Flexor the Mighty!
18/100 Strength!
I don't extrapolate the rules for running adventure games to the game world at large. Adventurers are very rare, class levels are very rare. Clerics who can raise the dead are extremely rare. etc.
Take a small army of 200 men, its no world conqueror but its enough in the medieval era for one small kingdom to send out to raid harass another. It is foot soldiers, some archers, and maybe half a dozen knights acting as leaders.
That army either marching during the day or worse encamped at night gets attacked by your average party of 5th level adventurers. The rogue cuts down with ease any sentries, the fighter or barbarian will easily crush anyone that is not one of the knights and odds are he can take on a couple of them. The cleric/druid depending on type can dish out damage or disrupt attempts to organize and the wizard/sorcerer wrecks havoc for the first minute or two.
Then the whole party melts away and that army is demoralized and down 15-30 soldiers, possibly more with little to no chance of actually inflicting harm on that party.
The question just becomes which is more expensive. The army of 200 or the 5th level party.
If your accusation is true, and the rules really do treat NPCs differently from PCs (and not just in a sense of simplified processes to achieve close-enough results for less effort), then the entire game is worth less than the paper it's written on. It would be the same mistake that ruined 4E, except now they can't claim to be ignorant about what a colossal mistake it was.Are you making the assumption that all people in this world use Player Character rules? Including the associated plot-protection from aspects of a medieval-level life that simply wouldn't be fun to play through, and thus weren't incorporated into the rules?
We don't have enough information to extrapolate from just the rules. The book is equally consistent with there being one magician every ten-thousand years or with everyone in the world having access to magic. Whatever assumptions that you make, in order to have something to extrapolate from, are going to shape the world far more significantly than the specifics of the rules. A high-magic world in GURPS is going to resemble a high-magic world in D&D more than a high-magic world in D&D would resemble a low-magic world in D&D.I agree, but I'm essentially asking the opposite question: "what would society look like if these assumptions are true?" rather than "how do the assumptions need to be changed to result in this society?".
Are you concerned about the implications of what the rules omit as well as what they cover? For instance, the rules don't cover the case of being wounded by a mere weapon, let alone an improvised weapon, in a way that is permanently debilitating rather than potentially fatal. You really can't "put an eye out with that thing," for instance. (Unless that thing is a magic item of eye-removal.)Absolutely. As I mentioned in the original post I'm interested in the implications of the full set of rules, not just the magic.
Well, the rules do treat NPCs differently from PCs, (for example in generating ability scores in the DM so chooses), and it is precisely for the reason I mentioned and you reiterated: getting close-enough results for a fun game without getting bogged down in detail that the players would probably find uninteresting.If your accusation is true, and the rules really do treat NPCs differently from PCs (and not just in a sense of simplified processes to achieve close-enough results for less effort)
Eh. I have fun with 5e, so its worth more than the price of the paper for me. I don't believe that 4e was irrevocably ruined by that, and I'm not a fan of casting aspersions on the character or motivations of people who can't answer back. If you believe those things, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.then the entire game is worth less than the paper it's written on. It would be the same mistake that ruined 4E, except now they can't claim to be ignorant about what a colossal mistake it was.
As mentioned in the part of my post you snipped out, it depends upon how you personally view hit points. I'm not entirely sure where you're getting the idea that NPCs don't heal the same way as PCs.If NPCs don't heal using the same mechanics as PCs - if it's possible for them to suffer HP loss that doesn't recover overnight - then we have no idea how long it takes them.
The rules use slightly different granularity to reflect the same underlying reality, but both PCs and NPCs are actually identical within that reality. Whether you round HP up at each level, or take the average HP as a sum across all levels, those are just two different levels of granularity to reflect the same reality (which give slightly different results, but are close enough for a value that we're only going to use once). The rules also provide the option of creating NPCs as PCs, in case you care more about the integrity of the model than expedience.Well, the rules do treat NPCs differently from PCs, (for example in generating ability scores in the DM so chooses), and it is precisely for the reason I mentioned and you reiterated: getting close-enough results for a fun game without getting bogged down in detail that the players would probably find uninteresting.
Hit Points reflect your capacity to withstand injury. Damage corresponds to some sort of physical injury. There is no alternative perspective worth considering. We know that it's not fatigue, because we have rules for fatigue, and they're different. We know it's not luck, because we have rules for luck, and they're different. We know it's not magic, or divine favor or anything like that, because we have those rules and we know how they interact with Hit Points.As mentioned in the part of my post you snipped out, it depends upon how you personally view hit points. I'm not entirely sure where you're getting the idea that NPCs don't heal the same way as PCs.