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I could have sworn I posted this as a discussion topic a while back but I cant find it and sadly, cant remember for sure if it was here or elsewhere so...

Im playing D&D 5th Ed. with a new group and things are going well. I am also rebuilding a 30 year old campaign in the 5th ed. role for my own campaign to start during the holidays.

In becoming reacquainted with D&D I am struck by an oddity in the narration of combat effects. Its been around forever and been discussed to death Im certain but as I am returning to the game after a LONG hiatus its a new issue for me.

I am well versed in what a HP actually represents and understand that hitting someone in D&D and applying damage does not necessarily represent physical injury to them, BUT

How the hell does a GM then narrate the fight?

I would be willing to bet that a Vast majority of GMs, when consulting their Goblin's AC and determining the player's roll did indeed register a hit, probably say something like...

"Your sword cuts into the Goblin and he screams, spitting at you through his pointed teeth, but he is still standing."

The same would apply when the Goblin attacks the PC. More than likely some sort of Impact or Injury is related, because....lets face it, a HIT is a HIT - not a miss that bled some of the target's energy, stamina, skill or luck away. Mechanically that may well be what is represented but it seems very difficult to reply to a player that succeeded in rolling higher than his target's AC with...

"Your swing is a good one and he really has to dodge out of the way to avoid it, looks like you are pressing him hard, defenses are weakening!"

I mean, seriously? Does anyone actually do that?

The issue here is of course of no consequence unless you factor in healing, which in 5th ed is pretty rapid (ridiculously rapid) So when a GM explains the Goblin slashes the PC's arm, bruises him through his armor and cracks a rib as he falls down... it creates a very odd situation when these apparently nasty injuries suddenly dissappear without any magical assistance after the guy takes a nap.

So... Im not complaining about the healing (Thats another thread) instead Im simply asking how to narrate the actual loss of HP so this odd disconnect doesnt occur in the game?

Thanks in advance!

Everything is a nick, or something that would have hit but for a great exertion on the part of a character increasing their sense of fatigue (addressing the stamina portion of HP), or (rarely) prevented by something unusual (the favor of the gods expended on behalf of the PC)...until the last few hit points.  Then hits are narrated to substantially strike.

"You gave it to him hard that time!"

Humans in the real world can be damn tough, so there's no reason adventurers can't be, too. Plenty of athletes have kept playing despite broken bones or other serious injuries. Hits for fairly low damage might be small cuts or mostly absorbed by armor. More damaging attacks are more dangerous, leaving characters bruised or bleeding. And the final blows that see a character's final HP slip away deliver potentially lethal wounds that can endanger the character's life if left untreated.

One thing to keep in mind is that just because a character is at full HP doesn't mean they are completely recovered from a fight. They might still have cuts or healing bruises. But they're at full HP because those wounds aren't significant enough to be a problem. You see this sort of thing in fiction all the time. Protagonists get the crap kicked out of them and go out to fight again with healing wounds that don't really hold them back. In D&D terms, they'd be at full HP even though they're technically still wounded, narratively speaking.

That's how I treat it, anyway. No clue if that's how the latest books suggest doing it.

"He hits you for five points of damage."

Don't try to make D&D a role-playing game when it's not one.

Yeah!

Now getting shot for 3 pts of Str, on the other hand, now THAT'S Roleplaying!

Quote from: CRKrueger;999873Yeah!

Now getting shot for 3 pts of Str, on the other hand, now THAT'S Roleplaying!

Speaking of hands, I don't believe it counts as roleplaying unless hit locations are involved.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;999865"He hits you for five points of damage."

Sorry Gronan but thats just not how I like to run the game. Nothing wrong with it of course, it is a GAME afterall of numbers, dice, statistics and such but I really enjoy (holding breath, closing eyes, waiting for the backlash) the story that all that statistical math and probabilities stuff generates. I have lots of wargames that dont require anything other than "You force him to back up one hex" or "the unit is now depleted, flip the counter over". I just see Roleplaying games as something much more in the interpretation department. I try to keep the game mechanic stuff to a minimum and relate everything I can in a more flavorful style. Its just a preference, once I know a lot of GMs enjoy, my players pretty much expect it.

The late Gary Gygax would probably disagree, as would ..oh, I dont know, thousands of players and GMs across the world. Its never been my favorite system certainly but your statement doesnt hold much weight in my opinion.

I'm certain you made a thread about this, somewhere...

Quote from: rgrove0172;999883Sorry Gronan but thats just not how I like to run the game. Nothing wrong with it of course, it is a GAME afterall of numbers, dice, statistics and such but I really enjoy (holding breath, closing eyes, waiting for the backlash) the story that all that statistical math and probabilities stuff generates. I have lots of wargames that dont require anything other than "You force him to back up one hex" or "the unit is now depleted, flip the counter over". I just see Roleplaying games as something much more in the interpretation department. I try to keep the game mechanic stuff to a minimum and relate everything I can in a more flavorful style. Its just a preference, once I know a lot of GMs enjoy, my players pretty much expect it.

Well, I try to enforce tension in a different way.

If a player says "Is that guy still STANDING?" I will say "He's laughing at you as he fights," or "he looks pretty beat up," or "he's leaking all over the carpet", or something.

But I want to keep things moving fast; the fury of hand to hand combat, confusion, tension, not knowing for sure what's going on, and the monkey brain in back of your head screaming to hit the other fucker until he stops moving.

Until the foe collapses and the players groan "Thank fucking CROM!"

Mileage, vary, etc.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999884The late Gary Gygax would probably disagree, as would ..oh, I dont know, thousands of players and GMs across the world. Its never been my favorite system certainly but your statement doesnt hold much weight in my opinion.

????

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;999865"He hits you for five points of damage."

Nah, that would just take me out of immersion and back to thinking of the character as just numbers on a page.

Quote from: CRKrueger;999873Yeah!

Now getting shot for 3 pts of Str, on the other hand, now THAT'S Roleplaying!

Traveller is awesome. Don't take it out on Traveller just because Shawn is annoying with his Tourette syndrome squawks about real role-playing games.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;999886I'm certain you made a thread about this, somewhere...

Me too but I couldnt find it! Laugh

Isn't everythread you make about this? :p

Quote from: Headless;999897Isn't everythread you make about this? :p

Huh? I dont think so.

I often describe D&D/d20 hitpoints as being bled away through desperate dodges, near hits that leave shallow wounds, flashes of arcane energy deflecting a blow, somebody stepping away at the right moment through some hint from the divine and all sorts of things like that.  Most movie fights are normal hit point damage with a few crits in the mix... right up until the last blow drives somebody into negatives.

Anyway, to contribute to the topic:

I describe them as nicks, bruises, non-serious injuries, until they're almost dead. Just think of it as the stuff that happens to heroes in action movies.

"The enemy makes a fierce thrust that nearly chops your head off, but you dodge to the side at the last second and the sword cuts a gash in your cheek instead."

After all, if you describe the PC as getting a broken arm, it doesn't really make sense that it would be healed after they get all their hit points back after a Long Rest. But if it's bruises and cuts, they could definitely shrug that off once they have a chance to regain their composure.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860In becoming reacquainted with D&D I am struck by an oddity in the narration of combat effects.

QuoteI am well versed in what a HP actually represents and understand that hitting someone in D&D and applying damage does not necessarily represent physical injury to them, BUT how the hell does a GM then narrate the fight?

Quoteit creates a very odd situation when these apparently nasty injuries suddenly dissappear without any magical assistance after the guy takes a nap.

Do you ever get the feeling that you're just not running the right game system for what you're trying to achieve? That you're not really satisfied with the results you're getting; that there has to be some way to model the behavior more to your liking, and maybe it's the system that's confining you? That you're pounding a square peg into a round hole with a mallet, and the bastard will just not fit no matter how much effort you put into it or how you strike the peg?

That's what a number of your threads about your 5e experience sound like to me.

HP work great, but they never made sense. If you want HP to be blood points, that's fine. Others want to weave in fatigue, luck, etc into the HP-ness.

A big issue is what it means to be hit for 5 points of damage. At 1st level, that might mean nigh-disembowlment. At 4th level, that might mean a good slice. At 8th level, that might mean a nick.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860How the hell does a GM then narrate the fight?

I would be willing to bet that a Vast majority of GMs, when consulting their Goblin's AC and determining the player's roll did indeed register a hit, probably say something like...

"Your sword cuts into the Goblin and he screams, spitting at you through his pointed teeth, but he is still standing."

The same would apply when the Goblin attacks the PC. More than likely some sort of Impact or Injury is related, because....lets face it, a HIT is a HIT - not a miss that bled some of the target's energy, stamina, skill or luck away. Mechanically that may well be what is represented but it seems very difficult to reply to a player that succeeded in rolling higher than his target's AC with...

"Your swing is a good one and he really has to dodge out of the way to avoid it, looks like you are pressing him hard, defenses are weakening!"

I mean, seriously? Does anyone actually do that?

The issue here is of course of no consequence unless you factor in healing, which in 5th ed is pretty rapid (ridiculously rapid) So when a GM explains the Goblin slashes the PC's arm, bruises him through his armor and cracks a rib as he falls down... it creates a very odd situation when these apparently nasty injuries suddenly dissappear without any magical assistance after the guy takes a nap.

So... Im not complaining about the healing (Thats another thread) instead Im simply asking how to narrate the actual loss of HP so this odd disconnect doesnt occur in the game?

Thanks in advance!

Pre-3e I usually called it as not actual meat damage much till the killing blow. So alot of nicks and cuts and bruises, and alot of ducking and dodging and getting increasingly worn down.

In AD&D its the blow that fells you that causes all the real harm and why anyone dropped to 0 HP was near useless afterwards even if revived.

5e plays much the same and I've been GMing it as fatigue and the nicks and bruises till the felling blow. So lots of fencing and parrying going on.

If it helps. Think of D&D combat as alot of fencing and saber duels like in any given Errol Flynn movie. Or any movie at all. Or even alot of real melee combat for that matter.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;999888????

Oops, I was replying this...

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;999866Don't try to make D&D a role-playing game when it's not one.

Quote from: K Peterson;999911Do you ever get the feeling that you're just not running the right game system for what you're trying to achieve? That you're not really satisfied with the results you're getting; that there has to be some way to model the behavior more to your liking, and maybe it's the system that's confining you? That you're pounding a square peg into a round hole with a mallet, and the bastard will just not fit no matter how much effort you put into it or how you strike the peg?

That's what a number of your threads about your 5e experience sound like to me.

Well, I wont deny that there are probably better suited systems out there but D&D is what the players are into so here I am. Besides, its been going strong for 35 or more years, surely it handle a little tweaking.

Quote from: Omega;999934Pre-3e I usually called it as not actual meat damage much till the killing blow. So alot of nicks and cuts and bruises, and alot of ducking and dodging and getting increasingly worn down.

In AD&D its the blow that fells you that causes all the real harm and why anyone dropped to 0 HP was near useless afterwards even if revived.

5e plays much the same and I've been GMing it as fatigue and the nicks and bruises till the felling blow. So lots of fencing and parrying going on.

If it helps. Think of D&D combat as alot of fencing and saber duels like in any given Errol Flynn movie. Or any movie at all. Or even alot of real melee combat for that matter.

Well honestly that sounds fine until the "killing blow part". In 5th ed even the attack that drives you below 0 HP is pretty easily recovered from. Stabilize, heal at least 1 HP then wait till your next long rest - POOF the nasty killing blow injury is gone just as easy as the little cuts and bruises.

I suppose for heroes even the one that takes you out "looked worse than it was" and just put you down for a bit. The broke ribs, ruptures spleen and punctured lung you though you had last night was just a bit of roughing up for a tough guy like you!" Laugh

Have you ever looked at Hackmaster? It really sounds like an HP/wound system like the one that game uses might be more up your alley. It's a lot more bookkeeping but it is technically more realistic.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999948Well, I wont deny that there are probably better suited systems out there but D&D is what the players are into so here I am. Besides, its been going strong for 35 or more years, surely it handle a little tweaking.

Most players are into whatever the DM/GM wants to run.

Years ago, I was playing in a frustrating 3e campaign where the GM wasn't having fun because the system wouldn't play ball with his vision of fantasy and several players were new-ish to RPGs and by default only knew 3e. After one crapass night, the GM was deeply bummed mid-game, so I said, fuck it, I am gonna run Tunnels & Trolls. And we did. And all was good in the universe forever more. Amen.

Except for the dick in the group. He left. Which only made the T&T campaign better.

You're always going to have a problem with D&D Grove, here's the problem...
1. You like to narrate what's going on.
2. D&D is abstract as hell.

Your only options are:
1. Learn to square the circle and narrate early HP loss as something other than real damage.
2. Separate Meat and Stamina/Skill/Luck and make the system more concrete, so you can narrate as normal (like you're doing in the Healing thread).
3. Pick a system with Hit locations/Wounds etc.

Actually, I'd like to make a point, because I ran into this too. Even with hitting 0 hp, narrating a fatal wound there doesn't quite work either.

For instance, one time a Wizard got ambushed by a Drow Assassin, and she did enough damage in one hit to instantly put him to 0. I described it as her running him through the heart.

This ended all fine and well with the wizard getting fed a healing potion before he failed his Death Saves, but I realized that if someone stabilized him with a medical kit, it wouldn't work because you can't just get up and walk away after a few bandages if your heart got run through.

So unless they literally get instagibbed by massive damage, you still have to be careful how describe the blow that puts them down. Because it has to be something that that they can bleed to death from, but something they could still get up and walk off if they're treated.

A healing potion is MAGIC.  MAGIC.  Breaks the normal laws of the universe.

SO it magically put the heart back together.

Yes, a healing potion.

But what if they heal through non-magical means? That was my point. A medical kit lets you stabilize a dying person. How does that put the heart back together? It wouldn't, but by the rules you know they'd be OK again.

5E says somewhere in the rules that 50 percent of HP are stamina, dodging, etc and the other 50 percent are when PCs start to be cut and bruised.

Quote from: Voros;9999905E says somewhere in the rules that 50 percent of HP are stamina, dodging, etc and the other 50 percent are when PCs start to be cut and bruised.

Which makes the situation even more odd.

My rule of thumb in narrating combat are

1) If the roll miss and it is greater or equal to 10 + Target's Dex bonus then it is a hit but doesn't penetrate armor. Since 5e has stats for monsters it easy to figure out what the Dex bonus is. For classic D&D I wing it based on the monster description.

2) If less than 10 + Target's Dex it is a complete miss, dodge, etc.

3) When an actual hit is scored I look the ratio of damage to the max hit points. The greater the proportion the more "severe" the hit.

4) At low hit points I start describing exhaustion, fatigue, etc.

5) Below 12 or so hit points, I start using the lower total the max hit point for figuring out the ration. So when fighting a 100 point opponents 5 points hits would be described as minor stabs, and cuts. Until around 12 or 10 hit points then I up the description of the severity of the wounds.

I do this because it add a bit of dramatic flair that the players enjoy.

Quote from: Voros;9999905E says somewhere in the rules that 50 percent of HP are stamina, dodging, etc and the other 50 percent are when PCs start to be cut and bruised.

Yes, but let's be honest--it doesn't matter what they say on the matter, except maybe for people who are just now picking up the game. Everyone has their own minds already made up on what hitpoints are, including the people whose mind is made up to 'I don't know.' The official line is just an official line.

HP are... a convenient way of creating a point between 'fresh and ready to fight' and 'lying dead on the ground.' Everything after that is retroactive justification.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860"Your swing is a good one and he really has to dodge out of the way to avoid it, looks like you are pressing him hard, defenses are weakening!"

I mean, seriously? Does anyone actually do that?

I am sure someone has, probably because they took the 'encompasses more than just meat points' bit to heart, but realistically, no. Almost no one does that. I think a lot of people treat it as 'mere flesh wounds' until you are seriously hurting, and then it becomes serious wounds until the one that drops you which is a life-threatening wound (and if you don't survive/wouldn't survive without magic, it can retroactively be a clearly fatal wound).

QuoteThe issue here is of course of no consequence unless you factor in healing, which in 5th ed is pretty rapid (ridiculously rapid) So when a GM explains the Goblin slashes the PC's arm, bruises him through his armor and cracks a rib as he falls down... it creates a very odd situation when these apparently nasty injuries suddenly dissappear without any magical assistance after the guy takes a nap.

Again, yes, the 'PCs-heal-fully-with-long-rest' mechanic is inherently gamist. It addresses a couple of major issues: 1) the cleric has always been a hp battery that no one wants to play (excepting if they were overcompensated for this burden), 2) as the core classes grew from 3 to 11, the assumption that someone in the group would be playing a cleric stopped being reasonable (or at least effectively requiring it seemed like it would turn off players), and 3) long periods of slow, natural healing isn't particularly interesting for players or DM.

Those are all good reasons for the new 5e healing mechanic that are done exclusively for the benefit of game expediency. The expectation that was undoubtedly made was that most gamers would not be bothered, and that most who were would either find a pseudo-reasonable justification for the unrealism, or use one of the many alternative healing schedules listed as optional variants in the DMG.  

QuoteIm not complaining about the healing (Thats another thread) instead Im simply asking how to narrate the actual loss of HP so this odd disconnect doesnt occur in the game?

I stand by the 'cuts and scrapes until it is serious' thing I already stated. The above example of a healer's kit saving someone with a sword through the heart suggests that maybe you only describe something as being a sword through the heart when someone is clearly not going to be stabilized with a healer's kit (an opponent you aren't planning on being saved by his friends). That's vaguely limiting, but not really. There are plenty of wounds you can give the PCs that can be grievous or not depending on how things turn out. People can survive sliced throats if they receive care (if they stabilize by themselves, I guess they only thought their jugular was cut). Ribs can feel broken but end up only cracked (and yes, they heal over a few days, which is unrealistic for us non-heroes, but who knows story-wise).

And if push comes to shove and it just doesn't work for you, I'd say either alternative healing schedule where natural healing isn't up to par (and maybe dead at 0 or -10), or flat out go with a different system. A lot of those, however, if they are more realistic, also really really discourage you from getting into fights.

I partially delay my descriptions until things are resolved.  In part, because it better fits the way hit points work, but also because it creates uncertainty in the players.  If someone goes down below zero from a surprise blow, I'll say something more like, "As the drow slams his blade into your chest, you collapse."  And leave it there for now.  Character might be dead, might be dying, might have just been some kind of quick acting nerve poison on the blade.  The other players don't know.  They might waste a ranged healing spell on a dead person, if the timing lines up right.  

Save the "killing descriptions" for those times when the massive damage rules (or whatever else you are house ruling or adjudicating) makes it obvious.  The 1st level wizard gets hits for 20 points by a critical from a great sword.  Sure, the head gets detached from the body.

Edit:  Left out my main point -- something else you may be struggling to deal with, 5E is not often an immediately deadly game.  By the rules, there just aren't many times when a character gets hit, and they are definitely dead, right now.  It's deliberately designed that way to create uncertainty and fear in the players with relatively few character deaths.  (And for some groups, that works very well.  It does for mine.)  If you want to move closer to earlier D&D in that respect, your best bet is to either remove or sharply curtail death saves, to make the hit that takes you to zero a possible immediate killer.  You might, for example, have cascading death saves, where if you fail you have to keep rolling until you either succeed at one or die.  Or only allow one death save, pass or fail, to see if you are alive.

Quote from: Voros;9999905E says somewhere in the rules that 50 percent of HP are stamina, dodging, etc and the other 50 percent are when PCs start to be cut and bruised.

They can say that all they want. I have never gone by that definition because it doesn't make any sense to me. D&D is a 'fantasy superhero' game with little actual realism in its combat system, so they need that definition for it to make sense within the context of D&D.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1000023And leave it there for now.  Character might be dead, might be dying, might have just been some kind of quick acting nerve poison on the blade.  The other players don't know.  They might waste a ranged healing spell on a dead person, if the timing lines up right.  

Very fog-of-war, I like it.:D

Thinking back on all the years we've played d&d, we never really got into detailing where you hit someone or the effect.  Rather we knew that 1-5 points was akin to a light hit, where things getting up towards 15 points and beyond were huge wallops.  Varies by level of course.   The DM would narrate it as "The bugbear smashes you with a mighty blow for 15 points of damage!"  We would just use theater of mind to imagine where the hit took place and what not.  Was easier that way.

I don't narrate hits much because there are too many of them, and I like to keep things moving. I narrate when I want to communicate something meaningful, like when somebody hits a monster for 14 damage, but the monster has a lot of HP, I'll say something like, "Your sword barely scrapes the monster's tough hide. He laughs at your weak attempt." It lets the party knows they need to bring the big hits against this bastard.

"Your blade slips through, scoring a hit! The cut, however, is superficial at best."

"Your strike slames into the foe, however much of it was absorbed by it's armor."

"*clang*! Your spear scores against against the goblin, its shield barely catching the end and saving itself from death."

"the weapon slames into the monster, knocking the wind out of it as ot staggers to rec9ver."

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860In becoming reacquainted with D&D I am struck by an oddity in the narration of combat effects. Its been around forever and been discussed to death Im certain but as I am returning to the game after a LONG hiatus its a new issue for me.

If I may ask, what system(s)(if any) have you been using instead of D&D in the meantime, what do they consider hit points (or their equivalent), and how have you narrated them?

Here is an interesting experiment that would require a lot of GM trust. It's something I've thought about but never have done:

What if the players had no idea how many HP they had? The GM kept those numbers and merely narrated combat effects based on the ever-dwindling values only the GM knew about? Would take a little extra work but I bet I could pull this off if I ran D&D.

Thoughts?

If you're not good at improvisation you could create a table based on the percentage of health a character reaches with canned descriptions that you could tailor to the situation.

I split hp into Grit and Health; lots of names for the same idea.

Do you have the grit to press on, or have you started to lose a lot of blood or pieces? Most of their hp are grit, but there is a window where you have to either double-down or run away.

Quote from: estar;1000015My rule of thumb in narrating combat are

1) If the roll miss and it is greater or equal to 10 + Target's Dex bonus then it is a hit but doesn't penetrate armor. Since 5e has stats for monsters it easy to figure out what the Dex bonus is. For classic D&D I wing it based on the monster description.

2) If less than 10 + Target's Dex it is a complete miss, dodge, etc.

3) When an actual hit is scored I look the ratio of damage to the max hit points. The greater the proportion the more "severe" the hit.

4) At low hit points I start describing exhaustion, fatigue, etc.

5) Below 12 or so hit points, I start using the lower total the max hit point for figuring out the ration. So when fighting a 100 point opponents 5 points hits would be described as minor stabs, and cuts. Until around 12 or 10 hit points then I up the description of the severity of the wounds.

I do this because it add a bit of dramatic flair that the players enjoy.

And that works perfectly right up until they doze off and wake up the next morning with all those "severe" hits, effects of exhaustion and fatigue, minor stabs and cuts and whatever else they suffered, gone. Not healing, not on the mend but GONE. Then it appears that all that describing you did the day before was in error. Could happen once in a while ie. guys go to bed swearing he broke his foot but wakes up and it seems it was just sprain but in D&D as is, it happens constantly, like everytime you take a hit.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999883Sorry Gronan but thats just not how I like to run the game. Nothing wrong with it of course, it is a GAME afterall of numbers, dice, statistics and such but I really enjoy (holding breath, closing eyes, waiting for the backlash) the story that all that statistical math and probabilities stuff generates. I have lots of wargames that dont require anything other than "You force him to back up one hex" or "the unit is now depleted, flip the counter over". I just see Roleplaying games as something much more in the interpretation department. I try to keep the game mechanic stuff to a minimum and relate everything I can in a more flavorful style. Its just a preference, once I know a lot of GMs enjoy, my players pretty much expect it.

Then D&D shouldn't be what you use:). In D&D, HP are HP and represent HP, as Gronan says, and the mechanics work best when you treat them that way.

There's many other systems that can do what you want, though;).

Quote from: RunningLaser;1000036Thinking back on all the years we've played d&d, we never really got into detailing where you hit someone or the effect.  Rather we knew that 1-5 points was akin to a light hit, where things getting up towards 15 points and beyond were huge wallops.  Varies by level of course.   The DM would narrate it as "The bugbear smashes you with a mighty blow for 15 points of damage!"  We would just use theater of mind to imagine where the hit took place and what not.  Was easier that way.

Not trying to be snarky, seriously but that doesnt really help much. That Mighty Blow you imagined and whatever went out the window when they healed 15 minutes later naturally with a good HD roll in a short rest. Thats kind of my point. Describing or imagining any sort of injury at all is pointless until they die, an even then if they come back fairly quickly, again without magic, you were still off target.

Quote from: Batman;1000049"Your blade slips through, scoring a hit! The cut, however, is superficial at best."

"Your strike slames into the foe, however much of it was absorbed by it's armor."

"*clang*! Your spear scores against against the goblin, its shield barely catching the end and saving itself from death."

"the weapon slames into the monster, knocking the wind out of it as ot staggers to rec9ver."

Those are good, try repeating them over and over and over and over in every fight for every hit. It gets weird.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1000051If I may ask, what system(s)(if any) have you been using instead of D&D in the meantime, what do they consider hit points (or their equivalent), and how have you narrated them?

Geeze, wouldnt know where to start. Done a lot of gaming in 35 years but most of them allowed for some sort of meaningful injury in combat other than death and a somewhat realistic rate of healing. If you described a hit as 'smashing into your ribs, and you feel something crack" you would probably not be at full health for several days or longer and face some sort of deficit until then. It was much easier but yes, typically much more complicated.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000077Not trying to be snarky, seriously but that doesnt really help much. That Mighty Blow you imagined and whatever went out the window when they healed 15 minutes later naturally with a good HD roll in a short rest. Thats kind of my point. Describing or imagining any sort of injury at all is pointless until they die, an even then if they come back fairly quickly, again without magic, you were still off target.

It's going to be a step up in complexity, but you can always take a look at HackMaster 5th edition.  Hit points represent health of the character with damage being actual physical harm done.  Wounds are tracked individually- a 5 point wound healing on it's own with rest takes 5 days for the first point, 4 days for the second, 3 for the third, ect- taking a full 15 days to heal from that injury.  This doesn't take into account things like muscle tears, broken bones, ect.  Critical injuries can end one's adventuring career fast- permanent injuries and the like.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000074And that works perfectly right up until they doze off and wake up the next morning with all those "severe" hits, effects of exhaustion and fatigue, minor stabs and cuts and whatever else they suffered, gone. Not healing, not on the mend but GONE. Then it appears that all that describing you did the day before was in error. Could happen once in a while ie. guys go to bed swearing he broke his foot but wakes up and it seems it was just sprain but in D&D as is, it happens constantly, like everytime you take a hit.

And if I cared enough about it from when I ran a 5e campaign I would change the rest rules. Do player notice the generous recovery rules? Sure they do. Does it matter to me as far narration of combat, no. In the end the players enjoy the game more with my combat narration then without even with the full recovery rules. That is good enough of a reason for me.

In addition it not likely this will be only problem a group has with D&D 5e if there are issues. D&D has a bunch of abstractions that make what it is. Pile enough house rules  and at some point you will be better of using a different RPG or designing one yourself. Which what I did with the rules I use (http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2008.pdf) for my Majestic Wilderlands campaign.

Quote from: tenbones;1000052Here is an interesting experiment that would require a lot of GM trust. It's something I've thought about but never have done:

What if the players had no idea how many HP they had? The GM kept those numbers and merely narrated combat effects based on the ever-dwindling values only the GM knew about? Would take a little extra work but I bet I could pull this off if I ran D&D.

Thoughts?

If you're not good at improvisation you could create a table based on the percentage of health a character reaches with canned descriptions that you could tailor to the situation.

Personally I have enough to do as a DM so it's better to me to avoid the extra work of tracking a player's mechanical responsibilities.

At some point, you either have to accept the system for what it is and enjoy it that way.  Or if you can't, don't play it.  Sure, you can house rule and tweak and bend, but that works best when what you start with is not too far from where you wanted to be.  A bend that goes from, "completely unacceptable to me," to, "I can grit my teeth and do it, but it won't be fun," is not sufficient.  A bend that gets to, "Eh, not bad.  I can deal, roll with the flow, and enjoy it for what it is," makes a decent compromise.  Either it is bent into something you can accept and enjoy, or it isn't.  

Frankly, some of these topics remind me of this:  The Expert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg)

Seems to me the place you asked about this before was the thread about healing in 5e. My answer remains the same, as it has since ever seeing how many hitpoints high-level characters get, and how low the damage from weapons tends to remain, which is that it doesn't map very literally at all, and so I can't relate to it except as a weird mechanic, and so I stick to games with literal damage systems instead.

If I wanted to do what you seem to want to do, which is give descriptive details about what supposedly actually happened in the game world when someone with 73 hit points loses 9 of them to a physical attack, I'd probably watch a bunch of surreal kung-fu movies to fill my mind with how that can be translated to actions. "The blade cuts through your shirt and leaves a long scratch dripping blood", or "you're knocked flying ass-over-teakettle into the pillar on the other side of the room, where you are shaken but not stirred. You get up and prepare for another exchange [of super-cool blows that look deadly but do almost nothing until you run out of HP]".

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000080Geeze, wouldnt know where to start. Done a lot of gaming in 35 years but most of them allowed for some sort of meaningful injury in combat other than death and a somewhat realistic rate of healing.

I started with AD&D 1st edition, around 1985 I switched to Fantasy Hero 1st edition and then GURPS in 1987. I never looked back until around 2009. Due to a combination of circumstance I was able to secure a limited license from Judges Guild to publish my Majestic Wilderlands.  

The problem was most of it was written (http://www.batintheattic.com/wilderlands/) for GURPS. At the time I was known for having written the two Points of Light books which the fans of classic D&D and Judges Guild really liked.  So I learned to play OD&D as that what my audience was interested in. And because I wanted to write good books, I took it seriously and learned how to do well and still run campaigns the way I have been for decades.

My experience with GURPS is that vast majority of combat had a standard pattern to how they played out. Just like in real life there was a right way and a wrong way. The right way didn't always succeed but your ass will be handed to you if you try to pull off the wrong way. But circumstance change, so while it wasn't often, there were circumstances where the full panoply of GURPS combat options would be needed in play.

The way I dealt with it is that the typical OD&D combat round is an abstraction of the typical GURPS combat round. But when circumstances were such that more detail were needed, I just made a ruling. To spice up the typical combat round, I learned to creatively narrate the result of the die.

GURPS is still my favorite RPG, but after refereeing, playing and writing for OD&D (and D&D 5e) for the past couple of years) both have some serious advantages in areas of usability and being able to be modded with new stuff like classes, items, and monsters. And you get a lot more done with the time spent gaming.

So rather than try to bash OD&D or 5e into something that worked more like GURPS, I learned to work with their abstractions. And where it couldn't be bent, I just lived with it. For example in GURPS it is a contest of skill to try to disarm and it is not likely to succeed against a warrior of equal or greater skill.

With OD&D a fighter can disarm but contest of skill (or attributes) are not vary D&Dish. So instead the attacker makes a to-hit roll and in lieu of damage can opt to disarm. The target makes a saving throws. Only if the save fails the opponent is disarmed. The greater skill of the attacker is reflected in increased odds of hitting, the skill of the defender is reflected in what he needs to roll for a saving throw. It highly abstracted compared to how the GURPS disarm rules work. However in the end it amounts roughly to the same odds of it succeeding given the two opponent relative skill.

I suggest you run D&D 5e 'as is' for a campaign. That you read Matt Finch's Old School Primer (http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_63/3019000/3019374/1/print/3019374.pdf) to get a feel of how rulings not rules works.

The first place I ever encountered the concept of hit points was when, as BJ Blazkowicz, I got shot in the face by a prison guard. Later on, stepping on a plate of chicken made me feel better.

So I guess I just don't worry about it too much.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000074And that works perfectly right up until they doze off and wake up the next morning with all those "severe" hits, effects of exhaustion and fatigue, minor stabs and cuts and whatever else they suffered, gone. Not healing, not on the mend but GONE. Then it appears that all that describing you did the day before was in error. Could happen once in a while ie. guys go to bed swearing he broke his foot but wakes up and it seems it was just sprain but in D&D as is, it happens constantly, like everytime you take a hit.

So use the alternate healing rules. This seems to be a lot of bother about something you can easily change yourself, not only are there optional rules in the DMG but you are encouraged to change the rules to fit your campaign. So do it.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860"Your swing is a good one and he really has to dodge out of the way to avoid it, looks like you are pressing him hard, defenses are weakening!"

I mean, seriously? Does anyone actually do that?

Sure, I do. I only describe serious wounds in the last hit die or so worth of hit points (for classed/leveled/humanoid kinds of characters -- monstrous foes often get different treatment since their hit points more often represent physical toughness). Everything up to that point is described as bruises, nicks, fatigue from defending against your furious assault, et cetera. My players tend to use my descriptions to gauge how powerful an enemy they're facing. If they're dealing out quite a bit of damage and the guy they're fighting is just getting cuts and bruises, they know he's probably got a lot of hit points. Giving him an actual wound of some sort signals that he's near the end of the line.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000079Those are good, try repeating them over and over and over and over in every fight for every hit. It gets weird.

I got dozens, with ideas for specific weapon types.

I went through a phase where I narrated every die roll. Then I came to the conclusion that was a waste of time for us. The player can see the dice as well as I.

They know whether or not they hit (or were hit).

I will give them some periodic feedback on an adversary's condition if it's noteworthy: "He's reeling." "He laughs off your hit."

If it's not useful data, it's color.

If it's color, it's redundant because my players already see what's happening.

If it's redundant, it's slowing down the combat which (a) makes the focus about combat and (b) makes the combat not feel like combat.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1000131Sure, I do. I only describe serious wounds in the last hit die or so worth of hit points (for classed/leveled/humanoid kinds of characters -- monstrous foes often get different treatment since their hit points more often represent physical toughness). Everything up to that point is described as bruises, nicks, fatigue from defending against your furious assault, et cetera. My players tend to use my descriptions to gauge how powerful an enemy they're facing. If they're dealing out quite a bit of damage and the guy they're fighting is just getting cuts and bruises, they know he's probably got a lot of hit points. Giving him an actual wound of some sort signals that he's near the end of the line.

You are among many that have described this way of handling it and in every circumstance I have to reply that all those nicks, bruises and fatigue do not recover any faster or in any way differently from the actual wound you say they receive at the end of the line. In function they are exactly the same so why describe them differently? Because they, at least temporarily, knocked the guy out of action?

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000136I have to reply that all those nicks, bruises and fatigue do not recover any faster or in any way differently from the actual wound you say they receive at the end of the line.

Recovery/healing making perfect sense isn't something I worry about.

QuoteIn function they are exactly the same so why describe them differently?

I like the clues it gives to players about their enemy's capabilities.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000080Geeze, wouldnt know where to start. Done a lot of gaming in 35 years but most of them allowed for some sort of meaningful injury in combat other than death and a somewhat realistic rate of healing. If you described a hit as 'smashing into your ribs, and you feel something crack" you would probably not be at full health for several days or longer and face some sort of deficit until then. It was much easier but yes, typically much more complicated.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000136You are among many that have described this way of handling it and in every circumstance I have to reply that all those nicks, bruises and fatigue do not recover any faster or in any way differently from the actual wound you say they receive at the end of the line. In function they are exactly the same so why describe them differently? Because they, at least temporarily, knocked the guy out of action?

Thus far, in your other statements we've mostly gotten what you don't like, and between these two statements, I am not getting a good grip of what you would like the world of your game to look like. Can you please give us an example of a game you have played where you liked the wound system, and how you narrated the blow-by-blow in it? I think that might help us find something that meets your needs.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1000221Thus far, in your other statements we've mostly gotten what you don't like, and between these two statements, I am not getting a good grip of what you would like the world of your game to look like.

I find these discourses endlessly fascinating.

It's like watching a team of surgeons desperately coming up with solutions to save a patient, but the patient isn't injured.

In fact, the patient is a boulder.

Please, continue.


(https://media.giphy.com/media/gSRkSblDEjUuk/giphy.gif)

I think for monsters it doesnt matter - they are going to die anyway, you can narrate hits as blood letting etc from the first hit if you like. The issue is only with narrating hits on PCs.

I am personally a fan of the "bloodied" status where its tend to be minor bruises etc until half hp, then some kind of serious wound, and at zero dead (player can narrate the awesome death scene if thye wish).

For PCs and 5e I have found the best way to think about it is that because Hp is a mix of meat and stamina/luck/determination etc - there is no reason why a PC can't be beaten to hell, cracked rib, etc - but still be max hp - simply because he's had a second wind, been reinspired to keep on battling because he just saw his NPC friend die earlier in the day, etc etc. Your PC might have a stack of injuries, cuts and nicks - some quite serious - but the PC can still be restored to max hp (and have those injuries still showing) partly coz "it's magic" and /or partly coz "it's stamina/training/luck/grit baby". Full hp doesnt have to mean no visible wounds, alhtough at teh start of an adventure it does.  But as the adventure unfolds, it might be all grit that is keeping the guy going (eg: the end of Die Hard).

For low fantasy gaming i went with a 5 min short rest to restore half of damage suffered (with certain limitations, inlcuding max 3/day and needing to make a Will check) with this kind of thinking in mind. The intangible/stamina side of HP comes back fast. Albeit in LFG you can also get lingering injuries that sometimes last months, but that is a separate mechanic to hp.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;1000135I went through a phase where I narrated every die roll. Then I came to the conclusion that was a waste of time for us. The player can see the dice as well as I.

They know whether or not they hit (or were hit).

I will give them some periodic feedback on an adversary's condition if it's noteworthy: "He's reeling." "He laughs off your hit."

If it's not useful data, it's color.

If it's color, it's redundant because my players already see what's happening.

If it's redundant, it's slowing down the combat which (a) makes the focus about combat and (b) makes the combat not feel like combat.

This is my feeling. If a description comes to mind, I use the cool description, if not, I just adjudicate the attack. Even in a novel, will often elide portions of a combat without describing every blow. Not describing every little thing is part of the skill of describing things well.

I became firmly convinced of this back at the height of the fetish for giving mechanical benefits to an attack if the player described it in a cool way. Every fucking action came down to gratuitous, belabored over-description as the player fished for a bonus. It completely ruined the spontaneous fun of a player busting out an entertaining description when one came naturally to them.

If a genuinely entertaining description occurs to you spontaneously, then please, share it. If not, shut the fuck up and keep the combat moving. A combat that resolves quickly is more exciting to me than someone's warmed over Howard imitation.

Here's what I have. The time sink of this system comes when they rest and they have lost Health as well as Grit.

HIT POINTS, HEALING, AND FATIGUE
Hit points are a measure of the character's ability to withstand damage or injury until they are incapacitated or dying. Hit points are divided into two totals, Health and Grit. Health is determined by the maximum value of hit points per die for your class at 1st level. The character's Constitution modifier is added to Health at 1st level and every level gained thereafter. Grit is determined by the roll of the characters hit die at 2nd level and beyond. Thus, a fighter at 1st level would have 8 points of Health, plus their Constitution modifier, and 8 Grit. At 2nd level they would gain their Constitution modifier to Health. They would roll 2d8, and if the total was higher than 8 that would be their new Grit. If not, their Grit remains at 8.

Health represents the physical toughness of the character's body. Grit represents the characters physical or combat training, their tenacity, and their luck. As combat progresses damage to Grit represents minor wounds, near misses, muscle sprains, etc. When they start taking damage to their Health, however, then that represents actual cutting or bruising damage, or the shock of blood loss.

When a character takes damage Grit is lost first. When the character has lost all their Grit then hit points of damage are subtracted from Health. There are small number of attacks that bypass Grit and reduce Health directly. These include damage from critical hits, sneak attacks, and poison.

Characters regain hit points through rest. The quality of food and shelter also factor in. The assumed standard are for people who are sheltered and have preserved food.

COMFORTABLE- Stout shelter from the weather, adequate clothing and sources of comfort for climate, significant protections for personal safety. (City Inn)

SHELTERED- Soft shelter from inclement weather, adequate clothing for climate, and ability to rest in relative safety. (Tents, campfire, watches)

EXPOSED- No separation from inclement weather, inadequate clothing for climate, or inability to rest in relative safety. (Lean-to, cold camp, alone)
 

Food      Iron Rations......Preserved Food.....Fresh Food....Improved Rest
Health   1 pt.................1d3 pts................3 pts............1d3+3 pts
Grit           1d6 pts...............6 pts....................Half.............Half
Saves   -2 Fortitude........Par......................+2 Fortitude

+1 Column if at Full Health, Comfortable, or Doctored
-1 Column if Exposed, Diseased, Short Sleep

Quote from: darthfozzywig;1000229I find these discourses endlessly fascinating.

It's like watching a team of surgeons desperately coming up with solutions to save a patient, but the patient isn't injured.

In fact, the patient is a boulder.

Please, continue.

Goddamn this made me laugh

Quote from: Psikerlord;1000233I think for monsters it doesnt matter - they are going to die anyway, you can narrate hits as blood letting etc from the first hit if you like. The issue is only with narrating hits on PCs.

I am personally a fan of the "bloodied" status where its tend to be minor bruises etc until half hp, then some kind of serious wound, and at zero dead (player can narrate the awesome death scene if thye wish).

For PCs and 5e I have found the best way to think about it is that because Hp is a mix of meat and stamina/luck/determination etc - there is no reason why a PC can't be beaten to hell, cracked rib, etc - but still be max hp - simply because he's had a second wind, been reinspired to keep on battling because he just saw his NPC friend die earlier in the day, etc etc. Your PC might have a stack of injuries, cuts and nicks - some quite serious - but the PC can still be restored to max hp (and have those injuries still showing) partly coz "it's magic" and /or partly coz "it's stamina/training/luck/grit baby". Full hp doesnt have to mean no visible wounds, alhtough at teh start of an adventure it does.  But as the adventure unfolds, it might be all grit that is keeping the guy going (eg: the end of Die Hard).

For low fantasy gaming i went with a 5 min short rest to restore half of damage suffered (with certain limitations, inlcuding max 3/day and needing to make a Will check) with this kind of thinking in mind. The intangible/stamina side of HP comes back fast. Albeit in LFG you can also get lingering injuries that sometimes last months, but that is a separate mechanic to hp.

This is actually very helpful. I dont suppose I considered a complete disconnect between HP and Injuries where the first causes the second but then recovers completely on its own. Recovery of Injuries is therefor sort of a moot point, a bit of color for the GM to include in his narrative if he wants to. I does require a sort of suspension of belief that all characters are Bruce Willis types that are NEVER affected by their wounds until they are actually slain but just keep pushing on based on a separate measure of performance, be it Will or Stamina or Hootzpah or whatever. ITs an odd notion but there is something about it that makes sense.

Thanks! Ill have to think about this one.

Like psikerlord, I was rather fond of the "bloodied" rules that 4E came up with: lose half your HP, and now shit is getting serious. It's why certain monsters perk up when a target is bloodied ... death is getting closer.

Other than that, we just treated HP as the pacing system they are.

Narrating loss of hitpoints seems to be a big thing with some, but I´ve never done it, nor played with a group that does.
Usually when the attacker roll for damage, everyone can see the roll and know what it means to the victim.
Somebody might say "Ouch! 8 points", "Bastard!" or something - but unless there´s some other effect than lost hitpoints we just move on with the fight.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860I am well versed in what a HP actually represents and understand that hitting someone in D&D and applying damage does not necessarily represent physical injury to them, BUT...

...you narrate the results of any hit point loss as a noticeable physical injury anyway. I'm not surprised that this causes some confusion. Your preferred description of a hit doesn't match the reality of the hit in the game world.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860"Your swing is a good one and he really has to dodge out of the way to avoid it, looks like you are pressing him hard, defenses are weakening!"

I mean, seriously? Does anyone actually do that?

Yes. Yes I used to do this when describing hits on NPCs since that is what the hit point loss means in D&D. For hits on the players I don't need to describe the hit since they know what a loss of 5 hit points means to their character. But eventually I tired of D&D hit points and switched to systems where hit point loss does represent a noticeable physical injury. That way my description of physical injury aligns with the rules rather than conflicts with the rules. Problem solved.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860How the hell does a GM then narrate the fight?

Quote from: rgrove0172;999883

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;999865"He hits you for five points of damage."

Sorry Gronan but thats just not how I like to run the game.

This right here is causing your problem. The game you want to run and the game you are playing are two different games. Or just read what K Peterson said.

Quote from: K Peterson;999911

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860In becoming reacquainted with D&D I am struck by an oddity in the narration of combat effects.

QuoteI am well versed in what a HP actually represents and understand that hitting someone in D&D and applying damage does not necessarily represent physical injury to them, BUT how the hell does a GM then narrate the fight?

Quoteit creates a very odd situation when these apparently nasty injuries suddenly dissappear without any magical assistance after the guy takes a nap.

Do you ever get the feeling that you're just not running the right game system for what you're trying to achieve? That you're not really satisfied with the results you're getting; that there has to be some way to model the behavior more to your liking, and maybe it's the system that's confining you? That you're pounding a square peg into a round hole with a mallet, and the bastard will just not fit no matter how much effort you put into it or how you strike the peg?

That's what a number of your threads about your 5e experience sound like to me.

Sounds that way to me too.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1000449This is actually very helpful. I dont suppose I considered a complete disconnect between HP and Injuries where the first causes the second but then recovers completely on its own. Recovery of Injuries is therefor sort of a moot point, a bit of color for the GM to include in his narrative if he wants to. I does require a sort of suspension of belief that all characters are Bruce Willis types that are NEVER affected by their wounds until they are actually slain but just keep pushing on based on a separate measure of performance, be it Will or Stamina or Hootzpah or whatever. ITs an odd notion but there is something about it that makes sense.

Thanks! Ill have to think about this one.

Yeah, this is basically what everyone else was saying when they meant hit points are supposed to be treated abstractly.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;1000229I find these discourses endlessly fascinating. It's like watching a team of surgeons desperately coming up with solutions to save a patient, but the patient isn't injured. In fact, the patient is a boulder.

Eh, I think even on a toxic or abrasive forum, gamers will generally try to assist one another, earnestly, by answering questions and proposing solutions. Probably because it's a rewarding or charitable feeling to help out. You take the original poster on good faith that they honestly want solutions.

Quote from: Bren;1000471This right here is causing your problem. The game you want to run and the game you are playing are two different games. Or just read what K Peterson said.

His hands are apparently tied, and he's forced to run D&D 5e. I feel a little sorry for him; that he's got to do all these gymnastics to make the experience palatable, to himself.

IMO, find the right tool for the job, and use it. You want to be able to narrate combat actions, with explicit effects? You want 'realistic' healing and injuries? There are tools out there that achieve these results. It seems like a waste of effort and time to use the wrong tool.

It's hard to run D&D with your hands tied. Rolling dice and making notes with your toes isn't easy.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;10000181) the cleric has always been a hp battery that no one wants to play (excepting if they were overcompensated for this burden), 2) as the core classes grew from 3 to 11, the assumption that someone in the group would be playing a cleric stopped being reasonable (or at least effectively requiring it seemed like it would turn off players),

Funny. I've been playing the game since '77 and my clerics are never HP batteries or healbots. They are undead smiting warriors of the faith a la Van Helsing or Soloman Kane. There is much more to Clerics than just "Cure X Wounds" spells.  Just look at all the other fun and useful toys in teh Cleric's spell kit, and armour and weapons too....

Quote from: DavetheLost;1000557Funny. I've been playing the game since '77 and my clerics are never HP batteries or healbots. They are undead smiting warriors of the faith a la Van Helsing or Soloman Kane. There is much more to Clerics than just "Cure X Wounds" spells.  Just look at all the other fun and useful toys in teh Cleric's spell kit, and armour and weapons too....

You're playing wrong ! It's all about "niche protection" now. :D

Why are you trying to use a screwdriver to carve steak? It just isn't the right tool for the job. D&D, and 5 in particular from what I have heard of the system, just isn't set up to model combat the way you want.  Look to a different game or be willing to perform major surgery on the combat and healing rules.

Quote from: K Peterson;1000544His hands are apparently tied, and he's forced to run D&D 5e.

Being forced to run games I don't like is why I now have a no loaded firearms at the gaming table rule. :D

There is also this to consider:  If the players want to play D&D 5E, then if you change it enough, you aren't giving them what they want.  In fact, there may be somewhere in the middle where you aren't happy and they aren't either.  So that brings up the question of what they expect to get by playing 5E?

Quote from: Dumarest;1000563You're playing wrong ! It's all about "niche protection" now. :D

You just gave me a new advantage to running a game for kids, I can teach the the One True Way! ;)

Quote from: DavetheLost;1000557Funny. I've been playing the game since '77 and my clerics are never HP batteries or healbots. They are undead smiting warriors of the faith a la Van Helsing or Soloman Kane. There is much more to Clerics than just "Cure X Wounds" spells.  Just look at all the other fun and useful toys in teh Cleric's spell kit, and armour and weapons too....

Then do you disagree with my opinion that that is why they made natural healing so much quicker in 5e?

Quote from: rgrove0172;999950Well honestly that sounds fine until the "killing blow part". In 5th ed even the attack that drives you below 0 HP is pretty easily recovered from. Stabilize, heal at least 1 HP then wait till your next long rest - POOF the nasty killing blow injury is gone just as easy as the little cuts and bruises.

I suppose for heroes even the one that takes you out "looked worse than it was" and just put you down for a bit. The broke ribs, ruptures spleen and punctured lung you though you had last night was just a bit of roughing up for a tough guy like you!" Laugh

QuoteDescribing the Effects of Damage
Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways.
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.

The disconnect is the removal of the 0HP penalties AD&D and I believe 2e had. Which rendered a PC useless till they recovered. In 5e its easier to think of the combatant revived with just a few HP as while still dangerous on the attack, they are winded, disoriented, whatever and wide open to be taken down again depending on how much they were revived by. And it usually tales magic to get them back on their feet. Without aid a stabalized character will be down 1-4 hours.

If its any consolation. In BX D&D there was no such thing. 0 HP was DEATH.

Quote from: tenbones;1000052Here is an interesting experiment that would require a lot of GM trust. It's something I've thought about but never have done:

What if the players had no idea how many HP they had? The GM kept those numbers and merely narrated combat effects based on the ever-dwindling values only the GM knew about? Would take a little extra work but I bet I could pull this off if I ran D&D.

Thoughts?

If you're not good at improvisation you could create a table based on the percentage of health a character reaches with canned descriptions that you could tailor to the situation.

Thats nothing new. Players not knowing their characters HP goes way back and was even discussed as a playstyle for D&D in Dragon. Ive seen it at conventions too now and then.

As noted in an older thread here. It works nicely. But it saddles the DM with more bookkeeping. I've done it myself so I know from experience.

"You hit and do 5 points of damage. He looks seriously injured now."

Quote from: RPGPundit;1000981"You hit and do 5 points of damage. He looks seriously injured now."

I thought you were into immersion. Referring to points of damage is the opposite of immersion.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1000981"You hit and do 5 points of damage. He looks seriously injured now."

Doesn't work, causes issues later when the serious injury vanishes even without magical aid. Kinda the point of v the whole thread. Not to mention not very interesting at the table.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1001057Doesn't work, causes issues later when the serious injury vanishes even without magical aid. Kinda the point of v the whole thread. Not to mention not very interesting at the table.

Rather than post objections explain what you want to happens when a character is unconscious and stabilized after getting nearly killed. Not in terms of D&D 5e or your flavor of the month but in terms as if I was standing there watching this play out in the setting for the campaign you plan to run.

For example characters in Middle Earth. There are numerous examples in the novels where it takes the characters reach a safe haven where they could get a solid rest and recover from their injuries. And no example where they fully recover over night. So when the designers of Adventures in Middle Earth adapted 5e, they altered the long rest so that it could only be taken during a Fellowship phase which can only occur at a Sanctuary i.e. while the PCs are in-town.

Nobody will be able to help you unless you tell us how this supposed to work in the settings you are planning to use for your campaign.

Quote from: Dumarest;1001041I thought you were into immersion. Referring to points of damage is the opposite of immersion.

If the hit caused minor damage:

"You hit him."

"How bad?"

"You can't tell just yet."



If the hit did substantial damage or the opponent has taken a number of minor hits in addition to this blow:

"You really cut/chopped/smashed/stabbed him with that one."


It's not that hard, folks.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1001057Doesn't work, causes issues later when the serious injury vanishes even without magical aid. Kinda the point of v the whole thread. Not to mention not very interesting at the table.

What "serious injury"? In the versions of D&D that I am familiar with a Fighter fights just as well at 1 HP as he does at 50 HP. He could take 49 HP in a single blow and mechanically nothing would change. It is as if only that last hit point actually counts.

This does not atch well with real combat. Even in sport combat like boxing fighters become less efficient as they take solid hits.

Quote from: Elfdart;1001207It's not that hard, folks.

OP seems very much like he doesn't want the problem resolved, but he's right in that if he's not satisfied with the answers we've given, he's not satisfied with the answers we've given. It's verisimilitude, it's an inherently subjective quality.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1001258OP seems very much like he doesn't want the problem resolved, but he's right in that if he's not satisfied with the answers we've given, he's not satisfied with the answers we've given. It's verisimilitude, it's an inherently subjective quality.

But as I said elsewhere, trying to build detailed verisimilitude into a system specifically designed not to have it, is pissing up a rope and sucking the wet end.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1001283But as I said elsewhere, trying to build detailed verisimilitude into a system specifically designed not to have it, is pissing up a rope and sucking the wet end.

Agreed. When I wrote my Majestic Wilderlands supplement, I didn't try to make OD&D work like GURPS. I took the background of the stuff I did in GURPS and figured out how they would work in OD&D terms.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1001283But as I said elsewhere, trying to build detailed verisimilitude into a system specifically designed not to have it, is pissing up a rope and sucking the wet end.

Then he's in for a very hard time, and that appears to be the case.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1001283But as I said elsewhere, trying to build detailed verisimilitude into a system specifically designed not to have it, is pissing up a rope and sucking the wet end.

Well, that's why I told him to pick another system;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1001614Well, that's why I told him to pick another system;).

Unfortunately he said he is stuck with D&D...it's kind of like saying your hand hurts when you put it in the garbage disposal, your doctor says stop doing it, and you say you're going to keep doing it but want it to stop hurting...

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1001258OP seems very much like he doesn't want the problem resolved, but he's right in that if he's not satisfied with the answers we've given, he's not satisfied with the answers we've given. It's verisimilitude, it's an inherently subjective quality.

I get the impression that his questions are rhetorical.

Thanks guys, I guess.

Sometimes your best friend is the guy who says "Stop trying to paint your house with a hammer."

Quote from: rgrove0172;1001706Thanks guys, I guess.

I don't get why you're disappointed. Everyone gave you good answers.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1001706Thanks guys, I guess.

You didn't answer my question from Post #89 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1001072&viewfull=1#post1001072).

Quote from: rgrove0172;1001706Thanks guys, I guess.

Multiple people tried to help. You did not engage with them.

Quote from: estar;1001758You didn't answer my question from Post #89 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1001072&viewfull=1#post1001072).

Or mine from #64. Self-induced disappointment AFAIC.

Or mine in #81.  I'm sensing a trend. Call me "Captain Obvious" if you must. :)

To make it easy to reply.

Original Post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1000221&viewfull=1#post1000221)
Can you please give us an example of a game you have played where you liked the wound system, and how you narrated the blow-by-blow in it?

Original Post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1000589&viewfull=1#post1000589)
So that brings up the question of what they (Rgrove's players) expect to get by playing 5E?

Original Post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1001072&viewfull=1#post1001072)
Want do you want to happen when a character is unconscious and stabilized after getting nearly killed?

If anybody else has question that didn't get answer I will add them just give the post number where it appears.

As I said earlier... (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1000229&viewfull=1#post1000229)

I am guessing he doesn't know what he wants.

Well I'll know it when I see it but "play something else" isn't much help, understood but not much help. Sorry lost track of yhis,thread and missed questions. Will answer when not on a damned phone.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002235Well I'll know it when I see it but "play something else" isn't much help, understood but not much help. Sorry lost track of yhis,thread and missed questions. Will answer when not on a damned phone.

There are specific recommendation to what else you could be playing. For example GURPS, Runequest, The Fantasy Trip, etc.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002235Well I'll know it when I see it but "play something else" isn't much help, understood but not much help. Sorry lost track of yhis,thread and missed questions. Will answer when not on a damned phone.

Which is why my answer is "come to terms with D&D as it is" or "realize you cannot and thus don't play this particular campaign" or "talk the players into playing something else."  I really like 5E, and think it can be modified to get something approximating what you originally said you want, but ... It is going to involve some serious compromise on your part to accept a different way of looking at play that is more like D&D, rather than fighting the spirit of the game.  If you can't do that, then despite my belief, I agree with the rest that you would be better of picking something else.  That's the circle you have to square.  You can make D&D more low magic and more deadly and more resource intensive.  You can't turn it into GURPs or Runequest or something similar.  At that point, you might as well buy a copy of the 5E PHB, cut the cover off, and attach it to Runequest.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002235Sorry lost track of yhis,thread and missed questions. Will answer when not on a damned phone.

Now that I can respect. As someone who normally takes the weekend off, there are any number of threads I've undoubtedly lost track of and people wondering why I never responded.

Just note, that while, to you, it might look like everyone else has said, "play something else" and aren't being much help, to everyone else, it kinda looks like you didn't want to engage with the people trying to help, and mostly just wanted to complain that this 5e healing rules that broke your verisimilitude existed.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002256Now that I can respect. As someone who normally takes the weekend off, there are any number of threads I've undoubtedly lost track of and people wondering why I never responded.

Just note, that while, to you, it might look like everyone else has said, "play something else" and aren't being much help, to everyone else, it kinda looks like you didn't want to engage with the people trying to help, and mostly just wanted to complain that this 5e healing rules that broke your verisimilitude existed.

Reading back through I can see your point. I certainly didnt mean to come off that way, although I suppose its natural not to take the time to respond to what amount to 'dead end' replies.  Let me go back and find the specific questions and try to reply to each.

Quote from: Brand55;999952Have you ever looked at Hackmaster? It really sounds like an HP/wound system like the one that game uses might be more up your alley. It's a lot more bookkeeping but it is technically more realistic.

Yes Ive looked at a number of other systems but as fairly determined to make D&D work for this campaign. It was my first and besides my group being pretty set on it I like the way getting back into it feels, even if it is going to require some teeking.

Quote from: CRKrueger;999958You're always going to have a problem with D&D Grove, here's the problem...
1. You like to narrate what's going on.
2. D&D is abstract as hell.

Your only options are:
1. Learn to square the circle and narrate early HP loss as something other than real damage.
2. Separate Meat and Stamina/Skill/Luck and make the system more concrete, so you can narrate as normal (like you're doing in the Healing thread).
3. Pick a system with Hit locations/Wounds etc.

Probably sound advice, Im almost convinced of the same thing but will hang on a bit longer for a miracle or sudden inspiration.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1000023I partially delay my descriptions until things are resolved.  In part, because it better fits the way hit points work, but also because it creates uncertainty in the players.  If someone goes down below zero from a surprise blow, I'll say something more like, "As the drow slams his blade into your chest, you collapse."  And leave it there for now.  Character might be dead, might be dying, might have just been some kind of quick acting nerve poison on the blade.  The other players don't know.  They might waste a ranged healing spell on a dead person, if the timing lines up right.  

Save the "killing descriptions" for those times when the massive damage rules (or whatever else you are house ruling or adjudicating) makes it obvious.  The 1st level wizard gets hits for 20 points by a critical from a great sword.  Sure, the head gets detached from the body.

Edit:  Left out my main point -- something else you may be struggling to deal with, 5E is not often an immediately deadly game.  By the rules, there just aren't many times when a character gets hit, and they are definitely dead, right now.  It's deliberately designed that way to create uncertainty and fear in the players with relatively few character deaths.  (And for some groups, that works very well.  It does for mine.)  If you want to move closer to earlier D&D in that respect, your best bet is to either remove or sharply curtail death saves, to make the hit that takes you to zero a possible immediate killer.  You might, for example, have cascading death saves, where if you fail you have to keep rolling until you either succeed at one or die.  Or only allow one death save, pass or fail, to see if you are alive.

Thats a good idea actually, thanks... will consider.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1000036Thinking back on all the years we've played d&d, we never really got into detailing where you hit someone or the effect.  Rather we knew that 1-5 points was akin to a light hit, where things getting up towards 15 points and beyond were huge wallops.  Varies by level of course.   The DM would narrate it as "The bugbear smashes you with a mighty blow for 15 points of damage!"  We would just use theater of mind to imagine where the hit took place and what not.  Was easier that way.

Nothing wrong with that either but my players are pretty used to and appreciate a more narrative form of game delivery. We get off on all the detail and dramatic flair. It would be a big let down for us to give that up.

Quote from: Skarg;1000094Seems to me the place you asked about this before was the thread about healing in 5e. My answer remains the same, as it has since ever seeing how many hitpoints high-level characters get, and how low the damage from weapons tends to remain, which is that it doesn't map very literally at all, and so I can't relate to it except as a weird mechanic, and so I stick to games with literal damage systems instead.

If I wanted to do what you seem to want to do, which is give descriptive details about what supposedly actually happened in the game world when someone with 73 hit points loses 9 of them to a physical attack, I'd probably watch a bunch of surreal kung-fu movies to fill my mind with how that can be translated to actions. "The blade cuts through your shirt and leaves a long scratch dripping blood", or "you're knocked flying ass-over-teakettle into the pillar on the other side of the room, where you are shaken but not stirred. You get up and prepare for another exchange [of super-cool blows that look deadly but do almost nothing until you run out of HP]".

Thats a cool notion, the dramatic combat effects descriptions I mean... detail in the effect but not necessarily the damage.

When I started to let loose and narrate some weak hits as misses and some misses as weak hits, HP made more sense to my players as a resource.

Quote from: Voros;1000128So use the alternate healing rules. This seems to be a lot of bother about something you can easily change yourself, not only are there optional rules in the DMG but you are encouraged to change the rules to fit your campaign. So do it.

Ive ready them obviously but frankly they dont come anywhere close to having the effect Im looking for.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1000221Thus far, in your other statements we've mostly gotten what you don't like, and between these two statements, I am not getting a good grip of what you would like the world of your game to look like. Can you please give us an example of a game you have played where you liked the wound system, and how you narrated the blow-by-blow in it? I think that might help us find something that meets your needs.

A good example would be Iron Crown's Rolemaster. A ridiculously complicated game but it handled wounds very well. Your HP loss caused slow deterioration of performance and then you were also subjected to possible critical wounds that caused specific hindrances. These both fit into the natural path of healing at different rates. What you described at the time of getting hurt had a real game effect and required healing along a logical line. If you got smashed in the head by a hammer
 the effects in the game at least sort of mimicked that.

Twilight 2000 as I recall wasnt bad either, although I could be confusing it with something else. The system was much simpler but losing hits caused you to suffer effects like movement and action hindrances and healing these was days, weeks or more which fit the general idea behind the damage taken. Getting shot by an AK left you slow, hurt, in pain and probably a couple weeks or more from recovering even with medical attention.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1000565Why are you trying to use a screwdriver to carve steak? It just isn't the right tool for the job. D&D, and 5 in particular from what I have heard of the system, just isn't set up to model combat the way you want.  Look to a different game or be willing to perform major surgery on the combat and healing rules.

I realize that might be where the end of this discussion leaves me but Ill reserve judgment a bit longer.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1000589There is also this to consider:  If the players want to play D&D 5E, then if you change it enough, you aren't giving them what they want.  In fact, there may be somewhere in the middle where you aren't happy and they aren't either.  So that brings up the question of what they expect to get by playing 5E?

Thats a good point. Ive changed the XP system and couple other minor things and ran them by one of the players. He was a little concerned, took some convincing but came around but your point is very valid.

Quote from: estar;1001072Rather than post objections explain what you want to happens when a character is unconscious and stabilized after getting nearly killed. Not in terms of D&D 5e or your flavor of the month but in terms as if I was standing there watching this play out in the setting for the campaign you plan to run.

For example characters in Middle Earth. There are numerous examples in the novels where it takes the characters reach a safe haven where they could get a solid rest and recover from their injuries. And no example where they fully recover over night. So when the designers of Adventures in Middle Earth adapted 5e, they altered the long rest so that it could only be taken during a Fellowship phase which can only occur at a Sanctuary i.e. while the PCs are in-town.

Nobody will be able to help you unless you tell us how this supposed to work in the settings you are planning to use for your campaign.

I would expect the character to be woozy, sore, weak and require some assistance just to move. Fighting would be extremely hindered and possible only as a matter of extreme need and adrenaline and then not very effective. There would be chances of making their wound worse too. Basically they would be pretty much a burden until they healed some (naturally or magically). This when someone comes that close to actually dying, not just getting knocked around, bloodied and beat up on.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1001254What "serious injury"? In the versions of D&D that I am familiar with a Fighter fights just as well at 1 HP as he does at 50 HP. He could take 49 HP in a single blow and mechanically nothing would change. It is as if only that last hit point actually counts.

This does not atch well with real combat. Even in sport combat like boxing fighters become less efficient as they take solid hits.

The serious injury mentioned in the post I was responding too. They used the term, I was just following up.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1001258OP seems very much like he doesn't want the problem resolved, but he's right in that if he's not satisfied with the answers we've given, he's not satisfied with the answers we've given. It's verisimilitude, it's an inherently subjective quality.

I absolutely would like to find a solution, even a compromise. Im not certain Ive seen all the possibilities yet or considered every angle, but Im getting there.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1001316Then he's in for a very hard time, and that appears to be the case.

Im realizing that. If its any consolation Im no longer looking for a perfect fit just a reasonable compromise. Ive worked up a house rule that I intend to test that might do the trick. Time will tell.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1001724I don't get why you're disappointed. Everyone gave you good answers.

This was in direct reply to the 3 or so responses before. Those calling my questions rhetorical, not really looking for an answer etc.

Quote from: estar;1001801To make it easy to reply.

Original Post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1000221&viewfull=1#post1000221)
Can you please give us an example of a game you have played where you liked the wound system, and how you narrated the blow-by-blow in it?

Original Post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1000589&viewfull=1#post1000589)
So that brings up the question of what they (Rgrove's players) expect to get by playing 5E?

Original Post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?37844-You-HIT-for-a-miss&p=1001072&viewfull=1#post1001072)
Want do you want to happen when a character is unconscious and stabilized after getting nearly killed?

If anybody else has question that didn't get answer I will add them just give the post number where it appears.

I think I answered these but just to make sure..

I mentioned Rolemaster where a hit loss would only be described as a flesh wound, bruise, breath knocked out of you etc. Something worse was described in more detail and the system allowed for the game mechanics to reflect it pretty realistically.

Playing D&D is bringing several of us back to our roots. We understand we, and the hobby, have come a long way but there is something nostalgic and comfortable in D&D that we would like to embrace for a time.

I think I answered the stabilized and recovered question sufficiently

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1002250Which is why my answer is "come to terms with D&D as it is" or "realize you cannot and thus don't play this particular campaign" or "talk the players into playing something else."  I really like 5E, and think it can be modified to get something approximating what you originally said you want, but ... It is going to involve some serious compromise on your part to accept a different way of looking at play that is more like D&D, rather than fighting the spirit of the game.  If you can't do that, then despite my belief, I agree with the rest that you would be better of picking something else.  That's the circle you have to square.  You can make D&D more low magic and more deadly and more resource intensive.  You can't turn it into GURPs or Runequest or something similar.  At that point, you might as well buy a copy of the 5E PHB, cut the cover off, and attach it to Runequest.

Well said.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002273I would expect the character to be woozy, sore, weak and require some assistance just to move. Fighting would be extremely hindered and possible only as a matter of extreme need and adrenaline and then not very effective. There would be chances of making their wound worse too. Basically they would be pretty much a burden until they healed some (naturally or magically). This when someone comes that close to actually dying, not just getting knocked around, bloodied and beat up on.

Rule
1) A Long Rest can only take place in a secure location like a town.
2) After a character is knocked to zero hit points and is stabilized, he gains one level of exhaustion until he takes a long rest. Note that a single long rest only removes one level of exhaustion.


Does this cover what you are looking for? Are you looking for something more severe, less severe? Occurs more times?

Quote from: rgrove0172;1002281Playing D&D is bringing several of us back to our roots. We understand we, and the hobby, have come a long way but there is something nostalgic and comfortable in D&D that we would like to embrace for a time.

Then embrace it.  No, I'm not being flippant.

I came back to OD&D after twenty or so years.  I'd tried to turn D&D into Pendragon, I'd tried to turn it into Fantasy Hero, Crom knows what else I'd done.  But after I returned to it, I realized that the way to have fun with D&D is stop trying to turn it into something else and let it be what it is.

D&D is full of goofy shit.  I suggest you learn to let go and embrace the goofy.  ("I didn't say she was crazy, Mickey, I said she was fucking Goofy.")

There is a ton of shit in D&D that makes no sense at all.  For instance, in OD&D, doors in the dungeon automatically open for monsters, and monsters can see in the dark.  If monsters get hired by a PC, it explicitly says they lose those abilities.  That makes absolutely no fucking sense in any kind of "world simulation" view.

HOWEVER, if you look on D&D as "Explore the Fun House from Hell, groan at the deliberately bad puns, curse at the referee for the damn deathtraps, and collect loot," it makes total sense.  AS A GAME RULE.

D&D is a resource management game.  (Personally, I suspect all wargames are resource management games, but I'm not going into that now.)

D&D is about managing resources.  Hit Points are the most important, most vital resource of all.  That's why XP for Gold so that if you steal the money you get full XP -- because you get the goodies, but do not deplete your scarcest resource.

In CHAINMAIL a Hero fights like four men and takes four hits to kill.  Levels and hit dice clearly derive from this.

Hit points act the way they do because they are a vital resource, and there must be a cost for losing a resource.  Say two 8th level fighters, each with 42 HP, go into the dungeon.  When they return, Abelard has 38 hit points left, but Bertram is down to 16, having taken 26 points of damage.

Bertram has lost a greater share of the vital resource called hit points, therefore Bertram must pay a greater cost than Abelard to restore that resource.

That's why, even though "hit points" are mostly fatigue and other et ceterae, Bertram doesn't just sleep for a day and a half and bounce up out of bed ready to go.

IF YOU LOSE MORE OF A RESOURCE YOU HAVE TO PAY A GREATER COST.

That's why HP work the way they do.  It's all about managing resources and paying a cost for lost resources.

After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1002311After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

I think, at least for me at least, the takeaway is to judge a game based upon the field it intends to play on, as it were. We don't judge yoga for it's value as a cardio workout or bbq for it's value as a diet food, yet at times we do judge TTRPGs for how well they do something we want them to do, instead of what they are designed for. OTOH, the audience is also under no obligation to like the direction a game takes.

Theoretically, the optimal situation is for people to find (or make) games which match whatever it is that they expect from their games and/or consider the most important. OP has the problem that most of his players want to play D&D, even though its design conceits do not match his own particular verisimilitude needs. There's really not a perfect solution to that conundrum, although we can hopefully find a set of healing rules (of the many available for D&D), and mental image of that healing, which better smooths over this problem for them.

" the audience is also under no obligation to like the direction a game takes."

Exactly.  I'm just trying to save Grover from the frustration and agony of essentially attempting to make a plastic explosive out of cottage cheese.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1002311After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

That's my approach to 99.9% of games. I start with the assumption that the writer had a reason for writing what he wrote and then use it to see how it works. Usually it works fine.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002364That's my approach to 99.9% of games. I start with the assumption that the writer had a reason for writing what he wrote and then use it to see how it works. Usually it works fine.

I concur, although I have extensive house rules and and a published supplement, I only wrote everything up after I played a campaign and several one-shot of the rule 'as is' to make sure I understand how it supposed to work. As far as I am concerned OD&D 'as is' works fine even with the core books only.

The only "deficiency" was it didn't reflect enough of the details i added to my setting. And that not the fault of the writers or the system. My solution was to add those details in but rather than try to shoehorn in a GURPS Lite, I figured out most D&Dish way to handle how my setting work. For the most part it meant just adding stuff rather than dicking around with the fundamentals of the rules.

The major comments I have are  that OD&D core book versus OD&D + Greyhawk is different. Plus for all the bitching about how unrealistic hit points are, OD&D core only is a pretty gritty game even at higher levels. Which is one reason why I continue to use only d6s are used to roll hit points in my campaigns.

In another thread I spoke negatively about adding any body stamina mechanic because the problem that is trying to fix is best dealt with in a D&D style game is to have a flat and low power curve in the way hit points, to hit chance, damage, and armor class grows from weak to strong.

D&D 5e touts their power curve as a feature but OD&D did it first. I am not a fan of AD&D any more because the increased stat bonus, the increased dice used for HP and stuff like Weapon Specialization distorts the power curve badly.

Don't forget monster attacks and damage.  When so many monsters, even low level ones, get multiple attacks like in Greyhawk, players need the help they get from Greyhawk or it will be a bloodbath.

Best to play a game following the rules BTB and then adjust as you progess.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1002311After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

This is the approach I took when I dug into the original Traveller rules (Books 1, 2, and 3) and found a really nifty RPG with a quick and flexible system for resolution and plenty of procedural driven hijinks for PCs to get involved with.

Actually, there is an easy way, at least with OD&D, to do exactly what Grover wants.

Just say, 'Fuck it, hit points ARE meat points.  Every time you hit it rips open a wound.  That's why it takes so long to recover.'

The whole reason Gary came up with the whole "Hit points are not meat points" thing was so that if you hit a helpless opponent on the head with a battleaxe, he dies.

But designer intentions are weaker than purchaser stupidity, so Gary had to write elaborate "coup de grace" rules ANYWAY, because the vast majority of buyers were too fucking stupid to figure out implications.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1002616Actually, there is an easy way, at least with OD&D, to do exactly what Grover wants.

Just say, 'Fuck it, hit points ARE meat points.  Every time you hit it rips open a wound.  That's why it takes so long to recover.'

The whole reason Gary came up with the whole "Hit points are not meat points" thing was so that if you hit a helpless opponent on the head with a battleaxe, he dies.

But designer intentions are weaker than purchaser stupidity, so Gary had to write elaborate "coup de grace" rules ANYWAY, because the vast majority of buyers were too fucking stupid to figure out implications.

Tell me there aren't really players and refs out there who have a bound, unconscious enemy who still has 10 hit points so they have to keep rolling hits and damage with their dagger when slitting a throat to inflict enough hit points to kill the poor sucker...

Quote from: Dumarest;1002666Tell me there aren't really players and refs out there who have a bound, unconscious enemy who still has 10 hit points so they have to keep rolling hits and damage with their dagger when slitting a throat to inflict enough hit points to kill the poor sucker...

I'll admit my focus on this point might be very narrow...
But from what I can tell a shift occurred early in the hobby:

Originally the Referee was there to adjudicate circumstances as they arose. Not toward any end, not toward any story... simply making rulings as best he saw fit.
The dice were there to be rolled in circumstances where the Referee decided he could not know the results, or was uncertain about making a ruling.

If a group of six Level 8 player characters came upon a cave of 3 1 HD goblins, then the Referee would not bother to roll unless he knew of some circumstance in which some circumstance of combat might matter. Otherwise, he would rule the PCs slaughtered the the goblins.

OD&D was written with this view in mind. Original Traveller was written with this view in mind.

And then something shifted and the rules were supposed to take over for the the need for judgement from the Referee. The Referee is now there to apply the rules on behalf of the players. But as much as possible, the rules handle the work.

Now, there might be good reasons for this, most commonly people who play with Referees with jackshit judgment who don't understand their job and even if they do are not the people you want in charge of making judgments. So the rules come to the forefront to everything is handled well.

Or, at least, that's the theory. The fact remains in countless cases judgments have to be made on the part of the Referee. But Referees don't know this, because they're being trained that the point is to apply the rules. And since the rules say, "Here are the rules for attacking, here are the rules for doing damage, here is how damage works," people start thinking, "Okay, that's how you apply damage no matter what." The notion that the circumstances should be guiding if you even apply the rules is lost.

Here is a passage from the 1981 edition of Traveller Book 1: Characters and Combat in the Special Consideration section, which covers things like Full Automatic Fire and Group Hits by Shotgun:

QuoteCoup De Grace: Any gun or blade may be used to administer a coup de grace and kill an unconscious or unstruggling individual (person or animal) at close range in one combat round if the character using the weapon so states. Ammunition is expended, but no die rolls are necessary. A coup de grace may be administered with hands or brawling weapons using special blows, but die rolls must be made.

But here's the thing: If you look at the Special Considerations section of the 1977 edition of Traveller Book 1: Characters and Combat you know what you find about Coup De Grace?

Nothing.

Everything else is there about Full Automatic Fire and Group Hits by Shotgun. But nothing about how you can kill an immobilized, unarmed target if you want. Because in 1977 no one would have thought it needed to be said.

And I swear to god... this is how you end up with Traveller5.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002666Tell me there aren't really players and refs out there who have a bound, unconscious enemy who still has 10 hit points so they have to keep rolling hits and damage with their dagger when slitting a throat to inflict enough hit points to kill the poor sucker...

Sorry, Ponch.

Remember, the only element in the universe more abundant than hydrogen is human stupidity.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002666Tell me there aren't really players and refs out there who have a bound, unconscious enemy who still has 10 hit points so they have to keep rolling hits and damage with their dagger when slitting a throat to inflict enough hit points to kill the poor sucker...

There are. I've seen at least four complaints of it over on BGG at the very least where someones bitching about how "unrealistic" it is that they have this guy gagged and bound and cant hit him hardly because they are low level and it is taking forever.

Or a thread here from last year complaining about not being able to sneak up on a guard and instakill them/being able to sneak up on a guard and instakill them/whatever.

Or the various threads here wherein someone reads some rule absolute literally (and usually in some fucked up literal sense), and how it makes no sense.

Because common sense is something a certain percentage of players and DMs have been lacking since just about after the moment the game hit the shelves. Ask any of the TSR staff that handled D&D and Dragon letters submissions.

Back on topic.

A more basic suggestion is...

Role Play it!

No... really.

Bobs hit and goes down. After revival Bob RPs the after effects of such a wound. No rules needed. Just do it.

This was the norm for our Gamma World play and PCs eventually were sporting scars and limps or missing limbs after a while due to lethality of the setting and system. And we RPed those wounds. No rules or mechanics.

There are two complicating factors on the "rules for killing helpless opponents" versus adjudication front, one negative, one positive:

Negative:  Even for people that know better (like me, a little late to the game compared to the roots, but not so late as to have never experienced it with the original attitude), it's easy in the heat of a session to slip into the later attitude.  There are times that I have to put a piece of paper with a big note with something like "Adjudicate, Then Use the Rules," in front of me.  That's because so many things can be handled by the rules, you can slip into a habit.  Though part of that for me is long sessions.  I've noticed I'm far less likely to do that in the first 2-4 hours of play.

Positive:  There was a tendency in early games for some smart ass player to take advantage of a GM who was still learning, and then they'd carry that attitude into every game.  "Helpless opponent" goes from "Bound, gagged, isolated in some back room with no hope of rescue" to "Patrolling guy you snuck up behind."  It's reasonable within the adjudication side (especially if it fits the tone) to say that an active but tired guard who is supposed to be watching for trouble doesn't get automatically killed just because someone got behind him.  Maybe he notices something at the last second.  That is, having some rules/guidelines as to when to use the rules or not is not a bad thing, but the adjudication is still a learned skill for every GM.  Granted, you'd get that skill faster with more practice--particularly if you threw all the smart ass players out of such sessions.  

I still say that the problem with modern D&D is not the rules, but the GM advice.  It's slowly, painstakingly getting better.

Given that the game explicitly says you do critical hits, not instakills, to unconscious monsters, my ruling for 5e is that this applies to combat scenarios only. You are moving quickly, you are trying to keep your eye on the door in case more baddies come, etc. You might miss the vitals. You might nervously fumble for your knife and slip. The monster might be on his face so you can't get his throat easily. Whatever.

If you sneak into the Commandant of Gran March's chamber while he is fast asleep and you have a poisoned knife, it doesn't really matter what level you are; he will die.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002666Tell me there aren't really players and refs out there who have a bound, unconscious enemy who still has 10 hit points so they have to keep rolling hits and damage with their dagger when slitting a throat to inflict enough hit points to kill the poor sucker...

I can see a justifiable argument being made that it is possible the knife slips or doesn't hit anything vital, or whatever. But really that only applies if you are interested in a blow-by-blow forensic reconstruction of events. If the important question is "do you kill the prisoner?" then the answer should obviously be "Yes. Now what?"

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002256Now that I can respect. As someone who normally takes the weekend off, there are any number of threads I've undoubtedly lost track of and people wondering why I never responded.

I use the subscriber option.
If I stop replying, there's 99% odds that my estimate has changed and I don't consider the discussion to be worth my time any more:).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1002294Then embrace it.  No, I'm not being flippant.

I came back to OD&D after twenty or so years.  I'd tried to turn D&D into Pendragon, I'd tried to turn it into Fantasy Hero, Crom knows what else I'd done.  But after I returned to it, I realized that the way to have fun with D&D is stop trying to turn it into something else and let it be what it is.

D&D is full of goofy shit.  I suggest you learn to let go and embrace the goofy.  ("I didn't say she was crazy, Mickey, I said she was fucking Goofy.")

There is a ton of shit in D&D that makes no sense at all.  For instance, in OD&D, doors in the dungeon automatically open for monsters, and monsters can see in the dark.  If monsters get hired by a PC, it explicitly says they lose those abilities.  That makes absolutely no fucking sense in any kind of "world simulation" view.

HOWEVER, if you look on D&D as "Explore the Fun House from Hell, groan at the deliberately bad puns, curse at the referee for the damn deathtraps, and collect loot," it makes total sense.  AS A GAME RULE.

D&D is a resource management game.  (Personally, I suspect all wargames are resource management games, but I'm not going into that now.)

D&D is about managing resources.  Hit Points are the most important, most vital resource of all.  That's why XP for Gold so that if you steal the money you get full XP -- because you get the goodies, but do not deplete your scarcest resource.

In CHAINMAIL a Hero fights like four men and takes four hits to kill.  Levels and hit dice clearly derive from this.

Hit points act the way they do because they are a vital resource, and there must be a cost for losing a resource.  Say two 8th level fighters, each with 42 HP, go into the dungeon.  When they return, Abelard has 38 hit points left, but Bertram is down to 16, having taken 26 points of damage.

Bertram has lost a greater share of the vital resource called hit points, therefore Bertram must pay a greater cost than Abelard to restore that resource.

That's why, even though "hit points" are mostly fatigue and other et ceterae, Bertram doesn't just sleep for a day and a half and bounce up out of bed ready to go.

IF YOU LOSE MORE OF A RESOURCE YOU HAVE TO PAY A GREATER COST.

That's why HP work the way they do.  It's all about managing resources and paying a cost for lost resources.

And that's all well and great...but if you don't want to do that, the other option should be applied;).

Quote from: RunningLaser;1002311After reading Gro's post, makes me wonder how many game's play would be improved if you just took the rules for what they were and went with it.

Improved for whom:D?
Some games would be improved, no doubt. If the game's initial intentions aren't something you want to play, though, getting back to them is only going to hurt your enjoyment.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1002551This is the approach I took when I dug into the original Traveller rules (Books 1, 2, and 3) and found a really nifty RPG with a quick and flexible system for resolution and plenty of procedural driven hijinks for PCs to get involved with.

And the way you present Traveller, it is a nifty game that does stuff I want to play in a way I find fun.
But then, imagine someone who wanted to play a rules-heavy game that accounts for much more real-world physics than Traveller. Would "going back to the core books" help that guy?
I'd bet on "no", myself;).
And that's why I said "this approach might not improve the game for everyone".
OTOH, it would help people understand whether it's worth it for them to keep trying to use that game. So it's still useful, but sometimes, it leads to you not using the game at all - which is also, arguably, what happened with rgrove, too;).

Quote from: Dumarest;1001041I thought you were into immersion. Referring to points of damage is the opposite of immersion.

The player is rolling the damage die. He knows what the number is. The Immersion is in my briefly relating the level of injury of his opponent.  In combat, it's unlikely that the average hit needs to be examined in minute or flowery detail.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1003655The player is rolling the damage die. He knows what the number is. The Immersion is in my briefly relating the level of injury of his opponent.  In combat, it's unlikely that the average hit needs to be examined in minute or flowery detail.

For quite a few of us, that method would produce a level of immersion comparable, but not quite reaching, that of a good boardgame;).

I describe every hit with some flourish.

"Immersion" is a word I've come to avoid.  I've seen it used for everything from "I try to make decisions from my character's point of view" to "I'm having a psychotic break and have lost all touch with reality."

What do you use in its place then.

"Absorption," "engrossment," "concentration" all work.

"Being focused on the game" works too.

When I'm operating model trains I'm focused on what I'm doing.  I ignore people right next to me.  I follow the actual railroad rules as best as I can.

But I never lose sight of the fact that I'm playing with a model train.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1003756"Immersion" is a word I've come to avoid.  I've seen it used for everything from "I try to make decisions from my character's point of view" to "I'm having a psychotic break and have lost all touch with reality."

Fair enough, but if you replace "immersion" with "making decisions from the character's point of view", my previous statement would still stand as written:).

Spoiler

Well, if you prefer, I'd say I can't switch between the game and in-game points of view fast and cleanly enough to update the mental picture of "I hit him for 6HP" in real time, especially when it's unclear how much the total is (systems with small variations are less of an issue). Consequently, I start making decisions that follow from the rules, not the in game situation, which hurts my decision-making-from-character's-point-of-view-ability even further;).

Is the fucker still standing?  Then I hit him again.

There.  Done.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860I could have sworn I posted this as a discussion topic a while back but I cant find it and sadly, cant remember for sure if it was here or elsewhere so...

Im playing D&D 5th Ed. with a new group and things are going well. I am also rebuilding a 30 year old campaign in the 5th ed. role for my own campaign to start during the holidays.

In becoming reacquainted with D&D I am struck by an oddity in the narration of combat effects. Its been around forever and been discussed to death Im certain but as I am returning to the game after a LONG hiatus its a new issue for me.

I am well versed in what a HP actually represents and understand that hitting someone in D&D and applying damage does not necessarily represent physical injury to them, BUT

How the hell does a GM then narrate the fight?

I would be willing to bet that a Vast majority of GMs, when consulting their Goblin's AC and determining the player's roll did indeed register a hit, probably say something like...

"Your sword cuts into the Goblin and he screams, spitting at you through his pointed teeth, but he is still standing."

The same would apply when the Goblin attacks the PC. More than likely some sort of Impact or Injury is related, because....lets face it, a HIT is a HIT - not a miss that bled some of the target's energy, stamina, skill or luck away. Mechanically that may well be what is represented but it seems very difficult to reply to a player that succeeded in rolling higher than his target's AC with...

"Your swing is a good one and he really has to dodge out of the way to avoid it, looks like you are pressing him hard, defenses are weakening!"

I mean, seriously? Does anyone actually do that?

I had that problem with D&D right from the beginning and it was one of the reasons, along with getting more HP as you advanced and lots of other things, that I devised my own system. To be fair, however, if HP are physical damage and only physical damage, one might want some way to track fatigue and stress because they are real.

As a GM, I generally managed by noting that both sides in a fight would experience fatigue and stress at about the same rate, so they should come up only in exceptional cases. When more help arrives for one side or the other, they might have an advantage in these areas. If they had to run to reach the fight that might not be true or they might even be more fatigued than the combatants already there. People who are losing a fight badly are often more stressed but that's a problem that usually solves itself.

I found it easy to handle those things through rulings but writing rules for them is harder.

Quote from: rgrove0172;999860The issue here is of course of no consequence unless you factor in healing, which in 5th ed is pretty rapid (ridiculously rapid) So when a GM explains the Goblin slashes the PC's arm, bruises him through his armor and cracks a rib as he falls down... it creates a very odd situation when these apparently nasty injuries suddenly dissappear without any magical assistance after the guy takes a nap.

So... Im not complaining about the healing (Thats another thread) instead Im simply asking how to narrate the actual loss of HP so this odd disconnect doesnt occur in the game?

Thanks in advance!

Are you bound to healing rules that you find ridiculous? If they don't fit with way you want to run, alter them.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1003804Is the fucker still standing?  Then I hit him again.

There.  Done.

Indeed.

I wouldn't narrate combat in Palladium, because its rounds are short and with opposing rolls there's a lot of dice-chucking anyway. It narrates itself. I do add some flourish to combat situations in OD&D though.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1002616But designer intentions are weaker than purchaser stupidity, so Gary had to write elaborate "coup de grace" rules ANYWAY, because the vast majority of buyers were too fucking stupid to figure out implications.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002666Tell me there aren't really players and refs out there who have a bound, unconscious enemy who still has 10 hit points so they have to keep rolling hits and damage with their dagger when slitting a throat to inflict enough hit points to kill the poor sucker...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1002679Sorry, Ponch.

Remember, the only element in the universe more abundant than hydrogen is human stupidity.

OD&D is a great game however it not without it's flaws particularly in its presentation. It neither obvious or intuitive to most people to think that if the rules doesn't cover something in a campaign that the referee should make it up based on his experience of what would happen.

Yes Gygax said this at the end.

QuoteAFTERWORD:
There are unquestionably areas which have been glossed over. While we deeply regret the necessity, space requires that we put in the essentials only, and the trimming will often have to be added by the referee and his players. We have attempted to furnish an ample framework, and building should be both easy and fun. In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you? Write to us and tell about your additions, ideas, and what have you. We could always do with a bit of improvement in our refereeing.

However given how entrenched the idea that when one plays a game one plays it by the rules. That to do so otherwise is cheating.  The above and other similar advice in the intro and scattered about the text was not enough.  It needed a fuller explanation. Neither Holmes, AD&D, or other RPGs have gotten this right in the decades since.

If there are idiots, they are those who mock people for being stupid and not trying to figure out how to explain things better.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1003900I had that problem with D&D right from the beginning and it was one of the reasons, along with getting more HP as you advanced and lots of other things, that I devised my own system. To be fair, however, if HP are physical damage and only physical damage, one might want some way to track fatigue and stress because they are real.

And was it as easy to understand and as fast to resolve as D&D take? There are plenty of RPGs who I like better than D&D when it comes to realism and making sense. GURPS and Harnmaster among them. But it doesn't come free. Combat take longer to resolve, characters take longer to create, and so on.

Would make a difference in handling hit points if I told they stem from the fact that a ordinary warrior took one hit to kill, a Hero (4th level) took 4 hit to kill, and a Super Hero (8th level) took 8 hits to kill? That 1 hit = 1 kill was found to be boring and so was expanded to 1d6 hit points.

The implication being, like the above, is that a 2nd level character can last twice as long on the battlefield than a ordinary warrior. A hero can last four times as long and so on.  In GURPS and Harnmaster this is handled by the most experienced character having more skill thus better at defense and not likely to be hit as often.

I found that if the interplay of the numbers are such (Hit points, to-hit bonus, armor class, etc) that one winds up the pretty much the same as the other in how the fights play out.  Knowing that made all the difference for me in my ability to narrate a D&D fight versus a GURPS fight.

Hit points are already too complicated. Replace with a box that says:

QuoteThou'rt Dead: Yea/Nay

Quote from: estar;1004554OD&D is a great game however it not without it's flaws particularly in its presentation. It neither obvious or intuitive to most people to think that if the rules doesn't cover something in a campaign that the referee should make it up based on his experience of what would happen.

Yes Gygax said this at the end.


However given how entrenched the idea that when one plays a game one plays it by the rules. That to do so otherwise is cheating.  The above and other similar advice in the intro and scattered about the text was not enough.  It needed a fuller explanation. Neither Holmes, AD&D, or other RPGs have gotten this right in the decades since.

If there are idiots, they are those who mock people for being stupid and not trying to figure out how to explain things better.

In general, I agree. I love TSR-era D&D. I think the game--the one you are intended to play, not necessarily the one published in any book they ever made--is wonderful. But you are right, dodging the criticism that the games were not greatly written by saying that those who do not get it are stupid is a dodge. The games could have been written better. I am thoroughly sympathetic to the argument for the earliest editions that "at the time, almost everyone was taught by a friend who was taught by a friend who was taught by Gary, so it wasn't a high priority," but eventually that excuse runs out

Now, as a counter-example of why you might not want to do so, 3e was supposed to be the well-combed-through, thoroughly well explained edition, and what did people do? Complain that the drowning rules (which move your hp total to 0 after you run out of held breath) didn't make exclusions if you have negative hp. So you kind of are damned if your vague and damned if you are clear.

Quote from: Simlasa;999862"You gave it to him hard that time!"

*giggity*

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1004567In general, I agree. I love TSR-era D&D. I think the game--the one you are intended to play, not necessarily the one published in any book they ever made--is wonderful. But you are right, dodging the criticism that the games were not greatly written by saying that those who do not get it are stupid is a dodge. The games could have been written better. I am thoroughly sympathetic to the argument for the earliest editions that "at the time, almost everyone was taught by a friend who was taught by a friend who was taught by Gary, so it wasn't a high priority," but eventually that excuse runs out

Now, as a counter-example of why you might not want to do so, 3e was supposed to be the well-combed-through, thoroughly well explained edition, and what did people do? Complain that the drowning rules (which move your hp total to 0 after you run out of held breath) didn't make exclusions if you have negative hp. So you kind of are damned if your vague and damned if you are clear.

"Dodging is a dodge" :p

Quote from: estar;1004558And was it as easy to understand and as fast to resolve as D&D take? There are plenty of RPGs who I like better than D&D when it comes to realism and making sense. GURPS and Harnmaster among them. But it doesn't come free. Combat take longer to resolve, characters take longer to create, and so on.

Would make a difference in handling hit points if I told they stem from the fact that a ordinary warrior took one hit to kill, a Hero (4th level) took 4 hit to kill, and a Super Hero (8th level) took 8 hits to kill? That 1 hit = 1 kill was found to be boring and so was expanded to 1d6 hit points.

The implication being, like the above, is that a 2nd level character can last twice as long on the battlefield than a ordinary warrior. A hero can last four times as long and so on.  In GURPS and Harnmaster this is handled by the most experienced character having more skill thus better at defense and not likely to be hit as often.

I found that if the interplay of the numbers are such (Hit points, to-hit bonus, armor class, etc) that one winds up the pretty much the same as the other in how the fights play out.  Knowing that made all the difference for me in my ability to narrate a D&D fight versus a GURPS fight.

To me, the way D&D plays versus GURPS are very different. Some battles may play out more or less the same, but the details of the situation, and choices taken in GURPS are often more important to determine who wins than how good the fighters' stats are (partly because the stats tend not to vary so much, especially in terms of hitpoints, and the ration of possible damage in one blow to hit points is generally greater than 1:1 but also ways to avoid getting hit (where they stand and face, taking cover, defenses, reaction attacks), so even "mundane" combat can have people suddenly taken out even by a single attack, or managing to survive a whole battle without taking any injuries.

Also, since the action and injuries are all explicit rather than abstract, there is none of the OP's "you hit for a miss" issue. There can be attacks which reduce the defender's ability to fight without hitting him, but there is little question about how to narrate it because the effect has an explicit in-game condition (e.g. you forced them to retreat, they're off balance, their weapon becomes unready, dropped in a specific location, broken in a specific way, etc. - there are specific rules for those things).

Quote from: Dumarest;1004569"Dodging is a dodge" :p

Well, that wording obviously fails, but maybe that accidentally communicates my intent rather well. As in, "that dodge is blatant and obvious."

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1004567Now, as a counter-example of why you might not want to do so, 3e was supposed to be the well-combed-through, thoroughly well explained edition, and what did people do? Complain that the drowning rules (which move your hp total to 0 after you run out of held breath) didn't make exclusions if you have negative hp. So you kind of are damned if your vague and damned if you are clear.

My solution is a more polite version of "fuck the rules" the point of what being done here is playing a D&D campaign not a D&D game.

A fuller explanation

My view of this has harden over the years but I lay the technical ills of the hobby solely the feet of those trying to play RPGs like a game rather than as their own thing. Which is to pretend to have different abilities or to be someone else while doing fun and interesting things. In the genius of RPGs is Gygax and Arneson is inventing a pen & paper holodeck that people can use in their hobby time. And doing it before Cyberspace, Dream Park, and Star Trek TNG.

It uses a mechanics of a wargame as means to realizing this. It is not however the point in the way the rule of Chess, Go, Blitzkreig, or Third Reich are.

This manifested early in the hobby with the advent of D&D Tournaments at Gen Con, Origins, and other Conventions. And got perpetuated because of two factors TSR was bombarded by the 70s version of spam with rules questions, and tournament modules were the easiest thing to convert to a salable product when it was proved that there was a market for adventures.

And we been living with the consequences ever since.

The solution in my view is to emphasize the campaign and the setting over the rules. Teach that if the setting conflict with the rules that the rules are what must bend. That no set of rules is going to cover every possibility that occurs within the campaign. The ultimate fallback is what you defined the setting of the campaign to be.

Which in D&D cases is that unless otherwise specified it operate much like our own history's middle ages with physics operating like in our own world. Among the things specified is that magic in the form of the D&D spell system exists, along with fantastic monsters. Which is why Gronan is spot on with his commentary and criticisms. about proper tactics and the like.

And keep in mind the above is the default. Other RPGs, like Toon, have their own assumptions. And the D&D rules are pretty flexible if you want to run something like fantasy superheroes or make it more gritty. Regardless the driver of such changes should be that the type of campaign you want to run as a referee and that your players want to play in.

There been a couple of recent thread that are pretty much navel gazing about one D&Dism or another. Most are missing the point by doing so. By operating from the assumption that a set of rules are being adopted and trying to fix it what the poster doesn't like about. As opposed to I want to run a campaign with this setting, how can the D&D rules help me run that campaign.

Quote from: estar;1004558And was it as easy to understand and as fast to resolve as D&D take? There are plenty of RPGs who I like better than D&D when it comes to realism and making sense. GURPS and Harnmaster among them. But it doesn't come free. Combat take longer to resolve, characters take longer to create, and so on.

The combat rules seem to be as easy to understand as D&D. I'm looking at them from the wrong side to say that they definitely are as easy but I and others have taught the system to quite a few non-gamers and they pick it up at the same pace. I have a "rules-proof" player who just says what her character is doing and trusts the rest of us to tell her whether it was successful and there is another one back in my old gaming group in the New Haven area.  I don't know if Micki would learn D&D if she tried but I bet she'd be the same. Stimpy, back in New Haven, was rules-proof in D&D, Palladium, Rifts and Unisystem also.

Characters do take longer to create and I wouldn't like that but characters last a long time in a high injury/low fatality campaign and the people in Andy's high-fatality campaign, the only such campaign in these rules that I know of, don't seem to mind creating new characters.

A round of combat takes a bit longer, especially if using the optional targeting and armor avoidance rules. However, in general, combat takes fewer rounds. Ironically, perhaps, that is especially true if using those optional rules.

Quote from: estar;1004558Would make a difference in handling hit points if I told they stem from the fact that a ordinary warrior took one hit to kill, a Hero (4th level) took 4 hit to kill, and a Super Hero (8th level) took 8 hits to kill? That 1 hit = 1 kill was found to be boring and so was expanded to 1d6 hit points.

The implication being, like the above, is that a 2nd level character can last twice as long on the battlefield than a ordinary warrior. A hero can last four times as long and so on.  In GURPS and Harnmaster this is handled by the most experienced character having more skill thus better at defense and not likely to be hit as often.

I found that if the interplay of the numbers are such (Hit points, to-hit bonus, armor class, etc) that one winds up the pretty much the same as the other in how the fights play out.  Knowing that made all the difference for me in my ability to narrate a D&D fight versus a GURPS fight.

When I saw that Gygax explanation of why HP went up, my response was "why not have the character get harder to hit?" Besides various dodge and parry options, that cost an opportunity to attack, the character just flinches away from blows, his or her weapon happens to get in the way of the attack or the defender is just a bit luckier. That has worked for this game since the mid-eighties. What I have never been satisfied with is that fatigue and morale are not really handled in the rules. The GMs who run the game handle them with rulings and it was never a problem but now that I have released the game into the wild, as it were, I would  have liked to have provided some more guidance.

After forty years of questions like

"CHAINMAIL says you can't fire into a melee.  Does that mean that if my unit A is in melee with enemy unit B I can't shoot archers at unit B?" -- not a hypothetical example -- you stop wondering if you could have written things more clearly.

Most people are booger-eating morons.

Stupidity is widely distributed across space and time.  Even people that are otherwise reasonably smart will all have their moments where they say something really stupid.  Now admittedly, it was a little more difficult when you had to type up your stupidity in a letter, somehow manage to address it and stamp it, and then remember to get it to the post office.  That took dedication for a person having a stupid moment.  But people are resilient in the face of such challenges.

That specific example sounds more like, 'I am fishing for you to bring up some alternate, exception, or course of action I haven't thought of, to get me out of this situation,' more than actually asking if this thing that they just quoted almost verbatim means exactly what they just said.

Quote from: estar;1000015My rule of thumb in narrating combat are

1) If the roll miss and it is greater or equal to 10 + Target's Dex bonus then it is a hit but doesn't penetrate armor. Since 5e has stats for monsters it easy to figure out what the Dex bonus is. For classic D&D I wing it based on the monster description.

2) If less than 10 + Target's Dex it is a complete miss, dodge, etc.

3) When an actual hit is scored I look the ratio of damage to the max hit points. The greater the proportion the more "severe" the hit.

4) At low hit points I start describing exhaustion, fatigue, etc.

5) Below 12 or so hit points, I start using the lower total the max hit point for figuring out the ration. So when fighting a 100 point opponents 5 points hits would be described as minor stabs, and cuts. Until around 12 or 10 hit points then I up the description of the severity of the wounds.

I do this because it add a bit of dramatic flair that the players enjoy.

I can't speak to D&D, of course, but this is certainly the correct interpretation of what is going on in an ACKS combat.
The upcoming Heroic Fantasy Handbook makes this more explicit by having healing be proportional to hit points.

I would add that it's helpful to understand D&D hp by re-framing the system somewhat. Assume D&D hp are static with a range of about 4-10hp per character. Then assume each character can cut damage by a certain factor by "rolling from the blow". A 2nd level fighter takes 1/2 damage from rolling with the blow, a 5th level fighter takes 1/5 damage from rolling with the blow, a 9th level fighter takes 1/9 damage from rolling with the blow. A 9th level cleric takes (3.5/4.5 x 9) 1/7 damage from rolling with the blow.

So for instance, imagine a 5th level fighter with 8 [static] hp who can roll with the blow for 1/5 damage. He gets hit by an ogre (1d12 damage, roll of 6) for 5 points. The fighter takes (6/5) 1.2 points of damage, rounded to 1. A 2nd level fighter with 8 [static] hp can roll with the blow for 1/2 damage. The same blow from the ogre would yield (6/2) 3 points. So the 2nd level fighter has been hit three times as hard.

Since most players don't like math, especially division, which yields lots of fractions and too little granularity, D&D "inflates" hp rather than divide damage. But the effect is the same and should be narrated the same...

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I think it's probably unnecessary to overthink it, but interesting nevertheless.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1004862That's an interesting way of looking at it. I think it's probably unnecessary to overthink it, but interesting nevertheless.

"Overthinking" is a good way to put it.  I don't WANT that much time to be taken up by combat.  I've played Fantasy Hero, which is a damn complicated system... and at the end of the day, it really is no better than OD&D.

"And then the EARS, I get the IDEA, get ON with it."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1004939"And then the EARS, I get the IDEA, get ON with it."

Wrong! Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So you can hear every shriek when a sword stabs you in the leg. Listen to the sounds of moaning from unconscious combatants lying about the field. My narration shall echo in your perfect ears.

Quote from: estar;1004950Wrong! Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So you can hear every shriek when a sword stabs you in the leg. Listen to the sounds of moaning from unconscious combatants lying about the field. My narration shall echo in your perfect ears.

Okay that was a good reply.

Quote from: estar;1004950Wrong! Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So you can hear every shriek when a sword stabs you in the leg. Listen to the sounds of moaning from unconscious combatants lying about the field. My narration shall echo in your perfect ears.

* Orson Welles slow clap *

Part of the benefit of the RPG tabletop experience is the theatre of the mind. I trust my Players enough to have the creativity to imagine a cooler scene to them, in their own heads, than what I would describe with an excess of detail.

I'm a gorehound and splatterpunk. I love throwing around fast details in combat. When WFRP 1e came out, I almost memorized the crit charts. As GM, I know the PC's level and what certain damage means so its not rocket science to jump from bloody slashes to explosions of wretched meat and bone as the dice results dictate.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1005326I'm a gorehound and splatterpunk. I love throwing around fast details in combat. When WFRP 1e came out, I almost memorized the crit charts. As GM, I know the PC's level and what certain damage means so its not rocket science to jump from bloody slashes to explosions of wretched meat and bone as the dice results dictate.

As long as your healing rules reflect that trauma, your good. If not, your just making noise.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1005324Part of the benefit of the RPG tabletop experience is the theatre of the mind. I trust my Players enough to have the creativity to imagine a cooler scene to them, in their own heads, than what I would describe with an excess of detail.

Ehh, but then why even describe anything in the first place. It feels like playing a board game or computer game at that point. All numbers.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1005339As long as your healing rules reflect that trauma, your good. If not, your just making noise.

By that logic all colour and flavour in a game is 'just making noise.'

Quote from: Voros;1005453By that logic all colour and flavour in a game is 'just making noise.'

Not at all. Your color has to match the mechanics or at least not conflict with them.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1005506Not at all. Your color has to match the mechanics or at least not conflict with them.

That is true for me.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1005506Not at all. Your color has to match the mechanics or at least not conflict with them.

I tend to agree.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1005506Not at all. Your color has to match the mechanics or at least not conflict with them.

You're the fellow that would spend time describing the atmosphere of a spring morning or a working village to his players no? Is that colour all just noise because it has no mechanical impact? Or apparently your bugbear is longterm mechanical impact.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1005324Part of the benefit of the RPG tabletop experience is the theatre of the mind. I trust my Players enough to have the creativity to imagine a cooler scene to them, in their own heads, than what I would describe with an excess of detail.

And I like the cooperative part enough to supply them the barebones of the scene, so they don't have to imagine everything and we know we're at least roughly on the same page:).
Also, I like my players (not PCs) enough that I don't want to yank them out of immersion with a description that amounts to "you hit, and a negative number flows over the enemy's head and disappears in a puff":D.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1005506Not at all. Your color has to match the mechanics or at least not conflict with them.

Quote from: Bren;1005524That is true for me.

Quote from: Dumarest;1005552I tend to agree.

+3 to that!

Quote from: Voros;1005607You're the fellow that would spend time describing the atmosphere of a spring morning or a working village to his players no? Is that colour all just noise because it has no mechanical impact? Or apparently your bugbear is longterm mechanical impact.

"...or at least not conflict with them", Voros;).
The atmosphere of a spring morning might or might not be relevant, mechanically, but it doesn't change whether you have 1 HP remaining in your Head Location, or all 7 HP that your Siz+Con allow;).

Quote from: Voros;1005607You're the fellow that would spend time describing the atmosphere of a spring morning or a working village to his players no? Is that colour all just noise because it has no mechanical impact? Or apparently your bugbear is longterm mechanical impact.

Perhaps it does have mechanical impact. You sound as if you would describe a beautiful spring morning then hinder travel due to poor weather. That's the kind of conflict I'm talking about.

Really you think I would describe a spring morning and then hinder travel due to poor weather? I was clearly implying no such thing. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Voros;1005757Really you think I would describe a spring morning and then hinder travel due to poor weather? I was clearly implying no such thing. :rolleyes:

No, he says that "no hindrances to travel" is a mechanical consequence.

With all due respect that is not what he said, he said: "You sound as if you would describe a beautiful spring morning then hinder travel due to poor weather."

Which is just passive aggressive snark.

He's got a bee in his bonnet over the healing rules in 5e, which he is free to change but he just can't let it go.

Quote from: Voros;1005768With all due respect that is not what he said, he said: "You sound as if you would describe a beautiful spring morning then hinder travel due to poor weather."

Which is just passive aggressive snark.

Even assuming it is, passive aggressive snark has meaning, too:). And in this case, it's the meaning I explained, he just ascribes you the negative quality of not following on what has been established in the "colour" text.

Certainly, which is clearly bullshit. Ascribing a negative stance, even inventing an argument they have not advanced, is Twattish. Rgrove has often played the victim on this forum but I increasingly see why so many became tired of his mendacious whining.

Actually, I think Rgrove's stance in the last few pages has been clear and consistent, and making solid points.

Watch:

QuoteAs long as your healing rules reflect that trauma, your good. If not, your just making noise.

QuoteBy that logic all colour and flavour in a game is 'just making noise.'

Here's a rewriting Rgrove's response to pull out any personal attacks you might have perceived:

"The color and flavor of the weather can have mechanical implications. For example, how the Referee describes the weather can affect movement rates. If the referee describes the weather one way, the movement rules should interlock with the color of the weather. This is one example where the color the Referee describes can impact the mechanics and the fictional details moving forward. Just as how the Referee describes damage in combat, if it is to be effective, should be matched to consequential rules of some sort."

You may not agree with him. (For the record, I see his point and agree with him.)

But I think you might (might) be able to take a step back and see his comment less as an attack (I didn't see it that way, but I can see how you might) and look at the point he was making. Again, you might not agree with it. But I found his example really intuitive and on-point.

You're such a gentleman and scholar. Quit classing up the joint!

I agree with Grover thus far.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1005803Actually, I think Rgrove's stance in the last few pages has been clear and consistent, and making solid points.

You may not agree with him. (For the record, I see his point and agree with him.)

But I think you might (might) be able to take a step back and see his comment less as an attack (I didn't see it that way, but I can see how you might) and look at the point he was making. Again, you might not agree with it. But I found his example really intuitive and on-point.

I didn't disagree with his weather example, this is all common sense. I just took issue with his passive aggressive snark.

Of course all colour has to agree with mechanical effects but not all colour needs to have a mechanical effect. Decribing the atmosphere of a working village is fine, you don't have to insert the effects of the smoke from the smithy on the PC's movement and visibility to justify including it.

His earlier post is just complaining (yet again) that he thinks D&D's healing and HP system are insufficently realistic (d'uh). As others have pointed out he continues to complain an orange is not an apple and/or attempts to piss up a rope.

Quote from: Voros;1005757Really you think I would describe a spring morning and then hinder travel due to poor weather? I was clearly implying no such thing. :rolleyes:

He clearly mistakes you for the old "Adventure" game on a mainframe.
:You are walking beside a rocky stream:
"Pick up a rock."
:I see no 'rock' here:

Quote from: Voros;1005935I didn't disagree with his weather example, this is all common sense. I just took issue with his passive aggressive snark.

And replying in the way you did helped the situation how:)?

QuoteOf course all colour has to agree with mechanical effects but not all colour needs to have a mechanical effect. Decribing the atmosphere of a working village is fine, you don't have to insert the effects of the smoke from the smithy on the PC's movement and visibility to justify including it.

Which is what Grover said, too;).

Seriously, I definitely didn't expect to take the side of grover on this. But what happened was:
Spinachcat says he likes to add embellishments to the way he describes damage
Grover says "as long as your healing rules reflect that".
You say "don't you describe spring mornings just for athmosphere?"
Grover replying "colour can have mechanical impact or at least has to not contradict". Which is something you agreed with a couple times since.
But then you managed to disagree with him, and since then, the discussion is going round and round.

Sure seems to me like somebody isn't looking for a productive discussion. And alas, it seems that "someone" was you in this case!

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1006089He clearly mistakes you for the old "Adventure" game on a mainframe.
:You are walking beside a rocky stream:
"Pick up a rock."
:I see no 'rock' here:

"Piss in stream"
:I don't know how to do that:
"Die of ruptured bladder"

"You have died of Dissing Terry (http://weknowmemes.com/2013/06/dissing-terry/)"

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1005359Ehh, but then why even describe anything in the first place. It feels like playing a board game or computer game at that point. All numbers.

No, the trick is to describe just enough.  Describe too little, and the Players will lack vital information as a framework to create their own vision (as well as information essential to being able to play effectively in the world). Describe too much, and you're slowing down the whole game while limiting the role of the player's imagination and internal vision.

The key is pretty much to describe everything that must be described, and then leave the window-dressing to the player's minds.