Wasteland Wasteland 3 + Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation Expansions Thread

[Zombra]

While we're on the subject, what are hit points "really"?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

While we're on the subject, what are hit points "really"?

Gary Gygax suggests in that text in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide that hit points could represent "luck" or "wearing away of endurance" or "magical protections", i.e. that hits on a player-character could represent an erosion of luck or a draining of stamina, with only the end being actual physical injury. Further detail was provided by Gygax on page 81:

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain, and that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into the non-physical areas already detailed. Furthermore, these actual physical hit points would be spread across a large number of levels, starting from a base score of from an average of 3 to 4, going up to 6 to 8 at 2nd level, 9 to 1 1 at 3rd, 12 to 14 at 4th, 15 to 17 at 5th, 18 to 20 at 6th, and 21 to 23 at 7th level. Note that the above assumes the character is a fighter with an average of 3 hit points per die going to physical ability to withstand punishment and only 1 point of constitution bonus being likewise assigned. Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage.

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution. This character would have an average of 5% hit points per die, plus a constitution bonus of 4 hit points, per level, or 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. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points.

This is blatantly contradicted by numerous mechanics of D&D regarding damage and healing, all of which point to actual physical damage being delivered and reversed. The Original D&D booklets already had clerical spells for healing called "Cure Light Wounds" and "Cure Serious Wounds" with the description "During the course of one full turn this spell will remove hits from a wounded character", as if the damage was actual physical damage. The mummy from OD&D already had the special ability to inflict a "rotting disease" that causes wounds to take ten times the usual time for healing, an effect that still appears in AD&D alongside two others, which is nonsensical if hit points are considered luck, divine protection, a "sixth sense", the character's skill, etc. Natural healing occurs at a slow rate per day of rest, which makes sense for physical damage and not for most other supposed causes of hit points. Area of effect spells or dragonsbreath, among other types, already have saving-throws as a means of lessening damage via skill or luck, yet skill and luck are supposed to simultaneously permit the character to better deflect the damage taken from these effects via loss of "metaphysical" hit points. Gygax is suggesting a hodge-podge of factors (skill, luck, "sixth sense ability", magical or divine protection, endurance as in stamina), and no single one of these makes much sense with the way that hit points, damage, and healing work.

 

[Yosharian]

Just did the slavers 'quest' in Colorado which took like two minutes. Chest in HQ basement had lvl 21 Ripper which replaced my lvl 11 gun - slapped fire dmg and extra range mods and my SMG guy is melting everything.

I'm getting more and more worn out, almost every single fight plays exactly the same - start with rocket>reload and pump second one for free thanks to Draw!>snipe>move in with flamethrower and SMG to clean up whatever is left>move in with pistol/shotgun and melee if anything is still standing. Battlefields all look the same, couple of covers, some exploding barrel or other gimmick etc, and are too small to provide any semblance of tactical combat - had exact same feeling with Shadowrun, i.e. of playing a mobile game. Tried to like this and overall I think it's a huge improvement over W2 but fuck it, I don't have stamina nor will to go through this : [

Like I keep saying, rockets are a huge issue for balance in this game

Try hardest difficulty without them, makes a massive difference

 

[Piotrovitz]

Like I keep saying, rockets are a huge issue for balance in this game

Try hardest difficulty without them, makes a massive difference

Yeah, was thinking about starting over on supreme jerk and switching explosives for ARs on one dude as a potential solution, but I guess my problem is not only difficulty, but rather repetitiveness and simplicity of combat, getting rid of rockets would not fix this. I'm throwing the towel, guess my expectations were too high.

 

[Zombra]

While we're on the subject, what are hit points "really"?

Gary Gygax suggests that hit points could represent ...

I was being rhetorical but you came through anyway. Respect

 

[4249]

Ineptile... ineptile never changes.

Defeated the final boss, got the unskippable ending song... and after the 3 minutes of shit got thrown straight to credits. No ending slides.

edit: 2nd try, the camera pans into a black screen and nothing happen

3rd time was the charm, smh