Hit Points Are Not Meat Points

>>52739540
man I swear watching this shit as a kid made me have weird fetishes in adulthood

>>52739540
In that situation I would have let the knife result in a automatic kill. Hell, whenever someone is helpless I allow automatic kills unless I have a very good reason not too (victim is covered in impervious armor or something)

>>52739540

Situations like this, of stupid GMs not understanding the necessary abstraction in damage systems, are the fucking worst. Thankfully I've never personally experienced it, but I know some people who have.

>>52739580
This. Hit points should only be used in combat.
But I've had DMs that insist that every use of a weapon is an "attack" and requires rolling.

>>52739566
Possible rule 1 blunder?

>>52739540
Couldn't you just use a Coup de Grace rule?

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>>52739540

>>52739540
Just roll a very hard fortitude save you mongoloid.
You millennials should stick to your vidya geyms.

>>52739540
I don't, because I'm fine with this.

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1. If it was a very minor enemy like a goblin, and the goblin had surrendered, I would allow an automatic kill. The enemy was weak, and in no position to defend them self.

2. If the enemy was stronger however, the situation would be completely different. If they were still within the 'Just barely superhuman' range, like level 5, they could headbutt behind them and hit your face, then elbow you in the gut, or any of the other types of things heroic-tier beings tend to do when put into that kind of situation. I would require a roll.

3. If the being was excessively superhuman [level 10+] I would not only require a roll, but they might literally laugh at you, because your knife would literally bend up like an accordion were you to stab them with it.

>>52739624
What edition has a Coup de Grace rule that isn't just "automatic crit/max damage/free sneak attack"? Because that typically still doesn't kill things automatically if they're healthy.

>>52739643
You're fine with a helpless prisoner requiring multiple stabs in the neck before they die?
How about requiring multiple swings of the executioner's axe on an unarmored but high-level fighter?

>>52739540
in D&d this would be a coup de grace attack, which is an automatic crit and then they have to make a fort save against instant death, with a DC of 10+damage dealt

You also don't have to roll to attack on a coup de grace, you simply do it and then roll critical hit damage

So this post is complete bullshit, and you need to understand the rules.

>>52739677
Coup De Grace also forces a save to not die instantly, if they survive the damage

Basically, most things are gonna die.

>>52739540
Nice strawman, but coup de grace rules still exist and I'm pretty sure that having someone hold a knife against your throat makes you helpless.

>>52739634
>Referencing a saving throw type invented in 2000
>Making fun of millennials

>>52739677
If a level 15 Fighter was sent to the guillotine, the blade would stop at his neck as though it had tried to cut through a concrete block.

Your complaint is ONLY valid when concerning low level creatures, in which case the rules SHOULD be abstracted. In high level cases, the rules are functioning properly when a high level Martial no sells a mortal's weapon.

>>52739580

As would any sane GM. This isn't even a "D&D" problem, this is just a misapplication of game rules.

>>52739722

But what about the people who insist that martials should be entirely mundane, no matter what level they are?

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>>52739737
Fuck em.

>>52739737
t. SKR

>>52739566
I rewatched some recently and holy shit this is correct.

Counterpoint: player assumes his character would be able to handle knife correctly. That's not really correct, and DM has every right to illustrate that by having the character fail

>>52739784
What is it?

>>52739722
High-level characters do not have adamentite skin. If they did, they'd have natural AC. Anybody without natural AC who gets guillotined should die from it.

>>52739793
In the scenario, the DM is insisting on an application of the rules where the fighter literally can't succeed. That's clearly an issue.

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tl;dr but I did read meat

>>52739815
TL;DR: DM insists a character roll to execute a helpless goblin.

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>>52739761
I support this course of actions.

>>52739814
>High-level characters do not have adamentite skin. If they did, they'd have natural AC
Even shitty monks can punch with finger through steel plates at high level. Fighters can do it to.

>>52739814
A character with 100 HP can stand in the middle of a Fireball and suffer ZERO long term injury. They can fall from orbit at terminal velocity, or survive a dip in lava.

You sir, are full of shit.

>>52739804
>not recognizing that fucking green 90s ancient times sports bra

Xena is on netflix, go watch it.

>>52739899

Nope. Bullshit like this is why the chunky salsa rule exists.

'If any effect would reasonably reduce a character to the consistency of chunky salsa, that character is dead regardless of HP'

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>>52739863
Monks use ki for that shit. Fighters are badass and the epitome of human ability, but they are still made of meat.

>>52739899
They can only do that because you think HP are anything more than a combat approximation.

>>52739804
Xena, Warrior Princess. AKA the greatest TV show of all time.

You could role play this to your advantage, as long as the DM is consistent in his application of the rules. While slitting the throat should be lethal, you could possibly have Goblin Rasputin on your hands. You could argue even if you don't have the character trait, you cause severe bleeding. You could slit one's throat, and say that if the other talks there is still time to stop the blood loss and escape alive. If you are in the position to hold a dagger against the goblin's throat, there doesn't seem to be anything preventing you from making multiple follow up stabs.

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>"Yes," says the DM, "but you can still roll a natural 1."
>Shaking your head, you roll your trusty d20. Lo and behold, it is not a natural 1. Fan-fucking-tastic.
>"Great," says the DM, "now roll damage."

Why roll damage after rolling a natural 1?

>>52739951
>>52739950
That's retarded and you're retarded. A man who can survive getting breathed on by a Dragon or stepped on by a Giant has no right to be afraid of a mugger holding a knife to his throat.

>"B-but Hercules was a demigod!

And Gandalf was an angel, Merlin was half-demon, and Circe was a goddess. Piss off with your "Fighters are human" bullshit.

>>52739722
> between misses and low damage rolls, it takes half a dozen headsmen six hours of chopping away at a restrained PC's neck with hatchets to finish an execution

Incidentally, would working as a government-employed executioner be a good way to gain levels safely?

>>52740001

Mate, I'm a fan of superhuman fighters. But that isn't relevant to you being an idiot who doesn't understand what HP means.

>>52740006
>Incidentally, would working as a government-employed executioner be a good way to gain levels safely?
Safely? In a world with resurrection?

>>52739623
>Possible rule 1 blunder?
Definite rule 2 blunder.

>>52740000
>Lo and behold, it is not a natural 1.
>not a natural 1.
>NOT

read naga read

>>52740000
Why waste quads on a lack of reading comprehension?

>>52740001
As soon as every one of the wizards in your games is a half-demon, the fighters can be demigods. In my games, the wizards are mortals, and also get killed when stabbed in the throat while helpless.

>>52740044
I might be confusing them, which one's which?

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>>52740021
HP isn't just meat points, in theory they're an abstraction representing durability, in addition to fighting skill, morale, and a half dozen other factors.

That doesn't change the fact that there are several instances where a Fighter is clearly shown casually ignoring what would kill a normal human regardless of skill or luck.

If you are standing RIGHT in the middle of a Fireball, and suffer 30-40 damage out of your 100+, and walk away from it in combat fighting stance, you are not human, and the sheer idea of fearing a level 1 NPC with a knife, even one held to your throat, is ridiculous.

The whole "HP is an abstraction thing!" means that HP means whatever it has to at the time, which is just another way of saying "HP isn't very well defined". The fact that HP isn't ALL meat points, doesn't change the fact that a high HP character is clearly more durable then any human, regardless of skill or training, by a wide margin.
>>52740042
>>52740006
You don't kill high level characters, they just get themselves Resurrected, or escape before you can kill them. You lock them in giant prisons with thousands of guards, just for them.

>>52739950
If you have enough HP to survive a fall from orbit, it must not be turning you into salsa.

>>52739540
>>52739677
>it's an "OP willfully ignores the rules in order to bitch about how the rules don't make sense" episode

>>52740065
A level 10 Fighter is standing perfectly still, arms on his waist like Superman. A Wizard casts Lightning Bolt at him.

What happens in your game?

>>52740065
>In my games, the wizards are mortals
Except the elves and the dwarves, right?

>>52740042

Why would a PC go after the faceless executioner instead of whoever got them sentenced in the first place? Headsman's just doing his job.

Also, an executioner would go through a lot more than just PCs. For a good-sized city, you'd probably see a lot of criminals with a handful of levels sent to the gallows/chopping block.

>>52740065
Rule 1 is never get involved in a land war in Asia, rule 2 is never post an OP with a picture more interesting (or reply provoking) than the subject.

>>52740100
>If you are standing RIGHT in the middle of a Fireball, and suffer 30-40 damage out of your 100+, and walk away from it in combat fighting stance, you are not human

Action heroes do it all the time. They jump behind a convenient piece of rubble, or into a ditch and the fireball blows over their head, or hold up some improbable piece of the scenery in front of them which somehow blocks it. Hell, Indiana Jones survived a nuke by jumping into a fucking fridge.

You lack imagination if you think the only way to survive a fireball is to be fireproof or superhuman. And if you think using action movie logic in D&D of all things is somehow more immersion-breaking than every PC being a superhuman regardless of race, then we disagree on a very fundamental level.

>>52740105
Circular reasoning much?

>>52740118
Good question, because I haven't thought about it. My instincts say the fighter rolls fort to avoid dying outright, because (non-prolonged) execution isn't always lethal and you can't control your body's internal workings.

>>52740174
Oh yeah, I forgot rule 1. I meant rule 2.

>>52740100

The anon in >>52740182 said it better than I could. A lethal injury, regardless of HP or level, is a lethal injury. Stop treating an abstraction as an in universe reality.

>>52740182
This 100%. Fighters who get fireballed aren't literally standing there and taking it. They try to find a way to mitigate the damage. Whether they succeed on their reflex save or not, they're still doing SOMETHING.

>>52740137
(you)

>>52740118

People in real life survive getting struck by lightning, too, anon.

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>>52740182
But that still doesn't make sense unless you invoke that genre cliche for every single time [and there will be many times at high levels] something that would kill a normal man many times over hits the fighter.

A normal level 10 Fighter will, often casually, kill Ogres, Hill Giants, Dragons, suffer long falls, getting fire breathed on him, or shot with lightning, and these are common occupational hazards.

Even Batman doesn't have enough plot armor to describe all of that away with the frequency it would occur to a Fighter of that level! And even if you somehow did use that level of completely implausible and ridiculous justification for how a Fighter is a mere human, the fact is that that doesn't even accord with the genre cliches of the setting!

D&D is high fantasy, the example Fighters in the AD&D rulebook are Hercules, Perseus, Beowulf, Cu Cuchulain.

Your interpretation not only runs counter to the rules, it runs counter to both plot consistency and the standard rules of the genre itself!

>>52739915
>xena isn't on netflix anymore
I'm mad

>>52740251

Stop asserting a stupid double standard.

Fighters are superhuman. That doesn't mean they're ridiculous bullet sponges.

Their skills, awareness and abilities let them mitigate damage and suffer only minor injuries from what might be ruinous for those without their talents.

And if you find that hard to visualise? Just watch a fucking fantasy movie, goddamn. It's literally how they work.

>>52740197
>Circular reasoning much?
No. HP are narrative protection, not bodily endurance. In that case, they are doing exactly what they are intended to do.

>>52740182
But then couldn't you reasonably come up with some reason why you couldn't be insta-killed by the guy with a knife to your throat?

>>52740239
>>52740235
>>52740205
>>52740197
The amount of special pleading to justify a man who kills Giants being mortal is ridiculous. I have no idea why people want to run D&D, a high fantasy game, as a medieval simulator.

>>52740289

Nobody is saying fighters are entirely mundane. Fuck, I've explicitly stated the opposite multiple times. But that doesn't mean they're literally able to take a dozen swords through the gut just because HP says they can. It means they're skilled enough that attacks that would inflict a mortal wound on a lesser combatant barely phase them due to their sheer, supernal skill.

>>52740264
WTF
There go my weekend plans

>>52740279
Precisely. The fellowship loses tons of HP in Moria, despite suffering virtually no actual injuries (Frodo's mega bruise notwithstanding).

>>52740286
If you're bound and gagged, or even asleep, then no.

>>52740311
>literally able to take a dozen swords through the gut just because HP says they can
Isn't the damage also an abstraction, though? So the swords aren't literally going through them.

>>52740182
Ah yes, the "it didn't really hit you" argument.
>armor class is here to determine whether or not something hits you
>but if it "hits" you it still doesn't hit you because i can't accept that heroic fantasy places mythical figures as main characters
>disregard on hit effects

>>52740289
>lebadwrongfun.meme
Have you seen any movie or read any book ever where people kill giants? They don't do it by getting stepped on repeatedly, they do it by avoiding getting stepped on.
The only medium where hit points are literally physical endurance is video games, because people like you would think it was weird to lose HP without being "wounded."

This thread only makes D&D sound more and more stupid along with making me want to run a 4e West March campaign chock full of Meat Points, shitty action hero cliches, Muscle Wizards, and breath attacks.

>>52740329
A "hit" in this case is just a game mechanic that doesn't have to correspond to an actual hit in the game world.

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>>52739662
>3. If the being was excessively superhuman [level 10+] I would not only require a roll, but they might literally laugh at you, because your knife would literally bend up like an accordion were you to stab them with it.

>>52740329

Except the very definition of armour class proves you wrong, since a lot of attacks that don't beat your AC did actually hit you, they just didn't pierce your armour, as implied by touch AC.

'Hit' and 'Miss' are purely mechanical concepts to cover the abstraction. A successful roll against AC is a successful attack, a failed roll against AC is an unsuccessful attack. A success doesn't necessarily mean you hit them- You might force them back, leave them off balance, or just tire them out, all of which can be expressed in terms of HP damage, gradually reducing their ability to keep fighting without suffering real injury.

>>52740311
>>52740322
>>52740279
On a level 5 Fighter, a fireball would burn him extremely, and swords would cut him, and he would survive because he has both superhuman skill and supernatural durability.

People like Conan, Aragorn, and Brock Samson would fit into these level ranges.

But at levels 10, 15, 20? No. Those are people like Beowulf, Karna, Herakles, Achilles, who just can't be bothered to even care for low level attacks.

To go back to the OP, as I said previously, a Level 5 character with a knife to his throat would require a roll because he could defend himself with skill, a level 10 character would laugh while praising Odin as the knife crumpled up like an accordion.

>>52740359
>just disregard on hit effects

>>52740322
Exactly, they aren't. But OP's knife IS going straight through the goblin's neck. A guillotine IS going straight through the dude's neck.

>>52740329
Whether the attack hit squarely or not is decided AFTER on-hit effects are resolved and taken into consideration.

>>52740345
I mean
I'd play in that

>>52740329
Ah yes, the "deliberately ignore what rules book say so I can keep thinking it's something stupid I hate" 'argument'.

>>52739722
You mean Barbarian right? Because it's Barbarians that get DR naturally, not fighters.

>>52740362
Fuck off, frogposter.

>>52740338
Only for the equivalent of mid-level characters, and even then they clearly aren't entirely human. Frodo got bitchslapped across the room and got right back up [granted he was wearing Mithril at the time]

Someone like Beowulf literally does kill giants by getting naked and strangling them to death with his bare hands.

A mid-level character operates by something like the logic you're using, the action movie logic, but a high level character operates by the logic of mythology.

>>52740370
>Beowulf

Could actually be killed by a sword blow. He was tough but he wasn't a tank. He defeated his monstrous foes through skill and grit, and a bit of superhuman strength.

>Karna

His durability came from the armour his dad gave him.

>Herakles

Also took damage pretty normally. Spears didn't bounce off his skin or anything, he could just shrug off nasty wounds and was very, very strong.

>Achilles

In earlier renditions of his story, Achilles was not physically invulnerable - he was just so skilled that nobody ever hit him. The later stuff where he's literally bulletproof explains this with him being dipped into magic water as a baby, and having his mortal frailty washed away.

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>>52739540

Oh bother, not THIS thread again...

Explain healing potions, evasion, and DV. And you people often underestimate how hard it is to kill something. A sliced open neck is completely survivable if it doesn't rupture a major artery.

>>52740464
>Literally resorting to pretending the demigod "I can kill the entire 14-Planet World-System with an arrow" Karna is human-tier.

I'm out.

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>>52740402

>Angry over a drawing

What drives someone to such anger?

>>52740368
I don't know why you'd even need to argue this, because it's in the book, but here we are.

>>52740491
The issue isn't that it could fail. The issue is that the DM ruled there was 0% chance for it to succeed.

>>52740289
It is very rare that the powerful characters in even the highest of high fantasy are literally impervious to normal damage and possessing of demigod like abilities
Even Aragorn in LOTR or the fucking Jedi still die like normal people if you were to literally just stab them in the throat.
Being 'high fantasy' is not a reason for things to not make sense.
If you want your PCs to be superheros that's totally fine, but for I would wager most other people that's not what they're looking for in an RPG

>>52739814
>High-level characters do not have adamentite skin.
Gonna second this, too.

No matter what your level is, a sword will still hurt you if you get hit with it

Lucy Flawless gave me a warrior woman fetish

>>52740499
Karna wasn't born a human though. He was very literally born special and his nature as a demigod was so obvious he couldn't hide it.

>>52740499
Karna wasn't human.

But mate, have you even read any of this stuff?

You're invoking the 'rules of mythology' without understanding them. Karna was explicitly made nigh-indestructible by the armour granted to him by his divine father, which he was tricked into forsaking.

Characters in Hindu mythology could often, through virtue, piety, and martial prowess, summon astra and lay waste to armies, but this didn't mean they were physically invulnerable. Similarly, characters like Beowulf could achieve great feats of strength, such as wrestling with Grendel and tearing his arm off, but the idea of dudes being so tough that lethal weapons just bounced off their naked skin is not really one present in mythology, unless there's a supernatural force at play. Folk heroes like this tend to achieve great things through the skill - the idea often being that skill is something that doesn't have a 'cap' and can allow truly heroic characters to go beyond what is normally possible.

Beowulf for example is not bulletproof. He is simply SO GOOD at wrestling that he can outwrestle a monster.

>>52740608

Wuxia fiction has a lot of this as well. No matter how skilled a martial artist, a mortal injury is a mortal injury.

Those who've cultivated metal chi and various forms of metal body technique or the ability to ignore injuries can circumvent it to a degree, but those are specific cases of developing superhuman durability rather than a general rule.

>>52740532
>as you tried to slit his throat, he (dex save vs your dex) managed to break free from your hold as if he were Bene Gesserit
>(roll normal attack) you managed to draw a bit if blood from him in the process
My point is: add some element that could make it work or not but still would give an edge to a higher level character.
Fiction is filled with characters who survive a knife to their throats.

Guys, if you want combat to make sense stick to the low levels, or play another more 'realistic' game like RuneQuest or Burning Wheel.

High level characters in D&D are DBZ-like characters. Would Goku die from a sword strike? No, he would fucking parry it with he's finger. That's what a level10+ character is like in D&D.

>>52740608
>Beowulf for example is not bulletproof
That's impossible to say if he was never shot with bullets.

>>52740523
>The issue isn't that it could fail. The issue is that the DM ruled there was 0% chance for it to succeed.
Well. Then apparently the PC was just too weak to ever successfully kill someone by slitting their throat just once.

Having met people for whom that would definitely be true, it isn't impossible.

>a Giant with fighter levels swings a poisoned greataxe into me and hits, dealing 4d6+10 damage of the 'you were cut' slashing damage type
>as the poison is now coursing through my body, I have to make a DC15 constitution saving throw or take 2d10 damage of the poison type and be poisoned
>i fail my save, taking the poison damage and becoming poisoned
>because the Giant is a fighter, it used a special maneuver when it hit me that flung me 15ft away from it in addition to the damage
>this causes me to fall down a deep hole into a pit of spikes, taking another 4d10 damage of the piercing type as i am impaled on the bed of spikes, and another 2d6 damage from the fall that would normally be bludgeoning, but the GM ruled it was also piercing damage
>the next turn belongs to a few goblin enemies that are fighting alongside the giant, they begin hurling Alchemist's Fires at me, two of them hit dealing 2d4+2 bludgeoning damage and lighting me on fire
>my turn comes and i take 2d4 fire damage
>my HP was high enough to survive all that, so i use my high movement abilities to quickly climb out of the hole and continue fighting the giant

>but HP is an abstraction so none of that actually happened

I'm expecting someone to make a really long response performing absurd mental gymnastics to give the "abstracted" version of all of those lines.

I once impaled three goblin with a lance and the DM described it in the goriest fashion and when I rolled for dmg it turned out I killed none. Fuck d&d combat.

>>52740700

Why would any of that require mental gymnastics? It seems pretty straightforward to me.

Beyond, y'know, you getting hung up on various mechanical keywords.

>>52740685
You know what I mean.

He wasn't clawproof (or fireproof, eyyyyy). Swords and arrows did not bounce off him. You could expect him to ignore multiple such wounds, out of sheer manliness, but he wasn't a Kryptonian. Beowulf would be killed by a guillotine... but, Beowulf is so capable that 1. he wouldn't be in that guillotine in the first place and 2. he'd probably tear himself free in a fit of manliness-induced super strength.

Cuchulainn is another good example of this. He could tear his way through hundreds of men, and when he entered the riastrad he became to hot that swords shattered upon contact with him, but ultimately, he was killed by a simple stab wound (followed by decapitation). And this guy was a demigod, too.

>>52739677

There is an application for someone with ranks in Profession (Executioner) that forces a Fort save vs. Skill check or die in addition to the normal rules for couples de grace.

>>52740716

DnD is made out of problems, but this is why you don't describe the attack until after rolling damage. Your DM is doo doo.

>level 9 wizard can literally teleport across the country in an instant
>was able to survive any fall from level 1
>ok

>level 11 fighter can barely survive a high fall while taking most of his hp in damage
>everyone loses their minds

>>52739540
i like thinking of HP in the same manor as Bloodborne - a will to keep fighting

Deplete HP to zero and then a finishing move can happen

Target an area that depletes fighting motivation faster and take more HP for a more difficult attack unless you start to guarantee a hit (some will be better than others at this)

>>52740685
Well, we know he's not immune to poison.

>>52740811

I'm pretty sure that's not what anyone in this thread is actually saying.

>>52740811
DnD spellcasters being grossly overpowered and jack-of-all-trades is another, separate problem.

Shit like this is why I stick to low-level games. It doesn't matter if HP is abstract or not because 2-3 solid hits are going to put you down either way.

>>52740827
It sounds pretty much exactly like what
>>52740748
Is saying.

This anon pretty much sums up the problem right here >>52740700

Namely, that although in theory HP is made up of a half-dozen factors, the in-game reality is that barring ridiculous mental gymnastics, things WILL happen to your character that you have to assume he's decently superhuman to have survived them.

Otherwise you're stuck with shit like

>The poison wasn't really poison
>Nor was the fire damage literally him being on fire
>Nor the spike pits literally spikes
>Nor the giant's club really a scaled up club weighing like 300 lbs.

This isn't Plato's Allegory of the D&D. If your interpretation of the rules can't even match the fluff of a typical in-story fight, its probably full of shit.

>>52740464
>Spears didn't bounce off his skin or anything, he could just shrug off nasty wounds and was very, very strong.
>shrug off nasty wounds
So, literally meat points?

>>52740282
>HP are narrative protection

Bullshit name one source that makes this claim other than yourself. HP was not made to protect the narrative in anyway, and if it was then what would it how and from what is it protecting the narrative?

>>52740689
You're just making excuses for the shitty OP DM. If a fighter holds a knife to a tied-up goblin's throat, there should be a very real chance of success. At the very least, it shouldn't auto-fail.
Even weak-ass people can still carefully slice open a major artery if they know what they're doing.

>>52740700
>The giant swings her axe, but I parry the attack
>Unfortunately, the parry is not a complete success, and I get nicked nonetheless
>The force of the blow also causes me to stumble back, and to recover I roll backwards to my feet
>Alas! I forgot the spiked pit! I fall into it, but have enough time to twist my body and avoid the worst of it
>I get a lot of really ugly cuts, and one spike pierces my armor and cracks a lower rib
>A few fiery flasks are hurled at me, thudding but not causing serious injury
>There's no fire, and it hurts but won't be lethal if I can put it out soon
>Ah fuck, the axe was apparently poisoned! This slows me down a bit, and maybe I won't be able to successfully defend from now on.
Congratulations, you survived the ordeal without any adamentite skin. But you'd also require more than 76 hit points, so presumably you're extremely high-level and have a ton of experience handling getting chopped, flung, and poisoned.
Try again.

>>52740755
I don't think I should require particular training to activate a guillotine.

>>52740827
But anon knows he lost the argument, so he feels compelled to strawman/change the subject entirely.

>>52739677
A Coup de Grace is an automatic kill, it just provokes an attack of opportunity. It would have been better for the goblin to act on the attack of opportunity and, if failed (because the goblin isn't just gonna willingly let you slit his throat), you'd deliver the killing blow.

>>52740905

None of that logically follows at all, though. I don't really see where you're coming from with any of that.

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>>52740917
>>52740608
The real irony of all this is that Hindu Mythology's system of HP works alot like Exalted and sort of fits D&D.

Namely, each character literally is sword/spear/whatever proof, but they can only absorb so much damage with their magical karma defense bullshit, once its gone they're normies.

Karna's nemesis ended up killing him, only to be killed soon after by human muggers because he used up all his Jesus Juice fighting Karna.

>>52739540
Alternatively.

> GM lets you instakill goblin
> Two sessions later you get snuck up on while you are on watch and get instakilled.
>"OMG DM! I have 50hp!? He can't just instakill me!1!"

>>52740915
>So, literally meat points?

To an extent.

He doesn't get his throat slit and shrug it off, though.

I don't see any problem with a high (or even mid) level fighter ignoring dagger in his gut or in his thigh or whatever.

>>52740957
>>52740934
So parrying a 300 lb club with a 15 lb longsword is just fine, but surviving getting hit by said club is out of the question?

This is why I don't take realismfags seriously, their idea of realism is unrealistic. Because I can apparently parry a Ford Focus at level 20 and thats fine, but God forbid I survive a peasant's rusty dagger to my throat.

>>52740905
Basically you're saying
>Poison is INSTANTLY FATAL or it isn't poison
>Fire is INSTANTLY FATAL or it isn't fire
>Falling into a spiked pit is INSTANTLY FATAL or it isn't a spiked pit
>Being hit by a club is INSTANTLY FATAL or it isn't a club
None of the attacks described are guarantees of killing anybody. A man surviving all of them is unlikely, but possible, especially at level 10+ (which he would probably need to be in that scenario considering the amount of cumulative damage).

>>52740953
A Coup de Grace, as in the PHB, is meant to be used in combat. It's a high-lethality attack that requires concentration, but not a literal guaranteed execution. I'm talking about literal guaranteed executions, and how HP don't belong in them.

>>52741001

Nobody here is trying to wank realism though. If that's what you think it is then you're entirely missing the point. It's about what's thematically consistent. Time and time again, nobody has said they think fighters should be bound by realism.

>>52739540
Your GM sounds like an asshat.

>>52741011
No you idiot, I'm saying that a high level character is far more durable then a normal person, and becomes moreso the higher level he gets.

A knight standing in a dragon's breathe attack doesn't survive because he's "skilled" he does so because he's durable enough that such an attack only hurts him instead of killing him.

>>52740974
If your DM pulls that off without giving you a chance to wake up and defend yourself, he's a shit DM. If you ask someone to tie you up and plug your ears before going to sleep, you probably shouldn't complain when you get instakilled.

>>52741001
Do you know what a parry is?

>>52740974
>He can't just instakill me!1!

He's right. Getting killed like that is lame as fuck. The game shouldnt devolve in players vs DM.

>>52741043

And we're telling you you're an idiot, along with providing evidence and argument while you just keep repeating yourself.

>>52741001

If you're a level 20 character how the fuck did a peasant with a rusty dagger manage to get it in your throat? If you're that incompetent you deserve to fucking die.

>>52740959
Well Exalted was supposed to be based off of Indian myth rather than Tolkein.

Somehow that eventually mutated into "anime", though.

>>52740006
good way to make money, bad way to make connections.

>>52739566
What kind of 'weird fetish' suff was even there?
All my teenage brain saved was 'threesomes = awesome"

>>52741025
And yet all your implications seem to insist on them being a level of realism that the genre simply does not support, especially at higher levels.

You're trying to make HP about 80-90% skill and luck, at levels where the typical Fighter gets into situations like this >>52740700 on a daily basis.

Once you get to that point, that kind of logic just doesn't work anymore.

>>52741043
If it's part of combat, he's taking measures to protect himself from the breath attack.
High-level characters ARE more durable, to an extent, in that they can fight despite higher levels of pain. But if you literally shut down a vital biological system, all that doesn't matter.

>>52741097
See >>52740934. Surviving that situation through skill and grit is entirely believable.

>>52741073
Exactly this. Argue your level-20 badassitude during combat. If you're already in a situation of getting executed, you probably die.

>>52741075
Anime draws a lot from eastern mythology - including Hindu.

Not in terms of direct influence, but in terms of fictional history and expectations. The idea of characters having a sort of virtue/martial prowess level that makes them superhuman and able to call on incredible power is a very eastern mythology thing.

>>52741073
>Evidence and argument
>Some anon posts a typical D&D fight, Fighter clearly very superhuman
>The response is a pile of bullshit mental gymnastics that make the fighter if anything look even MOER superhuman

How bout no?

>>52741097

Except the logic does work fine? And you've never proven that it doesn't.

>>52740279
When they are online, you don't know they are retarded.

>>52741138

Nobody is objecting to the idea of fighters being superhuman

>>52739540
Why not just have the goblin roll athletics or acrobatics to escape the attack and failure is at 0 hp making death saves?

>>52740934
Parry a giant what?
>I like to think of hp as luck if your hp reaches 0 >your luck ran out and You're going to get ko'd

>>52741119
I don't think you understand how physics works.

Pain tolerance does not make you more resistant to actual physical damage.

>>52741149
Without their inbred appearance, you might just assume that they are very slow, dimwitted, or barely functional.

But when you fucking see them up close... yeah, no. They really belong in a basement.

>>52741173

Why is physics suddenly relevant?

>>52741151
1000 yard stare, non, 1000 yard stare.

>>52741151
>>52741142
The logic is ridiculous. You're saying that getting hit by a giant's club is too animu high power for your tastes, and yet you have him PARRYING the club, without his sword shattering into a billion pieces and dying to the shrapnel, to say nothing of his entire arm likely being ripped off, platemail and all by the attempt!

You're wanting to say a D&D Fighter with HP 76 is still operating on the logic that lets Batman or Captain America survive threats, despite all logic suggesting the opposite.

>>52741169
>I like to think of hp as luck if your hp reaches 0 your luck ran out and You're going to get ko'd

Makes sense. Sometimes you wake up, sometimes you don't.

>>52741169
Do you also not understand what a parry is?
For you and >>52741001, a parry is a deflection that relies on the attack's momentum to shift it off-course. It's not a block. Relative weight matters, of course, but a lot less than you might think.

>>52741173
No, but HP represent pain tolerance more than they represent resistance to physical damage.

>>52741095
It's a very "tee hee butts" kind of show but completely PG rated, which means that all of the ladies getting tied up/goofy costumes/over the top violence just feels extra fetishy.

>>52741212
The third person who apparently doesn't know what a parry is. Welcome to /tg/.

>>52741075
>Somehow that eventually mutated into "anime", though.
Because any form of entertainment from farther east than England might as well be anime weebshit to Americans

>>52740806
This, fucking this

All of you guys must have shit DMs because I only describe the attack after seeing the damage.

>the fighter with 100 hp takes a hit from a sword that does 12 damage
> the sword swing hit but fell short and only cut the surface of your skin
>the fighter with 100 hp takes a hit from a sword that does 33 damage
>the fight is hit by the sword and is cut fairly badly, the force of the blow also cracked a rib

>>52741212

A fighter might get hit by a giants club, sure. But it might not cause serious damage, due to the quality of their armour, rolling with the impact, or physical toughness.

None of that is relevant to them getting their throat torn out.

They might get hit with the club and avoid serious injury. Minor fractured ribs, but not them shattering and stabbing through their heart, being winded and bruised but still able to get up and keep fighting.

That is a completely different kettle of fish to the frankly ridiculous idea of being immune to/surviving having their throat torn out.

>>52741228
>>52741183
Okay anon, I don't think you get how a parry works.

A parry works, because you are able to deflect and redirect that momentum.

If you are a human, even a peak human that can deadlift lets say, 700-800 lbs, you are not going to be able to parry the club of even the smallest giant.

A Hill Giant, the weakest giant, is 16 feet tall in 5e. The MM tells us a Giant uses a Greatclub, which to a human weighs 8 lbs. Apply square-cube we get a club that weighs at least 150 lbs. You are not parrying that with a longsword. The sheer act of doing so, is if anything LESS realistic and MORE heroic then just surviving getting thrown across the room.

>>52741366

But that's irrelevant. It's more thematically consistent, which is why a fighter parrying a giants club is a much more reasonable suggestion than someone continuing to fight with a completely crushed ribcage and a heart reduced to pulp.

>>you don't know what parry means
>>and I don't understand the concept of a 300 lb club being swung at me by something strong enough to hurl cars

>>52741380
How is it thematically consistent at all?

The entire problem you're created for yourself could be removed entirely if you just said

"D&D Fighters at levels 4-8 or so are street level, and I'll apply that logic to them"

Its fine to just say the Fighter survives the 50 foot fall, or makes it out of the Fireball because he is durable enough that the third degree burns are just first degree burns to him.

The reality you have to accept to make any of this make sense because level 4 is that the martial character's very biology is not the same as that of a normal human being. There is a limit to what skill and luck can justify without wrecking suspension of disbelief.

>>52741366
Seriously. Try redirecting a moving car by hitting it with a stick, because that's what you're suggesting.

>>52741432

Only for you, apparently. The viewpoint you're pushing strikes me as fucking bizarre and completely thematically opposed to how the source material tends to work.

This entire HP argument is why I left D&D long ago
Any Low Fantasy game I play is done in Gurps or more recently Song of Swords
For D&D style High Fantasy I go with Mutants&Masterminds because at least with a supers system my players know what sort of tone to expect

>>52741461
No, in fact your view is what leads to situations like the OP.

Instead of having a reasonable idea of the durability and capabilities of the characters in the story, you use arbitrary rules on thematics which leads to situations like the OP, where a character who was fighting dragons a second ago is somehow now supposed to fear for his life to a dagger.

I'm sure in some genres that makes sense [though even in those genres the characters are more superhuman then you're wanting them] but its piss poor for D&D, and makes no fucking sense for a game.

I don't think I've ever had a DM, who thought martials work how you think they work, where PLOT ARMOR as opposed to durability and superhuman ability is their primary asset.

>>52741515

You're not making any sense at this point. I'm struggling to reply just because it's hard to really assemble your assorted phrases into a coherent point or argument. Can you try again?

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>>52741538
I'll make it simple.

Trying to interpret game mechanics through the lens of a genre aesthetic, without any attempt to actually categorize the actual abilities and limitations of the characters themselves, is retarded and leads to ridiculous situations.

You are not interpreting the rules or the genre D&D is a part of in a reasonable manner, instead you are imposing a much lower power level onto the setting, for unknown purposes.

Have you considered playing Runequest? Or maybe Pendragon?

I want someone to justify it to me how a level 20 fighter can beat a hill giant while naked and unarmed while still being a completely normal human

>>52741613

I'm not sure how a setting where characters are perfectly capable of facing down the same threats is somehow lower fantasy. It's just not being fucking stupid.

Nobody even objected to the idea of fighters and so on being more durable in the thread.

What was objected to was the somewhat ludicrous notion that having more HP let you survive, for example, having your throat torn out with a knife.

If someone has their throat torn out, their head cut off, or their heart entirely destroyed, they should die. If their entire body was obliterated, they should die.

HP is all about avoiding that, reducing it to minor injuries that can be coped with, coming out of impossibly dangerous situations with a few scratches and a non-threatening shoulder wound.

Which is, y'know, exactly how most fantasy movies, fantasy fiction, and basically every other source D&D draws upon works.

The idea that HP lets you literally take x times as much physical punishment as a normal person, that you could be run through with a sword a dozen times and not really care, is an entirely bizarre D&Dism which only exists due to an old misinterpretation of the rules that got spread around and fetishized by idiots like you.

It's like the magic item christmas tree, another dumb idea that only really exists in D&D due to weird quirks of mechanics and has somehow become a thing in and of itself.

>>52741649

Go to another thread, because nobody here is claiming they are or should be a completely normal human.

>>52739662
What the fuck is that file name.

>>52741659
A normal knife wouldn't penetrate a level 20 Fighter's throat.

It has nothing to do with being stabbed through more times, or surviving without your head, its the fact that as durability increases eventually the mundane methods of doing such things become impossible.

If you cut off a level 20 Fighter's head, he will die. That does not mean you can cut off a level 20 Fighter's head with a town guards man's broadsword. The sword will dent repeatedly, if it manages to harm him at all it will be by bruising him slightly.

Its not a question of what will kill the Fighter in terms of physical damage, its a question of the increasingly ridiculous means required to inflict that kind of physical damage.

>>52741667
fine let me rephrase that then
>knife to the throat somehow a threat
>but an ogre with a giant club hitting you while you are naked and unarmed is not

how does that work

>>52741704

So... For entirely arbitrary reasons, D&D has to work in a way that directly contradicts everything it draws upon and seeks to emulate? Because that just strikes me as stupid, unnecessary and weird.

This entire thread is retarded. There's a very simple test for whether hp is meat points.

Does being immersed in lava damage hp? If yes, it's meat points, if no then it's not. OPs example sounds like dnd, which does have lava damaging hp, therefore the guy he's mad at is completely in the right.

>>52741731

...What?

>>52741704
For someone so hellbent on

>MUH RULES

You seem to be ignoring the fact this sort of thing would be damage reduction, of which a lvl 20 fighter has nothing

A superhuman like Beowulf can wrestle a monster naked because he's that badass, but would nonetheless die by normal means.

>>52741726
Actually, the source material works exactly like D&D ironically enough, even though I personally don't like it doing so.

Namely, characters like Beowulf and Herakles are completely inhuman shrugging off dragon's breath and getting slashed at, but then the 1024th attack somehow kills them.

Outside of the Karna example, this means no NARRATIVE sense, but thats how the heroes of old worked. They were living gods, except when they weren't. Incidentally, this is how D&D Fighters work.

If you don't like it, play a different game. Heroic characters in fiction are rarely human in terms of their durability, especially when you get into the equivalents of the higher levels.

There comes a real point where you have to stop using plot armor as an excuse and just say "Yeah fuck it, they're just so baller they TANK that shit."

Because otherwise you're stuck explaining why spikes aren't spikes, poison is doing damage despite the weapon that carried it 'missing', or being parried, and surviving every single 50+ foot fall because a barrel of 10 foot deep hay is conveniently right where you happen to be at the time.

>>52741740
If lava simply damages your hp instead of turning you into a burned out skeleton, then hp is measuring explicitly superhuman durability.

When someone can take a dip in a volcano, walk out, shake themselves off and then fight on unimpeded, a normal human stabbing them in the throat will do between jack and shit.

>>52741784

>Because otherwise you're stuck explaining why spikes aren't spikes, poison is doing damage despite the weapon that carried it 'missing', or being parried, and surviving every single 50+ foot fall because a barrel of 10 foot deep hay is conveniently right where you happen to be at the time.

You keep repeating this even though you were told explicitly why it's stupid and wrong? If you're going to remain stuck in circular logic I guess there's no helping you.

>>52741752
It has nothing to do with the rules, it has to do with what is actually occurring.

If you are a D&D Fighter you WILL get lit on fire, thrown through the air, smashed by giant monsters, and a half dozen other "Normal person is dead ten times over" things, and no amount of plot armor is going to protect them.

>>52741799
I keep repeating it because your only argument against it is things like >>52740934

Which are just what the anon who posted it said the responses would be to it.

Ridiculous and insane mental gymnastics to avoid obvious realities.

>>52739540
>We've all been there before.

I haven't. Maybe it's because my GM isn't utter shit.

>>52741813

>Ridiculous and insane mental gymnastics to avoid obvious realities.

It seems more like 'simple and straightforward thinking to avoid bizarre mechanics induced stupidity' to me.

>>52740934
an improper parry doesn't really result in getting nicked. It's really either:
>it failed completely, and your weapon's toast too
>if failed near completely, and you're missing a decent chunk of flesh
>your weapon is completely useless, but you are largely unharmed
>you are unhurt, but are completely off-balance and open to a killing blow
it would be harder to "just get nicked" than it would be to actually succeed at parrying.

>>52741845
No, its you pretending an obvious superhuman is human by contriving plot protection at every turn.

A level 5 D&D character can survive, not necessarily unharmed

-Falling 50 feet through the air
-Getting hit by lightning
-Standing in the middle of an explosion
-Getting hit by a giant's club
-Getting slashed by a Young Adult Dragon
-Walking through a burning building
-Etc

Many of these examples can, and should, have the PC in question's skill and luck softening the damage, but all of them involve an explicit level of superhuman durability fall above what you seem comfortable accepting, and when you get to level 10, 15, 20, etc it only gets more and more obvious just how NOT human the character is.

The fact that you don't even seem to get what is human possible and what isn't only makes the situation worse. People have actually survived getting hit 15 feet through the air by 200 lb objects. I don't think anyone's ever PARRIED one with a metal stick before.

Note that I would allow my Fighter PC to do either if he wanted, because he is explicitly NOT A HUMAN FUCKING BEING.

>>52741845
No, you're trying to bend mechanical realities around a concept which they aren't made to work with - i.e. you want level 20 fighters with 200hp to not be superhuman, whereas in the rules they very much are.

>>52741916

see

>>52741151

>>52741903

I feel like you're responding to points that haven't been made.

Nobody in this thread has said fighters aren't superhuman, or that they aren't more durable than ordinary people. You keep arguing against statements that haven't been made. It's kinda weird.

>>52741931
Evidence points to that statement being a lie.

>>52741903
I have to support this, particularly the "survived getting hit 15 feet through the air by 200 lb objects" part.

The air significantly dissipates the amount of force you experience. It's far less dangerous than parrying, where you're still up against the floor. You all know the saying of a rock and a hard place, right? Take away the hard place, and it's a lot less dangerous.

>>52741949
The OP is straight up bitching that hp means characters are superhuman.

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>>52741931
You keep saying that, but I don't think you like just HOW superhuman they are.

You want Fighters to be superhuman, even at level 20, in the same way Batman or Captain America are superhuman. MOSTLY surviving on luck and skill, but with a little bit of narrative padding in the form of being a BIT more durable then humans.

That is not remotely how they work in the lore or the mechanics past like level 4. Anything beyond level 5 is not human, shouldn't be treated as human, shouldn't be viewed as human.

You keep saying "No no Fighters are superhuman, I'm not a realismfag!" but you clearly WANT Fighters to be primarily defined by skill and luck instead of strength and durability, when that is plainly and clearly NOT how the game is intended to be played.

A level 2 Fighter survives a fireball because he hid by his shield and jumped behind a rock. A level 20 Fighter survives a fireball because he is Mighty Sulgi, foremost of the troops, god of Manliness, and no mere conjurer's flame can touch him.

>>52739677
Also remember that headsmen regularly took multiple swings with their weapons to behead. The spine is tough stuff, even a French greatsword swung by a heritage Norman headsmen has a good chance to not cleave through vertebrae.

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>>52739540
>"Yes," says the DM, "but you can still roll a natural 1."
That's a whole 'nother argument.

>>52741988

>That is not remotely how they work in the lore or the mechanics past like level 4. Anything beyond level 5 is not human, shouldn't be treated as human, shouldn't be viewed as human.

Weird how that completely contradicts the game itself.

It's almost like you're misinterpreting a weird rules quirk in a really fucking stupid way.

>>52742056
HP being a measure of damage you can sustain is not a 'weird rules quirk', it's central to basically every system in a game like dnd.

>>52742056
Nigger I am tired of being polite. This is a game where a human being can kill a creature the size of a 747 by stabbing its skin with a sharpened stick, its not realistic or even low-powered in the least bit.

We're talking about a setting where four fucking teenagers and college-age people stab 20 foot tall monsters in the dick, and win, at level 3.

Go play something else if you want a low-powered setting and stop ruining D&D.

>>52742114

Except nothing I'm talking about is low powered? Despite your odd obsession with claiming it is.

I used to like D&D until I played LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE

>>52742135
It is low powered. You're wanting to say that max level PCs, who routinely kill giant fucking monsters and obviously survive inhuman attacks like lightning and fire blasts, are only marginally stronger and more durable then normal people, and survive purely on luck, plot armor, and skill.

That's not suspension of disbelief, thats Suspension of Disbelief charging the Lady of Pain at level 1, with predictable results.

You're almost wanting to turn D&D into a sort of Attack on Titan-style setting, where people defeat giant monsters purely through grit, when that is plainly not remotely how the game is supposed to function, to say nothing of the genre.

Herakles and Saint George kill monsters because they're superhuman badasses, not because they have plot armor thicker then Aku's taste in women.

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>>52742168
an image for you to simplify making that point in the future

>>52742177

Except that's not what I'm saying at all?

Man, I'm not sure you're even arguing with me at this point, but some picture in your head of the person you want to argue with that you're just projecting onto my statements.

Okay, I'm confused now.

Exactly what is the argument that's going on here? I see lots of screaming, lots of straw men, but mostly no one is making a lick of sense and neither side is making any progress at actually getting anywhere with the argument.

>>52742192
Faggot #1 is saying that high level PCs are bad dudes who do bad dude stuff because they're so durable and strong.

Faggot #2 is saying that high level PCs survive primarily on luck, skill, grit, and plot armor, and are only a little superhuman.

Faggots #3-10 are choosing sides and talking about genre conventions and mechanics backing up one side or the other [mostly Faggot #1, who is winning the argument and is extremely sexy]

>>52742189

Do you have short term memory problems? >>52740934 is entirely about trying to twist events so that it doesn't require a guy who can straight up soak the damage and keep going.

DnD characters straight up soak the damage and keep going, so you're going to have problems.

>>52742192
One side is saying that the GM was right because beyond a certain(low) level, surviving a throat slash is not hard.

The other side is saying that the GM was right because anyone with PC levels would use grit and skill to interrupt the throat slash and any other situation of that type.

basically, OP is a faggot.

>>52742192
It is a variation of the Abstraction vs Meat Points argument for D&D's HP system brought about from OP making a post about his shit DM

Nothing will be solved in this thread, everyone will yell at each other and we will all continue to do what we want because fuck everyone else

I just arrived to this thread

my argument is this

a level 1 peasant holding a non-magical knife to the throat of a level 20 fighter should not be a threat to the fighter. Because he is a person who can kill giants with his bare hands.

Meat points of not, the idea that a knife can somehow cut trough his skin and kill him while a lava bath, a dragon's breath, a fireball, and the massively giant club of a titan cannot is retarded.

>>52740532
>At 7th level, a barbarian gains damage reduction. Subtract 1 from the damage the barbarian takes each time she is dealt damage from a weapon or a natural attack. At 10th level, and every three barbarian levels thereafter (13th, 16th, and 19th level), this damage reduction rises by 1 point. Damage reduction can reduce damage to 0 but not below 0.

>>52741366
Did you seriously just try to use what DnD thinks weapons weigh, and then assume that it would be multiplied like that, while talking about realism

Every time I see one of these threads, I appreciate Legends Of The Wulin's damage system a little more.

>>52742222

I feel like you're blurring different things together in really dumb ways.

I have no problem with D&D characters being superhuman badasses who are capable of impossible feats.

I have a problem with the idea that somehow levelling up would let the soft, vulnerable skin of your throat turn aside a dagger for no other reason than you gained extra HP.

If a fighter takes a swing at a high level fighter, they're more than capable of dealing with it in any number of ways. They could fluff their defence as a block, a dodge, or even just catching it and gritting their teeth, pitting their strength against it.

But if a giant swings their club down and they declare they are doing nothing to oppose it? They die and go splat like a pancake.

The abilities of characters are active. It is what they do that makes them awesome. Their capabilities are drawn from certain superhuman attributes, making them amazing threats to various forms of monster and villain.

That doesn't mean they gain the ability to act like idiots and somehow walk out unscathed. A high level fighter has the ability to survive being hit by a dragons fire breath. They might raise their shield and block it, or charge forward, trusting their armour. Any number of things are okay.

Claiming that they just stand there with no effort to protect themselves and yet aren't burnt to a crisp isn't badass, it's just fucking stupid and completely against how these things work.

Again, look at fucking fantasy movies. There are more than enough examples in the thread.

I would have also asked for a roll to see if there was 1, but anything other than a 1 would have been an automatic kill. A 1 could mean that he struggled himself free, knife slipped, etc.

>>52742284

God, LotW's damage system is fucking great. Like so many things about that system.

I just wish the editing wasn't garbage and the company hadn't imploded.

For something a little closer to D&D and more recognisable, Tenra Bansho Zero's HP system is also fucking awesome.

>>52742295
>A body's durability depends on how much effort it uses to defend itself.

I see the problem now. You have autism.

>>52742295
>I have no problem D&D characters being superhuman
>I have a problem with the idea that somehow levelling up would let the soft, vulnerable skin of your throat turn aside a dagger for no other reason than you gained extra HP.
NIGGER THAT IS WHAT IS CALLED BEING SUPERHUMAN
>But if a giant swings their club down and they declare they are doing nothing to oppose it?
THIS DOES LIKE 40 DAMAGE ON A CRIT, A FIGHTER WILL LITERALLY DUST HIMSELF OFF AND LAUGH AT THE GIANT

>>52742295
It's like arguing with a flat Earther
You're never going to convince them that their retarded beliefs aren't retarded

And yes I mean you Anon not the other faggot who got his panties in a twist over another retard on the internet

>>52742331

HP is a combat abstraction. If you are not making use of your ability to defend yourself, it doesn't apply.

>>52742295
The problem is that you are having to come up with mind-twisting rationalizations for every single combat round a high level fighter does.

>I have a problem with the idea that somehow levelling up would let the soft, vulnerable skin of your throat turn aside a dagger for no other reason than you gained extra HP.
that same "soft skin" can survive being dipped into lava

>But if a giant swings their club down and they declare they are doing nothing to oppose it?
You have to literally ignore the rules to accept that interpretation
A stunned character isn't instantly killed by being attacked. Not even attacking a helpless character is a guaranteed instant kill. It would require a fort save, which a fighter is easily able to make it so he would never die from a dagger hit while helpless.

>The abilities of characters are active.
this is all in your head, and nothing in the system or the inherent D&D setting implies that. Again, you can get stunned, dazed, immobilized and so on and still you're not gonna be killed instantly by a dragon's breath.

Please explain how you rationalize a disarmed, stunned by hold person and immobilized by web would survive a fireball, a hill giant club hit, or a dragon's breath.
What kind of "active defense" he could possibly be doing in that situation?

Or are you going to houserule "hit a character with 3 status effects and he's helpless" just to save your precious rationalization?

>>52742358
Except that does not hold for a vast majority of the situations you are faced with in D&D.

HP protects you against lava, fall damage, fire and lightning attacks, and the melee attacks of giant monsters.

Obviously HP represents, to a decently large extent, physical durability in addition to luck/skill/etc.

The idea that you can survive a fireball that hits you dead center because you were mentally prepared for it, but die instantly to a dagger to the back you didn't see coming is hilariously dumb.

How durable an object is isn't dependent on how mentally prepped the object is to be injured you numnuts.

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>hit points are nothing but skill, grit, and luck
>mfw the tarrasque is the luckiest creature in existence

>>52742443
We could make an entire setting out of Anon's delusions. Just, every PC is called a Luckbender or something, and every round of combat is filled with elaborate explanations for how you live despite being at best Batman-tier durability.

High level PCs can literally explode black cats and ladders by looking at them, and leave Four-Leaf clovers everywhere they step.

>>52742214
>Faggot #1, who is winning the argument

No samefagging.

>>52739540
>I slit the goblin's throat
>okay, it dies
That's how a competent DM handles it. Especially because you should have made the necessary rolls to get the goblin into this hostage situation in the first place, making combat rolls is stupid.

I used to try to rationalize HP as luck too
but then I realized

why give a shit?

and my life improved tenfold

>>52742487
how does someone miss such an obvious joke

>>52742358
>>52742295
>sorry guys, the spikes rushed up through the floor and none of you were paying attention, so you died

>sorry guys, while your sleepjng an assassin sneaks in and slits all your throats

>sorry guys, a rock fell on you while you were all listening to the bard, no one was paying attention for it so you all get crushed and die

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>>52742471
pls no bully

>>52741695
Don't ask how I know this, but it means he saved the image from the Funnyjunk comments section.

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>>52742513
>Funnyjunk
normalfags leave

>>52741726
>casters can warp reality at level 20
>melees at level 20 are still beholden to human limitations
Why, anon?

>>52742529
I agree.

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>>52739540
You're a faggot. You don't get to decide if hit points are meat points, luck points or what ever. Your DM does. Have some respect for the person running the game and don't argue with them about autistic shit. If you don't like it find another DM, or better yet, run a game yourself. Observe rule 0.

Why this kind of thread exist/turn into this

>d&d is created and get famous
>its the first rpg so (since its famous) you have all those extreme amount of rpg players with different point of view of how a rpg should be, playing the exact same rpg
>after some amount of time playing some players discover some stuff they think are flaws, while discover some rules they think are really awesome
>because they have very different views on what a rpg should be (despise playing the exact same rpg), what some guy think is a good idea wont be considered a good idea by the other player, what some consider a shitty idea will be considered a good idea by other rpg
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system.
>many of those players quickly jump into the new system, expecting fixed to what they think are flaws
>because the players have very different opinions on what rpg should be (despise playing the same exact system), what is a flaw to some is a fix to another, and what is a fix to another is a flaw to someone. So the system CAN'T be fixed.
>all those extreme amount of players quickly jumping to this new system, bring new (to rpg) players to the new d&d system
>this make the game have an extreme amount of rpg players with different point of view of how a rpg should be, playing the exact same rpg
>because they have very different views on what a rpg should be (despise playing the exact same rpg), what some guy think is a good idea wont be considered a good idea by the other player, what some consider a shitty idea will be considered a good idea by other rpg
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system. No one knows what the system/d&d is suposed to be, because it was created based on a mess.
>the story continue ad infinitum

>>52742555
>tl: DM whose players don't like his games

>>52742497

>how does someone miss such an obvious joke

You missed mine.

>>52742557
The only winning move is ___ to play GURPS

>>52742595
fair enough

>>52742557
>>52742601
the real winning move is to not be whiny babies and just play games

>>52741073
>angered some peasant in a bar fight, he puts a knife to my throat.
>I don't reach for my weapon or make any aggressive moves because I know I'm that much stronger than him.
>I try to calmly explain to him that this is a bad idea because stabbing me will only make me angry.

>>52742577
Nope, just a person that doesn't like it when people pointlessly argue about the rules in the middle of a game. It holds up the game. The time you would waste arguing, is time you could spend rolling another attack and moving on. Just talk to your DM after the session and say something like "Look man, rolling to cut the goblins throat was a bit tedious... Did we really need to do that?"

Talk to your DM like an adult instead of arguing like a child.

>>52742557
This problem has a solution

First they stop creating new 5 edition books, just work on the ones they already started.

While doing it, they create polls asking what people like/liked at d&d, they must advertise those polls, saying it will be important and etc.... Almost literally saying "ANSWER THE POLLS OR GET FUCKED"

Based at initial polls they would sort people into different groups, they would create as many group as needed (THIS IS IMPORTANT).

Then they would have new polls, the polls would be specific to each group, and you can only answer polls made to the group you fit in.
Then they make a new system wip to each group and they have new polls to gauge what must be changed at each wip.
They continue doing wip and polls
At the end of all this, they release various systems at the same time, one system to each one of the groups. At the front cover of each system they will say "only buy this book if you are from group X, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, DON'T COMPLAIN LATER",
Maybe they should also say something like this, IF possible "didn't, answered the online polls? not my fault. go play other non d&d systems from our company"

This would fix your problem.

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>tfw insufficient xena

>>52742672
But that's horseshit and leads to failure for all of the systems because none if them van get enough individual support. Also a horrible waste of time when the creator of the game system can say "this is the base game, but if you want to home rules or modify the rules to better suit your playstyle then feel free." And release articles for free that explains where the load bearing walls of your system are so a well meaning gm won't take away something vital to the rest of the game functioning.

>>52742672
>This would fix your problem.

wait, I forgot this part
>new system is made based at this enviroment, and create a mess of a rpg system. No one knows what the system/d&d is suposed to be, because it was created based on a mess.


This would need some changes.
After stopping to create new 5th edition.

You make polls asking players what d&d is supposed to be about and split the users based at their answers, having as many groups as needed.
Then you make more polls asking what each group like/hate about d&d systems, and split those groups into multiple groups.
After it you continue as I said before.


>"Your idea is very complex, detailed or whateaver..."

A solution to a problem depends mostly on how hard a problem is to fix, if a problem requires complex solution there is nothing that can be done about it to make the solution simple.

>>52741011
>A Coup de Grace, as in the PHB, is meant to be used in combat. It's a high-lethality attack that requires concentration, but not a literal guaranteed execution. I'm talking about literal guaranteed executions, and how HP don't belong in them

A coup de grace is an execution. It can only be used on helpless victims to finish them off. It provokes an attack of opportunity from anyone else nearby -- and not the helpless victim, who by the definition of "helpless", can't do shit -- because lining up a one shot kill takes some concentration and focus (just like rofling through you backpack, or reading, or any of the stupid shit that you CAN do in combat, even though it's a terrible idea. And while it's nice that there's a written rule to cover it, if your DM needs that, he's an idiot.

>>52742745
>But that's horseshit and leads to failure for all of the systems because none if them van get enough individual support

Each system version will get support only of the guys that fall into the group the system version was made for, thats intentional. This mean you wont play a system that was not the one made base on your input.
> Also a horrible waste of time when the creator of the game system can say "this is the base game"
People can't decide the spirit of d&d for the reason stated at the post I replied to.

>>52742693
Is that the face she makes when she's having sex?

>>52742754
That might (MIGHT) be good for enfranchised players who actively look for DnD related shit, but screws the casual fan and creates a higher barrier to entry when someone goes to the Barnes and Nobles and sees five variations of the same game book with warnings to only pick it up if you are in a certain group. They don't buy it or get into your game so you can't sell them splat books while the sweaty fuck who participated are busy on the Internet yelling "Scan when?"

>>52741087
>bad way to make connections
In time you'd gain an aptitude for ending them especially C5-C6 ones

>>52742555
I bet you're fun at parties.
Oh wait.

I'm not that anon, but holy fuck, this is retarded. D&D is epic fantasy, you can't explain what they deal with once the characters get to high levels without them being superhuman. Otherwise you find yourself falling into incoherences at every step, because even with luck those feats are superhuman.

>I parry the giant's attack
Sure, now tell me how a normal human parries such momentum without being fucked completelly
>I fall but I managed to twist my body in order to miss the spikes
Again, how does anyone react to fast and so well to do that without being superhuman?
>They throw fire at me but I survive because reasons
Again and so on

All this without considering the situation where some fucker throws a fireball and I just decide facetank it and I get out alive.

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This is why backstabs, environmental damage and some traps should deal damage in percentage of max HP.

>>52740006
>>52739722
>> between misses and low damage rolls, it takes half a dozen headsmen six hours of chopping away at a restrained PC's neck with hatchets to finish an execution

That sounds pretty awesome actually
This thread convinced me, meat points are the way to go. No more having to justify how the fighter survived being grabbed by a dragon and chewed on for 5 rounds, he's just that tough.

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>>52742847
One of the many best parts of that show was Lucy Lawless reacting to stuff.

>>52742814
Waste of time and resources porting splat books and adventures between systems and terrible if members of the same playgroup are sorted into different sections
As it is, I disagree with my roommate about some concepts in DnD and what makes a perfect campaign but we can still find fun in each other's campaigns since the system doesn't specifically cater to neither one of us.

hp = meat just seems off, but you can't make it luck+skill ALL the time without a ton of mental gymnastics or the pacing going to shit.
i'm sure there's an official posture written in most books but even without that, it's a mix of both, more hp just means you can take more bodily hurt before being unable to stand, but no fighter stays still while taking a dragon's breath to the face and then again, a giant should be able to instantly crush any mortal humanoid in a round with his hand, but they don't because physical might is just not everything there is to the scenario. the giant is clumsy and can't aim that well to a small target, if his axe IS fatal, then hp have to be an abstraction to the ABILITY to keep fighting, and if a clean hit of the axe is not fatal then you need to make a whole bunch of mental gymnastics in the opposite direction to rationalize how killing so many thousands of kobolds made your skin impervious to meteors, if the answer is lolmagic, then that works for your setting and that's perfectly fine, but don't expect it to work for everyone's setting.

it's like monster hunter or dark souls, even if you take a clean hit and don't die, it feels like the hit is meaningful, and you know it through the hp even without any visible wounds, and without any of the characters being particularly supernatural demigods. in those games when you die you just respawn so again, it has all to do with pacing and setting, and nothing to do with actual demihuman might being granted through sheer mechanical levels in a class.

if an executioner can't kill you in a hundred guillotine drops because the metal bends the first 99 times, you get just a many problems when afterwards you die to 3 stones to the dick as apparently your demihuman might runs out after a number of indeterminate number of abstract calculations are made.

>>52742911
Does she having a problem with the throwing anus?

t. >>52742904

By backstabs I've meant things like OP described. I'm suffering from hangover please no bully.

>>52742916
>how killing so many thousands of kobolds made your skin impervious to meteors
this is why D&D is secretly a xianxia setting
you just cultivate so hard you become a god

>>52739815
tl;dr
A bad gm with a bad system is bad

>>52742916

Being fair, in Dark Souls you're superhumanly durable because you're undead.

>>52742916
>but don't expect it to work for everyone's setting.
people who want a realistic setting shouldn't be playing D&D

>>52742945
Now I just figured out why the bbeg of my game is going around cultivating heroes.

>>52742916
>if a clean hit of the axe is not fatal then you need to make a whole bunch of mental gymnastics in the opposite direction to rationalize how killing so many thousands of kobolds made your skin impervious to meteors

It's not a whole lot of mental gymnastics. 'Killing stuff makes you more powerful' covers pretty much everything.

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>>52742929
She famously uses both the throwing anus and the sharp dick. I'm so mad that it isn't on netflix.

>this entire thread
Have (clap) you (clap) tried (clap) not (clap) playing (clap) D&D?

>>52742847
When having sex, fighting, on jury duty, making pancakes...

>>52743019
YOU HAVE FREED ME FROM THIS SPELL I WAS UNDER
THANK YOU BRAVE MORTAL, NEVER AGAIN SHALL I HAVE THIS PROBLEM

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>>52742945
>D&D is secretly a xianxia setting
Welp I know what setting I'm going to be building for the next day or two
In Legends of The Wulin

>>52739540
That DM obviously doesn't know what a Coup de Grace is... tell him to reread the fucking rules.

>>52743037
Hot

>>52743049
>legends of the wulin dungeon crawling
sounds fun

>>52743049

LotW actually works pretty well for anime style fantasy stuff, although the systems preference for big boss fights and duels means you need to tune encounters to that.

>>52739628
>stop liking what I don't like! wah! mommy!
I don't like that you're breathing. Have you tried not doing that?

>>52743049
If you're trying to be faithful to the genre, remember to make luck the god stat.

>>52743088
>complaints all based around dnd's shitty rulesystem
>ask why they're using a shitty rulesystem that has problems they obviously don't like
>WAH YOU'RE A MEANIE, KILL YOURSELF

dnd players, ladies and gentlemen.

>>52743118
>replying to weak b8

>>52741075
>eventually

The original writers literally said that Final Fantasy 7 was their inspiration for the appearance of daiklaves.

>>52739863
Monks get that as a class ability. What level does fighter get that again?

>>52743019

Thanks to you, Tinkerbell lives! Huzzah!

>>52740289
Giants can die, and are therefore mortal as well. How is a mortal killing another mortal so outlandish?

>>52743146
The Fighter doesn't need a class feature, just 20 levels worth of Power Attack.

>>52740311
This. I was always under the impression that the severity of a hit was proportional to the max HP of the one taking damage.

Say you have a commoner with 5 hp, and he takes a sword blow that does 20 damage. That commoner is super dead, getting gutted in a single strike with barely any resistance.

Then you have a Fighter with, say, 50 hp, and takes that same sword blow for 20 damage. Not quite half, but a damn good chunk of it. It's not that the fighter took the sword straight in the gut like the commoner did, and just laughs it off. He tried and failed to block or dodge, and the strike aimed at impaling his gut instead puts a seriously nasty gash in his side as he was trying to turn it away.

This is how my first DM had described it to me, and it always seemed to make sense.

>>52739540
In my totally-not-humble opinion, there are four facts that need to be stated.

1) Hit points are a representation of how tough your character is in battle, and over the course of several battles. They're a mixture of physical endurance, determination, and combat savvy. They are not 'meat', they do not represent how many times you can get stabbed before dying. The only serious wounds a character should suffer are the ones that get them very low on hit points and/or knock them to 0, and critical hits if you use random injury tables for crits.

2) Some hazards reduce hit points, many do not. Some give penalties to attributes or ability checks, some inflict status effects, some build up or count down a secondary meter of performance (like Exhaustion). Not all forms of bodily harm reduce hit points, and not all hit point loss comes from physical injury (for example, psychic damage).

3) Attack and damage rolls are mainly for use in combat when facing opponents who can actively defend themselves. If you have a knife to the throat of a completely incapacitated or immobile opponent, you don't have to roll to hit because there's no realistic chance of failure. If they're merely being restrained they might try to slam their head backwards to avoid the knife or stomp on your foot to distract you, thus merely giving the attacker a substantial advantage.

4) Your GM is the sole arbiter of how things function in-game. If he decides that a certain action is resolved in a particular way, that's how it works. Instead of rolling your eyes or complaining, write down your constructive criticism on a piece of paper and bring it up after the session. I heavily recommend against interrupting the game for a rules challenge in any situation UNLESS a player character would live or die based on the ruling.

You're free to disagree, but if you reply stating otherwise, please present a counter-argument, not just "Well I do it differently in my game and nobody complains."

>>52743386
>I was always under the impression that the severity of a hit was proportional to the max HP of the one taking damage.

No, you're just wrong.

>>52739540

Helpless opponents are targetted with a coup de grace; A full round action which instantly kills a target.

was in 3.5, which is what we always bitch about anyways.

>>52743401
Well I do it differently in my game and nobody complains.

>>52743453
>which instantly kills a target.

If they fail a Fortitude save based on the damage dealt. It was specifically set up that way to make it harder to insta-kill high-level PCs.

>>52739580
it actually woulda been a coup de grace. That is, save or die ona dc 22 or 27 fort save. something even a goblin with class levels is not going to make.

get a life dude

I'd say it's a DM/GM's decision.

>>52742662
But you're missing the point. OP's DM made it IMPOSSIBLE for the action to succeed. Maybe it shouldn't succeed every time, but surely there should be a chance.

>>52743477

If you GM is using Coup de Grace rules against the party, he's already fucking up.

The rule exists to prevent the exact scenario presented: You shouldn't need to spend 3 attacks on every orc while they're knocked flat, and there's no reason a sleeping opponent above 15-20 hp should need a comedic soap party of flailing weapons to be killed in his sleep.

On the other hand, you nailed the reason for the fort save: Some fucker figured out how to "helpless" a level 20 wizard for a round and ruined some poor neckbeards campaign.

>>52739540
This thread was shit from the subject.
HP are meat points. Get over it, scrub. Same goes to you idiots agreeing with him in this thread.

>>52740652
Goku would be a monk. Monks get adamantine fist as a class trait. They accomplish that by using their chi to temporarily reinforce their body. So it makes sense that he could stop a sword.

Of course, Goku is also not human, and has the broken racial trait of a free level up every time he survives going into negative HP, but that's beside the point.

A fighter doesn't use chi, he uses his skills, his armor, and his weapon. Most any sword strike from a lesser opponent may not be blocked by a finger, but easily side-stepped, or parried, or maybe he just leans to the side a bit, letting the sword bounce off his armor at an obtuse angle and merely leaving a scratch on it's finish.

>>52743118
there are lots of systems that still use HP tho

>>52743401
>1) Hit points are a representation of how tough your character is in battle, and over the course of several battles. They're a mixture of physical endurance, determination, and combat savvy. They are not 'meat', they do not represent how many times you can get stabbed before dying. The only serious wounds a character should suffer are the ones that get them very low on hit points and/or knock them to 0, and critical hits if you use random injury tables for crits.

I will present the point of view that meat points are better because they do not require any justification and bullshitting by the DM. There's nothing wrong with a fighter being so tough he tanks a sword with his mighty pecs/tits of steel.

Modern D&D* (3e-4e-5e, did not play earlier editions so don't come argue with me about those I don't know them) is already pretty much fantasy superheroes, and I will never understand why people want to run it otherwise.
When I want some actual verisimilitude or realism I just run other systems.

I always get a laugh when I hear people trying to run serious political intrigue using D&D. It's like using a butter knife to cut a tough piece of meat. It might work out in the end, but not without lots of unnecessary effort.

>>52742779
Is that 5e? If so what page of the PHB is it on?

>>52740700
>absurd mental gymnastics
So it's absurd that the fighter tried to block the blow with his own weapon, taking a brunt of the force while still cutting into him and flinging him back, powered through the poison by being a tough SOB in top health (normally), got nasty, though still non-lethal gashes in his extremities from the spikes, grits his teeth as his metal armor is covered in alchemists fire and slowly cooking him, and goes right back into the fight through sheer toughness, force of will, and a metric fuck ton of adrenaline because HOLY FUCK THEY ARE NOT FUCKING PLAYING IN TRYING TO KILL HIM.

That didn't even take "mental gymnastics", that's naturally how I pictured it happening as I read your post. The spike part is the only one that took some leeway, as I'm not going to assume he landed square on a spike unless he's got some sort of magic item that gives regeneration, or is something like a vampire. Otherwise, you save that for if the spike trap dealt the finishing damage to him.

>>52743828

the few times i run DND which is seldom, i go full gore as a DM, as soon as a attack deals enough damage to kill a normal lvl 1 peasant it makes your brains splatter all over, rips out spines ETC, its just that you dont give a shit and go on to stomp that goblins dick all over the walls

I mean come on, you can take a swim in lava for minutes sometimes

>>52743828
You seem to not understand the level of durability required to survive any of those things in isolation, let alone happening to a single person in a 6 second timespan.

The giant's blow alone would shatter damn near every bone in the character's arms if he tried to block it. The kinetic energy is on the order of car crashes. If the worst that happens to him from facing that is some scratches, that character has more in common with superman than he does with a normal human. Hence HP is meat points. You can't wave it off to luck or skill when the energies involved are that high.

>>52743913

disregard that example, Grogar the barbarian, who rolled 10-12 on all his HP rolls and is lvl 20 one day decides to go for a swim so he strolls out to the lake of magma and lava and jumps in.... now tell me how that works if HP arent just pure meat points

>>52742916
Wow, a reasonable and well thought out post. I never thought I'd see one of these on /tg/.

Rolled 20, 19 = 39 (2d20)

>>52739540
I eat. Roll to bite.

>>52743993
You bite the shit out of it

Rolled 1, 2 = 3 (2d4)

>>52743993
oops, meant to roll 1d20. Now rolling for damage.

>>52743828
>So it's absurd that the fighter tried to block the blow with his own weapon, taking a brunt of the force while still cutting into him and flinging him back

no please justify that when the fighter is both stunned and immobilized, neither of which are helpless

>>52744033
you critical the food

>>52741138
>My best counter-argument to perfectly valid responses is HURR MENTAL GYMNASTICS
You can call it whatever you want, it still doesn't change the fact that you're a retarded fucking faggot.

>>52740345
anon please invite me to this game
4e West Marches sounds like a dream come true

>>52743945
but he's a barbarian, not a fighter...

>>52741212
>logic is whatever I say it is
>a regular human with enough levels is automatically superman, it's more logical than him having the skill to turn an otherwise lethal blow into a non-lethal, but painful injury
>HURRR MENTAL GYMNASTICS GUIZ

>>52744210
>having the skill to turn an otherwise lethal blow into a non-lethal, but painful injury
this is so easy to rationalize because it is how it actually works in the real world, i don't understand this discussion at all.

>>52743945
>he strolls out to the lake of magma and lava and jumps in.... now tell me how that works if HP arent just pure meat points
He dies and hit points don't even enter into the picture.

>>52744231
Yeah, all those stories about people using a metal rod to parry a car that was about to him them.

>>52744260
>houserules are a valid argument

>>52744260
Wrong.

>Lava or magma deals 2d6 points of damage per round of exposure, except in the case of total immersion (such as when a character falls into the crater of an active volcano), which deals 20d6 points of damage per round.
>
>Damage from lava continues for 1d3 rounds after exposure ceases, but this additional damage is only half of that dealt during actual contact (that is, 1d6 or 10d6 points per round). Immunity or resistance to fire serves as an immunity to lava or magma. A creature immune to fire might still drown if completely immersed in lava (see Drowning).

>>52743945
>fighter gets into crazy battle with a giant in which he is hit by the equivalent of a fast moving truck multiple times and survives because he is a tough mother fucker.
>During the fight he is stabbed a bunch of times by diamond swords which all break upon hitting his skin because he is so fucking amazing.
>Right after fight little punk ass kid comes up with pointy stick and kills him with a quick jab in the tante.
>what the fuck dm!?!
>sorry bro you used up all your awesome poin... I mean hp in your fight with the giant.

>>52743749
>I will present the point of view that meat points are better because they do not require any justification and bullshitting by the DM.

Sure. I'll present the point of view that 'morale' points is better in that it covers psychic damage and gives the GM more leeway when describing blows the PCs and monsters suffer. You make a good point, I just prefer to run it my way.

I like how all the "It's luck and skill I swear" fags are ignoring the fact that you can be dazed, stunned, immobilized, prone, disarmed, wearing completely non-magical normal clothing and take a hit from a tarrasque and still be fine

>>52743401
>1) Your GM is the sole arbiter of how things function in-game. If he decides that a certain action is resolved in a particular way, that's how it works. Instead of rolling your eyes or complaining, write down your constructive criticism on a piece of paper and shove it up your ass. I heavily recommend against interrupting the game for a rules challenge in any situation.
fixed that for you

>>52744381
Psychic effects causing physical damage is pretty well-justified by the whole "heart attack" / "that ghost ghosted you so hard your hair turned white" / "people turn old and withered when drained by magic" kind of thing.

>>52744335
ok, he jumps into the lava, total immersion. it's difficult terrain and he is prone or he just can't fucking swim in it because he doesn't have a lava swim speed, in how many rounds will he be able to get out?

2d6 is a fucking joke and the real problem here, it's mario bouncing on his butt silly so might as well let him, 2d6 damage wouldn't even kill a normal human so it's fine if it does jackshit to a lv20 barbarian. 20d6 is 105 avg. and he has what, 285 hp on avg? he easily dies in three rounds at his demihuman beastgod prowess, that's 18 seconds, sure it's better than the 6 it takes to kill a normal human at that point but fucking not SUPERMAN.

>>52744395
>DMs are above criticism

>>52744383
people survive plane crashes, and they are just peasants.

>>52739540
This is clearly a coup de grace. At worst you'd get a free free crit, but if it was me I would just say he dies

>>52744383
At what level, and with how many hit points?

>>52744480
>2d6 is a fucking joke and the real problem here
No, you mouth breathing mongoloid, the real problem is that he takes fucking hp damage from lava. There is no luck or skill involved, he steps in lava, he takes hp damage. There is literally no way to describe this without the character having superhuman durability.

>>52741708
First you get some straw, some old clothes, and a few sturdy sticks to hold it up... oh, never mind, seems you already got that down.

>>52744500
you realize that a fire giant could keep attacking that dazed, stunned, immobilized, prone, disarmed, wearing completely non-magical normal clothing for several rounds and still not get close to killing him right?

A level 20 fighter with a relatively good 16 con would have on average 170hp.
a fire giant deals
>Greatsword +20/+15/+10 melee (3d6+15)
so 25,5hp on average per attack

It would take him 3 rounds attacking a total of 7 attacks. (assuming he hits all attacks)
How do you justify that?

>>52744492
Yeah if you don't like it don't play

>>52741813
You're a faggot who loves sucking cock. inb4 mental gymnastics to explain how you aren't a faggot.

Now if you try to defend yourself, you only further prove how much of a faggot you are.

See how your "logic" works when applied the other way around, you fucking tard?

>>52739628
>Implying other system don't have this problem.

>>52744510
to me, if his free crit is not enough to kill a fucking goblin, he doesn't get no fucking autokill for being such a piece of shit. why is he even wielding a knife, it's not particularly easy to cut a neck clean, much less if you are a scrawny fag in with a rusted knife. maybe the crit doesn't kill the goblin, it start gushing out blood, the thing is still helpless, a follow up will put him out of his misery. if they can't spend another 6 seconds to finish the goblin dying in their arms, they don't deserve anything really.

>>52744539
2d6 for high level pc is literally his shoes are too hot and either are starting to bust into flames or he is just comically tapdancing on top of the lava. maybe a goblin with no shoes gets some fiery feet and die to pain, but anyone else able to shrug of the 'damage' can rationalize it any other way.

>you touch the lava, instinctively recoil and desperately try to stop the flames creeping from your footwear

>>52744616
You do realize that do to convection you'll be dead long before you touch the lava with your foot right? Its not just the lava that's hot, the superheated air around the lava would be doing damage on par with standing in an open flame [1d6 per round]

>>52744601
Yes but I do so because of superhuman throat muscles, not because I acquired skill at sucking dick.

>>52744616
So your response is to turn it into a cartoon. Ok, but then you give up any arguments about throat stabs failing to penetrate being 'unrealistic'.

>>52743945

He easily clears an DC 60 constitution roll and gains temporary resist energy (fire)

Just like a high enough climb counts as spider climb, a high enough constitution counts as no-selling lava.

>>52744668
His CON could be 10.

>>52741903
IRL, people have survive falls from much higher than 50 ft. They have also survived getting hit by lightening. There's plenty of former military that can tell you about the explosions they've been in. there are no giants or dragons irl (as far as I know), but plenty of people have survived getting hit by cars, or accidents involving heavy machinery that could easily be the equivalent. People walk through burning buildings every day, usually to get out, and usually with burns for their troubles.

So by your logic, they all survived by PLOT ARMOR. If PLOT ARMOR can protect regular, ordinary commoners irl, then it sure as hell flies when you apply it to the peak of human fitness who is also wearing ACTUAL fucking armor.

>>52744658
>>52744635

2d6 by the book is a fucking joke, you can't realistically approach a 2d6 contact with lava. i think you should always use the 20d6 as seen here >>52744480

>>52744578
i don't know, if you are 'fighting' a fire giant, unarmed, stunned and naked, if you die i don't care if it takes 3 rounds of attack. at that point the fighter is helpess, isn't him? the whole point of this discussion so he can't use any skill savvy nor luck.

the fire giant has autocrit on every hit, how many rounds is that? maybe the first two hits don't instantly kill him, adrenaline and shit but he ultimately ends up a bloody pulp. perfectly fine with me.

>>52744761
No the point of the discussion is that beyond a certain level the majority of the abstraction is usually durability.
>>52744745
The difference is that a D&D character survives all those things WITHOUT being hospitalized for six months.

There's a difference between being a charred human-burger in ER, and being moderately annoyed, when struck by lightning.

>>52744800
Okay. So what?

>>52744871
So this means I win the internet argument, and therefore did not just waste several hours of my life, and am cool and have a gf and Saitama powers now.

>>52744800
i mean, this just falls back again into the point where you superhuman durability just arbitrarily runs out after a point. you are moderately annoyed, after being struck by lightning ten times but 30 minutes later a kobold hits you with a fucking pebble while eating your lunch and you drop dead.

X hp -> 0 hp = meat points
Max hp -> 1 hp = luck/will to fight/whatever the fuck you want