Thank you ADOM: by gut

[gut]

direct pressure saves lives

to liven things up, I may switch to silfir's side

[Silfir]

Please, explain to me under which logic First Aid works. You magically get better in the heat of the battle tending your wounds with what?

Take one step back and consider how hit points make sense.

[gut]

hit points at least have a direct coorelation to life, whereas tickloppets has a direct coorelation to nothing. pfft

[_Ln_]

Take one step back and consider how hit points make sense.

Of course they don't, I'm not arguing about that In a world of magic I can accept that corpses dissolve into fine mist with all items except several and except those you conveniently pick-pocketted from them, but battle skill as First Aid? Just imagine fighting 8 guys at the same time, then someone shoots you with a fireball (or glowing balls or whatever) and you take a moment to get you trusted ointment and cover burns.

And please don't remind us of reading books, sleeping, being paralyzed etc. while dodging and blocking attacks, I want my post to seem to be logical (which it isn't, just as our topic of discussion).

I also spent some time pondering how can you apply First Aid to sickness in the heat of the battle and decided that sickness causes you to throw up your internal organs and First Aid is basically you stuffing them all back. By the way, it actually explains hit points logically - hp shows your total of functional body parts.

[Phoobnahr]

The way I always dealt with HP in my Pencil and Paper games was sort of more like 'Luck Points' than 'Hit Points'

for instance, you're at full HP, an orc scorcher rolls a hit on you and rolls say 6 damage...

my flavor speech for the player would go something like "The orc scorcher swings his rusty blade directly at your face. His blade passes just in front of your face, your eyes stinging as the gritty metal splashes coarse dirt across your forehead. That was close, you feel you won't be so lucky next time, lose 6 HP"

eventually I even started using a system that had "Luck Points" and "Hit Points". Critical hits, and certain special kinds of attacks (falling damage for instance) would take directly out of Hit Points, whereas regular combat damage would be taken out of Luck points until they reached 0, at which point they'd start coming out of Hit Points. Luck points could be regenerated with time and rest, lacking hitpoints required medical or magical attention.

[aerol]

Adom taught me the word "halberd".

[sachin]

I was introduced to ADOM by my brother in law, a ponty-tailed google programmer, while still an impressionable child of 13.

I sucked so bad. I was just a turd and couldn't even figure out basic commands. In the start I would just wander around the map and get ambushed looking for how to start the game. The brother in law showed me `?k` and `?m` and let me fail. There was no internet and no gb to explain all the details so progress was slow. Sometimes I was frustrated and play some other game for a few months but I always came back to adom. It took about 10 years to be able to get through the early game reliably but it's getting easier as I go. Playing a game of adom is not an isolated instance, but a continuous practice. It's like practicing kata and you need to use judgement based on past experience to get ahead.

I'm now a grad student and am convinced ADOM has made me better as a scientist. ADOM and science share the features of quick and harsh lessons, arcane instructions, and are things that the average person doesn't understand or care about. Thanks ADOM you are fraking awesome.