Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 gorbeck Nov 28, 2007 14:37:31	There's one element of D&D, and indeed most video games as well, that has always been foreign to me. One thing that utterly destroys all semblance of what I like to call fantasy realism. That one thing is the concept of hit points. Why do they exist? What do they represent? And is there an alternate, more "realistic" way to portray them? I once played a career fighter who, through a combination of high constitution, magic items, and feats, ended up with nearly 450 hit points by level twenty. While it was amazing to be able to wade through attacks and stand toe-to-toe with nearly any foe we encountered, one question kept me from truly enjoying the character: Despite my high hit points, why would the slash of a dagger across my soft, fleshy human throat or the pierce of a spear through my heart be any less deadly to me than the same attack on a commoner? This aspect of the game makes no sense to me. Are hit points some kind of aura that reduce the damage inflicted by every hit, making a deep gash nothing more than a scratch? Of course not, because that's already called damage reduction. Are they some inner fire that burns brighter with level, keeping you alive when you should be dead? Of course not, because that's already called barbarian's rage. I kept trying to justify my high hit points. My first thought was that I'm experienced enough to avoid getting hit, but that's armor class, not hit points. Then I considered my high constitution. Perhaps I'm hardy enough to withstand more blows than average, but certainly some opponent will get lucky and sink a blade into a vital organ. Isn't that the very nature of a rogue's sneak attack? Finally I thought that maybe my training had made me nimble enough to avoid serious injuries, even when struck by an otherwise deadly attack. A quick glance at my low dexterity score discounted this reasoning. Besides, dexterity is basically armor class... And that's when I realized that hit points were trying to be what armor class should be! Every human, and presumably each of the "soft" races, shares the same fragile frame, the same easily-broken flesh, and the same vital organs, all in the same location. Thus it stands to reason that a fatal wound for one human will likely also be fatal for nearly all humans, but a fighter who is accustomed to hand-to-hand combat will be significantly better at avoiding blows than a wizard who stands far back from his or her opponents. Wouldn't a system where every member of every race had the same number of hit points (plus or minus constitution) but whose armor class increased with each level be better than this "toughness" system based on arbitrary and poorly defined hit points? Isn't it more "realistic" for a fighter to be just as physically fragile as a farmer but significantly more difficult to hit in combat? From a cinematic standpoint it's logical. When's the last time you saw a movie involving a sword fight where two human combatants struck each other over and over again without dying? It never happens this way. Sure, each may get a few cuts, but almost always the fight involves a series of deflected or dodged attacks and counter attacks until one of them finally lands a killing hit. I propose a system where armor class, not hit points, goes up every level. It just makes sense. A 20th level fighter SHOULD be adept at avoiding nearly any blow, but at the same time, a single blow from a great wyrm SHOULD kill just about anything. Even in fantasy, how is it realistic for a human to take several hits from a dragon and still be standing, like an ant surviving the crushing blow of a human foot? Where is the damage going and what does it even mean? Apparently nothing, since a fighter with two hit points fights just as well as a fighter with 450.
#2 obsidianichor Dec 09, 2007 17:50:58	While that is one way to look at hit points, I have found another way of looking at it: Hit points are not your character actually be crushed, stomped, slashed, or poked with a pointy stick. Hit points represent your character's expertise in avoiding the deadliest of these attacks that would hurt him. Example: A dragon gets a 32 on its bite attack to break your armor class of 22. Your character then takes 15 damage. Your view of this is that the dragon's mouth encloses over the top half of your body and bites you in the torso. But you're just a great warrior who is used to stuff like this and shrugs it off. My view of this is that as the dragon tries to bite you, your experience and instincts in battle are good enough that you make a great effort at the last moment, jumping out of the way or throwing yourself to the floor. Maybe instead of biting you in the torso, as you jump out of the way, the dragon's teeth scrape your arm as you jerk it out of the dragon's reach. You only have so much energy to pull off feats like this and come out no worse for the wear, you could think of when you get down into very low HP is when you actually are starting to get some serious wounds. Incidentally, a variant from Unearthed Arcana helps envision this method very well. This is the Vitality/Wounds system. Basically, your normal HP becomes Vitality and your Wounds are equal to your Constitution score. All damage is removed from Vitality first and if there is no more vitality, you take wound damage, and that's when you start getting serious wounds.
#3 wheldrake Dec 10, 2007 10:10:17	What are hit points? Easy. An abstraction. Like the OP mentioned, and then rejected, hit points are not simply the ability of frail human flesh to sustain damage, they include to a very large degree the ability to avoid damage. Sure, a high AC due to a high DEX, damage reduction and several other in-game systems also abstract the ability of characters to avoid lethal damage, and in a very real sense do double duty with hit points, which in part simulate the same thing. It goes back a long way. In Chainmail, the precursor to D&D, a "hero" hits like four average soldiers, and sustains damage like four average soldiers, hence the term "hit dice". Other games, like Chaosium's Pendragon, take a different approach to wounds and damage. Their system was very similar to what you describe. A character's initial hit points are directly derived from constitution and size, and represent *only* the character's body's ability to sustain damage, nothing else. In that system, armor works like damage reduction, absorbing a certain number of damage points from each hit, and characters use their weapon skills like parry and dodge to avoid being hit in the first place. Or take the ACE/MERP system, with their horribly complex and deadly critical hits. Many of those criticals ignore hit points as such and cause death or injury directly to the character's ability to survive. D&D doesn't strive for realism, never has. Hit points are one of the founding abstractions in the game, and include a lot of different things. Two quotes from the SRD: "Your hit points measure how hard you are to kill. No matter how many hit points you lose, your character isn’t hindered in any way until your hit points drop to 0 or lower." and "Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one." As I read it, hit points were never meant to represent the pure physical frailty of the human body. If you want to change the rules to represent this, perhaps you should be playing a different game. Spells, damage from monsters and weapons, damage bonus from strength, healing spells and abilities, all these things are built around characters that can have widely differing numbers of hit points. A 20th level fighter or barbarian with 200, 300 or more hit points isn't a sign that the game is broken, just because their neck can be as easily cut as a farmer"s. Those hit points represent a lot of different things. Don't forget there are special rules for "coup de grace" and for massive damage (Fort save DC=15 or die for hits over 50 hit points) that do allow high hit point characters to be killed in very specific circumstances without actually dealing hundreds of points of damage. YMMV, --- Wheldrake
#4 mod5000 Dec 11, 2007 0:54:00	You might want to look at the VP/WP system. WP is actual bodily damage, and VP is more like "luck damage". Many movie characters have TONS of VP, for example--they are shot at and shot at by hundreds of bullets, and never take any real damage. Why? Because they're losing VP, not WP. Once their luck runs out though, THEN they take real damage, and are slowed down (fatigued) by it. Also, it's hard to take 10 points of damage from a spear with the kind of HP your character had and shrug it off--a spear is a spear, and it'll HURT if it gets in deep. But with VP, you can say that it scraped off your armor, barely missing you though you felt the threat deep in your bones. It's hard to take a spear 30 times and not die, but having it scrap off your armor 30 times is alright, and works better. People just get more "lucky" as they gain levels that way.
#5 t_baggins Dec 11, 2007 18:53:20	It's a fantasy roleplaying game. The game where my superbuff barbarian gets rolled by a beggar with a natural 20 doesn't sound all that fun. Same goes for the dragon example. If BAB and AC went up at similar rates, you still get one-hit kills. D&D doesn't pretend to be real. It's a heroic game. If you want super realism try Call of Cthulhu. And don't get too attached to your character.
#6 alangriffith Dec 14, 2007 7:34:18	Despite my high hit points, why would the slash of a dagger across my soft, fleshy human throat or the pierce of a spear through my heart be any less deadly to me than the same attack on a commoner? Its not (significantly). This is why coup de grace still requires save or death. As the PHB says 'a dagger through the eye is still a dagger through the eye'. This aspect of the game makes no sense to me. Are hit points some kind of aura that reduce the damage inflicted by every hit, making a deep gash nothing more than a scratch? Of course not, because that's already called damage reduction. They are described in the phb as being more a combination of luck, skill and faith. The implication is that you are lucky and/or skilled and/or blessed enough for that blow to only scratch your arm rather than penetrate your spleen. Damage reduction (if high) allows you to take the sword through the chest and laugh (e.g. Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean 3), while high hit points mean you twist at the last moment and the sword meant for your heart grazes your side. Are they some inner fire that burns brighter with level, keeping you alive when you should be dead? Of course not, because that's already called barbarian's rage. You're on shakier ground here. The barbarian is in a berserk state where he ignores all pain, thus he will not pass out when he would normally, and may even fight on with a mortal wound for a short time. In the case of a paladin or cleric, you could indeed describe hit points as 'an inner fire which burns brighter by level, keeping you alive when you should be dead', as you could argue you are blessed by your deity. One could even perhaps argue wizard and sorcerer hit points as 'an inner fire' created by offscreen magical experimentation and potions, or simply the power that burns within making you something more than human (sorcerers particularly could be seen as the D+D equivalent of the X-Men, no longer entirely human they have dangerous powers and can indeed survive things no human could). I kept trying to justify my high hit points. My first thought was that I'm experienced enough to avoid getting hit, but that's armor class, not hit points. While there is no inherent reason why you cannot have 2 things which make you harder to hit, attempts to justify hit points as 'luck/skill points' which mean you are not hit until you run out fail on a number of fronts, not least regarding poisoned weapons still poisoning you if you are on full hp and they only did 1 damage. My explanation above is the closest thing to rationalizing it that there is. Then I considered my high constitution. Perhaps I'm hardy enough to withstand more blows than average, but certainly some opponent will get lucky and sink a blade into a vital organ. Isn't that the very nature of a rogue's sneak attack? Yes, that's why it does tonnes of HP damage. Assuming you have enough HP not to be taken down in one blow, it still hurts a hell of a lot, because you are hit hard in the chest (but not the heart) rather than a glancing blow to the side. See Boromir in Lord of the Rings surviving 3 arrows in the chest (and fighting on through two of them) for a portrayal of someone hit hard in the chest but fighting on (in a way most people do not dismiss as implausible). Finally I thought that maybe my training had made me nimble enough to avoid serious injuries, even when struck by an otherwise deadly attack. A quick glance at my low dexterity score discounted this reasoning. Besides, dexterity is basically armor class... I still don't see why the fact a mechanic exists for not being hit at all makes it unreasonable to also have a mechanic for being hit only a flesh wound or a graze. But no, its not nimbleness per se, its luck/heroic destiny combined with your training (as a non-magic martial class) or your faith/power (for a holy or magical class). And that's when I realized that hit points were trying to be what armor class should be! Every human, and presumably each of the "soft" races, shares the same fragile frame, the same easily-broken flesh, and the same vital organs, all in the same location. Thus it stands to reason that a fatal wound for one human will likely also be fatal for nearly all humans, but a fighter who is accustomed to hand-to-hand combat will be significantly better at avoiding blows than a wizard who stands far back from his or her opponents. Indeed, it makes perfect sense, but rather than avoid the damage entirely you take minor injuries. I shall explain the reasoning for this below. Wouldn't a system where every member of every race had the same number of hit points (plus or minus constitution) but whose armor class increased with each level be better than this "toughness" system based on arbitrary and poorly defined hit points? No, it really wouldn't. and here's why. If you keep auto-hit on a natural 20, your fighter (or indeed any PC) will have a very short lifespan. As soon as you fight anything doing reasonably harsh damage (which by your 'realistic' reckoning would include a challenge rating 3 ogre with his greatclub), you have a 5% chance of dying each round. Long before the epic adventure, dramatic background or world-ending plot is revealed, you die. Aragorn gets splattered all over the wall by the cave troll in the middle of the first book. If you take out natural 20 hitting rule, then either you keep AC progression in line with monster to hit (which still means a very short lifespan, as you want that dragon to hit the PC on at least a 20, i.e. 5% chance to die each round), or you don't, in which case your fighter is pretty much invulnerable. So he laughing plows through all opponents, while the enemy make their entire tactics to go around him and hit the wizard etc. Since no-one apart from possibly the knight can actually make the enemy hit him and not go for the wussy caster, you quickly have a fighter-only party. Alternatively, you advance AC for the non-hitty characters equally fast, and your party are invulnerable. Isn't it more "realistic" for a fighter to be just as physically fragile as a farmer but significantly more difficult to hit in combat? In the real world, possibly (although people do exist who can take a number of blows, you should see what some knights and others survived in recorded medieval history, without healing magic - they were the exceptionally lucky ones out of hundreds, but so are the PCs). From a heroic story-telling perspective, however... see above and below. From a cinematic standpoint it's logical. When's the last time you saw a movie involving a sword fight where two human combatants struck each other over and over again without dying? It never happens this way. I've already mentioned Boromir in Lord of the Rings. Yes he dies, but I would not have screamed 'foul' or 'unrealistic' if he had been saved from the third arrow and lived on (alright I would scream foul, but because of them deviating from the book, not his survival being implausible). King Arthur. Many of the characters are hit, sometimes quite badly. The two hit most often and badly die, but several other characters take nasty hits and live. And they are not superhuman, and it doesn't look unrealistic or implausible. Braveheart, lots of survived/fighting on injuries there, particularly from arrows. Sharpe (Major Richard, TV series and books), happens a lot, he gets badly hurt, wins, next episode or after a break he has survived. Again, people in the Napoleonic wars are documented to have survived things as bad as Sharpe was put through. Again, perhaps 8 in 10 died from such things, but Sharpe, like the PCs, is lucky. Serenity and Firefly, characters are hit (albeit with guns mostly, but in Serenity there are one or two nasty sword hits, also in the Firefly episode 'Shindig'). sometimes they fall down and need fixing by the good doctor, but some (particularly the hitty types like Mal and Zoe) fight on despite their injuries and survive later. 13th Warrior. To a lesser extent, but still some nasty injuries, and a lot of the gritty 'PC survives with minor hurt instead of major' Sure, each may get a few cuts, but almost always the fight involves a series of deflected or dodged attacks and counter attacks until one of them finally lands a killing hit. Hit points are what make the 'few cuts' into 'few cuts' rather than 'killing hits', until someone runs out. Now I do understand you, the sheer number of 'he hits but you don't die' in D+D is far far higher than in films, once you get to about level 6 (if not before). It would be nice to have some sort of system where hit points were divided into two thirds 'luck points' where damage to them is not actually a hit, but a lucky miss, and only be taking flesh wounds etc for the final third. The problem with this is how it makes poison, con-drain weapons, negative levels and all other forms of bonus effects on a hit implausible (if they happen despite a ''lucky miss') or far far less useful and powerful (if you rule they do not happen except when the PC is down 1/3 HP). I propose a system where armor class, not hit points, goes up every level. It just makes sense. Realism sense, possibly. Actually function in the game - see above. Incidentally, regarding the dragon consider Sam vs. Shelob in LOTR. You are not actually standing still and letting the dragon step on you, you are frantically dodging/being thrown all over the place, and just taking (still quite a bit of damage) from its claws etc. as you slip and slide around horrible crushing blows. If you are killed, it is at that point (when your hit points are taken out or into negatives) that a dragon stamp finally found you. As for fighting as well on 2hp as 450hp, adrenaline and sheer bloody-mindedness do wonderful things (again, see Boromir, also half the films I mentioned above). Usually, you get healed up after the fight, so it can be explained as briefly staving off the pain with adrenaline, bravery, faith or whatever. The plausibility problem comes here if you have no healing and wander around for 24 hours on 2HP, still at full effectiveness. It would be nice to have a rule of some kind giving penalties once the adrenaline surge wears off, but the PHB is only so big. You could probably make a house rule, and it rarely comes up in standard play anyhow (with clerics, healing wands, healing potions etc.) The problem is, no system is perfect, and hit points are the best we have for a high combat system. But they are not as implausible as you claim, and I have attempted to explain them. Perhaps 4th edition will solve this issue somehow, but I doubt it.
#7 slwoyach_dup Dec 16, 2007 18:50:23	That's why hit points are treated differently in my game. Hit points aren't lost through damage, but are spent to avoid damage. This mechanically makes no difference, but gives a far different impression. I've also been toying with the concept of allowing characters to spend hit points for bonuses, turning it into a kind of intangible heroic quality.
#8 swccgf Dec 16, 2007 19:04:27	If you think about it hit points don't have to be an abstract concept. They could just as easily represent both the toughness to shrug off blows and the training to turn lethal blows into minor ones, its just that they are normally not treated as such. Its like AC. An attack that is higher than your touch AC but lower than your normal AC will hit your body, but not do damage. We could say that a hit for 40 damage to a high level character not only does damage to the character's body, but also fatigues them in a small way so as not to be able to shrug off those kinds of blows. If you ever watch boxing or Ultimate Fighter you will notice that those guys get tired, and it's not just the huge knockout hits that bring them down, it's also the light jabs and the body hits. In my mind that's the best way to look at hit points: a cocktail of stamina, resilience, and damage.
#9 mindworx Dec 17, 2007 7:38:33	I've always viewed HP as Energy/Stamina, and it represents how long you have the E/S to keep fighting back, and to keep standing. This also justifies the fast regenerative rate HP has. If you have negative hp, you don't have the E/S to even stand or be awake, and once you're at negative, you start actually taking damage, which is the last 9 hp, -1 to -9. It's a little abstract, but it makes a lot more sense in my head. Your idea with higher armor rather than hp seems very unbalanced. First of all, very fast low levels wont be able to hit in melee/ranged, and at level 5 a wizard can kill off any level fighter in a few spells, as long as the spell doesn't require an attack roll.
#10 silvergamgee Dec 17, 2007 22:33:46	I have always viewed hit points as an objective measure of a completely abstract concept. Over the course of battle, characters are constantly dodging and weaving striking and parrying, running and using up tons of energy. Armor class is really a representation of how difficult your defenses are to penetrate. But if someone does, then you have to do something to prevent a mortal wound, costing you energy. The higher your Con is and the more experience you have, the better you get at using your physical energy. A blend of good fighting technique, experience, and sheer physical toughness (an abstract set of things) will equal hit points (a reasonably objective method of measuring these things). While a fighters HP is probably rooted more in technique and the Barbarian is most certainly relying on his toughness, the end result is the same group of numbers. Another way you could look at it is to take a peek at Base Attack Bonus. This represents you effectiveness at using your combat experience and technique to break your opponent's defenses. Hit points is a representation of your ability to use that same technique in defense. A fighter probably deflects most attacks with parries and shield blocks. A barbarian prevents attacks from being launched at him by remaining almost constantly on the offensive, leaving few openings for a counterattack. A wizard, who knows only the most rudimentary offensive combat techniques as indicated by their poor BAB, also only knows the most simple of defensive parries...as indicated by their poor HP totals. Did I muddy it up more? I hope not.
#11 blood_of_the_ancient Dec 18, 2007 9:03:56	In my games, and my DM's games, hit points are whatever you want. For some characters (say, a swashbuckling skirmisher) they may represent dodging and evading attacks narrowly, and the character only takes actual injury when extremely low on hp. For one character of mine, hit points represent willpower in a weird way. She just regenerates instantly from all wounds, but she has to consciously hold her body together, so they represent how much pain she can endure and still focus enough to keep her body from collapsing. Have fun with hp!
#12 Euclid Dec 21, 2007 21:56:46	Even with this, there are still some problems. For example, a high level barbarian can stay fully immersed under 10 feet of lava for a couple of rounds. No "dodging" there. Similarly, if said barbarian is shackled immovably down, and knocked unconscious, one can conduct an interesting experiment with coup de graces. Slice at his neck, without taking a coup de grace. What happens? Now try it with a coup de grace. Why are the situations different?
#13 pmurray%40bigpond.com Dec 21, 2007 22:34:02	IMO: hit points represent your ability to keep on fighting, to keep on defending yourself. When you are out of hit points, you are so beaten up that you are helpless to defend yourself any further. Combat fatigue. That's why you don't lose combat ability until right at the end - when hit by that final, fatal blow that you can no longer dodge or shrug off. I have posted several times that I think that negative HP makes no sense whatever. Death should come only as a result of constitution damage. The rules would be that a critical hit causes Con damage according to the crit multiplier of the weapon (so instead of a crit doing double damage, it does one point of Con damage). Being reduced to 0 then dying becomes a matter of being subject to automatic critical hits.
#14 Daybreaker Dec 30, 2007 17:02:35	The thing is, the response of living things to the trauma of wounds is just really friggin' complicated. I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a simple way of reflecting blood loss in the game. And then there's the way that a particular wound might not put you in any danger of death in and of itself, but might incapacitate you to some degree. Like a sprained ankle. Nobody's ever died directly of a sprained ankle, that I'm aware of. But it sure makes a difference in a fight. But then, I've never found a game with a wound system I liked. Hit points are not really much sillier than a condition meter, when you think about it. I've had guys in Shadowrun take SAM missiles to the head and walk away.
#15 alangriffith Jan 01, 2008 5:41:23	Even with this, there are still some problems. For example, a high level barbarian can stay fully immersed under 10 feet of lava for a couple of rounds. No "dodging" there. No dodging, just toughness, inner fire, sheer bloody mindedness and fate. But yes, it is still implausible. The main issue is that GMs like to do fights over lava, and PCs will whine if getting knocked off the edge is immediate unstatted death. The same applies for battles over cliffs, hence falling damage being implausible. Similarly, if said barbarian is shackled immovably down, and knocked unconscious, one can conduct an interesting experiment with coup de graces. Slice at his neck, without taking a coup de grace. What happens? Now try it with a coup de grace. Why are the situations different? They aren't. There are no called shots in D&D. If you are aiming for his neck while he is helpless, you are doing a coup de grace. If you choose, after spending all that time and effort to knock him out and chain him up, not to use the coup de grace rules at the cost of a single move action more time, then you are deliberately choosing a substandard option to try and prove a point. So you are in fact, not lining up a kill shot on the neck, but flailing away at his chest (this may still kill him, if he is unconscious due to negative HP). This might happen in actual game play where none too professional enemies hack into the unconcious barbarian a few times and leave him for dead.
#16 melayl Jan 11, 2008 2:31:00	The original Star Wars RPG had an interesting and relatively more realistic way of doing "HP" and damage. I can't remember all of it at the moment, but the gist of it is thus: Your Constitution-equivalent score was your effective "HP". Attacks made against you were an opposed roll to this score. If the damage roll beat your health roll by a certain amount, you were injured. There were (I believe) 3 categories of damage: Minor, Severe, and Major (ok, 4 if you count Dead). You could sustain (IIRC) an infinite amount of Minor damage without detriment. Severe damage caused a penalty to actions, and a certain amount of Severe hits would add up to a Major hit. Major damage caused a greater penalty to actions and eventually unconsciousness and death as it added up. I can't (at the moment) think how to translate this to D&D, but it was a rather nice system.
#17 prime32 Jan 13, 2008 11:02:26	As for how characters can take that much punishment, let us look at the most extreme example. Dragonball Z Yes, the love-it/hate-it show where fighters can fly, people get punched through mountains, gods are comic relief, and flaming men with tails block planet-destroying lasers with their abs. And the fighting goes on at that level for what seems like days at a time. The explanation given is that characters have a certain amount of spiritual energy or Ki, built up by training. Whenever they are struck by an attack, a certain amount of their Ki is used up to cancel out the Ki of the attack. As you can see, Ki is hit points. However, since all of their attacks are powered by the same energy, DBZ characters take damage whenever they use their attacks. Characters can only stay "powered up" for a limited time before they run out of energy - frenzied berserkers do something similar, gaining phenomonal strength but losing HP each round. At one point in the series, two characters were able to stay in Super Saiyan form (race specific ultra-super-mega-powerup) for days - this was because at their high level, they regained enough hit points through normal rest to offset the damage.
#18 billthemaniac Jan 14, 2008 15:03:29	The problem with the high AC/low HP model is that death is too random. So, I propose the idea that a large portion of your HP are "shield points", representing your ability to block blows (the difference from AC is dodge vs. block). Attacks that [crit, or have a high enough attack roll, or high enough damage, or something] get around your shield points. Shield points are an abstraction and so replenished at an appropriate pace.
#19 vonklaude Jan 16, 2008 15:50:45	I propose a system where armor class, not hit points, goes up every level. It just makes sense. A 20th level fighter SHOULD be adept at avoiding nearly any blow, but at the same time, a single blow from a great wyrm SHOULD kill just about anything. The reasons for increasing a linear measure rather than a chance of not dying is as follows: a) I have 10HP and you have a sword that does 1HP damage per blow, with a 100% chance of hitting. b) I have 1HP and you having a sword that does 1HP damage per blow with a 10% chance of hitting. Is a) the same as b)? The answer is that it is not. In the case of a) the first blow you land cannot end the fight. It takes 10 blows to finish me. In the case of b) the first blow you land can end the fight. However, it takes an unknown number of blows to finish me. Obviously a) leads to deterministic combats, yet b) is too catastrophic. Therefore: c) I have 10HP and you have a sword that does 0, 1, or 2 HP damage per blow with a 100% chance of hitting. With c) you cannot end the combat on the first blow, it will probably take 10 blows to finish me, but it might take 5 or infinite blows. Hmm, it's still a bit odd, I know: d) I have 10HP and you have a sword that does 1 or 2 HP damage per blow with a 66% chance of hitting. That's better, but shouldn't a really good blow kill me at once? In D&D a blow that does 50HP can kill a human outright. Adding threat numbers in for criticals, such blows can, rarely, be achieved by powerful humans with magical weapons. So there's your answer. This is a mechanistic feature of linear HP systems and is not available for designing out without getting into non-linear numbers. Something I believe most players are going to struggle with. -vk
#20 PopcornPirate Jan 27, 2008 19:42:29	1) For years I have used the Critical hits charts ( Best of the Dragon Vol II ....I think?) in conjunction with damage. Say your to hit was 14. You roll a 15 & you have +2 to hit = 17 total. 17 (your total) - 14 (your to hit) = 3 You then multiply x 2 to get the % chance of a critical hit ( 6% ) Roll precentile to see if you cause a critical hit. If you roll 1 - 6% you get to roll on the corisponding chart. It works better than if you only roll a 20. which is a 5% chance all the time of getting a critical hit. Simple. 2) As to wounds. My rule of thumb is that if you receive a wound that is bleeding. ( not a scratch but a wound ) that if you do not bandage in some way to stop the bleeding within 3-5 mele rounds you will continue to loose hitpoints from that wound. This depends on the severity of the wound you received.
#21 CaptainPicard Jan 28, 2008 13:17:00	I think the HP system is an abstraction that applies to many things, not just one, and that is what makes it useful. Included in it, certainly, is the ability for your character to roll with attacks and take blows on areas of the body that have less impact on functionality, but at very high levels, such as a character with several hundred HP, well, that character is probably as durable as Jason Voorhees, and should be played as such. Ridiculous levels of stamina and supernatural toughness can vary between effective and a break in disbelief depending on how they are done. If your fighter is struck by a flaming chariot and sent flying off a 100 foot cliff, then don't just act like it's business as usual. But when she stumbles to her feet after such an incredible injury, play up that it really just shows what kind of monster the character is (Some Metallica might be appropriate at this point too... :D ).
#22 divisionbyzer0 Feb 05, 2008 0:03:02	Hit points are scratch marks on a piece of paper. When people talk about realism in DnD I ask them how much damage Aragorn sustained in LoTR or how much Jason from the Jason And The Argonauts sustained. This is mythology you are dealing with here, people. Absurd feats happen all the time in myths and no on complains about those. Consider yourself as the player a participant in an interactive mythology.
#23 matmos Feb 12, 2008 19:00:40	In my opinion, the explanation for hit points that is most consistent with the game, is that HP actually is a measure of physical toughness, independent of ability and training. A Level 20 Fighter is quite simply not made of the same physical stuff as a level 0 Farmer. This is apparent when you take a level 20 Fighter with a 14 Con, tie him to a spit and roast him over a fire with a similarly bound Levl 0 Farmer with a 16 Con. The farmer is burned to ash in seconds, while the Fighter goes on struggling long after. This physical difference is not explanable via luck, skill, or any other way I can think of. Absurd and unrealistic? Maybe. But I'm comfortable just saying that the characters live in a universe where experience and heroic deeds infuse them with magic life force that transforms them physically. That being said, it's a bit weird picturing an attempt to perform a coup de grace on a helpless levl 20 fighter under any circumstances. It should be trivial to drive a dagger into his brain, but even with the CdG rules, he'd have a pretty good chance of just taking hit point damage from a crit dagger strike...a trivial cut to such a character. If I follow my own interpretation of hit points, the dagger just won't penetrate the magically strengthened flesh. This works, but we're just not used to thinking of these characters as a living variant of Anne Rice vampires. Best not to think about it too much I guess. By the way, the Runequest system, along with other systems that employ armor as damage reduction and dodge/parry for avoidance mechanics while keeping the characters with static hit points based on size and con regardless of experience, works perfectly well and conforms to our reality quite a bit better. I still prefer DnD for some reason.
#24 grod_the_giant Feb 16, 2008 21:59:47	As another article here talked about, the game just gets silly at high levels. Wizards alter reality with a wave of their hand, a rogue can hide in his own shadow, a ranger can thrive in the middle of a desert and climb a sheer cliff butt-naked, and a bard can talk a murderous barbarian into buying his enemy a drink. At 20th level, as a fighter, which would you rather hear? 1. DM- "the giant dragon steps on you. You're dead." or 2. DM- "The dragon kicks you. Your armor absorbs most of the force, but you go flying across the room and slam into a tree. You see stars for a moment as your head bounces off your helmet, but you get to your feet with no trouble." Which is more appropriate for a high-level game? Even mundane things hit supernatural levels eventually.
#25 ariath_ska-vhor Feb 20, 2008 18:52:53	I've always seen hit points as a combination of both physical exertion and actual physical durability when you ARE struck by a sword or a hammer or a fireball. Like how you strain yourself to throw your armored arm in front of the blow of a sword, which probably takes a bit out of you but physical exertion doesn't always count for stuff, like when they just get a lucky hit and slide your chest open.
#26 t_baggins Feb 24, 2008 12:17:40	Everyone is debating how to implement a more realistic system, but I think the real question is should we do it. D&D is a high fantasy game. Heroes with almost superhuman ability save the day in ways we only dream of (literally). Gruesomely realistic games are usually viewed as not as fun, and in turn don't sell as well. Do you really want to worry about your warrior's torn ACL, or your archer's heel spurs? D&D is not a sim game. Its almost comic bookish. I've seen DM's try and institute a crit chart with injuries and modifiers. These almost always get vetoed by the players.
#27 malignor Feb 25, 2008 16:55:20	Dream Pod 9's "Silhouette" system (as well as Pendragon's) use the wound/heavyWound/overkill thresholds, which do not scale with character advancement, so you may want to look at that. As for in-game justification of Constitution (hardiness) affecting hitpoints, Think of it like this: - High Hitdie (such as the Barbarian's D12) and high Constitution create a more "meaty" character. As such, their bodies are tougher and able to sustain more damage from the same blows. Just like how a 5-year old would be hard pressed to bruise a big, healthy guy trained in fighting. - High Hit-dice/level create an experienced combatant who has honed their bodies and instincts to shrug off or roll with attacks. When a sword slash is aimed at something serious, your experienced instincts and reactions intercept it at the tougher part of your shoulder, and at a more favorable angle. There is still a hit, but you know how to receive the attacks. You use your armor to turn that nasty axe swing into a bruise (and a clang). You curl up just right to reduce your exposure to the lava. You roll with the mighty fist of the storm giant so as to not take it head-on. You use your wizard staff to partially block the dragon's claw, which still slashes up your forearm. You twist as the rogue's daggar jabs into a vital spot, reducing a deadly strike into a less damaging (but still painful) one. = = = = = = The tough situations to account for are when held or similar. For example, how can you justify taking less damage from a sneak attack when you can't even move? Is the fighter suddenly as tough as a grizzly or rhino? I think the last elements are willpower and cinematic luck. The higher the level, the more unrealistic the hitpoint mechanic appears. But also, the higher the level, the more incredible, heroic and astonishing the character becomes. Giving momentary, on-the-spot flavor that encroaches on the territory of a Barbarian's Rage, or the Diehard feat... BBEG: "I killed him. I know I did!" Fighter: "My heart... may b-be destroyed... *cough* but I won't let myself die until I send you to hell!" ... is a possibility. Or even simply leaving it to unexplained amazement... Cleric: "You charged right into the dragon's breath... breath that melts mountains... you should be dead! How!??" Ranger: "I don't understand it either. Something just... happened." ... could add a hidden mystical element to the game. Was it luck? Was it divine intervention? Perhaps is there more to the character than even they themselves understand. It sort of creates a bridge between the mortality of low levels and the legendary, superhuman, even immortal status of Epic levels.