We've all been there before. You need to know where the goblin lair is, and you're holding a knife to a tightly-bound goblin scout's throat. "Tell us where the rest of your tribe is hiding!" you shout, only to have the goblin spit in your face. "I hate to do this," says the player, "but we need to kill him as an example to his friend. We have to find that tribe before they launch their attack."
"Okay," says the DM, "roll to hit."
"Excuse me?" you respond with bewilderment. "I'm holding a knife to his throat. I just... stab."
"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."
"Ex-fucking-cuse me?" you almost shout. "I'm holding a knife to his carotid artery. That's, like, the most lethal place to stab someone."
"Fair enough," says the DM, "it's an automatic crit."
You are at a loss for words. Since this is not your first time around the block, you know even a critical hit won't do more than 14 damage, and these goblins have class levels. There's no way that'll kill the goblin. But you don't argue with the DM, so you roll the damn 2d4+6.
"Okay, I rolled a 12."
"Great," says the DM, "you stab the goblin in the neck. It is still, uh, alive, I guess. Maybe you missed the artery. You know, maybe you should have let the rogue do it - he would have gotten an automatic sneak attack."
You strongly consider demonstrating to the DM what happens when you apply a knife to someone's throat.
Hit Points Are Not Meat Points
man I swear watching this shit as a kid made me have weird fetishes in adulthood
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)
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.
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.
Possible rule 1 blunder?
Couldn't you just use a Coup de Grace rule?
...
Just roll a very hard fortitude save you mongoloid.
You millennials should stick to your vidya geyms.
I don't, because I'm fine with this.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Coup De Grace also forces a save to not die instantly, if they survive the damage
Basically, most things are gonna die.
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.
>Referencing a saving throw type invented in 2000
>Making fun of millennials
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.
As would any sane GM. This isn't even a "D&D" problem, this is just a misapplication of game rules.
But what about the people who insist that martials should be entirely mundane, no matter what level they are?
Fuck em.
t. SKR
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
What is it?
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.
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.
tl;dr but I did read meat
TL;DR: DM insists a character roll to execute a helpless goblin.
I support this course of actions.
>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.
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.
>not recognizing that fucking green 90s ancient times sports bra
Xena is on netflix, go watch it.
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'
Monks use ki for that shit. Fighters are badass and the epitome of human ability, but they are still made of meat.
They can only do that because you think HP are anything more than a combat approximation.
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.
>"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?
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.
> 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?
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.
>Incidentally, would working as a government-employed executioner be a good way to gain levels safely?
Safely? In a world with resurrection?
>Possible rule 1 blunder?
Definite rule 2 blunder.
>Lo and behold, it is not a natural 1.
>not a natural 1.
>NOT
read naga read
Why waste quads on a lack of reading comprehension?
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.
I might be confusing them, which one's which?
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.
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.
If you have enough HP to survive a fall from orbit, it must not be turning you into salsa.
>it's an "OP willfully ignores the rules in order to bitch about how the rules don't make sense" episode
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?
>In my games, the wizards are mortals
Except the elves and the dwarves, right?
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.
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.
>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.
Circular reasoning much?
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.
Oh yeah, I forgot rule 1. I meant rule 2.
The user in 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.
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.
(you)
People in real life survive getting struck by lightning, too, user.
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!
>xena isn't on netflix anymore
I'm mad
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.
>Circular reasoning much?
No. HP are narrative protection, not bodily endurance. In that case, they are doing exactly what they are intended to do.
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?
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.
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.
WTF
There go my weekend plans
Precisely. The fellowship loses tons of HP in Moria, despite suffering virtually no actual injuries (Frodo's mega bruise notwithstanding).
If you're bound and gagged, or even asleep, then no.
>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.
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
>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.
A "hit" in this case is just a game mechanic that doesn't have to correspond to an actual hit in the game world.
>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.
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.
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.
>just disregard on hit effects
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.
Whether the attack hit squarely or not is decided AFTER on-hit effects are resolved and taken into consideration.
I mean
I'd play in that
Ah yes, the "deliberately ignore what rules book say so I can keep thinking it's something stupid I hate" 'argument'.
You mean Barbarian right? Because it's Barbarians that get DR naturally, not fighters.
Fuck off, frogposter.
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.
>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.
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.
>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.
>Angry over a drawing
What drives someone to such anger?
I don't know why you'd even need to argue this, because it's in the book, but here we are.
The issue isn't that it could fail. The issue is that the DM ruled there was 0% chance for it to succeed.
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
>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
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.
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.
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.
>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.
>Beowulf for example is not bulletproof
That's impossible to say if he was never shot with bullets.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
Well, we know he's not immune to poison.
I'm pretty sure that's not what anyone in this thread is actually saying.