Played Lamentations of the Flame Princess for the first time on Saturday (a player in Kiel running Zak's Red and Pleasant Land), and found it pretty tight.

Then a weird thing happened, and I wonder what other GMs do in this situation:

I'm in a room that's thick with NPCs, including a few really high-value targets (e.g. monarchy and so on).  Nobody's looking at me, and I'm in the back of the room with a light crossbow.

The thought crosses my mind - I probably can't kill anybody in here with this weapon.  I can aim it at the queen and actually hit, and the likelihood of killing her is basically zero.

The crossbow did d6 damage, and the queen's probably (total guess) 40-60 hit points or so.  As a fighter (someone who specializes in killing people), I might as well be hitting her with a shoe.

Even if my character was a 9th level specialist with a 4x damage multiple on sneak attacks, I can expect to do about 14 points of damage, which will get her attention but hardly kill her.

Isn't this a bit weird?

The GM is of course free to make any ruling he likes, but allowing fighters to kill people outright seems to erode the value of the the specialist's sneak attack.

Do you accept this as a quirk of the system, chiefly designed to make combat grind out long enough for some tactical play to unfold?  Do you give some alternate ruling?

It's not really a quirk, it's a consequence of the intended design.

Which then triggers the development of various critical hit mechanisms or games like Runequest or GURPS that don't have increasing hit points by level. Personally I tend to prefer games where there is always the possibility of one-shot lethality so I usually play games that feature that as an intended consequence of the design. On the other hand, if I am playing D&D I live with the design. Though as the whole thread on what level (if any) rulers should have shows another solution is not to give the Queen 60 hit points.

And then there is also the AD&D Assassin route, who gets a percent chance for a one-hit kill by a sneak attack.
The chances won't be terrible good for a weenie lvl 1 assassin sniping a lvl 10 queen, but the dice could fall that way.

German RPG Midgard, which follows the D&D model fairly closely, had a similar quick-fix: The skills of Assassination/Sapping and Sharp-Shooting which do a similar thing - get the drop on someone and have a chance for an instant kill/stun.

If the whole 'HP are abstractions of skill/experience' is true then getting off a surprise shot like that seems like it would automatically bypass all the mumbo jumbo HP and go straight to flesh and blood... hit the core HP or Con or whatever... hit them like they were mere humans... like they were 0lvl chumps.

Quote from: Simlasa;782568If the whole 'HP are abstractions of skill/experience' is true then getting off a surprise shot like that seems like it would automatically bypass all the mumbo jumbo HP and go straight to flesh and blood... hit the core HP or Con or whatever... hit them like they were mere humans... like they were 0lvl chumps.

Yeah I'm on board with this, especially for NPCs.

I mean, unless the queen is secretly a lich or vampire or something. But that would be kind of a cool twist ("Gasp: the queen was struck by a bolt! And she's still alive? What is going on? The rumors were true about the royal family: they're monsters!").

So that's two votes for "use the system as it is designed", and two votes for, "reduce the monster's hit points to 4"?

Quote from: Simlasa;782568If the whole 'HP are abstractions of skill/experience' is true then getting off a surprise shot like that seems like it would automatically bypass all the mumbo jumbo HP and go straight to flesh and blood... hit the core HP or Con or whatever... hit them like they were mere humans... like they were 0lvl chumps.

I believe Chivalry and Sorcery was the first game that divided hit points into Body and Fatigue. Many other games and various D&D clones did that as well. Which is one of the various ways to enable one-hit kills.

Quote from: Simlasa;782568If the whole 'HP are abstractions of skill/experience' is true then getting off a surprise shot like that seems like it would automatically bypass all the mumbo jumbo HP and go straight to flesh and blood... hit the core HP or Con or whatever... hit them like they were mere humans... like they were 0lvl chumps.

Players wouldn't like it so much when their 65 hp fighter gets taken out by a surprise shot to the throat.

IMHO it depends on what the queen is supposed to be. If she is a regular person then having only a few hp is fine. If she is some major badass then 60 hp might be just right.

You're armed with a deadly weapon and you've got the drop on them. Forget hit points; if you want to go for a killing blow, do it. Kill them, and face the consequences.

If players don't want their characters throats slit, perhaps they should take care to ensure they're never in a situation where that is likely.

Why does the Queen have 60 hps?  Sounds like Red Sonja, not Anastasia.

If you don't have the skill of an assassin or thief, you might not get off the shot without alerting anyone, someone seeing you and calling the alarm, the 10th level warrior-queen using her cat-like senses to detect you, whatever.

Welcome to Hit Points.  
Pick one...
1. Separate the Skill from the Meat (Vitality/Wounds or whatever).
2. Some other houserule (save v. death on ambush attack or whatever).
3. Suck it up and hire an Assassin.
4. Play a different game.

Quote from: Ladybird;782589If players don't want their characters throats slit, perhaps they should take care to ensure they're never in a situation where that is likely.

Same as I'd expect for the Queen... surely there are bodyguards watching her back, surveying the rooftops.
I doubt I'd ever pop an unseen arrow at some PC without some opportunity to detect the situation... and when it's to the position where someone is willing to target them with a skilled assassin (vs. a gang of thugs with knives) then I'd expect the PC might have some bodyguards of its own.

Thanks, folks.  The answer that makes the most sense to me is this: hit points represent monstrous, skillful, fateful or super-heroic resistance to harm.

So if you choose to stock a room with courtiers that all have 14 hit points and a queen with 60, what you're saying is that these are all extraordinarily tough people, beyond mere dirty tricks.

The thief and assassin abilities for sneak attacks and instant kills are not merely ordinary trained (level 1) warriors, striking you with your guard down - that's just d6 damage, which of course will be serious or lethal for most ordinary people
- they're something beyond that entirely. Legolas-like precision that will kill village champions.

Quote from: Simlasa;782597Same as I'd expect for the Queen... surely there are bodyguards watching her back, surveying the rooftops.

So to get to a situation where they can backstab the queen, either they've taken out or avoided the guards - in which case, fair play - or they're been outwitted by the guards - again, fair play, but this time to the guards.

As an aside, the OP mentioned Red and Pleasant Land, which suggests he's talking about the Red Queen (cough*vampire*cough).  Who probably does, and should, have more than d4 hit points.  I do take the broader point, but anyone hedging with "unless she's got something else going on" can just take that as read in this instance.

To the point though, I don't have a perfect solution.  Depending on the game system, if a player told me what they wanted to accomplish before taking the shot, I might just offer them a roll on the assassination table, with the understanding that sets a precedent for NPCs as well.  Then I'd just see what the whole table said before proceeding.

Quote from: Saladman;782608As an aside, the OP mentioned Red and Pleasant Land, which suggests he's talking about the Red Queen (cough*vampire*cough).

Quite right, Saladman - I have no qualms with not being able to take down a vampire queen with an ordinary crossbow.

My amazement stemmed from the fact that I everyone in the room probably had more than 6 hit points, and so there was literally nobody I could kill with a well-placed crossbow bolt.