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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7571089" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I guess I should add to this that no edition of D&D has ever claimed that hit points represents the ability to just shrug off hits. There is a false dichotomy that frequently comes up in this discussion that amounts to 'meat/no meat', and Gygax explicitly rejected that interpretation.</p><p></p><p>If your are playing D&D, and a couple of arrows hit you doing say 13 damage, we know absolutely nothing about how wounded you are until we see your hit points remaining. D&D operates under 'fortune in the middle', where we say what we intend to do, we roll dice to determine the success, and then we interpret the success or failure based on the circumstances. If a character in D&D is struck by three arrows for 13 damage, and they have only 5 hit points, that character has been solidly struck in several locations in the body, causing shock and severe bleeding and will likely die shortly without assistance. But if a character in D&D is struck by three arrows for 13 damage, and they have 50 hit points, then those arrows didn't solidly connect with the character at all. Instead, the arrows glanced off them, didn't fully penetrate the armor, or were nearly dodged leaving the character with only a few nicks and scratches. The same damage resulted in a very different narrative result.</p><p></p><p>D&D operates under the idea that for a hero, there starting hit points at 1st level represents basically their 'meat' and the additional hit points that they earn at higher levels represents their skill, luck, divine protection, and magical forces that collectively protect them. When a PC is wounded, most of the damage that they take is absorbed metaphysically by spending their luck and energy to evade the attack, resulting in relatively trivial wounds. Only when the PC begins to run out of hit points entirely do they begin to sustain serious wounds.</p><p></p><p>There was some controversy in 4e (and to a lesser extent 5e) concerning whether hit points can be redefined to mean not 'some meat' but 'no meat at all', and you can but only by doing a even more arm waving to distract you from the problems with that interpretation than is usual for traditional hit points. For example, one aspect of the 'some meat' interpretation is that when you are 'hit' you are actually literally 'hit', and if you aren't actually literally hit then it becomes really weird explaining 'on hit' effects like poison or energy drain or paralyzation that a great many D&D monsters do. I'd avoid that interpretation as entirely unnecessary, and go there only if you really want to.</p><p></p><p>If you are worried about how a hero survives running through a hail of laser fire, the answer is mostly the same as how a hero survives running through a hail of arrows - those lasers are largely evaded. He might be burned by near misses, grazed by hits that leave scorches on clothing, or have hits largely mitigated by his armor, but until the hero runs out of hit points those lasers are never solidly connecting with him. The hero comes out scratched up, burned, and the worse for wear, but does not sustain any really serious wound. Only as the hero's hit points start to run out, do the hits become increasingly serious until the hit that reduces the hero below zero hit points, which is narrated as a more solid and potentially lethal hit.</p><p></p><p>Basically, I don't think you should worry about lasers and machine guns being inherently more lethal. It's not like in D&D a PC is actually taking solid blows from battle axes and still going anyway. At no point in the games history has it ever endorsed that way of narrating the game. Now maybe an elephant's hit points are all meat and no skill and luck, and that's a perfectly fine narration for an elephant, but that's a different matter.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7571089, member: 4937"] I guess I should add to this that no edition of D&D has ever claimed that hit points represents the ability to just shrug off hits. There is a false dichotomy that frequently comes up in this discussion that amounts to 'meat/no meat', and Gygax explicitly rejected that interpretation. If your are playing D&D, and a couple of arrows hit you doing say 13 damage, we know absolutely nothing about how wounded you are until we see your hit points remaining. D&D operates under 'fortune in the middle', where we say what we intend to do, we roll dice to determine the success, and then we interpret the success or failure based on the circumstances. If a character in D&D is struck by three arrows for 13 damage, and they have only 5 hit points, that character has been solidly struck in several locations in the body, causing shock and severe bleeding and will likely die shortly without assistance. But if a character in D&D is struck by three arrows for 13 damage, and they have 50 hit points, then those arrows didn't solidly connect with the character at all. Instead, the arrows glanced off them, didn't fully penetrate the armor, or were nearly dodged leaving the character with only a few nicks and scratches. The same damage resulted in a very different narrative result. D&D operates under the idea that for a hero, there starting hit points at 1st level represents basically their 'meat' and the additional hit points that they earn at higher levels represents their skill, luck, divine protection, and magical forces that collectively protect them. When a PC is wounded, most of the damage that they take is absorbed metaphysically by spending their luck and energy to evade the attack, resulting in relatively trivial wounds. Only when the PC begins to run out of hit points entirely do they begin to sustain serious wounds. There was some controversy in 4e (and to a lesser extent 5e) concerning whether hit points can be redefined to mean not 'some meat' but 'no meat at all', and you can but only by doing a even more arm waving to distract you from the problems with that interpretation than is usual for traditional hit points. For example, one aspect of the 'some meat' interpretation is that when you are 'hit' you are actually literally 'hit', and if you aren't actually literally hit then it becomes really weird explaining 'on hit' effects like poison or energy drain or paralyzation that a great many D&D monsters do. I'd avoid that interpretation as entirely unnecessary, and go there only if you really want to. If you are worried about how a hero survives running through a hail of laser fire, the answer is mostly the same as how a hero survives running through a hail of arrows - those lasers are largely evaded. He might be burned by near misses, grazed by hits that leave scorches on clothing, or have hits largely mitigated by his armor, but until the hero runs out of hit points those lasers are never solidly connecting with him. The hero comes out scratched up, burned, and the worse for wear, but does not sustain any really serious wound. Only as the hero's hit points start to run out, do the hits become increasingly serious until the hit that reduces the hero below zero hit points, which is narrated as a more solid and potentially lethal hit. Basically, I don't think you should worry about lasers and machine guns being inherently more lethal. It's not like in D&D a PC is actually taking solid blows from battle axes and still going anyway. At no point in the games history has it ever endorsed that way of narrating the game. Now maybe an elephant's hit points are all meat and no skill and luck, and that's a perfectly fine narration for an elephant, but that's a different matter. [/QUOTE]
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