5e Humans are not real life humans

[RSP]

The thread regarding HPs and healing, in which (to me at least) it seemed some houserule HPs/healing to try to have 5e rules reflect real life healing, got me thinking that a lot of people must think 5e is meant to simulate RL. I didn’t want to derail that thread, so here’s this new one.

Even the easiest and most direct comparison we have between 5e and RL doesn’t hold up: the 5e Human race is not meant to simulate real life humans. And if that’s the case, there is no reason to expect healing, or movement, or other aspects of RL to be the norm in 5e (as some seem to believe).

I know a few threads have gone into what the 5e martial classes can do vs “the guy at the gym”, but I want to specifically focus on 5e Humans here.

For this, I’ll just be using RAW 5e rules for Humans (or rules as they relate to 5e Humans).

First, is the HP/healing argument. Though this was covered in the SR thread, it is a significant difference between 5e Humans and RL humans and needs to be noted. That is, RAW, a 5e Human receives damage to their body to the point they are showing “cuts and bruises”. Then they rest for an hour and those “cuts and bruises” are gone, as the 5e Human is now back to a state in which they “typically show no signs of injury”. Likewise they can receive “a bleeding injury or other trauma”, rest for an hour, and again go back to being uninjured.

Second, the idea at all that any RL human is bound by six “stats” is ridiculous. To examine this, though, we only have RAW numbers for one 5e stat: Strength. In this case, oddly, RL humans are actually stronger than 5e Humans. The max deadlift for a RL human, according to Guinness World Records, is 1,104.5 lbs, which was achieved by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, of Iceland, on May 2, 2020.

Per the 5e RAW, a 20 Str 5e Human can lift 30 times their Str score, for a max of 600 lbs, about half what Bjornsson lifted. (Note: a 20th level Barbarian could max lift 720 lbs., though that’s getting into Class abilities.)

So RL humans are actually stronger than 5e Humans, in terms of maximum lifting capacity, though I imagine 5e Humans are much better at carrying weight over long periods of time while walking. The average 5e Human (10 Str), can carry 150 lbs over 8 hours, covering 30 miles without it bothering them or causing Exhaustion. I don’t have any numbers for an “average” human trying that, but soldiers typically train and condition themselves quite a bit to carry about 25-50 lbs of gear over extended marches, so I’m doubting this is something average RL humans do with 150 lbs of gear.

Next, we get to size. 5e Humans “can stand from 5 feet to a little over 6 feet tall and weigh from 125 to 250 pounds.” Just looking at American professional athletes (particularly, NFL or NBA players - heights and weights generally available on team sites), RL humans go well beyond the 5e Human thresholds quite regularly. Plenty of non-pro athletes break those numbers as well, I just can’t pull their height and weight up to prove it.

Finally, this last bit should make it clear 5e Humans aren’t meant to be RL humans: “A lot of humans have a dash of nonhuman blood, revealing hints of elf, orc, or other lineages.” Obviously, no comparison for RL humans.

So in summary 5e Humans=\=RL humans. Again, this is just a comparison I did as it seemed so many posters expected 5e Humans to be simulations of RL humans (and the 5e game in general a simulation of RL, for whatever reason) and that just isn’t true.

As I looked all this up, I figured I’d throw it in a thread to see what others thoughts were.

[AHF]

First, I don’t think there is an effort to replicate real life in 5E. Second, I’m not sure there is much value in looking at the weight lifting results for professional weight lifters if you are not going to look a class features that tie out to the professional’s area of expertise. For example, if the barbarian was interested in lifting more per his real life counterpart he could go the path of the totem and take bear at 6th level which would double his lift. So instead of 1100 vs 600, that 20 strength barbarian could life 1200 which is actually very close to what the professional weight lifter does at 1100.

[RSP]

First, I don’t think there is an effort to replicate real life in 5E. Second, I’m not sure there is much value in looking at the weight lifting results for professional weight lifters if you are not going to look a class features that tie out to the professional’s area of expertise. For example, if the barbarian was interested in lifting more per his real life counterpart he could go the path of the totem and take bear at 6th level which would double his lift. So instead of 1100 vs 600, that 20 strength barbarian could life 1200 which is actually very close to what the professional weight lifter does at 1100.

As to replicating real life, see the healing thread, or any thread where people argue “guy at the gym” as the basis for what characters can do.

As for the Barb feature, getting into class features is tough in this analysis as Spellcasting is going to be tough to compare. Likewise with a lot of things. Like, I don’t know Bjorsson, but I don’t think he’s described as “defined by [his] rage: unbridled, unquenchable, and unthinking fury.” Likewise, I don’t know that if he has such a rage, that it “springs from a communion with fierce animal spirits”, which would need to be the case to compare the Barbarian class, RAW, to lifters.

[Willie the Duck]

The thread regarding HPs and healing, in which (to me at least) it seemed some houserule HPs/healing to try to have 5e rules reflect real life healing, got me thinking that a lot of people must think 5e is meant to simulate RL. I didn’t want to derail that thread, so here’s this new one.
...

As I looked all this up, I figured I’d throw it in a thread to see what others thoughts were.

I am all in favor of putting a check on the 'buuutt reeeaalism!' arguments that have popped up incessantly over the past half century, and reminding people that the game is, first and foremost, a game (with rules that service its ability to act as a game). That said, I think your premise falls apart right at the start. The HPs and healing thread doesn't actually support that people (much less 'a lot,' for whatever version of that term we feel useful for the discussion) must think 5e is meant to simulate RL. That would be rather crazy, and I generally find any narrative where the vast majority of gamers (or local gaming-conversationalists) are total nutters or genuine fools* to be false.
*side point not directed at OP - especially if this sets oneself up as some paragon of brilliance amongst one's fellow gamers.

Instead, I posit that the thread merely indicates that hit points (which at times the loss of which are apparently not coded as specifically injury, yet in other instances they are) and healing (particularly non-magic-aided healing in an incredibly rapid period of time) are a discordance or incongruence between real life and the game environment beyond individual posters preferences (usually because they disrupt their verisimilitude of feeling that their characters -- regardless of whether they live in a reality like our reality -- are still characters made of flesh and blood inhabiting a fictional reality that resembles ours at some key level.

[KorvinStarmast]

The thread regarding HPs and healing, in which (to me at least) it seemed some houserule HPs/healing to try to have 5e rules reflect real life healing, got me thinking that a lot of people must think 5e is meant to simulate RL. I have learned, in a similar fashion to how you arrived at the above, that 93% of statistics are made up.
Insofar as D&D 5e and Real Life: in real life, I have to curtail my innate desire to let loose with the fire bolt cantrip whenever the clerk at the coffee shop gets my order wrong, whereas in D&D 5e it would be OK to just let them have it. :smallyuk:

I'll second the motion presented in Willie the Duck's second paragraph.

As for the title:

5e Humans are not real life humans In other news, water is wet. :smallwink:

[RSP]

…I think your premise falls apart right at the start. The HPs and healing thread doesn't actually support that people (much less 'a lot,' for whatever version of that term we feel useful for the discussion) must think 5e is meant to simulate RL. That would be rather crazy, and I generally find any narrative where the vast majority of gamers (or local gaming-conversationalists) are total nutters or genuine fools* to be false.

Not to sidetrack this thread by rehashing that one, but I was surprised at how many posters (I’d say the majority on that thread - though, obviously, that’s tough to draw conclusions about Players in general on that fact alone) insisted on “plot armor” as a way to explain healing in-game, in a way that more closely simulates real life; rather than just accepting 5e is a game in which the characters heal much faster than anything seen in real life.

That need to have healing=real life healing, leads me to believe there’s people out there looking at 5e and thinking it needs to simulate RL more closely than it’s intended (which is fine if it works for those tables, I’m just pointing out 5e isn’t intended to that, RAW).

Edit: also, I don’t think it’s “crazy” or “nutty” to initially come into 5e and think it simulates RL more than it intends. I can certainly can see how someone can initially see “Human” and say “that must be like RL humans”, without them being labeled as crazy.

[Willie the Duck]

Not to sidetrack this thread by rehashing that one, but I was surprised at how many posters (I’d say the majority on that thread - though, obviously, that’s tough to draw conclusions about Players in general on that fact alone) insisted on “plot armor” as a way to explain healing in-game, in a way that more closely simulates real life; rather than just accepting 5e is a game in which the characters heal much faster than anything seen in real life.
Well, I think that speaks to my point -- for a certain portion of people, that Joe could take multiple swords through the chest or be squashed flat by a boulder thrown by a giant (especially if they can then get up and heal from it without the aid of discrete magic) breaks their verisimilitude. There are other reasons (those of us who played AD&D had Gary spell it out that way, characters from related fiction seem to work under those rules, etc.) to be sure, but I think in general I think that's the reasoning.


That need to have healing=real life healing, leads me to believe there’s people out there looking at 5e and thinking it needs to simulate RL more closely than it’s intended (which is fine if it works for those tables, I’m just pointing out 5e isn’t intended to that, RAW).
I guess we're probably splitting hairs on definition. I don't think people 'need' it so much as 'would prefer it' in certain things.

D&D has always had trouble with this, because it (at least excluding 4e) has tried to keep non-magical characters and activities within a stone's throw of reality, while also having practical and convenient magic, actual dragons and giants, and other things which should make 'guy in armor' irrelevant (or sticking to the thread point, 'guy in armor trying to survive giant-thrown rocks, much less try to heal such injuries in short periods of time'). D&D could go strictly gritty, where a well-trained swordsmen in plate was a real challenge and magic was mostly inconvenient and impractical, or it could have gone whole hog on the legendary, with martials behaving like heroes of myth and lore like Beowulf or Heracles or King Arthur or whatnot. Instead it tries (like with many other things) to have it both ways. This creates friction and dissonance, which people notice (and feel the need to rehash over and over and over and...:smallbiggrin:).


Edit: also, I don’t think it’s “crazy” or “nutty” to initially come into 5e and think it simulates RL more than it intends. I can certainly can see how someone can initially see “Human” and say “that must be like RL humans”, without them being labeled as crazy.
Crazy or foolish was what I wrote. Regardless, it sure seems like you are suggesting that they are doing something wrong, and this last sentence here seems to suggest the same.

[Catullus64]

Like, I don’t know Bjorsson, but I don’t think he’s described as “defined by [his] rage: unbridled, unquenchable, and unthinking fury.” Likewise, I don’t know that if he has such a rage, that it “springs from a communion with fierce animal spirits”, which would need to be the case to compare the Barbarian class, RAW, to lifters.

I mean, the name Björn does mean "bear", making this weightlifter's surname, "son of Bear." Which is more likely: that that's a coincidence, or that Mr. world record holder here has an ancestral connection to bear spirits?

Obviously the latter.

[Anymage]

rather than just accepting 5e is a game in which the characters heal much faster than anything seen in real life.

That need to have healing=real life healing, leads me to believe thereÂ’s people out there looking at 5e and thinking it needs to simulate RL more closely than itÂ’s intended (which is fine if it works for those tables, IÂ’m just pointing out 5e isnÂ’t intended to that, RAW).

D&D physics and biology quickly diverge from all but the most superficial resemblance to real world physics and biology. This shouldn't surprise anybody.

Whether D&D's reality is closer to an action movie (where there's still some superficial/cosmetic acknowledgement of the injury, even if it doesn't hinder the protagonists in any meaningful way a scene or two down the line) or to comic books (where the heroes straight up have a healing factor) is a question of taste. And some debate.


Instead, I posit that the thread merely indicates that hit points (which at times the loss of which are apparently not coded as specifically injury, yet in other instances they are) and healing (particularly non-magic-aided healing in an incredibly rapid period of time) are a discordance or incongruence between real life and the game environment beyond individual posters preferences (usually because they disrupt their verisimilitude of feeling that their characters -- regardless of whether they live in a reality like our reality -- are still characters made of flesh and blood inhabiting a fictional reality that resembles ours at some key level.

There is often a disconnect between the mechanics that match a fun play experience (which tend to include fast recovery so adventures aren't put on hold every time there's a serious fight) and the mechanics that make the world feel more like it could be a real place instead of just a bunch of set pieces for the player characters to act out on (which tends to involve matching at least our intuitive sense of how our world works, including the idea that someone doesn't go from traction one day to totally fine the next). Finding a way to square those desires can be tricky. Sometimes narration is the best tool we have at hand to thread that needle.

[MaxWilson]

As I looked all this up, I figured I’d throw it in a thread to see what others thoughts were.

Don't forget movement speed. 5E humans are ridiculously slow even while sprinting.

[No brains]

I support the idea of thinking of D&D humans as something other than Homo Sapiens Sapiens from Earth!

They express a lot of morphological and behavioral convergent evolution, but come from an entirely different tree of life. Depending on the origin of their world, they may have literally been born from a magic tree. The presence of magic in their world accounts for numerous physiological differences, like better vascular control that means they never bleed unless something tries to get them to, which is a perfect segue into that better healing that got discussed, wonky diseases, awkward perambulation, different buoyancy, different blood-oxygen saturation, deep physiological damage getting repaired fully in a week of bedrest, and other oddities that make these humanoids seem Terminator-esque.

It is this welcoming acceptance of rules weirdness that lets me enjoy playing fantasy games and not sweat too many incongruities of a universe that is built upon different physics. If I were to believe my first impression, that's somewhat rare around here since so many threads seem to be based on something someone doesn't like/ doesn't get/ wants to change about 5e. Guys, it's not a bad thing to be able to suspend disbelief so you can make up some circumstance where rolling a high number on a die releases endorphins for you. Oh no, does 5e do endorphins right?

Disclaimer: simulationism is not badwrongfun and there is fun of its own in tweaking tiny things in a ruleset until it runs like a pocket watch.

[Unoriginal]

5e humans are not real life humans, true, but your conclusion that they have weird biological capacities like regenerating wounds fast does no follow.

5e humans are characters in a game system. The game system is an abstraction, not a physics simulator.

That is to say, it does not simulate real life, nor does it simulate a world where humans have super-healing. It is a specific medium with specific quirks, and one of those quirks is the healing abstraction.

A 5e Commoner statblock does not simulate an average human being. The statblock *represents* the average human being through medium of the game.

To out it in other words: saying that a 5e human has super-healing is like saying that an anime human should have owl-like vision because of how big their eyes are.

[JackPhoenix]

Finally, this last bit should make it clear 5e Humans aren’t meant to be RL humans: “A lot of humans have a dash of nonhuman blood, revealing hints of elf, orc, or other lineages.” Obviously, no comparison for RL humans.

You sure about that? About 2% of non-african humans has some traces of neanderthal DNA.

[RSP]

Don't forget movement speed. 5E humans are ridiculously slow even while sprinting.

Yeah, I could add that. Though, the long distance stuff seems to add up: Google results seem to agree RL people walk about 26-30 miles in 8 hours, 3-4 miles an hour, which is about what 5e Humans do. But yeah, 60’ in 6 seconds for 5e Humans vs most RL humans being able to run 120’ (40 yard dash) in less than 6 seconds.

Perhaps 5e Humans’ slower sprint speed is somehow related to how much more they can carry without impairment while walking? I’m actually still kind of baffled at the idea of a Con 6, Str 10, PC carrying 150 lbs for 8 hours and 30 miles.

[MaxWilson]

That is to say, it does not simulate real life, nor does it simulate a world where humans have super-healing. It is a specific medium with specific quirks, and one of those quirks is the healing abstraction.


Clearly it does adequately simulate such a world, even better than it simulates real life.

[LudicSavant]

5e people live in a world where action hero physics are real and the square cube law doesn't apply at full strength.

This can be seen reflected in the Improvising Damage section of the DMG.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/841980415115919381/864911774855331860/unknown.png

Now obviously, being hit by a crashing flying fortress conveys vastly more than 18x the force of being hit by a falling bookcase. And yet this isn't an anomaly, it's just how the system in general works. For example, the kinetic forces involved in a Giant throwing a rock are staggering and would basically obliterate anything near the point of impact. And yet it's just four dice.

This is just how it works in many action fantasy movies or the like. A character getting hit by a giant boulder doesn't take 10,000x the damage of someone being stabbed with a dagger.

[RSP]

5e humans are not real life humans, true, but your conclusion that they have weird biological capacities like regenerating wounds fast does no follow.

RAW agrees with me: a 12 HP max PC at 6 HPs shows “cuts and bruises”. An hour rest (using a HD) results in gaining HPs and them now showing “no signs of injury.” So in that hour the cuts and bruises healed.

Likewise, being brought to 0, with “a bleeding injury or other trauma” can be healed the same way and have a similar result of showing “no signs of injury”.

That is much faster healing than RL humans can do.

[MaxWilson]

You sure about that? About 2% of non-african humans has some traces of neanderthal DNA.

Where's your 2% figure from? Based on what I know of how genetic introgression works, it should be closer to 100%. How'd you get only 2%?

[RSP]

5e people live in a world where action hero physics are real and the square cube law doesn't apply at full strength.

This can be seen reflected in the Improvising Damage section of the DMG.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/841980415115919381/864911774855331860/unknown.png

Now obviously, being hit by a crashing flying fortress conveys vastly more than 18x the force of being hit by a falling bookcase. And yet this isn't an anomaly, it's just how the system in general works. For example, the kinetic forces involved in a Giant throwing a rock are staggering and would basically obliterate anything near the point of impact. And yet it's just four dice.

This is just how it works in many action fantasy movies or the like. A character getting hit by a giant boulder doesn't take 10,000x the damage of someone being stabbed with a dagger.

I do appreciate that a 10th level Fighter can generally survive being compacted, or wading through lava.

[MaxWilson]

I do appreciate that a 10th level Fighter can generally survive being compacted, or wading through lava.

Even better, a 7th level Con 12 Fighter (average 53 HP) can generally survive being submerged in lava (18d10=99 damage on average) if somebody can stabilize him afterwards.

[LudicSavant]

I do appreciate that a 10th level Fighter can generally survive being compacted, or wading through lava.

*Nod*

Forces basically have a sort-of-logarithmic progression in Action Hero Land. Something that might make something hit 1000x as hard in the real world might make it only hit a few times as hard in D&D-land.

This is also why all of those people trying to argue that dropping heavy things on people will do a bajillion damage are wrong. You don't do 18x the damage if you drop an 18x heavier object in Epic Fantasy Land. It's the sort of suspension of disbelief thing that falls into a similar category to "dragons don't break all the bones in their legs when they walk."

[MaxWilson]

*Nod*

Forces basically have a sort-of-logarithmic progression in Action Hero Land. Something that might make something hit 1000x as hard in the real world might make it only hit a few times as hard in D&D-land.

This is also why all of those people trying to argue that dropping heavy things on people will do a bajillion damage are wrong. You don't do 18x the damage if you drop an 18x heavier object in Epic Fantasy Land. It's the sort of suspension of disbelief thing that falls into a similar category to "dragons don't break all the bones in their legs when they walk."

Clearly HP damage is not linear in kinetic energy.

[LudicSavant]

Clearly HP damage is not linear in kinetic energy.

Yes, exactly.

[Anymage]

RAW agrees with me: a 12 HP max PC at 6 HPs shows “cuts and bruises”. An hour rest (using a HD) results in gaining HPs and them now showing “no signs of injury.” So in that hour the cuts and bruises healed.

Likewise, being brought to 0, with “a bleeding injury or other trauma” can be healed the same way and have a similar result of showing “no signs of injury”.

That is much faster healing than RL humans can do.

I'm going to repeat my point. Action hero PC is functionally equivalent to an uninjured character after having some time to take a breather, but has some bandages and some smudges as a nod towards "realism". Comic book healing factor PC is completely recovered after an hour's rest. Neither risks reduced effectiveness from pain, blood loss, or broken limbs at any point in the day unless an explicit effect of an attack says otherwise. The rules are silent as to which variety of hero the PCs are.

D&D humans are not real life humans in large part because the underlying way the world works is different. LudicSavant covered that quite well. Exactly what flavor of heroic physics people aim for is a matter of taste, description, and maybe a little tweaking to home in more exactly.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I fully support this. And would go a step further. Not only are 5e humans not (biologically, etc) the same as real life humans, the basics of physics and biology are fundamentally different. The only similarity is in the surface phenomena--the fantastical laws of <setting> are tuned so that they produce results an early-medieval learned person would be familiar with. Anything beyond that is not guaranteed.

No atoms, no molecules, no cells. At least not necessarily. Different conservation laws. Matter literally made up of the classical elements. Square-Cube law? What's that.

Every person in the fantastical world has "background magic" inside of them, and they use it without thinking--it's as central to them as oxygen is to us. This does not mean they cast spells. Spells are only one (relatively minor) way to manipulate this "background magic". When a Fighter uses his Action Surge, he's literally drawing on this background magic to move faster/do more things than most people can in that same time span. When a Rogue uses Evasion and dodges a fireball at point-blank range with no cover, he's drawing on this background magic to shield himself/shunt the force elsewhere. When a barbarian Rages, he's drawing on the background magic to literally hulk out (a small amount), becoming denser/harder to hurt and hit harder. When a monk does ki things, they're drawing on the background magic (which they call ki) to do what is impossible for most. Druids literally shunt their regular body away, replacing it with a shape drawn from their connection to the souls of beasts.

People with more HP and more HD are literally harder to kill. They can absorb more damage and heal faster, because they have stronger souls. Damage that would kill a commoner (because they can't heal fast enough) doesn't faze a legendary warrior, because the latter has tons of ready reserve to heal from. Warrior-types have bigger HD than mage-types because mage types split their focus, using up some of the "soul space" that others use for healing capability to cast spells. Higher power creatures can be transformed into bigger/nastier things because their souls are big enough to accommodate the change.

[JackPhoenix]

RAW agrees with me: a 12 HP max PC at 6 HPs shows “cuts and bruises”. An hour rest (using a HD) results in gaining HPs and them now showing “no signs of injury.” So in that hour the cuts and bruises healed.

Likewise, being brought to 0, with “a bleeding injury or other trauma” can be healed the same way and have a similar result of showing “no signs of injury”.

That is much faster healing than RL humans can do.

"Typically shows no signs of injury". Restoring your HP through rest after being injured is not typical situation, and it doesn't mean the injuries just disappear. They just don't impede the character that much.


Where's your 2% figure from? Based on what I know of how genetic introgression works, it should be closer to 100%. How'd you get only 2%?

My vague memory of an article I'v read years ago. Apparently, it's 2% of overall genome, not 2% of population, according to the previw of wikipedia article on a quick google search.

[RSP]

"Typically shows no signs of injury". Restoring your HP through rest after being injured is not typical situation, and it doesn't mean the injuries just disappear. They just don't impede the character that much.


In 5e, restoring your HPs through rest is very much a typical situation. I’m not sure I’ve every played a game where rest to regain HPs didn’t come into play.

[Alcore]

5e is not a simulation... 3.5e is better. Much better once you add most of the crap from unearth arcana.

[MaxWilson]

My vague memory of an article I'v read years ago. Apparently, it's 2% of overall genome, not 2% of population, according to the previw of wikipedia article on a quick google search.

Nitpick: 2% of the total genome sounds way too high (that's twice as much as the share of DNA which differentiates us from chimps) but I could believe 2% of the part of the genome that is unique to human beings, i.e. 1% * 2% = 0.02% of the total genome. Thanks for clarifying, and I want to reiterate that the implication is that approximately 100% of modern humans have some Neanderthal DNA. Specifically, the alleles that turned out to be the most helpful to homo sapiens for survival--stuff like better resistance to certain diseases or more ability to metabolize certain foods, etc. The other Neanderthal alleles that weren't helpful would never have reached fixation (i.e. 100% prevalence) in the homo sapiens gene pool.

[JackPhoenix]

In 5e, restoring your HPs through rest is very much a typical situation. I’m not sure I’ve every played a game where rest to regain HPs didn’t come into play.

Typical situation is not being injured in the first place, and thus not needing to restore any HP. It may not be typical for PCs, who are stupid enough to get into situations where they get stabbed, smacked and burned repeatedly, but it is typical for pretty much everyone else.


Snip

"Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is found in all non-African populations and was initially reported to comprise 1 to 4 percent of the genome. This fraction was refined to 1.5 to 2.1 percent. Approximately 20 percent of Neanderthal DNA survives in modern humans."

Now, it's wikipedia, so the actual situation is certainly more complex than that snippet. I haven't done any deep search, just looked to confirm my old memory

[RSP]

Typical situation is not being injured in the first place, and thus not needing to restore any HP. It may not be typical for PCs, who are stupid enough to get into situations where they get stabbed, smacked and burned repeatedly, but it is typical for pretty much everyone else.


Except the quote is from the Describing the Effects of Damage section of the rules. Context matters, and in this case the context is PCs taking HP damage on a regular basis (that is, the characters playing in the campaign and regularly fighting monsters). The quote isn’t saying “NPCs who aren’t damaged typically show no signs of injury”, it’s saying “PCs who regularly engage in battle with creatures trying to kill them, typically show no signs of injury unless, or until, they get to below 50% HPs.”

[JackPhoenix]

Except the quote is from the Describing the Effects of Damage section of the rules. Context matters, and in this case the context is PCs taking HP damage on a regular basis (that is, the characters playing in the campaign and regularly fighting monsters). The quote isn’t saying “NPCs who aren’t damaged typically show no signs of injury”, it’s saying “PCs who regularly engage in battle with creatures trying to kill them, typically show no signs of injury unless, or until, they get to below 50% HPs.”

No, the quote doesn't say that. "When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

It means there are situations where you may have more than the half your hit point maximum, and still show signs of injury. It also doesn't say the cuts and bruises just disappear the moment your HP increase to over half your maximum. In fact, it doesn't say they disappear at all... clearly, that means that once you drop below half your hit point maximum, you'll be showing the signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises, forever.

[RSP]

No, the quote doesn't say that. "When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

It means there are situations where you may have more than the half your hit point maximum, and still show signs of injury. It also doesn't say the cuts and bruises just disappear the moment your HP increase to over half your maximum. In fact, it doesn't say they disappear at all... clearly, that means that once you drop below half your hit point maximum, you'll be showing the signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises, forever.

I’m not sure why you think it’s a quote referring to NPC commoners that aren’t going to be involved in combat. I’ve explained my reasoning, if still feel that’s the case though, I can’t help you.

The RAW is clear:

100-50%=“you typically show no signs of injury”
49-1%=“you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises”
0=“a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious”

Being at 49% and healing up to 50%+ is not an atypical situation for PCs, which is who these rules were written for (not commoner NPCs as you suggest), in the Players Handbook. The rules are in the section on describing damage, in the combat section: it’s context is fully within PCs taking damage and being healed.

If you go from 49% to 50%+, you do in fact go to “typically show no signs of injury” RAW.

[JackPhoenix]

I’m not sure why you think it’s a quote referring to NPC commoners that aren’t going to be involved in combat.

Good thing I don't think that, and never said as such, isn't it?


If you go from 49% to 50%+, you do in fact go to “typically show no signs of injury” RAW.

Well, if it's RAW, you can surely quote a sentence saying so, can't you?

[RSP]

Good thing I don't think that, and never said as such, isn't it?

Yeah, good thing you didn’t say this…


Typical situation is not being injured in the first place, and thus not needing to restore any HP. It may not be typical for PCs, who are stupid enough to get into situations where they get stabbed, smacked and burned repeatedly, but it is typical for pretty much everyone else.

…stating that “typical” in the quote we’re discussing refers to non-PCs. I mean you literally stared “it is typical for pretty much everyone else.” But, yeah, you probably didn’t say that.

Oh, and then when I countered that post stating it’s referring to PCs, in the rules in the Player Handbook, in the Combat section, describing damage, you stated I was wrong, but yeah, backtracking is fun.




Well, if it's RAW, you can surely quote a sentence saying so, can't you?

Sure, I’ve quoted it quite a bit, including in my last post, but if you need to see it:

“When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises.”

So if you’re below 50%, you have “cuts and bruises”, and if you are 50%+, you typically don’t. So if you increase HPs (like when using HD during a SR), you can go from having cuts and bruises, to not having them.

Right there in the RAW.

[greenstone]

There's also the "Renaissance Man" aspect. A D&D PC can become a master smith and a master herbalist and a master orator and a master locksmith, all at the same time as they are a master warrior or master mage.

In the real world, humans have to pick one. Becoming a master smith requires dedicating your life to that one craft.

D&D characters are protagonists in an action movie. Real-life rules don't apply.

[Cheesegear]

Commoners have all 10s. Humans can arguably have all 11s. But ignore that.

This allows a commoner to carry 150 lb. (~70 kgs).
This allows a commoner to deadlift 300 lb. (~135 kgs)

This allows a commoner to Long Jump 10ft.

Commoners are hardcore.
...Or STR doesn't make sense.

[EggKookoo]

To out it in other words: saying that a 5e human has super-healing is like saying that an anime human should have owl-like vision because of how big their eyes are.

Or that humans in action movies aren't real humans. Action movie heroes -- and I'm not talking about literal superheroes but just the regular-but-tough dudes like we saw in a lot of 80s action movies -- experience things that would put real people into traction pretty quickly. When these guys get into fistfights and take multiple blows to the head -- sometimes delivered with metal pipes and such -- and just kind of grimace and keep fighting, well, that's pretty "magical." No one's face ever gets swollen, no one gets a detached retina, no one snaps any connective tissue. It's all just hit point loss and regeneration.

I remember as a kid seeing the movie Thunderbolt & Lightfoot. A character in that takes a blow to the head, just above the neck. Later we learn it caused a blood clot that partially paralyzed him and eventually led to his death. I was thoroughly confused how that could possibly happen. Action movies so rarely treat people like they really function.

I find it much easier to say we don't have perfect visibility into the fiction. Characters take damage, lose HP, and recover HP. That's all rules for us. Those rules don't literally cover what's actually happening to them.

[Valmark]

Add that they can run in the snow naked for hours without even a sneeze and that they can survive falling off a 200 feet tall cliff with not even a creaking bone afterwards and yeah, definitely 5e humans aren't real life ones.

[KorvinStarmast]

Commoners have all 10s. Humans can arguably have all 11s. {snip}
This allows a commoner to carry 150 lb. (~70 kgs).
This allows a commoner to deadlift 300 lb. (~135 kgs)
This allows a commoner to Long Jump 10ft.

Commoners are hardcore.
...Or STR doesn't make sense. Commoners are hard working and are fit.
When I was 20, I was almost 163 pounds. I got a dead lift of 365 up. I worked on a moving crew and carrying 150 pounds of dead weight was doable, though doing a fireman's carry on a 180 pound human was actually easier than moving furniture. I think my best long jump was between 9 and 10 feet.

When I was younger I used to see men shorter than me, using a "one pole across the shoulders" rig, pick up and carry two loads of bricks (we lived in Taiwan at the time) from one part of the work site to another as a house was being built across the street from where we lived. I am guessing that those loads were well over 150 pounds, but I wasn't clever enough to go and weigh them at the time (nor did I need to).

Commoners are (in the main) physically active (particularly those in the agrarian zones).
Those numbers are close enough to reality.

[Willie the Duck]

Commoners are hardcore.
...Or STR doesn't make sense.


Commoners are (in the main) physically active (particularly those in the agrarian zones).
Those numbers are close enough to reality.

I'm also going to say I don't think the game puts all that much thought into what the attribute scores imply about commoners. It's a fairly PC-centric ruleset. Maybe that doesn't dispute the thread premise, of course.

[Unoriginal]

Or that humans in action movies aren't real humans. Action movie heroes -- and I'm not talking about literal superheroes but just the regular-but-tough dudes like we saw in a lot of 80s action movies -- experience things that would put real people into traction pretty quickly. When these guys get into fistfights and take multiple blows to the head -- sometimes delivered with metal pipes and such -- and just kind of grimace and keep fighting, well, that's pretty "magical." No one's face ever gets swollen, no one gets a detached retina, no one snaps any connective tissue. It's all just hit point loss and regeneration.

I remember as a kid seeing the movie Thunderbolt & Lightfoot. A character in that takes a blow to the head, just above the neck. Later we learn it caused a blood clot that partially paralyzed him and eventually led to his death. I was thoroughly confused how that could possibly happen. Action movies so rarely treat people like they really function.

I find it much easier to say we don't have perfect visibility into the fiction. Characters take damage, lose HP, and recover HP. That's all rules for us. Those rules don't literally cover what's actually happening to them.

Indeed.

5e humans are a mix of pulp stories humans, action movies humans, epic poetry humans, and the like.



Commoners are (in the main) physically active (particularly those in the agrarian zones).
Those numbers are close enough to reality.

Commoners are basically all the extras, not just mainly agrarian workers.

The numbers aren't to simulate reality, they're just to represent that kind of fictional characters.

[Tanarii]

A 20 Str character can carry 300 lbs all day long at full speed and fight effectively. They can move 5ft per 6 seconds with 600 lbs, and still fight effectively if they had their hands free. If they want to exceed that, move a bit faster or lift a lot more without moving at all, sounds like a Str check to me.

As far as I'm concerned those Strong Man contests are basically very high DC Str check contests. Although obviously the range and randomness of a d20+Str doesn't really handle the fine differences (or reliability) that occur in them.

[EggKookoo]

D&D characters are like quantum particles. They only have definite properties when they're being observed by players.

[DwarfFighter]

Wait, if Humans aren't real, what does that tell us about the Elves and the Dwarfs?!

[Theodoxus]

Wait, if Humans aren't real, what does that tell us about the Elves and the Dwarfs?!
You my friend, do not exist. :smalleek:

So this thread spun off one of the "what are HP" threads, and now it's come full circle. I'm not sure why there's this strange inability to grok that it's a game. It'd be like posting a thread on the Parker Brothers forum that "Monopoly's Thimble and Car are not real life humans." or even taking said Monopoly money and trying to deposit it in your bank account. It's a game. It's not even a particularly good simulationist game. I'm... just gonna sit over in the corner for a bit.

[EggKookoo]

So this thread spun off one of the "what are HP" threads, and now it's come full circle. I'm not sure why there's this strange inability to grok that it's a game. It'd be like posting a thread on the Parker Brothers forum that "Monopoly's Thimble and Car are not real life humans." or even taking said Monopoly money and trying to deposit it in your bank account. It's a game. It's not even a particularly good simulationist game. I'm... just gonna sit over in the corner for a bit.

It stems from a desire to frame game rules as a physics engine, instead of a UI.

[Unoriginal]

You my friend, do not exist. :smalleek:

So this thread spun off one of the "what are HP" threads, and now it's come full circle. I'm not sure why there's this strange inability to grok that it's a game. It'd be like posting a thread on the Parker Brothers forum that "Monopoly's Thimble and Car are not real life humans." or even taking said Monopoly money and trying to deposit it in your bank account. It's a game. It's not even a particularly good simulationist game. I'm... just gonna sit over in the corner for a bit.


It stems from a desire to frame game rules as a physics engine, instead of a UI.

Yeah. 5e isn't a simulationist game at all, and it never tried to be.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah. 5e isn't a simulationist game at all, and it never tried to be.

If that were entirely true, the answer to questions (https://www.sageadvice.eu/undead-short-rest/) like "Hey @mikemearls, does a Ranger's companion heal on short and long rests, like a character, pls?" would be something like "the rules in the PHB are only for players. Monsters heal when the DM thinks they should" instead of "@Brail4 @monstermanual @mikemearls @zudensachen By default, any creature, including an undead minion, can use its HD during a short rest."

Furthermore, 5E was designed to appeal to old school gamers, and those who rejected 4E for its flaws including lack of verisimilitude and using different rules for PCs vs. Monsters.

Therefore, like many other iterations of D&D, 5E tries to be simulationist in some places (using the GDS definition of "simulationism," which is that the play agenda is not driven by metagame factors but only by a desire to find out "what would actually happen") but not in all places. E.g. 5E says you can build NPCs using PHB rules just like PCs; but it also says the DM can just fiat NPC stat blocks into place e.g. via MM-style stat block.

Since the beginning, TSR-era D&D has always had simulationism and gamism mixed together in it, and 5E holds moderately true to that. One can argue about stuff like whether the overly-linear carrying capacity rules are poorly written rules with a basically simulationist intent, or a rejection of simulationism in the name of gamism (tied to what game element though? there doesn't appear to be any), but there are certainly places where 5E gives results that are hard to visualize as actually happening.

BTW I can never understand what people mean when they compare 5E to a "UI layer" because UIs don't (or at least shouldn't) have complex conditional logic embedded in them. If you're one of those people who think "5E is a UI, not a physics engine" is a clever and insightful thing to say, FYI it's Greek to me: carries no information content.

[Joe the Rat]

Hit points aren't the issue. Hit Dice are the issue.
Those cuts and bruises and bound burns and whatever it is you are doing in short and long rests (barring using magic or crazy glue) do not disappear, they just no longer weigh on your ability to stay in the fight. It just gets weird because we narratively decide when the knockabout damage (hp) gets turned into deeper reserve-tapping injuries (HD).

The fact that you can go from 'on your last legs' to 'fully fit and trim' with two days rest does seem ridiculous. Which is where gritty realism and lingering injury rules come into play.

[Demonslayer666]

But we have to use real life human experience to run/play the game. Or the rules would be immense.

Player: "Can I run really fast over the lily pads to cross the pond?"

DM, after drawing on his real world knowledge: "No."

[EggKookoo]

If that were entirely true, the answer to questions (https://www.sageadvice.eu/undead-short-rest/) like "Hey @mikemearls, does a Ranger's companion heal on short and long rests, like a character, pls?" would be something like "the rules in the PHB are only for players. Monsters heal when the DM thinks they should" instead of "@Brail4 @monstermanual @mikemearls @zudensachen By default, any creature, including an undead minion, can use its HD during a short rest."

Weirdly, as I understand what we're talking about (a dubious proposition for sure), the official answer reinforces the non-sim nature of the rules for me. Monsters become pseudo-PCs when used as pets/companions not because it makes some kind of in-fiction sense but pretty much to make it simpler for the players at the table.

What am I missing? I know there's something...


BTW I can never understand what people mean when they compare 5E to a "UI layer" because UIs don't (or at least shouldn't) have complex conditional logic embedded in them. If you're one of those people who think "5E is a UI, not a physics engine" is a clever and insightful thing to say, FYI it's Greek to me: carries no information content.

I don't know about the complexity we're talking about, but many UIs certainly have contextual logic built into them. Take a conventional GUI. Dragging a thing on top of another thing can result in different outcomes based on what those things are. And those outcomes, while ideally consistent and predictable, are designed into the UI mainly around what makes sense for the idioms and conventions of the UI (IOW what the developer thinks the end user is going to expect), not based on some kind of internal logic. Code logic is applied, but only in service of that higher level outcome.

When I say 5e's rules are a UI, I mean the same way that in a GUI, you drag a file onto a folder and "move" the file, but in the code, nothing has actually moved. What mainly happens is some pointer references are updated, but the data for the file isn't touched. As the user, you don't have visibility into what the code just did. All you see is what the UI needs to show you to confirm that the metaphorical change happened -- the file is now "in a different location" even though it hasn't traveled anywhere. And then in another context, dragging an element onto another might do something else entirely, based on what the UI is designed to do for you.

I see 5e like that. I click "make an attack and compare to the target's AC." The "code" -- the fiction -- processes that in a way that makes internal sense. No creature is rolling dice or even working with simple probability like that. (Fictional) muscles are engaged, attention is focused, physics happens, and a whole bunch of other stuff hidden from the players. Then a result emerges, which the UI packages up as "hit" or "miss" (or "critical hit") and sends back up to the players. Nothing actually got hit. No one got hurt. No actual swords were involved. But the context of the UI command has an effect on how it's processed. That's why a creature immune to bludgeoning damage still gets hurt when it falls (https://www.sageadvice.eu/immunity-to-bludgeoning-does-take-damage-from-falling/) -- the context is different.

[MaxWilson]

I see 5e like that. I click "make an attack and compare to the target's AC." The "code" -- the fiction -- processes that in a way that makes internal sense. No creature is rolling dice or even working with simple probability like that. (Fictional) muscles are engaged, attention is focused, physics happens, and a whole bunch of other stuff hidden from the players.

What you're describing here is precisely the thing (some) people like to say 5E isn't: a physics engine.

You give a physics engine a command like "roll this ball down a slope" and then it does the work to figure out the details, where it rolls and how fast.

A UI without a physics engine attached will just sit there and do nothing after you input your desire. You need the engine to make it do any actual resolution.

Ditto with 5E. You say "I kill the orc" or "I sneak into the Sultan's palace" but the rules plus the DM's judgment are what execute that command and tell you if you really do kill the orc or sneak into the palace, and whether you have to roll any dice or make additional decisions along the way.

So, either the "5E is a UI not a physics engine" analogy really doesn't make any sense, after all, or else I am (still) misunderstanding your point.


Weirdly, as I understand what we're talking about (a dubious proposition for sure), the official answer reinforces the non-sim nature of the rules for me. Monsters become pseudo-PCs when used as pets/companions not because it makes some kind of in-fiction sense but pretty much to make it simpler for the players at the table.

What am I missing? I know there's something...

Clearly I'm missing something too because I don't understand "monsters become pseudo-PCs" as a proof of non-simulationism here.

Maybe part of the problem is that "simulationism" acquired a second meaning from GNS theory which is different from its original GDS meaning. (And the GNS meaning is gobbledygook.)

In its original meaning as formulated ca 1999 on Usenet in the so-called Threefold Model (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_Model), simulationist game elements are those formulated without a metagame agenda, e.g. in order to make the game feel more cohesive. If orcs have marriages because it makes SENSE for them to have marriages, and not so one of the PCs can be roped in as an in-law, that's a simulationist agenda driving those orc marriages. From Wikipedia,


"Simulation is concerned with the internal consistency of events that unfold in the gameworld, and ensuring that they are only caused by in-game factors - that is, eliminating metagame concerns (such as drama and game). Simulation isn't necessarily concerned with simulating reality; it could be a simulation of any fictional world, cosmology or scenario, according to its own rules."

So to me, saying that all monsters obey the same rules looks simulationist: it's not just PC minions but ALL monsters which heal on a short rest, including adversaries. That's precisely a simulation of a world where everything heals really fast, "according to its own rules."

[EggKookoo]

So, either the "5E is a UI not a physics engine" analogy really doesn't make any sense, or else I am misunderstanding your point.

I mean the mechanics themselves are not a physics engine. The physics exist at the narrative/fiction level, not the rules level. As opposed to the idea that physics in the fiction are determined by the actual mechanics themselves. Meaning creatures in the fiction literally have hit points, among other things. I realize no game system does that 100%, but there is a spectrum, and there's also a spectrum of player interpretation. Some players say D&D PCs have actual classes within the fiction. Others don't. Most players don't say creatures have hit points (I think?). I'm not sure what the majority opinion is on PCs having levels within the fiction.

I find 5e works best -- is the least inconsistent -- when I set my expectations way over on that "UI" side. No hit points, no levels, etc. If it's at all possible to pull a game rule, term, or mechanic out of the fiction, I do. I believe that if you go the other way -- if you try to represent a game rule as something physical within the fiction -- you get an incoherent fiction.

Of course some of this is "no duh" stuff. I get that. But at the same time, people ask about lycanthropes and wooden stakes, and the answer is still the same. The UI says the lycanthrope takes damage from mundane wood when used as a trap and it must make a save, but will not take damage when that same wood is used as an attack. Why? There's no rule-based answer to that. They're just different, the same way PCs have class levels but most NPCs don't. The exact way they're different only exists at the fiction level, which the rules by definition don't cover. It's entirely self-consistent within that fiction, of course, but it's also up to each of us to work out what that consistency is.


So to me, saying that all monsters obey the same rules looks simulationist: it's not just PC minions but ALL monsters which heal on a short rest, including adversaries. That's precisely a simulation of a world where everything heals really fast, "according to its own rules."

Compared to a monster that is not a PC companion/pet, which does not necessarily heal on a rest schedule but whenever the DM says so. The change in the creature's rest pattern happens not because of some underlying physical change in its makeup at the fiction level, but because its status has changed at the player/table level.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What you're describing here is precisely the thing (some) people like to say 5E isn't: a physics engine.

You give a physics engine a command like "roll this ball down a slope" and then it does the work to figure out the details, where it rolls and how fast.

A UI without a physics engine attached will just sit there and do nothing after you input your desire. You need the engine to make it do any actual resolution.

Ditto with 5E. You say "I kill the orc" or "I sneak into the Sultan's palace" but the rules plus the DM's judgment are what execute that command and tell you if you really do kill the orc or sneak into the palace, and whether you have to roll any dice or make additional decisions along the way.

So, either the "5E is a UI not a physics engine" analogy really doesn't make any sense, after all, or else I am (still) misunderstanding your point.

I think I'm the one who originated (on this forum) the "UI" term, but I wasn't referring to the edition at all. Merely that the mechanics exist to help provide a view into the fictional world (which operates by its own terms, with its own "physics") and a handle for the players to manipulate that state via the game engine. It's not the game engine at all--that's the DM. The UI provides inputs to the DM and filters the fictional world's output through a common language/set of conventions.

What the game rules are not is an attempt to actually do the "calculations" involved in directly updating the state. When you say "I throw this knife", the rules are not simulating anything about the knife at the fictional level. The DM invokes rules (at his discretion) to quickly take parameters (target AC, attack modifiers, ranges, etc, none of which are truly physical parameters) and turn them into a result. Or just says "it misses/hits"--the rules are only invoked if the DM decides to.

And the mechanical calculations are done entirely for game purposes, not physics purposes. There is overlap, because one of the purposes of the game is to preserve verisimilitude, which is influenced by (but not controlled by) a sense of physical coherence (as in 'it makes sense to the players, based on their physical intuitions and knowledge about the world'). They didn't say "well, the chances of hitting with a thrown knife depend on X, Y, and Z, using a formula of damage done = f(X,Y,Z, $world_state), but that's complicated so we'll simplify here and there". No, they said "we want something simple, and 1d20 + mods vs fixed ac, with 1d4 + mod damage done is traditional." All of the complicated stuff is represented (at best) by that 1d20.

Just like in an RTS, things like scale (is a StarCraft Battlecruiser really that close in size to an MCU?), distance, control interface, HP, mana, etc, are completely game-level abstractions that have no real reflection in the fictional world that it theoretically represents, things like HP, AC, attack bonuses, damage dice, etc. are game-level abstractions that serve to help play a game. If they happen to overlap with fiction-level stuff, great. If not, it doesn't matter--they were never intended to represent those things.

[MaxWilson]

I mean the mechanics themselves are not a physics engine. The physics exist at the narrative/fiction level, not the rules level. As opposed to the idea that physics in the fiction are determined by the actual mechanics themselves. Meaning creatures in the fiction literally have hit points, among other things. I realize no game system does that 100%, but there is a spectrum, and there's also a spectrum of player interpretation. Some players say D&D PCs have actual classes within the fiction. Others don't. Most players don't say creatures have hit points (I think?). I'm not sure what the majority opinion is on PCs having levels within the fiction... but it's also up to each of us to work out what that consistency is.

But surely you acknowledge that the rules are meant to constrain what happens in the fiction. (That is, they're meant to be a faithful simulation of something that actually happens in the game world.)

A player "casts Fireball", and then diegetic stuff happens (a universal AI recognizes key command phrases and channels hydrogen gas through wormholes to the point specified by the PC and then detonates the gas?), but if the end result of that diegesis translates back into game terms as something other than 8d6 fire damage to things in the AoE, the diegesis isn't conforming to 5E rules.

[EggKookoo]

But surely you acknowledge that the rules are meant to constrain what happens in the fiction. (That is, they're meant to be a faithful simulation of something that actually happens in the game world.)

A player "casts Fireball", and then diegetic stuff happens (a universal AI recognizes key command phrases and channels hydrogen gas through wormholes to the point specified by the PC and then detonates the gas?), but if the end result of that diegesis translates back into game terms as something other than 8d6 fire damage to things in the AoE, the diegesis isn't conforming to 5E rules.

More or less. My understanding (belief?) is that we can't know 100% what's happening in the fiction. We can't ever have 100% of the data, because the fiction exists separately-but-simultaneously in every player's head.

I think you can (conceptually) have two separate but identical mechanical effects that manifest differently in the fiction. Like, Spell A, range 60', targets within 20' must make DC 12 Con saves or take 3d8 force damage. Spell B, range 60', targets within 20' must make DC 12 Con saves or take 3d8 force damage. But Spell A creates an expanding sphere of force energy, while Spell B releases a cluster of smaller force bursts within the area of effect. I can see why the game tries to avoid that kind of thing -- it muddies the player experience by diluting the differences between spell choices. But it's not nonsensical.

Edit: By and large, yes, I think the UI should indicate some level of constraint on what's happening. I'm just saying those constraints are there for player understanding rather than as actual physical constraints at the fiction. And in the case of the lycanthrope and the wooden spike, there is a UI difference (attack roll vs. saving throw). The UI difference is an indication of a fiction difference, but it's not the difference.

Edit 2: PhoenixPhyre is clearly much better at explaining this position than I am.

[MaxWilson]

More or less. My understanding (belief?) is that we can't know 100% what's happening in the fiction. We can't ever have 100% of the data, because the fiction exists separately-but-simultaneously in every player's head.

I think you can (conceptually) have two separate but identical mechanical effects that manifest differently in the fiction. Like, Spell A, range 60', targets within 20' must make DC 12 Con saves or take 3d8 force damage. Spell B, range 60', targets within 20' must make DC 12 Con saves or take 3d8 force damage. But Spell A creates an expanding sphere of force energy, while Spell B releases a cluster of smaller force bursts within the area of effect. I can see why the game tries to avoid that kind of thing -- it muddies the player experience by diluting the differences between spell choices. But it's not nonsensical.

Edit: By and large, yes, I think the UI should indicate some level of constraint on what's happening. I'm just saying those constraints are there for player understanding rather than as actual physical constraints at the fiction. And in the case of the lycanthrope and the wooden spike, there is a UI difference (attack roll vs. saving throw). The UI difference is an indication of a fiction difference, but it's not the difference.

Edit 2: PhoenixPhyre is clearly much better at explaining this position than I am.

In that case my contention is that you are in fact describing a physics engine and not just a UI. (BTW physics engines can have flaws which make them fail to perfectly model the intended physics. It's inevitable really.)

It sounds like we basically agree on the relationship between 5E rules and gameworld (i.e. when a player says "I've only got 7 HP left, heal me!" what actually comes out of the character's mouth is probably slightly different, and probably not in English). But nothing I'm hearing makes "not a physics engine, just a UI" plausible to me unless I assume that it's being said by someone who doesn't really understand what physics engines are used for.

[fbelanger]

Note that elve and dwarves are not like real life ones too!

[PhantomSoul]

Note that elve and dwarves are not like real life ones too!

Pfft, citation needed!

[Anymage]

Would "abstraction layer" work better than "UI"?

You're right that D&D rules actually do something instead of just being what you press to engage something else. Oftentimes things that would be visible in universe. Whether the people inside the world see a bundle of dynamite dealing equal damage to someone at ground zero and someone 20' away, but zero damage to someone standing 25' away, or whether they see a falling off of power with distance that we as players handwave away in the name of simplicity is something I don't expect a definitive answer to any time soon.

(I prefer the abstraction layer position over the physics engine position, but mostly I just accept that trying to construct a logically consistent world has never been high on the list of D&D's priorities.)

[ZRN]

In that case my contention is that you are in fact describing a physics engine and not just a UI. (BTW physics engines can have flaws which make them fail to perfectly model the intended physics. It's inevitable really.)

It sounds like we basically agree on the relationship between 5E rules and gameworld (i.e. when a player says "I've only got 7 HP left, heal me!" what actually comes out of the character's mouth is probably slightly different, and probably not in English). But nothing I'm hearing makes "not a physics engine, just a UI" plausible to me unless I assume that it's being said by someone who doesn't really understand what physics engines are used for.

I think the distinction he's making is that the game world does indeed have its own (notional) "physics" engine: Toril or Exandria or whatever has in-fiction laws of gravity and so on. It also has a lot of other rules for "how stuff works," to make it a consistent world that operates in a way that makes sense to us; most of those rules are just assumed to be the same as in the Real World, with stuff like magic and gods and fantasy races tacked on. This "physics" engine just exists in the game setting and the DM's head: stuff like "Neverwinter has 20,000 citizens and they get their food from the farmlands to the south," and "this canal is too shallow for a galleon to pass through if it's fully loaded." Obviously nobody is actually crunching these numbers, but we act as if they are.

But none of the game rules in the PHB and DMG actually model those laws of physics (or biology or economics or whatever), even stuff like "fall damage" that sounds like it might have something to do with force and velocity and so on. The game rules exist only to determine what our characters can do and how effective they are at doing it, and they don't need to be much more granular than "the DM sets the guidelines and you roll some dice to keep it interesting."

[Unoriginal]

If that were entirely true, the answer to questions (https://www.sageadvice.eu/undead-short-rest/) like "Hey @mikemearls, does a Ranger's companion heal on short and long rests, like a character, pls?" would be something like "the rules in the PHB are only for players. Monsters heal when the DM thinks they should" instead of "@Brail4 @monstermanual @mikemearls @zudensachen By default, any creature, including an undead minion, can use its HD during a short rest."

Furthermore, 5E was designed to appeal to old school gamers, and those who rejected 4E for its flaws including lack of verisimilitude and using different rules for PCs vs. Monsters.

Therefore, like many other iterations of D&D, 5E tries to be simulationist in some places (using the GDS definition of "simulationism," which is that the play agenda is not driven by metagame factors but only by a desire to find out "what would actually happen") but not in all places. E.g. 5E says you can build NPCs using PHB rules just like PCs; but it also says the DM can just fiat NPC stat blocks into place e.g. via MM-style stat block.

I don't see what's the link between "5e isn't simulationist" and "monsters heal like the DM wants/ NPCs don't follow the

I meant "5e isn't simulationist" in the sense that it doesn't try to simulate a physical world and how the physics of said world affects its people. It represents a narrative and how the characters are affected by the events.

As an example: that longswords deals more damage than spears in 5e isn't an indicator of "5e people craft bad spears", but an indicator of "the chosen narrative style emphasizes swords rather than spears".

In fact, the fact that by the book unless it is speficied otherwise all NPCs heal the same as the PCs with a long or short rest, assuming they can take one, is a rather big demonstration that it is not a simulation of physics.

An Iron Golem heals the same as a Winter Wolf heals the same as a Skull Lord.

[MaxWilson]

I don't see what's the link between "5e isn't simulationist" and "monsters heal like the DM wants/ NPCs don't follow the

I meant "5e isn't simulationist" in the sense that it doesn't try to simulate a physical world and how the physics of said world affects its people. It represents a narrative and how the characters are affected by the events.

As an example: that longswords deals more damage than spears in 5e isn't an indicator of "5e people craft bad spears", but an indicator of "the chosen narrative style emphasizes swords rather than spears".

Well, that's one way to interpret the rules, but do you have any evidence that it's the only valid interpretation? How would you falsify the claim that "it doesn't try to simulate a physical world and how the physics of said world affects its people"? What would you expect to be different if it did try to simulate a fantasy world, in moderate detail?

If it weren't even trying I don't think it would have e.g. encumbrance rules, because those rules don't typically interact with a narrative. They're there purely due to simulationist concerns.

[Unoriginal]

But surely you acknowledge that the rules are meant to constrain what happens in the fiction. (That is, they're meant to be a faithful simulation of something that actually happens in the game world.)

A player "casts Fireball", and then diegetic stuff happens (a universal AI recognizes key command phrases and channels hydrogen gas through wormholes to the point specified by the PC and then detonates the gas?), but if the end result of that diegesis translates back into game terms as something other than 8d6 fire damage to things in the AoE, the diegesis isn't conforming to 5E rules.


Indeed, the rules constrain what happens in the fiction. Key word here is "fiction".

D&D 5e's rules are here to represent a certain kind of fiction. If you push a Commoner off a cliff, then push a lvl 1 Fighter off the same cliff, and they both take 6 points of damages, the fact that the Commoner dies and the Fighter doesn't isn't an sign that the Fighter biologically has spongy bones more able to absorb impacts, or that they an organ producing stem cells to heal in emergency, or that they have bladders all over their body they can fill with air in case of fall to cushion it.

It's just that the fiction of D&D is one of those fictions where being an action hero let you survive hazards that nameless extras can't.


Well, that's one way to interpret the rules, but do you have any evidence that it's the only valid interpretation? How would you falsify the claim that "it doesn't try to simulate a physical world and how the physics of said world affects its people"? What would you expect to be different if it did try to simulate a fantasy world, in moderate detail?

If it weren't even trying I don't think it would have e.g. encumbrance rules, because those rules don't typically interact with a narrative. They're there purely due to simulationist concerns.

Well, first, what I say above may explain my position better.

For the encumbrance rules: "we can/can't carry X" is a part of many narratives. It shows up in Lords of the Rings, it shows up in any story where someone has to carry someone else (usually while running from lethal circumstances), it shows up when there is a big treasure and the characters have to try and move it.


What would you expect to be different if it did try to simulate a fantasy world, in moderate detail?

I'd need to think about it for moderate details, but two things that comes to mind immediately would be 1) actual wound rules with where you're hit and how any hit with a weapon that's more than a scratch handicaps you in some way 2) rules for how being hit by a falling rock has a good chance of killing any character.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well, that's one way to interpret the rules, but do you have any evidence that it's the only valid interpretation? How would you falsify the claim that "it doesn't try to simulate a physical world and how the physics of said world affects its people"? What would you expect to be different if it did try to simulate a fantasy world, in moderate detail?

If it weren't even trying I don't think it would have e.g. encumbrance rules, because those rules don't typically interact with a narrative. They're there purely due to simulationist concerns.

Your narratives must be very different than mine.

Because "having to choose what you can carry" and "big guy carries/lifts/drags more stuff than little wimpy guy" are very narrative things. Having to have the Big Guy come lift/push the rock out of the way emphasizes them being the Big Guy.

If it was trying to simulate in any significant detail, I'd expect...simulation. Functions with non-abstract parameters. Way way way more detail about attacks and defenses. Way more detail about injuries (instead of optional ones that mainly emulate the fictional/genre expectations around people with those injuries). A much more fine-grained uncertainty resolution mechanic. Etc. To even start up the curve to any reasonable degree would mean first deciding what those physical laws are, which 5e leaves very loosey-goosey. Because I can guarantee you that Eberron's physical laws and those of the Forgotten Realms, let alone any other setting, are
a) not the same as each other
b) nothing like those of the real world[1]

[1] case in point--gunpowder. It doesn't work in the Forgotten Realms, by divine decree. Yet to do so, you have to radically alter facts about basic chemistry down to the level where life can't be the same as we know it.

[EggKookoo]

I think the distinction he's making is that the game world does indeed have its own (notional) "physics" engine: Toril or Exandria or whatever has in-fiction laws of gravity and so on. It also has a lot of other rules for "how stuff works," to make it a consistent world that operates in a way that makes sense to us; most of those rules are just assumed to be the same as in the Real World, with stuff like magic and gods and fantasy races tacked on. This "physics" engine just exists in the game setting and the DM's head: stuff like "Neverwinter has 20,000 citizens and they get their food from the farmlands to the south," and "this canal is too shallow for a galleon to pass through if it's fully loaded." Obviously nobody is actually crunching these numbers, but we act as if they are.

But none of the game rules in the PHB and DMG actually model those laws of physics (or biology or economics or whatever), even stuff like "fall damage" that sounds like it might have something to do with force and velocity and so on. The game rules exist only to determine what our characters can do and how effective they are at doing it, and they don't need to be much more granular than "the DM sets the guidelines and you roll some dice to keep it interesting."

Yes, thanks. I think I'm getting caught up too much in my metaphors.

I'm saying "1d20 + mod + prof vs. opponent AC" is not a law of physics in the fiction. That's not a controversial thing to say; I doubt many people think that. There's little confusion there. But, when someone asks why a wooden spike in a pit trap hurts a lycan but that same spike used as a weapon does not, it's possible that question has come up due to the same confusion that doesn't exist with the attack roll vs. AC equation.

If a creature is immune to a certain damage type, all it means -- the only thing it means mechanically -- is that damage type won't result in HP loss. It doesn't mean, for example, that someone stabbing a lycanthrope with a mundane wooden spear isn't seeing it pierce the flesh. It could well be, but doing so doesn't cause the lycan to lose any hit points. The lycanthrope is "damaged" in some narrative sense, but not in a way that impedes its ability to keep fighting, not even a little bit. Personally, I don't think of werewolves as being invulnerable a la Superman, but more that they heal so quickly that some forms of attacks or damage just can't keep up. You pierce the lycan's hide, and by the time you've withdrawn the spear, it's healed.

Sure, this brings up edge questions, such as what happens if you leave the spear in its flesh? But D&D combat isn't geared for that, and doing something off-script like that mechanically-speaking is best handled by a DM ruling (maybe it calls for handful of checks to work out?).

[MaxWilson]

I'd need to think about it for moderate details, but two things that comes to mind immediately would be 1) actual wound rules with where you're hit and how any hit with a weapon that's more than a scratch handicaps you in some way 2) rules for how being hit by a falling rock has a good chance of killing any character.

Those sound like rules for simulating real life. They're not necessarily needed for simulating a fantasy world--some fantasy worlds (e.g. Stormlight Archives) can have humans who genuinely can survive being hit by falling rocks, and who don't take permanent wounds.

5E is a good simulator for worlds whose physics match 5E's rules. It's clearly trying to be SOME degree of simulationist because it's trying to reflect Basic D&D; but it's lost a lot of fidelity and detail. (In some cases that's a good thing; do we really need a dozen different types of polearms? In other cases it's a serious omission because simulationism is the source of much of the fun in TTRPGs--it's what lets you go off rails and drill down on whatever crazy plan/aspect of the game world interests you the most, without regard to what the DM thought was "supposed" to happen, dramatically or mechanically.)


[1] case in point--gunpowder. It doesn't work in the Forgotten Realms, by divine decree. Yet to do so, you have to radically alter facts about basic chemistry down to the level where life can't be the same as we know it.

In a world where the elements are Aristotelian (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) insist of periodic and where matter is apparently infinitely divisible (see: Reduce spell) and where gravity is binary instead of proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the square of distance and where life energy is fungible and transferable between subjects, we already know that life can't be the same as we know it, which is why there's no obligation to simulate our style of life. D&D simulates a different kind of life which is superficially similar.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a simulation, just that you have to take it on its own terms.

[Unoriginal]

Your narratives must be very different than mine.

Because "having to choose what you can carry" and "big guy carries/lifts/drags more stuff than little wimpy guy" are very narrative things. Having to have the Big Guy come lift/push the rock out of the way emphasizes them being the Big Guy.

Indeed. It's often used as an establishing character moment or as foreshadowing for when that character is in a situation where being strong is important for the narrative.

Doesn't have to be a good thing for the character, either. In les Misérables, Javert realizes Jean Valjean's true identity when he saves people thanks to being so strong.


Those sound like rules for simulating real life. They're not necessarily needed for simulating a fantasy world--some fantasy worlds (e.g. Stormlight Archives) can have humans who genuinely can survive being hit by falling rocks, and who don't take permanent wounds.

Just to make sure we're on the same page: are you claiming that the lvl 1 human Fighter being able to survive damage a human Commoner wouldn't is due to biological differences between the two? Or due to magical differences?

[MaxWilson]

Indeed. It's often used as an establishing character moment or as foreshadowing for when that character is in a situation where being strong is important for the narrative.

Doesn't have to be a good thing for the character, either. In les Misérables, Javert realizes Jean Valjean's true identity when he saves people thanks to being so strong.

You realize that encumbrance rules aren't part of Jean Valjean's feat with the cart? In 5E that would just be a Str check.

There's no part of Les Miserables where Jean Valjean astounds everybody by carrying 300 lb. at a normal walking pace, whereas Javert or another normal person would only be able to manage 150 lb.


Just to make sure we're on the same page: are you claiming that the lvl 1 human Fighter being able to survive damage a human Commoner wouldn't is due to biological differences between the two? Or due to magical differences?

I'm saying that your claim that there is definitely no biological or other mystical or physical difference between them is controversial and in fact unsupportable. "What are HP?" is an age-old debate in D&D, and that debates lives on into 5E.

Different DMs have their own interpretations for their own worlds.

And when it comes to fantasy fiction that's sometimes true too, e.g. in the Stormlight Archives, Knights Radiant are actually, physically tougher than normal people while channelling stormlight. Surviving a fall from the top of a cliff is possible for them, not because of plot armor but because their bodies are physically stronger and heal injuries far faster than normal people.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Those sound like rules for simulating real life. They're not necessarily needed for simulating a fantasy world--some fantasy worlds (e.g. Stormlight Archives) can have humans who genuinely can survive being hit by falling rocks, and who don't take permanent wounds.

5E is a good simulator for worlds whose physics match 5E's rules. It's clearly trying to be SOME degree of simulationist because it's trying to reflect Basic D&D; but it's lost a lot of fidelity and detail. (In some cases that's a good thing; do we really need a dozen different types of polearms? In other cases it's a serious omission because simulationism is the source of much of the fun in TTRPGs--it's what lets you go off rails and drill down on whatever crazy plan/aspect of the game world interests you the most, without regard to what the DM thought was "supposed" to happen, dramatically or mechanically.)

In a world where the elements are Aristotelian (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) insist of periodic and where matter is apparently infinitely divisible (see: Reduce spell) and where gravity is binary instead of proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the square of distance and where life energy is fungible and transferable between subjects, we already know that life can't be the same as we know it, which is why there's no obligation to simulate our style of life. D&D simulates a different kind of life which is superficially similar.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a simulation, just that you have to take it on its own terms.

You can make a setting where the 5e rules are decent models of the in-world physics. But the causality only runs one way--you matched the setting to the rules. That doesn't mean that the rules were intended or designed to model the in-world physics. Because for many existing settings, they don't. And aren't (by Word of Devs) designed to.

You know those disclaimers in movies and books about "any resemblance of characters to people living or dead is accidental"? Same thing here. Any resemblance of the rules to the in-world physics is, if not accidental, certainly not intended and designed as such by default.

In general, the default for "physical laws" in D&D settings is everything is completely arbitrary. There are no constraints built into the system on the physical laws. Not even the planes are guaranteed--the system itself doesn't care (even if some of the content provided in the main books does assume such). That's why you can do conversions to things like FFXIV's setting, which has radically different physical laws and structure than the default content assumptions. The system itself doesn't care. Content may care, but content is always setting-dependent.

Edit: I'll note that my personal setting is one where I've tried to make (many) of the physical results of the setting match the outputs of the mechanics. That doesn't mean that the mechanics are part of the world, merely that I've decided to set the dials so that they're similar. The mechanics still don't model the setting--instead, the setting is designed to be consonant with the rules in those particular ways. And only partially so--even HP (which I've gone the furthest on) can't be numerically modeled in-universe the same way and isn't constant for all commoners. Same with spell effects--not all fiction!fireballs are exactly 20' in radius. And that's a critical difference IMO--it's only similar at a high level, if you squint hard enough. And only by setting design, not system design.

[KorvinStarmast]

Furthermore, 5E was designed to appeal to old school gamers, and those who rejected 4E for its flaws including lack of verisimilitude and using different rules for PCs vs. Monsters.

Therefore, like many other iterations of D&D, 5E tries to be simulationist in some places (using the GDS definition of "simulationism," which is that the play agenda is not driven by metagame factors but only by a desire to find out "what would actually happen") but not in all places.

Since the beginning, TSR-era D&D has always had simulationism and gamism mixed together in it The self appointed sages of RPGs at the Forge, for that reason among others, based on their own model (which has since shown signs of not aging well) classified D&D as incoherent since they seemed to want games to appeal to one of their self-created MetaSystems (D, G, or S).

Because I can guarantee you that Eberron's physical laws and those of the Forgotten Realms, let alone any other setting, are
a) not the same as each other
b) nothing like those of the real world[1]

[1] case in point--gunpowder. It doesn't work in the Forgotten Realms, by divine decree. Yet to do so, you have to radically alter facts about basic chemistry down to the level where life can't be the same as we know it. Anima fills in for chemistry, does it not? :smallwink:

Those sound like rules for simulating real life. They're not necessarily needed for simulating a fantasy world--
This conversation has gone on long enough that I need to invoke how to tell faerie stories. It's not either or. You have to find the right mix of Primary World and Secondary world elements and weave them together. High magic? More tablespoons of secondary world in the stew. Low magic? Fewer tablespoons of secondary world in the stew.
And so on.
(On that score, Tolkien got it right)
When I use that basis rate various swords and sorcery stories, and settings, time and again I discover where my preferences fall along that sliding scale: how many tablespoons of secondary world do I like mixed into my primary world?

If physics and chemistry are too out of whack with our primary world, there would be no beer, and my D&D pirates would all be moaning "Where's the rum gone?" :smalleek:
And we just can't have that!

In a world where the elements are Aristotelian (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) insist of periodic and where matter is apparently infinitely divisible (see: Reduce spell) and where gravity is binary instead of proportional to mass and inversely proportional to the square of distance and where life energy is fungible and transferable between subjects, we already know that life can't be the same as we know it, which is why there's no obligation to simulate our style of life. D&D simulates a different kind of life which is superficially similar. Primary and secondary world mixed.
How much of each informs the feel of the setting.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a simulation, just that you have to take it on its own terms. Which is why verisimilitude is probably a better aim than simulation.

[EggKookoo]

There's no part of Les Miserables where Jean Valjean astounds everybody by carrying 300 lb. at a normal walking pace, whereas Javert or another normal person would only be able to manage 150 lb.

I'm too lazy/tired to go hunt it down, but I remember reading something about the carrying capacity rules and why they picked Str x 15. It came down to no one wants to deal with encumbrance unless it gets extreme, so they set the formula to produce an extreme result. Purely for ease of gameplay, and explicitly not because they visualize the characters being that strong.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm too lazy/tired to go hunt it down, but I remember reading something about the carrying capacity rules and why they picked Str x 15. It came down to no one wants to deal with encumbrance unless it gets extreme, so they set the formula to produce an extreme result. Purely for ease of gameplay, and explicitly not because they visualize the characters being that strong.

Yeah. It was to hedge out the "I, the STR 8 character, lift the 10k-lb gold statue and carry it out" issue. Or even "I, the STR 20 character, lift the 10k-lb gold statue and carry it out" issue. Basically, encumbrance (by the default rules) should only come into play for cases where you're all going "Dude...does that make sense?"

The variant encumbrance is closer[1] to "simulation", but even then it's much more game than simulation--no accounting for size, bulkiness, weight distribution, footing, grip, or any other such thing.

[1] and is totally crappy at being good for the game IMO, but that's a separate and unrelated rant.

[Clistenes]

Yeah, I could add that. Though, the long distance stuff seems to add up: Google results seem to agree RL people walk about 26-30 miles in 8 hours, 3-4 miles an hour, which is about what 5e Humans do.

I am reminded of the Dungeon Meshi manga. I that setting, humans are not as strong as Dwarves, as fast as Elves or as nimble as Halflings, but much like real life humans, they have unmatched stamina: They are the only race able to use heavy armor (every other race would get tired too soon), they can fight for a longer time in heavy armor than Dwarves without armor, and thanks to their stamina, combined with their long legs, they are the greatest marchers; other races faint and puke while trying to follow a human walking at an easy march pace through rough terrain...

The funniest part is, humans are for the most part, unaware of that, and they complain about not being the strongest or fastest while their non-human companions are struggling to keep their pace...

[Akkristor]

I am reminded of the Dungeon Meshi manga. I that setting, humans are not as strong as Dwarves, as fast as Elves or as nimble as Halflings, but much like real life humans, they have unmatched stamina: They are the only race able to use heavy armor (every other race would get tired too soon), they can fight for a longer time in heavy armor than Dwarves without armor, and thanks to their stamina, combined with their long legs, they are the greatest marchers; other races faint and puke while trying to follow a human walking at an easy march pace through rough terrain...

The funniest part is, humans are for the most part, unaware of that, and they complain about not being the strongest or fastest while their non-human companions are struggling to keep their pace...


Persistence hunting.

We may not be the strongest. We may not be the fastest. But we will never ever stop following you. We will either find you as you sleep, or as you collapse from exhaustion.

[ff7hero]

Persistence hunting.

We may not be the strongest. We may not be the fastest. But we will never ever stop following you. We will either find you as you sleep, or as you collapse from exhaustion.

Humans, the OG slasher villains.

[KorvinStarmast]

The variant encumbrance is closer[1] to "simulation", but even then it's much more game than simulation--no accounting for size, bulkiness, weight distribution, footing, grip, or any other such thing.

[1] and is totally crappy at being good for the game IMO, but that's a separate and unrelated rant.
I have ruled (for my sense of verisimilitude and also to make it possible to carry one's starting equipment) that for martial classes only, the weight of their armor is halved for encumbrance purposes if they are wearing it and are proficient in it. I otherwise use the variant encumbrance rules.

In play, it's only now and again that I ask "OK, figure out your movement penalties with all of the stuff you are carrying" because the r20 sheet does a decent job of taking care of the addition and subtraction being done by the back end. For most of the time, it's not a significant matter.

[MaxWilson]

I have ruled (for my sense of verisimilitude and also to make it possible to carry one's starting equipment) that for martial classes only, the weight of their armor is halved for encumbrance purposes if they are wearing it and are proficient in it. I otherwise use the variant encumbrance rules.

Ooo, nice and elegant!

Based on what I've been told about actual armor I'd probably go the other direction and say the actual, physical weight of the armor is halved but the effective weight is doubled (back to its PHB value) while wearing it if you're not a Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, or Paladin. But it amounts to the same thing.