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Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 04:49 AM
I've recently been following the current falling damage thread, and I found myself sympathizing with one side of the argument almost entirely, particularly the side that supports the idea that players shouldn't go jumping off cliffs simply because they know they have enough HP to soak the damage.

The more I read though...the more I started to uncover my own assumptions on the subject of metagaming, and it really made me wonder if other playgrounders stances on the subject were the result of a conscious decision or unconscious assumption.

Most of my questions revolve around damage and HP and the metagamingness (word?) of our thoughts on those numbers. So, on with the questions I hope will spur a healthy debate.

1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?

My own thoughts:

1. Specifically being able to quantify the numbers on your character sheet as in-character knowledge to me is metagaming. The only way to really know these numbers is to connect them to measurable world physics. Like knowing how strong you are by how much you can lift. This doesn't tell you that your Strength is 15, but that you can lift so and so amount of pounds. Bob doesn't know his level or HP. He just knows he's been around, fought a few battles.

2. Knowing the traits of a weapon beyond the actual physical real-world attributes (i.e. weight, length) is metagaming. As has been repeatedly said on this forum, HP are an abstraction. Damage must also be an abstraction. On another related note, I find knowing that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall do the same amount of damage to also be metagaming, regardless of whether you know the damage dice. The only way of knowing how much damage a fall or a sword does is to examine its effect on an object or person, and (almost) universally, a sword to the heart or fall from 200 feet is fatal. Expecting otherwise, regardless of level, is metagaming. Just because you can take on ten bears without breaking a sweat doesn't mean you can take a 200 foot fall. They aren't even remotely related.

3. I tend to view damage that leaves a positive amount of HP to sap stamina or skill. This is why I have such a problem with high-level characters being able to survive a fall from great heights. How do you 'out-skill' the ground? Sure, sliding down walls, falling into snow, hitting every tree limb on the way down...I might fly with those. But falling off a cliff into open air, too far away from the cliff wall, onto sharp rocks? Death, or something almost as bad.

I know the system tend to break down past 6th level. Really, I'm just curious about your assumptions about character knowledge and how that affects your gameplay.

hamishspence
2010-07-06, 04:53 AM
In the Truenaming section of Tome of Magic, it discusses the issue of why somebody's truename gets harder to pronounce as they get more powerful "higher level" and does suggest that levels are a game abstraction that people in the game world don't actually perceive.

Maybe they think of Joe the Archmage as a "great wizard" with the ability to cast "very mighty spells" but even wizards won't necessarily see spells as "1st level to 9th level" and their own ability to cast 9th level spells as "them being a 17th level wizard".

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-06, 05:00 AM
I agree with you on what is metagaming and what is not.

I disagree with you on that HPs are an abstraction. If someone with a sword's attack roll exceeds your AC, it is a hit. If you get completely immersed in lava, the HPs you lose are a result of your flesh burning alive (and after a few rounds, due to you drowning to death). If you fall from a million miles and survive the 120 hit points you lose, you are simply that much of a badass to walk and fight after being subjected to a force that would break your bones and turn your body into something unrecognizable as human. Any other interpretation means you have to come up with exceptions to exceptions to exceptions.

That means you are Wolverine at levels 10 and beyond. You should learn to roll with it.

EDIT: Or you can accept that D&D is mechanically a horrible system and start playing other systems instead. I'm fine either way.

PId6
2010-07-06, 05:05 AM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?
Probably not in those terms. He might know that he's stronger and tougher than Bill the Barbarian down the street (who's only 5th level and has 62 HP), from previous fights or from just knowing the guy, but he wouldn't think in terms of "level" or "hit points." Those are just game abstractions.


2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?
I'd say that he would know in general how much they do, but not in game terms. He would know that, for example, getting hit by a shortsword hurts about the same as falling from 10 ft up, having experienced both repeatedly before and seen others in similar situations. It would be fairly vague knowledge though, since there is a level of variance with both types of damage, but he would have a general idea of each.


3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?
A little bit of both, but mostly actual hits. I might treat minor hits (< 20%) as "minor scratch on the chest" or "cut in the arm," major hits (20% - 50%) are "painful strike on the shoulder" or "gash on the chest," and near-fatal hits (50% +) as "impaled in the stomach" or similar. Higher HP just means you're more likely to get "minor scratches" than "painful strikes," unless the opposition is similarly skilled at combat.

Basically, amount of actual bodily damage will be based on percentage of hit points taken, and higher HP means less likely to suffer severe hits, whether that's because of luck, toughness, or whatever you want. For falling, it'd be the same; with higher HP, you're tough or lucky enough to take less harm from the fall.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 05:05 AM
I agree with you on what is metagaming and what is not.

I disagree with you on that HPs are an abstraction. If someone with a sword's attack roll exceeds your AC, it is a hit. If you get completely immersed in lava, the HPs you lose are a result of your flesh burning alive (and after a few rounds, due to you drowning to death). If you fall from a million miles and survive the 120 hit points you lose, you are simply that much of a badass to walk and fight after being subjected to a force that would break your bones and turn your body into something unrecognizable as human. Any other interpretation means you have to come up with exceptions to exceptions to exceptions.

That means you are Wolverine at levels 10 and beyond. You should learn to roll with it.

EDIT: Or you can accept that D&D is mechanically a horrible system and start playing other systems instead. I'm fine either way.

I disagree with your disagreement, but I agree with your reasons. I think HP are an abstraction, but I don't like the way that lava and falls are treated. Falling should do the same percentage of damage regardless of level, and lava should just flat out kill you without magical protection. Going up in level doesn't make your body turn to literally stone, you just get more skillful.

IMHO. I still heart you. Wink.

Prime32
2010-07-06, 05:10 AM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?He shouldn't know the exact figure, but he should be able to tell what he can survive from past experience, and very roughly what percentage of hp he has left.


2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?"I can survive about 10 stab wounds from guys with biceps that big. I can survive about ten falls. Huh."


2. Knowing the traits of a weapon beyond the actual physical real-world attributes (i.e. weight, length) is metagaming."That weapon is big. I bet it hurts more than weapons which aren't big."
"That weapon is pointy. I bet my shirt constructed to resist stab wounds (ie. DR/piercing) will protect me from it."
"That weapon has a massive head. It's probably hard to get a good hit with it, but if it does it would be nasty (ie. low threat range, high crit modifier)"
"That weapon is serrated. It probably leaves messy wounds which are hard to heal."


As has been repeatedly said on this forum, HP are an abstraction. Damage must also be an abstraction. On another related note, I find knowing that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall do the same amount of damage to also be metagaming, regardless of whether you know the damage dice. The only way of knowing how much damage a fall or a sword does is to examine its effect on an object or person, and (almost) universally, a sword to the heart or fall from 200 feet is fatal. Expecting otherwise, regardless of level, is metagaming. Just because you can take on ten bears without breaking a sweat doesn't mean you can take a 200 foot fall. They aren't even remotely related."Regardless of level"? So after Son Goku blocks a planet-busting laser with his face, he dies by falling off a roof? "Universally" applies in the real world, where the highest-level person ever was level 7. Even pre-epic, the highest-level D&D characters are supposed to be exactly 96 times beyond the peak of human ability.


EDIT:

I disagree with your disagreement, but I agree with your reasons. I think HP are an abstraction, but I don't like the way that lava and falls are treated. Falling should do the same percentage of damage regardless of level, and lava should just flat out kill you without magical protection. Going up in level doesn't make your body turn to literally stone, you just get more skillful.Huh? Why should getting crushed by the ground be different from getting crushed by the tarrasque? Or falling into lava different from a dragon breathing lava on you?

Malificus
2010-07-06, 05:12 AM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?

1. As such, in character yes. Though BtB probably should understand the concepts in his own way. BtB is tough, he can handle more hits than those under him. In fact, BtB is better overall than those under him. he can attack faster than them, hold his drink better, etc... Even if they are physically as strong as him.

2. Bob knows he can take both, and about how much they hurt. He can fall, and he can be hit. he knows a hit can dig at vitals (crit), while a fall is a fall (with no crits). Bob can also take less damage if he jumps down, rather than falling.

3. Bob is physically hurt, but it is not serious, Bob can still fight! If BtB were to hit zero, he would be in bad shape. But Bob is not tired, just closer to death. If BtB were using the Vitality and Wounds variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm), he would get fatigued by physical damage, but in this world, he fights at his best until he has nearly fallen.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-06, 05:14 AM
As the rules are written, to make a case for HP being an abstraction, you have to make exceptions to exceptions to exceptions ad nauseaum until it is an exercise in futility. It is more logical to assume the most straightforward explanation that fits the rules, i.e. that you are freakishly durable and have a healing factor that rivals Wolverine's.

As the rules are intended? I have no idea, since I cannot ask WotC whether they have any idea how poor a system they created and whether it deviates from their expectations.

EDIT: I am responding to Gan's last post, not anyone else.

Curmudgeon
2010-07-06, 05:21 AM
There's nothing preventing the DM from keeping track of hit points, and just using approximations like "you're hurt a lot". If you're worried about player knowledge creeping too much into player actions, just reduce that knowledge. This just keeps things consistent: after all, the DM doesn't typically tell the players how many hit points an enemy has left.

hamishspence
2010-07-06, 05:25 AM
So- the DM has all the character's hitpoints written down, rolls behind a screen for damage, and says "Oooh, that's gonna leave a mark."?

Would certainly encourage caution in the players.

Morithias
2010-07-06, 05:27 AM
I believe Shadowrun actually has a rule for this. It is comedically called the "Chunky Salsa Rule" e.g. anything that would make your head be like chunky salsa in the real world, kills you. Regardless of what page #54 and hit points say.

It's probably something I would agree with using in most D&D games. Push comes to shove, I say whip out the nice old "massive damage" charts. You took 120 damage? Well good news! Roll a save. (make sure to use the tougher variants on the rule).

Boci
2010-07-06, 05:28 AM
There's nothing preventing the DM from keeping track of hit points, and just using approximations like "you're hurt a lot". If you're worried about player knowledge creeping too much into player actions, just reduce that knowledge. This just keeps things consistent: after all, the DM doesn't typically tell the players how many hit points an enemy has left.

Yes, but the DM does know how much damage the PCs do to the monsters. If the PCs cannot be trusted to not metagame how many hitpoints they have then I think the DM needs to be a bit more subtle than just suddenly saying "I am no longer going to tell you that"



It's probably something I would agree with using in most D&D games. Push comes to shove, I say whip out the nice old "massive damage" charts. You took 120 damage? Well good news! Roll a save. (make sure to use the tougher variants on the rule).

Problem is, at higher levels too often using massive damage rules results in the need for a save every attack.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 05:32 AM
Prime32, I'm more interested in knowing you thoughts on my questions, not your thoughts on my thoughts. But since you asked, I'll explain my logic.



"That weapon is big. I bet it hurts more than weapons which aren't big."
"That weapon is pointy. I bet my shirt constructed to resist stab wounds (ie. DR/piercing) will protect me from it."
"That weapon has a massive head. It's probably hard to get a good hit with it, but if it does it would be nasty (ie. low threat range, high crit modifier)"
"That weapon is serrated. It probably leaves messy wounds which are hard to heal."

I agree with all of these. Completely. My problem is not with logic, but using knowledge of specific numbers, like the shortsword doing 1d6 and the longsword doing 1d8, to support your logic across various aspects of the game.


"Regardless of level"? So after Son Goku blocks a planet-busting laser with his face, he dies by falling off a roof? "Universally" applies in the real world, where the highest-level person ever was level 7. Even pre-epic, the highest-level D&D characters are supposed to be 96 times beyond the peak of human ability.

There is a reason why I included the (almost) before I said universally. And even in D&D, almost universally holds true. The only way a character can 'know' they can survive a sword to the heart or a 200 foot fall is to see it be done or to do it personally, and (almost) universally, everyone they have encountered has most likely not been able to do so. Without that experience, thinking otherwise is metagaming.

Your Goku example is an extreme example, and one that doesn't include enough information to adequately make a judgment. Is he immune to this type of damage? Was he protected in some way? Plus...you are talking about fiction not modeled after any rules save the writers personal interests. It is well within his rights to have Goku block something with his head, and then fall off a roof and die.

Of course, I'm sure there is a system out there that totally nullifies what I just said... :smallsmile:


EDIT:
Huh? Why should getting crushed by the ground be different from getting crushed by the tarrasque? Or falling into lava different from a dragon breathing lava on you?

Because it is? You can't really avoid the ground when you are falling towards it. There many reasons why the Tarrasque didn't COMPLETELY crush you, like rolling partially out of the way. A previous poster viewed damage as a percentage of HP. Your increased skill saved you. You could argue that a fall could be treated the same way, but I personally, as a DM, have a hard time doing that.

Zeta Kai
2010-07-06, 05:41 AM
Maybe they think of Joe the Archmage as a "great wizard" with the ability to cast "very mighty spells" but even wizards won't necessarily see spells as "1st level to 9th level" and their own ability to cast 9th level spells as "them being a 17th level wizard".

Now, that's just silly. Sure, a wizard is unlikely to say "I'm at 17th level, with an INT of 34." But a spell's level have very obvious in-game aspects, that cannot be simply glazed over, & would be easily noticed by those smarty-pants wizards.

All functional wizards would surely notice that a magic missile spell would take up 1 page in their book, whereas a copy of fireball would always take up 3 pages, & gate would take up 9. A scroll of enervation would be cheaper to buy than a copy of energy drain. Summon monster VII calls different & less powerful monsters than SM6. These aren't metagame values, these numbers are glaring quantifications within the game's universe, just as a glaive has more reach than a dagger.

If a wizard missed these facts in-game, then I'd say that they should hand in their spellbook, because they're too dumb to cast anything with it.

Kurald Galain
2010-07-06, 05:42 AM
(1) yes, by definition.

(2) yes, knowing the specific values is metagaming, but knowing that they are about the same is not.

(3) usually cuts and bruises, because "reducing plot armor" doesn't translate well into character perception.

Boci
2010-07-06, 05:43 AM
Because it is? You can't really avoid the ground when you are falling towards it. There many reasons why the Tarrasque didn't COMPLETELY crush you, like rolling partially out of the way.

Fair example. What about the lava one?

Prime32
2010-07-06, 05:43 AM
Your Goku example is an extreme example, and one that doesn't include enough information to adequately make a judgment. Is he immune to this type of damage? Was he protected in some way? Plus...you are talking about fiction not modeled after any rules save the writers personal interests. It is well within his rights to have Goku block something with his head, and then fall off a roof and die. Nah, he's just crazy-tough. "Hit points" in the series (and a few others) are explained by your spiritual energy radiating from your body, which blunts damage by cancelling it out, but some of it is lost in the process. The more skilled you are the more energy you have.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 05:51 AM
Fair example. What about the lava one?

As a stationary environmental hazard, lava is either there or not there. You are either in it or not. Granted, it might not be very deep or it might be extremely deep, immersing you to various depths. But since I personally have NO clue how quickly lava would eat through a human body, I'm more apt to just say it kills you. Since being too close to quickly flowing lava can cause you to burst into flames from the radiant heat, this judgment doesn't bother me.

As for the dragon? You are talking about something that has varying degrees of power. Not that lava doesn't, its just that D&D rarely makes distinction between lava temperatures. AFB but I think the damage is set in the DMG. As for the dragon breath, its potency is different based on dragon age, and I view this as how hot they can get it and how dense the expulsed flame is and how accurate the breath was. Plus, you get the added benefit of not being completely immersed in it due to being able to dodge out of the way.


Nah, he's just crazy-tough. "Hit points" in the series (and a few others) are explained by your spiritual energy radiating from your body, which blunts damage by cancelling it out, but some of it is lost in the process. The more skilled you are the more energy you have.

I guess they kinda treat HP as DR then. I never really got into DBZ. WAY to much power escalation for me. Worse than reading a DC comic book. :smallamused:

Aroka
2010-07-06, 05:57 AM
If PCs aren't supposed to see jumping off cliffs as a viable option, the game system shouldn't make it one.

There's a slew of great RPGs - far better than any edition of D&D in any respect - that don't make it a viable option.

If I'm playing a game of Kratos-level ridiculous heroes (like D&D), I expect the rules to model that; if I'm playing a game of heroes constrained, at least to some extent, by real physics, I expect the rules to model that.

D&D is a game; if a player isn't supposed to choose actions with knowledge of the numbers, the player has to not know the numbers. Expecting people to pretend they don't know the numbers is crazy - once you know them, you can't un-know them. You can't make decisions and not use the pertinent information you've already acquired, even if you're intentionally going against what the information suggests - that's still using the information to make the decision.

1. Silly question. The PCs don't have in-characters knowledge of the numbers, but the player's decisions for what the PC does are supposed to be informed by them. What he PCs do have is knowledge from experience - they can survive being blasted with dragon's breath and thrown off cliffs.

2. If Bob the Barbarian has 50 hit points, he knows he's got little to fear from a single axe-swing, for whatever reason. He's not going to be very afraid of running past an armed goblin and leaving himself open for an attack, unless he knows the goblin is likely to have some weird trick. It doesn't need to be explained in-character; hit points are a meta-game concept. A better question is "How the heck can anyone survive being hit with an axe without any real effects?" D&D just doesn't model that. It's not a game where that stuff matters - you're so damned tough you don't suffer injuries until you're knocked down, or someone's using a special ability.

And if Bob the Barbarian has 400 hit points, he know he can take a dip in lava and come out scorched but fine. That's just how the world works - because it's not a real world, it's a story with little focus on realism. When he's about to take that dip, he knows he won't perish, because it's just some lava.

3. It doesn't matter. I describe it as whatever comes to mind. D&D characters' performances are equally unaffected by bruises as by spears through their gut. A critical wound will get a more impressive description. That's it.

A single attack roll isn't even a single attack, necessarily (this was more true in AD&D, where combat rounds were longer). It may be a series of fast dagger-jabs, or several bashes with a mace, or whatever.

The correct frame of reference is traditional action heroes. Throughout the movie, they fall off buildings,, get shot, get beaten, get exploded, but it never really impairs their performance in any significant way. Sure, your character's leg may be broken, but unless someone used a special ability, you can move just as fast as usual, and even run. You're a hero, that's what you do. Both of your eyes may be swelling shut from the bruise you got from the dragon smashing its tail into your face, but it doesn't affect your vision, because - in the absence of some special ability - it's not been dramatically called for.

If I want more realism - and I usually do - I use a more realistic system. D&D is for heroes that take a beating like movie characters played by Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Sylvester Stallone - they don't even slow down.

Games like RuneQuest, The Riddle of Steel, GURPS, and Artesia: AKW model injuries by location, and have a "resolution" where damage really, concretely means various types of physical trauma being successfully inflicted on you, and your ability to continue heroing about is reduced as you get hurt - indeed, you're not supposed to be the 80s action hero who ignores lethal pummelings, but a somewhat more realistic sort of hero who prefers to avoid or mitigate injury. (Even though most of those games are still capable of creating incredibly damage-resistant characters if you care for it.)


Because it is? You can't really avoid the ground when you are falling towards it. There many reasons why the Tarrasque didn't COMPLETELY crush you, like rolling partially out of the way. A previous poster viewed damage as a percentage of HP. Your increased skill saved you. You could argue that a fall could be treated the same way, but I personally, as a DM, have a hard time doing that.

I think this is what The Rose Dragon means with exceptions upon exceptions. They grow indefensible, and they're just ad hoc explanations that don't really stand up.

Can you explain, for instance, why getting stomped by the tarrasque (with a regular attack, since it doesn't feel like wasting a full action to CDG you) while unconscious doesn't kill you? Are you rolling to avoid the hit while unconscious? And why can't you roll to mitigate the damage of falling a great distance? Why can't there be equally many reasons why the fall at terminal velocity didn't kill you? Instead of rolling, you hit something soft.


Now, that's just silly. Sure, a wizard is unlikely to say "I'm at 17th level, with an INT of 34." But a spell's level have very obvious in-game aspects, that cannot be simply glazed over, & would be easily noticed by those smarty-pants wizards.

Yeah. Considering arcane magic is a pretty academical study, it seems reasonable to assume that spells are, indeed, divided to "circles" or "grades" or "sephiroths" or something. It's not rare to find these in-character groupings in various fantasy settings. A "mage of the ninth circle" could be a Wiz17 or a Sor18 or a Wiz35 or a Rog3/Wiz17, but the fact that she has the ability or power to employ any 9th-level spell she learns clearly groups the 9th-level spells together in an observable way.

Totally Guy
2010-07-06, 05:58 AM
Surely you'd float in lava. I mean it's basically liquid rock which is really heavy, you're made of bone and burning flesh which is comparitively light. You wouldn't sink.

Aroka
2010-07-06, 06:00 AM
Surely you'd float in lava. I mean it's basically liquid rock which is really heavy, you're made of bone and burning flesh which is comparitively light. You wouldn't sink.

You are probably correct. How has that never crossed my mind? I guess because all media always depicts lava as thick liquid (see Anakin after trying to attack at that -1 for lower ground).

Who wants to test it, though?

Prime32
2010-07-06, 06:09 AM
I guess they kinda treat HP as DR then. I never really got into DBZ. WAY to much power escalation for me. Worse than reading a DC comic book. :smallamused:More like Wounds and Vitality Points.

This treatment is pretty widespread in Eastern media. Sometimes the "barrier" is made of magic, demon-ness, or just plain determination. It's usually made clear that the characters' physical bodies aren't any tougher than normal, but attacking them is like trying to hit the south pole of one magnet with another. When a character gets struck in the vitals (from a crit) they'll likely die, but most attacks will wear down their "aura" instead.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 06:11 AM
Surely you'd float in lava. I mean it's basically liquid rock which is really heavy, you're made of bone and burning flesh which is comparitively light. You wouldn't sink.

True...but would you melt? And wouldn't your entire body just burst into flames from being that close? Granted, I might not be sinking, but I might be wishing I was. If I try to swim out, my arms will just melt. Screwed no matter what I do.

@Aroka Yes, I know that D&D isn't a perfect system. I know there are better systems out there for determining damage and injuries and many other things.

As for people pretending to not know the numbers, that's the very definition of good roleplaying. You are expecting them to forgot the fact that they are real people in a real world sitting around a real table with real dice and no real experience in what they are pretending to do. How is pretending not to know a number any different?


I think this is what The Rose Dragon means with exceptions upon exceptions. They grow indefensible, and they're just ad hoc explanations that don't really stand up.

Can you explain, for instance, why getting stomped by the tarrasque (with a regular attack, since it doesn't feel like wasting a full action to CDG you) while unconscious doesn't kill you? Are you rolling to avoid the hit while unconscious? And why can't you roll to mitigate the damage of falling a great distance? Why can't there be equally many reasons why the fall at terminal velocity didn't kill you? Instead of rolling, you hit something soft.

They aren't indefensible, and ad hoc is EXACTLY what storytelling and DMing and trying to make sense of a world defined by imperfect rules is all about.

If the Tarrasque doesn't want to make the effort to ensure that I'm dead, then he really didn't put his all behind the attack and it wasn't effective enough to do the job. Maybe he kicked me and I rolled. It wasn't a full-on hit. Or whatever. Who knows.

And you are right about the falling damage. I could do the exact same thing. It's just...different in my mind for some reason. I just don't like it. Unfortunately, that's about all I can give you.


More like Wounds and Vitality Points.

This treatment is pretty widespread in Eastern media. Sometimes the "barrier" is made of magic, demon-ness, or something. It's usually made clear that the characters' physical bodies aren't any tougher than normal, but attacking them is like trying to hit the south pole of one magnet with another. When a character gets struck in the vitals (from a crit) they'll likely die, but most attacks will wear down their "aura" instead.

I always did like the Wounds and Vitality points system. Can't remember why I don't use it now.

Curious: Where are you getting your information on this? Is this just from reading manga, or is this another system you are describing?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-06, 06:11 AM
Surely you'd float in lava. I mean it's basically liquid rock which is really heavy, you're made of bone and burning flesh which is comparitively light. You wouldn't sink.

You may float in lava, but it is treated as immersion either way. A splash deals far less damage, though.

Ingus
2010-07-06, 06:25 AM
I usually solve most of the questions with in game experience and houserules.
In the first part you can put distinctions between weapons (i.e.: "As a sword savvy as I am, I can tell you that swinging properly a great piece of metal a Greatsword is would affect your enemy better than swinging a Shortsword"), non obviously lethal fall ("you can survive a jump from the roof... if you're lucky, but it would be painful") and so on.
If I feel a fall should be lethal, I treat it as lethal. Period.

This is more helpful in low to middle levels, since a 10th level character is legendary (as defined in Legend Lore) and a 20th should resist single handedly a higher emanation of divinity (Fiend or Angel), a fall from a mountaintop, an immersion in hot lava, a ray which disintegrates walls and ceilings and wuold easily put a bay a crowd of revolting people (lvl 1 to 5 commoners) with a spit.
So, leveling up you already break "usual people" limits and go tremendously further. If PCs had vanquished a minor divinity, they can see a jump from the roof as a minor inconvenience.

Moreover, I suggest you to treat adventures in a plot-like, adventure-like way, not statistics way. Like, for example, WoD suggests.

potatocubed
2010-07-06, 06:27 AM
Actually swimming in full-on molten lava is impossible - the heat is intense enough to cause all the water in your body to evaporate instantly, turning you into a puff of pink fog. You can stand on or near the black crust that forms on it, though, since that insulates enough of the heat that you'll only get serious burns and die from toxic fume inhalation.

Anyway, that's a digression - I think that there's mileage in playing 3 entirely straight. I have this idea for a 4e game in which the PCs are magically-created supersoldiers, and they really can survive being stabbed over and over again, or mauled by a bear, or even immersed in lava.

Aroka
2010-07-06, 06:38 AM
As for people pretending to not know the numbers, that's the very definition of good roleplaying. You are expecting them to forgot the fact that they are real people in a real world sitting around a real table with real dice and no real experience in what they are pretending to do. How is pretending not to know a number any different?

Because the numbers tell the players what their characters are capable of.

Their Spot ranks tell them how good they're at noticing things. They're probably going to have the person with the best Spot check do their spotting.

Their saves tell them how resistant they are to various dangers.

Their attack bonuses tell them how good they are at hitting things.

And their hit points tell them how much injury they can withstand with no harm at all.

Should they only be ignoring hit points, or should they also randomly determine who is the best at spotting things? Maybe require that they have to do statistical analysis, randomly choosing who does the spotting and recording their rate of success...


It's a game. If you're using the numbers, you use the numbers.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 06:47 AM
Because the numbers tell the players what their characters are capable of.

Their Spot ranks tell them how good they're at noticing things. They're probably going to have the person with the best Spot check do their spotting.

Their saves tell them how resistant they are to various dangers.

Their attack bonuses tell them how good they are at hitting things.

And their hit points tell them how much injury they can withstand with no harm at all.

Should they only be ignoring hit points, or should they also randomly determine who is the best at spotting things? Maybe require that they have to do statistical analysis, randomly choosing who does the spotting and recording their rate of success...


It's a game. If you're using the numbers, you use the numbers.

First of all, everyone should be doing the spotting. Then the characters should determine who is best by who is more successful. Think that Bob is better than Mike at Spotting things simply because his character sheet has him having a higher spot, when Mike has successful located hidden people on multiple occasions and Bob hasn't due to bad roles...well, that's bad roleplaying. I can't tell you how many times my players have acted like someone who shouldn't be good at something is actually awesome at it because of good roles, and vice versa.

Second, a character knows they are good at something based on their rate of success and years of experience, not how many points a player has sunk into a stat field. I know I'm a good blacksmither because I've made a bunch of good swords that have sold well. I'm good at jumping because I rarely fail to make it across a chasm/pit/whathaveyou. I'm good at hitting people because I've trained for years and I rarely miss.

EDIT Buncha misspells and misspeaks. Very tired. Forgive me. :smallbiggrin:

Prime32
2010-07-06, 06:49 AM
First of all, everyone should be doing the spotting. Then the characters should determine who is best by who is more successful. Think that Bob is better than Mike at Spotting things simply because his character sheet has him having a higher spot, when Mike has successful located hidden people on multiple occasions and Bob hasn't due to bad roles...well, that's bad roleplaying. I can't tell you how many times my players have acted like someone who shouldn't be good at something is actually awesome at it because of good roles, and vice versa.

Second, a character knows they are good at something based on their rate of success and years of experience, not how many points a player has sunk into a stat field. I know I'm a good blacksmither because I've made a bunch of good swords that have sold well. I'm good at jumping because I rarely fail to make it across a chasm/pit/whathaveyou. I'm good at hitting people because I've trained for years and I rarely miss.There's also stuff like "I'm an elf, and everyone knows elves have good vision."

Boci
2010-07-06, 07:01 AM
First of all, everyone should be doing the spotting. Then the characters should determine who is best by who is more successful. Think that Bob is better than Mike at Spotting things simply because his character sheet has him having a higher spot, when Mike has successful located hidden people on multiple occasions and Bob hasn't due to bad roles...well, that's bad roleplaying. I can't tell you how many times my players have acted like someone who shouldn't be good at something is actually awesome at it because of good roles, and vice versa.

Party: Hey debuffing wizard of ours, you know in the last fight 2 attacks missed you? Clearly you're the better tank, so go on, lead the way.


There's also stuff like "I'm an elf, and everyone knows elves have good vision."

There's also the "I am trained to notice things and you are not" but spotting is a bad example I think. In my group at least, everyone rolled spots checks, even me with my -1 modifier.

Aroka
2010-07-06, 07:05 AM
First of all, everyone should be doing the spotting. Then the characters should determine who is best by who is more successful.

Way to miss the point - replace Spot with any other skill. But...

Okay, so you are saying they should rotate the entire party in attempting all tasks, then, in-character, record their success rates for X tries, and decide who does what based on that, completely blind to the numbers?

That's ridiculous.

Earthwalker
2010-07-06, 07:47 AM
I consider all three examples metagaming, but metagaming that is needed for players to be able to effectivly play thier characters.

DnD is a system where a certain amount of metagaming is needed.

To be effective in combat you need to know the rules and know how to use them. You also need to know what your character can and can not do. Also how much damage he can take.

Its always going to happen. Imagine that the player doesn't get a character sheet the DM takes care of it for him.

DM - "Ok you are a solider and have been trained and you have served 4 years in the Kings army. While walking back from patrol you see up ahead a group of goblins you can see at least 6 of them, what do you want to do?"

Edgar - "I Charge in and make short work of them"

Some rolls later Edgar the lvl 1 rogue is dead.

Edgar - "Wait I was a rogue ??, I was level 1 ? I had a minus 2 con bonus ?? I would have run away, or at least hidden".

Aroka
2010-07-06, 07:51 AM
Using "metagaming" as some sort of swear-word is nonsense anyway; metagaming is playing the game, the mechanical parts, and it's always required to some degree. In rules-heavy games like D&D, it's a big part. Choosing classes, feats, and skills is always metagaming, too.

Coplantor
2010-07-06, 08:01 AM
Well, I haven't got the time to check the whole thread, sorry. The way I see it? The numbers are player knowledge only, unless you are playing a joke campaign in wich characters are aware that they are part of a game. Anyway, numbers are for players, characters see 200 hp as "I'm pretty damn tough!"

A 9th level character of mine got out of a lava pool by swiming! If he (well, due to some nasty magic trap he is now a she) got to level 20, she wouldnt fear a fall from mount everest.
Yeah, it breaks realism, but pretty much everything after level 6 does. If this is a problem you could rule that lava kills, no matter how much hp you have, so does falls. But for me? High level heros are the stuff of legends and myths like Hercules or Beowulf.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-06, 08:08 AM
If this is a problem you could rule that lava kills, no matter how much hp you have

Look, the best lava rules for any RPG ever created! With charts and illustrations and gameplay examples! (http://www.lavarules.com/)

Coplantor
2010-07-06, 08:10 AM
Look, the best lava rules for any RPG ever created! With charts and illustrations and gameplay examples! (http://www.lavarules.com/)

:smalleek:

I... I...
I think I love you, or at least the guys behind that site.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-06, 05:06 PM
Way to miss the point - replace Spot with any other skill. But...

Okay, so you are saying they should rotate the entire party in attempting all tasks, then, in-character, record their success rates for X tries, and decide who does what based on that, completely blind to the numbers?

That's ridiculous.

Ehh...I think it was you who missed the point. The answer to your question is in the rest of my post back there. You know, the part you didn't quote.

Knaight
2010-07-06, 05:24 PM
Ehh...I think it was you who missed the point. The answer to your question is in the rest of my post back there. You know, the part you didn't quote.

So, you cover every bit of minutia the characters engage in, and have everything rolled? Its a narrative, we cut out "John goes to the bathroom", we cut out "Sir Nimmik lost his helmet and has the party help find it", in general we only look at a small fraction of what is going on as narratively interesting. And while "Sir Nimmik lost his helmet and has everyone look for it" may be interesting once, if it happens repeatedly it isn't. The typical party dynamic has people together for hours upon hours day after day, they should have a fairly decent idea of each others capabilities. We know that Quiri is a good climber not because of the half a dozen climb rolls we have actually seen but because of the stories of climbing mischief as a child, his willingness to climb a tree to keep food away from bears, and stuff that is mostly glazed over.

Mr.Moron
2010-07-06, 05:40 PM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?


No. He has rough idea of how hurt he is "That's a scratch", "That kind of hurts", "Ouch", "Dag, yo" etc. When at 93/140 hp he won't know those exact numbers, but he'll know he's hurt but still has plenty of juice left. He'll treat 4/140 about the same as 15/140 but they're very different from being at 93.

Similarly this is something others in the world can asses visually. They can tell the difference between someone at 80% and 60% hp by their wounds and level of fatigue. You can also get a sense of how tough someone is, a level 15 barbarian honestly seems "Different" than a level 1 warrior even if you haven't seen them fight. Maybe it's how they carry themselves, or their body language, maybe it's a bit of 6th sense or "Feeling" people in the D&D universe can get about these things that we can't because there are no such superhuman beings in the world.



2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?


Again they don't know the exact numbers but they have a rough idea of "That could really hurt me", "That'll probably kill me", "That won't hurt much", "Ha! You call that a threat?"

The justification is they're aware of how their universe works. I'm aware I can't walk through walls, I know a butter knife probably won't kill me and a grenade probably will. I don't have to think about the forces at work on a atomic level for me to realize I can't walk through walls, It... just doesn't work that way.




3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?


A hit is a hit. If takes off a small portion of the character's health, it's a scratch. If it takes off a moderate amount it's decent cut or stab. If it's a huge chunk (75%+) It's something like a through-and-through that leaves a gaping wound. This tends to scale upwards as levels go up, with lesser %s of HP being more serious wounds such that high level characters are more consistently surviving bigger injuries.

By the time regenerate is around, a lost limb is fair game once in a while.

erikun
2010-07-06, 08:21 PM
Before beginning, I feel compelled to point out that metagaming is not necessarily a bad thing. It is metagaming that the player characters stick together every session. It is metagaming that they pick up plot hooks and continue going on adventures rather than staying home and making soup. It is metagaming that they work together during a fight, rather than leaving the fighter to be torn apart by goblins and fireballing the whole group. Not all groups metagame is such a way to keep the party together, but the vast majority do, and given the way that most PCs treat NPCs, most DMs don't want them to treat each other that way.

Now, on with the questions.


1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?
Yes, but by itself, it isn't very meaningful. You may know that you have 73 HP, but unless you know exactly how much damage that ogre is dealing, you can't really put it into a meaningful framework beyond, "I can take more hits than Elfie McMagehand."

Plus, it is a shorthand was of describing how much punishment your character can still expect to take. "I have 73 HP remaining" is easier to say than "I am feeling drained, probably halfway through my endurance, and I guess I could probably survive a 120 foot drop or twenty more sword attacks before I finally give out." It keeps things simplier for everyone involved, and doesn't require spending half an hour every time the cleric decides to try healing people. (Note that such descriptions are perfectly appropriate for NPCs. The party cleric is likely very familiar with his companions and how much punishment they can go through, not so with a NPC.)


2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?
Again, while the character would not know that they have 73 HP and that a 20' fall deals 2d6 damage, they do know they could drop off about ten such falls before they exahust themselves. Or perhaps they don't, but they still feel good enough after the first nine to say they could survive the tenth.

As for the properities of weapons, this seems to relate even less. Weapon damages vary greatly depending on how is wielding them. Bob knows that greatswords hurt more than daggers, and that axes hurt most when they strike a vital spot. He may know that a greatsword in the hands of a common human hurts as much as jumping down twenty feet, but given that most greatsword wielders will have a significantly higher strength, it probably doesn't matter.

Bob does know that he can run through a group of goblins and make it out okay, because he's tough enough and has lived through being attacked by a group of goblins before. And if he takes more damage than expected - such as through setting shortspears for a charge, or critical hits, or some of them possessing sneak attack dice - then it is his own stupid fault for disregarding the threat they possessed.


3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?
Most groups I DM tend to have a lot of new players, so I describe hits and physical injury: a minor cut or glancing blow for small damage, a serious blow of messy strike for a critical. It is far to confusing for most newer players when ducking under a strike deals HP damage, and clearly establishes how poison and such is delivered.

Yukitsu
2010-07-06, 11:44 PM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

Specific yes, general no. "Hey I'm at 5 HP, and he does exactly 5 HP every hit." is metagaming, but "Hey, I'm really low on health, and his really weak attack does enough to hurt me" is not. However, it's pretty stupid sitting on 5 HP in front of something that will do exactly 5 damage and not leave based on "metagame". Even if that is metagame, this still is at heart, a game which should be fun, not frustrating.


2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

Not really. It's basically what the "experts" on the show deadliest warrior do, and what some trauma experts do. Quantify the damage done to the human body from a specific weapon or situation. People roughly know the thresh hold of what will kill an average person, and I'd argue in D&D that people quickly figure out when they vastly deviate from this.


3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?

"Diminishing luck" and similar plot explanations are odd to me. If a guy takes 110 points of damage and lives, it is because he is tough enough to survive getting hit that hard, because a person with more than 110 HP is literally tougher than an inch thick steel plate. The alternative position has problems with the following:

Falling, lava, drowning, submerged in acid, area of effect spells, acid arrow, heat metal, the question as to why a critical arrow saps more endurance than a normal arrow, any effect that causes bleeding, any attack hitting a helpless opponent (including unsuccesful coup de gras) and so forth.

Besides, if it were endurance, you should regain full health after an hour and a snack. If it's near misses, HP should be dex based, and should be higher on nimble classes. If it's some wierd spiritual whatever, it should be charisma or wisdom.

Math_Mage
2010-07-06, 11:59 PM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

If you want these questions to spur healthy debate, you should leave a little more room for debate. As is, the answers are always going to be "yes, that's metagaming, almost nobody plays like that." Which leaves the debatably false impression that basing player decisions on game mechanics is bad, because these specific examples are bad.


3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?

It's an actual hit. How bloody it is depends on how tough the character is. As Yukitsu says, high-level characters are inherently very, very tough. That's the nature of the game.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 02:29 AM
If you want these questions to spur healthy debate, you should leave a little more room for debate. As is, the answers are always going to be "yes, that's metagaming, almost nobody plays like that." Which leaves the debatably false impression that basing player decisions on game mechanics is bad, because these specific examples are bad.

See, that's what I would have thought, but in the 'Does the Game Rules Replace Physics' thread, I heard alot of people claiming that, because they know their character's HP, and they know that a fall from a specific height does a certain amount of damage, then their characters wouldn't hesitate to make that jump. The problem being argued was that all characters, regardless of level, wouldn't just jump off a 200 foot cliff all willy-nilly, but the people who said they would cited metagame information as their reasoning.

So, where you say, "yes, that's metagaming, almost nobody plays like that," I curious how true that really is.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-07-07, 02:39 AM
See, that's what I would have thought, but in the 'Does the Game Rules Replace Physics' thread, I heard alot of people claiming that, because they know their character's HP, and they know that a fall from a specific height does a certain amount of damage, then their characters wouldn't hesitate to make that jump. The problem being argued was that all characters, regardless of level, wouldn't just jump off a 200 foot cliff all willy-nilly, but the people who said they would cited metagame information as their reasoning.

So, where you say, "yes, that's metagaming, almost nobody plays like that," I curious how true that really is.There's a difference between a character thinking "I'm so badass, I can survive a free fall from any height" and "I have enough hit points to survive 20d6 damage." The latter is metagaming, and the former isn't.

I'll echo the notion that metagaming isn't the problem here; the HP mechanic is. If you want characters who think they'll die if they jump off a cliff, play in a system where those beliefs are correct. Honestly, I'd consider a level 20 character avoiding jumping off a cliff to be the one breaking character.

Math_Mage
2010-07-07, 02:39 AM
See, that's what I would have thought, but in the 'Does the Game Rules Replace Physics' thread, I heard alot of people claiming that, because they know their character's HP, and they know that a fall from a specific height does a certain amount of damage, then their characters wouldn't hesitate to make that jump. The problem being argued was that all characters, regardless of level, wouldn't just jump off a 200 foot cliff all willy-nilly, but the people who said they would cited metagame information as their reasoning.

So, where you say, "yes, that's metagaming, almost nobody plays like that," I curious how true that really is.

You are making the same mistake that you make in your questions. This should be evident because the tone of the answers is exactly the same. "Look, my character knows he's superhumanly tough and can survive that fall easily. He doesn't need to know his exact HP total to figure that out." Over and over again I saw that repeated on the other thread, and now on this thread. I see zero, zip, nada examples of people saying that their character knows they have X HP and take Y damage from a fall. Compare to Mr.Moron, Yukitsu, and erikun above.

So when you say they cited metagame information as their reasoning...well, I'm curious as to how true that really is.

potatocubed
2010-07-07, 03:33 AM
I'll echo the notion that metagaming isn't the problem here; the HP mechanic is.

Man, I wrote a big huge post and by the time I got round to posting it you'd summarised it in one line. I feel thwarted.

By way of illustration, consider that characters regularly rush into combat with giants, demons, dragons, etc. If you're going to insist that such characters don't leap cheerfully off cliffs because they don't know they're badass enough to survive a 200 foot drop, you should probably also insist that they run in terror from anything more frightening than a goblin with a pointed stick because they don't know they're badass enough to handle that, either.

(Of course, if you want that level of grit in your games that's fine - I just suggest you play Runequest or something instead of D&D.)

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 05:18 AM
You are making the same mistake that you make in your questions. This should be evident because the tone of the answers is exactly the same. "Look, my character knows he's superhumanly tough and can survive that fall easily. He doesn't need to know his exact HP total to figure that out." Over and over again I saw that repeated on the other thread, and now on this thread. I see zero, zip, nada examples of people saying that their character knows they have X HP and take Y damage from a fall. Compare to Mr.Moron, Yukitsu, and erikun above.

So when you say they cited metagame information as their reasoning...well, I'm curious as to how true that really is.

Please...please don't make me go find specific examples. That thread is like, FOREVER long now, and I...I just don't have the stamina. :smalleek:

Beh. Doesn't really matter, as continuing this line of argument between the two of us will only serve to engender a completely different argument based on our different interpretations of what was said over there. My questions seem to be worded just fine, because I'm getting answers that go either way.

You do have a good point though. The line between metagaming and in-character justification is a very narrow one. It wouldn't be too hard to look at the situation either way.


Man, I wrote a big huge post and by the time I got round to posting it you'd summarised it in one line. I feel thwarted.

By way of illustration, consider that characters regularly rush into combat with giants, demons, dragons, etc. If you're going to insist that such characters don't leap cheerfully off cliffs because they don't know they're badass enough to survive a 200 foot drop, you should probably also insist that they run in terror from anything more frightening than a goblin with a pointed stick because they don't know they're badass enough to handle that, either.

(Of course, if you want that level of grit in your games that's fine - I just suggest you play Runequest or something instead of D&D.)

I just consider them both two different things. In my mind, it's one thing to look at a Frost Giant and say, "You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill him." and another thing to stare off the edge of a cliff and say, "You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill the ground."

When you say that the problem is the HP mechanic, I'm completely onboard. If it were me making the system, I would have had falling damage be Constitution damage, or do a certain amount of damage x current character level. But that's just me. :smallbiggrin:

Boci
2010-07-07, 05:27 AM
My questions seem to be worded just fine, because I'm getting answers that go either way.

Not that I can see. No ones gone "Yes of course my character knows that. I always have them spend 4.5gp (1 gp = 20 USD) on the core rule books"


"You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill the ground."

Its more a question of toghness than skill.

olentu
2010-07-07, 05:34 AM
I just consider them both two different things. In my mind, it's one thing to look at a Frost Giant and say, "You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill him." and another thing to stare off the edge of a cliff and say, "You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill the ground."

When you say that the problem is the HP mechanic, I'm completely onboard. If it were me making the system, I would have had falling damage be Constitution damage, or do a certain amount of damage x current character level. But that's just me. :smallbiggrin:

Well the question is not out skilling the giant it is about out skilling the sword, the remorhaz stomach, the dragons whole body, and so forth.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 06:26 AM
Its more a question of toghness than skill.

Says who? There is no RAW definition of exactly what HP represents. Many people on the forums claim that HP directly represents character toughness. Just as many people claim that HP directly represents a schmattering of luck, skill, stamina, and toughness.

Evidence specifically supporting Toughness
Fall damage
Swallow whole
Environmental damage
Massive damage

Evidence specifically supporting a combination of things
Lack of rules covering bleeding wounds for being regularly stabbed or cut while unarmored
Lack of rules covering specific injuries
The disparity between how much damage a specific weapon does to a level 1 character and a level 20 one (weapon only)
Lack of rules covering a Fighter/Paladin/Ranger/ect's increasing ability to block, parry, dodge, generally avoid attacks without resorting to armor or feats

The way I see it, HP is a combination of many things. Its just that some of the rules contradict one another as to what the designers intended HP to be.

EDIT If my questions aren't worded as well as they should be, how would you change them?

olentu
2010-07-07, 06:38 AM
Lack of rules covering bleeding wounds for being regularly stabbed or cut while unarmored
Lack of rules covering specific injuries
The disparity between how much damage a specific weapon does to a level 1 character and a level 20 one (weapon only)

These all seem like they are most easily explained by toughness.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:03 AM
These all seem like they are most easily explained by toughness.


Stabbing, cutting - A spear point, if it strikes the skin, will penetrate bare flesh. There is no level of human toughness that can prevent that. Should it break the skin, it will draw blood. During combat, when adrenaline is high and the heart is working overtime, any bleeding wound will bleed more than if the person was at rest. This will sap strength. Yet, D&D rules don't cover this, which is why is makes infinitely more sense to assume that higher level characters use their skill to turn blows aside. This tires them, lowering their HP.

Specific injuries - It would be illogical to think that all attacks on commoners are blows that always strike internal organs, yet attacks on higher level characters are somehow all simple bruises. The only time a character suffers a 'mortal' blow, is when they go below 0 HP. It could be said that being a 0 is like having a barely managed wound, since strenuous effort knocks you over into the negatives. These are the only rules for specific injuries. This tells me that the designers simplified the system to show that the only time a character suffers a wound from damage is when they are nearing 0 HP. It makes more sense to assume that this is because higher level characters turn aside mortal blows through skill rather than just blocking everything with their skin-o-steel.

Disparity - Okay, mathing on the fly here, so bear with me. Shortsword does 1d6 damage. No strength or magic or any other damage additions. Assuming 10 Con, and only HP per level.
Fighter 1 - 10 HP
Fighter 20 - 114 HP (assuming max at first, then 5.5 per level after)

For fighter 1, a strike from our shortsword does anywhere between 10% and 60% of his HP. We'll average that out to 35% for simplicity sake.

For fighter 20, a strike from our shortsword does anywhere between 1% and 5% of his HP. We'll average that at 3%.

I have a hard time believing that our fighter's skin/skull/bones/whatever has increased in density and toughness by...what? 1200%? The shortsword didn't change any. Much more likely that he just got better at blocking/parrying/dodging.

Boci
2010-07-07, 07:04 AM
The way I see it, HP is a combination of many things.

Precisely, and for surviving a fall, HP represents toughness. Or skill, if you like that better.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 07:11 AM
Stabbing, cutting - A spear point, if it strikes the skin, will penetrate bare flesh. There is no level of human toughness that can prevent that.

That's why we're saying they have superhuman levels of toughness.

See? Simple.

olentu
2010-07-07, 07:12 AM
Stabbing, cutting - A spear point, if it strikes the skin, will penetrate bare flesh. There is no level of human toughness that can prevent that. Should it break the skin, it will draw blood. During combat, when adrenaline is high and the heart is working overtime, any bleeding wound will bleed more than if the person was at rest. This will sap strength. Yet, D&D rules don't cover this, which is why is makes infinitely more sense to assume that higher level characters use their skill to turn blows aside. This tires them, lowering their HP.

Specific injuries - It would be illogical to think that all attacks on commoners are blows that always strike internal organs, yet attacks on higher level characters are somehow all simple bruises. The only time a character suffers a 'mortal' blow, is when they go below 0 HP. It could be said that being a 0 is like having a barely managed wound, since strenuous effort knocks you over into the negatives. These are the only rules for specific injuries. This tells me that the designers simplified the system to show that the only time a character suffers a wound from damage is when they are nearing 0 HP. It makes more sense to assume that this is because higher level characters turn aside mortal blows through skill rather than just blocking everything with their skin-o-steel.

Disparity - Okay, mathing on the fly here, so bear with me. Shortsword does 1d6 damage. No strength or magic or any other damage additions. Assuming 10 Con, and only HP per level.
Fighter 1 - 10 HP
Fighter 20 - 114 HP (assuming max at first, then 5.5 per level after)

For fighter 1, a strike from our shortsword does anywhere between 10% and 60% of his HP. We'll average that out to 35% for simplicity sake.

For fighter 20, a strike from our shortsword does anywhere between 1% and 5% of his HP. We'll average that at 3%.

I have a hard time believing that our fighter's skin/skull/bones/whatever has increases in density and toughness by...what? 1200%? Much more likely that he just got better at blocking/parrying/dodging.

Sure there is no level of human toughness in reality that can do many of the things that D&D characters can do. They however do them and so they clearly are not real. But I think everyone realized that already.

Though I am not saying that HP is only toughness just that it could be toughness and saying that it can not based on the real world does not really seem so consistent to me when one is in a world with dragons and magic.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:19 AM
Precisely, and for surviving a fall, HP represents toughness. Or skill, if you like that better.

Boci, you aren't really providing an argument other than "because I say so." If you have an idea, give me some evidence supporting it so that this doesn't devolve into a session of 'Nuh-uh!' 'Yu-huh!' 'Well, my dad can beat up your dad!' :smallwink:

How are you going to 'out-skill' the ground? D&D falling mechanics are just BAD. I know, you can tell me that maybe I slid down the wall, or landed on something soft, or something similarly fluff-tastic. But how is it that a high level character can literally change the landscape to suite their fall whereas a commoner basically summons jagged rocks whereever he falls.

Situation - A cliff extending out into 200ft of open air. Below, the rock wall veers away, leaving you nothing but emptiness to grab hold of. At the bottom, the ground is life-less plane of featureless granite, a slab of solid rock.

Commoner 1 falls off. There is nothing to grab hold of, nothing soft to land on. He hits, he splats. Eventually, the rain washes away his body, leaving the rock just as flat and featureless as before.

Later, Fighter 20 falls off. He reaches for the wall to slow him, but its out of reach. His greatsword does him little good, and none of his training has prepared him for this situation. None of his items would do him any good. The ground rushes up to greet him. Just as the commoner before him, he hits with the same bonecrushing force.

Yet...he survives...not a RAW scratch on him. He stands, brushes himself off, and walks away smiling.

How did he survive? This isn't a question of skill. Skill is worthless here. He survived because the rules poorly model falling damage. Because, if HP can be seen to represent a combination of both training and toughness, that means that he wouldn't be allowed to use his entire pool of HP to soak the fall. He really shouldn't be allowed to use much more than his first few levels of HP for that purpose, and not even ALL of those levels. Only on rolling all one's, a statistical impossibility, would he even hope to survive.

And yet, for our fighter? He can do this EVERY DAY. Go home, heal up, go do it again and only have a 5% chance to die if the DM happens to roll over 50 damage.


Sure there is no level of human toughness in reality that can do many of the things that D&D characters can do. They however do them and so they clearly are not real. But I think everyone realized that already.

Though I am not saying that HP is only toughness just that it could be toughness and saying that it can not based on the real world does not really seem so consistent to me when one is in a world with dragons and magic.

I'm just saying that it can't be both and then not be both, depending on the situation. That's my argument. My problem is how different rules seem to support different interpretations.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-07, 07:22 AM
He survives because he's that superhuman. There just isn't a point to applying human survivability for someone that is at least 14 levels higher than humans.

(and on outskilling the ground, Tumble does let you reduce the damage intake. Negate it at dc 100)

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:23 AM
He survives because he's that superhuman. There just isn't a point to applying human survivability for someone that is at least 14 levels higher than humans.

(and on outskilling the ground, Tumble does let you reduce the damage intake. Negate it at dc 100)

Touche. :smallbiggrin:

olentu
2010-07-07, 07:30 AM
I'm just saying that it can't be both and then not be both, depending on the situation. That's my argument. My problem is how different rules seem to support different interpretations.

It could be either it just depends on how the character is described in that particular situation. It could be fluffed in a variety of ways one of which happens to be toughness.

Prime32
2010-07-07, 07:30 AM
Why is being 1200% tougher than humanly possible less believable than having 1200% faster reaction times than humanly possible? :smallconfused:

The coup de grace rules seem to support the "shield of luck/ki/destiny/willpower" idea, with a failed save resulting in the attack passing through your shield.

Also, undead and constructs have more hit points since their bodies are harder to destroy.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-07, 07:32 AM
I think this problem with hp having different values depending on where you apply it is the expectancy of it always following the same rule...It doesn't.

A level 20 barbarian can and will survive 20 stabs from a commoner with 10 strength. He can even kill a house cat without fearing for his life. If you want your scenarios to be bloody, then he took the stab, it did run through him and he just didn't give up. If you want combat to be a bit less bloody, then it hit, but the cut was superficial. It doesn't really matter. HP is unreal from start, so there's little reason to want it to be consistent with what happens around the world. Sometimes it's luck. Sometimes it's sheer toughness. Sometimes it's skill. Really, it doesn't matter much.

Boci
2010-07-07, 07:39 AM
How are you going to 'out-skill' the ground?

I don't know. You're the one who cam up with that explanation for suriving falling damage, the rest of us have been using the super human toughness as the our explanation.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:41 AM
Why is being 1200% tougher than humanly possible less believable than having 1200% faster reaction times than humanly possible? :smallconfused:

The coup de grace rules seem to support the "shield of luck/ki/destiny/willpower" idea, with a failed save resulting in the attack passing through your shield.

Also, undead and constructs have more hit points since their bodies are harder to destroy.

I don't know what you are referencing with the reaction time part, but I assume you are talking about magical enhancement. Magic enhancement I can dig. That is something specifically built to break from reality.

And undead and constructs and objects? Constructs and objects make sense to me. Undead do from a magic standpoint. In these cases, I think HP models them fairly well. I have a hard time applying the same logic to experience acquired HP.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:44 AM
I don't know. You're the one who cam up with that explanation for suriving falling damage, the rest of us have been using the super human toughness as the our explanation.

Come on. You know I never said that. I said that the falling system is badly modeled when you look at HP from the standpoint of being both toughness and skill.

Actually, YOU said that.


Precisely, and for surviving a fall, HP represents toughness. Or skill, if you like that better.





I think this problem with hp having different values depending on where you apply it is the expectancy of it always following the same rule...It doesn't.

A level 20 barbarian can and will survive 20 stabs from a commoner with 10 strength. He can even kill a house cat without fearing for his life. If you want your scenarios to be bloody, then he took the stab, it did run through him and he just didn't give up. If you want combat to be a bit less bloody, then it hit, but the cut was superficial. It doesn't really matter. HP is unreal from start, so there's little reason to want it to be consistent with what happens around the world. Sometimes it's luck. Sometimes it's sheer toughness. Sometimes it's skill. Really, it doesn't matter much.

For you, having someone get stabbed 20 times doesn't break immersion. For me and my group and many of the people who have a problem with the falling rules, it obviously does matter.

I like to know what I'm dealing with when I look at a rule. Alot of people do, that's why we have so many RAI/RAW discussions on this forum. When I look at HP, I want to know exactly what it represents. Unfortunately, the evidence goes both ways, so I have to tweak different portions of the system and ignore other parts to reconcile the problem in my mind.

Boci
2010-07-07, 07:47 AM
I said that the falling system is badly modeled when you look at HP from the standpoint of being both toughness and skill.

I agree.


Actually, YOU said that.

Before which you said:


I just consider them both two different things. In my mind, it's one thing to look at a Frost Giant and say, "You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill him." and another thing to stare off the edge of a cliff and say, "You know what? I'm a pretty skilled warrior. I can out-skill the ground."

I know there was some sarcasm in there, but to me it came off as if you felt that was genuinly a valid point.


I think this problem with hp having different values depending on where you apply it is the expectancy of it always following the same rule...It doesn't.

Yeah, they all have flaws. HP dammage = deep wounds raises the question why doesn't my character bleed. HP damage = gradual fatigue and lucky dodging makes special materials to overcome DR and regenration not work, and makes SA immunity harder to justify.

Aroka
2010-07-07, 07:47 AM
I don't quite get what he difficulty is.

Arnold/Stallone/whoever gets shot, exploded, beaten, stabbed, etc., and is fine. This falls under suspension of disbelief just fine, generally.

But D&D heroes have to not get hit in order to survive similar (or genre-appropriately greater) punishment?

Why would D&D need to be more realistic than action movies? That's nonsense, and impossible.

Prime32
2010-07-07, 07:51 AM
I don't know what you are referencing with the reaction time part, but I assume you are talking about magical enhancement. Magic enhancement I can dig. That is something specifically built to break from reality.Actually I meant that being able to dodge twice as well to take half as much damage is just as impossible as being twice as durable.

But if magic makes it fine, souls are magic. Their effects are normally too subtle to notice, but D&D characters have stronger souls than we do - this is what level represents. It's even supported by binding spells requiring larger gems to trap higher-level characters, and all those effects which are based on your HD rather than how tough you are in the traditional sense (eg. sleep, cloudkill).

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:53 AM
I know there was some sarcasm in there, but to me it came off as if you felt that was genuinly a valid point.

My apologies then. I DID have a point, it just may have been different than what you received.


don't quite get what he difficulty is.

Arnold/Stallone/whoever gets shot, exploded, beaten, stabbed, etc., and is fine. This falls under suspension of disbelief just fine, generally.

But D&D heroes have to not get hit in order to survive similar (or genre-appropriately greater) punishment?

Why would D&D need to be more realistic than action movies? That's nonsense, and impossible.

This doesn't always fall under the suspension of disbelief actually, not for everyone.

Unfortunately, D&D doesn't model any sort of injury system for us roleplayers, so instead of breaking verisimilitude by picturing our warrior with 10 or more gaping wounds in his body and not caring, we choose to look at it as though he never really gets hit until he is sufficiently worn down. But then, when we come to the falling damage part, that doesn't really line up with our worldview, and suddenly our brain starts to hurt. :smalleek:


Actually I meant that being able to dodge twice as well to take half as much damage is just as impossible as being twice as durable.

But if magic makes it fine, souls are magic. Their effects are normally too subtle to notice, but D&D characters have stronger souls than we do - this is what level represents. It's even supported by binding spells requiring larger gems to trap higher-level characters, and all those effects which are based on your HD rather than how tough you are in the traditional sense (eg. sleep, cloudkill).

Yeah, we've been trying to come up with a good houserule for evasion that allows the character to move to the edge of the effect, we just don't know how all that extra movement will affect the game. So see, I have a problem with that too. :smallamused:

HEY. STOP THAT WITH YOUR FANCY LOGIC. IT DOESN'T BELONG IN MY THREADS.

This is actually a good explanation, for certain things. However, I choose not to accept it on the principle th/thread

Crap. :smallannoyed:

Aroka
2010-07-07, 07:54 AM
So why complain or come up with explanations when the game's paradigm is so wildly different? There's a ton of better RPGs that model injuries better, and have better and more interesting and more fun combat systems.

Prime32
2010-07-07, 07:54 AM
Unfortunately, D&D doesn't model any sort of injury system for us roleplayers, so instead of breaking verisimilitude by picturing our warrior with 10 or more gaping wounds in his body and not caring, we choose to look at it as though he never really gets hit until he is sufficiently worn down. But then, when we come to the falling damage part, that doesn't really line up with our worldview, and suddenly our brain starts to hurt. :smalleek:Verisimilitude is consistency (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA), not realism. Treating falling damage differently would be damaging verisimilitude, not improving it.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 08:01 AM
Verisimilitude is consistency (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA), not realism. Treating falling damage differently would be damaging verisimilitude, not improving it.


Yeah, and it would be inconsistent for a warrior to keep on fighting when his body is filled with holes. especially when it only took one hole to knock out Mr. Barkeeper. :smallbiggrin:

Treating falling damage differently wouldn't break that word that I'm already tired of typing. Not really. Coup-de-graces are treated differently, and that doesn't break that word. Drowning is treated differently, and that doesn't break that word. Just need to come up with a good falling damage rule.

Aotrs Commander
2010-07-07, 08:13 AM
Yeah, and it would be inconsistent for a warrior to keep on fighting when his body is filled with holes. especially when it only took one hole to knock out Mr. Barkeeper. :smallbiggrin:

Treating falling damage differently wouldn't break that word that I'm already tired of typing. Not really. Coup-de-graces are treated differently, and that doesn't break that word. Drowning is treated differently, and that doesn't break that word. Just need to come up with a good falling damage rule.

Actually, maybe you could follow a similiar line, rather than just relying on plain old hit point damage, which is struggling a bit to handle this area of interpretation more than, say, regular combat. Fort (or possibly Reflex) save verses DC 10+say, half damage dealt, or perhaps just half damage dealt (minimum of, say, 50' fall to require a save).

Would that sort of thing be a reasonable compromise? Since it still allows you to walk away from it badassely (maybe) and is also consistant with those other bits of the rules. Essentially turn a long fall into a Save-or-die, like other things like drowning and coup de gras that should be lethal.

On the lava front, I wholey support and Fire and Brimstone link! (That is, assuming you don't suffocate on the fumes first, as with very few exceptions, even lava-proof fighters still have to breathe...)

Drascin
2010-07-07, 08:15 AM
(and on outskilling the ground, Tumble does let you reduce the damage intake. Negate it at dc 100)

You're really just blocking it by that point, I think (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/09/08/episode-1170-happy-landings/) :smalltongue:.

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 08:16 AM
When a rogue moves into a position so he can get his sneak attack to work, is he metagaming to a game breaking extent ?

When a fighter moves to hit an already wounded goblin in hopes of getting his cleave abaility to trigger is he metagaming to a game breaking extent ?

When a Fighter moves to flank with a rogue so the rogue can sneak attack ?

When a fighter knows he is in initive 23 and the wizard is only on 5. So fighter moves to protect the wizard so he can get his action before dieing ?

Or how about

Fighter acts on 23
Goblin acts on 8
Wizard acts on 5
Second Goblin acts on 4

Fighter wisly chooses to kill the goblin acting on 8. Does this break the game ?
The simple fact is DnD is all about the meta game. It’s tactical based combat system promotes players controlling their characters with knowledge of the rules.

Now the damage from falling rules seem to be thought of as silly. As a player if they are the rules we are playing I will treat them like any other rule and use them when playing my character. If as a player I know I can fall 100 feet and live I may under some situations jump that distance.

If you change the rules for falling then perhaps I would not.

I don’t think I am cheating any more then the fighter trying to get more attacks by making sure his first blow will kill something and trigger cleave. Am I wrong ?

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 08:34 AM
Good questions, Earthwalker.


When a rogue moves into a position so he can get his sneak attack to work, is he metagaming to a game breaking extent?

No. Flanking is a real-world tactic. A rogue has trained himself to exploit weak spots in his opponent. He knows that the best way to line himself up for an exploit is to get himself on the opponent's weak side.


When a fighter moves to hit an already wounded goblin in hopes of getting his cleave abaility to trigger is he metagaming to a game breaking extent?

Depends on how you view cleave. A fighter should be able to recognize whether or not a particular opponent is near to being finished off. That being said, he could line up his shot to blow through his opponent to the next one, knowing that one more successful strike should do the trick. Cleaving through an enemy, be it actually cutting them in half or just angling your sword cut to slide to the next person, is something that can be done in real life, so the fighter should know this.


When a Fighter moves to flank with a rogue so the rogue can sneak attack?

Only if the fighter didn't know he could do that, but I still wouldn't hold it over my players head, because, again, flanking is just good tactics in general.


When a fighter knows he is in initive 23 and the wizard is only on 5. So fighter moves to protect the wizard so he can get his action before dieing ?

In some situations, yes. In others, no. Just depends on what's going on. I have a hard time calling out on character from protecting another from dying. Regardless of where their initiative falls, they would probably do it anyway.


Or how about

Fighter acts on 23
Goblin acts on 8
Wizard acts on 5
Second Goblin acts on 4

Fighter wisly chooses to kill the goblin acting on 8. Does this break the game ?

Only if it is the first round of battle, and if it is, why does the fighter even know when the goblin goes? Monster initiative should be kept secret. Otherwise, he should, barring obstruction, be able to see how the battle is playing out and make an informed decision. I regularly call my players out for choosing actions based on knowledge they can't possess. After all, Spot and Listen are skills for a reason.


The simple fact is DnD is all about the meta game. It’s tactical based combat system promotes players controlling their characters with knowledge of the rules.

D&D isn't just a combat system, at least, it doesn't have to be. And even then, players are expected to act on the knowledge of their characters and try to refrain from metagaming.


Now the damage from falling rules seem to be thought of as silly. As a player if they are the rules we are playing I will treat them like any other rule and use them when playing my character. If as a player I know I can fall 100 feet and live I may under some situations jump that distance.

If you change the rules for falling then perhaps I would not.

I don’t think I am cheating any more then the fighter trying to get more attacks by making sure his first blow will kill something and trigger cleave. Am I wrong ?

By RAW, you are not wrong. The D&D system is modeled in such a way as to allow your character to do just that. You are acting on something called 'reasonable expectation'. The rules say you can do something, so you can reasonable expect to be able to do that. If the DM says otherwise, it would probably upset you.

However, if during the first session, I told everyone in the group that I was changing the falling mechanics to be more deadly, your expectations would change, and you would most likely not have a problem with the rule change.

The falling thing has never really come up with my players because all of them operate under the idea that falling should be dangerous. They limit themselves beyond what the rules tell them.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 08:36 AM
Yeah, and it would be inconsistent for a warrior to keep on fighting when his body is filled with holes. especially when it only took one hole to knock out Mr. Barkeeper.

Inconsistent with what? Verisimilitude is internal consistency, not consistency with the real world. It would break verisimilitude for two warriors of the same level and general toughness to be taken by different numbers of spears to the throat. It would not break verisimilitude for two warriors of different levels and general toughness to do the same, because we have already established they are different levels.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 08:40 AM
Inconsistent with what? Verisimilitude is internal consistency, not consistency with the real world. It would break verisimilitude for two warriors of the same level and general toughness to be taken by different numbers of spears to the throat. It would not break verisimilitude for two warriors of different levels and general toughness to do the same, because we have already established they are different levels.

....sigh. This is getting off topic and arguing semantics. Let's....not. Please.

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 08:50 AM
<snip>

The falling thing has never really come up with my players because all of them operate under the idea that falling should be dangerous. They limit themselves beyond what the rules tell them.

See I don't agree. Its choosing what you want to believe about the world and not what the rules tell you.

If I played a monk in your game and in the first session. The group gets attacked by goblins with swords. My responce for my character was to run, or surrender. After in in real life theres no way I would go up against creatures armed with swords when I was unarmed and expect to come out ok, I would be lucky to be alive.

Oh I know the rules say that monks can attack as well unarmed as other characters can armed, but this one example I choose to ignore rules and play it how it would be in real life. Same as you are suggesting that falling damage should be played.

In fact my monk would never try to finght anything that a normal unarmed human in real life couldn't beat. Is this how it should work becuase I decided to play by real life and not the rules ?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 08:54 AM
Technically, it is on topic in that it is an addendum to the answer to your third question.

In D&D, people do actually grow tougher as they level up. They can survive their flesh being burned alive for longer, they can survive higher falls and they can live and walk around with more spears embedded in their guts. They do not slowly bleed to death until they fall unconscious, and a man can survive being sit on by a great wyrm while a lesser man might not.

Your issues with falling damage and people jumping off skyscrapers because they know they can survive them stem from mistaking realism for verisimilitude and a poor interpretation of what hit points mean (the same poor interpretation WotC has). D&D's rules are not realistic. If you expect realistic rules (with or without functional magic and dragons flying around), D&D is not the game for you. Try GURPS, or Unisystem. I love Unisystem.

It's not metagaming to know that if you can survive a dragon falling onto you at 120 MPH, you can survive falling onto the ground at 120 MPH. Both things happen at high levels in D&D. It is metagaming to say this is because you have 213 hit points and the fall can only deal 120 hit points of damage as a maximum.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 08:58 AM
See I feel this is nonsense. Its choosing what you want to believe about the world and not what the rules tell you.

Let's try to tone the down the hostility a little, please. I'm just trying to have an interesting discussion.

The drowning rules tell me I heal from drowning. I chose to ignore these. Is this wrong?

Monks aren't proficient with their unarmed strikes. I chose to ignore these. Is this wrong?

The falling rules don't suite our playstyle, much in the same way that ToB doesn't suite our playstyle. We chose to ignore these. Why is this wrong?


If I played a monk in your game and in the first session. The group gets attacked by goblins with swords. My responce for my character was to run, or surrender. After in in real life theres no way I would go up against creatures armed with swords when I was unarmed and expect to come out ok, I would be lucky to be alive.

Oh I know the rules say that monks can attack as well unarmed as other characters can armed, but this one example I choose to ignore rules and play it how it would be in real life. Same as you are suggesting that falling damage should be played.

In fact my monk would never try to finght anything that a normal unarmed human in real life couldn't beat. Is this how it should work becuase I decided to play by real life and not the rules ?

I'm not good with my fallacies, but I think this is either a strawman or a red herring or something of the sort.

You are choosing to cause problems for me and the other players. When we chose to ignore the falling rules, we do so to help improve our experience.

Besides, fighting an armed opponent while you are unarmed, especially when you have the training, really isn't that much of a stretch.

This isn't a situation where you have chosen to play by real life and not the rules. This is a situation where you are intentionally attempt to spite my line of thinking, and I don't even really know why.


Technically, it is on topic in that it is an addendum to the answer to your third question.

In D&D, people do actually grow tougher as they level up. They can survive their flesh being burned alive for longer, they can survive higher falls and they can live and walk around with more spears embedded in their guts. They do not slowly bleed to death until they fall unconscious, and a man can survive being sit on by a great wyrm while a lesser man might not.

Your issues with falling damage and people jumping off skyscrapers because they know they can survive them stem from mistaking realism for verisimilitude and a poor interpretation of what hit points mean (the same poor interpretation WotC has). D&D's rules are not realistic. If you expect realistic rules (with or without functional magic and dragons flying around), D&D is not the game for you. Try GURPS, or Unisystem. I love Unisystem.

It's not metagaming to know that if you can survive a dragon falling onto you at 120 MPH, you can survive falling onto the ground at 120 MPH. Both things happen at high levels in D&D. It is metagaming to say this is because you have 213 hit points and the fall can only deal 120 hit points of damage as a maximum.

Only a portion of the rules support the 'all-toughness' argument, as I have attempted to show in previous posts. My interpretation of the rules is not a 'poor' interpretation, it is one of two seemingly equally valid and at the same time flawed points of view, again, as I have already attempted to show in previous posts. Both interpretations are the result of contradictory rules, and as I've said, I believe it is the contradictory rules that are the problem, not necessarily the HP system.

It is metagaming to think that you know how badly a fall will hurt you. Knowing how much damage a fall will do is metagaming. Just because you survived one fall, doesn't mean you'll survive the next. You are relying on your unrelated experiences of dragon and giant fighting to develop a theory on falling damage. This is VERY poor science.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 09:04 AM
The drowning rules tell me I heal from drowning. I chose to ignore these. Is this wrong?

The drowning rules also tell you that you cannot prevent someone from drowning once they start drowning. So, once you get that magical drowning healing, you're pretty much gonna die in two rounds, no matter what.


Besides, fighting an armed opponent while you are unarmed, especially when you have the training, really isn't that much of a stretch.

Really, it is. At least if your opponent also has training. If your opponent has a knife, and you are unarmed, you're gonna get stabbed. Repeatedly. Badly. There are pictures of people that were stabbed in fights online. It's not pretty.

It's the first rule of fighting someone with a knife: "there is no such thing as a 'knife fight'."

Amphetryon
2010-07-07, 09:05 AM
In real life, how would you respond if someone pointed their finger at you and a bolt of pure energy shot toward you to hit you in the chest? I'd surrender, personally, even if I thought I could beat up his friend Bjorn, who is holding that great big honkin' axe.

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 09:05 AM
Good questions, Earthwalker.



No. Flanking is a real-world tactic. A rogue has trained himself to exploit weak spots in his opponent. He knows that the best way to line himself up for an exploit is to get himself on the opponent's weak side.




In real life a set up like this (PCs are X and the monster is an H and . is an empty square)

. . X
. H .
. X .

is already good, people would just fight away (in real life people tend not to stand in boxes but stay with me)

The rouge would always take a step before attacking making it

. X .
. H .
. X .

Now in real life this step in no way would improve his situation yet he does it in DnD so he can sneak attack. This is Metagaming as he is doing whats best for his class abilities, how does he know as a character the nature those abilities work ?

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 09:05 AM
The drowning rules also tell you that you cannot prevent someone from drowning once they start drowning. So, once you get that magical drowning healing, you're pretty much gonna die in two rounds, no matter what.

Hence why I ignore them. Cuz they are stupid.


In real life a set up like this (PCs are X and the monster is an H and . is an empty square)

. . X
. H .
. X .

is already good, people would just fight away (in real life people tend not to stand in boxes but stay with me)

The rouge would always take a step before attacking making it

. X .
. H .
. X .

Now in real life this step in no way would improve his situation yet he does it in DnD so he can sneak attack. This is Metagaming as he is doing whats best for his class abilities, how does he know as a character the nature those abilities work ?

I'm pretty sure both locations are flanking locations in D&D rules. Its a straight line going through opposite sides of a square, which both do.

Just checked it. You're right. Still, being on exact opposite sides of a target is optimal. I'd let it slide.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 09:09 AM
Hence why I ignore them. Cuz they are stupid.

They are stupid if you expect them to simulate real life. D&D is a very poor system for that. If you don't expect the rules to simulate real life, you will find them increasingly less stupid.

2xMachina
2010-07-07, 09:14 AM
Hence why I ignore them. Cuz they are stupid.



I'm pretty sure both locations are flanking locations in D&D rules. Its a straight line going through opposite sides of a square, which both do.

Actually, I think it does not. They get to choose which point goes to which point, and if it doesn't cross their square, there is no flank.

So, choose lower left of the up guy, and top right of the bottom guy, and you have no flank.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 09:17 AM
Actually, I think it does not. They get to choose which point goes to which point, and if it doesn't cross their square, there is no flank.

So, choose lower left of the up guy, and top right of the bottom guy, and you have no flank.

Yeah, you're right just checked it and edited above post.


They are stupid if you expect them to simulate real life. D&D is a very poor system for that. If you don't expect the rules to simulate real life, you will find them increasingly less stupid.

No system is perfect. Period. Even if I played something else, I'd still find things to bitch about. And then someone would tell me to go do something else. It's a vicious circle I tell ya, A VICIOUS CIRCLE!!!!!

We like D&D, for the most part, we know it very well, well enough to adjust the things we don't like. So we do. I just find it better to talk about some of these things on the interwebs to help me understand my own ways of thinking better, and to get good ideas from the rest of you intelligent folk. :smallsmile:

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 09:19 AM
Let's try to tone the down the hostility a little, please. I'm just trying to have an interesting discussion.


Apologizes, I corrected it but you got your quote in first.



The drowning rules tell me I heal from drowning. I chose to ignore these. Is this wrong?

Monks aren't proficient with their unarmed strikes. I chose to ignore these. Is this wrong?

The falling rules don't suite our playstyle, much in the same way that ToB doesn't suite our playstyle. We chose to ignore these. Why is this wrong?


I don't think it is in anyway wrong.
My objection is simple. If you play by the DnD falling rules then I will asume I know these rules the same as my character knows other rules (so to speak) and as such I will act like it. If you say the DnD falling rules are now D6 con damage per 10 foot fall then I will act like I know that too.

Take for example a 40 foot fall. On top of the tower are 3 lvl 15 fighters. I have a better run speed then them but have to jump to get away. Now playing DnD normal rules I would jump and leg it. Playing new 4D6 con damage rules I would probably just surrender.

This is Metagaming, I know by the rules I am toast if I jump so I don't jump. The thing is the only way to know what works in a game is knowing how the rules work.



I'm not good with my fallacies, but I think this is either a strawman or a red herring or something of the sort.

You are choosing to cause problems for me and the other players. When we chose to ignore the falling rules, we do so to help improve our experience.

Besides, fighting an armed opponent while you are unarmed, especially when you have the training, really isn't that much of a stretch.

This isn't a situation where you have chosen to play by real life and not the rules. This is a situation where you are intentionally attempt to spite my line of thinking, and I don't even really know why.



Again I apologize I am mearly trying to make my point and not wishing to attack you or your game.

Another_Poet
2010-07-07, 09:22 AM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows he is 6th level and has 73 HP. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

Yes, it's metagaming. However I think it's fine for Bob to say, "I think I can take this fall and survive" or "I don't want to get hit with that thing." Translating OOC rulesy info into IC world info is part of what it means to roleplay rather than metagame. A small part, but a part nonetheless.


2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? Ex. Bob the Barbarian knows that a shortsword and a 10-foot fall does the same amount of damage. Is this metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

It is metagaming for Bob to say, "That only does 1d6, don't worry about it." It is not metagaming for Bob to look at the guy with a short sword on one side and the 10 foot fall on the other side and and figure that going either way is going to be about the same amount of trouble.

I should point out too that Bob should fear the sword more. Both sources of damage have a chance for failure (skill check negates 10' falling damage, failed attack roll negates short sword damage) but a sword can crit, and/or power attack. In D&D as in real life one should be more worried about being stabbed than falling off a 1 story roof.


3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP? Is a confirmed hit from a sword an actual, bloody hit, or does it simply sap an amount of endurance from the target? When a character hits the ground after a fall, is this actual physical damage or just a hit to his luck or stamina?

I prefer to view most hp damage as loss of breath/stamina/luck; the act of getting worn out. However the other players at my table mostly don't "get" this. So if I say to our cleric, "Augh, that last fight really wore me out," she is not going to give me any sympathy. If I say, "Hey, you can see that I am holding in my intestines with one hand," then she jumps to heal me.

I think this issue is more one of aesthetics and play style. On this one there is no "right" or "wrong" answer. On the first two there sort of is a right answer - in that treating numbers as in-game knowledge is going to lower the immersiveness of any world except an Erfworld style world.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 09:25 AM
Apologizes, I corrected it but you got your quote in first.

No problem. I didn't think you realized.


I don't think it is in anyway wrong.
My objection is simple. If you play by the DnD falling rules then I will asume I know these rules the same as my character knows other rules (so to speak) and as such I will act like it. If you say the DnD falling rules are now D6 con damage per 10 foot fall then I will act like I know that too.

Take for example a 40 foot fall. On top of the tower are 3 lvl 15 fighters. I have a better run speed then them but have to jump to get away. Now playing DnD normal rules I would jump and leg it. Playing new 4D6 con damage rules I would probably just surrender.

This is Metagaming, I know by the rules I am toast if I jump so I don't jump. The thing is the only way to know what works in a game is knowing how the rules work.

The closer the rules come to working like I would assume they should work in the real world, the less metagamey they be. Yarr.

You, as a player, should know how the rules work. I just have a problem with exploiting bad rules to do very unrealistic things, especially when, IMHO, the designers attempted to model them towards reality. (I.E. reaching terminal velocity at 200ft) Now, if a wizard did it? No problem. Just as long as he was using magic.

Coplantor
2010-07-07, 09:35 AM
The closer the rules come to working like I would assume they should work in the real world, the less metagamey they be. Yarr.

You, as a player, should know how the rules work. I just have a problem with exploiting bad rules to do very unrealistic things, especially when, IMHO, the designers attempted to model them towards reality. (I.E. reaching terminal velocity at 200ft) Now, if a wizard did it? No problem. Just as long as he was using magic.

But the thing is that they approach reality, and quite good, what does not approach reality, is the leveling up system.
People in real life, have only NPC classes, most of us here are either commoners or experts. Everything after level 6 is stuff of legends, or more. Take an average citizen with 3 levels of expert (and this I consider being generous), average hp would be 13, and with the eating habits and lack of excercise that are so common nowadays, the most likely scenario is that his con score is either 9 or 8. So hp now is around 10. with enough bad luck, a 20ft fall will kill him, and an average one will leave him pretty messed up.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 09:41 AM
But the thing is that they approach reality, and quite good, what does not approach reality, is the leveling up system.
People in real life, have only NPC classes, most of us here are either commoners or experts. Everything after level 6 is stuff of legends, or more. Take an average citizen with 3 levels of expert (and this I consider being generous), average hp would be 13, and with the eating habits and lack of excercise that are so common nowadays, the most likely scenario is that his con score is either 9 or 8. So hp now is around 10. with enough bad luck, a 20ft fall will kill him, and an average one will leave him pretty messed up.

It actually depends heavily on from what point you look at it.

If you say that HP is a mish-mash of skill, luck, and toughness, then the falling and environmental rules suddenly don't look so realistic.

If you say that the falling and environmental rules are realistic, then the HP and leveling rules suddenly don't look so realistic. It can really go either way here, you just have to choose to stand on one or the another, and adjust the other to fit.

And hey, I'm not EVEN going to touch the skill system. I don't know WHAT to do with that pile.

Or, you can just play and not care. I wish I could do that. It'd make things LOTS easier.

Coplantor
2010-07-07, 09:44 AM
I only care about the rules dont making sense when I'm trying to hoembrew something. Rules dont making sense have never been an issue, except for that one time in wich a player thought it was stupid that he needed a feat to trample over an enemy. (Without the feat, enemies can just, move out of the way).

Gametime
2010-07-07, 09:46 AM
At the risk of sounding flippant, I think Toughness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#toughness) provides a pretty good argument for hit points representing, well, toughness.

EDIT: Is anyone else starting to think "toughness" isn't a real word after seeing it so many times?

Quietus
2010-07-07, 09:48 AM
The rouge would always take a step before attacking making it

What rouge? When did we start talking about makeup?

Sorry, had to do it.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 09:50 AM
At the risk of sounding flippant, I think Toughness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#toughness) provides a pretty good argument for hit points representing, well, toughness.

EDIT: Is anyone else starting to think "toughness" isn't a real word after seeing it so many times?

Lol. I know the feeling. Reminds me of the Punch episode of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Or, SG:CtC, for you playgrounders. And I was wondering how long it would take someone to bring that up.

Oh, and which definition of the word 'Toughness' are we going on here? Cuz there are, like, 12. And they don't all mean physically tough.

Psyx
2010-07-07, 09:56 AM
"Or, you can just play and not care. I wish I could do that. It'd make things LOTS easier."

I kind of have to switch off with D&D. I'd never run the game because it's idiotic rules just don't do it for me. E6 and Pathfinder fail to improve things because the outdated level system and poor skill system are still both there. HPs are especially annoying in that a character is in no way penalised for taking any damage short of the amount required to put him on the deck, whereas shields making a target 10% less likely to be hit makes them laughably bad.

Basically; a lot of people run the game, but it's pretty appalling and needs a lot of flavour text from the GM and house rules to make it half-decent. At the same time, the amount of 'optimisation' available means that you need a GM who is happy to say '%$Ł& your RAW BS' or players who are content not to play characters built almost entirely around little parcels of pure blag in some kind of 'look how high up the wall I can spray' munchkin-fest.

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 10:22 AM
No problem. I didn't think you realized.

The closer the rules come to working like I would assume they should work in the real world, the less metagamey they be. Yarr.

You, as a player, should know how the rules work. I just have a problem with exploiting bad rules to do very unrealistic things, especially when, IMHO, the designers attempted to model them towards reality. (I.E. reaching terminal velocity at 200ft) Now, if a wizard did it? No problem. Just as long as he was using magic.

I do agree with you, players shouldn't be exploiting bad rules, we also have the whole RAI / RAW debate that rages on for some rules. I think the main area in witch we disagree is that any bad rules should hopfully be houseruled away before play begins.

As a player I am metagaming to get my sneak attack in, I am also going to asume that jumping off high places is ok, the rules support it. As a GM you need to tell me what is and isn't ok before play begins. I don't want to make a plan (yeah like I have a plan, beyond kick open the door and play it by ear), execute it only to find the world doesn't work how I think it does.

As for falling damage I encounter so many more issues that I think are serious game breaking metagaming when I run things.

For me falling damage isn't a metagaming issue unless you make it one.

Jayabalard
2010-07-07, 10:33 AM
"I can survive about 10 stab wounds from guys with biceps that big. I can survive about ten falls. Huh."That doesn't really make any sense. He'd know that it's possible that ther's a wide range depending on how badly he's hit (ie, critical, precision damage, and damage rolls, etc) and that it's possible for him to be instantly killed by a single wound, or still virtually uninjured after dozens of wounds. Once you start talking about "average damage" you're pretty much strictly in metagaming territory.


"That weapon is big. I bet it hurts more than weapons which aren't big."
"That weapon is pointy. I bet my shirt constructed to resist stab wounds (ie. DR/piercing) will protect me from it."
"That weapon has a massive head. It's probably hard to get a good hit with it, but if it does it would be nasty (ie. low threat range, high crit modifier)"
"That weapon is serrated. It probably leaves messy wounds which are hard to heal.""Big", "Pointy", "massive head", and "serrated" are all real world attributes of the weapon. You seem to be presenting these as counter arguments, but that doesn't make any sense; I'm not really sure what your point is here.


"Regardless of level"? So after Son Goku blocks a planet-busting laser with his face, he dies by falling off a roof? "Universally" applies in the real world, where the highest-level person ever was level 7. Even pre-epic, the highest-level D&D characters are supposed to be exactly 96 times beyond the peak of human ability.High level doesn't universally mean "block a planet busting laser with your face" ... you're free to play it that way, but keep in mind that many people treat those extra hit points as something purely abstract, with only a small portion of them representing actual wounds/toughness, and the vast majority (especially at high level) representing luck/deflecting the blow/dodge/etc

In general, the reason that people have a problem with treating falls and lava that way is that there's really only luck that can account for surviving those. You can't fall and miss the ground, for example, while the Tarrasque could have not struck you squarely (a glancing blow), could have actually missed you, could have lost it's balance and not struck you with it's full strength, etc


Huh? Why should getting crushed by the ground be different from getting crushed by the tarrasque? Or falling into lava different from a dragon breathing lava on you?I'd guess it's because one of each of those options involve an element of chance while the other doesn't; that's just my guess though.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 10:35 AM
I do agree with you, players shouldn't be exploiting bad rules, we also have the whole RAI / RAW debate that rages on for some rules. I think the main area in witch we disagree is that any bad rules should hopfully be houseruled away before play begins.

As a player I am metagaming to get my sneak attack in, I am also going to asume that jumping off high places is ok, the rules support it. As a GM you need to tell me what is and isn't ok before play begins. I don't want to make a plan (yeah like I have a plan, beyond kick open the door and play it by ear), execute it only to find the world doesn't work how I think it does.

As for falling damage I encounter so many more issues that I think are serious game breaking metagaming when I run things.

For me falling damage isn't a metagaming issue unless you make it one.

Actually, I don't think we disagree at all. I've never been the type of DM to punish a player for knowing the rules. If I don't like the way something works, I'll let it slide for now and adjust it later, making sure I talk it out with my players before hand. If they disagree with me, we leave it as is.

And you're right. Like I said earlier, falling damage is never an issue for us because my players do EVERYTHING in their power to keep from jumping off of things. It would only be a problem if one day, one of them decided to jump off a building just because he knows he can take it. Then I would slap him with a live fish.

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 10:50 AM
Actually, I don't think we disagree at all. I've never been the type of DM to punish a player for knowing the rules. If I don't like the way something works, I'll let it slide for now and adjust it later, making sure I talk it out with my players before hand. If they disagree with me, we leave it as is.

And you're right. Like I said earlier, falling damage is never an issue for us because my players do EVERYTHING in their power to keep from jumping off of things. It would only be a problem if one day, one of them decided to jump off a building just because he knows he can take it. Then I would slap him with a live fish.

This is the internet we are suppose to disagree, but I see where you are coming from and I agree with you. I would only have a small issue in your game as I would still be throwing myself off high places until you told me that you weren't happy with the falling damage rules.

Of course thems the breaks when you play a Were-Lemming Thief.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 10:54 AM
This is the internet we are suppose to disagree, but I see where you are coming from and I agree with you. I would only have a small issue in your game as I would still be throwing myself off high places until you told me that you weren't happy with the falling damage rules.

Of course thems the breaks when you play a Were-Lemming Thief.

NO U. :smallwink:

Wait. :smalleek: Were-Lemming? And I thought we were talking about D20. Thiefs (teehee) were TOTALLY in AD&D. Here in D20, we call them...

ROUGES.

PersonMan
2010-07-07, 11:09 AM
ROUGES.

...Er, I think that there's a mistake here. The Rouge class on the homebrew forums isn't like a thief at all...

Coplantor
2010-07-07, 11:11 AM
I call them challenged factotums

Jayabalard
2010-07-07, 11:15 AM
So- the DM has all the character's hitpoints written down, rolls behind a screen for damage, and says "Oooh, that's gonna leave a mark."?I've played in games like that; it can be fun, but you have to have the right group of people to pull it off.



D&D is a game; if a player isn't supposed to choose actions with knowledge of the numbers, the player has to not know the numbers. Expecting people to pretend they don't know the numbers is crazy - once you know them, you can't un-know them. You can't make decisions and not use the pertinent information you've already acquired, even if you're intentionally going against what the information suggests - that's still using the information to make the decision.That's simply not true; I can make decisions based on whatever set of data I want, even if it's not the full set of data that's available.

Certainly it's easier to not act on data that you don't have but that doesn't mean it's impossible

Good authors do this all of the time; they know what's going on, but can write their characters in a way that's realistic because those characters don't act on the meta knowledge that the author has. Good roleplayers do the same thing, making decisions that match what the character knows.


Games like RuneQuest, The Riddle of Steel, GURPS, and Artesia: AKW model injuries by location, and have a "resolution" where damage really, concretely means various types of physical trauma being successfully inflicted on you, and your ability to continue heroing about is reduced as you get hurt - indeed, you're not supposed to be the 80s action hero who ignores lethal pummelings, but a somewhat more realistic sort of hero who prefers to avoid or mitigate injury. (Even though most of those games are still capable of creating incredibly damage-resistant characters if you care for it.)I'm pretty sure there were optional rules for this in 1e AD&D. Additionally, there were plenty of people who came up with their own (I remember reading several sets of them on various boards at the time).

Also, in at least one of your examples, GURPS, the hit location based damage is part of the advanced rules, which are optional. I can't speak for the rest but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case in some of the other games you listed as well.


Can you explain, for instance, why getting stomped by the tarrasque (with a regular attack, since it doesn't feel like wasting a full action to CDG you) while unconscious doesn't kill you?An attack roll does not actually equal a single attack action in game. It's abstract, usually refering to an exchange of several attacks, and success generally means you found an opening and landed a blow of some sort.

In this particular example, it's possible for the tarrasque to miss, for it to not land the blow squarely, for it to be distracted or injured and not use it's full weight/force, etc.


Why can't there be equally many reasons why the fall at terminal velocity didn't kill you? Instead of rolling, you hit something soft.The faster you hit something, the less "being soft" matters; the absorption provided by softness decreases as the speed of impact increases. Also, as has already been stated, you're not going to miss the ground.


Yeah. Considering arcane magic is a pretty academical study, it seems reasonable to assume that spells are, indeed, divided to "circles" or "grades" or "sephiroths" or something. It's not rare to find these in-character groupings in various fantasy settings.Out of curiosity, how many of those settings can you give as examples that actually predate D&D? I can't personally think of any at the moment, though I'm sure it's possible that there are some that I'm just not aware of or not thinking of; for the most part I'd say that this is kind of circular reasoning, since a lot of more modern fantasy settings get the "wizard of the 5th circle" sort of naming from RPGs.

PId6
2010-07-07, 11:19 AM
And you're right. Like I said earlier, falling damage is never an issue for us because my players do EVERYTHING in their power to keep from jumping off of things. It would only be a problem if one day, one of them decided to jump off a building just because he knows he can take it. Then I would slap him with a live fish.
If you did that without telling anyone about the houserule first, then you're being terribly unfair. Players have a right to know the rules of the game, and to have penalties arbitrarily imposed like that for actions that might even be in character is just wrong.

It's one thing to stop truly abusive behavior like drown healing; it's quite another for something like this. As you can see from this thread, quite a few people have no problems at all with the falling rules being supposedly unrealistic. It's not obvious to most of us that you're going to houserule something like this, so it's unreasonable to expect people to anticipate your reaction to it.

If I make a calculated decision based on this rule and decide to jump after the Feather Falling wizard, I'm not trying to abuse an ambiguity or do something unintended; I'm just expecting that the rules are what the rules are. If I then get a response from the DM to the line of "No, you die, no takebacks, haha," I'd probably walk.

SilveryCord
2010-07-07, 11:20 AM
The one thing I find very metagamey is when people play unoptimized wizards. If your character has intelligence several factors higher than any real world human who has ever lived, I'm pretty sure they would figure out how to exploit the ill-formed laws of magic. ;)

...That's why I'm not allowed to play 3.5.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 11:33 AM
If you did that without telling anyone about the houserule first, then you're being terribly unfair. Players have a right to know the rules of the game, and to have penalties arbitrarily imposed like that for actions that might even be in character is just wrong.

It's one thing to stop truly abusive behavior like drown healing; it's quite another for something like this. As you can see from this thread, quite a few people have no problems at all with the falling rules being supposedly unrealistic. It's not obvious to most of us that you're going to houserule something like this, so it's unreasonable to expect people to anticipate your reaction to it.

If I make a calculated decision based on this rule and decide to jump after the Feather Falling wizard, I'm not trying to abuse an ambiguity or do something unintended; I'm just expecting that the rules are what the rules are. If I then get a response from the DM to the line of "No, you die, no takebacks, haha," I'd probably walk.

Quite a few people who aren't represented in this particular thread feel exactly as I do about falling. And I'm not playing with any of you. I'm playing with my players, which is what my comment was based on, my experiences with my players. They know me well enough to know how I feel about metagaming, and frankly, they'll forgive me if I hit them with a live fish, as we've all been close friends for over 15 years.

And at no point did I advocate being a 'Gotcha' DM, as it has been called in previous threads. In fact, I said quite the opposite.


...Er, I think that there's a mistake here. The Rouge class on the homebrew forums isn't like a thief at all...

No, no. No mistake. Move along. Nothing to see here.

PId6
2010-07-07, 11:42 AM
Quite a few people who aren't represented in this particular thread feel exactly as I do about falling.
That doesn't change the fact that enough people think it's fine as is that it would be unreasonable to expect everyone not to.


And I'm not playing with any of you. I'm playing with my players, which is what my comment was based on, my experiences with my players. They know me well enough to know how I feel about metagaming, and frankly, they'll forgive me if I hit them with a live fish, as we've all been close friends for over 15 years.
If you meant your comment to apply in general, then I would disagree. If you meant it only in the context of your specific table, then as long as your players are aware of your feelings and can reasonably predict what you would do, fine.

But let me give you a word of advice from experience about hitting people with live fishes: the smell never goes away.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 11:45 AM
That doesn't change the fact that enough people think it's fine as is that it would be unreasonable to expect everyone not to.

I never said I did. Or didn't. Wait, what are we talking about again? Call me tired. <----opening line to 'Moby Naptime'


If you meant your comment to apply in general, then I would disagree. If you meant it only in the context of your specific table, then as long as your players are aware of your feelings and can reasonably predict what you would do, fine.

But let me give you a word of advice from experience about hitting people with live fishes: the smell never goes away.

I can't decide if this is just an amusing bit of silliness, or one of the single greatest 'words of wisdom' I've ever read.

Confucius would be proud.

jiriku
2010-07-07, 11:57 AM
1. Do you consider having your character be aware of the specific numbers written on his character sheet to be metagaming?
2. Do you consider knowing that a specific weapon or fall does 2d6 damage to be metagaming? If not, how can you justify this knowledge?

3. How do you treat damage that leaves you with a remaining amount of positive HP?

1. No, the character does not know. But the character also does not "know" that he is a figment of my imagination and that all of his actions are actually determined by an overweight middle-aged guy who's swilling soda and chomping chips while he (the character) is engaged in life-or-death struggles. This is significant. The character does not know his stats, but the character also does not choose his own actions. I know his stats, and I choose his actions.

2. While the character wouldn't ever state "greatswords do 2d6 damage" in the game, he know the fundamental law of D&D: "swords don't kill people; fighters do." What I mean by this is that D&D characters know that in their world, the skill of the wielder overdetermines how dangerous a weapon is. The size, weight, and construction of a weapon are of relatively little importance. Remember that scene with Vin Diesel killing a guy with a teacup in the Chronicles of Riddick? D&D characters know that a highly skilled warrior can kill a man with any weapon at all, even something innocuous like a teacup, while a masterwork greatsword in the hands of a green warrior is no real threat to anyone but a noncombatant or another green warrior.

In this sense, static threats such as falling are like enemies who never level up: everyone knows that most people need to fear them, but for sufficiently tough and skilled individuals, such dangers simply aren't a concern any more, and everybody knows that too. (Although I'll admit, I greatly increase falling damage in my campaigns to discourage cavalier attitudes towards falling.)

3. Cinematically, with heavy use of the Rule of Cool. Damage isn't about specific injuries. It's about how badass you look when you win and how beat up the other guy is when he loses.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 12:25 PM
Also, in at least one of your examples, GURPS, the hit location based damage is part of the advanced rules, which are optional. I can't speak for the rest but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case in some of the other games you listed as well.

They are not optional in GURPS, either. The "advanced, optional rules" include things like fighting in darkness (if that is optional, being blind is pretty much not worth anything in GURPS combat) and cover. Hit locations are no more optional than anything else in that chapter (except for page 417, which is only for cinematic games and explicitly optional).

And no, the Riddle of Steel also has hit locations as part of the default rules. It is a game which prides itself on its realistic combat. I would be pretty ashamed if you couldn't kick someone in the groin in it.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 12:26 PM
Also, in at least one of your examples, GURPS, the hit location based damage is part of the advanced rules, which are optional. I can't speak for the rest but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case in some of the other games you listed as well.

They are not optional in GURPS, either. The "advanced, optional rules" include things like fighting in darkness (if that is optional, being blind is pretty much not worth anything in GURPS combat) and cover. Hit locations are no more optional than anything else in that chapter (except for page 417, which is only for cinematic games and explicitly optional).

And no, the Riddle of Steel also has hit locations as part of the default rules. It is a game which prides itself on its realistic combat. I would be pretty ashamed if you couldn't kick someone in the groin in it.

EDIT: I have no knowledge of pre-4th Edition GURPS.

Math_Mage
2010-07-07, 01:28 PM
It actually depends heavily on from what point you look at it.

If you say that HP is a mish-mash of skill, luck, and toughness, then the falling and environmental rules suddenly don't look so realistic.

If you say that the falling and environmental rules are realistic, then the HP and leveling rules suddenly don't look so realistic. It can really go either way here, you just have to choose to stand on one or the another, and adjust the other to fit.

If HP is a mish-mash of skill, luck, and toughness, then a lot of things look less realistic. Combat, for one. It's nice to say that a higher-level character has more HP because he's 'more skilled', but then we run into characters whose increased skills nominally have nothing to do with combat. Einstein, for one. A wizard, for another. A 5th-level Einstein (expert), or a 10th-level wizard, is almost certainly going to have more HP than a 1st-level fighter who devotes his life to combat. Einstein will survive a bigger fall, sure, but he'll also survive more hits from a sword, and more breath from a dragon. Luck? Skill? No. A 5th-level character is inherently tougher than a 1st-level character. A character with as many hit points as an iron wall is going to take less physical damage from a given amount of HP damage than a character with as many hit points as a glass cannon, and there is no need whatever to introduce luck or skill to the equation.

The only mechanical reason why 'dodging skill' could be represented by HP is that there's no inherent AC bonus for leveling up. That's what AC is supposed to be, after all; but there's no connection between increased skill at hitting (BAB) and increased skill at dodging (AC), so players have to fudge their own solution.

Caphi
2010-07-07, 01:30 PM
Living creature life is positive energy. What is actually wrong with assuming that high level creatures have a healing factor that's restored by an infusion of cure light wounds? It seems to be how the undead work with negative energy, at least.

Yukitsu
2010-07-07, 01:37 PM
Anything above level 6 or so can't be held to any standard of "realistic" in what they can or cannot do. Even the mundane classes. Wrong game type for that kind of assumption set.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-07, 01:51 PM
...Then I would slap him with a live fish.
Haha, I loooove Monty Python.
But back on topic. I'm going to have my players write down their HP, Ability Scores, AC, Spot, Listen, Search, save bonuses, and stuff like that.
And when they get hit, I'll tell them thinks like "the swordsman slashes his khopesh along your chest, leaving a long, yet shallow wound." It would probably be a hit for 6 damage or so, but it puts the fear back into the game.
"How much was I hit for?"
"You're character doesn't know that, you got slashed in the chest with his sword."
Stuff like that, plus I like to use broken bones in falls. But right now they're at a level where they can't just abuse the rule. If they do, I'll warn them beforehand. And if they go through with it, there'll be consequences. xD

Boci
2010-07-07, 02:18 PM
"You're character doesn't know that, you got slashed in the chest with his sword."

His character also wouldn't be able to view his own character sheet, so are you going to take that away as well? If it works for your group, then thats fine, but if they protest, its not really fair to say "Tough, I'm the DM and I like this houserule because it increases realism"

Earthwalker
2010-07-07, 02:29 PM
NO U. :smallwink:

Wait. :smalleek: Were-Lemming? And I thought we were talking about D20. Thiefs (teehee) were TOTALLY in AD&D. Here in D20, we call them...

ROUGES.

I messed up earlier was going for a safer option


What rouge? When did we start talking about makeup?

Sorry, had to do it.

Staying on subject, can we add a feat for knowing that everything that happens is a game and not real, that way you get to know your numbers all the time and don't need to metagame. Perfect solution.... I so hope people know I am joking with this.

Math_Mage
2010-07-07, 02:35 PM
Staying on subject, can we add a feat for knowing that everything that happens is a game and not real, that way you get to know your numbers all the time and don't need to metagame. Perfect solution.... I so hope people know I am joking with this.

I want to make a character whose concept is that he's realized that he's a character in a game and now is obsessed with finding out the game's mechanics, what his HP total is, etc.

balistafreak
2010-07-07, 02:38 PM
I want to make a character whose concept is that he's realized that he's a character in a game and now is obsessed with finding out the game's mechanics, what his HP total is, etc.

There's a class for something like that in A Portable Hole Full of Beer, or something like that. I forget the exact name.

It's a class that becomes self-aware of his character-existance and seeks to lawsuit his way out of danger.

Gametime
2010-07-07, 05:48 PM
I want to make a character whose concept is that he's realized that he's a character in a game and now is obsessed with finding out the game's mechanics, what his HP total is, etc.

Make sure he dual wields katanas, gains regeneration or fast healing somehow, and takes feats like Deformity (Madness) and Insane Defiance.

Coplantor
2010-07-07, 05:49 PM
Make sure he dual wields katanas, gains regeneration or fast healing somehow, and takes feats like Deformity (Madness) and Insane Defiance.

I think he would go straight wizard from that moment on

Math_Mage
2010-07-07, 06:32 PM
Make sure he dual wields katanas, gains regeneration or fast healing somehow, and takes feats like Deformity (Madness) and Insane Defiance.

I...uh...am I missing a reference here?

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 06:33 PM
I...uh...am I missing a reference here?

Deadpool, from Marvel comics.

Caphi
2010-07-07, 06:34 PM
I...uh...am I missing a reference here?

I'm gonna say Deadpool.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 07:38 PM
If HP is a mish-mash of skill, luck, and toughness, then a lot of things look less realistic. Combat, for one. It's nice to say that a higher-level character has more HP because he's 'more skilled', but then we run into characters whose increased skills nominally have nothing to do with combat. Einstein, for one. A wizard, for another. A 5th-level Einstein (expert), or a 10th-level wizard, is almost certainly going to have more HP than a 1st-level fighter who devotes his life to combat. Einstein will survive a bigger fall, sure, but he'll also survive more hits from a sword, and more breath from a dragon. Luck? Skill? No. A 5th-level character is inherently tougher than a 1st-level character. A character with as many hit points as an iron wall is going to take less physical damage from a given amount of HP damage than a character with as many hit points as a glass cannon, and there is no need whatever to introduce luck or skill to the equation.

The only mechanical reason why 'dodging skill' could be represented by HP is that there's no inherent AC bonus for leveling up. That's what AC is supposed to be, after all; but there's no connection between increased skill at hitting (BAB) and increased skill at dodging (AC), so players have to fudge their own solution.

You are falling into the same trap here as everyone else is on the Physics thread. Let me emphasize what I'm saying:

HP are a combination of luck, skill, divine favor, and physical toughness.

Not one. Not two. All of them. I'm taking the middle ground here. You would say that my line of thinking doesn't work in all situations, but that's just a Nirvana fallacy. None of the interpretations are perfect, because the the rules concerning different things that govern HP and how a character takes damage are imperfect.

A 5th level fighter is inherently tougher than a 1st level fighter. He also inherently more skillful. This is indisputable, and since the only game mechanic that models the increase of defensive capability is HP, it would only make sense to say that HP is a combination of skill and toughness. Considering HP to be all and only toughness is a bit of a stretch, as a non-magical character gaining a 1200% increase to skin durability and bone hardness over 20 levels is kind of silly.

As for the difference between the 1st level fighter and the 10th level wizard. One could say that the wizard's training has given him insight into the workings of the world, and he is thus able to make connections between things he knows and things he hasn't specifically experienced. Even still, a wizard of that level in D&D has likely seen his fair share of combat, but because he doesn't train specifically for battle, he wouldn't have as much HP as an equivalently leveled fighter, hence his smaller HD. The 1st level fighter shouldn't have as much HP, because he really hasn't been dedicating his life to fighting for very long if he's only first level.

Kylarra
2010-07-07, 07:44 PM
Make sure he dual wields katanas, gains regeneration or fast healing somehow, and takes feats like Deformity (Madness) and Insane Defiance.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/Zelyhon/Signatures%20and%20Avatars/Signatures/Deadpool2.jpg

Math_Mage
2010-07-07, 07:55 PM
stuff

As I told lesser_minion on the other thread, at some point the divide between what happens on the charsheet and what happens in the campaign world means I can't argue with anyone's interpretation.

As I told Mike_G on the other thread, it makes sense to consider some component of skill along with toughness in HP considerations. Luck and divine favor just throw analysis out the window, as there's really no other way to support their inclusion in the mechanic.

I can't argue this anymore. It's trying to make sense of the senseless.

Yukitsu
2010-07-07, 08:02 PM
You are falling into the same trap here as everyone else is on the Physics thread. Let me emphasize what I'm saying:

HP are a combination of luck, skill, divine favor, and physical toughness.

Not one. Not two. All of them. I'm taking the middle ground here. You would say that my line of thinking doesn't work in all situations, but that's just a Nirvana fallacy. None of the interpretations are perfect, because the the rules concerning different things that govern HP and how a character takes damage are imperfect.

A 5th level fighter is inherently tougher than a 1st level fighter. He also inherently more skillful. This is indisputable, and since the only game mechanic that models the increase of defensive capability is HP, it would only make sense to say that HP is a combination of skill and toughness. Considering HP to be all and only toughness is a bit of a stretch, as a non-magical character gaining a 1200% increase to skin durability and bone hardness over 20 levels is kind of silly.

As for the difference between the 1st level fighter and the 10th level wizard. One could say that the wizard's training has given him insight into the workings of the world, and he is thus able to make connections between things he knows and things he hasn't specifically experienced. Even still, a wizard of that level in D&D has likely seen his fair share of combat, but because he doesn't train specifically for battle, he wouldn't have as much HP as an equivalently leveled fighter, hence his smaller HD. The 1st level fighter shouldn't have as much HP, because he really hasn't been dedicating his life to fighting for very long if he's only first level.

Eh, sure. If that's what you really like. However, I really don't like that explanation of things, as there are far too many events that make no sense.

For instance, why would a near hit that deals 90000000 damage sap your luck, skill and endurance more than a critical hit that deals 2? How do you take bleeding damage from things that are sapping your luck? How are injury poisons working if you're not getting hit? Why does a guy with poor BAB, but a lot of hit points have more luck, skill and endurance than that guy with a full BAB? Why would a barb have more HP than a swashbuckler with luck feats?

Really, D&D isn't about tough normals. These are people going well, well beyond the normal threshold of what a person can survive. The luck, endurance skill hypothesis unfortunately has more holes than swiss cheese that need to be addressed.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-07, 08:04 PM
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v18/Zelyhon/Signatures%20and%20Avatars/Signatures/Deadpool2.jpg

Wait. I'm confused. Are those people cosplaying as Deadpool? Because Deadpool's speech balloons are not white.

Well, I think one of them at least is Deathstroke the Terminator.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 08:14 PM
For instance, why would a near hit that deals 90000000 damage sap your luck, skill and endurance more than a critical hit that deals 2? How do you take bleeding damage from things that are sapping your luck? How are injury poisons working if you're not getting hit? Why does a guy with poor BAB, but a lot of hit points have more luck, skill and endurance than that guy with a full BAB? Why would a barb have more HP than a swashbuckler with luck feats?

Really, D&D isn't about tough normals. These are people going well, well beyond the normal threshold of what a person can survive. The luck, endurance skill hypothesis unfortunately has more holes than swiss cheese that need to be addressed.

Yes, but the luck, skill, endurance, AND toughness hypothesis works better than just saying it's all toughness. And that's my point.

Boci
2010-07-07, 08:17 PM
Yes, but the luck, skill, endurance, AND toughness hypothesis works better than just saying it's all toughness. And that's my point.

I think his point it that it works best with just toughness and skill, since luck screws things up.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-07, 08:22 PM
I think his point it that it works best with just toughness and skill, since luck screws things up.

Hmm. I reread his post, and I still got the impression that he was excluding toughness from my hypothesis, as none of his example questions included it.

erikun
2010-07-07, 08:45 PM
Well, I think that the "problem" with HP and falling is that it is intentionally a feature of the game system. D&D is intentionally a fantastic heroic game. The characters are meant to go through extraordinary situations and accomplish extraordinary feats. Jumping off a 200 foot cliff is no stranger than getting chewed on by something with 30 inch teeth, or surviving bursts of fire which boil rock, or swimming through acid. It is intentionally designed into the system for a character to survive such punishment (for whatever reason) and still be capable of fighting. If this is not what you want out of a system, then D&D and its HP mechanic really doesn't not sound like the system you are interested in.

As for implementing a "Chunky Salsa" rule, remember that the numbers and mechanics of the game are how the player is able to see the world through the eyes of the character. Players know the numbers on their sheets and they see the dice being rolled in front of them, and they get an idea of how capable they are of handling the situation. Ironically enough, implementing Chunky Salsa falls in most games would increase the amount of metagaming the party goes through, not decrease it, because suddenly the player doesn't know their chances of surviving a particular fall anymore. They are forced to stop playing and break immersion because whether or not a fall is an auto-kill is a completely metagame construct, and the only way to tell is to ask the DM directly or discuss it amongst themselves.

Or I guess Dr. Wily could have put spikes at the bottom of every Chunky Salsa pit, but that would break verisimilitude even more.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-07, 10:57 PM
Well, I think that the "problem" with HP and falling is that it is intentionally a feature of the game system. D&D is intentionally a fantastic heroic game. The characters are meant to go through extraordinary situations and accomplish extraordinary feats. Jumping off a 200 foot cliff is no stranger than getting chewed on by something with 30 inch teeth, or surviving bursts of fire which boil rock, or swimming through acid. It is intentionally designed into the system for a character to survive such punishment (for whatever reason) and still be capable of fighting. If this is not what you want out of a system, then D&D and its HP mechanic really doesn't not sound like the system you are interested in.

As for implementing a "Chunky Salsa" rule, remember that the numbers and mechanics of the game are how the player is able to see the world through the eyes of the character. Players know the numbers on their sheets and they see the dice being rolled in front of them, and they get an idea of how capable they are of handling the situation. Ironically enough, implementing Chunky Salsa falls in most games would increase the amount of metagaming the party goes through, not decrease it, because suddenly the player doesn't know their chances of surviving a particular fall anymore. They are forced to stop playing and break immersion because whether or not a fall is an auto-kill is a completely metagame construct, and the only way to tell is to ask the DM directly or discuss it amongst themselves.

Or I guess Dr. Wily could have put spikes at the bottom of every Chunky Salsa pit, but that would break verisimilitude even more.

Yes, but it brings the fear back into combat and doing **** like that. "How much HP do I have left? Ok, I jump down the cliff" Won't happen, I'll tell him how wounded he feels, and stuff like that. It's supposed to cut down meta-gaming. 6 seconds of talking In character in a round, limited out of game talking about planning, etc.

It'll be a lot of book keeping for me, sure, but I want players to be unsure if they can do stuff. Knowing the exact numbers is like a safety blanket. Take it away, and the party starts to feel the pressure. In D&D, there is no health bar above your head, you have only a clue as to how wounded you and other people are.

And I'll let them have their own sheets, with their own numbers, and roll their own rolls, except for stuff that should be secret (elves' free search checks, for example), but other than that, ailments and penalties, as well as bonuses will be given to them as descriptions, not cold, hard numbers. :)

It's also in a horror-themed campaign, so I feel this system will work.

Math_Mage
2010-07-07, 11:12 PM
As long as you tell them beforehand, and all that.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-07, 11:18 PM
As long as you tell them beforehand, and all that.

Don't worry, I'm not that much of a ****. xD

Yukitsu
2010-07-07, 11:47 PM
Yes, but the luck, skill, endurance, AND toughness hypothesis works better than just saying it's all toughness. And that's my point.

So, what, the 89999998 from that example I gave are all toughness and the last 2 is luck/skill/whatever? I'd rather just stick with toughness at that point. Considering you can explicitly have an incredibly lucky, skilled, high endurance character with 20 HP at level 20, I'm going to have to say that those factors if they exist, have such a small contribution as to be negligeable.

JonestheSpy
2010-07-08, 12:17 AM
So, what, the 89999998 from that example I gave are all toughness and the last 2 is luck/skill/whatever? I'd rather just stick with toughness at that point. Considering you can explicitly have an incredibly lucky, skilled, high endurance character with 20 HP at level 20, I'm going to have to say that those factors if they exist, have such a small contribution as to be negligeable.

Actually, any 20th level character with only 20 hit points is incredibly unlucky.

Really, Gygax explained it pretty well back in the first edition. To paraphrase: The human (or similar) body can only take so much punishment, certainly less tan a large animal like a horse. So all hit points beyond the first few - enough to survive a couple of solid axe blows, say - is going to be skill, reflexes, endurance, luck, etc.

Gary would have utterly gagged at the idea that higher level characters are superpeople who just get physically tougher, I expect.

Zore
2010-07-08, 12:22 AM
Actually, any 20th level character with only 20 hit points is incredibly unlucky.

Really, Gygax explained it pretty well back in the first edition. To paraphrase: The human (or similar) body can only take so much punishment, certainly less tan a large animal like a horse. So all hit points beyond the first few - enough to survive a couple of solid axe blows, say - is going to be skill, reflexes, endurance, luck, etc.

Gary would have utterly gagged at the idea that higher level characters are superpeople who just get physically tougher, I expect.

And as far as I know he had nothing to do with the D20 system. The games he wrote take a far different approach, much grittier where magic was rare and we still called non-humans demihumans and had our human superiority hats on. 3E, 4E both are all about higher level characters just being that tough in a way that wasn't present in earlier editions.

Yukitsu
2010-07-08, 12:37 AM
Actually, any 20th level character with only 20 hit points is incredibly unlucky.

Really, Gygax explained it pretty well back in the first edition. To paraphrase: The human (or similar) body can only take so much punishment, certainly less tan a large animal like a horse. So all hit points beyond the first few - enough to survive a couple of solid axe blows, say - is going to be skill, reflexes, endurance, luck, etc.

Gary would have utterly gagged at the idea that higher level characters are superpeople who just get physically tougher, I expect.

3.5 is pretty much a vastly divergent game in terms of what characters are capable of doing and being. I mean, you don't automatically die when eaten by a dragon! Monte Cook gagging is a better basis for "you're doing it wrong" claims in D&D 3.5, and his view was really different from Gygax' view.

And to have 20 HP at level 20, you'd just need about a -3 con modifier and be a wizard. You actually have to be really lucky to get this, as getting to 20 with 1 HP per level is absurdly tough.

And as far as I know, Gygax never really adressed that a really skilled, really lucky, high endurance character could still have absolutely abysmal HP. Given the classes with the most HP lack "skill" in a technical sense, aren't necessarily more lucky, and don't have more endurance than others, and that constitution is the only stat that matters for health, I'd have to assume that the implied value from those other factors is about 1/4 of your health at most combined. The rest is blatant toughness.

Math_Mage
2010-07-08, 12:50 AM
Actually, any 20th level character with only 20 hit points is incredibly unlucky.

Or just a sickly wizard with 6 CON ==> ~25 hp at level 20. Frail wizards are a staple of the genre.

Knightofvictory
2010-07-08, 01:15 AM
The reason a high level character can survive a fall that a commoner cannot is not because they are tougher, or more skilled. It's because the high level character has more Plot Armor! If you've seen the Extended version of The Two Towers, there is a scene where Aragorn goes over a cliff edge during a scuffle with orcs while heading to Helm's Deep. King Theodin and his companions leave the Ranger for dead, because it is obvious no human could survive that fall. But lo! Aragorn does, and not only does he live, but he is able to ride a horse at top speed for several days racing to catch up with the others before an army of orcs overtakes him.

'But Aragorn should have died, they don't even give an explanation of how he survived!' you bemoan. 'It just shows him wake up, beaten but alive, and then he goes!' Well, welcome to high fantasy. High level characters have protection from mundane deaths in this genre. That's why a CR 1/2 goblin will never be able to kill a 7th level fighter with a stray arrow, and why falling damage maxes out to give suitably important heroes a chance to avoid an ignoble death (DM willing) when they need to make a dramatic leap from a waterfall. Fantasy, and even more generally fiction, is filled with heroes (and villains) surviving supposed falls to their doom. In a fantasy with Magic, gods watching over mortals, and 'ordinary' humans that can go toe to toe with titans, there should always be a chance you can survive that fall no matter how crazy it is. And maybe, even a chance that you can walk away.

Gametime
2010-07-08, 11:33 AM
Plot armor doesn't explain why unimportant creatures with lots of hit points - say, particularly large animals - can survive falls.

I realize the above was likely at least a little tongue-in-cheek, but nonetheless.

erikun
2010-07-08, 12:19 PM
Yes, but it brings the fear back into combat and doing **** like that. "How much HP do I have left? Ok, I jump down the cliff" Won't happen, I'll tell him how wounded he feels, and stuff like that. It's supposed to cut down meta-gaming. 6 seconds of talking In character in a round, limited out of game talking about planning, etc.
I honestly think you would do a lot better in 2nd edition AD&D, or possibly earlier editions. AD&D tended to encourage far more opacity in the system than 3.5e, with the DM frequently rolling behind the screen and telling the players the results of their actions, without they knowing just what values were involved in the decision.

Autodeath was a bit more encouraged back then, too. The cavern ceiling collapsed on your head? You are dead. Jump off a 100' cliff? There was no falling damage, you are just dead. Decide to swim through a pool of acid? Consider yourself lucky if the DM just deducted 20% of your maximum HP each round.

You can certainly transfer such rules into 3rd edition, and if that's what your gaming table wants, then enjoy and don't worry about the rest of the internet. :smalltongue: My concern was that, next to all the other ridiculous stuff you can do, falling seems almost trivial. A sufficiently leveled character can literally tear a stone castle apart, survive ballista bolts to the chest, and kill everyone inside... naked and unarmed. To have such a character then killed for jumping out a fifth story window and landing on his feet feels completely silly.

Amphetryon
2010-07-08, 12:38 PM
My concern was that, next to all the other ridiculous stuff you can do, falling seems almost trivial.This.

I am envisioning a scene where 2 mid-to-high level characters engage a Dragon in combat along with their party. The Dragon uses Snatch to fly away with one of the characters (let's call her Munchy) in his maw. The second character (call him Jumpy), desperate to save his friend, manages an incredible Jump check to land astride the Dragon before it flies off.

Munchy ends up being swallowed, and starts desperately trying to hack her way out of the Dragon's gullet with her Dagger. This, obviously, will take a bit, and Munchy takes damage from 'digestive processes' the whole time.

Jumpy, on the other hand, beats madly on the Dragon with his Heavy Flail. He does some real damage, and the rest of the party fires arrows at the Dragon. The Dragon, in an effort to loose Jumpy, manages a barrel roll. Jumpy falls 60' and, because of the above rule, is automatically dead. The Dragon then swoops in to pluck one of the archers off the battlefield, only to be hit by a maximized Shivering Touch. 0 DEX, and he falls 10' (no falling damage to Munchy) and is dispatched. The rest of the party beheads the Dragon and Munchy is rescued.

End result? It is less deadly in your game to be eaten by a Dragon than it is to fall from that Dragon's back. If that's the style of campaign you and your players enjoy, that's great and good luck. For my games, and the players that I know? There's no way that rule would not be thoroughly metagamed - precisely the opposite of your intent.

Coplantor
2010-07-08, 12:46 PM
...Autodeath was a bit more encouraged back then, too. The cavern ceiling collapsed on your head? You are dead. Jump off a 100' cliff? There was no falling damage, you are just dead. Decide to swim through a pool of acid? Consider yourself lucky if the DM just deducted 20% of your maximum HP each round...

IRC, 2nd edition had the same falling damage rules.
It also told the example of the guy who jumped from a plane and landed almost uninjured as a way tu justify why your heroes wont die from falls, becasue it is unlikely for a normal human, but you are a freaking hero.

Mr.Moron
2010-07-08, 05:53 PM
Yes, but it brings the fear back into combat and doing **** like that. "How much HP do I have left?


You don't need to obscure data to generate fear. It's certainly one way, but it's actually meta gaming fear more than anything. They're afraid of what they can't see on their character sheet, not what's going in universe. Personally I think that's best kind of fear, one that stems from actual character experiences in game.


For example, say there was some monster that party recently struggled to defeat (within the last 2 levels). Something that actually gave them a run for the money maybe even dropped somebody into negatives. Now lets say they run into the corpses of 3-4 these. At the edge of the town they just got to. The things aren't just dead, they've been ripped apart. Limbs strewn about everywhere, at least one the bodies is little more than elongated smear spreading out from half a severed head.

When asked about the slaughter at the outskirts of the village, the townsfolk explain that for some time now there has been a group of monsters that been demanding resources/sacrifices/whatever from the village.

Then those dead things outside started harassing them. When one of the smaller/weaker members of the sacrificing/crop demanding group ran into the new monsters eating "their" crops and/or taking "their" sacrifices they killed the "thieves" in just a few seconds.

Of course, the group obviously being the mighty adventurers they are, get asked to deal with the problem of the sacrifice demanding monsters. Now they've got an opponent they genuinely have a reason to be nervous about in-game. After all just one of these things easily slaughtered 4 of something they barely made out alive against... and there are how many?

You know, assuming they don't just up and run as fast they can out of that little town.


Obviously the above example is a bit of a cliche. But it works at least once or twice. However, it's also not the only way to make a point about something being dangerous without trying to play the anti-metagame game.

taltamir
2010-07-08, 10:33 PM
The PHB says they don't, they don't know what classes are, HP, levels, HD, etc etc...

This seems quite wrong when you look at spells. I am curious as to how much they would know based on existing in game stuff. This includes the method via which knowledge would be acquired. The simpler it is to figure something out, the better (since its more likely to be discovered).

For example, I would say that any cast knows about:
1. Spell slots (how many they have, what level they are)
2. Spell levels...

I would assume that wizards would be ranked by their "level", but said level would not be their regular level, but the highest SL they can cast. Might call it "of the circle" because they are pretentious like that.
So we have wizards of the first circle (can cast 1st level spells), 2nd circle... all through 9th circle.

This is where things get interesting. sleep is an AWESOME spell. It is a level 1 AoE save or lose (die via coup de grace) that can take down several oppoents at once. This would make it a very good target for "extra research", which in turn would uncover some interesting things.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sleep.htm

It takes a level 1 slot, so it can be cast many times a day by higher level mages as they do research and can be cast by lower level mages to "compare". It has a strict rule where it stops working at more than 4HD, and it has the ability to split those HD between multiple targets.

tests should show that:
1. No more then 4 creatures can be affected at once (rabbits, humans, whatever)
2. It doesn't matter if it is cast by the greatest archmage or the lowiest apprentice, it is always no more than 4 creatures.
3. Creatures can resist it, the spell owls wisdom improves the ability to resist it.
4. Wizards capable of casting SL3 spells or above are totally immune to it.
5. Wizards capable of casting SL2 spells can only be affected alongside 1 other creature, or only by themselves... depending on the individual tested, at some point a person will "grow" in power enough to take up all the power of sleep by themselves, but still not be able to cast SL3 spells. This means that there is a "midpoint" between SL2 and SL3. Likewise, between SL1 and SL2 there is a midpoint where a person takes 2 of the charges (aka, hit 3 rabbits a wizard of the 1st order and some wizards will be impossible to affect)
This last one is the most difficult conclusion to come up with. It might hold the secret to unlocking understanding of the existence of HD (not as HD, but as an abstract power rating of some sort... could be called anything).

In regards to the 6 attributes... there are spells that boost each one individually, so it should be painfully obvious. Especially with their effects on saves.

Any other plausible in game knowledge you can think of? Note, this is NOT meant for a real game, this is a thought experiment.
Also, easier methods of figuring each thing are welcome (or if not easier, even merely alternative)... the more ways there are to figure it out, the more likely a society which has wizard colleges is to figure it out.

Aroka
2010-07-08, 10:35 PM
Don't we have this thread already? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159014) Page 2.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-08, 11:08 PM
You don't need to obscure data to generate fear. It's certainly one way, but it's actually meta gaming fear more than anything. They're afraid of what they can't see on their character sheet, not what's going in universe. Personally I think that's best kind of fear, one that stems from actual character experiences in game.


For example, say there was some monster that party recently struggled to defeat (within the last 2 levels). Something that actually gave them a run for the money maybe even dropped somebody into negatives. Now lets say they run into the corpses of 3-4 these. At the edge of the town they just got to. The things aren't just dead, they've been ripped apart. Limbs strewn about everywhere, at least one the bodies is little more than elongated smear spreading out from half a severed head.

When asked about the slaughter at the outskirts of the village, the townsfolk explain that for some time now there has been a group of monsters that been demanding resources/sacrifices/whatever from the village.

Then those dead things outside started harassing them. When one of the smaller/weaker members of the sacrificing/crop demanding group ran into the new monsters eating "their" crops and/or taking "their" sacrifices they killed the "thieves" in just a few seconds.

Of course, the group obviously being the mighty adventurers they are, get asked to deal with the problem of the sacrifice demanding monsters. Now they've got an opponent they genuinely have a reason to be nervous about in-game. After all just one of these things easily slaughtered 4 of something they barely made out alive against... and there are how many?

You know, assuming they don't just up and run as fast they can out of that little town.


Obviously the above example is a bit of a cliche. But it works at least once or twice. However, it's also not the only way to make a point about something being dangerous without trying to play the anti-metagame game.

Yes, but I'm sick of metagaming and such. xD
And I'll also try to balance out spellcasters, plus it's a horror genre type of game, so that horrific and scary **** goes down like that. Town guards with permanent smiles stretched too far fighting with too much delight until the last blow is struck, and then hearing the insane giggling and howling and laughing from these guys all night long (it was a tough encounter for them)

I just don't really like meta-gaming much. I'll try to tone the anti-metagaming down a little, but I like taking the security of the numbers away.

Arillius
2010-07-08, 11:31 PM
I'm confused about the issue here when it comes to things like falling damage. DnD is usually set in worlds where wizards can defy the laws of gravity using magic, and your problem is its unrealistic for the fighter to survive a fall like those? If you want to get real technical, anything resembling Giant spiders are actually physically impossible to. It wouldn't be able to support its own weight. Tripping anything large or bigger? That would cause falling damage all of its own, perhaps break bones. And elves? With their slow aging, they'd have to have a near perfect ability to replicate dead cells, thus avoiding the affects of aging. That mean's any kind of scar would be healed in weeks, anything debilitating or disabling injury could heal. Heck short of losing limbs and getting their hearts cut out elves would be damn near impossible to kill. Which would mean they should be getting bonuses to con instead of minuses.

Its a fantasy game. People playing it want to have fun. If your players are going to have fun with anit-metagaming rules like not telling hp, all the better. But if your shoving it down their throats for the sake of realism they probably won't like it as much.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-09, 04:34 AM
IRC, 2nd edition had the same falling damage rules.
It also told the example of the guy who jumped from a plane and landed almost uninjured as a way tu justify why your heroes wont die from falls, becasue it is unlikely for a normal human, but you are a freaking hero.

Though in 2nd Edition, you universally had fewer hit points than a 3rd Edition character, with Constitution adding fewer hit points per level at the same score than 3rd, and actually stopping adding hit points after a certain level.

So, unless you rolled consistently well, one fall could almost always kill you.

Gan The Grey
2010-07-09, 05:37 AM
Don't we have this thread already? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159014) Page 2.

No way! This is a completely different thread. I thought about posting this myself, but I didn't want to personally flood the forum with metagaming threads.

I think wizards would know exactly how many spells slots they can fill and what level their spells are. After all, each spell takes up a certain number of pages in their spell book depending on the level, and the wizards have to know what level their spells are in order to properly fill their spell slots.

Regarding Sleep, I don't think wizards would know why sleep fails on certain individuals and not others. Even on higher level wizards, they might just think that they have a greater understanding of magic and therefore a greater resistance, proven by the fact that even higher level wizards are completely immune.

However, for TO purposes, I think many of the numbers on a character sheet could be determined in game through various tests and experiments. HP, for one.

1. Get that nipple ring from the BoVD that turns pain into pleasure.
2. Dominate someone into your willing slave and equip nipple ring on them, ordering them to willingly take whatever punishment you dish out. They won't get a new saving throw vs. Domination, because the pain feels GUD.
3. Over a period of weeks, beat them into unconsciousness (nonlethal) with various instruments, trying to find the one that takes the longest to knock them out.
4. After many experiments, the tester should be able to find a instrument that does only 1 damage per hit, and then count the number of strikes it takes to knock them out when they are fully rested.
5. ?????
6. Profit.

Wings of Peace
2010-07-09, 05:53 AM
Personally at some point I would expect Wizards to start noticing their saving throw spells have a 5% chance of success at minimum.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-09, 05:56 AM
Leave it to wizards to metagame in-character...

Saph
2010-07-09, 06:24 AM
For heaven's sake, Taltamir. If you want to metagame/powergame, just do it already. Don't bother with the long justifications.

AvatarZero
2010-07-09, 06:31 AM
I would assume that wizards would be ranked by their "level", but said level would not be their regular level, but the highest SL they can cast. Might call it "of the circle" because they are pretentious like that.
So we have wizards of the first circle (can cast 1st level spells), 2nd circle... all through 9th circle.

I like this. I've used it in the past, myself.

Yeah, given the abilities Wizards have, they should be able to discern the rules of the game they're in. Fun, eh?

This doesn't necessarily mean you have to roleplay characters like that (although a comic relief Neo-style character who is preaching about everyone being trapped in a simulation could be fun). It might be worth thinking of the rules as a simplified version of the way the character's world works, ie. not every healthy, able-bodied human runs either at exactly 20ft per second or 25 feet per second, even though they do under the rules.

One other thing:



1. No more then 4 creatures can be affected at once (rabbits, humans, whatever)

there are creatures with half a HD too. :smallsmile:

Coplantor
2010-07-09, 07:01 AM
Ideed, in fact it was possible to start with only 1hp, so the unlucky ones could've die from stepping a caltrop (1d4 dmg).

Knaight
2010-07-09, 07:47 AM
It can't hit more than 4 people however. Chalk this one up to "narrowly designed spell effects that don't scale well."

Optimystik
2010-07-09, 08:31 AM
While an in-game character can't look up level per se, there's research they can do to come close to the mark.

For example, Soul Bind:


(While creatures have no concept of level or Hit Dice as such, the value of the gem needed to trap an individual can be researched. Remember that this value can change over time as creatures gain more Hit Dice.)

Similarly, Truename Research from Tome of Magic requires a number of success equal to 1/2 the target's hit dice.


For heaven's sake, Taltamir. If you want to metagame/powergame, just do it already. Don't bother with the long justifications.


Note, this is NOT meant for a real game, this is a thought experiment.

:smallconfused:

Chineselegolas
2010-07-09, 08:34 AM
Well if we are talking exalted, most of them. Seriously.
In exalted beings went and did all that stuff to find out. Sure they don't know everything about it, but they know a fair bit.

valadil
2010-07-09, 08:52 AM
4. After many experiments, the tester should be able to find a instrument that does only 1 damage per hit, and then count the number of strikes it takes to knock them out when they are fully rested.


While I don't disagree with the thought experiment with sleep, I think this is a little beyond what you could reasonably do in a game. I don't see why your character would ever think that health could be beaten away in distinct units. Doing this experiment only makes sense if you've already heard of Hit Points.

It's like telling your GM you mix charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate and asking what happens. When he says it explodes, you act like you accidentally figured out gunpowder, so you start manufacturing cannons and muskets. No gattling guns though ... that would be metagaming.

Back to HP... as discussed in the other thread at great and tedious length, HP are not just measures of your health. They also indicate your ability to avoid being hit. Characters get luckier as they level. They turn grievous blows into flesh wounds or misses. So you'd really be counting 40 misses and one solid hit in your example. And on top of that, you won't even know if those were misses due to the strange abstraction that is HP or do to your own inability to hit.

Prodan
2010-07-09, 09:01 AM
4. After many experiments, the tester should be able to find a instrument that does only 1 damage per hit, and then count the number of strikes it takes to knock them out when they are fully rested.

Sonic Snap.

kamikasei
2010-07-09, 09:09 AM
A lot would depend on how large and how clean a data set the characters are working from. If there are thousands of wizards around and they're all straight-classed wizards with no shenanigans active, they could notice that they all have ten tiers of spells they can access and have two distinct strata of competence they can achieve for any given spell tier. But if there are only a few dozen or a hundred wizards in contact with one another, and many are multiclassed or have non-full-progression PrCs, and feats and abilities and items that boost caster levels or give access to spells early... if the distinction between wizards and wizards, sorcerers, beguilers, dread necromancers, warmages, duskblades, half-casters of all kinds, is not clearly understood... if not everyone is using animal's attribute but a selection from a whole smorgasbord of stat-modifying spells... then it all becomes much less clear.

For heaven's sake, Taltamir. If you want to metagame/powergame, just do it already. Don't bother with the long justifications.
This seems... unwarranted.

Knaight
2010-07-09, 09:12 AM
While I don't disagree with the thought experiment with sleep, I think this is a little beyond what you could reasonably do in a game. I don't see why your character would ever think that health could be beaten away in distinct units. Doing this experiment only makes sense if you've already heard of Hit Points.

I don't know. After all, you are already dealing with Quantum at the macro level in D&D with spell levels and spell slots, expecting it to apply to other stuff as well makes sense.

FelixG
2010-07-09, 09:16 AM
I look at it, as the numbers we are familiar with are simply ways of expressing things that are merely a general idea but need quantifiable form in order to form a balanceable game game.

For example, a sorcerer would innately know how strong they are in magic as their abilities are innate to them.

A wizards schooling could teach him generally what to expect (give him a rough estimation of how often their spells will work)

A fighter might know how much force he is able to put behind a swing and how much he would normally expect to see done to a target from that swing. he wouldn't know that his great axe does an average of 6.5 damage+ his str, he just knows with an average swing he can lop off a commoners head :P

Saph
2010-07-09, 09:19 AM
This seems... unwarranted.

Sorry. I've just seen this kind of thing used a few too many times as a justification.

kamikasei
2010-07-09, 09:26 AM
Sorry. I've just seen this kind of thing used a few too many times as a justification.

To justify what, out of curiosity? I ask because if I felt the need to make this general kind of argument in relation to a real game, it'd probably be to say that my wizard should know enough about his own spells to know that it'd be a waste of time to cast sleep on a cleric who he knows can cast cure serious wounds, if a DM was for some reason insisting that I wasn't allowed to choose a different spell because it'd be metagaming. I'm curious what the other side of it might be.

It strikes me that D&D at least (and other games as well, probably) has a weird, schizoid attitude to metagaming where once combat starts the players are meant to be making decisions on the basis of things that don't even exist as concepts for their characters...

Sir_Elderberry
2010-07-09, 09:30 AM
I look at it, as the numbers we are familiar with are simply ways of expressing things that are merely a general idea but need quantifiable form in order to form a balanceable game game.
This. The numbers are there to translate the vagaries of the game world into something a player can work with. The exception is, as has been noted, spell levels--spell levels have quite tangible in-game effects, and so "spells of the ninth circle" or whatever most definitely make an appearance in-universe.

By comparison, a wizard does not know his own Fort save, exactly. He would know "well, look, I was never that tough to begin with, and I've spent the last few decades focusing on my research.." but he doesn't know "+4." Similarly, he has no precise knowledge of DCs beyond "these spells are stronger and harder to resist." So I don't think, in game, your wizard can know things like "I only have a 35% chance to resist his spells." And, remember, characters only see the effects, not the rolls. If the fighter gets hit with something, the wizard is probably going to assume that it's pretty tough, even if the fighter in reality rolled a 1.

lesser_minion
2010-07-09, 09:31 AM
In D&D, the rules are only expected to model things that are interesting enough to care about. If the rules told the entire story for everyone, ever, then it would be impossible to establish any semblance of a sensible, living, world.

In the actual game world, characters need to sleep daily, they don't do too well when they eat not more than once every three days, they need to have a drink a lot more than once every 32 hours, and you can't become an archmage in the space of three months.

Any attempt to discern what the rules are through experiment will not find the actual rules of the game in most cases.

If you take a character, repeatedly astrally project them, and have the projections run over a cliff, some of them will die on the first jump, even if that's impossible by RAW.

Saph
2010-07-09, 09:41 AM
To justify what, out of curiosity? I ask because if I felt the need to make this general kind of argument in relation to a real game, it'd probably be to say that my wizard should know enough about his own spells to know that it'd be a waste of time to cast sleep on a cleric who he knows can cast cure serious wounds, if a DM was for some reason insisting that I wasn't allowed to choose a different spell because it'd be metagaming. I'm curious what the other side of it might be.

It's because I've seen this reasoning used to justify pretty much any TO shenanigans you can think of, everything from antimatter bombs to infinite loops. "My character has a really high Int score, so it only makes sense that he'd figure out how the rules work and pick only the most optimal choices for every part of his build." That's pretty much a word-for-word quote of what Taltamir said only a week ago, hence why I wasn't all that impressed by him saying that it's "not for a real game".

It irritates me because it's dishonest; if you're really picking the most optimal choices only for RP reasons because your character is so intelligent, then by the same logic, if you're playing a character who isn't intelligent, you should be picking the most suboptimal choices (and you can guess how often that happens). I'm fine with players wanting to play optimised characters, but I prefer if they're up-front about it.

Optimystik
2010-07-09, 09:44 AM
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but that's just me.

And as my post shows, there are ways (highly abstract and not entirely accurate, but ways nonetheless) of getting an idea of a target's HD/level in-game. If it is researchable by one method, it can feasibly be uncovered by others.

Jeff the Green
2010-07-09, 09:53 AM
If we assume that the rules of the game are the physics of the world, I'd say that what your character knows about the rules are about the same as what an equivalent IRL human would know.

For example: A soldier knows that he needs, on average, to fire four bullets to kill a basic grunt enemy. He also knows that if he gets a head shot, that one bullet is going to be as lethal as the four regular shots. He's not a fantasic aim, so head shots are pretty random. If he does it for a while, he'll notice that he gets head shots 5% of the time.

He also knows that he can jump off a two story building and not die, but it'll hurt. Three stories he probably ain't walking away. Four stories and he's a goner.

Translated: A fighter knows that his scythe takes about four hits to kill the a goblin. He also knows that when he's lucky, he'll kill a goblin in one blow. These lucky blows are rare and mostly random. If he's in combat enough, he'll realize that it happens about 5% of the time.

He also knows that he can fall 10 feet and not die, but it'll hurt. Twenty feet probably won't kill him either, but it'll hurt more. 30 feet has a good chance of killing him, and there's almost no chance he'll survive a drop of 40 feet.

For example 2: A chemist knows that mixing 1 liter oxygen and 2 liters hydrogen results in n milliliters of water (I'm to lazy to calculate). She also knows that adding more oxygen won't result in more water forming. She knows that in order to kill her lab mate, she needs to dunk his head in acid for 10 minutes, and that dunking his head in acid for 9 minutes will work just as well if she slashes him with a broken test tube first. She can deduce from that that slashing someone with a broken test tube is roughly equivalent to one minute in acid.

Translated 2: A wizard knows that she can prepare one Fireball and two Bull's Strengths or three Bull's Strengths, but not two Fireballs and one Bull's Strengths. She knows that in order to kill her rival, she'll need about 10 Magic Missiles, but that if she uses her short sword first, she'll only need 9 Magic Missiles. She can deduce from that that a stab from a short sword and a Magic Missile do are roughly equivalent.

lesser_minion
2010-07-09, 10:05 AM
If we assume that the rules of the game are the physics of the world, I'd say that what your character knows about the rules are about the same as what an equivalent IRL human would know.

But the rules of the game aren't. They include a lot of conventions on things that in the physics of the world can vary, but in the game are treated as immutable to prevent situations that screw up the game.

To a point, the rules expect metagaming. The entire point of hitpoints is to allow players to make their characters into heroes -- by giving them the benefit of the doubt the first few times something comes up that might kill them.

What's actually happening in the game world would require percentiles and a table lookup to portray.

An orc grunt can kill an unwounded great wyrm with a thrown spear. Hitpoints forbid it because it would be anticlimactic, not because it's not possible in the physics of the game world.

nyjastul69
2010-07-09, 10:08 AM
It can't hit more than 4 people however. Chalk this one up to. "narrowly designed spell effects that don't scale well."

Why can't a sleep spell affect more than 4 creatures? It's limited by HD not the number of creatures. It could cause 8 1/2HD creatures to slumber.

2xMachina
2010-07-09, 11:37 AM
Sonic Snap.

Also, for healing, Cure Minor wounds. Setting that base as 1HP each...

Maximally injured people takes 9 of those to be conscious. (Determines death at -10)

Knaight
2010-07-09, 12:29 PM
Why can't a sleep spell affect more than 4 creatures? It's limited by HD not the number of creatures. It could cause 8 1/2HD creatures to slumber.

Because it said people, not creatures, and they all have at least 1 HD.

Prodan
2010-07-09, 12:49 PM
Because it said people, not creatures, and they all have at least 1 HD.

Kobols Against Unequal Treatment would like to remind you that kobolds are people too!

lesser_minion
2010-07-09, 12:54 PM
Kobols Against Unequal Treatment would like to remind you that kobolds are people too!

Respectfully, I would like to inform Kobolds Against Unfair Treatment that they can go stuff themselves. Kobolds get a fat slice of exclusive splatbook support, and it's one hell of a tasty slice too.

Eurus
2010-07-09, 12:57 PM
Also, for healing, Cure Minor wounds. Setting that base as 1HP each...

Maximally injured people takes 9 of those to be conscious. (Determines death at -10)

And, amusingly, once a person has been cut up enough to pass out (or, in other words, is at negative HP), they have anywhere from 6 to 54 seconds (in intervals of exactly 6 seconds) before they die. :smallamused:

And if they could quantify damage, then it's easy to test hit dice, since a person heals nonlethal equal to their HD every hour. One carefully-calculated savage beating is all it takes. :smallbiggrin:

Saving throws would be a bit trickier. They'd probably eventually find out eventually that even a kobold commoner 1 has at least a 5% chance of shrugging off an archmage's Dominate Monster spell, and even a 20th level cleric has a 5% chance of failing against a 1st-level wizard's charm person, just from basic combat experience. And I really don't put it past wizards to experiment on animals with sleep spells or whatever by putting various saving throw boosters on them to figure out the exact impact.

okpokalypse
2010-07-09, 01:00 PM
There's a ton of mechanical things a character should know wrt the game, and in quite a few facets...

Character Mechanics:

This blurs the fine line between what I know I can do, what I learn to do and what I might be able to do one day...

Sure, one can abstract it and weed out the mechanical spect of it - but in reality when one has a long-term goal, they figure out the progression to reach it and do so, whether it be a physical thing, mental thing or vocational thing. If I want to master Differential Equations, I have to first learn basic math, then Alegebra and Geometry and Trigonometry and Calculus and Linear Equations... If I wanted to be able to be an NBA star at point guard I have to first learn to dribble righty, then lefty, then pass and shoot and then get that all to a high level all the while building strength and endurance. There's a progression in almost anything we do - we just don't take notice of it because it seems commonplace.

D&D PCs have much the same thing. It's not meta-gaming, it's just proper PC planning to have your builld. Like a form of a career-builder. People in real-life (that are successful) rarely just go at it without some plan. Sure, it works out great for a very few - but the vast majority of successful people have had plans for their life through to their 50s+ in place since they were in High School or College.

As to relating this to game mechanics - just think about schooling in general. What are grades? They're Levels. when you end HS you're a L12 Academic. When you end College you're a L16 Academinc. Grad School? L19 - L22 (depending on how long). Once could say those who've attended Law and Medical Schools have Epic Knowledge :smallsmile:.

It's the same in the workplace. "Junior Consultant" "Consultant" "Senior Consultant" etc... are all levels based on experience, knowledge and aptitude...

Item Mechanics:

This is already taken care of by a single spell...

Identify
The spell determines all magic properties of a single magic item, including how to activate those functions (if appropriate), and how many charges are left (if any).

Simply put, you get to see the item's stat block. You know the bonuses and how much they are. You know what type of bonuses they are. You know all the meta-gamey information about said item...
Spell-Casting Mechanics:

Of Course caster's who memorize know their # of slots. They've got the responsibility to fill them after all! No Vanican-Type caster doesn't know he's got X spells at Y level when he's already prepared how many spells of a given level he's going to memorize the night before.

Furthermore, any moderate-level spellcaster should realize that even the most staunch, but non-immune enemies have a chance of succumbing to their spell effects. In fact, this should be taught to wizard's and priests when they are in training by their respective orders in all RP reality.

It doesn't take a genius to know that, even if you're not a professional dart-thrower, you're going to hit the bullseye ONCE in a while. :)

nyjastul69
2010-07-09, 01:12 PM
Because it said people, not creatures, and they all have at least 1 HD.

To what 'it' are you refering? The OP, SRD, and PH all refer to creatures, not to people. The OP is incorrect in the assertion that sleep affects a maximum of 4 creatures.

JeenLeen
2010-07-09, 01:31 PM
I think such testing is very reasonable, if someone cares to do it. A wizard's university probably would at some point. Now someone being smart enough to create gunpowder is questionable. I suppose a very creative person who does random stuff might, but if you want to play that way, I could see the DM rolling to see if you poison yourself or blow yourself up.

--
There is a possible other way to see things, at least for DCs and maybe Hit Points and HD. Let me give an example from another system.

In Mage: The Ascension (with some mechanic houserules), you get +1 difficulty to your roll to use a magic effect for every 2 active effects. My DM protested when my character kept one active effect but not two in dangerous situations, because he doesn't have a real sense of difficulty (as in I have to roll a 5), just that it's harder the more effects I have active.

I argued that someone would eventually have tested this theory, doing magic in a systematic way and over enough time to determine that the difficulty goes up for every 2 effects. Having one effect feels more difficult, but actually isn't.

He countered with that the +1/2 effects is only there because we are using a d10 system. In actuality, and if my character tested this, he would find that it would go up by +1/effect if we were using a d20 system. (He also offered to let me use d20s with this alternative rule, from which I declined. :smalltongue:)

So, although I personally think one should be able to do testing to get a sense of BAB, HD, HP, DCs, and saves, I could see a DM saying that those numbers are there just to simplify a more complex system. If your character actually did tests, he would find a different result.

It's not satisfying, and as I type this I realize it doesn't translate as well into D&D, and I wasn't satisfied with my DM's answer, but it was a valid answer.

Yakk
2010-07-09, 02:12 PM
Your character's knowledge of the in-game rules of reality are determined by their Knowledge skills, and in particular Knowledge[in-game rules of reality].

If your character learns something about HD, unless they buy up their Knowledge[in-game rules of reality], that does not change what the character knows -- learning in the D&D world only applies when you gain skill in a Knowledge skill. As such, it happens at intervals determined by how many challenging monsters you have recently defeated, and your character class.

Wizards without sufficient Knowledge[in-game rules of reality] skill are not aware of the difference between spell levels and the like. They are simply incapable of noticing the relationship between gp cost to scribe scrolls and which spell they wish to scribe, and other facts.

Like all Knowledge[in-game rules of reality] skills, what DC a given bit of in-game rules of reality knowledge requires is up to the DM.

Prodan
2010-07-09, 02:32 PM
I think such testing is very reasonable, if someone cares to do it. A wizard's university probably would at some point. Now someone being smart enough to create gunpowder is questionable. I suppose a very creative person who does random stuff might, but if you want to play that way, I could see the DM rolling to see if you poison yourself or blow yourself up.

Gunpoweder was invented by Chinese alchemists. This would imply that a high enough craft: alchemy check would result in gunpowder.

Granted, they were trying ot make medicine and wound up with gunpowder by accident, so it probably won't be that straightforward, but it probably will be invented at some point by an alchemist.

valadil
2010-07-09, 03:02 PM
Gunpoweder was invented by Chinese alchemists. This would imply that a high enough craft: alchemy check would result in gunpowder.

Granted, they were trying ot make medicine and wound up with gunpowder by accident, so it probably won't be that straightforward, but it probably will be invented at some point by an alchemist.

Alchemists are not often adventurers though. When I brought up the gunpowder example it was to show what happens when players use their knowledge to set a character goal. You could say the character didn't know what he was making and just stumbled into it, but the decision to mix the 3 chemicals in gunpowder is entirely metagaming.

I feel like many tests to determine HD, HP, Level, class, etc will be the same way. It's a lot easier to come up with the tests when you know the result. Yeah, you might throw sleep spells at everyone in the village to try and figure out who it can affect. Already knowing the result, it's pretty easy to see that it corresponds to HD. Without knowing it though, you might determine it only hits people younger than 25. Or redheads, cat owners, fatties, people with an odd number of freckles, etc.

Prodan
2010-07-09, 03:12 PM
Alchemists are not often adventurers though.

In DnD, an alchemist is anyone with skill points in Craft: Alchemy.

A wizard who adventures and puts points into Alchemy is just as good an alchemist as the Expert who stays in a lab researching Alchemy.

valadil
2010-07-09, 03:22 PM
In DnD, an alchemist is anyone with skill points in Craft: Alchemy.

A wizard who adventures and puts points into Alchemy is just as good an alchemist as the Expert who stays in a lab researching Alchemy.

A an adventurer can be a competent alchemist this way. He is still not a full time professional alchemist, and thus is less likely to discover something interesting as someone who devotes 40+ hours a week.

Math_Mage
2010-07-09, 04:14 PM
Your character's knowledge of the in-game rules of reality are determined by their Knowledge skills, and in particular Knowledge[in-game rules of reality].

If your character learns something about HD, unless they buy up their Knowledge[in-game rules of reality], that does not change what the character knows -- learning in the D&D world only applies when you gain skill in a Knowledge skill. As such, it happens at intervals determined by how many challenging monsters you have recently defeated, and your character class.

Wizards without sufficient Knowledge[in-game rules of reality] skill are not aware of the difference between spell levels and the like. They are simply incapable of noticing the relationship between gp cost to scribe scrolls and which spell they wish to scribe, and other facts.

Like all Knowledge[in-game rules of reality] skills, what DC a given bit of in-game rules of reality knowledge requires is up to the DM.

:smallconfused: This would imply that if a character learns something about a kind of monster in one encounter, they cannot apply it in a subsequent encounter involving another monster of the same type without an appropriate Knowledge check. Knowledge skills are meant to quantify your general knowledge of a subject across the board--actually learning a specific piece of knowledge obviates the need to make a check, or should.

Yakk
2010-07-10, 09:39 AM
:smallconfused: This would imply that if a character learns something about a kind of monster in one encounter, they cannot apply it in a subsequent encounter involving another monster of the same type without an appropriate Knowledge check. Knowledge skills are meant to quantify your general knowledge of a subject across the board--actually learning a specific piece of knowledge obviates the need to make a check, or should.
How do you determine if the character picked up that specific piece of knowledge? I mean, the player sure noticed, but did the character? How do we (as players and DM) determine what the character has forgotten? We cannot rely on the players' memory and notes, as that isn't a very good simulation.

The method that seems appropriate is to accumulate the experience the character gains as some kind of points, and periodically as these points accumulate allow the character to advance. At the time of advancing, allow the character to purchase increased knowledge skills (representing what the character has learned, and not forgotten).

;)

2xMachina
2010-07-10, 10:01 AM
And then funny things happens.

Cause they didn't train knowledge, an elf meet a member of their own race and think they're an Orc. In fact, half his community is of an unknown race, cause he failed his knowledge check on them.

Math_Mage
2010-07-10, 03:23 PM
How do you determine if the character picked up that specific piece of knowledge? I mean, the player sure noticed, but did the character? How do we (as players and DM) determine what the character has forgotten? We cannot rely on the players' memory and notes, as that isn't a very good simulation.

If a Bone Devil creates a Wall of Ice within sight of my character, I think it's fair to say that my character now knows Bone Devils can do that, without requiring a DC (HD + X) Knowledge check to remember the specific spell-likes of Bone Devils. Consider that under your system a character without the appropriate Knowledge would never be able to remember any characteristics of any high-level creature he had met, as the DCs for such checks are all above 10, and thus unmakeable by untrained characters. At the very least, reduce the DC to well under 10, so that memory is imperfect but still there.

erikun
2010-07-10, 05:44 PM
How do you determine if the character picked up that specific piece of knowledge? I mean, the player sure noticed, but did the character? How do we (as players and DM) determine what the character has forgotten? We cannot rely on the players' memory and notes, as that isn't a very good simulation.
A character walks into a room with a pool of magma. In the pool is sitting an Ancient Red Dragon. Flames arch off it's back, as heatwaves emanate from its scales and it spews gouts of fire. The character rolls a knowledge check to identify that the dragon is immune to fire.

In the next room, the character finds another ancient red dragon sitting in another pool of magma. The character must roll again to determine that such a creature is immune to fire.

Magikeeper
2010-07-10, 08:09 PM
Well, in my campaign world I solved a number of issues using etherium. I could write a page-long description of it, but I think I’ll just cut to the important bits:
EWP: So much for not writing a page-long description.

> Etherium is a force in the world, and everyone has some inside of them. Overtime it builds up, and this build up changes the creature in numerous ways. All creatures become more resistant to attacks, and although bodily processes can still be disrupted (poision, etc), physical damage becomes less important. For example, if a creature with a high concentration of etherium had their throat slit they could simply use their etherium to keep going and even to heal the slit. If a creature dies that means they exhausted their reserves in addition to taking a lethal blow [why called shots do not exist]. Once you’ve concentrated it once, it quickly reaches the same level of concentration again [Natural Healing]. Positive energy can help you re-bind it faster, although people with higher max concentrations obviously need more energy to fully heal [Why High-level PCs need more healing to reach max].

> The process of attaining a higher concentration is not just used to survive blows: The process itself twists one into a superior entity that is just plain better at many tasks, although you can focus this increase into specific skills. Mighty wizards who have never wielded a sword in their life will fare better with one than a new fighter [Lvl 20 wizard BAB vs 1st level fighter]. High level humans and low level humans are less like each other than humans and elves. [They are hardly human at all, although that concept of what a “real human” is does not exist in the game world.]. Some creatures are better able to harness this increase, and some are talented at using it to aquire specific abilities [explains many IC things like simply not being good at casting spells or choosing feats. Could explain favored classes if anyone I knew used them].

> Strife, such as {but not limited to} combat, increase the rate of etherium concentration. However, this rate increase varies from person to person. Sometimes a group or individual will “slipstream” during which their concentration will increase at a ridiculous rate [Why some PCs gain 4 levels over the course of that many days]. Even without strife, etherium builds up over time [A venerable human farmer is almost certainly level 4-5, and an elven one likely level 6-8.]
>> It takes exponentially longer for one’s maximum etherium concentration to reach to each new plateau, and this increase is universally based on how high the concentration is – not at what point you started. Some races are born with higher base concentrations [why high-HD monsters take longer to get that first class level].

> Some abilities permanently reduce your maximum concentration, effectively unraveling yourself. This includes creating magic items and casting certain spells. The part you unravel is used to power these effects [How you can pay XP, and how creatures can determine roughly how much they are paying].

My hand pain is acting up, so that’s all for now. I have way to explain death attacks and the like, it’s trivially easy once HP and XP are actual physical concepts. The game mechanics just make so much more sense all over the place.