Can O Worms: Vancian Casting is totally disassociated.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Back in the day there was actually heated discussion on the WotC boards about what HP represented. Some people had the same opinions as yourself, that you were just tough as nails. Other people claimed it represented the ability to twist out of the way just right to turn a fatal blow into a scratch, use your arcane power to knock away blows, the protection of your deity, or whatever. The proponents of the second school of thought believed you technically didn't have any serious wounds until you dropped dead.

In earlier editions, the second rationale was explicitly stated to be correct. Gygax has a page-long rant in one of the early books about how it's absurd to imagine that a 4th level fighter could take 5 sword thrusts to the chest, or a 9th level fighter could absorb as much damage as a rhino.

Except when the fighter was riding a rhino and both got caught in a fireball which only the fighter survived, lolz.

[DSMatticus]

Gygax was wrong. Or rather, the entire damage system actually makes more sense when you ignore his interpretation. It's more reasonable to pretend fighters are just inhumanly tough than to pretend you can somehow plot-soak falling damage. And it made even more sense in earlier editions, where hitpoints were comparatively small and death was fast either way.

[Archmage]

Back in the day there was actually heated discussion on the WotC boards about what HP represented. Some people had the same opinions as yourself, that you were just tough as nails. Other people claimed it represented the ability to twist out of the way just right to turn a fatal blow into a scratch, use your arcane power to knock away blows, the protection of your deity, or whatever. The proponents of the second school of thought believed you technically didn't have any serious wounds until you dropped dead.

In earlier editions, the second rationale was explicitly stated to be correct. Gygax has a page-long rant in one of the early books about how it's absurd to imagine that a 4th level fighter could take 5 sword thrusts to the chest, or a 9th level fighter could absorb as much damage as a rhino.

Gygax's imagination was startlingly limited at times.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Not to mention the part where you were drinking healing potions to restore your ability to twist out of the way.

[DSMatticus]

ignore a ballista bolt to to the chest entirely is beyond idiotic.

I agree completely, it's thematically stupid, but it's a coherent view to take of a fantasy world. Which is the real concern - what's coherent? We're already talking about a fantasy game, none of this stuff makes sense in relation to the world we live in. Does it make sense in relation to the world it occurs in? And HP as plot armor doesn't, really.

Edit: Wait, that's Plebian. I completely didn't realize at first.

[Akula]

Not to mention the part where you were drinking healing potions to restore your ability to twist out of the way.

I am wondering where you find it difficult to picture drinking a potion that reenergizes you and allows you to keep fighting, so that the stab that you would have just been too bone tired to block is instead turned aside by your skillful swordsmanship.

[DSMatticus]

turned aside by your skillful swordsmanship.

Poisons, negative level natural attacks, and other such things exist, making this invalid. Every 'hit' connects meaningfully enough to deliver riders.

[K]

I'm unsure of why people think that 4e should make any simulationist sense at all. This is the game where you can't pick up an orc's sword after it dies.

[Akula]

turned aside by your skillful swordsmanship.

Poisons, negative level natural attacks, and other such things exist, making this invalid. Every 'hit' connects meaningfully enough to deliver riders.

Oh boy, I do so love sniping. Also picking a small part of a post and trying to one up it. Favorite things and all that.

What I apparently meant to say is that the thrust that would have penetrated your eye socket was instead a minor scratch on the cheek. Unfortunately for you, your crafty opponent had poisoned his blade/was armed with a wraithstone weapon/was encrusted with sewer filth. Happy now?

But really, it could be that the necrotic aura of the Hammer of Lost Souls is able to effect you even though a timely duck sent it over your head instead of through it. I don't see how you invalidated anything, you just need me to change my description some.

I'm really glad that you took your valuable condescension time to show me the error of my ways and the Light of Christ the One True God the correct way to look at HP.

[Psychic Robot]

you're equating magic which does not exist in real life and has its own in-game/in-character explanation for how it works to a fighter's inability to stab for 3[W] + strength more than once per day

this thread is stupid.

[Bobikus]

But really, it could be that the necrotic aura of the Hammer of Lost Souls is able to effect you even though a timely duck sent it over your head instead of through it. I don't see how you invalidated anything, you just need me to change my description some.

By this explanation, if you narrowly dodge from AC the aura should still effect, or that the added effect should be applied on touch even if the weapon's damage has to hit actual AC.

[Akula]

By this explanation, if you narrowly dodge from AC the aura should still effect, or that the added effect should be applied on touch even if the weapon's damage has to hit actual AC.

It could fail to effect you because you somehow resisted it (mechanically you did, using your AC) the point is that all I have to do is write a description, and I honestly don't think you can stop me from doing that.

In the end, I like to think of HP as an abstraction and not as, "You shrug off the sword in your gut." because it gives me some extra room to describe the combat and I don't have to remember a bunch of wounds that have no mechanical effect on my character. You can do it another way, but claiming that one way is in all circumstances "better" or the "right" way to go about things is just arrogant.

[DSMatticus]

By this explanation, if you narrowly dodge from AC the aura should still effect, or that the added effect should be applied on touch even if the weapon's damage has to hit actual AC.

There's more, but this is the general theme of it. Plot armor is throwing your hands up and shouting, "to hell with any concievable amount of consistency!"

Also picking a small part of a post and trying to one up it.

Dude, your post was small. Picking apart a small part was like... picking apart all of it.

But I'll be more serious with it: there are things that just don't make sense when you treat HP as plot armor. Tons of them. Falling is the biggest one. Riders are a problem, but you're right, you can change the description of the hit to a "complete miss" (but that's what AC is for) to a "grazing hit" for riders, which leads to the problem that the in-game events changed based on metagame concepts, and that's incoherent. Grapples and being held in a dragon's maw is a problem. Swimming in fucking magma, which has a damage value that a level 20 can survive and a level 1 fighter cannot, and I'm not sure what possible fluff technique a fighter could have for surviving literal magma immersion.

I'm not saying this is the wrong way to play. I'm just saying it's a way to play that does not have a coherent game world, because the game world changes on the whims of the metagame (the weapon misses. Oh, it was poisoned? Then it's a grazing hit, not a miss. Wait, funny realization: why do unpoisoned weapons keep missing me when they roll above my AC, and poisoned weapons always scratch me when they roll above my AC?).

This is the difference between player-driven narrative and character-driven narrative, and it's the concept of dissociation that this thread is talking about. You can play either way, but D&D has always struck me more as character-driven. The rules make sense because they're a part of the world, not because they're a game.

[Zeezy]

In the end, I like to think of HP as an abstraction and not as, "You shrug off the sword in your gut." because it gives me some extra room to describe the combat and I don't have to remember a bunch of wounds that have no mechanical effect on my character.

Well, It's Cold Outside has this weapon called the harpoon. It embeds itself in the target on a failed Reflex save, which forces the target to move at half speed and be unable to charge or run. It's a full-round action to remove, and a DC 15 Heal check to remove safely (otherwise it inflicts its payload again). A mid-level barbarian can more or less ignore the blood loss from extracting a harpoon from his shoulder, and I'm OK with that.

Granted, not all weapons are like that (the harpoon is unique in that respect), but I feel it's worth mentioning in a discussion on how to model HP damage, because it creates a rather sticky situation -- how can you ignore a gaping hole in any part of your body, even if it's still plugged by the large, pointy object that created it?

You can do it another way, but claiming that one way is in all circumstances "better" or the "right" way to go about things is just arrogant.

I agree with this in a strict sense. You can use either method of rationalizing HP damage (wounds vs. fatigue) on a case-by-case basis. Maybe the tone of the campaign demands it, or perhaps the system itself does (I'd argue that a campaign using Tome material can easily model HP damage as actual wounds). In most cases, however, I prefer the HP = Wounds model, and I doubt anything you can say will change my mind on the matter.

[CCarter]

Some of this has already been said, but I'm just going to link some of my favourite anti-abstract HP ravings here. This was written about AD&D by helpful Palladium fans - its actually not wholly applicable to 3E given that 3Es description of how HP works describes them as as 'plot armour' that buffers wounds, but make of this what you will.

http://kuoi.com/~kamikaze/RPG/wrong_adn ... nstitution

[hogarth]

Hogarth (and Plebian's newest account), that's still not actually disassociated.

This is a decent acid test for a disassociated mechanic: could the character explain it to the party? A 3.5E wizard can sit down and say, "Spells have certain levels of power and difficulty to prepare. Of each tier of difficulty, I have found that I am capable of preparing this many spells..." So no, spell levels aren't disassociated. The character himself knows and talks about the mechanic (or what the mechanic represents).

For some aspects of D&D magic, that's true; for instance, the 3.5E PHB is pretty clear how memorizing a spell works (i.e. it's precasting a spell except for the last few gestures and words). But for other things (e.g. why can't I memorize another 8th level spell instead of two 7th level spells and a 6th level spell?), the player and/or the GM has to make something up (e.g. "the gods who govern magic don't allow it").

Could a 4e rogue explain his dailies to the party? And the answer is no. Certainly, he can say things like, "well, people only give me the opportunity very rarely," or "I just never get the chance that often," or whatever, but the mechanic by which the rogue uses his daily abilities is completely alien to him.

Again, the player and/or the GM can just as easily make something up for why this would be true (e.g. "the gods who govern thievery don't allow it").

So why is making something up (or failing to make something up, as the players or GM choose) "disassociated" in one case and not in the other?

[Maxus]

Because the Thieving gods are not directly responsible for the thief being able to shiv someone.

It's all the thief.

If you're going to go that way, you're going to have Fighter Gods who just don't want you to hit super-hard but once a day.

[hogarth]

Because the Thieving gods are not directly responsible for the thief being able to shiv someone.

You are an idiot. A creative person (not you, obviously) could come up with a variety of reasons explaining a thief's daily power in "in-game" terms.

[DSMatticus]

Again, hogarth, that's not what disassociation is.

We don't care about realism. We don't care about thematics. And we don't care about explanations. A fighter doesn't have to be able to explain why he can take a catapult to the face, he just has to know that he can take a catapult to the face when the rules say he can, and voila - association.

e.g. why can't I memorize another 8th level spell instead of two 7th level spells and a 6th level spell?

A player asks his DM this exact question. The DM responds, "that's not how magic works." The player reponds, "does my character know that?" The DM says, "yes." The character says, "oh, okay. So my wizard explains that to the party member who asked me why I can't cast two irrestible dances today." That is the definition of association.

You are an idiot. A creative person (not you, obviously) could come up with a variety of reasons explaining a thief's daily power in "in-game" terms.

That is completely wrong. Rogues and fighters are literally fucking described in the core text of 4e as having "martial power sources," and martial power sources described as "representing individual martial talent."

The rules of the game flat out say that the thief's daily power, in 'in-game' terms, is coming from his talent with a weapon. And then the rules also flat out say that the thief can only use his talent once daily, and offers no explanation why.

This is why the argument centers around martial abilities. Because arcane and divine power sources make complete sense. And you are invoking a divine and/or arcane explanation for the rogue. You can change the game to do that, but that is not what 4e actually says. Defending 4e by saying, "well, you can change it to fix the problem" is no defense at all.

[Maxus]

And all of the possible explanations are bullshit that would either boil down to being unable to answer 'Why' except with "Um...Because" or just plain not make sense.

Can only be used in favorable conditions? "Um, Tel, I've seen you pull that trick from the front, back, sideways, when they were on higher ground than you, when you were on higher ground than them, and when they're wearing full plate and when they're wearing leathers. I've also seen you use it on kobolds, orcs, golems, and beholders. If the favorable conditions are that inclusive, you're in favorable conditions all the damn time. So why one a day?"

The rogue gets too tired? "I'm pretty sure you have the strength to do it again. Your dagger weighs...what...a pound? A pound and a half maybe?"

The gods won't allow it? "No, really, the god of thieves is dicking around his favored profession by restraining how many times they can shiv someone? What the fuck is wrong with him?"

I kinda dig games where I don't have to jump through hoops to explain why the Fighter and Rogue can't do more of what they do. It's already enough with the wizards and clerics, who, by some weird quirk of psychology, are allowed a pass because of "Yeah...well...magic...who knows, right?"

[Psychic Robot]

. A creative person (not you, obviously) could come up with a variety of reasons explaining a thief's daily power in "in-game" terms.

please enlighten us

[Lago PARANOIA]

I kinda dig games where I don't have to jump through hoops to explain why the Fighter and Rogue can't do more of what they do.

Do I need to bump up the 'why Fighters will never have nice things' thread again?

[DSMatticus]

I think you interpreted that as the reverse of what it meant, Lago. He's suggesting fighters shouldn't have their abilities taken away from them. But either way, this thread's got nothing to do with the game balance ramifications of a resource management system - it's purely about good ol' dissociation.

[Maxus]

I think you interpreted that as the reverse of what it meant, Lago. He's suggesting fighters shouldn't have their abilities taken away from them. But either way, this thread's got nothing to do with the game balance ramifications of a resource management system - it's purely about good ol' dissociation.

Pretty much.

If a Fighter's strongest attack is a doublehanded homerun swing

4e tells us he can only do it once a day.

And makes everyone else go "Why not?"

[Swordslinger]

I'm unsure of why people think that 4e should make any simulationist sense at all. This is the game where you can't pick up an orc's sword after it dies.

Seriously what's the deal with people on this board feeling the need to make blatantly false statements about 4E?

It only makes you seem ignorant.