One I'm surprised hasn't come up is illusions and disbelief.

Quote from: David Johansen on August 12, 2023, 03:56:22 PM
One I'm surprised hasn't come up is illusions and disbelief.

The game that definitively dealt with this is what I am playing right now.  "Second, an illusionist's magic does not require belief. As noted above, this is a misconception of the class and its abilities; the illusionist is no trickster, and one cannot simply choose to "disbelieve" the illusionist's magic, thereby rendering their spells ineffective. This is simply not the case. ..."

There about 5-6 paragraphs dealing with the class and its magic. 

Quote from: Venka on August 12, 2023, 11:12:57 AM
Reading through this, only a few of these are actual rules debates, some of them are just "this is what I want it to be", whether the rules support it or not.  For instance, are hit points abstract?  Very obviously so, according to a variety of period documents.  The contrary points show that there are several spots in the rules where hit points are treated as meat points.  To this day, many games will assure you that a successful hit roll is abstract and may not represent an actual physical blow being struck, but then will have rules for on-hit injection poisons, a rule written with the idea of each physical roll being at least one physical blow if successful, or list hit point values for things like falling or the explosion of a gunpowder barrel or consuming a set amount of cyanide or whatever, usually in values that a high level fighter can shrug off.  So while the intention is clear, and what it is underneath are made clear by rules (or in the case of hit points, rules and an in-PHB High Gygaxian rant about them being abstract), it's equally clear that this intention wasn't kept in place in all places in the rules.  So someone wanting to argue that they are meat-points, while wrong, has been provided with plenty of ground to stand on.

I don't think this is correct at all.

I don't know that I've seen anyone push back on the "hit points are not meat" claim more than me, and my argument has never been from edge cases. I examine the rule itself straight on. For the sake of reference, let's start by looking at the PHB section. Most of the section deals with explaining how to actually use hit points in the game. Only a single paragraph is dedicated to discussing what hit points represent.

Quote from: 1E PHBEach character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The same holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

Let's unpack this a bit.

What is the actual rule here? It says a certain amount of hit points are actual physical, and the remainder stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. But it doesn't say anything about what portion is physical and what portion is abstract. Technically the physical portion for a given character or creature could be 100% leaving a 0% remainder. The only hint we're given is that at higher levels the portion of abstract hit points is "significant."

What does that mean? Does that mean if you're not high level, then no significant portion of your hit points is abstract?

The answer to that can be found in the example comparing the 10th level fighter with four war horses. If we don't make allowances for some portion of the hit points being non-physical, we end up with ridiculous things like the fighter being physically tougher than four warhorses. That's the purpose of this rule. But that carries with it the implication that the war horse's hit points are physical. Because if the fighter's hit points are mostly abstract AND the war horse's hit points are also mostly abstract, then this rule doesn't actually solve the problem.

The 5 hit points the man-at-arms has that's mentioned as a reference point also seems to imply all 5 of those hit points are likewise physical. There seems to be a strong inference here that the hit points of animals, beasts, and large creatures that actually are physically tough are fully attributable to that physical toughness. And that ordinary (non-leveled) characters that don't have extra hit points are likewise 100% meat. The majority of monsters be all meat as well with some exceptions. Obviously a ghost is not going to have physical hit points.

So when the actual rule says the abstract hit points are significant at high levels, it appears that it does also intend the inverse--outside of high level characters, the portion of hit points which are abstract is not significant. And the hit points of something like 98% of all inhabitants of the game world are meat.

Now I get it. The characters players play happen to fit in that narrow band of freaky rare exceptions. And so it's no mystery why how hit points work for player characters can be mistaken for what hit points usually represent in the game and how the hit point system works. But it is a mistake nonetheless.

I should mention, because some might feel ripped off that there was no rant and no "high Gygaxian" anywhere in the one paragraph in the PHB, that the DMG has a more in-depth discussion of hit points. It covers all the same points, but it expands the discussion in two areas.

First, it gives an upper physical hit point range for a character with 18 CON as 15-23. It maps out the physical hit points for this character, including how many of his hit points were physical at each level, 1st through 7th. Although there is no mention of how many non-physical hit points the character would have, it does show that there is some front-loading effect of the physical hit points towards 1st level, and also that physical hit points continue to accumulate well beyond 1st level. Characters are getting physically tougher to a substantial degree as they level.

Second, it talks about how to interpret "hits" against characters who do have a substantial number of abstract hit points (this time using a 10th level fighter with 18 CON and 95 hit points). "Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm--the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment."

It's plainly stated. Hits are still hits. It's just the amount of actual physical harm a hit causes is diminished when the target has a high number of non-physical hit points. All of a sudden those edge cases are not edge cases at all. A hit that has a chance of injecting a poison is still going to have a chance of injecting its poison because it's still a hit. It's not a mistake. It's not an oversight. It's not a mechanic designed with different assumptions in mind.

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 03:39:32 PM

Quote from: Effete on August 12, 2023, 03:19:41 PM

Or... it's fukken MAGIC !!! Don't overthink it and just have fun.

Who said it WASN'T magic?  What are you going on about?

My point was that maybe the spell "just works" because magic defies explanation. Trying to ground it in modern physics is unnecessary and often counter-productive.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 12, 2023, 06:38:14 PM
[
What is the actual rule here? It says a certain amount of hit points are actual physical, and the remainder stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. But it doesn't say anything about what portion is physical and what portion is abstract.

Talk about confirmation bias blinding one.  This statement is 100% wrong.  Go back and read page 82. AD&D 1st Ed DMG section on Hit Points.  Gary get very specific and down to a named amount of HP being the max representing purely physical HP.  The remainder having to be luck, Gods, etc.

Quote from: Effete on August 12, 2023, 07:39:51 PM


My point was that maybe the spell "just works" because magic defies explanation. Trying to ground it in modern physics is unnecessary and often counter-productive.

Who said it wasn't magic?  Just because the heat from a magical fireball causes damage by increasing the motion of the molecules in the body doesn't mean magic isn't the cause

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 07:43:52 PM
Talk about confirmation bias blinding one.

  This statement is 100% wrong.  Go back and read page 82. AD&D 1st Ed DMG section on Hit Points.  Gary get very specific and down to a named amount of HP being the max representing purely physical HP.  The remainder having to be luck, Gods, etc.

You must be talking about yourself being blind and 100% wrong since I cited that exact passage and named that exact example as part of my formulation.

I mean, I realize you're not a real person. That your schtick is to just make stupid and dishonest comments, so I'm not taking it seriously. It's just with this having already been covered, you're just being lazy.

By the way, why did you name your fake account something that means one who has diarrhea?

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 12, 2023, 09:01:19 PM


You must be talking about yourself being blind and 100% wrong since I cited that exact passage and named that exact example as part of my formulation.

God, how insane you are. You stated, "But it doesn't say anything about what portion is physical and what portion is abstract."

Which is WRONG!  It DOES state what portions are what.  Take some ESL classes

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 04:16:45 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 12, 2023, 03:56:22 PM
One I'm surprised hasn't come up is illusions and disbelief.

The game that definitively dealt with this is what I am playing right now.  "Second, an illusionist's magic does not require belief. As noted above, this is a misconception of the class and its abilities; the illusionist is no trickster, and one cannot simply choose to "disbelieve" the illusionist's magic, thereby rendering their spells ineffective. This is simply not the case. ..."

There about 5-6 paragraphs dealing with the class and its magic.

Castles and Crusades! I just read that passage last night. Good stuff.

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 09:05:50 PM
God, how insane you are. You stated, "But it doesn't say anything about what portion is physical and what portion is abstract."

Which is WRONG!  It DOES state what portions are what.  Take some ESL classes

Yes, you dumb pants-shitting liar, I did say that. Speaking of ESL classes, here's one for you. The word "it" is a pronoun that refers to a thing previously mentioned. In this instance, the thing previously mentioned was the quoted paragraph from the PHB. Which, in case you never noticed, is not page 82 of the DMG. That was addressed later. It's called being complete. As opposed to what you do--dishonestly cherry-picking, being too stupid to follow a complete post, while spearing as much diarrhea on the message board as is in your shorts.

Quote from: Aglondir on August 12, 2023, 09:11:39 PM

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 04:16:45 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 12, 2023, 03:56:22 PM
One I'm surprised hasn't come up is illusions and disbelief.

The game that definitively dealt with this is what I am playing right now.  "Second, an illusionist's magic does not require belief. As noted above, this is a misconception of the class and its abilities; the illusionist is no trickster, and one cannot simply choose to "disbelieve" the illusionist's magic, thereby rendering their spells ineffective. This is simply not the case. ..."

There about 5-6 paragraphs dealing with the class and its magic.

Castles and Crusades! I just read that passage last night. Good stuff.

Yes, after 40 years the Class was finally defined well

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 12, 2023, 06:38:14 PM
I don't know that I've seen anyone push back on the "hit points are not meat" claim more than me, and my argument has never been from edge cases

The books explicitly state that hit points are not meat points.  I believe every version has something to that extent, or close enough. 

QuoteFor the sake of reference, let's start by looking at the PHB section

Who cares though?  The argument from the hit-points-are-meat team (at least the well read ones) doesn't pretend that the books don't say what they do.  It is focused on pointing out the myriad of inconsistencies that have plagued pretty much every edition.

QuoteI should mention, because some might feel ripped off that there was no rant and no "high Gygaxian" anywhere in the one paragraph in the PHB, that the DMG has a more in-depth discussion of hit points. It covers all the same points, but it expands the discussion in two areas.

Yes, the DMG has another rant, but this kind of stuff is absolutely High Gygaxian:

QuoteA certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors.

You immediately spent several paragraphs trying to unpack this allegedly clear writing, working backwords to the point that warhorses must be mostly meat points and then coming to the conclusion that most hit points are meat points, contradicting Gygax's rant (which is also partially self contradictory).  If this had actually gone through an editor, it could simply have stated that hit points partially represent physical stamina and partially represent luck, etc., and done so without stacking warhorses, roundabout walking through classes, and even doing math kind of.  This kind of nonsense is the essence of Gygaxian!  It's ok to enjoy it, as you obviously do, but there's no use pretending that it's normal writing.

QuoteIt's plainly stated. Hits are still hits. It's just the amount of actual physical harm a hit causes is diminished when the target has a high number of non-physical hit points.

Here's Gygax in Dragon magazine (I think):

QuoteTen points of damage dealt to a rhino indicated a considerable wound, while the same damage sustained by the 8th level fighter indicates a near miss, a slight wound, and a bit of luck used up, a bit of fatigue piling up against his or her skill at avoiding the fatal cut or thrust.

(obviously, a poisoned blade striking a target and having a chance to apply poison makes no sense were it "a near miss")

And in the DMG:

Quote...Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm - the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment...

There's no intention that each hit represent an actual physical hit- and assuredly not enough to, say, inject poison.  Of course, team meat point isn't limited to this!  A variety of adventure writers have written in environmental damage in ways that clearly imply hit points to be meat points.  The DMG in 5e even has sample damage for "wading through lava", which is absurd for several reasons, and isn't clear what is meant by "wading".  Obviously, if a man were somehow to be weighed down enough to be shin-deep in lava, he's in a physically impossible situation.  But all throughout the years, these sorts of things make their way into source books- usually not as bad as the DMG, of course, but still.  Team Meatpoint is provided with all manner of ladders to assail the walls of written intention, and decades later, they still are.

You can also find people on this very forum who have a beef with hit points shooting upwards.  While much of this seems to be a concern about scaling and world building (having 200 hit points in a world where a gun does 12 means that you can stand against a gang, if not a squad of infantry), but some of this clearly comes from the sense that there's more meat point than hit point- though I doubt any of them would disagree with the intended definition of hit points.

QuoteAll of a sudden those edge cases are not edge cases at all. A hit that has a chance of injecting a poison is still going to have a chance of injecting its poison because it's still a hit

This isn't true in AD&D 1e (at least not according to Gary Gygax), but other versions don't provide nearly as much to go on, so who knows.  I provided "hits are abstract but poison assumes that they are real" as merely one of many things for Team Meatpoint, not because I consider it compelling, but because this example spans multiple editions.  If you pick an edition specifically I could look for more Meatpoint Anomalies somewhere within the version, but I really think you see my point here- in any version there's several anomalies that walk away from the intended abstraction of hit points and treat them as meat points.  Definitely 1st edition AD&D though, in the event I'm talking with an AD&D-1e-stan.

Quote from: Effete on August 12, 2023, 07:39:51 PM
My point was that maybe the spell "just works" because magic defies explanation. Trying to ground it in modern physics is unnecessary and often counter-productive.

Then why did you respond to my post with your earlier statement?  My entire point there was that using the optical explanation just opened up your narration to all manner of engineering and science schemes, and you are better off not doing that.  It looked like you were arguing with me, but you obviously agree with me.

My point is, if you say "invisibility does X to photons", I can take you down some absurd path.  If you say "invisibility makes things invisible", then you don't need to sweat all that.

Quote from: David Johansen on August 12, 2023, 03:56:22 PM
One I'm surprised hasn't come up is illusions and disbelief.

It's version-specific.  Here's a quote from 2e:

QuoteAn illusion spell, therefore, depends on its believability. Believability is determined by the situation and a saving throw. Under normal circumstances, those observing the illusion are allowed a saving throw vs. spell
if they actively disbelieve the illusion. For player characters, disbelieving is an action in itself and takes a round.

Now, even in 2e, certain spells don't require belief, while others do.  Also, if someone throws a fake fireball at you and you disbelieve, congrats!  But if you disbelieved a real fireball, uh...

QuoteIllusions usually cease to affect a character if they are actively disbelieved. Disbelief must be stated by the player, based on clues provided by the DM. Players stating disbelief must give a reason for disbelief based on sensory information available to the character. Failure to give such a reason results in failure to disbelieve. The DM can impose additional requirements or delays in recognizing illusions (such as Intelligence checks)
as needed, such as when one player is obviously parroting a discovery made by another. Disbelief automatically forfeits a saving throw if the effect is real.

But I saw plenty of 3.X players bringing this forward.  And in 2e, players would sometimes try to disbelieve Invisibility or something that was not allowed.

I will say that illusions in general are often subject to rule debates, but in some cases the interactions are absolutely clear.

Quote from: Venka on August 12, 2023, 11:42:26 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 12, 2023, 11:20:47 AM
Thank God for rule Zero. The laser question is easy.  If the laser is in the visible part of the spectrum (for any race's vision) it goes through (or around as light is bent).

No it's not easy! 

Ok, obviously the light can't be bent because the door is flush against the wall.  It has to pass through without being absorbed, right, it's transparent?  By making it a question of optics though, now a creature who is invisible can't see, because the light that would normally hit his retina passes through his whole body, eyes included.  Once down the strictly scientific optics interpretation path you go, forever will it consume your destiny!

The rules are easy- you can see through the door.  But the ramifications become undesired.

Nah. The light passes through, and you can see. I'll use whatever interpretation I feel like, when I feel like.