If play was realistic, Ectract Drug would be the most commonly cast spell

[Conradine]

And specifically, Extract Drug - Sannish.
Why?
Pain, that's why. Sannish eliminate pain for some hours.

Realistically speaking , how many people would brave not only the danger but the horrible, excruciating, nightmarish pain that many monsters are able to dish?
Being rendered by a troll, showered in acid by a young green dragon, feeling the life siphoned from you by a wight, hearing the cracking of your bones under a giant's club...

people, we require anesthesia for treating a cavity!

---

Beside that , Sannish is milk ( wolf milk ) added with desert plants. Basically it's "milk plus".
I imagine the adventurers sitting at the bar, relaxing with heinous expressions, sipping their milk plus, before raiding the dungeon in an orgy of ultra-violence.

[Boci]

To the best of my knowledge US marines aren't given painkillers before heading out into a mission, and I doubt its because of the prohibative cost of opioids.

[Conradine]

Adventurers are much more akin to berserker raids than to organized US squads.
Beside that, US marines plan to avoid wounds as much as possibile. Adventurers are more or less certain they'll be mauled, poisoned, burned, slashed and crushed before the end of the day.

[MisterKaws]

Pain is a safety measure. Adventurers using painkillers wouldn't be uncommon (fun fact: mountain climbers chew on coca leaves), but they most likely wouldn't be the longest-living. Pain is a sign of when to retreat. Without it, you'd only get suicidal adventurers.

[Boci]

Not really. It varies from table to play style, but in the bog standard adventure group of fighter, rogue, cleric and wizard at most one of them is going to be acting berserker, and they are still almost certainly going to display superior tactics to them. Even if they don't care about tactics, that will likely mean don't care about pain too much either.

[denthor]

Well there are alternative in D&D like cast cure light wounds. They do not state it but a potion of healing is more like mixture of plant based with liquid.

Your correct however what your referring to is from the evil side of the street as it is addictive.

Why good and evil are blurred(displaced) in the real world there are clear lines in D&D.

[Bronk]

And specifically, Extract Drug - Sannish.
Why?

I disagree, because I think it's a trap spell. It might be a commonly cast spell by evil drug dealing wizards, but if so, they'd probably start at level one and be easy targets for first level paladin raids. Although, you could have a good adventure taking down a drug ring led by some higher level bad guys with a hidden farm of first level wizards though! I ran a similar one with low level druids growing the plants in secret...

[MisterKaws]

Well there are alternative in D&D like cast cure light wounds. They do not state it but a potion of healing is more like mixture of plant based with liquid.

This is a common misconception. Magical potions in D&D are not alchemical in nature. They are fluids made with just enough magical reagents to hold the energy for a single spell in place, much like a Wand, except with water holding the magical reagents instead of wood or metal. There might be plants among the reagents, but it would be mostly some mana-grass or whatever, just a spell-storage mechanism.

[Conradine]

Potions of healing may remove the pain but Sannish and spells of Masochism are able to prevent it.

( by the way, I wounder if they offer to rent for a day a Nipple Clamp of Exquisite Pain to those undergoing the Necropolitan ritual )



Well there are alternative in D&D like cast cure light wounds. They do not state it but a potion of healing is more like mixture of plant based with liquid

If you have to pull out a tooth, do you want anesthesia before or after the operation?

[zfs]

Well, it can be tough to deal with real-life weighty issues in D&D. Sex and romance are probably the perfect examples. They're a gigantic part of our own lives, but in RPG's they can be so easily triviliazed or bowdlerized and for that reason often manifest as joke material more than as a serious part of roleplaying. When done well, it can lead to great things - when done poorly, few things can alienate a group faster.

Realistically, more adventurers probably should be addicts of some sort. It's a hard life - painful both physically and emotionally. Friends come and go - some leave, some die. But addiction is one of those areas that can be too raw for some people - or it's just played as being edgy for edge's sake. I did play an addict once that hid it from the group, and it led to some solid RP.


Potions of healing may remove the pain but Sannish and spells of Masochism are able to prevent it.

( by the way, I wounder if they offer to rent for a day a Nipple Clamp of Exquisite Pain to those undergoing the Necropolitan ritual )


If you have to pull out a tooth, do you want anesthesia before or after the operation?

Yeah but you also don't want to be all zonked out during a fight. Though I'll admit, I don't know the full mechanicals in-game effects of Sannish.

[Rijan_Sai]

Beside that , Sannish is milk ( wolf milk ) added with desert plants. Basically it's "milk plus".
I imagine the adventurers sitting at the bar, relaxing with heinous expressions, sipping their milk plus, before raiding the dungeon in an orgy of ultra-violence.

Huh... suddenly, all those so-called "Milk Bars" in various RPGs (and more specifically Legend of Zelda) make sense!

[Bronk]

Yeah but you also don't want to be all zonked out during a fight. Though I'll admit, I don't know the full mechanicals in-game effects of Sannish.

The big ones are: You don't feel pain, but you take wisdom damage, a second dose stuns you, it's addictive, and taking it too often turns your lips permanently blue so everyone knows what you've been doing.

[zfs]

The big ones are: You don't feel pain, but you take wisdom damage, a second dose stuns you, it's addictive, and taking it too often turns your lips permanently blue so everyone knows what you've been doing.

So that last part might be a good reason not to do it - your adventuring party might stop getting the best quests when everybody knows you're a group of druggies.

[Mike Miller]

I can't help but think the first thing after "If play was realistic..." should probably be something along the lines of "there is no magic."

[MisterKaws]

So that last part might be a good reason not to do it - your adventuring party might stop getting the best quests when everybody knows you're a group of druggies.

Not if you're a blue-tinted Spellscale

[Conradine]

The big ones are: You don't feel pain, but you take wisdom damage, a second dose stuns you, it's addictive, and taking it too often turns your lips permanently blue so everyone knows what you've been doing.

They're not big drawbacks.
A single Wisdom damage lasts 1 day, don't take second doses and put some lipstick when you go to city.
And about addiction, Drug Resistance is level 1 too.

[denthor]

So that last part might be a good reason not to do it - your adventuring party might stop getting the best quests when everybody knows you're a group of druggies.

My current character is a blue 1/2 orc. Is that why people offer to hold the spear(they say it is a mercy) to let her no longer be alive?

[Starbuck_II]

The big ones are: You don't feel pain, but you take wisdom damage, a second dose stuns you, it's addictive, and taking it too often turns your lips permanently blue so everyone knows what you've been doing.

Worked for the Villain's bodyguard in D&D movie. If you didn't notice he had blue lips.

[Psyren]

I feel like this is an unstated property of both healing magic and the magic armor most players end up wearing after a while. Even in Lord of the Rings, Frodo damn near got impaled by an orc chieftain,, yet when they looked at his mithril shirt it just had a couple of dented links. He had some bruises but no lesions or fractures if I remember right. I can only imagine that D&D gear is even better suited to this kind of dulling or protection, especially when you consider more metaphysical protective gear like rings of protection or amulets of natural armor.

This also takes us right back to the recurring "do hit points represent meat" conversation and others like it. HP loss in D&D is common, but doesn't translate particularly well to injury and therefore extrapolating pain from it is likely to be futile.

Pathfinder has a [pain] descriptor used for spells and effects, like Symbol of Pain, that are so excruciating they can actually interfere with your actions or have secondary effects. This descriptor is not applied to ordinary damage, however debilitating.

[Boci]

This also takes us right back to the recurring "do hit points represent meat" conversation and others like it. HP loss in D&D is common, but doesn't translate particularly well to injury and therefore extrapolating pain from it is likely to be futile.

Sometimes it doesn't yes, but sometimes it does. Like DR overcome by a specific weapon type or material, or rogues needing to be able to reach the vital organs to trigger sneak attack. Really, you wrote several unneccissary words after "but doesn't translate particularly well".

[Psyren]

Sometimes it doesn't yes, but sometimes it does. Like DR overcome by a specific weapon type or material, or rogues needing to be able to reach the vital organs to trigger sneak attack. Really, you wrote several unneccissary words after "but doesn't translate particularly well".

Well actually, the RAW is "vital spot" which doesn't have to be an organ at all. And not all vital spots are created equal in terms of survivability/injury either. DR too, certainly impacts whether a hit is truly damaging or not, but that doesn't necessarily translate to injury either.

My main point is that what hit point loss translates to is a bit controversial, but it's something the OP would want to at least articulate before then going on to say what pain should result and what mechanical effects (if any) that pain should have.

[Boci]

Well actually, the RAW is "vital spot" which doesn't have to be an organ at all.

Still kinda hard to fluff HP loss from an attack that needs to reach a vital spot as anything other than meat points.


DR too, certainly impacts whether a hit is truly damaging or not, but that doesn't necessarily translate to injury either.

It kinda does. When you have a werewolf, who takes 10 less damage from non-silvered weapons, its hard to fluff that interaction as anything other than weapon damaging the body, but wounds from the non-silvered weapons either being partially negated or healing at a near-instantanous rate.

[Psyren]

Still kinda hard to fluff HP loss from an attack that needs to reach a vital spot as anything other than meat points.

I'm not disputing that if it works for you. Certainly at least some of it is meat.


It kinda does. When you have a werewolf, who takes 10 less damage from non-silvered weapons, its hard to fluff that interaction as anything other than weapon damaging the body, but wounds from the non-silvered weapons either being partially negated or healing at a near-instantanous rate.

That's valid - but it could also be fluffed as strain from trying to avoid or lessen a telling blow that they can't simply tank/ignore. There's a "pain avoidance" aspect there too, like a fey or demon reacting to cold iron.

[Boci]

That's valid - but it could also be fluffed as strain from trying to avoid or lessen a telling blow that they can't simply tank/ignore. There's a "pain avoidance" aspect there too, like a fey or demon reacting to cold iron.

That does't work well at all, it requires creatures to be aware of the material of the weapon, which they won't always be. The attacker could be inviisble, hiding 300ft away with a silver arrow, or the weapon could be steel, but enchanted to overcome DR. Pain avoidance, strain, avoiding a telling blow all require to automatically know whether or not a weapon/attack will overcome their damage reduction. It would also allow you to overcome DR if you could bluff material, which you cannot.

[Conradine]

People, the point is: pain is pain.
And Sannish is avaiable with a level 1 spell. I'm pretty sure most adventurers would be quite doped in order to face dragons, liches or even trolls.

[Boci]

People, the point is: pain is pain.
And Sannish is avaiable with a level 1 spell. I'm pretty sure most adventurers would be quite doped in order to face dragons, liches or even trolls.

Mechanically pain doesn't do many bad things, there are only a handful of spells that use it. Now you can say "but RP-wise there would be negative effects to pain" and I'll counter with "RP-wise there are arguable more benefits to pain. It keeps you going, warns you against enviromental hazards and can held you judge how much damage a wound inflicted."

[Conradine]

The point is not the pain but the fear of pain.
Unless you are a Paladin, but those things are hardly human at all.

[Crake]

Huh... suddenly, all those so-called "Milk Bars" in various RPGs (and more specifically Legend of Zelda) make sense!

Despite your posting this in blue, I believe the milk bars in legend of zelda actually are a reference to historical milk bars I believe during prohibition america, where they acted as a front for serving alcohol and other drug-laced milk drinks. If you've ever seen a clockwork orange... yeah, that milk bar? They aren't there for the milk.

[Psyren]

That does't work well at all, it requires creatures to be aware of the material of the weapon, which they won't always be. The attacker could be inviisble, hiding 300ft away with a silver arrow, or the weapon could be steel, but enchanted to overcome DR. Pain avoidance, strain, avoiding a telling blow all require to automatically know whether or not a weapon/attack will overcome their damage reduction. It would also allow you to overcome DR if you could bluff material, which you cannot.

I always felt that they did have some kind of sense for that kind of thing where supernatural DR is concerned. Banishment for example lets you present a material they hate and fear to strengthen the spell, and those sorts of materials explicitly work for this. It's not like you have to show a devil your notarized certificate of authenticity along with the silver dagger you're brandishing at them - they know what it is, and it's not something that can be bluffed.

As for hit points themselves, my definition comes from Rules Compendium:


Hit points measure how hard a creature is to kill. Hit points represent the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one. For some creatures, hit points can represent divine favor or inner power.

I take that passage to mean it's not just meat, it's active mitigation as stated above - and for some creatures can be something even more metaphysical.


The point is not the pain but the fear of pain.
Unless you are a Paladin, but those things are hardly human at all.

Which brings us right back to - how do you know how much a blow hurts if you (and the system itself) are very vague on the physical damage a blow actually inflicts? And if you don't know that, it's hard to make claims about how realistic a creature's pain avoidance (or lack thereof) is.

[Boci]

I always felt that they did have some kind of sense for that kind of thing where supernatural DR is concerned.

So what, a hidden voice says "You're about to be sniped from 300ft away with an arrow, a cold iron one" rings in the demon's ear a split second before the shot connect, too late to make them not flatfooted but just enough time so they react apropriatly? This is a neat enough idea, but its an ability, a speciality ability, that would need to be written down and quantified in some form. Nowhere does the fluff support this. Tactics do not mentions fiends automatically knowing who can and cannot hurt them, in fact they do the opposite, they list how a fiend prioritizes targets based on what they imagine can best hurt them.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying HP works fine as just meat points, I'm saying the statement that HP doesn't translate well to injury also needs to be accompanied by the claim that it often cdoesn't translate well to not-injury either.

[Psyren]

So what, a hidden voice says "You're about to be sniped from 300ft away with an arrow, a cold iron one" rings in the demon's ear a split second before the shot connect, too late to make them not flatfooted but just enough time so they react apropriatly?

This example proves my point perfectly though. The demon here is flatfooted, which means they (ceterus paribus) take more damage from the arrow - the arrow is more likely to land a damaging hit, any crit from it confirmed easier, sneak attack gets triggered if the shooter can use that from a long distance away etc. The greater loss of HP that would result is therefore part and parcel with their inability to defend themselves properly.


Just to be clear, I'm not saying HP works fine as just meat points, I'm saying the statement that HP doesn't translate well to injury also needs to be accompanied by the claim that it often cdoesn't translate well to not-injury either.

I'm in total agreement here, HP are both. My main point is - if there are two variables here (meat injury and mitigation/strain), how can OP accurately draw conclusions regarding pain? I would answer, they can't.

[Boci]

This example proves my point perfectly though. The demon here is flatfooted, which means they (ceterus paribus) take more damage from the arrow - the arrow is more likely to land a damaging hit, any crit from it confirmed easier, sneak attack gets triggered if the shooter can use that from a long distance away etc. The greater loss of HP that would result is therefore part and parcel with their inability to defend themselves properly.

What? Not it doesn't prove your point, it disproves it. The demon would be just as flatfooted against an steel arrow, just as unable to defend themselves against one, and yet they will take less damage from it. "Demons know when an attack is doing to pierce their DR" is hard to mesh with the fact that they are equally flatfooted against a cold iron snipe and a +1 steel snipe. The fact that the cold iron will still deal more damage strongly implies that the damage is independant of the demon's response to the attack and has more to do with how their body reacts to the damage, meaning HP is injury.

[Psyren]

What? Not it doesn't prove your point, it disproves it. The demon would be just as flatfooted against an steel arrow, just as unable to defend themselves against one, and yet they will take less damage from it. "Demons know when an attack is doing to pierce their DR" is hard to mesh with the fact that they are equally flatfooted against a cold iron snipe and a +1 steel snipe. The fact that the cold iron will still deal more damage strongly implies that the damage is independant of the demon's response to the attack and has more to do with how their body reacts to the damage, meaning HP is injury.

I was totally with you until the last part. "How their body reacts to the damage" does not have to mean "injury" - or at least not "injury purely from the arrow itself." As the RC quote states, it can also represent the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one; nothing says this ability has to be consciously invoked, even against an attack the demon did not perceive. So they can be equally unaware of both shots, but the difference in HP they lost can still represent something besides "meat damage." Using the "supernatural awareness of hated materials" theory for example, it can be that the demon did feel it coming, too late to not be flat-footed as you stated earlier, but early enough that they strained themselves trying to lessen the impact (and thereby losing more HP.)

And all of this then informs the question the OP needs to answer - how much pain do you get from taking damage? It all depends - what does the HP loss represent, what kind of creature are we dealing with, etc.

[Boci]

I was totally with you until the last part. "How their body reacts to the damage" does not have to mean "injury" - or at least not "injury purely from the arrow itself." As the RC quote states, it can also represent the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one; nothing says this ability has to be consciously invoked, even against an attack the demon did not perceive. So they can be equally unaware of both shots, but the difference in HP they lost can still represent something besides "meat damage." Using the "supernatural awareness of hated materials" theory for example, it can be that the demon did feel it coming, too late to not be flat-footed as you stated earlier, but early enough that they strained themselves trying to lessen the impact (and thereby lost more HP.)

That's an incredably tortured reading, basically making fiends negate their own damage reduction by over reaction, which they have no way of preventing. Its incredably wierd, and nor does it gel with the fluffs and mechanics. Demons are not vulnerable to a cold iron sword, they are not resistant to it. Functionally the same, but psychologically one woul expect a difference. Its a bit wierd that all demons always strain their body through pain avoidance when faced with the a cold iron sword, and can magically do it just as effectivly when flatfooted, whilst humans apparently don't do that against a steel sword, even though that is just as dangerous to them. Plus what about paralyzed or unconcious? Can't be pain avoidance there, they can't move, and its not an auto crit so extra damage isn't guranteed.

Furthermore, this is a really tortured way of ruling the cold iron sensor works as things go along. The fiend can be walking across a cold iron floor hidden by a rug and they will be none the wiser, they don't have any special ability to sense that stuff, not mentioned any in the stat profile, their tactics or their fluff. But as soon as someone wants to shoot them with a single arrow they get a warning?

[Dr_Dinosaur]

They don't "get a warning" from being near their weakness any more than you do from being too close to a high-voltage electrical coil or a fire. A tangible feeling of something dangerous in the air but no voice whispering in your ear.

Anyway, the idea that HP is always meat is absurd, unless your PCs are walking around full of arrows with chunks out of them

[Boci]

They don't "get a warning" from being near their weakness any more than you do from being too close to a high-voltage electrical coil or a fire. A tangible feeling of something dangerous in the air but no voice whispering in your ear.

But they don't get a tangible feeling in the air from being close, they only get it in the split second before they are attacked with it. They can walk past an armory of cold iron and feel nothing, but as soon as a rogue jumped out with a cold iron dsagger they get the feeling just into time to strain their body with pain avoidance of the attack. Its a laughable specific ability that does next to nothing.

The idea of fiends being able to sense materials that overcome their DR is an interesting idea, but it need to be a houserule with actual effect, not just "fiends get magically warded they are being attacked, and only when they are being attacked, but too late to do anything about it".


Anyway, the idea that HP is always meat is absurd, unless your PCs are walking around full of arrows with chunks out of them

Yeah it is pretty absurd. Let me know if you find someone advocating that.

[Conradine]

For me Constitution is meat. Level is skill.

A troll ( Constitution 22 , more or less 60 life points ) can walk around with a spear in the heart. A fighter with 13 Consitution can't, even he has 60 or more life points.

[Psyren]

That's an incredably tortured reading, basically making fiends negate their own damage reduction by over reaction, which they have no way of preventing.

They'd only be "negating their own DR" if you can prove the HP loss they're incurring from strain or other mitigation is equal or greater to what they would take if the blow actually landed true. There is not really a way to do that with hit points as they are currently designed - they're not just an abstraction, they're a retroactive one. You subtract the damage first and then narrate what happened based on the gravity of the blow. The only one you can narrate accurately is the killing blow, which ties back to RC's definition - HP represent how hard you are to kill.

But like I said, I didn't really want to relitigate "how much of HP are meat vs. not-meat." That is going to depend on a lot of things, including the poster's own suspension of disbelief. I think we do agree on the big point - that it's more than just meat. My main point therefore is that it's difficult to be definitive about how much "pain" results from a given hit just based on the HP damage that comes from that.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Fair point regarding DR materials. I guess after long enough with that houserule I forgot it was one.


Yeah it is pretty absurd. Let me know if you find someone advocating that.

Conradine has been, all over the first page

[Boci]

They'd only be "negating their own DR" if you can prove the HP loss they're incurring from strain or other mitigation is equal or greater to what they would take if the blow actually landed true.

I can prove its exactly the same, since the damage would be equal if the fiend were paralyzed and then they wouldn't be able to strain their body because their paralyzed, which makes this fluffing particularly wierd. They strain their body, causing the blow to deal extra damage, which just so happens to be equal the damage they would have taken anyway.


Conradine has been, all over the first page

They've since clarified that only a portion of HP is meat, specifically the stuff you get from constiution.

[Remuko]

do drugs not count as poison? poison immunity is a big deal is it not? wouldnt poison immunity make this drug useless to most adventurers past low levels?

[Psyren]

I can prove its exactly the same, since the damage would be equal if the fiend were paralyzed and then they wouldn't be able to strain their body because their paralyzed, which makes this fluffing particularly wierd. They strain their body, causing the blow to deal extra damage, which just so happens to be equal the damage they would have taken anyway.

It might be the same, but not necessarily. Because now instead of merely losing their Dex bonus (flat-footed/+0, as per your first scenario) in this new scenario they have a Dex of zero (helpless/-5). That translates to more incoming damage on average - maybe not from a single arrow, but that's part and parcel with the general retroactive abstraction that individual hits are represented by in this HP system.

But, and I'll repeat this for the fifth time now, the main point isn't us rehashing how much of HP are meat or not meat or how much DR relates to injury. The point is about the futility of drawing conclusions about pain from such an abstraction.

[Boci]

But, and I'll repeat this for the fifth time now

No need. Just because you have a main point doesn't mean I can only address that. I can also address your side points.

[Conradine]

do drugs not count as poison?

Possible. But few classes gets poison immunity.

[Psyren]

No need. Just because you have a main point doesn't mean I can only address that. I can also address your side points.

I never said you couldn't :smalltongue: just that the main point seems to be where we agree, even if we may not on the side.

Speaking of which, back to the OP:



people, we require anesthesia for treating a cavity!

As others have said, getting doped up to your eyeballs before every fight might not be the best strategy from a purely pragmatic perspective.

There's also the consideration that we're not barbarians and knights and whatnot. There's so much fantasy art of these characters pocked with scars or dripping blood or arrows sticking out, continuing to fight with determination or brutality. Moreover, D&D characters in particular are meant to be exceptional (elite array or better) and often special agents, closer to Navy Seals than rank and file warriors or guardsmen. I'm not sure what that says about their pain tolerance, but I'm guessing it's somewhere north of ours and the time we live in now. And again, that's before you factor in all the magic equipment and healing they employ on a daily basis, most of which we abstract down to a simple number for ease of play.

[Almadelia]

Obligatory:
RAW says absolutely ****all about pain except for specific spells and effects. By RAW, you don't necessarily feel pain, and if you do, it's not severe enough to affect you in any way whatsoever. You can climb, cook, sing, dance, and continue to skin yourself without being affected by the pain of being skinned alive. Clearly, in D&D, everyone is superhumanly tolerant of pain.

[The Glyphstone]

Or as Elan puts it, "There are no rules for tummy aches".
.