The problem of low hit points on humans

[UninspiredName]

I didn't say that they don't usually survive a magic attack, but from my experience the heroes tend to really take a hit from magic arrayed against them. On the other hand, you've obviously read more fantasy than me.

Fair enough on the others, though.

[PvK]

Even for the fictional heroes who manage to defeat many enemies in direct combat, are there any pre-D&D examples of heroes who do so because of a non-magical/blessed heroic ability to survive wounds that would drop lesser men? "Wound Sustaining Man"? "Sir Hurtmenot?" "Captain Fleshwound"?

The only "high HP" genre that comes to mind is SE Asian martial arts fantasy, where semi-magic Chi powers give hyper-expert heroic martial artists the ability to survive many blows that would incapacitate lesser men, but also give them the ability to jump 30 meters in the air, and defy physics in various other ways. Edit: Still, those are mostly fights with bare hands and feet or blunt and improvised weapons. When swordsmen are defeated by martial arts masters in these films, for example, they almost always do so by avoiding getting chopped or skewered, not by shrugging off weapon injuries.

[alexti]

Another idea to make human heroes more useful: built-in "heroic luck". Let's say your regular hero fights in the battle, takes a big hit and dies. But when "heroically lucky" hero fights and takes a big hit he only kind of dies - he isn't anywhere on the battlefield and he doesn't participate in the battle in any way, but if your army wins you'll get a message that as the army returned to the camp hero "such and such" appeared out of his tent cursing that some prankster stole his armour while he was sleeping

[Hullu]

PvK said:
Even for the fictional heroes who manage to defeat many enemies in direct combat, are there any pre-D&D examples of heroes who do so because of a non-magical/blessed heroic ability to survive wounds that would drop lesser men? "Wound Sustaining Man"? "Sir Hurtmenot?" "Captain Fleshwound"?

Any pre-D&D? Herakles and Achilles come to mind. I doubt they're the only ones. Oh you mentioned non-magical/blessed - the Dom3 heroes ARE blessed and/or magical and/or just HEROES.

They're NOT called militia for a reason, or are they?

[Twan]

PvK said:
Even for the fictional heroes who manage to defeat many enemies in direct combat, are there any pre-D&D examples of heroes who do so because of a non-magical/blessed heroic ability to survive wounds that would drop lesser men? "Wound Sustaining Man"? "Sir Hurtmenot?" "Captain Fleshwound"?

One more time : the D&Dian original definition of hit points was "capacity to survive" *including all non conventional ways to avoid being hit*. To resume the original hit points are an abstraction representing not only endurance but luck, skill and fate of the character. D&D was based on miniatures strategy game rules, unlike the following RPGs made once they were a specific genre. In a miniature game you would have paid hundreds of budget points for your heroe, so you prefer "the better he is the longer he will survive, but he won't be able to survive without limit if you use him too much" (to resume : he worth his budget) over "he may dodge or be one shoted, if you have luck he will survive for eternity, if you have not... ahah you lose" (to resume : he may worth 0 or ten times his cost). I still can't understand how some strategy gamers may be so convinced that the D&D approach is only a weird RPG thing, and the second the best for strategy games, when it's very clearly the contrary IMHO.

[Taqwus]

Hullu said:
Any pre-D&D? Herakles and Achilles come to mind. I doubt they're the only ones. Oh you mentioned non-magical/blessed - the Dom3 heroes ARE blessed and/or magical and/or just HEROES.

They're NOT called militia for a reason, or are they?

Herakles was not human -- he was half-man, half-god... and was killed with a bit of poison, not by being repeatedly smashed into the ground. He overpowered his opponents with strength, not his damage-taking ability.

Achilles was killed with a single well-aimed blow -- he had high PROT everywhere else, not unusually high HP. And if you read the classics... well, the Iliad is littered with dead heroes.

[Epaminondas]

Taqwus said:


Herakles was not human -- he was half-man, half-god... and was killed with a bit of poison, not by being repeatedly smashed into the ground. He overpowered his opponents with strength, not his damage-taking ability.

Achilles was killed with a single well-aimed blow -- he had high PROT everywhere else, not unusually high HP. And if you read the classics... well, the Iliad is littered with dead heroes.

You are either factually off or misleading on some of your assertions.

1. While Herakles was indeed killed with poison, it was no ordinary poison but a superabundant dose of poison from a supernatural creature. Even then, he did not die immediately. Compare this to Paris, who died nearly instantly when he was shot with a poison-dipped arrow from Philoctetes--who had been Herakles' companion who had used a much smaller dose of the same poison that killed Herakles.

Further, while I am not sure if Herakles ever took a severe blow from many of his mythical enemies, my assumption is that he must have, given the number of his accounts. In this respect, perhaps it is important to emphasize that the legends usually emphasize Herakles' strength and hardiness, not his agility, in contrast to, say, Achilles, who is usually depicted as swift or fleet-footed.

2. Achilles' near invulnerability came from his mother Thetis dipping most of his body (except the notorious Achilles' "Heel") in the River Styx. One could say that that is an equivalent of his natural armor or "protection" but it could also said to represent his natural hardiness or constitution or--gasp!--HP. To insist on Achilles' near-invulnerability solely as a category of "protection" may be to try to interpret everything according to your convenience.

3. Yes, the "Iliad is littered with dead heroes." But so what? I don't know too many instances where heroes in the Iliad (I can't think of any at the moment) die due to causes other than the might of other heroes or divine interventions. That is, heroes do not die by a lucky stroke from an ill-trained militiaman. And that is the whole point with the dissatisfaction of some who have expressed concern about the human heroes' low HP. We do not mind if a human is killed by a full blow from a Niefel Jarl; but if Pathos--who like Herakles is half-god and half-man--dies by a few militiamen surrounding him getting a lucky thrust, then there is a problem.

[Epaminondas]

Agrajag said:

Well, I did just say that's my guess as to what he thought....


Either way I don't see why you have to get so upset, you did get your answer after all, and considering how you are just another anonymous person over here, there's no reason not to be suspicious. Other than being curteous to other people.

Agrajag,

1. And I did say that Arralen is a jack *** only IF that is what he thought.

2. So you think it's normal to accuse everyone who doesn't have the game manual to have a pirated version instead of just a demo version? Even if you subtract the evidence I put forth before that clearly demonstrate that I don't know what happens in late game and do not have full version of the game, I'd suspect just as a percentage thing that the most reasonable assumption is actually that someone who doesn't have a manual only has a Demo copy rather than a pirated copy.

[Epaminondas]

UninspiredName said:


And remember, even in most fantasy, a hero rarely manages to alter the outcome of a battle by killing a ton of enemies in pitched combat. Usually they use some sort of magic, use the terrain, (say, triggering a rockslide) or take out an enemy commander, usually the last of the three. Rarely do you get a hero that can stand up to even ten enemies on his own. I'll also point out that these heroes are also rarely targetted by hostile magic and that, when they are, it's frequently a struggle to survive.

This is not always true. In many fantasy, heroes do take on and triumph over literally hundreds of men.

In fact, such is the case in even quasi-historical fantasies in the Far East: e.g. The Three Kingdoms novel.

[Epaminondas]

Shovah32 said:
And your also forgot to add that alexander the great wasnt fighting huge dragons, undead monsters and lightning bolts coming down from the sky.

Yes, but Alexander also didn't have all those magical trinkets and other magical boosts to help him either.