simulationist world (something 4e supposedly gets away from) you know that most things out there are mooks.




I find this conclusion surprising and objectionable. The more simulationist my game is, the less the difference between major and minor characters become. Sure, this poor mother of six is destitute and incapable in a fight, but she can offer the king some very good advice on how to manage his children. 

Basically, the more simulationist a game becomes, the less NPC-ish the NPCs become. There are np NPCs in the real world, after all. This was also one of my main realizations from live role playing - there are no NPCs in a LARP.

"Some Monsters Just Need Killing" works somewhat well from a storytelling perepective and very well from a gamist perspective, but to me it is anathema to a simulationist.


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## Aberzanzorax (Jun 18, 2011)

You know, this thread has been very educational for me.

It's done two things:

1. Clarified why I dislike elements of 4e.
2. Clarified how those elements can still be good.

I notice that the things I don't like about 4e are the "gamist" elements that pull me out of the moment and emphasize "this is a game." I think 4e is fun, but I have trouble maintaining immersion.

I don't like: how healing is done in 4e, forced movement, weird stuff that triggers off of seemingly unrelated things, minions as they're done, marking, in combat versus out of combat specifications and some other things that make it really feel "gamey" to me as presented.


Before people get upset at me for getting all negative, there's a pretty big but coming.


BUT each and every one of those are great ideas if they had balanced gamist with simulationist, and some people have mentioned in this thread how those things could be toned down.


Healing: I love fully designating HP as separate "engery points" rather than hit points, as Herreman Suggests. 4e does this, but blends it with wounds as well. Right direction, but not far enough here, I'd say. 

Forced movement: much better than the only real option in 3e of bull rush, but again, needs to be toned down, as mentioned by others. If it were to only happen when I were next to someone, it'd feel much more real to me.

Weird stuff that triggers: I love the idea mentioned of "I do x and y AND z happen". I love anything that involves other players when it's not their turn. I dislike it when "I hit that guy, you heal 5 damage" where hit points still somewhat represent wounds or "I hit that guy, you get to move". If it makes logical sense, then I'm all for it. e.g. "I hit this guy you're flanking me with, you get an attack."

Minions as they're done: a lvl 20 minion should be a MAJOR threat to a level 1 character. It should not have 1 hp. Minions are a fantastic idea, and I love them as done at lower levels. Why not give level 20 minions, say 1/4 of the hp of other baddies of the level, or 1/10th? Just give them few enough hp that a character of that level can one shot them.

Marking: Again, I like it, but too "gamey" for me. I like the idea of taunting enemies and also the idea of being able to harry them (harrie?). I don't like it when it is explained simply as "marking" without an obvious roleplaying mechanic or reason, and how the same mechanic requires different descriptions in different situations. (I taunt Joe the orc, I tempt the ooze into attacking me).

In versus out of combat: Some things make sense for this, like rituals. However, I don't like that many of the in combat things don't (or at the least, don't seem to be written) so that they can be used out of combat. I'd like more clarity on that. e.g. if I have a freezing blast attack, can I freeze water with it? Can I chill my ice tea? Can I freeze part of a lake? A bathtub? Etc.


What I dislike most about 4e is powers, specifically that they seem written for combat only. I do like the idea of cool at will, encounter and daily balance. I hate it as a roleplaying convention. Nothing in the game breaks my immersion so much as this. However, I think there's something to it. 

First, it would have to be more carefully addressed. It's easier with magic, but the whole "the fighter can only do this once" deal needs to be carefully written so I can understand WHY he can only do it once. Herreman's hit points would be useful here...rather than once per encounter, it might cost hit/energy points...so you only want to use it once or twice before you get to recharge energy. You CAN use it more, but you'll be knocking yourself unconscious to do so.


When it comes down to it, 4e has some really neat stuff in it, but there was a decision that the rules could be divorced from the fluff, and that people would make up their own fluff at each moment. This is a feature (rather than a bug) for some players of 4e. I think it went too far in this direction, and it also allowed for designers to envision rules that take some serious effort to describe in a roleplaying sense. If I'm spending time at the table trying to figure out how I just did what I just did, I'm pulled out of the game.

So, my epiphany is that I actually like a lot of the skeleton of 4e, but not the flesh...and some bones would have to be broken and reset, but I could potentially like a 5e based in large part on 4e. That's a surprise to me.


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## pawsplay (Jun 18, 2011)

Starfox said:


> I find this conclusion surprising and objectionable. The more simulationist my game is, the less the difference between major and minor characters become. Sure, this poor mother of six is destitute and incapable in a fight, but she can offer the king some very good advice on how to manage his children.
> 
> Basically, the more simulationist a game becomes, the less NPC-ish the NPCs become. There are np NPCs in the real world, after all. This was also one of my main realizations from live role playing - there are no NPCs in a LARP.
> 
> "Some Monsters Just Need Killing" works somewhat well from a storytelling perepective and very well from a gamist perspective, but to me it is anathema to a simulationist.




You're going to have to explain what you mean, I do not follow you in the slightest. How would you simulate Aragorn without putting him in a battle against orcs he can easily defeat? "Some Monsters Just Need Killing" is actually quite simulationist; there is no "need" from a gamist perspective to include creatures which are easily overcome.


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## I'm A Banana (Jun 18, 2011)

> "Some Monsters Just Need Killing" is actually quite simulationist




It's more _cinematic_ than _simulationist_ (though it's more simulationist than gamist).

Which is part of why I kind of like it. If it was going to be more Sim, we'd have to give everything hit points as appropriate for their level, since their level means something, and that meaning can't change depending on their context. We could, of course, always pit high-level characters against low-level enemies, and in this way get the cinematic effect of killin' lots of bad guys, but it wouldn't make sense for our mooks to be a challenge.

I enjoy the minions, and I enjoy that they are cinematic, threats that can make the heroes feel like badasses.


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## Wereserpent (Jun 18, 2011)

I like the idea of At-Wills, Minions, and Solo encounters.

Pathfinder kind of incorporated the idea of At-Wills with the various abilities that Sorcerers and Wizards get to do damage with magic in combat instead of having to pull out the crossbow.

Solo encounters would be nice as it would be cool to have the PCs be able to fight a single foe and have it be a credible threat by itself.


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 18, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> You're going to have to explain what you mean, I do not follow you in the slightest. How would you simulate Aragorn without putting him in a battle against orcs he can easily defeat? "Some Monsters Just Need Killing" is actually quite simulationist; there is no "need" from a gamist perspective to include creatures which are easily overcome.




I think the miscommunication arises when people say "everyone is mooks, even to first level characters."

That's when some people say "that's not as simulationist, because first level characters are obviously weak, too" and others disagree, saying "no, first level characters are better than 90% or more of the world.

Now, we have people with two legitimate takes on setting arguing over something without addressing the real issue. If 90% of the people in a given setting are really worse than first level PCs, then yeah, maybe most people are mooks. In other games where the average level might be closer to 2, 3, or 5, and the players start off at first level, this looks obviously false.

Also, people have different perceptions on how high "Aragorn" is supposed to be, ideally. Yeah, everyone is still a mook, even at 5th level, if the PCs are 20th level. However, if you expect to be Aragorn at 5th level because in your setting, orcs are 1st level, then you're still not communicating the problem.

You're saying (not you, but theoretically someone) that "in my game, orcs must be 1st level, so that Aragorn might kill them easily." Other people say, "in my game, orcs are 5th level, and Aragorn would still kill them easily."

That's because the statements aren't communicating other facts, such as average level (or hit die) in your setting, what level Aragorn is within said setting, etc.

Just my take on a possible miscommunication taking place. Maybe I'm way off base, but I think either side making assumptions might be skipping a step.

Anyways, I'm not saying either side is wrong, just trying to help out. I'm also not judging either play style. As always, play what you like


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## Treebore (Jun 18, 2011)

2 things I took away from 4E. One is that classes should be capable of doing something class related every round. So rather than having clerical and mage types using crossbows, etc... I now give them a divine/arcane blast ability. Scaled to stay on par with fighter/ranger using bows, then strength adjusted, then magical strength adjusted versions. 

The other things was really a reminder. Minions are minions, not to be an overly serious challenge to the party, just an opportunity to hinder and drain off resources. I don't give them just 1 HP, but I do make it to where they should be taken down in two average damage hits, or one really good damage hit.


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## pawsplay (Jun 18, 2011)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> It's more _cinematic_ than _simulationist_ (though it's more simulationist than gamist).
> 
> Which is part of why I kind of like it. If it was going to be more Sim, we'd have to give everything hit points as appropriate for their level, since their level means something, and that meaning can't change depending on their context.




That's putting the cart before the horse. Their level and their hit points and everything else depends on what you are trying to represent. Bloody-minded fidelity to game mechanical artifacts is not simulation.


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## pawsplay (Jun 18, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I think the miscommunication arises when people say "everyone is mooks, even to first level characters."
> 
> That's when some people say "that's not as simulationist, because first level characters are obviously weak, too" and others disagree, saying "no, first level characters are better than 90% or more of the world.
> 
> ...




I don't quite get what you are saying. I am completely agnostic as to what level Aragorn should be. However, he is clearly higher than 1st level (at least in a game system where level translates to competence), and orcs are clearly much, much weaker than him. Any purportedly simulationist game that makes orcs a serious threat, individually, to Aragorn, has failed. 

For instance, Star Wars Saga edition is a poor simulationist game. Aside from numerous side details I won't go into, it's simply impossible for for Sidious to take out two 8th-10th level Jedi in two combat rounds. Whatever its merits as a system, SWSE cannot simulate a crucial scene from Revenge of the Sith. It's also improbable (though not precisely impossible, with liberal use of Destiny points) for Yoda to take out two Imperial Guards in one round. Whatever fun is to be had at SWSE, it's not going to be recreating scenes similar to what you see in the movie. (That also, incidentally, suggests it has some weaknesses as a narrativist game unless you decide to start modifying the game). 

If the action being simulated has mooks, the game should have mooks, too. Not necessarily 1 hit pointers, but definitely mooks. That is the essence of the of the 1 HD AD&D orc, for instance.


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 18, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I don't quite get what you are saying. I am completely agnostic as to what level Aragorn should be. However, he is clearly higher than 1st level (at least in a game system where level translates to competence), and orcs are clearly much, much weaker than him. Any purportedly simulationist game that makes orcs a serious threat, individually, to Aragorn, has failed.
> 
> For instance, Star Wars Saga edition is a poor simulationist game. Aside from numerous side details I won't go into, it's simply impossible for for Sidious to take out two 8th-10th level Jedi in two combat rounds. Whatever its merits as a system, SWSE cannot simulate a crucial scene from Revenge of the Sith. It's also improbable (though not precisely impossible, with liberal use of Destiny points) for Yoda to take out two Imperial Guards in one round. Whatever fun is to be had at SWSE, it's not going to be recreating scenes similar to what you see in the movie. (That also, incidentally, suggests it has some weaknesses as a narrativist game unless you decide to start modifying the game).
> 
> If the action being simulated has mooks, the game should have mooks, too. Not necessarily 1 hit pointers, but definitely mooks. That is the essence of the of the 1 HD AD&D orc, for instance.




I'd assume what's really getting in the way here is the action economy, not the hit points of the enemies (as you can definitely crank up damage enough to bring down 1st level characters in most systems I've seen once you've achieved a high enough "level" [whatever "level" means in games without them]).

The action economy is the real "simulation" killer for most systems. I wouldn't blame it on "mook" status. On top of that, I wouldn't say that unless you're trying to simulate film (or another medium), you probably shouldn't necessarily be using movies as a comparison.

I love Mutants and Masterminds, and I feel it simulates the feel of the superhero genre quite well. Can it do everything that happens in comics / movies / shows? I'm assuming not. But, I'd say that's more of a problem with the action economy most of the time. It's still a great game, and in my mind, it simulates the feel I want superbly.

At any rate, what I'm saying is that "mooks" is a scaling term, when you're using different comparisons. If you're comparing orcs to Aragorn, you should probably know Aragorns relative power before thinking about how the orcs fit in comparatively (as they must be significantly weaker than Aragorn). If you're comparing storm troopers in a Star Wars setting, it's going to be very different (because they get owned by everyone but rebel soldiers, it seems), as you have to compare it to an entirely new setting (and you're not comparing it to, say, Luke Skywalker).

Anyways, even though I'm not wording things well at the moment, I'm just pointing out that anyone making assumptions as to the basic power of the average individual in a particular setting is basically leaving themselves open to being disagreed with. People envision settings differently. Simulating a particular setting is a very individual thing.

I hope you know what I'm at least talking about. If not, oh well, I'm not going to go any deeper into it, as I would have failed at explaining it. But, like I said, I'm not judging anyone. Play what you like


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## Redbadge (Jun 18, 2011)

If I could go back and take charge of 4e design, I would make sure to include (at least) three paragraphs for every game element, in this order:

1. Flavor: Flavor comes first, and it should be believable and make sense within the context of the world the DM and players are trying to portray, above all else.

2. Mechanics: The game element should have mechanics that actually mimic the stated flavor. I prefer if the mechanics have "gamist" elements such as recognizable headings, keywords, and consistent notations because I think it makes the game run quicker and smoother in play. For example, I think that the grey box that calls out 4e rules in the book is fine, although I acknowledge that too much of this makes the books boring to read for some.

3. Design: Afterwards, there would be a paragraph or two describing why the game element was designed this way and how the mechanics are intended to match the flavor. If you've ever read Wizards "Making Magic" article by Mark Rosewater for Magic: the Gathering, you know what I am talking about. This may be better as a seperate book or article- "Designing D&D" on the website or perhaps in the DM Guide.

It appears that 4e designers did the exact opposite with most 4e game elements, i.e. design-->mechanics-->then graft flavor onto it.

Here's an example with a simple game element, the first level fighter power (exploit) called Brute Strike (a daily attack).

*BRUTE STRIKE*
Flavor: Fighters have a number of exploits, talents, and maneuvers that they can call on for every fight and situation. However, occasionally the situation calls for a greater effort, luck, or martial mastery than is normally available to the fighter. In these desperate or opportune instances, the fighter can tap into his own inner reserves to unleash an attack much more powerful than the ones he normally uses. With the _Brute Strike_ manuever, the fighter can deliver a much more powerful blow capable of rending flesh and shattering bones. This maneuver can only be used once per day by the fighter, because these opportunities very rarely present themselves and require a surge of impromptu courage or adrenaline and great expenditure of mental and physical effort (the player is assumed to have narrative control of the story once per day to demonstrate when his character is using efforts much greater than normally possible or practical). However, when the fighter needs the aid of his _brute strike_, he really needs it. Even if he fails to hit with his attack, the adrenaline and determination that fuels his efforts remain with him until he feels the satisfaction of his blade sinking into his foe. Outside of combat, the fighter might use this technique to quickly destroy a door or other object when really pressed for time.

Mechanics: 
*Brute Strike*

*Daily*



*Martial*, *Reliable*, *Weapon*
*Standard Action* *Melee* weapon
*Target*: One creature
*Attack*: Strength vs. AC
*Hit*: 3[W] + Strength modifier damage.

Design: This daily exploit is the simplest one available. It was designed as an option for players that want simpler options in combat or that are just interested in dealing a great deal of damage with a minimal of fuss. _Brute Strike _is not as optimal as other daily powers, so optimizers or power-gamers will want to look elsewhere. It was given reliable because dealing gauranteed damage was seen as more exciting and better for narrative control/storytelling for the target player than dealing half-damage on a miss. [Insert additional design commentary about why this power is so bad/designed poorly and exactly which players are expected to take it and why].

I think this approach may have helped 4e avoid a bit of the "gamist" critisicm, maybe.


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## [OMENRPG]Ben (Jun 18, 2011)

That's all a fine idea, but how long would this book be? More than 500, 600 pages? Most of the players I know (especially the so called "expert and experienced" ones) hardly read the book as it is, and its hardly 200 pages.


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## Redbadge (Jun 18, 2011)

[OMENRPG]Ben said:


> That's all a fine idea, but how long would this book be? More than 500, 600 pages? Most of the players I know (especially the so called "expert and experienced" ones) hardly read the book as it is, and its hardly 200 pages.




Well I put more in this one example than would actually be in it. In practice it would be spread across sections (and not repeated across powers):

*DAILY EXPLOITS FOR MARTIAL CHARACTERS*
*Flavor: *Great exersion, oppurtune moments, narrative control, blah, blah, blah
*Mechanics: *Need to take an extended rest, choose 1 at 1st level, blah, blah, blah
*Design:* More stuff to do, cool stories, expected daily damage (i.e. prone = 1[w], role and power source balance, expected range of optimization (max damage, accuracy, etc.)) Once again, the actual design assumptions and expected results might feel very natural in the DM Guide. Aside: Why do they tell us the expected AC at each level, but stop there, when they could continue in a "design" paragraph and say we expect players to have this attack bonus and hit 70% of the time on average and deal 1/4 hp because this is what our playtesting has shown to be the most fun, etc. If you want quicker combat, _do this_. If you want greater simulation, _do this_.

Then, each power would follow a much more succintversion of the same design:

*BRUTE STRIKE*
*Flavor:* More powerful strike meant to rend flesh and break bone. Reserves energy until it hits. Out of combat applications, etc.
*Mechanics:*The stuff they _actually_ already have in the PHB.
*Design:* Simple though unoptimized. Expected to bloody a standard monster, on average, in one hit. Good for players less interested in system mastery or more complex options, etc. *Honestly though, I think this power should deal 4[w] damage.

The book would still be longer, so you might have to cut classes and races, or other content, or simply offer a bigger book (or smaller font and a lot less whitespace).

Edit: Basically, all the design and edition defenses, assumptions, and "fixes" that are often cited in forums and WotC advice articles would all be built into the book.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 19, 2011)

I'm pretty sure the minion rules in 4e are intended to simulate the source material for D&D, such as Legolas and Gimli at the Battle for Helms Deep. Action Points in Eberron and 4e have a similar origin, I think. It's a bit weird though, because D&D wasn't intended to simulate adventure fiction originally. It started out as a wargame, a real world combat simulator (albeit emphasising playability) with fantasy elements added. 4E still isn't primarily a fiction simulator, it just has a few nods in that direction, imo.

As an aside, an alternative version of 3e would have been a rules-lite story simulator, akin to Dragonlance SAGA System, but the rules-heavy, real world sim tendencies of Skip Williams and Monte Cook won out.

It's odd to talk about hit points in the context of simulationism because hit points don't really simulate anything, fictional or real. It's a mechanic that very much emphasises playability over sim. As I understand it, the concept originally came from a naval wargame – Don't Give Up The Ship – written by Arneson, Carr and Gygax. It does make more sense when applied to ships than to human beings, as inanimate objects can be steadily degraded.

However, consistency in and of itself is a high virtue for the simulationist. It may be because consistency is certainly a feature of the real world, and is also deemed by many to be an important feature of good fiction. So even if the game system doesn't actually simulate fiction or real life, as is the case with hit points in D&D, purely by virtue of its internal consistency it will resemble a significant feature of real life and good fiction, aiding suspension of disbelief.


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## pawsplay (Jun 19, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> It's odd to talk about hit points in the context of simulationism because hit points don't really simulate anything, fictional or real.




I strongly disagree. In cinema and literature, fights tend to be drawn out affairs, with characters whittling each other down before finally delivering a telling blow. Mooks, of course, have few hit points, while good guys can always take one or more hits from a mook from anything that could be conceivably survived. Hit points are perfect for simulating that.

Now, in real life, real fights tend to be over in seconds, although the loser may not die, and if they die, may take several minutes or even hours to do it. If you want to simulate something like that, take something like GURPS and turn the dial to "WWII-PTSD version."


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## the Jester (Jun 19, 2011)

I've only read the first few posts of this thread, but my favorite innovation in 4e for export is death saves. I love the way the "dying" condition works in 4e- three strikes and you're out!


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 19, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Now, in real life, real fights tend to be over in seconds, although the loser may not die, and if they die, may take several minutes or even hours to do it. If you want to simulate something like that, take something like GURPS and turn the dial to "WWII-PTSD version."



Maybe Ken Hood's Grim-N-Gritty combat mechanics, too.


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## Mournblade94 (Jun 19, 2011)

Wow, I guess 4e has channged alot in the last three years.  I stopped following it after year 2.  For example I have no idea what 'themes' are in the context of 4e.  

I never found anything in 4e particularly innovative to 4e alone.  maybe except minions.

so essentials really is 4.5 I guess?


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 19, 2011)

Mournblade94 said:


> . . . I have no idea what 'themes' are in the context of 4e.
> 
> . . .
> 
> so essentials really is 4.5 I guess?



Themes came from 4e Dark Sun, which came prior to Essentials. **I** think Essentials biggest "innovation" was to pull back having _every class_ mimic the same Daily/Encounter/At-Will/Utility power ratios, plus removing the need to _always_ choose from a list of powers. Some Essentials classes now have zero Dailies, and there are classes with far fewer choices to make when advancing a level.

Really, this could be called advancing backwards. _Nearer_ towards the class structure of prior editions for a few classes ("your fighter gains a level, you get this ability" vs. "your fighter gains a level, choose from these 10 abilities"). This, to me, is a Good Thing™.


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## Mournblade94 (Jun 19, 2011)

Eric Anondson said:


> Themes came from 4e Dark Sun, which came prior to Essentials. **I** think Essentials biggest "innovation" was to pull back having _every class_ mimic the same Daily/Encounter/At-Will/Utility power ratios, plus removing the need to _always_ choose from a list of powers. Some Essentials classes now have zero Dailies, and there are classes with far fewer choices to make when advancing a level.
> 
> Really, this could be called advancing backwards. _Nearer_ towards the class structure of prior editions for a few classes ("your fighter gains a level, you get this ability" vs. "your fighter gains a level, choose from these 10 abilities"). This, to me, is a Good Thing™.




I looked through the Dark Sun set because that is one of my favourite settings.  

Did they kill the PH, DMG, MM numbering?

Is everything just the essentials line now?


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## Bluenose (Jun 19, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I strongly disagree. In cinema and literature, fights tend to be drawn out affairs, with characters whittling each other down before finally delivering a telling blow. Mooks, of course, have few hit points, while good guys can always take one or more hits from a mook from anything that could be conceivably survived. Hit points are perfect for simulating that.




Really, that depends which films and which books you're watching/reading. And to a degree which genre you're in. Kurosawa kills some of his heroes in one blow. 



> Now, in real life, real fights tend to be over in seconds, although the loser may not die, and if they die, may take several minutes or even hours to do it. If you want to simulate something like that, take something like GURPS and turn the dial to "WWII-PTSD version."




Or not over in seconds. They can be, or they can be long drawn out affairs where nobody really wants to close in and do the killing/dying. Or they might involve a Knight of St John holding a breacj against the turks for minutes on his own. Or one crossbow bolt dropping a king where he stands. Real fights are massively hard to model, even for people who do that professionally.


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## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

Bluenose said:


> Really, that depends which films and which books you're watching/reading. And to a degree which genre you're in. Kurosawa kills some of his heroes in one blow.




L5R does a pretty good job of handling that sort of combat. True20 supplies about that level of deadliness, with less rules fiddliness.


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## Herremann the Wise (Jun 20, 2011)

Please excuse me for the following gentle tangent answering some of Lanefan's questions.



Lanefan said:


> Herremann the Wise said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I agree, you need to keep it as elegant as possible even if the system is more complex. To clarify, what I suggest is changing from a core mechanic that primarily works upon success/failure, to a ternary one that naturally takes into account a more favourable result (a critical if you will). By this, I mean a typical result of failure/partial success/full success. The full success may encompass two results to resolve, a partial success just the one while the failure incorporates the disadvantageous secondary effect. For some groups this is too much stuff while for others, it gives a more vibrant spectrum of action resolution. Obviously, I'm looking to satisfy the latter more so than the former.



Lanefan said:


> Herremann the Wise said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think this might have originated in White Dwarf 1979 Issue No. 15 and Roger Musson's "How to Lose Hit points... and Survive" article. The main thing is that by separating purely physical damage on its own (in the shape of wounds), you free the combat system from hamstringing the DM in describing what the hell happened when Crixas just got whomped by a greataxe. If it's hit point damage, then the axe buffeted the defender's armor or the defender got lucky zigging at the last moment, while if it is physical damage, then that axe has bit in and Crixas is crying out for a nurse with the sight of his own blood everywhere.

Importantly in terms of 4th edition, the warlord's "Inspiring Word" is a great way of increasing hit points: giving the target a boost in morale that helps them to keep going, to keep blocking attacks and defending themselves and not giving up. However, in terms of healing physical damage or wounds, it makes absolutely no sense and thus why 4e has got the right idea in regards to how to utilize hit points, although it does not separate out physical damage and thus the prime issue still remains. Importantly what this all allows is making sure that more than one specific type of character can increase the longevity of allied combatants in combat. In fact, I would take the warlord concept further to a charismatic fighter boosting the morale of his allies (buffing their hit points) with a killing blow on an important enemy combatant. It is easy to think of other classes similarly finding ways to boost hit points of themselves and others when you think of hit points as they have been basically defined; just minus the physical damage component. Physical damage always requires a healers powers (be it mundane or divine).



Lanefan said:


> The differences: we don't have fatigue points as a spendable resource, nor would I ever want to see this - it feels just a bit too over-the-top for me.



Perhaps we are not so far apart in this regard. I would not want to see such a thing used for wuxia-style running across the ceiling, whacky over-the-top moves and maneuvers. However, what I would like to see is the dynamic of burning the candle at both ends in combat. A combatant may go about defensively conserving their efforts as best as possible, or a combatant could choose to go all out throwing caution to the wind in the pursuit of quickly overwhelming their foes. I'd like to think this could be done while reasonably following the fiction of the combat. I'm curious on your opinion though for while our desire for complexity may be different, I imagine the style of our respective games to be quite similar from having read your postings for numerous years.



Lanefan said:


> Also, consciousness is directly tied to your remaining BP via a die roll.  And your "irrevocably dying" doesn't fit; if the character is still alive at all then there's curing that can make it more alive (I'd like it to be different but this is one case where rules trump realism and I can't come up with a fix that works) and I don't even want to think about how that would interact with spells like _Death's Door._



_I'll explain a little further, and so see if you like or not. Healing as in restoring physical damage/wounds, be it mundane or divine usually takes an amount of time measured in hours more so than seconds. A combatant's body having suffered a degree of punishment becomes incapacitated and if they suffer further damage still (damage exceeding their deceased limit) they reach a point where their body cannot heal itself or be reasonably aided in healing itself by the aforementioned typical healing methods. There is certainty that the combatant will die unable to be saved by reasonable means, it is just a question of how long they can fend off death's grip. At this point, the combatant may still be conscious and aware of their fate and their last moments upon their world. This gives you the GM the capacity to introduce the whole dying words narrative into an encounter. The character may die instantly or survive for several minutes in this condition but normal healing is ineffective; even higher powered "instantaneous" divine healing does not work on such a character - the divine magic is unable to speed up the bodies natural healing.

However there are magics, be they divine sacrifice of the most supreme degree or the darkest of a black cabal's secrets that can affect a character in this state. The death's door magic that you mention is possible... but is the price paid too high, or is it something that a character can "live" with? There are always ways of achieving things but they perhaps demand a price too high.





Lanefan said:



			I don't understand this.  In our system with extremely rare exceptions you cannot take BP damage until you have run out of FP; and you hit point total is defined as BP + FP.  It seems you have HP and WP operating independently of each other, which if nothing else requires the players to each keep two separate tracks; I know in my game this would prove a headache. 

Click to expand...


In 3e, we kept track of lethal damage, non-lethal damage, negative levels, resistances, temporary hit points and so on. Now I'm not trying to say that such is for everyone because obviously it is not but for some groups, they are used to such things. The way I have done it in terms of a character sheet is to have a large hit point column that is regularly adjusted, and then a number of wound boxes that will contain only a single number to represent a specific wound. These boxes are readily totaled and so it is easy to see if one's character is incapacitated or "deceased"/in the process of dying.

However, the handling and healing of wounds is something a little more involved (be it handled after a group has had their daily rest of eight hours or whatever rest is appropriate). There is the start of the adventuring day where wounds are regularly handled.



Lanefan said:



			But how do you transfer HP to WP and back in your system?
		
Click to expand...


Potential damage goes directly to wound points unless the character has the capacity to transfer this damage to hit point loss. This represents, the character being able to turn a blow, suffering a bruise or bump, getting lucky when they should have been wounded, sucking it up and continuing on because the princess is relying on them and so on. All characters have this capacity but there are situations where the character cannot automatically transfer this damage to hit point loss: if a character is critically hit, if they are completely flat-footed (and not just off-guard), if the damage is unavoidable (the classic falling into lava thing). Obviously, if you have no hit points left, you cannot transfer such damage either.

Any physical damage or wounds must be healed as previously mentioned. This means that the character might still be carrying a scar or even stitches in a wound; but by being healed, the wound no longer physically affects their performance. Hit points however are readily restored. A short rest and you get your breath and mojo back and a rub, bandaging or a kiss makes the bruises feel better. Hit points thus generally exist separately of wound points. Hit points are still the classic buffer they have always been.



Lanefan said:



			You'll still need a battlefield healer unless you're implying WP cannot be recovered by any means other than rest.
Lan-"Death's Door is the bane of so many death-and-dying systems"-efan
		
Click to expand...


As you can see from above, there are many ways that hit points can be restored, even in battle and not just by a cleric. I can imagine most classes having access to ways of increasing their own or other's hit points. The second wind idea for example from 4e (or Raven Crowking's shrugging it off mechanic) are nice ways of achieving this too.

Wounds however are nasty. The average body can take a bit (it is related as much to size and muscle bulk as much as physical constitution and vitality) but it is perhaps the mind and will of a character that can keep them up when by rights they shouldn't be. Wounds are not readily insta-healed except by powerful divine magic (in the form of prayer or holy items). As such, when a character is bloodied (having suffered a fresh wound), the player is meant to get the message that an encounter is about to start getting tough. This dynamic is certainly a shift from regular D&D and most likely more to my (and possibly your Lan-"I like my mead strong and meat bloody"-efan's tastes).  Or not... but heh.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise_


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## Lanefan (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> If the action being simulated has mooks, the game should have mooks, too. Not necessarily 1 hit pointers, but definitely mooks. That is the essence of the of the 1 HD AD&D orc, for instance.



The question is how mook-y you want the mooks to be, particularly in relation to low-level PCs.  A 1 HD Orc is about as tough as a 1st-level Fighter in AD+D, and a bunch of 'em can represent a challenge even for a much higher level warrior (which, to me, is a Good Thing).  A 1st level minion is nowhere near as tough as a 1st-level PC in 4e and higher-level PCs would mow 'em down like wheat, which makes me wonder what's the point?

Lanefan


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

> which makes me wonder what's the point?




I feel much the same way, but I can see how 4Ed's minions are, if nothing else, a lot less bookkeeping for the DM.


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## Starfox (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I strongly disagree. In cinema and literature, fights tend to be drawn out affairs, with characters whittling each other down before finally delivering a telling blow. Mooks, of course, have few hit points, while good guys can always take one or more hits from a mook from anything that could be conceivably survived. Hit points are perfect for simulating that.




I like this. Feng Shui is one of my favorite games.

When you are trying to simulate something, you must decide WHAT you are trying to simulate. Simulating movies is perfectly fine as long as that is what you're trying to do. Too many gamers say they are trying to simulate reality while actually going for a more cinematic feel - this indecision leads to schizophrenic rules where some situations are cinematic, others gritty, and which is which seems arbitrary and random.


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## Lanefan (Jun 20, 2011)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Importantly in terms of 4th edition, the warlord's "Inspiring Word" is a great way of increasing hit points: giving the target a boost in morale that helps them to keep going, to keep blocking attacks and defending themselves and not giving up. However, in terms of healing physical damage or wounds, it makes absolutely no sense and thus why 4e has got the right idea in regards to how to utilize hit points, although it does not separate out physical damage and thus the prime issue still remains. Importantly what this all allows is making sure that more than one specific type of character can increase the longevity of allied combatants in combat. In fact, I would take the warlord concept further to a charismatic fighter boosting the morale of his allies (buffing their hit points) with a killing blow on an important enemy combatant. It is easy to think of other classes similarly finding ways to boost hit points of themselves and others when you think of hit points as they have been basically defined; just minus the physical damage component. Physical damage always requires a healers powers (be it mundane or divine).



This gets too far away from what h.p. should represent, in my view.  There's lots of ways to parlay a character ability into a mechanical advantage in combat for someone else (+ to hit, +to damage, + to AC, + to saves, etc.) and thus no need to mess with h.p. - and by extension, no need to mess with the idea that at least in some form they all represent some sort of physical damage, be it fatigue, scratches and bruises, or whatever.


> Perhaps we are not so far apart in this regard. I would not want to see such a thing used for wuxia-style running across the ceiling, whacky over-the-top moves and maneuvers. However, what I would like to see is the dynamic of burning the candle at both ends in combat. A combatant may go about defensively conserving their efforts as best as possible, or a combatant could choose to go all out throwing caution to the wind in the pursuit of quickly overwhelming their foes. I'd like to think this could be done while reasonably following the fiction of the combat.



Some sort of berserking ability (big + to hit and damage at cost of a significant AC penalty; only helps with melee) solves this fairly easily.  Again, h.p. are left out of it.

--- snipped some hit point discussion, see below ---



> However there are magics, be they divine sacrifice of the most supreme degree or the darkest of a black cabal's secrets that _can_ affect a character in this state. The death's door magic that you mention is possible... but is the price paid too high, or is it something that a character can "live" with? There are always ways of achieving things but they perhaps demand a price too high.



That's a way different version of _Death's Door_ than I'm used to. 

For the rest, can I point you here Decast Blue Book: Table of Contents and suggest you check out parts 4.9 and 4.10 for a brief write-up on how our hit point system works; it'll save me typing it all out again here.  Then, if you've any thoughts or questions, fire away.

Lan-"hit points - can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em"-efan


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I strongly disagree. In cinema and literature, fights tend to be drawn out affairs, with characters whittling each other down before finally delivering a telling blow. Mooks, of course, have few hit points, while good guys can always take one or more hits from a mook from anything that could be conceivably survived. Hit points are perfect for simulating that.



Good points. I agree that these are all important features of adventure fiction. But I don't think of hit points as a fiction-simulationist mechanic because:

1) That wasn't the original intention.
2) The mechanic has not been used in this manner, certainly prior to 4e. What I mean by this is that by the core rules PCs have always started at 1st level and thus have too few hit points to resemble fictional protagonists. Admittedly one can get around this by starting the PCs at higher than 1st level, as is the case in the original Dragonlance modules.
3) Hit points don't do the job of fiction-sim sufficiently well -

*They are the wrong mechanic to simulate mooks.* A simpler rule, such as, “A Mook is always incapacitated when struck by a Hero”, is all that is required. A mook doesn't need a hit points stat at all. And it leaves open the possibility that a hero might deal insufficient damage to take one out in a single blow.

*They are the wrong mechanic to simulate protagonists.* In adventure fiction, when the protagonist is visibly wounded and struggles on, what is going on there? Is he being whittled down? If he's struck a sufficient number of times will he be taken out? No, imo what's happening is that we need to see our heroes suffer before they can win. Rather than hit points, a Suffering stat would be more appropriate. Suffering would have to reach a certain value before the villain can be defeated.

Protagonists in adventure fiction can certainly be incapacitated but when it happens they are not generally whittled down. It's instant – chloroform, blow to the head, sleep gas, hypnotic lights - and they wake up imprisoned or in a death trap. It's primarily a scene-switching device, though the experience would also add to the hero's Suffering.

*They are insufficient, as a mechanic, to simulate villains.* You're correct that, in order to simulate adventure fiction, the confrontation with the villain needs to take a significant length of time. But are hit points the right mechanic here? Does the villain just have to be struck a certain number of times until the final blow takes his last few hit points, even if that final blow is a feeble at-will power? That's not how it works imo. The final blow has to be something special, it's not just one more bullet. For example the Terminator in the first film has to be crushed in a hydraulic press.

The great strength of the hit point mechanic, in my view, is not that it simulates anything, but that it is simple and playable. Thus I do not see it as simulationist.


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## Redbadge (Jun 20, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> Does the villain just have to be struck a certain number of times until the final blow takes his last few hit points, even if that final blow is a feeble at-will power?




Just wanted to relay an amusing idea I just had, courtesy of your post. One of my BBEG stat blocks may just include the following line when my players finally confront him:

*Immune* Poison, Necrotic, Feeble At-will Powers

Lol, thanks.


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## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> Good points. I agree that these are all important features of adventure fiction. But I don't think of hit points as a fiction-simulationist mechanic because:
> 
> 1) That wasn't the original intention.




1. So?
2. I do not agree.



			
				DMG said:
			
		

> As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical
> damage, by and large, as far as characters (and some other creatures as
> well) are concerned. Therefore, the location of hits and the type of
> domage caused are not germane to them. While this is not true with
> ...






> 2) The mechanic has not been used in this manner, certainly prior to 4e. What I mean by this is that by the core rules PCs have always started at 1st level and thus have too few hit points to resemble fictional protagonists. Admittedly one can get around this by starting the PCs at higher than 1st level, as is the case in the original Dragonlance modules.




They have been used in that manner. 1st level characters have as many hit points as Luke Skywalker, who gets taken out by one Tusken Raider mook in one hit. If you want tougher characters, start them at 2nd or 3rd level, as was suggested for Dark Sun.



> 3) Hit points don't do the job of fiction-sim sufficiently well -
> 
> *They are the wrong mechanic to simulate mooks.* A simpler rule, such as, “A Mook is always incapacitated when struck by a Hero”, is all that is required. A mook doesn't need a hit points stat at all. And it leaves open the possibility that a hero might deal insufficient damage to take one out in a single blow.




I view that possibility as a plus. It's boring if absoutely every mook goes down in one hit. That is why I particularly like the "standard character" rules in Fantasy Craft. While your suggested rule is simpler, it isn't much simpler, and it's less versatile. Should a 1st level wizard with Strength 8 really be able to take out an ogre mook in one punch? Hence, few hit points is better than 1 hit point, in my view.



> *They are the wrong mechanic to simulate protagonists.* In adventure fiction, when the protagonist is visibly wounded and struggles on, what is going on there? Is he being whittled down? If he's struck a sufficient number of times will he be taken out? No, imo what's happening is that we need to see our heroes suffer before they can win. Rather than hit points, a Suffering stat would be more appropriate. Suffering would have to reach a certain value before the villain can be defeated.




Why is it the wrong stat? Hit Points _is_ a suffering stat. Notice how battered and bloodied protagonists fight as well, if not better, than they do when unwounded.  The hero is being whittled down. Qui Gon got whittled down. Boromir, whittled down. Luke Skywalker, whittled twice.



> Protagonists in adventure fiction can certainly be incapacitated but when it happens they are not generally whittled down. It's instant – chloroform, blow to the head, sleep gas, hypnotic lights - and they wake up imprisoned or in a death trap. It's primarily a scene-switching device, though the experience would also add to the hero's Suffering.




Counterpoints: Hal Jordan in the latest Green Lantern movie, Robocop, Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, Tony Stark in Iron Man, ... and so forth. The sudden ambush thing ALSO happens, but primarily, when action heroes get knocked out, it's because they were outmatched in Act I and ran out of hit points, or because they were making a heroic sacrifice. What you are saying is really more true for noir heroes and other investigator types.



> *They are insufficient, as a mechanic, to simulate villains.* You're correct that, in order to simulate adventure fiction, the confrontation with the villain needs to take a significant length of time. But are hit points the right mechanic here? Does the villain just have to be struck a certain number of times until the final blow takes his last few hit points, even if that final blow is a feeble at-will power?




Yes.



> That's not how it works imo. The final blow has to be something special, it's not just one more bullet. For example the Terminator in the first film has to be crushed in a hydraulic press.




That's not normal. 

In the final fight in Return of the Jedi, Luke beats up Vader by whaling on him. as I consider that the definative cinematic fight scence, it trumps all other examples including and perhaps especially Terminator films. Termintor films have their own set of tropes, including a huge overlap with Arnold cliches.



> The great strength of the hit point mechanic, in my view, is not that it simulates anything, but that it is simple and playable. Thus I do not see it as simulationist.




It's simple, playable, and simulationist. There are things that are more simulationist, I suppose, but they would have to be tailored to a particular simulation. Hit points are simple, playable, and portable. You can use them for just about any type of game. You can use them for anything from gritty dime novels to planet-destroying kung fu anime, simply by adjusting the number of hit points relative to attacks.

If you wanted to institute a Hydraulic Press meter for defeating villains, not only are you going far afield ... simulation ususally means simulating potentialities, not outcomes... but you are running into the Drama-Simulation Convergence. A game that perfectly simulates a dramatic final boss fight is actually a Narrativist game.

A simulation game would set up the possibility of such a fight, but would not dicate the outcomes. Naturally, you can stack the odds; the odds are stacked in the source material, after all.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 20, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> I'm pretty sure the minion rules in 4e are intended to simulate the source material for D&D, such as Legolas and Gimli at the Battle for Helms Deep.




I agree; although I wonder how well those rules actually do this.

[blather]You can assume that those orcs are 1 HD creatures, and give fighters extra attacks based on their level (as 1e does), or you can make them minions (as 4e does), but I am not certain that either option is necessarily best.

Orcs are certainly less dangerous (in terms of their attacks), when their chances of hitting are tied directly to their single Hit Die, ala 1e.  OTOH, that 1 HD gives them some chance to survive single attacks, including some area effects.

I once ran a battle in 3e where the PCs defended a ruined rath (ringfort) they had camped in from an army of goblins.  The group averaged 3rd level, but, by using good tactics and choke points, they were able to hold off wave after wave of goblins until near dawn, when the creatures fled.  This worked very similarly to the source material, and didn't require minion rules.  OTOH, a goblin is very close to a minion anyway.[/blather]


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## mmadsen (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> In cinema and literature, fights tend to be drawn out affairs, with characters whittling each other down before finally delivering a telling blow.



As I've said before, hit points are terrible for emulating action and adventure stories.  They're certainly terrible for emulating Tolkien's _Hobbit_ and _Lord of the Rings_ stories, in which Bard kills Smaug with a single arrow, Legolas kills a fell beast in the night with a single arrow, the Witch King of Angmar dies from one stab from a lowly hobbit and a follow-up by Eowyn, etc.​None of those one-shot victims were mooks.
As some kind of luck points, they make perfect sense for the _heroes_ of the story though.  They just don't make sense as a universal measure of toughness, since tough men and beasts can be killed by a single well-placed shot -- especially a single well-placed shot from our heroes.​


pawsplay said:


> Now, in real life, real fights tend to be over in seconds, although the loser may not die, and if they die, may take several minutes or even hours to do it. If you want to simulate something like that, take something like GURPS and turn the dial to "WWII-PTSD version."



Realistic combat isn't necessarily grim so much as unpredictable.  Sometimes the first shot is through the heart or through the brain stem; other times a dozen rapier thrusts through the torso somehow manage to miss anything vital.

The real difference between an elite warrior and a mook isn't physical durability, of course, but morale -- and, to a lesser extent, skill.


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## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> As I've said before, hit points are terrible for emulating action and adventure stories.  They're certainly terrible for emulating Tolkien's _Hobbit_ and _Lord of the Rings_ stories, in which Bard kills Smaug with a single arrow, Legolas kills a fell beast in the night with a single arrow, the Witch King of Angmar dies from one stab from a lowly hobbit and a follow-up by Eowyn, etc.​None of those one-shot victims were mooks.
> As some kind of luck points, they make perfect sense for the _heroes_ of the story though.  They just don't make sense as a universal measure of toughness, since tough men and beasts can be killed by a single well-placed shot -- especially a single well-placed shot from our heroes.​




LOTR isn't an "Action and adventure" genre. It's literary high fantasy.

Further, none of those examples refute what I am saying. We don't know what kind of critical hit tables the GM was using, or what kind of Action Point mechanics. Further, you can perfectly simulate the death of Smaug by simply assuming he only has 15 hit points. So, he's not a mook. _There's no rule that says hit points have to be used in the way they are used in D&D 4e._

People complained about the 3e beholder having too few hit points. While, I think it was a good thing. If you can stick a sword in that nasty thing, you deserve to win.



> Realistic combat isn't necessarily grim so much as unpredictable.  Sometimes the first shot is through the heart or through the brain stem; other times a dozen rapier thrusts through the torso somehow manage to miss anything vital.
> 
> The real difference between an elite warrior and a mook isn't physical durability, of course, but morale -- and, to a lesser extent, skill.




I'm well aware. Hence the wide variability I mentioned above.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 20, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> As I've said before, hit points are terrible for emulating action and adventure stories.  They're certainly terrible for emulating Tolkien's _Hobbit_ and _Lord of the Rings_ stories, in which Bard kills Smaug with a single arrow, Legolas kills a fell beast in the night with a single arrow, the Witch King of Angmar dies from one stab from a lowly hobbit and a follow-up by Eowyn, etc.​





Lets just take a look at the Smaug example in D&D terms, shall we?

Prior to Bard killing him with that one arrow (which was a special arrow within the context of both Middle Earth and the story), Smaug is whittled down by countless arrows which, while described as failing to penetrate his armour, in D&D terms are doing hit point damage that fails to do lasting harm.

In 4e, where hit points include things that can be healed or damaged by a pep talk or an insult, this is even more true.  Smaug endures many rounds of combat before being slain, and there is attrition (in the D&D hit point sense) in each of those rounds.

What D&D _*does not do well*_, OTOH, is model the one gap in Smaug's armour that leads straight to his heart.

Likewise, the Witch-King of Angmar is not fresh -- he is returning from a battle of wills with Gandalf.  He is not stabbed merely by a lowly hobbit -- he is stabbed with a blade crafted to defeat him from long ago, and recovered from the barrow mounds by Tom Bombadil.  He is defeated as much by prophesy as by prowess, for Eowyn is meant to be there, and meant to deliver the killing stroke.

This is also something that D&D doesn't do well, at all.


RC


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

> As I've said before, hit points are terrible for emulating action and adventure stories.
> They're certainly terrible for emulating Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories, in which Bard kills Smaug with a single arrow, Legolas kills a fell beast in the night with a single arrow, the Witch King of Angmar dies from one stab from a lowly hobbit and a follow-up by Eowyn, etc.




That only shows us that there is no One True Mechanic, no One Vitality Design to simulate all Characters, and in an RPG Model them.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 20, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That only shows us that there is no One True Mechanic, no One Vitality Design to simulate all Characters, and in an RPG Model them.




If you accept the premise, yes.

I agree with your conclusion, but I do not think that the premise from which you are drawing that conclusion is true.


RC


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## Redbadge (Jun 20, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That only shows us that there is no One True Mechanic, no One Vitality Design to simulate all Characters, and in an RPG Model them.




I think exception based design can help with this some, such that corner cases where the GM or designer is not happy can simply be changed to what exactly is needed or intended.

For example, I don't see any reason that the Witch-King of Angmar can't be given specific traits such that he can be easily defeated by "a blade crafted to defeat him from long ago, and recovered from the  barrow mounds by Tom Bombadil.  He is defeated as much by prophesy as by  prowess, for Eowyn is meant to be there, and meant to deliver the  killing stroke." I think exceptions are useful in any edition and any system.

Like pawsplay said, if I want to give Smaug 15 hp (or vulnerability to a particular person or particular weapon, or both), there should be no reason I can't, no matter what I'm playing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

Here's what I'm getting at.

My preferred overall system is HERO (with 3.5Ed D&D a close second, FWIW).  In it, I can create characters who have to be whittled down, ones who go down easily, ones seemingly impevious to harm, and humble characters capable of one-shotting beings with incredible defenses.

But it doesn't necessarily do them all _well_.  So, while I can and have run virtually everything in HERO, there are campaigns in which I opted for running games within an RPG designed specifically to model that kind of game instead of HERO.

As for exception based design- TRUE exception based design- I hate it.  Giving a character a specific vulnerability to a certain kind of attack or environmental situation (Smaug's weak spot, Witch-King's problematic prophesy) isn't the same as having different rules for designing PCs and NPCs (4Ed).


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## mmadsen (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> LOTR isn't an "Action and adventure" genre. It's literary high fantasy.



Don't be silly.  Tolkien's works are definitely the kind of thing we'd like to emulate in a fantasy role-playing game like D&D, whatever genre labels you decided to apply.  

And Robert E. Howard's works are similarly full of "high-level" characters dying with a single stroke -- just not the protagonist.


pawsplay said:


> Further, none of those examples refute what I am saying. We don't know what kind of critical hit tables the GM was using, or what kind of Action Point mechanics.



Indeed, we don't know what kind of hit point-bypassing mechanics the GM-author was using -- or, rather, could theoretically use, if he were running a game rather than writing a story.


pawsplay said:


> Further, you can perfectly simulate the death of Smaug by simply assuming he only has 15 hit points.



No, you can't really, because Smaug was in no danger and he clearly knew he was in no danger -- until he got hit by Bard's Black Arrow through the chink in his armor noticed by Bilbo, overheard by the Thrush, and passed on to Bard.


pawsplay said:


> There's no rule that says hit points have to be used in the way they are used in D&D 4e.



Agreed, but that doesn't mean that hit points have no inherent character as a mechanic.  They intrinsically make it difficult, even impossible, to have a character vulnerable to a single arrow but not guaranteed to die by four or five arrows -- without lots of additional rules to bypass them.


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## Krensky (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I view that possibility as a plus. It's boring if absoutely every mook goes down in one hit. That is why I particularly like the "standard character" rules in Fantasy Craft. While your suggested rule is simpler, it isn't much simpler, and it's less versatile. Should a 1st level wizard with Strength 8 really be able to take out an ogre mook in one punch? Hence, few hit points is better than 1 hit point, in my view.




Something I was thinking about too, is that FC (like SC2.0 before it) does have a mook quality which makes standard NPCs with it automatically fail their damage saves. Adding on Tough, which makes a standard NPC able to fail more then one damage save, you can easily make a mook that will go down in exactly the number of hits you want.


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## Lanefan (Jun 20, 2011)

Unfortunately, Bard's Black Arrow is not the best example to use here to point out how D+D can't model something using hit points, because the Arrow is something D+D can model perfectly while potentially ignoring hit points entirely.

It's an Arrow of Dragon Slaying.  Shoot a Dragon with it (at +5 to hit, BTW) and the Dragon takes a boatload of damage (say, d6 + 5 tripled) and if that doesn't kill it (or force it to crash-land which will probably kill it) it has to save or die instantly anyway.  Smaug failed his save.

The other example, that of Eowyn and Merry bringing down the Witch King, has always been to me a shining example of why the game needs two aspects: critical hits to which any creature or opponent is vulnerable, and little enough difference between low levels and high that a low-level Hobbit *can* pose a threat to a BBEG.  Any game I ever play absolutely has to have this - that a little guy with a lucky strike at least has a chance of bringing down or seriously hurting a big guy, no matter who it is.

I think 3e really blew it on both of these: the Witch King is undead and thus not crit-able by 3e RAW, and there's way too much separation between low level and high for Merry - or Eowyn, for that matter - to pose him any kind of threat at all.  I'm not sure how 4e works for things like this.  It does, however, work in 1e; or can easily be made to.

Lan-"the Eowyn-Merry-Witch King battle is one of the reasons I got into this game in the first place"-efan


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 20, 2011)

[MENTION=30936]Krensky[/MENTION]:  Personally, I prefer to be surprised sometimes.


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## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> Don't be silly.  Tolkien's works are definitely the kind of thing we'd like to emulate in a fantasy role-playing game like D&D, whatever genre labels you decided to apply.




Gygax disagreed. He included elves and such as a way to attract a segment of players he was interested in. He regarded Tolkien as a secondary influence, way down on the list from Howard, Leiber, Vance, and so forth.



> And Robert E. Howard's works are similarly full of "high-level" characters dying with a single stroke -- just not the protagonist.




All the examples I can think of are wizards. Assuming Conan has 1d6 sneak attack from his years as a thief, and power attack, there is no problem at all protraying those scenes in D&D 3e or Conan d20. 



> No, you can't really, because Smaug was in no danger and he clearly knew he was in no danger -- until he got hit by Bard's Black Arrow through the chink in his armor noticed by Bilbo, overheard by the Thrush, and passed on to Bard.




Smaug is described as an old and pretty worn out dragon. You could say he has 30 hit points and DR 10/magic. Maybe Bard is a Pathfinder charcter with Penetrating Strike and Deadly Aim. One critical hit, one dead dragon.



> Agreed, but that doesn't mean that hit points have no inherent character as a mechanic.  They intrinsically make it difficult, even impossible, to have a character vulnerable to a single arrow but not guaranteed to die by four or five arrows -- without lots of additional rules to bypass them.




Howso? All that is necessary is that the single arrow do enough damage, and that the four or five arrows not do too much. I think the problem you are describing is actually MORE of a problem with limited hit point systems, like GURPS, or some kind of more abstract system, like True20, where every hit is a chance to fail a saving throw. 

If you want PCs to be able to stagger around with an arrow in them and still fight, you are basically looking at some kind of hit point system, or something along the lines of HeroQuest


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## JRRNeiklot (Jun 20, 2011)

I'd wager the black arrow was the inspiration for arrows of slaying which DO kill with one shot.  In that respect, D&D models it very well.  And Merry was no lowly hobbit, but one of the mightiest hobbit warriors who ever lived - trained by a ranger king and bearing a magical blade of legend.  So too did Legolas bear the great bow of Lorien.  "To Legolas she gave a bow such as the Galadhrim used. The bow was longer and stouter than the bows of Mirkwood, and it was strung with a string of elf-hair. "  This is not a dime store bow, either.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Smaug is described as an old and pretty worn out dragon.




I very much disagree!  Overconfident, yes.  Old and worn out?  Not by a long shot!  (Not even by the long shot that brought him down!)


RC


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## Redbadge (Jun 20, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As for exception based design- TRUE exception based design- I hate it.  Giving a character a specific vulnerability to a certain kind of attack or environmental situation (Smaug's weak spot, Witch-King's problematic prophesy) isn't the same as having different rules for designing PCs and NPCs (4Ed).




Do you find exception based design unrealistic, or perhaps gamist? I always thought of it as a way to tell the types of stories me and my player's want without the overall rules constantly getting in the way. Also, I find that it is what makes writing adventures, encounters, and monsters fun. See some of the 4e Living Forgotten Realms adventures for some truly inspired and exciting (IMO) exception-based departures from the rules (fatigue points in Carceri, for example).

Also, as far as 4e NPCs, I wouldn't say they have rules at all, _per se_. More like baselines and guidelines. I acknowledge that NPCs have different rules than PCs, but I thought that was just so the designers could do things like give high-level Nilbogs 1 AC (to simulate the way the attract and thrive from weapon attacks) or give certain creature the trait that they automatically die on a crit. I'm not sure in which situations PC creation would need these exceptions (though I'm sure it's possible and would make for some interesting storytelling).


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## Crazy Jerome (Jun 20, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Unfortunately, Bard's Black Arrow is not the best example to use here to point out how D+D can't model something using hit points, because the Arrow is something D+D can model perfectly while potentially ignoring hit points entirely.
> 
> It's an Arrow of Dragon Slaying. Shoot a Dragon with it (at +5 to hit, BTW) and the Dragon takes a boatload of damage (say, d6 + 5 tripled) and if that doesn't kill it (or force it to crash-land which will probably kill it) it has to save or die instantly anyway. Smaug failed his save...




4E put in some support for that idea, in that it made heroes that can really deal out the hurt.  But then it consciously moved away from it, in that it removed "save and die".  So this whole discussion now has me wondering, in an ivory tower way, what you could do with a 4E design/mechanic in service to an earlier ethos.

Let's start with at-will, encounter, and dailies.  But we aren't going to call them that, because they will really just be about dividing up responsibilities in the mechanics.  The in-world meaning is moving quite a bit away from 4E:

Normal (At-will) -- stuff everyone can do as part of their class.  Fighters swing swords, mages cast magic missile, etc.  

Stunts (Encounter) -- stuff you can pull off a few times a fight.  You can have some predone ones to pick from, or you can have ad hoc ones, or you can mix.  But main thing is that your number of times per fight is limited by given number of stunts at a given power level, not by what you have on hand.  (E.g. a mage "stunt" might be casting fireball or dimension door or any number of traditional mid-level spells.  But he'd cast more or a 4E model. If he wants to make up a magical stunt to fit the circumstances, he can do that instead.  Fighters might have "exploits."  But see later.)   Heroes do stunts.  Normal people do not, at least not in tough situations.

Narrative control (Dailies) -- stuff you can pull off when you've got the plot device handed to you, via any number of means.  These things can be tougher than 4E dailies, sometimes even save and die.  By definition, they short-circuit the earlier system.  Anyone can do this, even a mook, if the story warrants.

You don't subdivide powers, skills, equipment (including magic items), rituals etc. into a given niche, but have all of them in every category.  There are normal swords.  There are magical swords that can do stunts.  And there are swords of prophecy or fate that can exert narrative control.   When you hand a hero one of the latter, you have explicitly handed them some narrative control in the game.

And for the final twist, you base all the core math mostly off of the normal level, such that the game can work a lot like, say, Basic D&D, if you have very little of the stunts and narrative portions exercised.  Stunts and narrative control run off of independent tracks--dialed by campaign.  So, for example, you can not give out stunts much at all, but hand out an arrow of dragon slaying (narrative device) to a normal, and get a certain kind of take on Bard versus Smaug.  That is, the stunts and narrative portions are entirely about how much and what kind of control you want the heroes (and villains) to exert via mechanics.

Hope that made some sense.


----------



## Lanefan (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Gygax [...] regarded Tolkien as a secondary influence, way down on the list from Howard, Leiber, Vance, and so forth.



Which is a flat-out mistake on his part when taken at face value, but one he was probably forced into.

The Tolkein estate wouldn't allow any of their IP material (Hobbits, etc.) into D+D (hindsight says this was a flat-out mistake on their part, too) and thus EGG sort of had no choice but to officially downplay the Tolkein influence while still keeping it in where he could.

And many players realized this - in the pre-Kender days, how many of us turned Halflings right back into Hobbits?

Lan-"and they're still Hobbits today"-efan


----------



## Redbadge (Jun 20, 2011)

Crazy Jerome said:


> 4E put in some support for that idea, in that it made heroes that can really deal out the hurt.  But then it consciously moved away from it, in that it removed "save and die".  So this whole discussion now has me wondering, in an ivory tower way, what you could do with a 4E design/mechanic in service to an earlier ethos.
> 
> Let's start with at-will, encounter, and dailies.  But we aren't going to call them that, because they will really just be about dividing up responsibilities in the mechanics.  The in-world meaning is moving quite a bit away from 4E:
> 
> ...




The system you described is a lot like the way my "4e" game is run.

Also, though save-or-die is mostly absent, it can still be found. One of the WotC articles introduced an Arrow of Slaying consumable that is literally save-or-die. Some supported adventures have monsters that can do ridiculous, and unfair, things.

And then there is this, which might be in the hands of the PCs:

World-Rending Axe of Total
Devastation
Level 25+ Rare
Presaged in obscure prophecies and foretold by
blind seers, this axe shatters along its handle
when smashed into the ground, breaking apart
the very world from which it was made.
Lvl 25 +5 625,000 gp
Lvl 30 +6 3,125,000 gp
Weapon: Axe
Enhancement: Attack and damage rolls
Critical: +1d10 damage per plus
Property: You gain a +10 bonus to
Intimidate checks.
Power (Encounter): Standard Action.
Plunge the world-rending axe of total
devastation into the ground, sending
tremors rippling outward from where you
stand. Destroy up to 10 squares of terrain
you can see. These squares do not have to
be contiguous.
Power (Consumable): Standard Action.
Hurl the axe into the ground. At the end of
your next turn, the world you occupy, its
inhabitants, and the axe are utterly
destroyed. You and your allies are
teleported to a random location in the
nearest plane.

This last item comes from Fourthcore Armory: A Compendium of Treasures Mythic & Deadly | Save Versus Death a third-party site called "Fourthcore" whose motto is literally "save versus death."

Some people previously said they liked some of the 4e items. If you like cool items of any kind, you should check out the (free) pdf in the link above. While these are intended for 4e, they could work well for any system with a little reworking.

Some more of my favorites:

The Sword That Shall Not Be
Drawn
Level 2+ Rare
When the forces of creation measured what
would and would not be, this weapon was the
signpost that read ‘you have gone too far.’ Yet it
could not be unmade, and so it has slumbered for
all eternity. A symbol of the gods’ humility and
the wisdom of peace, whoever would defy its
sacred history is surely damned by the heavens.
Lvl 2 +1 520 gp
Lvl 7 +2 2,600 gp
Lvl 12 +3 13,000 gp
Lvl 17 +4 65,000 gp
Lvl 22 +5 325,000 gp
Lvl 27 +6 1,625,000 gp
Implement (Holy Symbol)
Enhancement: Attack and damage rolls
Critical: The target cannot make attacks
until the end of your next turn
Power (At-Will): Minor Action. Draw the
sword that shall not be drawn. Until the end
of the encounter, you may use it as a +7
longsword that deals an extra 1d8 radiant
damage per plus on a hit and an extra
7d12 damage on a critical hit. At the end
of the encounter, you and your allies are
teleported before a council of celestial
justiciars to answer for your crime.
Convincing them to spare your lives is a
complexity 5 skill challenge of your level
(12 successes before 3 failures).

Redeemer
Level 23+ Rare
Carved from a sprig of the world tree and bound
in rings crafted by five different gods, this
mighty quarterstaff has been passed down
through the centuries to preserve existence
against the most ultimate of threats.
Lvl 23 +5 425,000 gp
Lvl 28 +6 2,125,000 gp
Implement (Rod, Staff, or Wand)
Enhancement: Attack and damage rolls
Critical: You or an ally within 10 squares of
you may spend a healing surge or end one
effect that a saving throw can end.
Power (Encounter): Minor Action. End all
effects a save can end on each ally within
10 squares.
Power (Daily): Immediate Interrupt.
Trigger: A world you occupy would be
destroyed. Effect: That world cannot be
destroyed for 24 hours.

Celestial Pocketwatch
Level 14 Uncommon
Two dancing spirits – one radiant, one shadowy
– swirl on the face of this gilded pocketwatch.
When wound, the very planets themselves move.
Wondrous Item 21,000 gp
Property: Gain resist 10 necrotic and
radiant.
Power (Daily): If it is day, it becomes night.
If it is night, it becomes day.

Ring of Arcane Memory
Level 18 Rare
Dozens of small gems line the outside of this
silver ring, each imbued with energy from a
different school of magic.
Item Slot: Ring 85,000 gp
Requirement: You must draw energy from
the Arcane power source. A creature
from any other power source that
willingly puts on the ring of arcane
memory is instantly killed and crumbles
into a pile of residuum equal to the onefifth
the value of a magic item of the
creature’s level.
Property: Gain a +5 bonus to Arcana checks
made as part of casting a ritual.
Power (Healing Surge): Standard Action.
Choose a ritual you have mastered with
Arcana as one of its key skills and a
casting time of one hour or less. You
immediately cast that ritual without spending its
component cost.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Aside from numerous side details I won't go into, it's simply impossible for for Sidious to take out two 8th-10th level Jedi in two combat rounds. Whatever its merits as a system, SWSE cannot simulate a crucial scene from Revenge of the Sith. It's also improbable (though not precisely impossible, with liberal use of Destiny points) for Yoda to take out two Imperial Guards in one round.




This is actually not true at all.

I'll see if I can find the "proofs" for you on how both of those scenes can be pretty easily replicated - we did it back on the WotC SW boards a few years back.


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> This is actually not true at all.
> 
> I'll see if I can find the "proofs" for you on how both of those scenes can be pretty easily replicated - we did it back on the WotC SW boards a few years back.




I will personally award you a No Prize. 

When I went through the Sidious scene, exhaustively, I found there might be a remote chance if you assumed the expenditure of at least two Destiny points by Sidious, conservative estimates of some of the Order's swordmasters (everyone but Mace has to be about level 10 and under), you assumed really good rolls by Sidious, and you completely rewrote Sidious from the book and gave him an entirely different set of feats. I was on the Saga boards, pretty regularly, and I never saw a satisfactory version. I never saw anyone come any closer than I did, although I saw some convincing alternate versions that came as close. I would really like to see one of your "proofs." It would be like seeing cold fusion in action. 

Yoda vs. the red guards is somewhat possible if you assume he uses Move Object rather than Force Slam, spends a Destiny point, rolls well, and those red guards have nothing like the published statistics of the Imperial Guard (60+ hit points I think and the ability to act for one round AFTER being taken down by damage due to ET's delay damage ability). I think the scene is literally impossible if you assume the guards have even one level of Elite Trooper.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

> Do you find exception based design unrealistic, or perhaps gamist?




I suppose the latter is closest to my perspective.



> I always thought of it as a way to tell the types of stories me and my player's want without the overall rules constantly getting in the way.




I've always looked at it as having game elements available to NPCs that are not available to PCs.  Generally speaking, I want a level design between PC & NPC options, because to do otherwise seems as if the rules DO get in the way of things I want to do as a player or GM.


----------



## Patryn of Elvenshae (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I will personally award you a No Prize.




?



> When I went through the Sidious scene, exhaustively, I found there might be a remote chance if you assumed the expenditure of at least two Destiny points by Sidious, conservative estimates of some of the Order's swordmasters (everyone but Mace has to be about level 10 and under), you assumed really good rolls by Sidious, and you completely rewrote Sidious from the book and gave him an entirely different set of feats. I was on the Saga boards, pretty regularly, and I never saw a satisfactory version. I never saw anyone come any closer than I did, although I saw some convincing alternate versions that came as close. I would really like to see one of your "proofs." It would be like seeing cold fusion in action.




Well, there's a couple issues I can see with your set-up already.  But, like I said, we worked it out on the Saga boards, possibly after you'd given up and left?  It was a fun thought exercise.


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> I very much disagree!  Overconfident, yes.  Old and worn out?  Not by a long shot!  (Not even by the long shot that brought him down!)
> 
> 
> RC




Oh, come on. He had a bare spot in his armor. Tolkien might as well have named him Smaug the Comb-Over.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

> > Quote:
> > Originally Posted by pawsplay
> > I will personally award you a No Prize.
> 
> ...




It's a comic book reference- kind of a public "Yep." that appeared on the letters pages when you caught an error of some kind, usually one that would be extremely hard to notice.


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> ?




No-Prize - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



> Well, there's a couple issues I can see with your set-up already.  But, like I said, we worked it out on the Saga boards, possibly after you'd given up and left?  It was a fun thought exercise.




I hung around until well after The Force Unleashed saw print. I was there to kvetch about cantina aliens not being statted in the Rebellion era book. I'm sure you came up with a version that was satisfying to you; if you share it, I'll be happy to shred and burn it for you.


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 20, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It's a comic book reference- kind of a public "Yep." that appeared on the letters pages when you caught an error of some kind, usually one that would be extremely hard to notice.




Specifically, for pointing out a particularly troubling continuity error, than supplying an explanation for why it was not a continuity error at all.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Oh, come on. He had a bare spot in his armor. Tolkien might as well have named him Smaug the Comb-Over.




Whether Smaug was old or not, I now feel we must contact Peter Jackson and have Him recast the voice talent for that fearsome beast with Donald Trump.


----------



## Celebrim (Jun 20, 2011)

"They're certainly terrible for emulating Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories, in which Bard kills Smaug with a single arrow, Legolas kills a fell beast in the night with a single arrow, the Witch King of Angmar dies from one stab from a lowly hobbit and a follow-up by Eowyn, etc."

Smaug

Bard's black arrow is part of the inspiration for the Arrow of Slaying.  

Additionally, in game terms, Bard seems to cast some sort of spell on the arrow prior to firing it when he bargains with the arrow and reminds it how well he has treated it and honored it.

Additionally, Tolkien appears to be using some sort of called shot/critical hit mechanic; see 'Good Hits and Bad Misses' from Dragon Annual #4 (IIRC) .  They are also a standard feature in 3e.

Legolas vs. Fell Beast

It's difficult to know how many hitpoints a fell beast has, but 1e terms it's unlikely to be that many given that a Balor is only 8+8 HD.  Morevoer, it's a flying creature with a burden.  IIRC my flying rules correctly, Legs only has to deal a fraction of its damage to 'bring the creature down' that he needs to do to kill it.  A sufficiently wounded flying creature must land even if it isn't dead, and even one that is not yet dead will crash if wounded sufficiently.   And again, we mustn't overlook the possibility that Tolkien is a very forward looking DM and using critical hits.

In 3e terms, this is even more easily explainable as the maximum damage of reasonably optimized 3e characters is enormous compared to CR of their level.

Merry & Eowen vs. A Wraith

This only is a problem if you think the Witch King isn't a Wraith.  Wraiths after all have only 5HD, and an average of 23 h.p., so its not at all impossible for two mid-level characters to take one down in two blows.

If Merry is a 6th level rogue and Eonwen is a 5th level Cavalier, which seems reasonable for the power level of the campaign, then Merry is doing a triple damage backstab in this scene with a dagger +1 that appears from the text to have some sort of enchantment that is especially effective against undead.  It's concievable that with a good roll depending on the enchantment involved that Merry can kill the Witch King with that blow alone, and certainly some have read the text that way.  Eonwen as a shield maiden of the King presumably has a +1 broadsword, a bonus for cavalier training and possibly a 16 STR, so I'd think that even if we don't over think this the average damage of both hits is more than sufficient to explain the death of the Wraith.

Personally, I think from the text the Witch King seems to also have been acting under some sort of curse, the terms of which reduced all damage from male humans to the Witch King to zero, but which greatly enhanced (doubled?) the damage to the Witch King from females and non-humans (thus ensuring the terms of the prophecy).   If that is the case, it remains easy to explain the death of the Witch King even if he's an advanced Wraith of 8-10 HD.


----------



## JamesonCourage (Jun 20, 2011)

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's mental gymnastics going on to attempt to justify just how simulationist hit points are.

I like hit points. I use hit points (two different versions, in fact) in my game. I prefer hit points to various other mechanics I've seen (although my experience is admittedly limited).

However, it seems odd to me to say "hit points work well when you use them unconventionally." I mean, things like "the dragon might have only 15 hit points" could simulate the dragon effectively, if the dragon has a way to reduce damage that only a specific called shot would bypass.

However, that's a very unconventional use of hit points. So much so, that I'd say that while it's still using a hit point mechanic, it's much, much different from the proposed assumptions of what people are referring to when they comment on hit points being poor at simulating certain things.

Additionally, pointing out that certain things might bypass hit points (crit charts, arrows of slaying, etc.) just goes to show that hit points might _need_ to be bypassed for certain things to be simulated.

Now, I don't know the rules on the Star Wars game being discussed, but if there was some type of homebrew chart for whenever you failed saves, took damage in any way, had your defenses bypassed by a certain amount, etc., you took an additional effect that was bad for your character, might that solve the problem? I mean, if there's a rule that "if anyone fails a save by 5 or more, they're unconscious or dead, depending on the attack" then all of a sudden we're looking at things differently.

To me, that's about what I get out of this conversation when people say "well, the dragon might have 15 hit points" or "the arrow completely bypassed this supposedly simulationist mechanic" or "there might be a critical hit chart that exceeded what the normal results are."

Again, I like hit points, and I do prefer them. But it still seems like there's some mental gymnastics going on in defending them on this point. I do think they can be used to simulate things very well, I just don't think they're quite as flexible as some others in the thread do. Now, that doesn't mean I'm saying anyone is wrong. This is just my opinion, based on my views of things. I'll personally continue to use hit points to simulate the type of scenes I prefer seeing. 

As always, play what you like


----------



## Stormonu (Jun 20, 2011)

Hit points aren't the best system for tracking wear and tear, but as a DM I haven't found a better system that hasn't involved tearing my hair out in frustration keeping track of multiple enemies.

More complicated systems work for players since they're usually tracking one individual, but it's not really reasonable to expect DMs to track such detailed systems.  And not having the system apply on both sides of the screen can be really, really unfair.


----------



## NewJeffCT (Jun 20, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Which is a flat-out mistake on his part when taken at face value, but one he was probably forced into.
> 
> The Tolkein estate wouldn't allow any of their IP material (Hobbits, etc.) into D+D (hindsight says this was a flat-out mistake on their part, too) and thus EGG sort of had no choice but to officially downplay the Tolkein influence while still keeping it in where he could.
> 
> ...




I agree with you on that - Gygax probably downplayed it for legal reasons.  But, balrog/balor; ents/treants; hobbits/halflings; enmity between dwarves & elves; etc.  No mistaking the influence.


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 20, 2011)

Time to fork the thread yet?


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 20, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> I agree with you on that - Gygax probably downplayed it for legal reasons.  But, balrog/balor; ents/treants; hobbits/halflings; enmity between dwarves & elves; etc.  No mistaking the influence.




Getting into which influences were primary, secondary and tertiary without having the man or his contemporaries & foresighted around is probably pretty futile work.

For every Ent or Hobbit, there is an Ioun stone or the basic style of casting & memorizing spells.  For the emnity twixt dwarf & elf, there is also the struggle between Order and Chaos.  Then there are all the things lifted from Wonderland, Eurasian myths & fairytales, and even the Bible.

The man was a cunning homage artist, borrowing liberally from a myriad of sources...and usually only the best from them besides.


----------



## Lanefan (Jun 21, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> And then there is this, which might be in the hands of the PCs:
> 
> World-Rending Axe of Total Devastation
> Level 25+ Rare
> ...



In the hands of your PCs?  Time for a new campaign world, is it? 

Lan-"wishing he'd heard of or thought of this a couple of campaigns ago"-efan


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's mental gymnastics going on to attempt to justify just how simulationist hit points are.




It's just you.

Just kidding. It's that guy over there, too. 



> However, it seems odd to me to say "hit points work well when you use them unconventionally."




Who said that?



> I mean, things like "the dragon might have only 15 hit points" could simulate the dragon effectively, if the dragon has a way to reduce damage that only a specific called shot would bypass.
> 
> However, that's a very unconventional use of hit points. So much so, that I'd say that while it's still using a hit point mechanic, it's much, much different from the proposed assumptions of what people are referring to when they comment on hit points being poor at simulating certain things.




How is that unconventional? DR is present in D&D 3e. Things have hit points; when they run out, they die. 

Hit points work well, period. They work for Star Wars, they work for Batman, they work for Conan, they just work. They're not the best at everything, but I've seen a lot of different things done, and in certain cases, I think hit points are the way to go. Even GURPS uses hit points.

AD&D is not so hot for running a Lord of the Rings campaign. Is anyone surprised? But it's not a problem in GURPs (hit points), Pathfinder (hit points), Conan (hit points), BESM d20 (hit points), LOTR (hit points), or Warhammer Fantasy 2e (hit points). True20 does a lot of things well, but I don't think it handles nigh-invulnerable dragons as well as any of those games. Those games also have no problem handling platoons of orc mooks. 

The only "gymnastics" I see is trying to argue that if AD&D can't handle the death of Smaug, then hit points don't work. SWSE can't handle Sidious versus Kit Fisto; that doesn't mean hit points don't work, it just means SWSE is substandard for emulating the source material. I've already given you an off-the-cuff answer how Smaug could be handled. As I've already said, Bard could probably make the shot straight-up in Pathfinder, if you assume he's a decently high level and he crits (which seems like a good supposition). Star Wars d20 RCR has no problem handling Sidious versus Kit Fisto. 

The whole argument started with an assertion that a small number of hit points was inferior to 4e "minions." I disagree. Hit point systems can do everything 4e minions can do, and more. You can always assign a D&D 3e critter 1 hit point if you want. But it's sufficient that high level Pathfinder/3e  characters can carve up number 1st through 4th level orcs. 3e does not want or need a minion rule. I think the way minions are implemented in 4e is ill-considered. I'm not a big fan of scaling minions with low durability, but of such systems, I think Fantasy Craft does it far better than D&D 4e. 

So, yeah, I think the idea of minions is something worth porting over from 4e. But the implementation? No, I'd rather use a 3e-based solution. In fact, I think the 4e rules could be improved.


----------



## Krensky (Jun 21, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> [MENTION=30936]Krensky[/MENTION]:  Personally, I prefer to be surprised sometimes.




Then don't use the mook quality. Use standard Standard NPCs. If you want them to go down even more quickly give them low Health values.

I've never used the mook quality myself, but then I've never needed hordes of henchmen or whatever for the heroes to mow through. I've found low to mid Health standards to work quite well. Usually one or two hits, although some have lasted to they've accumulated enough damage to push their damage save past what they could make even rolling a 20.


----------



## mmadsen (Jun 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Gygax disagreed. He included elves and such as a way to attract a segment of players he was interested in. He regarded Tolkien as a secondary influence, way down on the list from Howard, Leiber, Vance, and so forth.



Gygax did _not_ disagree with my suggestion that players would want to emulate Tolkien in D&D.  As you admit, he included elements of Tolkien in D&D to attract the many potential players who would want them in a fantasy role-playing game.

And what holds for Tolkien holds for Howard, Leiber, Vance, etc., when it comes to one-shot kills of tough opponents.


pawsplay said:


> All the examples I can think of are wizards. Assuming Conan has 1d6 sneak attack from his years as a thief, and power attack, there is no problem at all protraying those scenes in D&D 3e or Conan d20.



Except that he'd have to use a non-light weapon from surprise for that to work, and no one would doubt Conan's ability to drive a knife into a wizard's heart even without the element of surprise.

What this is demonstrating is that "vanilla" hit points require a hodge-podge of additional complications to kind of, sort of let someone "tough" (high-level) die in one shot.

I'm not arguing that tough characters should be less tough and have fewer hit points so they last for fewer rounds of combat, just that other mechanics can do that without providing plot protection to everyone tough.


pawsplay said:


> Maybe Bard is a Pathfinder charcter with Penetrating Strike and Deadly Aim. One critical hit, one dead dragon.



Again, we need lots of extra rules to make this work.  Either Bard has special powers -- which he could presumably call on with some regularity -- or his Black Arrow has special powers -- which, again, he could presumably call on with some confidence.

I don't get the impression that he knew he could take out Smaug with his super-archery skills, and I'm pretty sure he didn't know his Black Arrow was guaranteed to slay any dragon with one hit.


pawsplay said:


> Howso? All that is necessary is that the single arrow do enough damage, and that the four or five arrows not do too much. I think the problem you are describing is actually MORE of a problem with limited hit point systems, like GURPS, or some kind of more abstract system, like True20, where every hit is a chance to fail a saving throw.
> 
> If you want PCs to be able to stagger around with an arrow in them and still fight, you are basically looking at some kind of hit point system, or something along the lines of HeroQuest



If you want a great warrior or monster to be able to survive roughly eight sword, spear, or arrow hits, you have a few choices of game mechanics to handle that.  The traditional D&D answer is to give a superhero eight hit dice.  

The numbers have moved around a bit over the editions, but a character with 36 hit points can take roughly eight 1d8 attacks before succumbing.  Without extra rules for critical hits, such a character _cannot_ succumb to fewer than five hits.  Even with crits in play, he can take multiple _perfect_ shots -- crits rolling max damage.

This is fine for characters with plot protection, but not for anyone and everyone who might be tough.

Another way to make characters tough enough to take, say, eight arrows, is to give them a one-in-eight chance of succumbing to any one arrow.  Then they're just as tough, but they have no guarantee that they'll shrug off the first five spears or arrows -- or that they'll succumb to the first dozen.


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> The numbers have moved around a bit over the editions, but a character with 36 hit points can take roughly eight 1d8 attacks before succumbing.  Without extra rules for critical hits, such a character _cannot_ succumb to fewer than five hits.  Even with crits in play, he can take multiple _perfect_ shots -- crits rolling max damage.




A level 1 orc barbarian could take him out in one hit with a crit, actually, in 3e. 

The argument seems to be that hit points make things too tough. In every case that's true, just reduce the hit points. That is the essence of simulation, to create attributes that behave in the expected way.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 21, 2011)

> Gygax did not disagree with my suggestion that players would want to emulate Tolkien in D&D. As you admit, he included elements of Tolkien in D&D to attract the many potential players who would want them in a fantasy role-playing game.
> 
> And what holds for Tolkien holds for Howard, Leiber, Vance, etc., when it comes to one-shot kills of tough opponents.



"Emulate" is a key word, alongside "vanilla" used later.

Gygax took inspiration from a lot of sources, and created a "vanilla" system that let him emulate all of them...but isn't a particularly good sim of any of them.

While most of the time a one-shot kill isn't possible, there are all kinds of items- arrows of slaying, vorpal and disruption weapons, etc.- and some special rules (like the old 1/2 HD rule for warriors) that let you do one on occasion.


----------



## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> "Emulate" is a key word, alongside "vanilla" used later.
> 
> Gygax took inspiration from a lot of sources, and created a "vanilla" system that let him emulate all of them...but isn't a particularly good sim of any of them.
> 
> While most of the time a one-shot kill isn't possible, there are all kinds of items- arrows of slaying, vorpal and disruption weapons, etc.- and some special rules (like the old 1/2 HD rule for warriors) that let you do one on occasion.




Killing a Level 6 magic-user (6d4 hit points) with one hit is in the realm of possibility for a barbarian with 18/50 strength using a longsword.


----------



## JamesonCourage (Jun 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> It's just you.
> 
> Just kidding. It's that guy over there, too.




At least I'm not alone 



> Who said that?




Nobody said that. However, people _are_ using hit points in unconventional ways. Or talking about using them as such. More to come on this.



> How is that unconventional? DR is present in D&D 3e. Things have hit points; when they run out, they die.




Damage reduction isn't unconventional. 15 hit points for a dragon of such power is. That's the unconventional use of hit points I was referring to, especially if you're talking about 3.X edition rules (which you've indicated you prefer to 4e minions, in this very post I'm replying to).

When you say something like this:


pawsplay said:


> Further, none of those examples refute what I am saying. We don't know what kind of critical hit tables the GM was using, or what kind of Action Point mechanics. Further, you can perfectly simulate the death of Smaug by simply assuming he only has 15 hit points. So, he's not a mook. _There's no rule that says hit points have to be used in the way they are used in D&D 4e._
> 
> People complained about the 3e beholder having too few hit points. While, I think it was a good thing. If you can stick a sword in that nasty thing, you deserve to win.




... I feel you're talking in terms of 3.X. Within that rule set, you're not going to have a dragon that has 15 hit points when it's as old and as powerful as Smaug without using hit points in an unconventional way. And I'm all for unconventional uses when it comes to game play or mechanics. However, talking about house-ruled critical hit tables or 15 hit point dragons within the context of 3.X or Pathfinder seems very unconventional when we're talking about a powerful, old dragon.



> Hit points work well, period. They work for Star Wars, they work for Batman, they work for Conan, they just work. They're not the best at everything, but I've seen a lot of different things done, and in certain cases, I think hit points are the way to go. Even GURPS uses hit points.




I prefer hit points. Like I said. I even use two different forms of hit points 



> AD&D is not so hot for running a Lord of the Rings campaign. Is anyone surprised? But it's not a problem in GURPs (hit points), Pathfinder (hit points), Conan (hit points), BESM d20 (hit points), LOTR (hit points), or Warhammer Fantasy 2e (hit points). True20 does a lot of things well, but I don't think it handles nigh-invulnerable dragons as well as any of those games. Those games also have no problem handling platoons of orc mooks.




You can definitely simulate a certain type of minion with hit points, but again, I hold that it's an unconventional use of them within certain contexts. If you're talking about having a 15 hit point dragon in a 3.X game, it's unconventional.

Additionally, like I pointed out, critical hit charts and slaying arrows that can potentially bypass the hit point mechanic do not help the assertion that hit points are simulating what they're supposed to correctly. If it's necessary to have a slaying weapon or a critical hit chart explain away a creature dying, then it's not based on hit points any more. To that end, hit points aren't simulating the effect anymore.

Also, keep in mind that my post was not solely in response to you. Certain other statements in the thread seem to be doing some mental gymnastics in my mind.


Raven Crowking said:


> Lets just take a look at the Smaug example in D&D terms, shall we?
> 
> Prior to Bard killing him with that one arrow (which was a special arrow within the context of both Middle Earth and the story), Smaug is whittled down by countless arrows which, while described as failing to penetrate his armour, in D&D terms are doing hit point damage that fails to do lasting harm.
> 
> ...




In a quote like this, there is the assertion that Smaug is being hit and injured mechanically, even though he is described as the following: "As with most dragons, Smaug's scaly hide is nigh invulnerable, yet his softer underside is more vulnerable to attack. However, centuries spent sleeping atop his gold hoard has caused gold and gemstones to become embedded in his flesh, creating essentially an impenetrable armour." 

Bard, who defeated Smaug, is also described firing his bow at Smaug prior to the black arrow, in addition to all the other archers that Bard is rallying, and their arrows seemingly have no effect:


			
				 The Hobbit said:
			
		

> A hail of dark arrows leaped up and snapped and rattled on his scales and jewels, and their shafts fell back kindled by his breath burning and hissing into the lake... Then down he swooped straight through the arrow-storm, reckless in his rage, taking no heed to turn his scaly sides towards his foes, seeking only to set their town ablaze... Another swoop and another, and another house and then another sprang afire and fell; and still no arrow hindered Smaug or hurt him more than a fly from the marshes... Their captain was Bard, grim-voiced and grim-faced, whose friends had accused him of prophesying floods and poisoned fish, though they knew his worth and courage. He was a descendant in long line of Girion, Lord of Dale, whose wife and child had escaped down the Running River from the ruin long ago. Now he shot with a great yew bow, till all his arrows but one were spent.




It's apparent that the arrows are not damaging Smaug in the least. They are not whittling him down in any way, since he's taking the time to dive through an "arrow-storm" with no mention of injuries (in fact, "no arrow hindered Smaug or hurt him more than a fly from the marshes").

Thus, when people begin to talk about other mechanics dealing with someone like Smaug (slaying arrow, critical hit chart), it seems like they're trying to bypass the hit point mechanic in an attempt to show that the hit point mechanic simulates something, which is kind of baffling to me.



> The only "gymnastics" I see is trying to argue that if AD&D can't handle the death of Smaug, then hit points don't work. SWSE can't handle Sidious versus Kit Fisto; that doesn't mean hit points don't work, it just means SWSE is substandard for emulating the source material. I've already given you an off-the-cuff answer how Smaug could be handled. As I've already said, Bard could probably make the shot straight-up in Pathfinder, if you assume he's a decently high level and he crits (which seems like a good supposition). Star Wars d20 RCR has no problem handling Sidious versus Kit Fisto.




As I quoted earlier, you said, "Further, you can perfectly simulate the death of Smaug by simply assuming he only has 15 hit points." You also upped his hit points later, but not by much: "You could say he has 30 hit points and DR 10/magic." While it's true that a very small pool of hit points can simulate his death, it doesn't mean that it's conventional. In fact, especially since you're mentioning Pathfinder, it's pretty unconventional (based on how hit die and Constitution works in relation to hit points).



> The whole argument started with an assertion that a small number of hit points was inferior to 4e "minions." I disagree. Hit point systems can do everything 4e minions can do, and more. You can always assign a D&D 3e critter 1 hit point if you want. But it's sufficient that high level Pathfinder/3e  characters can carve up number 1st through 4th level orcs. 3e does not want or need a minion rule. I think the way minions are implemented in 4e is ill-considered. I'm not a big fan of scaling minions with low durability, but of such systems, I think Fantasy Craft does it far better than D&D 4e.




Again, if you're assigning a D&D 3.X edition critter 1 hit point, but it's not a 1/4 hit die critter with a 10 Constitution, then it's an unconventional usage of hit points within that system.

I'm not advocating minion rules. I am actually very opposed to minion rules. I'm not advocating changing away from hit points. I very much like hit points. However, when people are talking about using hit points in ways they aren't normally used in systems, adding homebrew critical hit charts and/or slaying arrows or magic weapons to bypass hit points, then it feels like mental gymnastics to me to say that it's still the hit point system that's simulating what you want.

Yes, hit points can simulate many things. Yes, they're flexible. No, I don't think they're enough by themselves in many cases.



> So, yeah, I think the idea of minions is something worth porting over from 4e. But the implementation? No, I'd rather use a 3e-based solution. In fact, I think the 4e rules could be improved.




I'm against the idea of minions just in general, so we're not quite aligned here. However, I'd rather see a 3.X solution, too, as it's farther from a minion rule when compared to 4e (since 4e specifically has minion rules).



pawsplay said:


> A level 1 orc barbarian could take him out in one hit with a crit, actually, in 3e.
> 
> The argument seems to be that hit points make things too tough. In every case that's true, just reduce the hit points. That is the essence of simulation, to create attributes that behave in the expected way.




Yep, you can certainly do that (in fact, I did that in my game). I think that's a great way to go.

I just see a lot of justification in this thread for hit points as an exceptional simulation tool, when in reality, it's merely good. Only my opinion, of course. I'm not speaking for anyone else, or claiming they're wrong.

As always, play what you like


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## mmadsen (Jun 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> A level 1 orc barbarian could take him out in one hit with a crit, actually, in 3e.



Yes, a monster with a large strength bonus, wielding the largest weapon with the widest damage range and a x3 crit multiplier, can do 36 points of damage.

My point is that a character who expects to survive roughly eight sword, spear, or arrow hits _cannot_ succumb to one.  Or two.  Or three, or four -- until we add in critical hits.  That's the nature of hit points.


pawsplay said:


> The argument seems to be that hit points make things too tough. In every case that's true, just reduce the hit points.



I thought I was clear about this.  I don't want tough characters to be less tough.  I don't want to see hit points _reduced_.

The nature of hit points is that they're a buffer.  If you're able to survive roughly eight sword, spear, or arrow hits -- with 36 hit points it's a 50/50 proposition -- then you won't survive ten -- it drops to 10/90 -- and you have nothing to fear from six -- 93/7.

Other mechanics work differently.  If you're able to survive roughly eight sword, spear, or arrow hits because each hit has a one-in-eight chance of taking you out, then your probability of surviving six hits isn't 93 percent; it's just 45 percent.  Your chance of surviving eight isn't 50 percent; it's 34 percent.  Your chance of surviving ten isn't just 10 percent; it's 26 percent.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Killing a Level 6 magic-user (6d4 hit points) with one hit is in the realm of possibility for a barbarian with 18/50 strength using a longsword.




Sure.

Of course, he's got to close with the pesky S.O.B. first...


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Damage reduction isn't unconventional. 15 hit points for a dragon of such power is. That's the unconventional use of hit points I was referring to, especially if you're talking about 3.X edition rules (which you've indicated you prefer to 4e minions, in this very post I'm replying to).




I'll agree that's unconventional for 3e; I think I said so. However, it is not the hit points that are unconventional, only the numbers. 3d design conventions are a separate matter from whether hit points simulate anything. If you want a dragon to drop in a couple of qualified hits, 15 hit points will simulate that perfectly.


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> Yes, a monster with a large strength bonus, wielding the largest weapon with the widest damage range and a x3 crit multiplier, can do 36 points of damage.
> 
> My point is that a character who expects to survive roughly eight sword, spear, or arrow hits _cannot_ succumb to one.  Or two.  Or three, or four -- until we add in critical hits.  That's the nature of hit points.
> 
> ...




By eliminating critical hits, or reducing them, and decreasing the range of possible damage values, you can stabilize the "hits to kill" at virtually any number you want. That is basically where OD&D started, with d6s for damage. By increasing the danger of critical hits, you can increase unpredictability. By increasing the range of typical values, you can increase the tiering versus foes. 3e combat, with its sometimes high crit factors and significant differences between damage dealers of various sorts and archetypes, is considered moderately "swingy." 

A character who can survive eight sword hits CAN succumb to one, if the one is a critical hit defined in a nasty enough one, or the person inflicting the one can deal much more damage than normal.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Why is it the wrong stat? Hit Points _is_ a suffering stat. Notice how battered and bloodied protagonists fight as well, if not better, than they do when unwounded.  The hero is being whittled down. Qui Gon got whittled down. Boromir, whittled down. Luke Skywalker, whittled twice.



I'm not sure if Boromir is a protagonist, the story doesn't follow him in the way it does Frodo, Merry/Pippin, and Aragorn.



pawsplay said:


> Counterpoints: Hal Jordan in the latest Green Lantern movie, Robocop, Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, Tony Stark in Iron Man, ... and so forth. The sudden ambush thing ALSO happens, but primarily, when action heroes get knocked out, it's because they were outmatched in Act I and ran out of hit points, or because they were making a heroic sacrifice. What you are saying is really more true for noir heroes and other investigator types.



Yeah, you're right, noir heroes are frequently getting slipped a mickey and the like. I think it's a common device in many forms of pulp fiction, particularly detective pulp, and noir is the more artistically respectable offspring of detective pulp. I was thinking of a couple of scenes in REH's Conan – Conan is KO-ed by a single sling stone to the head in _Shadows in the Moonlight_, and paralysed by poison in _The Scarlet Citadel_ (he's imprisoned and placed in a D&Dish dungeon) – superhero comics (superhero, ofc, also being the offspring of pulp), and it happens twice within the first 200 pages of Neil Gaiman's _American Gods_, in fact the first time it literally is chloroform, a terrible cliché.

Another example would be the one you mentioned of Luke Skywalker being taken out by the tusken raider. If we give our heroes lots of hit points even at 1st level, as 4e does, then that can't happen.

This is the problem with hit points – they are too consistent to represent fiction. Heroes are sometimes laid low by a single strike while on other occasions they sustain many wounds and keep on fighting, as Conan does when he battles a Lovecraftian monster in _The Slithering Shadow_.

The thing seemed to be biting, clawing, crushing and clubbing him all at the same time. He felt fangs and talons rend his flesh; flabby cables that were yet hard as iron encircled his limbs and body, and worse than all, something like a whip of scorpions fell again and again across his shoulders, back and breast, tearing the skin and filling his veins with a poison that was like liquid fire.​


pawsplay said:


> That's not normal.
> 
> In the final fight in Return of the Jedi, Luke beats up Vader by whaling on him. as I consider that the definative cinematic fight scence, it trumps all other examples including and perhaps especially Terminator films. Termintor films have their own set of tropes, including a huge overlap with Arnold cliches.



The 'special move' as a fight finisher is very common in genres that have extended fight scenes between hero and villain. The kick on to the spear in _Enter The Dragon_ (after a fight where both combatants receive a number of blows that draw blood), the Thing using Mr Fantastic as a slingshot to take out Galactus(!) in _Fantastic Four #243_. The monster in _The Slithering Shadow_ goes over the edge of a cliff, it isn't just one more knife thrust from Conan. In fact going over a cliff is a very popular method of villain dispatch.

It's dramatically necessary. When we've seen two fighters whaling on each other for a period, the fight simply can't end with more whaling. Something else must be brought in to break the deadlock.

Which is exactly what happens in fights that may seem to be ended by 'just more whaling' – Return of the Jedi and Spidey's relentless barrage of punches defeating the Green Goblin in _Amazing Spider-Man #122_. In both cases the hero has a surge of energy, the tide turns. Luke is enraged, and empowered, by Vader threatening his sister. Spider-Man is enraged when the Goblin disparages the girlfriend he murdered, Gwen Stacey. What is going on there is not just one more punch, there's more to it than that. But with hit points that's all it takes. Stories work by different rules.

I checked out the light sabre battle at the end of Return of the Jedi and I find it hard to see where hit points come into it. The fight is almost all light sabre parrying (and some dodging) and a couple of special moves – Luke kicks Vader down the steps, and Vader hurls his weapon, taking out the supports of the gang plank Luke's standing on. There's a game of cat and mouse as Darth searches for his prey and then – the key event – Vader mentions Luke's sister, at which point he becomes enraged. Luke does whale on Vader but it's still all parrying, until his father falls on one knee and he cuts off his hand. The emperor's lightning isn't hit point depletion – Luke is in agony, unable to fight back as he is zapped, which isn't how hit points work. It looks to me more like necessary Suffering before the bad guy can be defeated.

From a story point of view, Luke is experiencing conflict between Love(Friends and Family) and Love(Friends and Family) – it's both the source of his power and what might cause him to fall. The emperor's taunting is boosting the negative side. For Vader it's Love(Family) versus Loyalty(Emperor) or perhaps just the Dark Side itself. Seeing his son tortured gives a big boost to the former and/or lowers the latter. On this interpretation all the sabre whacking is pretty irrelevant, that's just a vehicle for the expression of emotion.

This might look Narrativist but, as I understand it, it isn't. In a Nar game, the player must make the key decisions, not the dice. If giving into the Dark Side is truly a viable moral option, which it wouldn't seem to be, then the player must choose.

One could say that all the parried blows and dodging are hit point depletion. I believe that such an abstract interpretation lessens the utility of hit points as a mechanic for simulating fiction. After all, we still want hit points to do the job of Suffering, to be real physical damage. This means that the participants, the GM and players, are doing all the work – the interpretation – while the mechanic is being lazy. It doesn't mean anything, and if it doesn't mean anything then it doesn't simulate.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 21, 2011)

Regarding Tolkien's influence, Gary discusses it in an article in Dragon #95. It's plain he didn't enjoy LotR, preferring pulp fiction such as REH's Conan. However he pretty clearly understates Tolkien's influence on D&D. He admits ents/treants, orcs and hobbits/halflings but doesn't mention rangers, balrogs/balor, worgs, wights, goblins, werebears, half-elves, half-orcs, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields/Emridy Meadows and Sauron/Mordor as a source for Iuz. He denies that D&D dwarves and elves are influenced by Tolkien, which I don't think is true, though stronger with the former than the latter.


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> Regarding Tolkien's influence, Gary discusses it in an article in Dragon #95. It's plain he didn't enjoy LotR, preferring pulp fiction such as REH's Conan. However he pretty clearly understates Tolkien's influence on D&D. He admits ents/treants, orcs and hobbits/halflings but doesn't mention rangers, balrogs/balor, worgs, wights, goblins, werebears, half-elves, half-orcs, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields/Emridy Meadows and Sauron/Mordor as a source for Iuz.




Actually, AD&D half-elves and half-orcs are completely different than anything in Tolkien. In Tolkien, being a half-elf isn't a genetic condition, it's a combination of hereditity and the free will of men; Elrond is a "half-elf" which is basically just a regular elf with a different secret origin. Also, there are only a handful of half-elves in all of Middle Earth history. Half-orcs in ME are Saruman's invention, possibly through sorcery, and can pass for human. They are uniformly cunning, and it's hinted many are sorcerers. In AD&D, most half-orcs are simply less bestial orcs, with only a minority being similar enough in appearance and behavior to blend with human societies (PC half-orcs being assumed to be in that category). 

Balrog/balor is cute, but balor also sounds like Baal, which is a word meaning "lord" and is often used in reference to heathen deities during the Biblical era. E.g. Baal-ze-bub, "lord of the flies." Both balrogs and balors clearly draw inspiration from Renaissance tapestries and paintings representing the Abyss.



> He denies that D&D dwarves and elves are influenced by Tolkien, which I don't think is true, though stronger with the former than the latter.




D&D dwarves and elves are very different. Dwarves, in ME, are materialistic creatures fond of beer and roast meat who are renowned as makers of magical toys. Gimli is a notale archer, though no match for an elf. Dwarves, in D&D, are pious, subterranean beings who abhor magic. A "dwarf ranger" is a bit of a joke in AD&D terms. 

Tolkien's elves are wise, full of ennui, tall, grand, powerful warriors. D&D elves are small, delicate, whimsical, and sorcerous.


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> I'm not sure if Boromir is a protagonist, the story doesn't follow him in the way it does Frodo, Merry/Pippin, and Aragorn.




He dies. That definitely puts a damper on his heroic activities thereafter. Trying to determine who is a "protagonist" or not in RPG terms is a fun but aimless exercise. It's enough that he's "PC-like."



> Another example would be the one you mentioned of Luke Skywalker being taken out by the tusken raider. If we give our heroes lots of hit points even at 1st level, as 4e does, then that can't happen.




I think giving 1st level characters a lot of hit points, as 4e does, is usually not a good idea, partially for that reason. Usually, fresh-faced young heroes are in great danger of getting whupped in their early adventures.



> This is the problem with hit points – they are too consistent to represent fiction. Heroes are sometimes laid low by a single strike while on other occasions they sustain many wounds and keep on fighting, as Conan does when he battles a Lovecraftian monster in _The Slithering Shadow_.




How is that a problem? You don't actually know how many hit points he is taking, or what other mechanics are in play.



> The 'special move' as a fight finisher is very common in genres that have extended fight scenes between hero and villain. The kick on to the spear in _Enter The Dragon_ (after a fight where both combatants receive a number of blows that draw blood), the Thing using Mr Fantastic as a slingshot to take out Galactus(!) in _Fantastic Four #243_. The monster in _The Slithering Shadow_ goes over the edge of a cliff, it isn't just one more knife thrust from Conan. In fact going over a cliff is a very popular method of villain dispatch.




One way of looking at that would be after tangling and doing hit point damage for a while, the villain loses awareness of other threats. 



> It's dramatically necessary. When we've seen two fighters whaling on each other for a period, the fight simply can't end with more whaling. Something else must be brought in to break the deadlock.
> 
> Which is exactly what happens in fights that may seem to be ended by 'just more whaling' – Return of the Jedi and Spidey's relentless barrage of punches defeating the Green Goblin in _Amazing Spider-Man #122_. In both cases the hero has a surge of energy, the tide turns. Luke is enraged, and empowered, by Vader threatening his sister. Spider-Man is enraged when the Goblin disparages the girlfriend he murdered, Gwen Stacey. What is going on there is not just one more punch, there's more to it than that. But with hit points that's all it takes. Stories work by different rules.




That's fiction-first. I prefer dice-first. When Sipder-Man punches the heck out of Green Goblin, that is when he has depleted the GG's hit points. 



> I checked out the light sabre battle at the end of Return of the Jedi and I find it hard to see where hit points come into it. The fight is almost all light sabre parrying (and some dodging) and a couple of special moves – Luke kicks Vader down the steps, and Vader hurls his weapon, taking out the supports of the gang plank Luke's standing on. There's a game of cat and mouse as Darth searches for his prey and then – the key event – Vader mentions Luke's sister, at which point he becomes enraged. Luke does whale on Vader but it's still all parrying, until his father falls on one knee and he cuts off his hand. The emperor's lightning isn't hit point depletion – Luke is in agony, unable to fight back as he is zapped, which isn't how hit points work. It looks to me more like necessary Suffering before the bad guy can be defeated.




To me, it looks like Luke losing a lot of hit points, maybe getting stunned, and not being able to hit the Emperor with an attack.



> From a story point of view, Luke is experiencing conflict between Love(Friends and Family) and Love(Friends and Family) – it's both the source of his power and what might cause him to fall. The emperor's taunting is boosting the negative side. For Vader it's Love(Family) versus Loyalty(Emperor) or perhaps just the Dark Side itself. Seeing his son tortured gives a big boost to the former and/or lowers the latter. On this interpretation all the sabre whacking is pretty irrelevant, that's just a vehicle for the expression of emotion.




In my view, Luke isn't dying of inner conflict. He's resolved that. He may live, he may die, and he's accepted his destiny. He may experience conflict, but maily, he's losing hit points.




> One could say that all the parried blows and dodging are hit point depletion. I believe that such an abstract interpretation lessens the utility of hit points as a mechanic for simulating fiction.




Why?



> After all, we still want hit points to do the job of Suffering, to be real physical damage. This means that the participants, the GM and players, are doing all the work – the interpretation – while the mechanic is being lazy. It doesn't mean anything, and if it doesn't mean anything then it doesn't simulate.




That's backwards. Hit points are measuring suffering. Real physical damage is only one symptom of suffering. One bonus of hit points is that the _player_ is losing a game resource. That increases identification with the PC. "I'm losing my hit points!" induces a sense of urgency and danger. That helps simulate rising action. Simulation (and this is something that is largely absent in Forgie discussions) has a lot to do with immersion and emotional contact with the imaginary events.


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## Celebrim (Jun 21, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> This is the problem with hit points – they are too consistent to represent fiction.




I'm not strongly tied to a notion that hit points are primarily simulationist, although I would accept that they are a sufficiently robust system that they can be tweaked to simulate certain sorts of literature.  However, the problem with the statement that hit points are too consistent to represent fiction is that it probably could be broaded to say that no single RPG system is capable of representing all fiction and some sorts of fiction may not in fact be reproduced within a game because they depend on heroes behaving in ways that gamers are highly reluctant to act.   In some sorts of fiction, heroes fall for certain cliched tropes where gamers will be reluctant to accept failure.  Even if you promise via the system that the protagonists will enjoy the same sort of plot protection enjoyed by literary heroes, the result is still likely to be a gamer that balks at accepting failure as something he must do or else balks at accepting that the game must procede along predictable lines.

Its hard to escape the problem that in literature things happen solely because the author wants them to and that very few authors have a game like desire to make their story have internally consist rules rather than the mere gloss of versimilitude.   

It's equally hard to have a game maintain the necessary lack of linearity people enjoy in a game and have the plot come out in a predictable literary like arc, especially if it is a particular arc that you want to simulate.

So while your objection is true, I'm not sure that it is that big of an objection nonetheless simply because I'm not sure that its possible to completely transfer the rules by which stories work over to game rules.  Hit points are I think a comprimise between simulating a diverse set of stories with different rules (wherein the protagonists seem to enjoy very different levels of plot protection) and maintaining an interesting game.   

D&D simulates some sorts of literature and fights of attrition generally very well.   D&D simulates some others - notably highly visual cinematic literature like you get from movies or to a lesser extent comic books - very poorly in the details less because of the hit points themselves than the fact it pays little attention to the concrete details of the fight.  It's the granularity of a round (or lack of it) that is most responcible for D&D not simulating cinematic combat, and not hit points in and of themselves.   After all, its easy to imagine to system with both lots of parrys and dodging and also hit points (either a few or many as appropriate to the fiction) which would better simulate cinematic combat than D&D.


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## NewJeffCT (Jun 21, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Balrog/balor is cute, but balor also sounds like Baal, which is a word meaning "lord" and is often used in reference to heathen deities during the Biblical era. E.g. Baal-ze-bub, "lord of the flies." Both balrogs and balors clearly draw inspiration from Renaissance tapestries and paintings representing the Abyss.
> 
> D&D dwarves and elves are very different. Dwarves, in ME, are materialistic creatures fond of beer and roast meat who are renowned as makers of magical toys. Gimli is a notale archer, though no match for an elf. Dwarves, in D&D, are pious, subterranean beings who abhor magic. A "dwarf ranger" is a bit of a joke in AD&D terms.
> 
> Tolkien's elves are wise, full of ennui, tall, grand, powerful warriors. D&D elves are small, delicate, whimsical, and sorcerous.




The D&D balor is pretty clearly directly descended from the Tolkien balrog, right down to them both wielding whips and swords.

The problem is that Tolkien has had such an overwhelming influence on fantasy literature over the last 50 years or so that many of the Tolkien innovations are now considered standard for fantasy in general... was there even a such thing as a half-orc or half-elf before Tolkien?  Were there adventuring parties made up of humans, elves, dwarves & hobbits before Tolkien?


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## mmadsen (Jun 21, 2011)

Pawsplay said:
			
		

> No session of 4e is going to convince me that the Elf/Eladrin split is a good idea, that 1st level "elf" PCs should have magical teleports, or that tieflings or dragonborn are plausible core races for any of the campaigns that interest me.



I agree completely with Pawsplay that those were major changes to the flavor of the game -- and I agree with Redbadge's original point that those were _just_ flavor changes: 


Redbadge said:


> 4e isn't about any of those things. That's the trappings and WotC's presentations getting in the way.



I can't say I fully share (or understand) this list of core 4E "innovations":


Redbadge said:


> 1. Customizable roles/characters using defined mechanics
> 2. A story resolution mechanic typically referred to as d20
> 3. Defined actions or choices available to a character during a "round" using an established action economy
> 4. Options for every type of character that consist of effective and flavorful options that can be utilized at-will, once per "encounter"/scene...



I think the 4E designers made a valiant effort to study the game as a game and to understand the trade-offs players actually make while playing.  Where they failed to meet my needs is in translating those _gamist_ insights into plausible _simulationist_ mechanics that wouldn't break my suspension of disbelief and immersion.

So, a designer could take the innovation of giving fighters non-magical powers and implement it quite differently to create something more to my taste than either 3E or 4E.

One of the biggest clashes between my taste and 4E's philosophy is the way it conflates player choices and character choices, so the character seemingly knows he can perform certain feats exactly once per encounter or day and makes certain choices to maximize abstract hit-point "damage" that isn't damage against enemies while "healing" allies who aren't hurt, etc., in surprisingly concrete ways that don't match the abstraction of the hit-point scale.

I think the innovation of explicitly using hit points for something other than actual damage was a fine idea, but it would have worked better if they'd truly divorced it from physical damage and avoided terms like "healing surge", etc.


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> I agree completely with Pawsplay that those were major changes to the flavor of the game -- and I agree with Redbadge's original point that those were _just_ flavor changes:




I think it would be pretty trivial re-skin D&D such that it was no longer D&D.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 21, 2011)

> The problem is that Tolkien has had such an overwhelming influence on fantasy literature over the last 50 years or so that many of the Tolkien innovations are now considered standard for fantasy in general... was there even a such thing as a half-orc or half-elf before Tolkien? Were there adventuring parties made up of humans, elves, dwarves & hobbits before Tolkien?




A partial answer to that may be found here:

http://www.sfsite.com/02a/tt169.htm


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## NewJeffCT (Jun 21, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> A partial answer to that may be found here:
> 
> http://www.sfsite.com/02a/tt169.htm




I'm sure many writers influenced Tolkien.  However, it's Tolkien whose influence is the 800 pound gorilla on the genre ever since The Hobbit & LotR came out.


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## Redbadge (Jun 21, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> I agree completely with Pawsplay that those were major changes to the flavor of the game -- and I agree with Redbadge's original point that those were _just_ flavor changes:
> 
> I can't say I fully share (or understand) this list of core 4E "innovations":
> 
> ...




If I gave the impression that I though all of those things on my list were innovations to 4th edition, I did not mean to. I think those things are core to the system, and I listed them to show others what I think is important to 4e (in other words, without each of these elements, I think that the system begins to lose a lot of its identity). Thus, if someone came along and said, "I think that dragonborn were a salvageable innovation from 4e," I could point out that, for me, dragonborn are not core to 4e and are not an innovation for _the system_ (besides, they were "innovated" in 3.5 in Races of the Dragon). However, if someone says that minor actions are a salvageable innovation, I would agree because minor actions are part of the core action economy.

Also, with regards to gamist design into plausible simulation, I refer you to my earlier post wrt flavor->mechanics->design. I largely agree. For example, nowhere will you find me praising Healing Surges as an innovation. They are not an important part of the 4e core system for me. I find something slightly off with them, though it is tough to put my finger on it. Although I use them, and do not hate them, I don't love them.

To the people saying that 4e characters can't be taken out with one hit at 1st level, I would like to mention the silt runners (kobold variants from 4e Dark Sun), and similar creatures that can deal between 25 and 40 damage in one hit (at-will, sometimes). In my own encounters, every encounter at every level certainly has the possibility of taking out any character, if not in one hit, certainly in one round.

Finally, I'd like to comment on the aspects of HP in my games. HP represent endurance, health, morale, stamina, luck, fatigue, stress, and more in my games. When characters have become bloodied, they likely have taken their first actual injury of the encounter, and usually only a scratch. When they finally fall below 0 hp, they have taken their first truly damaging hit. This explanation compliments the 4e regeneration rules nicely I think (regeneration only functions for bloodied creatures). When a martial healer "heals" an ally, I think of it as a morale boost, providing a boost in courage and adrenaline through words and example alone.

Perhaps as an even greater nod to simulation, future versions of this rule, should they still exist, is to have martial "healing" only work on non-bloodied creatures, while magical healing only works on bloodied creatures (though perhaps magical healing should still work all the time, because it can relieve stress and fatigue from non-bloodied creatures, thereby restoring HP).


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> The D&D balor is pretty clearly directly descended from the Tolkien balrog, right down to them both wielding whips and swords.




Are balors made of fire and darkness? Do they live in the depths of the world, waiting to be dug up by dwarven miners? Do balrogs explode when they die? Do they teleport? While balors were clearly influenced by balrogs, I disagree with the assertion that a balor _is_ a balrog. A balor is a gargoyle-like giant with similar attributes to Gygax's other demons. There hasn't been a balrog per se since D&D has been in book form.



> The problem is that Tolkien has had such an overwhelming influence on fantasy literature over the last 50 years or so that many of the Tolkien innovations are now considered standard for fantasy in general... was there even a such thing as a half-orc or half-elf before Tolkien?  Were there adventuring parties made up of humans, elves, dwarves & hobbits before Tolkien?




The mixed elf-dwarf-hobbit party is obviously taken from LOTR, and is the principal addition of Tolkien's lore to D&D. In contrast to LOTR, D&D does not have an overarching dualism, and does have discrete immortals and deities. The themes in D&D tend to relate more to eldritch and unknowable things, swashbuckling adventure, and colorful lands, all much more closely related to the Howard-Moorcock-Leiber-Lovecraft side of the family. 

Where in Tolkien can you find plate mail? What about creatures of Greek mythology? Teeming cities of sin and intrigue? Arcane wizards hunting for puissant spells? Witch doctors? Telepathic aliens?


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 21, 2011)

As people say, D&D is the game where Conan, the Gray Mouser, Aragorn, Sir Galahad and Rhialto the Marvellous team up to fight Dracula, who's controlling some Ray Harryhausen skeletons. On the way they have random encounters with an AE Van Vogt monster and Man-Thing from Marvel comics. So Tolkien is in the mix.

The party generally acts like Conan looking for a big score (yeah, even Sir Galahad). And the setting resembles the Dying Earth more than anything else, but with much more crazy stuff. The adventure takes place in something out of A Merritt's The Moon Pool or Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race. The whole thing is way, way, more wahoo than Tolkien. But, to be fair, it's way more wahoo than *anything*.

And some DMs have looked at this and said, "That's too much wahoo, I want something more like Tolkien." And they've pared it down to make something like Tolkien. I played in such a game for years. (It was quite boring.)


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 21, 2011)

NewJeffCT said:


> I'm sure many writers influenced Tolkien.  However, it's Tolkien whose influence is the 800 pound gorilla on the genre ever since The Hobbit & LotR came out.




Not really denying that, at least in terms of commercial/crossover success.

However, if you really take a look at the writers and their works themselves, its a little different story.


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## pawsplay (Jun 21, 2011)

I like Tolkien, and one of the things I dislike about 4e is that it was less "Tolkienesque" than previous editions. However, I just can't see much evidence that Tolkien was anything more than an extra onion in the pot. Strip out the elves and dwarves and hobbits, and you could still have Conan, the Grey Mouser, and Sir Roland team up with one of Poul Anderson's changelings and go looking for tentacled elder races to slay. Of the source material, Howard's stories had the most nonhuman or semihuman races, and D&D is fairly close in spirit; however, in D&D many of the friendlier races are filled by Tolkien-inspired archetypes.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 22, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I like Tolkien, and one of the things I dislike about 4e is that it was less "Tolkienesque" than previous editions. However, I just can't see much evidence that Tolkien was anything more than an extra onion in the pot. Strip out the elves and dwarves and hobbits, and you could still have Conan, the Grey Mouser, and Sir Roland team up with one of Poul Anderson's changelings and go looking for tentacled elder races to slay. Of the source material, Howard's stories had the most nonhuman or semihuman races, and D&D is fairly close in spirit; however, in D&D many of the friendlier races are filled by Tolkien-inspired archetypes.



Yeah, you're right. I think it's the biggest onion in the pot (unless you count myth & folklore) in terms of number of individual elements. It's the PC races, as you say, and that's more noticeable for the players than monsters.

Gary seemed to view the Tolkien-esque elements as a way to pull in LotR fans, hoping they wouldn't mind that the game didn't play anything like LotR. But they got the last laugh by creating Dragonlance.

PS What are the non/semi-human races in REH? I only know about serpent people, half-demons/demons of the outer dark and apemen.


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## mmadsen (Jun 22, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Well, were I to do a(nother) major overhaul of my system, about the only 4e developments I think I'd give a long look to would be:
> 
> movement effects in combat.  4e overdoes it, and there needs to be occasional risk involved for the person doing the moving and more frequent risk for the person being moved*; but if kept to a dull roar and only within reach (no moving someone who is 30 feet away from you) there's something to be said for it.
> * - an example might be trying to push someone off a cliff; if you succeed, over they go, but if you fail there's a clear risk you've gone over the side yourself.
> ...



The 4E designers clearly recognized how disappointing it was that 3E combats involve so little obvious movement -- characters seem to just stand toe to toe, whacking away -- but I agree that they went too far (in the wrong direction) in addressing the problem.

It feels like every fighter is able to make his opponent move like one particular chess piece, once per encounter -- even if that opponent is a giant or an ooze.

If we look at how classic hex-map war games work, movement takes the place of hit points as a way to provide _momentum_.  Instead of hitting and doing damage, attacking units force defending units to retreat.  If the defender can't retreat -- because it's backed up against a river -- _then_ the unit is (effectively) destroyed.

I wouldn't mind seeing rogues able to avoid damage by retreating.  Fighters, on the other hand, would hold ground.  And each variation of 3E's bull rush wouldn't require a separate power.


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## Herremann the Wise (Jun 22, 2011)

Redbadge said:


> Finally, I'd like to comment on the aspects of HP in my games. HP represent endurance, health, morale, stamina, luck, fatigue, stress, and more in my games.



The important thing here is that by expanding the scope of what hit points represent, you expand the number of things that can help restore them. I think this is a good thing for hit points.



Redbadge said:


> When characters have become bloodied, they likely have taken their first actual injury of the encounter, and usually only a scratch. When they finally fall below 0 hp, they have taken their first truly damaging hit.



They have only taken a damaging hit if they die from it, otherwise it is a wound light enough that it will be inconsequential the following day. I think this is 4e big failure in not fully separating hit points as they and you present (and that I think is good) and physical damage. Physical damage is not restored as quickly as all the other things that hit points represent and so physical damage *must *be treated separately if you wish to have consistency in the narrative and simulation of a spectrum of injury.



Redbadge said:


> ...When a martial healer "heals" an ally, I think of it as a morale boost, providing a boost in courage and adrenaline through words and example alone.



I agree with what you are saying here and think this a really neat thing, except when the warlord yells enough at an unconscious comrade and they start getting up after potentially taking a killing blow and thus your suggestion:


Redbadge said:


> Perhaps as an even greater nod to simulation, future versions of this rule, should they still exist, is to have martial "healing" only work on non-bloodied creatures, while magical healing only works on bloodied creatures (though perhaps magical healing should still work all the time, because it can relieve stress and fatigue from non-bloodied creatures, thereby restoring HP).



And again we run into the problem of not separating physical damage and hit points. Why cannot someone who is injured still be motivated by the warlord to hold the line one more time? Just because a creature is bloodied shouldn't stop the warlord's inspiring word from working (although you would assume unconsciousness would). I suppose the fix is: while they are above zero (what we houseruled for 4e), but even then you still have the central issue of either you are dead, or perfectly fine the next day. There is no in between.

And so I am definitely in the camp of liking how 4e took hit points to the next level (fleshing out how they were described in previous editions) but not liking how hit points works with the other pieces. Like mmadsen, I think the only way to correct this is to separate physical damage from hit point loss and calling healing surges: "combat surges" or just plain surges. In that way, it makes sense using combat surges as a usable currency for alternative uses other than healing.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

Herremann the Wise said:


> The important thing here is that by expanding the scope of what hit points represent, you expand the number of things that can help restore them. I think this is a good thing for hit points.




The major issue of expanding the scope of hp is when they are used to indicate an actual telling blow without regard to their expqanded role: the poison dart that inflicts its payload if any daamge is scored, for example.  Hard to figure how the poison gets into someone's system when the dart was a clean miss that only shakes the target's morale.

If you expand the range of what hp represent, you have to make sure that any consequences of hp loss make sense under the new definition.  If the description for hp loss is in the hands of the player and can range from morale, exhaustion, bruise/pull, or actual telling blow then the effects of rider powers, extra defenses like DR, incorporeal, etc. need to be rethought.


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## Lanefan (Jun 22, 2011)

Nagol said:


> The major issue of expanding the scope of hp is when they are used to indicate an actual telling blow without regard to their expqanded role: the poison dart that inflicts its payload if any daamge is scored, for example.  Hard to figure how the poison gets into someone's system when the dart was a clean miss that only shakes the target's morale.



So turn it around.

Yes the dart did a couple of points of fatigue damage, but making your save vs. the poison narrates that the dart never broke your skin at all!

Lanefan


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## Herremann the Wise (Jun 22, 2011)

Nagol said:


> The major issue of expanding the scope of hp is when they are used to indicate an actual telling blow without regard to their expanded role: the poison dart that inflicts its payload if any damage is scored, for example.  Hard to figure how the poison gets into someone's system when the dart was a clean miss that only shakes the target's morale.



This is not a problem of interpretation, it is one of the many problems, issues, paradoxes of combining physical damage in with all the other things that hit points are designed to represent (sorry to keep hammering this in all my posts - I'm sure you guys are sick of it by now). If your character takes hit point damage then the poison obviously does not work. If they take physical damage then their body has to fight the poison; best represented by a suitable "save" mechanic.



Nagol said:


> If you expand the range of what hp represent, you have to make sure that any consequences of hp loss make sense under the new definition.  If the description for hp loss is in the hands of the player and can range from morale, exhaustion, bruise/pull, or actual telling blow then the effects of rider powers, extra defenses like DR, incorporeal, etc. need to be rethought.



Not only do you have to make sure that the consequences of hp loss make sense, you also have to (and in some respects more importantly) have to make sure the way how hit points are *restored *makes sense - this is where every single edition of D&D in my opinion has got it wrong.

_A thought exercise_:

Imagine that you do separate physical damage from everything else hit points represents. Now imagine that my character loses hit points as the result of having a greataxe swung at him; what has happened?

*Luck*
He got lucky - something that you can't rely on every time and so the loss of hit points makes sense. In terms of restoration - who can say how luck works? As such it is at the will of the narrative and most particularly how the dice roll in the first place so I'm not thinking there is an issue here with hit points as luck. Interestingly, I could see several feats or features growing out of luck impacting hit points with this interpretation. A halfling rogue just seems to get lucky more often (and thus may have more hit points because of it).

*The ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one*
This would seem to encompass skill and combat experience and thus this element of hit points represents keeping one's head in battle. I suppose it is as much the mental side of things in battle. It makes sense that an experienced character would have more hit points than a novice because of this. It makes sense that as a combat goes on, a combatants capacity to maintain their highly-skilled abilities will be tested. A quick rest and the adrenaline is back on tap for the next encounter.

*The ability to take physical punishment but keep going*
This is something that reflects the endurance and toughness of a character. What would have some character's screaming like a girl is just an inconsequential flesh wound for others that will need to be stitched when opportunity presents itself sometime later. Where as the previous interpretation would seem to reflect willpower, this one seems to reflect fortitude. More hit points represents a tougher character well but in terms of interpretation, the complexity is now starting to add up. You might have a lucky skillful rogue and a tough as guts barbarian with equal hit points. When the rogue takes hit point damage, it is their skill and luck that is helping them avoid the worst of the blows while for the barbarian it is as much toughness and a seemingly infinite well of endurance as raw skill that keeps them going. The DM/GM is given a measure of scope here in describing the resolution of actions - and in fact, how a character gets their hit points neatly informs them how to explain the combat narrative to their players. And so this burgeoning complexity of interpretation seems to be manageable. As for getting one's toughness back, again I know of no metric that can measure this and so the restoration of hit points due to this will make sense. A rest, a kiss on the bruise and we're back into the action.

*Divine Power*
The 3e example of a paladin staring down the wizard as the paladin is engulfed in arcane flames, only to remain unsinged is perhaps divine influence represented most overtly. The higher the level of the paladin, the greater their relationship with their deity and so the more sense that hit points could be derived from such. Now their deity is not going to protect them all the time but here and there, the divine character can be safe in the knowledge that their god will keep them safe. The restoration of such divine providence again is completely unknown, and so dropping it into the hit point pot would not seem to cause an issue.

*Morale*
This is the will to keep going, even if it means a character sacrificing themselves for something they believe in (be that belief foolish or not). In some ways this ties in with the 2nd and 3rd points underlining them and so as such, they form this neat triumvirate of capabilities that all characters will share. Again, there is an expression of desire here which may or may not be appropriate to the character but, a higher level character's morale is not going to be as sorely tested as a novice because they would have more confidence in their skills versus the same opponent than the novice - as such more hit points makes sense. The restoration of morale is interesting though. Perhaps it helps define what a short rest entails. It is a chance to deal with one's dire situation as much as it is to catch one's breath. A character who is under the extreme influence of fear may not get as many hit points back as normal from a short rest.

*Inner Power*
Is perhaps connected to morale but would seem to be the province of certain classes such as the monk. That such inner power may be as quickly restored as luck, divine favor or anything else so mentioned would seem to mean that again, this would be a suitable addition into the hit point melting pot.

And so, my point is that all of these things seem to make a sort of sense in the fantasy world without breaking the internal logic that is accepted when entering that fantasy world. It is only physical damage of which our ideas are so firmly rooted in our own real world that causes the issues of logic. The disbelief that a character could be at death's door one day and then barely 24 hours later is at full and maximum capacity.

In terms of other defenses such as DR, incorporeality, regeneration and so on, I'm not too sure that there is a problem - if physical damage is taken separately, then everything seems to easily follow what is logical in my opinion. DR becomes something that is applicable to both hit point loss as well as physical damage as it is a protection; a measure of the threat in the first place. Incorporeality is interesting as their is no body to do physical damage upon. There would seem to be a reliance on positive or radiant energy to combat such creatures which would make them quite deadly. I suppose the usual process of magical weaponry being partially effective is reasonable too. Regeneration only works on physical damage, not hit point damage. If anything, I think this provides a definite clarity to the equation which has strained interpretations of previous versions of D&D.

Perhaps though where things get interesting and that hit points and physical damage cannot immediately cover is:
- Consciousness and getting dazed, stunned or knocked out.
- Fatigue and Exhaustion (although one could be 0 hps equals the fatigued condition which can then get worse, exhausted, then debilitated, then incapacitated).
- Fear effects (again, this is close with fear effects doing hit point damage that is not reduced by DR as much as by will defense).
- Drowning effects: linked to Consciousness I suppose but would seem to be independent of hit points and physical damage).

Anyway, thank you Nagol for the thought-provoking post - it provoked a lot of thoughts from me. 

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Bluenose (Jun 22, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> If we look at how classic hex-map war games work, movement takes the place of hit points as a way to provide _momentum_.  Instead of hitting and doing damage, attacking units force defending units to retreat.  If the defender can't retreat -- because it's backed up against a river -- _then_ the unit is (effectively) destroyed.




If you're going to look at things to see how movement works in combat, then combat sports and re-enactment groups would seem a good place to start. And they're full of people moving around, in small scale combat. Less so on a larger scale, where a solid shieldwall is an extremely valuable tactic. I'm not sure the second is what D&D represents.

Incidentally, while your example of hex wargames does reflect how some do it, it's not universal. Some treat a forced retreat in a situation where a unit can't do so as having no effect. Which also reflects historical reality, sometimes. Sun Tzu says why.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jun 22, 2011)

Ya know, reading the last few post, it occurs to me that a long term injury system could be easily added to 4e keying off the healing surges (they should really be called vitality reserves or something) and the death save mechanics)
So if you make death save one gains the concussed condition and cannot regain healing surves without an extended rest and if you run out of healing surges then you have a long term wound and start on the disease track to determine the progress of you injury.

I think that something like the disease track mechanic would be better for long term wounds for all editions.

In my opinion though, long term injury systems should be optional for those that want them rather than part of the core.


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> So turn it around.
> 
> Yes the dart did a couple of points of fatigue damage, but making your save vs. the poison narrates that the dart never broke your skin at all!
> 
> Lanefan




How about an example of play:



> The DM: A dart wizzes out of the wall.  <Rolls dice> Take 4 hp  piercing damage.
> The player: My boots of dancing maneuvers DR 3 drops that to 1 so I only have 100 left.  I guess the sight of the dart passing that close is enough to get the heart going!
> 
> <An hour of play later>
> ...


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

Herremann the Wise said:


> This is not a problem of interpretation, it is one of the many problems, issues, paradoxes of combining physical damage in with all the other things that hit points are designed to represent (sorry to keep hammering this in all my posts - I'm sure you guys are sick of it by now). If your character takes hit point damage then the poison obviously does not work. If they take physical damage then their body has to fight the poison; best represented by a suitable "save" mechanic.
> 
> 
> Not only do you have to make sure that the consequences of hp loss make sense, you also have to (and in some respects more importantly) have to make sure the way how hit points are *restored *makes sense - this is where every single edition of D&D in my opinion has got it wrong.




I was mostly agreeing with you that the expansion of hp into less tangible realms increases the need for the player group to track physical damage differently.  This is a sensible design path for an RPG.  It trades complexity for a more "simulationist" feel for the toll of combat.



> _A thought exercise_:
> 
> Imagine that you do separate physical damage from everything else hit points represents. Now imagine that my character loses hit points as the result of having a greataxe swung at him; what has happened?
> 
> ...




The simplest way to expand hp to fill these roles that helps serve narrative sense is to give each one its own bucket.  Running out of any particular bucket has a grave consequce tied to the bucket type (unconsciousness, despair, incapacitation, chronic conditions, curses, etc.).  The player gets to choose which bucket to draw from whenever combat indicates a toll (previously termed damage).  Each bucket has a different form of refresh -- some of which are mutually exclusive like physical therapy for "Physical Punishment but Keep Going" versus days of meditative introspection for "Inner Power".

That allows the player and the DM to narrate the action consistently when damage is applied and to sensibly apply consequence where and when it is appropriate.



> In terms of other defenses such as DR, incorporeality, regeneration and so on, I'm not too sure that there is a problem - if physical damage is taken separately, then everything seems to easily follow what is logical in my opinion. DR becomes something that is applicable to both hit point loss as well as physical damage as it is a protection; a measure of the threat in the first place. Incorporeality is interesting as their is no body to do physical damage upon. There would seem to be a reliance on positive or radiant energy to combat such creatures which would make them quite deadly. I suppose the usual process of magical weaponry being partially effective is reasonable too. Regeneration only works on physical damage, not hit point damage. If anything, I think this provides a definite clarity to the equation which has strained interpretations of previous versions of D&D.
> 
> Perhaps though where things get interesting and that hit points and physical damage cannot immediately cover is:
> - Consciousness and getting dazed, stunned or knocked out.
> ...




My point about defensive abilities like DR and incorporeality is they should only apply to specific types of hp "damage".  The djinni may be immune to normal metal, but he can still be flustered, lose divine favour, abuse his luck, and so on.  Currently, the defenses are globally applied.


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## mmadsen (Jun 22, 2011)

Lanefan said:


> Yes the dart did a couple of points of fatigue damage, but making your save vs. the poison narrates that the dart never broke your skin at all!



That's an excellent answer to the question of what to do while at the table playing the game, but that doesn't address the poor design of the game rules, which are meant to model the situation.

If I want to poison someone with a dart, how should I increase my chances, and what might decrease my chances?  I need to achieve a (game-mechanical) hit vs. his AC, and he needs to fail a Fort save.  Wearing him down and using up his luck, divine favor, etc. reduces his ability to dodge blows and turn them into lesser blows, but somehow it doesn't reduce my ability to hit him in an unarmored spot with my poisoned dart, and it doesn't affect his resistance to the poison.

If we actually treated hit points as luck points rather than toughness points, we could avoid this problem by letting such luck points be usable against the to-hit roll, against the damage roll, and to boost the saving throw.  But that way lies heresy.


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> That's an excellent answer to the question of what to do while at the table playing the game, but that doesn't address the poor design of the game rules, which are meant to model the situation.
> 
> <snip>




I'd suggest it's not an excellent answer since it presumes the dart actualy hit and precludes "simple" morale damage, divine favour/luck depletion, and all the other justifications put forward as to why a hit need not be a palpable hit when martial healing, overnight recovery, or other game constructs are critiqued.

If the dart didn't impact, the secondary effect can't occur.  If the scondary effect occurs, then there was a palpable iimpact.  It may seem nitpicking when used on a dart, but consider a poisoned long sword.  If the poison strikes, there had to a palpable hit that affected the character.  The player can't choose the narrative option for hp depletion until all consequence is known and that can be much later in the session and the player's narrative choice is not recognised and validated by the game engine since even if the player chooses X, secondary consequences both good and ill ignore his choice.


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## GSHamster (Jun 22, 2011)

My feeling on hit points is that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "It has been said that hit points are the worst form of adjudicating damage except all the others that have been tried."

Hit points are terribly flawed. But at the same time, they just work.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> In a quote like this, there is the assertion that Smaug is being hit and injured mechanically, even though he is described as the following: "As with most dragons, Smaug's scaly hide is nigh invulnerable, yet his softer underside is more vulnerable to attack. However, centuries spent sleeping atop his gold hoard has caused gold and gemstones to become embedded in his flesh, creating essentially an impenetrable armour."




If hit points are taken to be a static measure of damage, then, yes, there is no sense in saying that hit point attrition occurs in this fight.  But, as the last few hit points are the only ones where "real" damage is taken -- the others, you will recall, include various other factors, even in 1e.....

It is perfectly valid to describe a hit that does non life-threatening damage against an armoured human fighter as "The arrow glances off your helm, doing you no more damage than a fly from the marshes".  Especially if the arrow only does 1 hp damage, and the fighter has 100 left.

(In my own ruleset, this could be literally true, as the damage Smaug takes before the Black Arrow might literally be Shaken Off, depending upon several factors.  It is quite possible for a hit point system to allow a creature to take no real damage while being whittled down.)

As a 3e dragon, Smaug could be modelled as having a good DR, which knowledge of the weak spot allows Bard to bypass.  The description of the Black Arrow -- including that it came from the forge of the true King Under the Mountain -- suggests that it is magical.

So, I have no problem playing out this scene with a game that uses hit point mechanics.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> I was thinking of a couple of scenes in REH's Conan – Conan is KO-ed by a single sling stone to the head in _Shadows in the Moonlight_, and paralysed by poison in _The Scarlet Citadel_ (he's imprisoned and placed in a D&Dish dungeon)




Well, poison doesn't necessarily have anything to do with hit points, nor does a mickey (mouse) slipped into your drink.  My system of choice is hit-point-based, and can handle that KO quite easily, using more than one possible mechanic, so I'm not seeing that as a strong argument against hit points, either.



> Another example would be the one you mentioned of Luke Skywalker being taken out by the tusken raider. If we give our heroes lots of hit points even at 1st level, as 4e does, then that can't happen.




Nonsense.

This problem only occurs when _*hit points accrued *_are not modelled in a static way, and hit point damage _*is*_.  When you say



> What is going on there is not just one more punch, there's more to it than that. But with hit points that's all it takes.




you mistake particular hit point systems for hit point systems overall.  If "what is going on there" is more than "just one more punch", the fault lies not with the hit points on the receiving end, but how damage is modelled on the "dishing it out" end.

I am playing a game that models "doing more damage" or "trying harder to hit" or knockback or trips or any of a countless host of other things as a tradeoff.  You accept additional risk to potentially gain greater rewards.  And it uses hit points.

In a recent fight, where the party was overwhelmed by a superior swordsman, the halfling rogue hid himself and prepared to snipe the swordsman if the opportunity appeared.  Another character, a fighter with a spear, was able to drive the swordsman out of the main group, where the rogue had a better chance of sniping.

Despite the fact that, had they simply engaged him in melee, the swordsman would have cut through them, they were able to win.  And dramatically so.  It did not feel like "just one more punch" -- it felt like what it was:  A desperate Hail Mary pass from far downfield.

One of my players/playtesters was concerned that hit points allowed a character to "get shot in the face" with a gun and live.  But hit point systems assume that many (if not most) successful attacks are not shots to the face.  What a good hit point system does -- and what I worked hard to make mine do -- is differentiate between an average hit and a hit that is more likely to be a shot to the face.

(Incidentally, that player later lost a character by being shot in the face, literally, with a gun, in my rewrite playtest of Paizo's _*Carrion Hill*_.)



GSHamster said:


> My feeling on hit points is that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "It has been said that hit points are the worst form of adjudicating damage except all the others that have been tried."
> 
> Hit points are terribly flawed. But at the same time, they just work.








RC


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> If hit points are taken to be a static measure of damage, then, yes, there is no sense in saying that hit point attrition occurs in this fight.  But, as the last few hit points are the only ones where "real" damage is taken -- the others, you will recall, include various other factors, even in 1e.....
> 
> It is perfectly valid to describe a hit that does non life-threatening damage against an armoured human fighter as "The arrow glances off your helm, doing you no more damage than a fly from the marshes".  Especially if the arrow only does 1 hp damage, and the fighter has 100 left.
> 
> ...




How would your description change if the arrow were poisoned?


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

Nagol said:


> How would your description change if the arrow were poisoned?




Which arrow?

If you mean all of those arrows bouncing off of him.....If I ruled that the arrows could cause attrition, but not pierce his skin, then the easy answer would be "Unless struck in a specific spot, Smaug is immune to the poison on the arrows".

Do you mean the arrow doing 1 hp to the human fighter?  Roll the save.  Answers the question.

I'm sure you imagine that there is a problem here, but I seem to be missing it!

(I used to favour a Vitality/Wound Point system because of just these sorts of "problems", but no longer.  How the description works can be determined at the time of the blow.  That works very, very well.  For me, at least.)


RC


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> If hit points are taken to be a static measure of damage, then, yes, there is no sense in saying that hit point attrition occurs in this fight.  But, as the last few hit points are the only ones where "real" damage is taken -- the others, you will recall, include various other factors, even in 1e.....




That's true.



> It is perfectly valid to describe a hit that does non life-threatening damage against an armoured human fighter as "The arrow glances off your helm, doing you no more damage than a fly from the marshes".  Especially if the arrow only does 1 hp damage, and the fighter has 100 left.




Yep, I agree here, too. I've literally described hit point damage as barely dodging the attack when it seems to hit in 3.X.



> (In my own ruleset, this could be literally true, as the damage Smaug takes before the Black Arrow might literally be Shaken Off, depending upon several factors.  It is quite possible for a hit point system to allow a creature to take no real damage while being whittled down.)




In my ruleset, as I've indicated, there are two types of hit points. You can take one type all day long and never be physically harmed. So, I know that various other systems can change the nature of hit points.



> As a 3e dragon, Smaug could be modelled as having a good DR, which knowledge of the weak spot allows Bard to bypass.  The description of the Black Arrow -- including that it came from the forge of the true King Under the Mountain -- suggests that it is magical.




That's true, but where I had a problem is in the idea presented of the arrow being a slaying arrow. If it bypasses the hit point mechanic because Smaug fails his Fort save, then we're not dealing with the hit point mechanic anymore. It's stopped simulating what we need it to, and we had to bypass it to simulate that moment of the story.

Although, my game would allow the damage reduction has a weak spot that's harder to hit but allows the damage reduction to be bypassed. A figure a magical arrow, even if it's not a slaying arrow, that bypasses the damage reduction might really hurt the dragon, especially if the hole leads to the dragon's heart, or other vital area.



> So, I have no problem playing out this scene with a game that uses hit point mechanics.
> 
> 
> RC




Neither do I. I just think that certain ideas presented in the thread, such as critical hit charts, powerful dragons with 15 hit points, or slaying arrows that bypass the hit point mechanic, aren't really demonstrating that hit points simulate things the way people are asserting they are.

I do have a philosophy of "roll dice, determine effect, look at how it shapes the story" to some degree, as long as the consistency of the game world isn't broken.

At any rate, I don't think we're far off on some views. I prefer hit points to the other wound systems I've seen, even if I've liked those wound systems. I just don't like the way they've been handled in D&D (and thus I have two different types of hit points). I'm sure many people change how hit points are used to hit there wants, and many people leave them, since it's good enough for them and their group. And fair enough, because that's really all that matters.

As always, play what you like


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Which arrow?
> 
> If you mean all of those arrows bouncing off of him.....If I ruled that the arrows could cause attrition, but not pierce his skin, then the easy answer would be "Unless struck in a specific spot, Smaug is immune to the poison on the arrows".
> 
> ...




The arrow I'm referring to is from this:



> It is perfectly valid to describe a hit that does non life-threatening damage against an armoured human fighter as "The arrow glances off your helm, doing you no more damage than a fly from the marshes". Especially if the arrow only does 1 hp damage, and the fighter has 100 left.




We have a PC with 100 hp who is hit by an arrow for 1 hp damage.

Scenario A:  the arrow is just an arrow and the attack is resolved and described as above.

Scenario B: the arrow is carrying an blood vector poison that can debilitate the PC over the course of a couple of rounds if appropriate saving throws are not made.

Does your description of the arrow hit change?  Does the poison get adjudicated or ignored because there was no injury?


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 22, 2011)

I'm pretty sure here's how it works:

No poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt: the arrow bounces harmlessly off your armor.
Poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt, save made: the arrows bounces harmlessly off your armor.
Poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt, save failed: the arrow only grazes your skin through the armor.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> That's true, but where I had a problem is in the idea presented of the arrow being a slaying arrow. If it bypasses the hit point mechanic because Smaug fails his Fort save, then we're not dealing with the hit point mechanic anymore.




Why must a Slaying Arrow bypass the hit point mechanic?  Why can it not just do more hit points of damage?

"As always, play what you like" is an _*excellent*_ tagline, btw!



Nagol said:


> We have a PC with 100 hp who is hit by an arrow for 1 hp damage.
> 
> Scenario A:  the arrow is just an arrow and the attack is resolved and described as above.
> 
> ...




The problem is not hit points in your Scenario B, from my perspective.  The problem is that you cannot determine, at the initial incident, what has happened.  If there is a way you can check if the series of saves need be made, when the strike occurs, then you modify your description accordingly.

For example, "But, when the arrow shatters against your helm, a tiny splinter of the shaft flies within your visor and lodges in your cheek."  This could even be done after the fact:  "When you remove your helmet, so that Herman the Holy can apply his healing arts, he sees that a tiny splinter of the arrow that shivered on your helmet -- too small even to be felt in the heat of battle -- has lodged beneath the skin of your cheek, and begun to fester."

Again, this is pretty easy to deal with.  IMHO, and IME anyway.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I'm pretty sure here's how it works:
> 
> No poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt: the arrow bounces harmlessly off your armor.
> Poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt, save made: the arrows bounces harmlessly off your armor.
> Poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt, save failed: the arrow only grazes your skin through the armor.




This answer is both faster & clearer than my blathering above, but essentially the same.


RC


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## Nagol (Jun 22, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I'm pretty sure here's how it works:
> 
> No poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt: the arrow bounces harmlessly off your armor.
> Poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt, save made: the arrows bounces harmlessly off your armor.
> Poisoned arrow, 1 damage dealt, save failed: the arrow only grazes your skin through the armor.




So the arrow will bounce off harmlessly unless a wound could inflict secondary effects?

That leads to Scenario C: same arrow except it is carrying a longer-term threat that the PC should be unaware of, for example a disease that won't manifest for at least a day.

If the arrow bounces harmlessly off the armour then the player is given a mental image of the event that doesn't require any form of follow up and the imposition of the disease at a later time can feel like a gotcha.  If the arrow acts differently than other arrows of similar ilk and the player is paying attention then he receives more information than he should.

In the olden days before hp inflation, it could be argued that any hit no matter how minor effectively resulted in actually hitting the target (even if luck, morale, inherent toughness, etc. reduced the resulting wound) and my point was moot.

Ultimately, this doesn't matter too much so long as the DM controls the narrative surrounding the combat and the effect of any particular blow.  Where it becomes problematic is when the game systems starts to share narrative control with the players and deliberately starts to justify most damage to non-tangible results such as morale, et al. allowing hits to apparently miss.

For the players to effectively participate in narrative control they need the same overall information of the situation surrounding the combat as the DM has.  Otherwise the narrative begins to unravel as events no longer seem to unfold in predictable patterns from previous situations.


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## Lanefan (Jun 22, 2011)

Nagol said:


> If the dart didn't impact, the secondary effect can't occur.  If the scondary effect occurs, then there was a palpable iimpact.



And whether or not any secondary effect occurs is determined right then and there via the saving throw.


> It may seem nitpicking when used on a dart, but consider a poisoned long sword.  If the poison strikes, there had to a palpable hit that affected the character.  The player can't choose the narrative option for hp depletion until all consequence is known and that can be much later in the session and the player's narrative choice is not recognised and validated by the game engine since even if the player chooses X, secondary consequences both good and ill ignore his choice.



Almost all the time you-as-player know whether you made or failed your poison save which is (or should be) rolled as soon as the hit takes place; even if the actual consequences don't set in until later, you and-or the DM can set the table: "The sword cut my arm, barely broke the skin but something doesn't feel right; and those drops of blood do NOT look like the right colour!  MEDIC!!"

Lan-"purple blood means either you've been smoking something or I have"-efan


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Why must a Slaying Arrow bypass the hit point mechanic?  Why can it not just do more hit points of damage?
> 
> "As always, play what you like" is an _*excellent*_ tagline, btw!




Thanks 

And slaying arrows can be hit point damage, it just seemed to be presented as "dragon failed his Fort save and died." And, if the slaying arrow deals "1,000,000 damage to the creature that fails it's Fort save" then I'd also say that it's effectively bypasses the hit point mechanic. If it just magnifies damage or otherwise increases it, then it's well within the limits of hit point mechanics.

Though, since we're talking about D&D, I don't believe that this version of slaying arrows have been historically used. Though I am fuzzy on this, so I could very well be wrong.



Nagol said:


> So the arrow will bounce off harmlessly unless a wound could inflict secondary effects?




Not necessarily. You could say "it grazes your arm through the armor, but it's a superficial cut" if it only deals 1 damage. Nothing wrong with either.



> That leads to Scenario C: same arrow except it is carrying a longer-term threat that the PC should be unaware of, for example a disease that won't manifest for at least a day.




Okay, let's look at that! 



> If the arrow bounces harmlessly off the armour then the player is given a mental image of the event that doesn't require any form of follow up and the imposition of the disease at a later time can feel like a gotcha.  If the arrow acts differently than other arrows of similar ilk and the player is paying attention then he receives more information than he should.




If the arrow is carrying an additional negative effect based on injury, people that subscribe to this type of description will generally have the arrow "graze" or "wound" the victim, rather than bounce harmlessly away, no matter if the arrow is carrying a disease, poison, contingent curse, or anything else similar in nature.

So, if the character is struck by the arrow, takes 1 damage, fails his Fort save against the disease, then people might generally describe it as a superficial wound for now.



> In the olden days before hp inflation, it could be argued that any hit no matter how minor effectively resulted in actually hitting the target (even if luck, morale, inherent toughness, etc. reduced the resulting wound) and my point was moot.
> 
> Ultimately, this doesn't matter too much so long as the DM controls the narrative surrounding the combat and the effect of any particular blow.  Where it becomes problematic is when the game systems starts to share narrative control with the players and deliberately starts to justify most damage to non-tangible results such as morale, et al. allowing hits to apparently miss.




Only if the players get to describe the hits in ways that will negate secondary effects. If they know they failed a Fort save, then they'd have to play along with that knowledge.

For my group, I wouldn't want anyone besides the GM describing the wound (or lack thereof), but just because some groups allow players some narrative authorship doesn't mean that there's necessarily problems. The players must cooperate within the shared narrative for the game to work. This does not apply solely to hit points.



> For the players to effectively participate in narrative control they need the same overall information of the situation surrounding the combat as the DM has.  Otherwise the narrative begins to unravel as events no longer seem to unfold in predictable patterns from previous situations.




That's true to some extent, yes. "Roll a Fort save" is very different from "Roll a save vs. poison" or even "Roll a save vs. _Type X_ poison."

While I think that the narrative style of play might have some hiccups to me or my group, others embrace the style and their enjoyment can potentially skyrocket. To this end, sharing information may not be a bad thing to their group. Or they might have other solutions not spoken of yet in this thread.

At any rate, and as always, play what you like


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

Nagol said:


> So the arrow will bounce off harmlessly unless a wound could inflict secondary effects?
> 
> That leads to Scenario C: same arrow except it is carrying a longer-term threat that the PC should be unaware of, for example a disease that won't manifest for at least a day.




So long as the GM knows this, and narrates events accordingly, there is no problem.  Which, I note, you have also noted.



> In the olden days before hp inflation, it could be argued that any hit no matter how minor effectively resulted in actually hitting the target (even if luck, morale, inherent toughness, etc. reduced the resulting wound) and my point was moot.




I still rule thus; it is the default position in my game of choice.  However, an actual hit need not be described as piercing the skin or striking flesh.  A blow against armour can certainly damage one, even if the armour remains intact!



> Ultimately, this doesn't matter too much so long as the DM controls the narrative surrounding the combat and the effect of any particular blow.  Where it becomes problematic is when the game systems starts to share narrative control with the players and deliberately starts to justify most damage to non-tangible results such as morale, et al. allowing hits to apparently miss.
> 
> For the players to effectively participate in narrative control they need the same overall information of the situation surrounding the combat as the DM has.  Otherwise the narrative begins to unravel as events no longer seem to unfold in predictable patterns from previous situations.




This I agree with.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Thanks




As the Umpire said, "I call 'em as I see 'em, no matter how unpopular that may make me!"  



> And slaying arrows can be hit point damage, it just seemed to be presented as "dragon failed his Fort save and died." And, if the slaying arrow deals "1,000,000 damage to the creature that fails it's Fort save" then I'd also say that it's effectively bypasses the hit point mechanic. If it just magnifies damage or otherwise increases it, then it's well within the limits of hit point mechanics.
> 
> Though, since we're talking about D&D, I don't believe that this version of slaying arrows have been historically used. Though I am fuzzy on this, so I could very well be wrong.




Well, it all depends upon the parameters of the discussion, I suppose.  I was defending the hit point mechanic, which includes not only how it is used in Official D&D Products.

It should be pretty easy to image an arrow that does +1d8, +2d8, +4d8, etc., damage.

In my own game, I included a mechanic that specifically allows characters to do this under some circumstances.  The more skilled a character is, the more extra dice of damage he can potentially do.  This makes ambushes a bit more deadly, and it makes even high-level characters think twice when surrounded by dozens of armed crossbowmen.

EDIT:  As a heroic (6th level) bowman, Bard would presumably have 7 ranks of archery.  Getting the drop automatically grants one extra die of damage, and he can spend ranks to gain 3 more; so +4d8 damage.  This is in addition to the base 1d8 for the arrow, whatever bonus Bard gets for pull strength, and whatever bonus the Black Arrow gives him.  If he manages to roll a critical hit, that's another 1d8.  So, Bard does up to 6d8, with (say) a +2 bonus to damage for his pull strength, and a +2d8 for being a Bane weapon against the dragon.  He strikes with +1 for remaining archery ranks, +4 for getting the drop, +1 for Dexterity, or +6 total.  Assuming that the Black Arrow grants him nothing.

Bard then does a potential 8d8+2 with that arrow, ranging from 10 to 66 points of damage.  All within the confines of a hit point based system!

Now, let us imagine that Smaug is not instantly slain, but the damage is sufficient (greater than 1/3 hp) to make him unable to fly.  He now comes crashing down from 100 feet up onto Laketown.  In RCFG terms, the 1st 10 ft. does 1d6, the second does 2d6, the 3rd does 3d6, and so on.  This is a potential 55d6 damage, but RCFG limits this to 20d6 for a fall of 60 feet or more (the Beta Playtest rules limited to 10d6 for 40 ft.+).  So, Smaug takes 20d6 for the fall (20 to 120 damage), some additional damage for the surface fallen onto (let's say 4d6, or 4 to 24 damage), and then is in the water.....which is so inimical to him that cutting the bridge foils him.  Tolkein notes that the lake would put out his fire.....and I would say that was probably sufficient to finish him off.

There are several other ways in which you can also gain a bonus to hit, to damage, to your chance of a critical, to AC, etc., based upon how you choose to fight, and what you choose to do.  All of this uses hit points, but damage dealt (like damage you can take) becomes a variable of character (and player) skill.


RC


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> As the Umpire said, "I call 'em as I see 'em, no matter how unpopular that may make me!"




I like that guy.



> Well, it all depends upon the parameters of the discussion, I suppose.  I was defending the hit point mechanic, which includes not only how it is used in Official D&D Products.




They weren't given as examples. Most examples included D&D, and even 3.X or Pathfinder. But I agree, hit points work very differently depending on the system. I run a 3.X modeled game, but I don't add in Con bonus automatically to hit points. This makes my hit points (both types) potentially very different from 3.X. So I do understand your point.

However, if certain examples are used, I'm probably going to address those examples. 



> It should be pretty easy to image an arrow that does +1d8, +2d8, +4d8, etc., damage.




Yep, it sure is. That is a fine example.



> In my own game, I included a mechanic that specifically allows characters to do this under some circumstances.  The more skilled a character is, the more extra dice of damage he can potentially do.  This makes ambushes a bit more deadly, and it makes even high-level characters think twice when surrounded by dozens of armed crossbowmen.




I've done something similar. For each X amount you beat someone's AC, you deal an extra damage die. This means that exceptionally skilled people will be potentially much more damage to lesser skilled people.

Also, my AC against surprise is even harsher than 3.X, so ambushes hurt that much more (especially with higher rolls dealing extra damage dice). On top of that, for each time you're attacked in a round, you take a cumulative penalty to defense. This increases your odds of being struck, as well as the potential damage done to you (as the more they beat you by, the more damage they deal).



> EDIT:  As a heroic (6th level) bowman, Bard would presumably have 7 ranks of archery.  Getting the drop automatically grants one extra die of damage, and he can spend ranks to gain 3 more; so +4d8 damage.  This is in addition to the base 1d8 for the arrow, whatever bonus Bard gets for pull strength, and whatever bonus the Black Arrow gives him.  If he manages to roll a critical hit, that's another 1d8.  So, Bard does up to 6d8, with (say) a +2 bonus to damage for his pull strength, and a +2d8 for being a Bane weapon against the dragon.  He strikes with +1 for remaining archery ranks, +4 for getting the drop, +1 for Dexterity, or +6 total.  Assuming that the Black Arrow grants him nothing.




Out of curiosity, I'm assuming this is for your game? Although, I would say that I wouldn't give him the drop on Smaug, as he'd emptied his quiver of all but the Black Arrow up to this point. I think Smaug is well aware of him. Unless, of course, getting the drop on something means something different within the context of the game (which it might very well mean).



> Bard then does a potential 8d8+2 with that arrow, ranging from 10 to 66 points of damage.  All within the confines of a hit point based system!
> 
> There are several other ways in which you can also gain a bonus to hit, to damage, to your chance of a critical, to AC, etc., based upon how you choose to fight, and what you choose to do.  All of this uses hit points, but damage dealt (like damage you can take) becomes a variable of character (and player) skill.
> 
> ...




I do think the system is robust, I just think attributing anomalies to certain things (critical hit charts, save or die arrows, or the like) actually hurts the argument put forth.

As always, though, play what you like


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## pawsplay (Jun 22, 2011)

If you want the hit point to do more work, you could say:

poison arrow (1d6, +2d6 poison)

and poison is extra damage that only affects living things, and which things can be immune. Now we don't even know how much damage is caused by the arrow and how much by the poison, which is, IMO, potentially a good thing. Doesn't it make sense that a deep arrow wound might deliver more poison? At the same time, a grazing cut might introduce poison to a pain, or a deep puncture might put the arrow through the body without delivering much payload. Thanks to this abstracted example, we don't have to care. "Poison arrows are more dangerous to things that can be poisoned," has been accomplished.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 22, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Out of curiosity, I'm assuming this is for your game? Although, I would say that I wouldn't give him the drop on Smaug, as he'd emptied his quiver of all but the Black Arrow up to this point. I think Smaug is well aware of him. Unless, of course, getting the drop on something means something different within the context of the game (which it might very well mean).




You are also able to Get the Drop by an opposed roll, depending upon circumstances.  So, when Captain Kirk draws his phaser on the Klingon Kang, he is able to (for example) gamble Intimidate vs. Kang's skill or save (probably Reflexes or Willpower in this example).  If Kirk succeeds, Kang stops, and they can negotiate.  

The longer Kirk holds the drop on Kang, the easier it is for Kang to escape the drop.  So, after Kirk has held the drop for a bit, Kang can try to Bluff in order to break Kirk's concentration.  Kirk does this all the time, actually.  

In the case of Smaug, the dragon is hardly paying more attention to Bard than to the other archers -- it is clear that he simply doesn't view them as a threat.  Bard is probably gambling Perception (to see the hollow patch) to Get the Drop -- not something that would normally happen, but appropriate to the circumstances.  Smaug then gets a Fly check to see if he would turn before the shot can be taken, but probably has a circumstance penalty because he is so little focused on Bard.

*Twang!*

The Captain Kirk and Bard the Bowman examples, BTW, are two specific examples that I examined when working out the Get the Dop mechanic.  If it didn't do a good job of simulating those fictional examples, I tweaked it until it did.  IMHO, anyway!  

Note that if Kirk was someone else -- a PC, say -- he might just shoot Kang as soon as he had the drop on him.  But, I have discovered, options like this actually make players feel safer talking to villians in the game.  Also, when the reverse happens, waiting until "the opportune moment" to break out of the drop is also the recommended tactic.  And that usually means going along with the villian......or getting him monologuing!


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 22, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> In the case of Smaug, the dragon is hardly paying more attention to Bard than to the other archers -- it is clear that he simply doesn't view them as a threat.  Bard is probably gambling Perception (to see the hollow patch) to Get the Drop -- not something that would normally happen, but appropriate to the circumstances.  Smaug then gets a Fly check to see if he would turn before the shot can be taken, but probably has a circumstance penalty because he is so little focused on Bard.
> 
> *Twang!*
> 
> The Captain Kirk and Bard the Bowman examples, BTW, are two specific examples that I examined when working out the Get the Dop mechanic.  If it didn't do a good job of simulating those fictional examples, I tweaked it until it did.  IMHO, anyway!




Well, I'd say that if Smaug was paying any attention to the archers, he'd be more focused on Bard than the others. From The Hobbit:



			
				The Hobbit said:
			
		

> Now he shot with a great yew bow, till all his arrows but one were spent. The flames were near him. His companions were leaving him.




Bard is being left by all of his fellow archers, despite him trying to rally them. He is alone when Smaug makes his final pass:



			
				The Hobbit said:
			
		

> Then Bard drew his bow-string to his ear. The dragon was circling back, flying low, and as he came the moon rose above the eastern shore and silvered his great wings... The dragon swooped once more lower than ever, and as he turned and dived down his belly glittered white with sparkling fires of gems in the moon-but not in one place. The great bow twanged. [Smaug death scene]




During this time, Smaug is even lower to the ground than normal, and Bard is out in the open, alone, with a weapon. I feel Smaug would be acutely aware of Bard over the other archers.

I don't think he would consider him a viable threat, however, so if that makes him suitably unaware for your mechanic, then that makes perfect sense to me.

Anyways, it's a cool mechanic. As always, play what you like


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## mmadsen (Jun 23, 2011)

Stormonu said:


> Minions - cheap monsters meant to distract, make the characters look more badass and quickly add numbers to a combat.



It rubs me the wrong way that one ninja is tough, but dozens of ninjas are wimps.

If 4E had been designed so that hit points were luck points that only PCs and important villains had, then I would be totally on board with everyone else having no hit points.  Instead, the game has anything and everything interact with hit points, so minions stand out as not belonging in the same game.


Stormonu said:


> Monster schticks - things like kobolds shiftiness, with small special mechanics that differentiate them from each other.



I like the notion of different monsters having different schticks, but it starts seeming arbitrary when kobolds and goblins each have the same concept, but their shiftiness is implemented ever-so-slightly differently, for variety.

I'd rather have sensible rules for how swarms of shifty little guys should operate, for how giant creatures should work, etc., rather than special rules for each creature, just to be different.


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## Starfox (Jun 23, 2011)

Nagol said:


> I was mostly agreeing with you that the expansion of hp into less tangible realms increases the need for the player group to track physical damage differently. This is a sensible design path for an RPG. It trades complexity for a more "simulationist" feel for the toll of combat.




The problem with such an approach is that *after the fight* most "psychical damage" makes you an invalid, temporarily or permanently. The human body on adrenaline is remarkably damage-resistant while in the heat of the action. But someone who is injured, even quite a minor injury, is much less prone and able to take risks and tends to place themselves in reserve. Both of these are very sensible survival mechanisms and evolved over a long time. 

The trouble, from a simulationist <-> gamist standpoint, is that you don't want your players to get the kind of physical injuries that turn them into invalids. It makes them less worthy as adventurers. Besides, in a game with healing magic, its really enough to know if they are alive or not. Anything less that death can be cured.

To quote Njarl's Saga, speaking of a fallen comrade (translated out of memory)

Bergtora (mother): Was the head off?
Son: No
Bergtora: Then he can likely heal.


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## Starfox (Jun 23, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> It rubs me the wrong way that one ninja is tough, but dozens of ninjas are wimps.




A classic case of Inverse Ninja Power.


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## Ainamacar (Jun 23, 2011)

All this talk about healing surges and hit points (across multiple threads too) has really gotten me thinking.  I share some discontentment about hit points since they abstract serious physical wounds and a large number of other possible influences into the same pool.  I realize that not everyone in the thread feels this way, and I don't feel the need to argue about it.  In addition, I like healing surges as a gamist resource, but find them rather uncomfortable from a simulation perspective.  Finally, in heroic fantasy of the D&D type, in principle I like the idea of a wound/vitality system, but not one that has a treacherous death spiral or results in multiple wounds for every combatant after every encounter.  Keeping the game moving is key.

My first thought was to adapt healing surges as a measure of actual physical damage, but then it struck me that I what I really want is a separation of truly grievous ailments (I will call them traumas) from any source (physical, mental, or spiritual) from minor ailments that can always be handwaved away quickly. Healing surges can stand in for the former, while hit points really excel at representing the latter.  Diseases and the like are also traumas, though not all traumas are so fiddly.

Here is my random idea:
Characters have surges, more or less as currently defined in 4e.  Maybe there should be different buckets for physical/mental/spiritual ailments, or at least contribution from different stats, but I think that is of secondary importance.

Surges can be spent as normal to gain hit points, which represents healing minor cuts and bruises, morale boosts, luck, etc.

Traumas are injuries that, until the trauma is removed, make one or more surges unavailable and usually have a secondary effect.  Healing a trauma requires appropriate time, care, and usually a check, but most of all requires expending additional healing surges equal to the number it makes unavailable, at least for combat healing.  In some cases the care is a spell, traditional medical care, or even a session with Dr. Bard, musician/psychiatrist (no relation to the archer).  The type of trauma (i.e. physical, mental, or spiritual) defines what kind of care is needed to remove it, perhaps reflected in a keyword.  So Healing Word would be good for most physical injuries without dismembering, Psychic Surgery for mental traumas, etc.  By decoupling serious injuries from lesser ones, I can buy the Warlord healing hit points and perhaps certain kinds of trauma much more readily.

Traumas are generally dealt by a critical hit, or after any hit that leaves the target's hit points at 0 or less.  They may also, rarely, be the normal result of special attacks such as from disintegrate, dragon breath, or a Bodak's gaze (effect: if you die while under the influence of this trauma you join the Bodak club).  Come to think of it, a lot of undead creation and most poisons could be handled this way.  I admit, I'm not a fan of poison damage, although the Executioner poisons are a big improvement.

Dieing is a function of having no surges remaining, but needing to spend one.  A character with 0 hit points is not unconscious, not until some threshold like negative surge value, at which point they are unconscious and dieing.  A failed death save causes the loss of a single surge.

The type of trauma gained could be rolled on a chart, drawn from an appropriate deck, or defined specifically.  As long as they happen infrequently enough, and most traumas don't require tons of book-keeping, careful adventurers might make it quite a while before they are a serious impediment to an adventure.  And exactly this is possible, since spending a surge with a second wind, a Healing Word, whatever, still restores hit points.  Since even the weakest trauma (1 surge) removes a surge when it first applies, and takes another one to remove, the game progresses under the assumption that falling to 0 hp is still a really bad idea, and staying there will get deadly fast, whether the target is conscious or not.  As long as the party can keep a character with a trauma in the positive hit points there isn't an inevitable death spiral.

A trauma might also create some interesting tactical decisions.  For example, suppose a character with 7 healing surges suffers a very serious 3-surge trauma that inflicts a very inconvenient penalty.  Now the character has 4 surges remaining, and the cleric must decide whether to heal him at the cost of 3 more surges.  Maybe, if its effect makes the character useless, but then he is left with only 1 surge remaining, which isn't much of a buffer.  Furthermore, if many or most traumas require a check to remove, for some traumas the risk of failure in the moment might be high.  I suppose it is also possible that a character with many, many traumas might survive but not have enough healing surges to actually remove any of them.  Such a character may need special care, like a spell that lets a healer spend healing surges for the target, a ritual, or just lots of rest.

This seems pretty flexible as a framework, as all long-term injuries or ailments can be represented this way.   For example, with minor alterations this could be used to define a sanity system that automatically has some interaction with the rest of the game.  I also have a much easier time picturing them as the fundamental unit of health, which the hero happens to be able to spend to gain hit points to avoid something even worse.  It's burning the candle at both ends, and fundamentally exhausting despite the very temporary boost.  Perhaps I'm the only one, but from a flavor perspective I find it more plausible than hit points alone, or healing surges + hit points in vanilla 4e.

Other ideas, just off the top of my head:
1) Bloodied could mean there is a new (this encounter) trauma, or perhaps a trauma and the target has 0 hp or fewer.  Something besides half hit-points, though.  This would have some pretty significant balance effects, so perhaps not in 4e as we know it.
2) Spend an action point to ignore the effect of a trauma for some period of time.
3) Minions can't handle traumas.  They die, they go into shock, but they don't stick around.  They can still get a lucky crit, though, and lots of minions means lots of danger.  It could be a middle ground between 1 hp minions and standard monsters, for those that care.
4) Regeneration could interact with traumas in fun ways.  You can definitely cut of a troll's arm, and then watch it come back.
5) Some traumas become permanent (dismemberment) and eventually the healing surges come back as your body reaches a new normal, even though the limb is still gone.
6) For people that want to make injuries more like disease (say an arm wound doesn't heal in time and becomes gangrenous) traumas make a good framework.  I wouldn't put that into the default system, though.
7) Possible framework for results of called shots that isn't totally ad hoc.
8) Tome of Forgotten Traumas is a hit splat book, found in every sketchy therapist's library.

Maybe I've only reinvented the Wound/Vitality wheel, or have provided  evidence that I've suffered a mental trauma of my own?


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 23, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> I don't think he would consider him a viable threat, however, so if that makes him suitably unaware for your mechanic, then that makes perfect sense to me.




As I said, there's a function of the mechanic that allows the drop to be gained by opposed checks.  Captain Kirk isn't always unaware of the villian who draws and aims his phaser.  You are not necessarily unaware of the guy with his knife to your throat.

Simply put, there are special circumstances that allow you to make more effective attacks.  Or, better yet, not make that attack so that some dialogue/prisoner taking can occur.

In the case of _*Module JRRT1*_, The Hobbit, the writer clearly expected the main party to face the dragon in its lair, and so included a mechanic by which they could do extra damage in the first attack.  I mean, otherwise, why toss in both a Ring of Invisibility and a weak spot?!?!

In the play report we are reading, no doubt the same players were allowed to control the NPC leaders in defense of the town.  The guy playing the mayor.....well, every group seems to have one of those guys.  AFAICT, the GM just allowed the thrush to act as a conduit of player knowledge, from one character to the next, out of goodwill.


RC


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 23, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> It rubs me the wrong way that one ninja is tough, but dozens of ninjas are wimps.



I'm uncomfortable with the minion/non-minion distinction in 4e not being clearer in game-world terms. For example, by the rules non-minion kobolds are very much tougher than minion kobolds and yet they don't seem to be a markedly different type of kobold.

In the fiction, I feel that this distinction makes most sense in the superhero genre, where you have beings with superpowers and those without. Or, to distinguish Batman types, guys in costumes with superhero names, and guys without. Those with superpowers are almost never minions, one counterexample being The Authority #16 - 
The day I can't mutilate thirty radioactive teenagers is the day I hang up my coat for good.​


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## mmadsen (Jun 23, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Things I think 4Ed got right or at least headed in the right direction:
> 
> 
> "Dead levels" basically non-existent
> ...



I totally agree with your point about _dead levels_.  In fact, I was a bit surprised that the Fighter didn't get one feat per level in 3E -- and it wasn't really clear to me why _all_ the classes didn't have their special abilities defined as _bonus feats_ to choose from at each level.

I think _rituals_ reflect the designers recognition that trading off combat abilities versus non-combat abilities is just not a fun trade-off to make, and having a quiver full of this-might-be-useful spells is more enjoyable than sticking to a few versatile spells.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 23, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> Hit points are measuring suffering. Real physical damage is only one symptom of suffering. One bonus of hit points is that the _player_ is losing a game resource. That increases identification with the PC. "I'm losing my hit points!" induces a sense of urgency and danger. That helps simulate rising action.



I agree with all of this. Sometimes hit point loss doesn't create tension – when a PC has lots and loses a small amount – but I agree with you that, if the values for hit points and damage are right, then it works.

In story terms I think I would separate the necessary suffering of the hero from techniques used to create a sense of urgency and danger – bomb timers and other 'countdowns to doomsday', the revealing of a threat such as a knife being drawn, cutaways to the bad guys plotting, Tarantino seems to be able to create tension from two guys having a conversation about nothing – but, as you say, frequently they are one and the same as is the case with Luke being electrocuted.

One aspect of rpg combat that irritates me is that the biggest, most effective powers tend to be used at, or near, the start of a fight, which is the complete opposite to the way it works in fiction. This creates a sense of action 'falling' rather than rising. I understand that Exalted has some mechanics to support the delayed use of major powers, though I'm unfamiliar with the game.

To return to the subject of adoptable elements of 4e, one I really like is the number of clear options – which in 4e would be mostly the at-will, encounter and daily powers – that the players have in combat. Not too many and not too few, allowing for interesting gamist decision making. It's a concept that can be readily transferred to rpgs that don't have a battlegrid. A character might have a basic damage power, a weaker area effect, an armour-piercing attack, an attack that only works if another character uses a 'setup strike' and so forth. And I like the idea that each PC's suite of combat options is unique to that character, and flavorful.


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## pawsplay (Jun 23, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> To return to the subject of adoptable elements of 4e, one I really like is the number of clear options – which in 4e would be mostly the at-will, encounter and daily powers – that the players have in combat.




It's interesting, some of those elements are present in 3e, but the concept was never examined in-depth until Book of 9 Swords. I thought Bo9S was a flop, but evidently a lot of people were turned on by the idea of martial "spells." I kind of prefer feats over 1/day sunbursts, but the difference is not huge. Stunning Fist is pretty much the original limited use martial ability, and I never felt i was out of place.


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## mmadsen (Jun 24, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> In the case of _*Module JRRT1*_, The Hobbit, the writer clearly expected the main party to face the dragon in its lair, and so included a mechanic by which they could do extra damage in the first attack.  I mean, otherwise, why toss in both a Ring of Invisibility and a weak spot?!?!
> 
> In the play report we are reading, no doubt the same players were allowed to control the NPC leaders in defense of the town.  The guy playing the mayor.....well, every group seems to have one of those guys.  AFAICT, the GM just allowed the thrush to act as a conduit of player knowledge, from one character to the next, out of goodwill.



The halfling rogue's player was new and didn't realize that the game was about killing monsters in cold blood and taking their stuff.


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## pawsplay (Jun 24, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> One aspect of rpg combat that irritates me is that the biggest, most effective powers tend to be used at, or near, the start of a fight, which is the complete opposite to the way it works in fiction. This creates a sense of action 'falling' rather than rising.




I can actually think of a major counter-example, and I don't think your assertion of falling rather than rising action holds up. In the climactic battle in Willow, the two female magicians start off by challenging each other's awesome powers. Before long, they're wrestling and backhanding each other.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 24, 2011)

pawsplay said:


> I can actually think of a major counter-example, and I don't think your assertion of falling rather than rising action holds up. In the climactic battle in Willow, the two female magicians start off by challenging each other's awesome powers. Before long, they're wrestling and backhanding each other.



Or Neo versus Agent Smith in The Matrix? They run out of bullets early on and the rest of the fight is hand-to-hand combat. Though arguably, in The Matrix, kung fu is just as powerful as guns are, maybe moreso.

There must be plenty of scenes in action films where one, or both, combatants run out of bullets and the fight is finished with more primitive weapons.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 24, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> One aspect of rpg combat that irritates me is that the biggest, most effective powers tend to be used at, or near, the start of a fight, which is the complete opposite to the way it works in fiction. This creates a sense of action 'falling' rather than rising. I understand that Exalted has some mechanics to support the delayed use of major powers, though I'm unfamiliar with the game.




If those powers recharge for every battle, and if there is no cost/risk associated with using them, then of course the big guns get trotted out first.  Cost and risk mean that big guns get used when they are necessary, possibly as a last "Hail Mary" attempt before defeat.

However, to use such a system successfully, you have to require the cost be paid, and/or be willing to accept that the risks involved will sometimes manifest.

RC


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## GSHamster (Jun 24, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> If those powers recharge for every battle, and if there is no cost/risk associated with using them, then of course the big guns get trotted out first.  Cost and risk mean that big guns get used when they are necessary, possibly as a last "Hail Mary" attempt before defeat.




If you really wanted to push big abilities to the end of the fight, you could use a net-gain resource (like land in Magic: the Gathering).

It might be an interesting feel to combat, as the first few rounds would be light fencing with each other, but the fight would eventually end in a flurry of big hits.


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## Celebrim (Jun 24, 2011)

GSHamster said:


> If you really wanted to push big abilities to the end of the fight, you could use a net-gain resource (like land in Magic: the Gathering).
> 
> It might be an interesting feel to combat, as the first few rounds would be light fencing with each other, but the fight would eventually end in a flurry of big hits.




You could do something like 'Iron Heroes' token based powers system.  I wasn't happy with the exact implementation or the system as a whole, but the mechanic itself was the bomb.


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## Ainamacar (Jun 25, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> You could do something like 'Iron Heroes' token based powers system.  I wasn't happy with the exact implementation or the system as a whole, but the mechanic itself was the bomb.




Momentum systems can perform a similar role. (I'm only vaguely familiar with how Iron Heroes' tokens work).   I think gain in such systems is usually based on obtaining good outcomes, but I can think of others.  Fighting games where you build up a meter the more you are hit could mesh nicely with pawsplay's idea of hit points as "suffering."  Another mechanism would be tying it to risk, which would encourage reckless behavior.  Having all in play at once, perhaps dependent on class or archetype is also possible.  Maybe the barbarian gets momentum for recklessness and taking damage, the rogue for capitalizing on initiative and making clean getaways, and the druid for enhancing or working with the environment.   Then, if you want players to wait to use their big guns, incentivize them to play to type.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 25, 2011)

Jumping back in, one thing that just now grinds on me. Incorporeal, I believe, is done right with 4e.

With 3.x, every time an attack is done, roll 50/50 to see if you miss.

With 4e, just half any damage you do.

Nowadays I rank 50/50 incorporeal miss chance right up there with AD&D's level drain.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2011)

Eric Anondson said:


> With 3.x, every time an attack is done, roll 50/50 to see if you miss.
> 
> With 4e, just half any damage you do.




I can see the benefits of both mechanics, but agree that the 4Ed approach is definitely easier bookkeeping.


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## pawsplay (Jun 25, 2011)

Eric Anondson said:


> Jumping back in, one thing that just now grinds on me. Incorporeal, I believe, is done right with 4e.
> 
> With 3.x, every time an attack is done, roll 50/50 to see if you miss.
> 
> ...




I've disliked it since AD&D. It wasn't present in BECMI.


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## MarkB (Jun 25, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> If those powers recharge for every battle, and if there is no cost/risk associated with using them, then of course the big guns get trotted out first.  Cost and risk mean that big guns get used when they are necessary, possibly as a last "Hail Mary" attempt before defeat.
> 
> However, to use such a system successfully, you have to require the cost be paid, and/or be willing to accept that the risks involved will sometimes manifest.
> 
> RC




This is one area where 4e's "bloodied" status can help. If you want the big guns held in reserve for finishing moves, make them only usable when the target is bloodied, or when the wielder is bloodied, or simply make them more effective in those circumstances.

4e does already have a lot of powers that work like this, but they're mostly just individual powers or class features, not an over-arching design principle.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 25, 2011)

> 4e does already have a lot of powers that work like this, but they're mostly just individual powers or class features, not an over-arching design principle




[_MARTHASTEWART_]And that's a good thing.[_/MARTHASTEWART_]

I really hate to see players at a table gleefully awaiting the chance to get bloodied- the way _other_players look at the player of a dwaven fighter with a regen ability in our group springs to mind ("You know, we should just keep injuring him so the regen never turns off...")- or griping about a power they never get to use because they never _quite_ lose enough HP.


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## Stormonu (Jun 25, 2011)

Eric Anondson said:


> Jumping back in, one thing that just now grinds on me. Incorporeal, I believe, is done right with 4e.
> 
> With 3.x, every time an attack is done, roll 50/50 to see if you miss.
> 
> ...




I just used odd/even instead of an extra roll (this ensures that 1=miss, 20=hit).


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## MarkB (Jun 25, 2011)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> [_MARTHASTEWART_]And that's a good thing.[_/MARTHASTEWART_]
> 
> I really hate to see players at a table gleefully awaiting the chance to get bloodied- the way _other_players look at the player of a dwaven fighter with a regen ability in our group springs to mind ("You know, we should just keep injuring him so the regen never turns off...")- or griping about a power they never get to use because they never _quite_ lose enough HP.




That's a good point, and I've seen it myself with certain races and classes, but it seems like this would be a 'feature' of any "suffering" mechanic - the players are likely to have a nigh-masochistic enthusiasm for taking enough punishment to 'power up' for their finishing moves.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 25, 2011)

Nineball said:


> the fighter is _eager_ to jump into battle and start throwing his axe around without care




Just like real life!  Everyone knows that fights in real life rewards the reckless!



> Maybe some people like to play things 100% always safe and slow.  I say, bring on the blood!




That is, however, pretty funny.  There are a lot of combat systems where you use more realistic, or more cinematic, tactics, and combat is faster.  I think 4e combat would have been far better had WotC not chosen to inflate hp as they did.

YMMV.


RC


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## mmadsen (Jun 25, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Just like real life!  Everyone knows that fights in real life rewards the reckless!



What D&D often lacks is a sense of combat as chicken, where reckless bravery is simultaneously stupid, because it could get you killed, and smart, because the other guy doesn't want to risk getting killed, so he'll run away, rather than fight someone who isn't scared of him.


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## mmadsen (Jun 25, 2011)

Nineball said:


> Who plays D&D to emulate real life?



Obviously no one plays D&D to emulate their own lives as students and office drones, but a fantasy world of adventure isn't completely untethered from reality, either.


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## mmadsen (Jun 25, 2011)

Nineball said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you want a game with horrible, deadly, gritty, realistic fighting...
> 
> ...D&D is not your game of choice.



No one requested _horrible_ or _gritty_, and I don't think they want _deadly_ for the PCs, either, although they do want that for the orcs.

Not all elements of realism hurt the game and make it less fun, and not all elements of _un_realism help the game and make it more fun.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jun 25, 2011)

Nineball said:


> My response to this is: "This is D&D."



Need the 300 angry Sparta pose and extra-large font choice in all caps, while kicking sarcastic commenter into a hundreds-foot deep pit in slowmo.


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 25, 2011)

Nineball said:


> Allow me to put it another way, then:
> 
> For me, D&D is a game in which characters take large risks.  The inherent idea of adventuring is in of itself proof that adventurers are both risk taking and likely _insane_.  As such, risks should be encouraged, such as fighters charging into combat.  The bloodied mechanic encourages players to play risky, rather then to be slow and safe.
> 
> Some may find this "unrealistic" and make sarcastic comments about it.  My response to this is: "This is D&D."




D&D, the game that has historically encouraged you to play carefully once you're sufficiently injured (low on HP), lest you run out and die? That D&D?

D&D has historically supported a cautious approach to play much more than a reckless approach. People carry around 10 foot poles or take 20 on search checks (depending on your edition) for a reason. I'd offer a twist on something you said, very recently:



			
				JamesonCourage said:
			
		

> I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you want a game with reckless, careless, hasty, unrealistic fighting...
> 
> ...D&D is not your game of choice.




But, I'm a big fan of house rules. Always have been. As always, play what you like


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 25, 2011)

mmadsen said:


> What D&D often lacks is a sense of combat as chicken, where reckless bravery is simultaneously stupid, because it could get you killed, and smart, because the other guy doesn't want to risk getting killed, so he'll run away, rather than fight someone who isn't scared of him.




It used to be called "Morale".



Nineball said:


> Who plays D&D to emulate real life?






mmadsen said:


> Obviously no one plays D&D to emulate their own lives as students and office drones, but a fantasy world of adventure isn't completely untethered from reality, either.






mmadsen said:


> No one requested _horrible_ or _gritty_, and I don't think they want _deadly_ for the PCs, either, although they do want that for the orcs.
> 
> Not all elements of realism hurt the game and make it less fun, and not all elements of _un_realism help the game and make it more fun.






JamesonCourage said:


> D&D, the game that has historically encouraged you to play carefully once you're sufficiently injured (low on HP), lest you run out and die? That D&D?
> 
> D&D has historically supported a cautious approach to play much more than a reckless approach. People carry around 10 foot poles or take 20 on search checks (depending on your edition) for a reason.




Thanks for the answers.

I, personally, prefer that there actually be "risks" when the characters "take risks".  If the game is set up so that what is supposedly "risky" is actually the smartest thing to do, that doesn't feel like a game where characters are taking risks at all.

YMMV, obviously.


RC


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 26, 2011)

Nineball said:


> But hitting bloodied _is_ a risk, because now you have significantly less HP.




Meh.

If it seems that way to you, though, you should absolutely play what you like.


RC


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## MarkB (Jun 26, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Thanks for the answers.
> 
> I, personally, prefer that there actually be "risks" when the characters "take risks".  If the game is set up so that what is supposedly "risky" is actually the smartest thing to do, that doesn't feel like a game where characters are taking risks at all.
> 
> ...




But on the other hand, in my experience any game where taking risks _isn't_ a smart thing to do will also turn out to be a game where characters don't take risks at all. YMMV, of course.

There is, incidentally, an entire class build in 4e constructed around the concept of taking greater risks for greater rewards - the Bravura Warlord. Just a couple of examples from the build:


Class feature Bravura Presence. Allies who can see the warlord when they spend an action point to make an extra attack can choose to invoke his Bravura Presence. If they do, then if they hit on their attack they gain a free basic attack or move action to use immediately afterwards, but if they miss they grant combat advantage for the next round.
At-Will attack power Brash Assault. After you attack your target, you leave an opening allowing them to make a free attack on you with combat advantage if they choose - but if they do, they provoke a free attack from one of your allies, also with combat advantage.

It's a fun class to play in practice. Taking advantage of his class features does impose increased risks, but it provides increased rewards when those risks pay off.


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 26, 2011)

MarkB said:


> But on the other hand, in my experience any game where taking risks _isn't_ a smart thing to do will also turn out to be a game where characters don't take risks at all. YMMV, of course.




Indeed, it does.

Or, rather, I have never run a game where either _*not*_ taking risks *or* taking risks is *obviously and consistently* the smart thing to do.

Others have complained (in other threads) that, in some editions, what is "smart play" is circumstantial, and rather in-obvious.  To my mind, if the smart thing to do is obvious, there is little actual decision-making involved.  If the smart thing is always the same thing, you might as well not be there.

YMMV, of course.


RC




[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION]:  If you look at my blog, you will see that I have been using the same phrase for a while, too.  Just not as consistently as you!


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## MarkB (Jun 26, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> Indeed, it does.
> 
> Or, rather, I have never run a game where either _*not*_ taking risks *or* taking risks is *obviously and consistently* the smart thing to do.
> 
> ...




Probably a middle ground is best. Systems where there's only one smart choice aren't so good, but neither are systems where the smart choice is nonsensical or so random that the player's choices don't matter.

IMO, the smart choice should be not necessarily obvious, but at least intuitive.


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## JamesonCourage (Jun 26, 2011)

Raven Crowking said:


> [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION]:  If you look at my blog, you will see that I have been using the same phrase for a while, too.  Just not as consistently as you!




Of course. You've definitely been using it longer than I have, as I only joined up in January. I am by no means the first person to say anything close to this. I was joking around


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## Raven Crowking (Jun 27, 2011)

JamesonCourage said:


> Of course. You've definitely been using it longer than I have, as I only joined up in January. I am by no means the first person to say anything close to this. I was joking around




Well, I didn't want you to think you'd caught a thief!

(Not that I object to being thought a thief; I just object to being caught!)


RC


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## Iron Sky (Jun 27, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> One aspect of rpg combat that irritates me is that the biggest, most  effective powers tend to be used at, or near, the start of a fight,  which is the complete opposite to the way it works in fiction. This  creates a sense of action 'falling' rather than rising. I understand  that Exalted has some mechanics to support the delayed use of major  powers, though I'm unfamiliar with the game.




I loved 1e Exalted and played a full campaign in it so I can speak to this.

In Exalted, the powers are called "Charms" and are powered by motes of Essence (essentially mana). The main reason people delay using powers is that armor is essentially DR - though it never soaks all the damage so if you hit someone in plate mail you'll eventually wear them down even if you can't get through their "DR".

There aren't static defenses, if you want to stop someone from hitting you, you need to parry, block, dodge, etc. Powerful attack charms (or combos of multiple charms linked together) are more difficult or even impossible to be parried or dodged without defensive charms to counter them.

Usually, combat starts with people dropping scene-length defensive and/or offensive charms using us a small-to-moderate chunk of essence. If fighting mundane people (I.E. not horrific monsters or other Essence users) that's all you probably need to use. 

If you're fighting something else that has access to Essence, you whittle them down with normal attacks, mostly saving your essence for defensive charms to counter big/lucky/essence-powered attacks.  Usually, once someone is almost out of essence, they either have to try to escape (usually through movement/stealth charms) or launch a massive all-out attack hoping to overcome the enemy's charm-enhanced counters.

If you want an example of what that looks like, I talked about an example from one of our games in this thread. Edit: More here.

1e Exalted is probably my favorite game system ever, but sadly we reached too much game mastery to really play it much anymore (there's a few fairly op combinations that make much of the rest of it obsolete) and 2e changed most of my favorite things about the original system.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 27, 2011)

Doug McCrae said:


> One aspect of rpg combat that irritates me is that the biggest, most effective powers tend to be used at, or near, the start of a fight, which is the complete opposite to the way it works in fiction. This creates a sense of action 'falling' rather than rising. I understand that Exalted has some mechanics to support the delayed use of major powers, though I'm unfamiliar with the game.




I think that is a playstyle issue.

Personally, I try to evaluate my foes before choosing which powers to use.  In our 4Ed game, for instance, I often open with a particular power that reduces a particular defense, then follow it up with another one that does likewise.  But not every time- if we're facing foes that the first power is unlikely to affect, I do something else.

And on top of that, I've gone about 3 gaming sessions- covering about 2 campaign days- without using my daily powers.


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