Can O Worms: Vancian Casting is totally disassociated.

[Josh_Kablack]

Before I begin: this is not an edition war. This is an assertion that all editions of D&D ever have contained mechanics for limited use powers that were limited in use solely for the purpose of game balance with no further justification.

So then, what the hell is a disassociated mechanic. Lemme quote the relevant example:

At first glance, this looks pretty innocuous: The rogue, through martial prowess, can force others to move where he wants them to move. Imagine Robin Hood shooting an arrow and causing someone to jump backwards; or a furious swashbuckling duel with a clever swordsman shifting the ground on which they fight. It's right there in the fluff text description: Through a series of feints and lures, you maneuver your foe right where you want him.

The problem is that this is a Daily power -- which means it can only be used once per day by the rogue.

Huh? Why is Robin Hood losing his skill with the bow after using his skill with the bow? Since when did a swashbuckler have a limited number of feints that they can perform in a day?

Now, lemme just change the class and ability involved.

At first glance, this looks pretty innocuous: The wizard, through arcane ability, can set someone on fire. Imagine gandalf throwing fire and causing someone to run around in a flamesuit; or a furious wizards duel with a clever mage burning the very ground on which they fight thereby constraining his opponent's options for retreat. It's right there in the fluff text description: The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area.

The problem is that this is a 3rd level spell -- which means it can only be used once per day by a 5th level wizard. (unless he has high stats, or specialization)

Huh? Why is Lina Inverse losing her skill with fire magic after using her skill with fire magic? Since when did wizard have a limited number of attacks that they can perform in a day?

Within the context of D&D, the answer to that is "since the early 70s", and the answer to the above is "since the late 00s" That's the only difference.

While a lot of you just take it on faith that "since the 70s" is an adequate explanation, I'm sorry, whippersnappers, but I actually lived through the 70s, Disco fucking sucked the 1st time around, bellbottoms are a crime, stagflation was misery and quaaludes are right up there with asphyxiation.

If you're watching a football game, for example, and a player makes an amazing one-handed catch, you don't think to yourself: "Wow, they won't be able to do that again until tomorrow!"

And yet that's exactly the type of thing these mechanics are modeling.

Yeah.

And it is exactly the same with a 4e daily power or with any prior edition spell.

Unlike a fireball, I can't hold any kind of intelligible conversation with the rogue about his trick strike ability

Wait, what?

The two abilities work on the EXACT SAME recharge schedule and yet you only converse about ONE OF THEM? Why? That's some serious FOX NEWS logic right there.

Here, lemme quote E.G.G. on how vancian casting actually worked

Once cast, a spell is totally forgotten. Gone. The mystical symbols impressed upon the brain carry power, and speaking the spell discharges this power, draining all memory of the spell used. This does not preclude multiple memorization of the same spell, but it does preclude multiple use of a single spell memorized but once.

Okay, I'm not really up on my spellcasting, but I have been known to memorize a couple of things. I can understand forgetting something that one has previously memorized, that generally happens over time. Forgetting something in an instant after reciting and performing that very thing requires a pretty big willing suspension of disbelief, but I guess it's like cartoon hit-over-the-head amnesia, so at least I have a frame of reference. Memorizing the same thing multiple times makes no sense whatsoever and I have no frame of reference at all. Even within the idiom of cartoon-amnesia, a human being losing one copy of something they memorized while keeping the redundant copies doesn't correspond to anything in my experience. It sort of corresponds to crappy hard drives (especially when you consider that being jostled during spellcasting causes a delayed write fail where you lose the spell without casting it), but I don't know how to roleplay a crappy hard drive. I really really have to stretch and make up elaborate justification to understand how that happens in a human mind within the context of the game world, and the rules and flavor text of the game are of zero help in doing so.

Not only do I have no real idea how to converse about that, but when we circle back around to magical tea party time, while I am personally no more of a wide receiver than I am of a fire mage, I personally have a much easier time imagining Hines Ward having to take it easy for the rest of the game after having tweaked a calf muscle than I do imagining Natsu Dragoneel forgetting how to use Fist of the Fire Dragon. (and I gotta admit that Natsu is a pretty forgetful wizard).

[Red_Rob]

This is a false equivalence. The difference between the rogue and the wizard is that the wizard has an in game explanation for his ability being expended and the rogue doesn't. Thats it. That's the entire reason 4e's dailies are disassociated and Vancian magic isn't.

Now, what you are saying is that you don't like the Vancian system, or more precisely it doesn't resonate with you. That is an entirely different kettle of aboleths. Whether you do or don't think the Vancian magic system makes sense it is an undisputable fact that this is how magic works in the D&D world. Wizards can make plans based around it, you can have in-character conversations about how you used all your spells, and you can have events in the game world revolve around it (like the bandits baiting the Wizard into wasting his high level spells on an illusion so they can capture him).

The problem with 1/day martial abilities is that martial abilities exist in the real world, and we know there isn't a strict 1/day limit on them happening. Sure, you might not be able to pull off a home run every time, but thats because they are unpredictable not rationed. A rogue can't say whilst making a plan "No, I can't feint the leader to hold him up because I did it earlier in the fight with the gnoll's." The player can totally say that but the character can't. That's the essence of a disassociated mechanic.

[PoliteNewb]

Now, lemme just change the class and ability involved.

At first glance, this looks pretty innocuous: The wizard, through arcane ability, can set someone on fire. Imagine gandalf throwing fire and causing someone to run around in a flamesuit; or a furious wizards duel with a clever mage burning the very ground on which they fight thereby constraining his opponent's options for retreat. It's right there in the fluff text description: The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area.

The problem is that this is a 3rd level spell -- which means it can only be used once per day by a 5th level wizard. (unless he has high stats, or specialization)

Huh? Why is Lina Inverse losing her skill with fire magic after using her skill with fire magic? Since when did wizard have a limited number of attacks that they can perform in a day?

Within the context of D&D, the answer to that is "since the early 70s", and the answer to the above is "since the late 00s" That's the only difference.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you never actually read any of Vance's books? Because if you replace "gandalf" and "Lina Inverse" with Rhialto the Marvelous or Iuconnu or other wizards who use Vancian magic (like D&D presents it), your substitution makes no sense. Because the answer to "since when?" is "since always".

AD&D wasn't designed to model every wizard ever...it specifically was NOT meant to model magic-users who could do the same shit over and over once they learned it. It was meant to model a very specific type of magic system.

That's different from a physical skills/tricks model, because we actually have those in the real world. When we compare D&D wizards to something, we have to compare them to imaginary somethings, and there are a huge number of imaginary somethings to compare them to, and they all function differently, so you have to pick 1 (or some combination).

When we compare D&D fighters and rogues to something, we can compare them to real people in real life, and those all function the same way.

[hogarth]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you never actually read any of Vance's books? Because if you replace "gandalf" and "Lina Inverse" with Rhialto the Marvelous or Iuconnu or other wizards who use Vancian magic (like D&D presents it), your substitution makes no sense. Because the answer to "since when?" is "since always".

Agreed. Vancian casting is stupid (because D&D prepared casting only resembles one particular series of books and it doesn't even resemble that very closely), but it's clearly simulating something.

[Kaelik]

Actually, we have a comparison for Wizards in RL, all you have to do is replace magic with technology.

The answer to why the guy with 2 each of fourteen types of technological device can't do the same thing three times is because he ran out.

After the first two grenades, he has no more grenades. After the first three times he throws down a turret, he can't throw any more down because he doesn't have any.

The reason Rogue Dailies are retarded and "disassociated" is because we know that people who use their skill to do something, instead of some outside source, should be able to replicate that skill based tactic again later.

[CatharzGodfoot]

This is pretty much the reason for WoF.

[DSMatticus]

Magic has no real world analogue. If the idea of someone "losing the ability to do fire magic" after "doing fire magic" bothers you, you'll have to explain to me your sources for how magic works and why that breaks your immersion. That concept of magic cannot clash with anything, because magic is totally not real and the game can explain how it works in pretty much anyway it wants without trodding all over reality.

Being good with a sword has a real world analogue. We call it being good with a sword. We know people who do something cool with a sword do not stop being able to do cool things with a sword afterwards. 4e offers no explanation for why being good with a sword in 4e is different than being good with a sword in reality, and while the fluff gives every indication that they are the same, the mechanics clearly indicate they are different.

You can associate 4e martial dailies really, really easily. You can attribute them to something supernatural (ki, The Force, whatever), and then it becomes associated because the setting can define the rules for that supernatural thing. But that's a big change in the setting, and kind of a lame one, and it clashes with all the existing 4e martial fluff.

4e could also associate dailies by telling us, "being awesome at things doesn't work in D&D land the same way it does in the real world. People generate a limited amount of awesome per day, and they use up that awesome by using their awesome abilities. Characters in the game world know this happens, and understand the usage and generation of awesome." It would be a stupid as fuck setting no one would take seriously, but it would associate daily martials.

You may think Vancian magic is stupid (and I'm largely inclined to agree). You may think it's stupid from a mechanical standpoint (as I do), or you may think it's stupid from a setting standpoint (i.e., it's a thematically bad way for magic to work). But none of that has anything at all to do with association, because even if it is both mechanically and thematically bad your characters can sit down, in the game world, and talk about Vancian magic. Something a 4e rogue has absolutely no hope of doing with martial dailies.

[fectin]

Amber has a decent explanation of its sorcery that pretty much makes sense for DnD too. Essentially, your spells take a long time to cast. So each morning (or whenever), you cast them most of the way, but leave out a few key words or handwaves, and "hang" them in some sort of mental construct. They take up mental space like coats on a coatrack, so you can have a finite number prepared. Kind of like having a room full of Rube Goldberg devices: you can do a bunch of stuff quickly, but it takes a long time to do it twice. When you cast them, you're actually just putting the finishing touches on them, and setting them free. But then you have one fewer construct hanging around until you get around to doing all the prelinary work again.

That gives you a decent setup for finite spells, without that pesky disassociation. It's still a little wierd that they can't fill a slot which they just cast, but maybe it takes 8 hours to rebuild the mental coatrack, or maybe spells have a refractory period, or whatever.

Sorcerers still don't make sense, but noone likes them anyway.

[hogarth]

You may think Vancian magic is stupid (and I'm largely inclined to agree). You may think it's stupid from a mechanical standpoint (as I do), or you may think it's stupid from a setting standpoint (i.e., it's a thematically bad way for magic to work). But none of that has anything at all to do with association, because even if it is both mechanically and thematically bad your characters can sit down, in the game world, and talk about Vancian magic.

There are aspects of non-4E D&D magic that I would call "disassociated". For instance, Nth level spell slots. These don't exist in any non-D&D fiction genre I can think of. That includes the Dying Earth stories that I've read. From what I gather, Dying Earth wizards can memorize a few powerful spells or a slightly larger number of weaker spells or some combination of the two. But D&D works in its own idiosyncratic way that's not explained in the core rulebooks, i.e. the number of low level spells you have memorized doesn't affect how many high level spells you can memorize for some reason. (Maybe it's explained in a splatbook somewhere, I don't know.)

Now you could always give the non-explanation "that's how magic works in D&D land", but that's not any more satisfying than taking a 4E rogue's abilities and saying "that's how combat works in D&D land".

[DSMatticus]

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).

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. It has no analogue in his world. The only people who understand its use are the players, not the characters. And that's disassociation.

(And yes, it is fine to say, "that's the way magic works," because that doesn't cause any contradictions. Saying, '"that's the way combat/dailies work," and then describing rogues as highly talented people is exactly a contradiction, because we know that's not how being talented works. The fluff and the mechanics contradict, so only the players can understand the mechanics, not the characters.)

Your answer to associating martial is to make it magic.

You're a moron for not realizing that was my point. The only answer to associating martials is to fundamentally change the game setting. Thank you for letting that fly right over your head.

easier to believe

Bzzt, wrong again. You obviously don't even understand the basic premise of this discussion. This has nothing to do with believability from the player standpoint, this is a discussion about the divergence between the metagame (player) perspective and the character perspective. Believabiliy was never an issue.

I'm done with you, Plebian. You have shown that you are incapable of understanding the concepts we are discussing, whether by idiocy or intent. Not only are your arguments wrong, you aren't even arguing the right things anymore. And I would like you to shut up because if you turn this thread into another shitfist and ruin any chance for real discussion, FBMF will have to lock it.

[tzor]

First and foremost, I think we can debate the "explanations" of the Vancian magic system ad nauseum (there is one notion that "memorization" was in effect pre-casting part of the spell) the net effect is still the same. Gygax's AD&D was written as a series of vastly different mechanics that often seemed like oil and water. As a notion, it's not even consistent in the books. The illustration by DCS on age 10 PHB shows a high level wizard casting a spell, directly from his large spell book; destroying a tower in the process, while a dopey crosseyed appretence thumbs through a three page spell book. But directly casting from a spell book is not an AD&D rule.

But Vancian magic is even worse than you have described since they had to be "pre-selected." So you have to choose wisely at the start of the day. In that case it's not really the same as the 4E model ... it's vastly worse!

I've never even bothered to try to explain the 4E style, but I'm sure I could do a slightly better job than the Vancian system. That assumes you have every action properly slated in terms of their type, which I don't think is the case in the system in the first place. The notion is that some moves are so strenuous (how ... well we are taking heroes here so let's say ... heriocially strenuous) that they require a pause before you can do them again. Some may only require a five minute rest (gee, that's the time that encounters are separated by) or some might requrie a full rest (as the type you normally take ONCE A DAY). It's not like you are whiped out, but without that rest, you can't do that mojo again.

Of course, like vancian magic, if you have two mojos, one A and one B at the same level and your level allows you to use both, the reason why you can only do A+B or B+A instead of A+A or B+B is ... damn weak.

But then again, so are a lot of rules in D&D throughout the ages.

[LR]

I really really have to stretch and make up elaborate justification to understand how that happens in a human mind within the context of the game world, and the rules and flavor text of the game are of zero help in doing so.

The "explanation" is that the words and sigils that you imprint upon your mind hold power, and can only be used once before the magical formula self-destructs, exactly as it does when you use a scroll. It's not really explicitly stated in the Spellcasting section, but you can infer it from the Scroll section immediately following.

Use of scroll spells is similar to the casting of normal (memorized) spells. They too disappear when read off the scroll, for their magical properties and energies are bound up in the characters, runes, signs, sigils, and words written for the particular spell.

[koz]

I actually agree with Josh that Vancian casting is horribly dissociated. The only time I consider it justifiable is when dealing with divine spellcasters - simply because deities have weird ways of looking at things, and might simply decide that they can only assign X amount of certain things at a time. This can be seen from the perspective of rationing - I mean, how many other folks need those spells? A god's power isn't infinite, so they basically allocate more or less of it depending on a) what you ask for and b) who you are.

Otherwise, though? Yeah, totally dissociated.

[tzor]

This is a decent acid test for a disassociated mechanic: could the character explain it to the party?

I'm going to disagree here. It's a part of the great misconception that everything apart from magic is "realistic." The fact is that the only "realistic" character is the first level fighter and even that is pushing it. Every aspect of a character, almost from the first level has some element of "fantasy" in it, some element of the fastastic. Call it luck, call it mojo, whatever. The notion that one only has so much "mojo" and can only do that really fastistic thing once per day or once in a given combat can be just as easily explained as the notion of hit points.

Often what we think is a "dissociated" mechanic is that we really don't understand the mechanic well in terms of "why" it works. Once we do, we can come up with a suitable hand waved explanation. There is no division between magic and everything else; magic is just something else that is fastastic in fantasy. No more and no less.

[Prak]

Magic has no real world analogue. If the idea of someone "losing the ability to do fire magic" after "doing fire magic" bothers you, you'll have to explain to me your sources for how magic works and why that breaks your immersion. That concept of magic cannot clash with anything, because magic is totally not real and the game can explain how it works in pretty much anyway it wants without trodding all over reality

Real or not, there are people who believe in magic, and I do not know of any theology where the people who do rituals are forced to say "I can't do that ritual again, I already did it once today." Vancian magic is specific to the books it's from, kind of like how halflings are renamed hobbits, and orcs are purely ripped from Tolkien, except those things have some kind of analogue to other works of source material.

Spell Levels and slots are a mechanic abstraction necessary for balance. The fact that there isn't balance even with them around is another matter...

[DSMatticus]

I'm going to disagree here. It's a part of the great misconception that everything apart from magic is "realistic." The fact is that the only "realistic" character is the first level fighter and even that is pushing it.

Again, this is not what disassociated mechanic means. I mean, you're totally right. Nothing about D&D is realistic, and we don't care. But that has absolutely nothing to do with disassociation.

The only time I consider it justifiable is when dealing with divine spellcasters

And the same is going for you. You're making a perfectly valid argument that has nothing to do with disassociation (you're disagreeing with Vancian magic on a thematic level, which is fine, but that's not disassociation).

I think we can debate the "explanations" of the Vancian magic system ad nauseum

The "explanation" is that the words and sigils that you imprint upon your mind hold power

We don't even care about explanations. You don't have to explain a mechanic in terms of the game world to associate it. (Yes, LR, I know you were responding to Josh there, so in turn this point is more directed at Josh than you.)

But everything here is talking about two or three different things, that have nothing to do with disassociation.

Realism: Tzor mentioned this. This isn't the actual topic. We don't care about realism, realism (or the lack thereof) does not lead to disassociation. We generally don't like realism, because we're playing a fantasy game. So fuck realism - level 20 fighters are unrealistic, but they're associated and that's fine. Vancian magic is unrealistic, and it's associated too.

Thematics: Mister_Sinister brought this up. He seems to have a problem buying the idea that arcane magic works like it does, and only buys that divine magic should work like that. That, too, is completely fine, but it again has nothing to do with disassociation.

Explanations: You don't need to explain things to prevent disassociation. A mechanic can be completely unexplained, and still be completely associated. Example: your characters don't know the law of gravity, but they do know that falling hurts. If you decide your prime material world is a plane where people can literally sail off the edge, and you decide that gravity still exists, you don't suddenly have to come up with a new law of gravity that makes sense to prevent disassociation.

Association: I'm going to describe an associated mechanic, so you can see by its complement what a disassociated mechanic is. An associated mechanic is any mechanic that the character understands in basically the same way the player does.

Level 20 fighters with huge amounts of hitpoints? It's associated, because that fighter knows he can take inhuman amounts of damage. He literally expects to be able to stand in front of a catapult and laugh, so it's associated. That is unrealistic. In my opinion, that is thematically retarded. It is completely unexplained. But both the player and the character know that catapult can hit him in the face and he'll be fine, so it's still associated.

Vancian magic? Wizards know the mechanics that govern their own magic. When the character sees on their character sheet, "3rd level spell slots: 3" that translates to actual in-game knowledge for the wizard ("I can prepare three spells of roughly this amount of power"). It's not realistic (no magic is realistic), it's arguably thematically bad (Mister_Sinister doesn't seem to like it, and I'm 'meh' on the topic too), and it's mostly unexplained. We don't know the magical physics of D&D. But it's still associated, because the character and the wizard are seeing the same thing.

Martial dailies? It's not realistic (but we don't care). Thematics? That's your personal opinion. Unexplained? Completely, but again, that doesn't matter. And now for the important question, when a player sees "Daily: Trick Strike" on their sheet, what does that mean to the character? In terms of what the character knows, what does that translate to? And the answer is... nothing. So it's disassociated. The rogue knows nothing about how daily martials work.

This is what disassociation means. We aren't discussing realism, or whether there's a good explanation, or whether it's thematically cool. What we're asking is, "is there a correspondence between the metagame (player) and the in-game (character)?" Vancian magic completely fulfills that requirement. This doesn't mean you have to like Vancian magic, and it doesn't mean Vancian magic is the ONLY thing that fulfills that requirement. But it does mean Vancian magic is an associated mechanic.

[CCarter]

Often what we think is a "dissociated" mechanic is that we really don't understand the mechanic well in terms of "why" it works. Once we do, we can come up with a suitable hand waved explanation. There is no division between magic and everything else; magic is just something else that is fastastic in fantasy. No more and no less.

I think by 'understand' you mean 'rationalize'. There are plenty of things in D&D outside of magic that break real world physics (cold energy, darkvision, giants) but there are still limitations of internal consistency.

For a disassociated mechanic, the only underlying reason the designers had for how it works is "because its a game, dumbass'. The current hypothesis for how these work is that a martial daily is a player exercising 'narrative control' and not an in-world event at all. The problem with this explanation being that a character's actions are being influenced by OOC knowledge whenever they rest after using their dailies, or move specifically to Brute Strike something.

[Wrathzog]

I think I may be one of the only people in the world that had no issues with the flavor behind Vancian magic. Once it was explained to me, I just sort of accepted it and moved on.
It's not mechanically perfect, but that's a completely different topic.

Otherwise, I'm pretty much just agreeing with everything DSMatticus is saying.

-e-
I added a word.

[DSMatticus]

The current hypothesis for how these work is that a martial daily is a player exercising 'narrative control' and not an in-world event at all.

This is pretty much it exactly. The character himself doesn't have sufficient knowledge about the situation to make decisions, so the player has to make decisions for the character. The entire game only makes sense as a player-driven narrative.

[Jilocasin]

Wow, holy shit, your entire definition of association boils down to fighters having metagame knowledge about their hitpoints which aren't actually a tangible representation of health and are instead an abstraction of plot armor and skill in avoiding actual physical damage.

You're a pretty funny dude.

Now what makes you think that that's the way it is so unequivocally? From the moment I first played D&D about fifteen years ago (not long compared to some people on this board I know, but still...), from that first moment my basic assumption about hit points was that they represented not plot armor or avoidance but actual physical toughness. That with enough hp you could literally be hit full on in the chest with a catapult, shrug it off, and keep on going. Or if you were advancing on a group of archers and some of their arrows hit and did damage you would actually have arrows sticking out of you as you reached the enemy archers and cut them in half with your sword.

[LR]

Jilocasin, don't bother. Darwinism/Plebian is just throwing a temper tantrum because he was banned. Assume that any ponies spouting off nonsense are him.

[DSMatticus]

Well, Jilocasin, that's the only explanation that makes any sense, but not everybody goes that route.

The problem is plot armor doesn't actually make sense. Falling 100ft and taking 10d6 damage is not damage to your plot armor. There are no plot devices to step in and protect you from that that make sense. You just fell, and you just took damage. Poisons, being held in a dragon's mouth, swallowed by a dragon, all of that do the same thing - they sort of shoot the plot armor idea in the face. It's also not D&D's history. It was a crap explanation they came up with in 3E to try and justify the new massive hitpoint bloats.

So, I'm on your side. Hitpoints as plot armor is an even worse disassociated mechanic than daily martials.

That said, LR's right. Please ignore Plebian and his desperation to circumvent his ban.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Now what makes you think that that's the way it is so unequivocally? From the moment I first played D&D about fifteen years ago (not long compared to some people on this board I know, but still...), from that first moment my basic assumption about hit points was that they represented not plot armor or avoidance but actual physical toughness. That with enough hp you could literally be hit full on in the chest with a catapult, shrug it off, and keep on going. Or if you were advancing on a group of archers and some of their arrows hit and did damage you would actually have arrows sticking out of you as you reached the enemy archers and cut them in half with your sword.

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.

To be honest, both schools of thought are supported in both myth and pop culture. For example, Cuchullain received wounds as big around as a man's fist and kept going, while John McClain gets beat all to bloody hell by the end of any one of the Diehard movies.

On the other side of the equation, the sword fight between Rufio and Capt. Hook in the movie Hook ends with a single decisive blow, but both combatants expend a lot of energy in feints and counter-feints.

[Jilocasin]

Jilocasin, don't bother. Darwinism/Plebian is just throwing a temper tantrum because he was banned. Assume that any ponies spouting off nonsense are him.

Right, my bad.

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.

To be honest, both schools of thought are supported in both myth and pop culture. For example, Cuchullain received wounds as big around as a man's fist and kept going, while John McClain gets beat all to bloody hell by the end of any one of the Diehard movies.

On the other side of the equation, the sword fight between Rufio and Capt. Hook in the movie Hook ends with a single decisive blow, but both combatants expend a lot of energy in feints and counter-feints.

Oh definitely, I'm certainly not disputing that either interpretation doesn't have good source material or traction with people. I would say that of course I like my interpretation better and think it makes more sense as far as 3.5 goes, with falling damage being being much easier to me to swallow when thinking of it as toughness instead of plot armor.

[talozin]

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.