page jump!
I'm honestly uncomfortable with it not being an auto-fail with helpless condition. It means that, however unlikely, the 2nd-level rouge lying unconscious on the ground could take no damage from the dragon standing right above him as he breaths on him.
Well, not quite because...
A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of evasion.
... but your point isn't less valid: a dragon could breathe right over a helpless rogue and only deal strain damage (i.e nothing more than blisters whose incomfort would go away after 5 minutes of rest).
Mechanically, I don't have a big problem with this since a successful save against a CR-appropriate dragon breath with a Dex of 0 (-5 instead of + whatever) would be highly unlikely. Also the rogue could have an item providing defection or resistance bonus that could take credit for the successful save.
Conceptually, I'd find it more believable if helpless meant Relfex save auto-fail.
'findel
Conceptually, I'd find it more believable if helpless meant Relfex save auto-fail.
And it might. I can find more than sufficient language to make that ruling as a GM.
If it pleases the court:
Dexterity measures agility, reflexes, and balance. This ability is the most important one for rogues, but it's also useful for characters who wear light or medium armor or no armor at all. This ability is vital for characters seeking to excel with ranged weapons, such as the bow or sling. A character with a Dexterity score of 0 is incapable of moving and is effectively immobile (but not unconscious).
Reflex saving throws, for avoiding fireballs and other attacks that you can escape by moving quickly.
These saves test your ability to dodge area attacks and unexpected situations. Apply your Dexterity modifier to your Reflex saving throws.
To claim that a reflex save is still allowed for an effectively immobile character is to claim that the GM is not allowed to interpret the meaning of either the second or third quotes. The GM, in my opinion, is meant to arbitrate exactly this kind of conclusion, or else every single element of the game would need to be spelled out explicitly to avoid truly bizarre results.
Maybe that's not good enough for some people, but it's a pretty strong case for me. We're not backing up a strange abuse of the rules with this language, we're enforcing common sense.
To claim that a reflex save is still allowed for an effectively immobile character is to claim that the GM is not allowed to interpret the meaning of either the second or third quotes. The GM, in my opinion, is meant to arbitrate exactly this kind of conclusion, or else every single element of the game would need to be spelled out explicitly to avoid truly bizarre results.
Maybe that's not good enough for some people, but it's a pretty strong case for me. We're not backing up a strange abuse of the rules with this language, we're enforcing common sense.
Nothing in the RAW says that you lose your reflex save when helpless, the RAI is another debate for another thread.
Depending on the particular DM, you would either get autofail save -> all injury or heavily penalized save -> high chance of injury.
As far as these rules are concerned, either result can be adequately explained.
As far as these rules are concerned, either result can be adequately explained.
So we can just clarify that in the rules then, and no actual ruling is needed.
That's what I like to hear!
I agree. We can assume it will either never happen or almost never happen, depending on how people want to handle it. Either way, I think reflex saves while helpless are handled sufficiently without a clause. Attack rolls are already covered with criticals and fort should work regardless of your helplessness. The only thing that still might need addressing is our old friend Damage Without a Check.
With the rules in their current state, I'd be quite happy to just take the variant and run it, using my suggestion from the last thread that damage with no check is plain old strain, unless nothing whatsoever is done to lessen or avoid the blow.
With the rules in their current state, I'd be quite happy to just take the variant and run it, using my suggestion from the last thread that damage with no check is plain old strain, unless nothing whatsoever is done to lessen or avoid the blow.
I've run all of Fortress of the Stone Giants and most of Sins of the Saviors without any of these things coming up.
I agree. We can assume it will either never happen or almost never happen, depending on how people want to handle it. Wither way, I think reflex saves while helpless are handled sufficiently without a clause. Attack rolls are already covered with criticals and fort should work regardless of your helplessness. The only thing that still might need addressing is our old friend Damage Without a Check.
With the rules in their current state, I'd be quite happy to just take the variant and run it, using my suggestion from the last thread that damage with no check is plain old strain, unless nothing whatsoever is done to lessen or avoid the blow.
I would cover it with an injury by massive damage rule. Any hit that causes more than X(30-50) damage requires a fort save(DC = half damage amount) to not become an injury. That covers the 2 more grevious offenders falling and lava pretty well.
It would make like really massive damage spells(like an intensified, maximized, empowered, fireball = 90 + 7d6 = more damage than lava imersion!) interesting because you would have 2 chances to cause injuries. Once for the failed save, and once for massive damage.
So, I have been thinking about one of my issues.
First, in my experience failed saves are easier to come by than critical hits. At level 8, a fighter with a keen scimitar would have around a 33% chance of getting a crit with at least one of his 2 attacks. This is probably the best case scenario for generating crits. Meanwhile, the save failure rate of optimized spellcasters attacking weak saves is probably somewhere aboive 66%. That means spells are twice as likely to cause injuries at melee attacks in the best case scenario for both. This is not really about magic vs melee because spells with attack rolls are similarily effected by this disparity. Scorching ray is inherently less likely to cause an injury than flaming sphere, even though they are the same spell level. Part of the purpose of these rules is to upset the existing balance as little as possible.
Second, I really hate how saves are all or nothing when it comes to injury. The guy who fails his save by 1 ends up just as injured as the guy who completely blows his by by rolling a 2 when he needed an 18.
My proposal would be to make a failure by 5 or less on a save deal half injury and half strain. Failure by more than 5 deals all injury damage.
Crits deal injury with a frequency that I think is appropriate to injuries that don't take you it of the fight. The primary source of injuries is running out of HP. Our objective was to make it so that being hit with a sword most likely kills you, with reasonable exception (crits). Getting wounded and fighting on should be possible, but not constant.
You could tweak the rules to create more non-victory injuries if you think it is necessary.
Crits deal injury with a frequency that I think is appropriate to injuries that don't take you it of the fight. The primary source of injuries is running out of HP. Our objective was to make it so that being hit with a sword most likely kills you, with reasonable exception (crits). Getting wounded and fighting on should be possible, but not constant.
I agree. The injury rate from critical hits seems about right. My problem is that the rate from failed saves is too high.
It makes it more of a juggling act to balance things. I throw a horde of kobolds at the party, they end up taking all strain damage and recover quickly. An enemy wizard gets a single fireball off, and two-thirds of the party sustains injuries.
You make an interesting point. Part of me says to change the injury condition from failed saves to natural 1s on saves.
In all honesty, because fewer spells deal HP damage than do attacks, and because those that do tend to be pretty spectacular displays, I've found the failed save rule to be about right in practice.
In all honesty, because fewer spells deal HP damage than do attacks, and because those that do tend to be pretty spectacular displays, I've found the failed save rule to be about right in practice.
Yes and no. The goal of a player is to quickly and efficiently overcome the encounter. The goal of a DM is to bleed off player resources. As a player, I tend to avoid damage spells. As a DM, I use them a lot.
This rule is really about the damage the players take, because 99% of the time I am not going to care if an NPC took injury or strain because the player is just going to finish them off when they are down and bleeding out.
It's an evaluation of personal experience. In order to be enticed to consider changing it, I'd have to see evidence in play that I simply haven't seen. It's certainly possible that I may see it, but I tend to pick a method and stick with it until the evidence bears out.
In my first-hand experience,
Now, that's a sample size of 1, I'll grant you. If I start hearing about play experience contrary to my own, I'll pay very serious attention.
It's an evaluation of personal experience. In order to be enticed to consider changing it, I'd have to see evidence in play that I simply haven't seen. It's certainly possible that I may see it, but I tend to pick a method and stick with it until the evidence bears out.
In my first-hand experience,** spoiler omitted **
Now, that's a sample size of 1, I'll grant you. If I start hearing about play experience contrary to my own, I'll pay very serious attention.
Yeah, that is definately higher level play. I have been trying to figure out what level is appropiate for evaluation.
At level 5, when fireball becomes available, You are looking at everything having 1 or 2 attacks(TWF, rapid shot, etc), while a fireball can easily hit 4-8 targets.
At level 12, AoE really haven't gotten that much worse, but you are looking at 3-6 attacks with improved critical or keen.
As one possible confound: the fireballs in question were empowered. It has been a long-standing house rule of mine to raise the DC as though heightened on any metamagic. I didn't mention it because I figured that it was the equivalent to their 5th level spell DCs (so on par with a cone of cold from a non-specialized caster).
At level 5, when fireball becomes available, You are looking at everything having 1 or 2 attacks(TWF, rapid shot, etc), while a fireball can easily hit 4-8 targets.
At level 12, AoE really haven't gotten that much worse, but you are looking at 3-6 attacks with improved critical or keen.
Yeah, you see my point.
It's worth noting that you only really need the Strain-Injury variant to make the game feel less silly at higher levels. At lower levels, the probability of running out of HP is much greater — even from saving throws. So the Big Stupid Problem of people getting "stabbed" and sleeping it off is less of an issue.
I still don't think it needs to be changed, but at some point soon I'll be starting a new campaign from 1st level. Maybe when I get there, I'll change my tune.
Has anyone been using the rule at low level that can speak to this issue? I'll bet that — since it doesn't change much about combat resolution either way — it won't make much of a difference.
This seems like the kind of thing that might crop up again in three or four pages.
For playtesting frame of reference, I started using an early version (just crits and saves, no final blow) of the rule after the opening battle in Pathfinder #4. My players run one level behind the commonly used fiat leveling points for that campaign, so they were actually 9th level at that time.
I'm also playing in Serpent's Skull, which has gone only about 4 sessions (just now 2nd level), and we're using the Strain-Injury variant there. Mostly animals and non-caster NPCs encountered — mostly environmental saving throws. Not enough game time to really make any judgements there.
If there's one element I would guess in common from the APs, it's that there aren't a lot of spell-casting opponents in the first few levels — if there are, they get one big spell and that's it. I feel that since it is such a finite resource, it's okay to make it a little nastier than mundane attacks.
I'll keep reporting back with specifics, if that helps.
Yay! Play testers get the. Best seats in the thread! Or they would, if threads had seats.
I confess, making direct damage feel harsher was an ulterior motive of mine. Just once I wanted my players to complain about their PC's fireball burns.
Luckily, it doesn't make that much difference.
Yay! Play testers get the. Best seats in the thread! Or they would, if threads had seats.
I confess, making direct damage feel harsher was an ulterior motive of mine. Just once I wanted my players to complain about their PC's fireball burns.
Luckily, it doesn't make that much difference.
That is fine. I just want to make sure all the information is out in the open.
As a DM, I would hate to have the general expectation that these rules let my players recover faster or need less healing, only to find out that it works that way for weapons, but not for spells after I have gotten too far into the design process to easily change things.
Probably my biggest personal issue with the system as written is that it is very static. Failed saves, crits, and attacks that drop you below 0 are always injury.
That doesn't give me any "knobs to tweak" so to speak. I like having the ability to tune a system like this up or down based on the level of grit I want. Most of the alternate ideas I have suggested have several values that can be tweaked to tune the system to what works for your group.
Not says this system does or does not work, just saying that it isn't very flexible.
I like to think of the lack of "knobs" as an advantage.
I have seen a great many house rules that I thought were interesting and original, but just had too much complexity for me to adopt. My hope here is that by making it extremely straight-forward, people will adopt and expand it to their liking. Quite a few people have stopped in and said "I'm using it, but with this one change..." and I think that is cool. Best to keep the core simple, and let the natural tendency of house ruling GMs do the rest.
It would make me very happy if Strain-Injury became for hit point complaints what E6 is for high-level complaints. There are a ton of variations on E6, too. But when you say "E6" people know what you mean, or can find out easily with a search.
I like to think of the lack of "knobs" as an advantage.
I have seen a great many house rules that I thought were interesting and original, but just had too much complexity for me to adopt. My hope here is that by making it extremely straight-forward, people will adopt and expand it to their liking. Quite a few people have stopped in and said "I'm using it, but with this one change..." and I think that is cool. Best to keep the core simple, and let the natural tendency of house ruling GMs do the rest.
It would make me very happy if Strain-Injury became for hit point complaints what E6 is for high-level complaints. There are a ton of variations on E6, too. But when you say "E6" people know what you mean, or can find out easily with a search.
Nothing I have suggested so far is horrifically complex.
Rule: Any damage single hit doing more than 20 damage has a chance to cause an injury. Make a fort save(DC = half damage amount). If the save is failed, the hit is treated as injury instead of strain.
That is a pretty simple rule, but you have 2 things that can be adjusted(save DC, and threshhold) if you want to adjust the experience.
You and I have a slightly differing definition of complex. That's okay.
You and I have a slightly differing definition of complex. That's okay.
Having to track another type of damage = not complex.
Having to make an extra roll for hits that do more than 20 damage = too complex.<*boggles*>
It's true! And it isn't just me, it's my group. The take-home message here is that individual groups have different opinions about this stuff.
The way we see it, recording a second total after a slash under HP is easier than remembering a threshold, comparing it, remembering a DC and rolling against it. In truth, familiarity and temperament have a lot to do with it.
I want to reiterate, just because I'm not going to drop it in my game doesn't mean it isn't worth play testing!
It's more complex imo because it is another action to perform. I don't want that, I just want the attack and the numbers I need to subtract from current HP. I can subtract numbers from current HP and max HP that's hardly any effort.
Having to track another type of damage = not complex.
Having to make an extra roll for hits that do more than 20 damage = too complex.
Another thing to consider, char, is that at 12th level 20 damage is every attack that my player's barbarian PC lands — almost without fail.
Another thing to consider, char, is that at 12th level 20 damage is every attack that my player's barbarian PC lands — almost without fail.
I guess having a creature with poisonious attacks is too complex as well?
I have listed the problem I have with the existing system, only to have everyone one of those problems dismissed as being irrelevant. I have proposed changes to the existing system as well as an alternate system that is significantly more realistic and does a better job of handling the edge cases only to have that get dismissed as being way, way, way, way too complex to ever be used by anyone ever. It is slightly more complex at most. Once your players get used to it, it will become second nature.
Another objection, the crit/failed save system of injury doesn't account for energy resists or damage reduction, but since I am the only person here who seems to care about going for maximum realism with minimal cost(which I thought was the whole point of these rules), I am sure that objection will get glossed over as well.
Sorry, I guess I should have figured out I was wasting my time about 10 or so posts ago. You all made up your minds in the other thread, and restarting the thread was just for show. I thought the point was to discuss the potential defiencies in the proposed rule and possible solutions.
Actually, people have not rejected everything you're suggesting, we're just mostly disagreeing on a few things you think are important. We've seriously discussed some of your stuff, more than one of us has been seriously pondering your thoughts and so far everyone else in this thread and the last has just accepted it when people have turned down their suggestions.
Look at me, for example. I was deadly serious about keeping non-lethal damage in the last thread and everyone else was giving reasons why I was wrong. It got to the point where I was saying "But this scenario that will eventually happen is a big problem!" and everybody else was saying "Nope, I think it's fine."
But I'm still here and still contributing. I didn't just flip out and start accusing people of things. I didn't say I was the only one trying to improve the rule just because nobody else shared my concept of "best". As a result I'm still here and still shaping its future. If you're just going to run away or be aggressive, nobody is going to give a damn what you think.
Anyway, your most recent post does raise some interesting points that need addressing.
First off, nobody said anything you proposed was too complicated to be used by anybody. We said more effort that the current state of the rules and too much complexity for what we each personally want from the rule. We're not telling you "No, never. That's badwrong." We're just saying that such things should probably be an option. If we probably wouldn't use it, many others probably wouldn't either. That's not to say other wouldn't love the idea.
Point two. You say we're not accounting for resistance and reduction. I find that interesting. Maybe we're not. My first instinct is to say that yes, we do account for it in the same was damage by the book accounts for it. If you have DR, you take less injury and less strain. That's what they're meant to do, it's what they do and it's fine. Maybe I'm missing something or there's some clever way of handling them you've come up with. If that's the case, I'd love to know.
Finally, you tell us that your system is significantly more realistic. I'm not seeing it. I'm not telling you you're wrong, but I can't see any more realism in what you've described that a lot of the other versions of the rule we've been considering. Injury if there's no check and injury if you can do nothing to stop it both seem perfectly realistic to me. If there's some big reason why I'm wrong, again, I'd love to hear it.
I have listed the problem I have with the existing system, only to have everyone one of those problems dismissed as being irrelevant.
I'm sorry you feel I've dismissed you, I've been very interested in reading and responding to your suggestions. I think you may be taking our responses a little too personally.
Please remember that I have an ongoing campaign that is subject to all this ruleswonkiness, and there's only so much that I can adopt in a given period of time without making huge demands of my players.
I'm not really sure why you responded with such hostility to my comment about the 20 damage threshold. Those are the data I have to work with in my campaign, and that was my honest criticism of your suggestion — it might just be too much injury at mid-high levels. In any case, I hope you stick around and report back to us on any form of the rule that you use. I've been saying all along: there's no reason to get sectarian about rule design.
Cranewings, your system looks a lot more like Vitality Points, which is also a good system. I think my big reservation about using VP in my own game was that they significantly change the combat balance, making all crits potentially lethal, and altering a large number of feats and abilities. It is my hope that the Strain-Injury Variant avoids those changes, so in many cases we didn't go as far as we could have in the name of "realism". In the right campaign, I'm glad to use a rule such as VP or yours that makes waves.
As for falling, we recently decided that using the save from massive damage was actually a good enough threshold for falling injury. I just haven't had time to update the doc.
I should read more carefully. :)
It does carry a special penalty for damage that's potentially lethal, if I'm reading this right. Is that not where it differs from St-In?
Cranewings, your system looks a lot more like Vitality Points, which is also a good system. I think my big reservation about using VP in my own game was that they significantly change the combat balance, making all crits potentially lethal, and altering a large number of feats and abilities.
Indeed. My own hit-point variant houserule takes that road as well, and while I'm quite satisfied with what I've come with (which I consider an improvement on the Unearthed Arcana rules), but there's no pretensions of playing anything close to RaW, or with little consequences on RaW. It actually changes a lot of things...
Cranewing, I'd suggest you re-read Evil Linclon's variant keeping in mind that the hit-points mechanics remains essentially unchanged (mechanically speaking), but add much better narrative tools to describe how a character deals with blows in combat and consequently, determine which part of its resources rejuvenates quickly and which will take time to heal.
It's worth repeating that all in all, the basic mechanics of how damage works and how hit points are handled remains essentially the same mechanically speaking and the rule has very low impact on the game within combat.
Therein lies the true genius of the Strain/Injury rule, because this little change can have a big influence on the believability and verisimilitude (I don't like using the word "realism" in RPG) of an otherwise abstracted system.
'findel
I have listed the problem I have with the existing system, only to have everyone one of those problems dismissed as being irrelevant.I'm sorry you feel I've dismissed you, I've been very interested in reading and responding to your suggestions. I think you may be taking our responses a little too personally.
Please remember that I have an ongoing campaign that is subject to all this ruleswonkiness, and there's only so much that I can adopt in a given period of time without making huge demands of my players.
I'm not really sure why you responded with such hostility to my comment about the 20 damage threshold. Those are the data I have to work with in my campaign, and that was my honest criticism of your suggestion — it might just be too much injury at mid-high levels. In any case, I hope you stick around and report back to us on any form of the rule that you use. I've been saying all along: there's no reason to get sectarian about rule design.
Sorry, that post came off harsher than I intended.
@Helaman
My problem is that after almost 2 pages I don't have a working system with any level of refinement. All I have a random collection of ideas based on the philosophy that the size of the hit should matter.
- Hits above a threshhold are injuries(no roll)
- Excess damage above a threshhold becomes injures(less actual injury, no roll)
- Hits above a threshhold have a chance to become an injury(roll)
- Use a fixed number for the threshhold(easy to remember, doesn't scale)
- Use a % of the character's hp as the threshhold(scales with level, but different for every character and NPC)
- Use the character's level(maybe with a multiplier) as the threshhold(more consistant accross the group, but maybe a bit harsh at low levels)
- Use the chracters con score for the threshhold(if you like Monty Cook's old Grim and Gritty rules)
- Injury is all or nothing(easy to handle, but less forgiving)
- Injury can be partially converted to strain(more forgiving, but more calculation required)
@Evil Lincoln
My frustration is that I get 5 responses from 3 people that basically add up to "It is too complex" with little to no feedback on how to fix things or which direction to go. I am pretty sure there is a good workable system somewhere in those ideas, but at this point I need constructive feedback and ideas from an outside perspective to make it happen. Pretend for a second you don't already have a system, and my ideas are the only thing available. What would you use? What are some other ideas on how to make the size of the hit count?
We are comparing a refined idea to what is basically the raw product of brainstorming. Any chance we could actually refine the second set of ideas a little before we make comparisons and reject it as "too complex"?
My frustration is that I get 5 responses from 3 people that basically add up to "It is too complex" with little to no feedback on how to fix things or which direction to go. I am pretty sure there is a good workable system somewhere in those ideas, but at this point I need constructive feedback and ideas from an outside perspective to make it happen. Pretend for a second you don't already have a system, and my ideas are the only thing available. What would you use? What are some other ideas on how to make the size of the hit count?
We are comparing a refined idea to what is basically the raw product of brainstorming. Any chance we could actually refine the second set of ideas a little before we make comparisons and reject it as "too complex"?
Nobody's offered anything I would call a rejection. Comments like "adds complexity" or "injury too frequent" are just analysis, nobody's banishing you from the thread. You're agitating for an alternative system — which is a valuable contribution — but it's your responsibility to answer the criticisms and demonstrate a need.
Basing injury on a damage threshold is essentially a redefined massive damage rule*. It implies some hits are really solid and should carry extra penalty when it comes to healing, which seems reasonable to me. But I don't see how it can be made to scale with level without a level-factored algorithm to determine the threshold of damage. In practice, that's too complex for me, but you could just record it on the sheet. As a player, I'd be fine with that, as a GM it would drive me nuts (but the rules already do that).
The best thing to do is strictly define your goal that you plan to achieve with this change. Then make the minimum change possible to achieve that goal. Then play it and see if it works. I consider that a great contribution even if I'm not working with your results.
Charender, if you and your players like complex, then go for it. I FORCED myself to read your last post but I'm not going to be bothered to retain it. It is way too much for my taste.
My players want system to hide in the background of activity. The more steps of thought between the declairation of damage and knowing what that means for you, the worse.
Well, okay, that reads like a rejection. No more of that, please. Charender, don't take the bait. ;)
Findel, yeah, I'm going to take another look. Like I said, I think it is about the same thing as mine but with a lot more thought to all the corner cases, and without doing what I did, like changing how traps, falls, and poison work (;
I'm sure I've seen you rules before, but do you have a link to a thread that discusses you hit points variant? Don't want to derail this thread but I'd be glad to exchange over there.
'findel
Holy cow, GoogleDocs added custom styles!
A few threats in Pathfinder RPG are considered so lethal that they do not allow a Save when dealing HP damage. When a character falls into lava or off the top of a thousand-foot cliff, this results in all of the damage being treated as Strain, which is a little counter-intuitive.
The GM may always rule that these threats always deal Injury damage, but it is advisable to do so only in extreme circumstances. Extremely deadly threats should deal Injury driven by the amount of hit point damage they cause — threats that deal more damage are more likely to deal a “final blow” which is an injury. If the threat fails to kill the character but is represented as injury, you end up with the same preposterous scenarios as before; surviving a lava-bath. Whenever possible, it is better to treat the damage as Strain and create a rationale for how the character avoided a lava bath at great cost of personal energy.
There will always be those times when a character is hopelessly pitched into the heart of an active volcano, or some other completely certain cause of Injury with no recourse to describing the damage as Strain. At those times, the GM should make the damage Injury. Since these are almost always lethal situations, it may not matter for long.
The Damage Interpretation section is included at the end of this document to help GMs up their game by providing crystal-clear interpretations of different kinds of attacks. When in doubt, describe Strain damage as a parry or block— this is a staple of fantasy combat that is greatly under-represented in the Pathfinder RPG. Most types of Strain damage can be described as a parry that leaves the defender slightly more vulnerable to additional attacks (not to mention, tired). You know how Conan is always “straining” his “mighty thews” against incoming attacks.
There could be no greater endorsement of the word "strain" for this mechanic than the sheer number of instances it appears in Robert Howard's writing to describe exactly the kind of near-damage that we want to represent. Congrats again to Mortuum for the winning vocabulary! Mighty thews!
Any thoughts on the added text? It's been about a week with no response... I kind figured someone would have an edit or two.
I had a chance to test Strain-Injury as a player in my brother's game. Breaking the habit of describing all "hits" as damage is easily the hardest part about adopting the rule.
I think I would advise GMs to make notes on each player's "primary defense", that is, the Strain description most appropriate to each character's defensive characteristics, for both PCs and NPCs.
For example, if a character has uses a shield, then it should be easy to describe most strain hits as powerful bashes against the shield. For characters wielding only a one- or two-handed weapon, the GM may want to default to a parry describing the exhausting physical effort with each parried attack. If the character fights unarmed, be sure to describe these hits as blocks or redirects, etc.
I'm thinking of including this advice in the documentation, since it would really help for people getting used to the rule.
EDIT: We're moving on to a new page, so I hope we can leave some of the negativity that cropped up on this page behind. Charender, if you're still reading, I still welcome your variations and never did wish to discourage them.