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Ok, before I get started, I just want to give you fair warning that this is going to be a bit ranty and rambling.
I see a lot of posts on here about the interaction of mundane things and magical things. How, for example, a 100 foot free-fall should kill any human outright without magic. How evasion shouldn't let you dodge a fireball if there's nowhere to dodge to. (I'm sure there are tons more examples, but my memory's not all that great.)
What I think a lot of people are overlooking is that in a world with actual magic, there's really no such thing as "mundane" by our definition of the word. It's observable that all life force comes from another dimension of pure light (the positive energy plane to those that actually study this stuff). Dragons can still fly despite their size. And none of this glows when a wizard casts detect magic. Except that it probably does glow, just slightly, just as much as everything else so that it can't really be seen.
So those roots and herbs carefully combined create a tiny connection to the plane of fire, thus alchemist's fire. Or high level people have a stronger connection to the positive energy plane and really can take more physical punishment than lower level people. And none of this is Magic-with-a-captial-M. It's background, everyday stuff, but it just might be magic-with-a-little-m compared to our world.
In the same vision, I tend to see hit points as "adventure points" more than actual physical damage...
Anyway, that's how I explain to my players how a critical hit with a bow can be survivable:
"THAT one just knicked ya; You're bleeding from the arm now.", as the player reduces his hit points from 57 to 18...
The PCs are all little Indiana Joneses, and they get shot at and punched, and they go through windows and tables and even fall off the side of the cliff, but somehow always manage to get back up and win the day.
:D
Ultradan
I'm just saying that for a world with real magic, we keep trying to give mundane (from our perspective of mundane) excuses for the exploits of non-explicitly-magical individuals.
Watch some anime where the characters get beat up, but keep going. They get hit hard, but they're just that tough.
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I'm just saying that for a world with real magic, we keep trying to give mundane (from our perspective of mundane) excuses for the exploits of non-explicitly-magical individuals.
Watch some anime where the characters get beat up, but keep going. They get hit hard, but they're just that tough.
This approach works for some, but others (like myself) enjoy a more "realistic" world...
And before someone chimes in with "You can't have realism with dragons and giants running around!”: I say verisimilitude can be had to include those things in a realistic setting...
It's all about to what degree or how easily one can suspend their disbelief...
It's not the dragons and giants, it's the positive energy plane, the channel positive energy and the fireballs.
I also feel that the idea could make magic a little more magical. A fireball isn't really that magical on its own.
This approach works for some, but others (like myself) enjoy a more "realistic" world...
And before someone chimes in with "You can't have realism with dragons and giants running around!”: I say verisimilitude can be had to include those things in a realistic setting...
It's all about to what degree or how easily one can suspend their disbelief...
Have a look at Skyrim for an example of fairly low-magic with high fantasy elements. There are dragons and giants running around, and despite the fact that every single sentient being starts with some minor skill in magic, the world is very rough and down to earth. There are definitely high magic elements around, but they're generally of the forgotten and ancient variety, unearthed to the ruin of all, etc.
Even dragon shouts are pretty low-key compared with Pathfinder magic.
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A fireball isn't really that magical on its own.
And to me, it shouldn't be...
It's a ball of mundane fire that is summoned through the use of magic, and is affected by the magic that called it forth (for example, starting from a pea-sized object and expanding from there or doing more damage as you go up in level)...
To me, it should have little to do with how this or that plane works on things that can very easily be explained through mundane means...
Like I said, it is ALL about to what degree you are willing to suspend your disbelief...
Also like I said, your approach works for some (and that's cool), but not all...
I for example have a hard time suspending my disbelief in anyone falling a great height and surviving, just like I find it silly for anyone to survive a casual swim in a pool of molten lava. I just can't hand wave this stuff off with "he's infused with positive energy"...
Sorry...
YMMV and all that...
Well, I'm not exactly trying to convince anyone of anything, so no need to apologize. I'm just pointing out there is a way of looking at this stuff without requiring great leaps of disbelief (although I don't think that's quite the right term for what we're talking about).
What I mean by "infused with positive energy" is basically that the world as presented in the core rules isn't realistic. Everyone really is infused with positive energy. If the world was a bit more magical (in the older sense of the word) it takes a lot less to explain how high level people can survive falling from great heights. Just to point out, this doesn't have any relation to the usual high-magic/low-magic arguments. A world with a bit of background magic can still be a low-magic world by the usual definition.
This also wouldn't require such an obvious handwave. It's background magic, so you wouldn't point it out. "He just hit the ground with a sickening thud, but struggles back to his feet. You're pretty sure that would have killed a lesser man." The wizard or cleric might know that some individuals are more infused with positive energy, but the fighter wouldn't.
Of course, in a realistic game, the world isn't magic, but that to me is hard to explain when the wizard or cleric starts slinging actual Magic around.
Edit: Actually, I guess I am trying to convince people that Magic-with-a-capital-m shouldn't be the only magic in the game. I don't really think I could justify a world with Magic but without any other magic. (There's no real rules for it, since such background stuff would be in DMs hands anyway.)
It's background, everyday stuff, but it just might be magic-with-a-little-m compared to our world.
Yes!
D&D is a magical world, so it follows that everything in it is a little bit magical.
Personally I just define Hit Points as a character's Bruce Willis Rating™. i.e. How many close calls and superficial nicks they can luck out on before they actually take an arrow to the knee or some such.
For me, HP are readiness.
I think a lot of people view HP that way. Really though, HP was just the example that got me thinking about this.