[4E] The story behind HPs

[Ceti]

Some interesting tidbits:


Second wind and even healing powers have the obvious outcomes in the game of increasing hit point numbers. The question ultimately is: What do hps represent? If they don't just represent physical damage, and they don't, then even a so-called "healing" power might just be strengthening a targeted character's resolve to fight on—or whatever the players and DM decide it means for the narrative at the time. Evidence for this is easily found in that the warlord has the martial power source, which isn't completely nonmagical, but certainly less magical than other power sources. Nevertheless, the warlord has healing powers, which my players model in the narrative as inspiring words, encouragements, or a "rub some dirt in it and get back in this fight, soldier" order. With the cleric, it's really a "Pelor cure your ills" sort of thing.

Healing surges, in general, have to be triggered. Second wind is a trigger, usually usable once a fight. Other triggers include healing powers and items, or the proper use of the Heal skill. I don’t see any cheese in healing surges within this context, even though everything is more delicious with cheese. Within this cinematic context, they do make sense.

As for second wind, we've all seen movies and read stories where the hero just won't stay down. Second wind gives a player that kind of control over a PC. What it means in the narrative, once again, is whatever the players and DM decide it means. It's an opportunity to expand the narrative, and not any cheesier than a beat-up action movie hero peeling himself off the pavement and giving the bad guys a few more fives across the lips. D&D aims at that kind of action, and how you imagine the action is up to you.

The same goes for bloodied, which is a state in which a character shows signs of faltering or injury. I can imagine all kinds of abilities keying off being bloodied or an enemy being bloodied. Some people who have posted here have pointed out just such narrative opportunities, such as the yuan-ti seeing he’s got you on the ropes and zealously attacking because of it. And that’s really what they are—narrative, or roleplaying if you prefer, opportunities.

None of the abstractions of the 4e D&D game are outside the realm of imagination’s ability to explain in a fun way within the narrative of the game. I can’t agree with assertions to the contrary.

[Master Of Desaster]

So basically they say: "HP is what makes you go on, it's a personal thing, so define it yourself" ...

From a narrative PoV : I don't need HP

From their twisted mind poV: Combat is THE story to tell ? or The Story is all Combat ?

Am I mistaken ?

[budman]

So basically they say: "HP is what makes you go on, it's a personal thing, so define it yourself" ...

From a narrative PoV : I don't need HP

From their twisted mind poV: Combat is THE story to tell ? or The Story is all Combat ?

Am I mistaken ?

I think you are reading too much into this

hp as will has been soming that has been around for some time

if I have 152 hp and the orc hits me for 8 points then 9 points then 12 then 22 on a crit have I been stabed 4 times and if so am I still ok to fight on as I have more than 2/3 of my hp left :eek:

[Bradford C. Walker]

For the 5th or 6th time (depend on your reckoning), the designers attempt to define HP as being not-literal measurements of a character's physical damage capacity. Maybe, just maybe, this time they'll actually achieve this goal where previous editions failed.

[Juriel]

From their twisted mind poV: Combat is THE story to tell ? or The Story is all Combat ?
I'd be fine with story advancement and character interactions all happening as part of combat. Superhero monologues during a leap attack! :D

[Juriel]

For the 5th or 6th time (depend on your reckoning), the designers attempt to define HP as being not-literal measurements of a character's physical damage capacity. Maybe, just maybe, this time they'll actually achieve this goal where previous editions failed.
I actually like the concept of you being able to take five stabs in your spleen and eight arrows to your chest, just because you're That Damn Tough. And getting up from falling 60ft onto your face. And then getting thrown through a brick wall. :)

[Chipper]

I actually like the concept of you being able to take five stabs in your spleen and eight arrows to your chest, just because you're That Damn Tough. And getting up from falling 60ft onto your face. And then getting thrown through a brick wall. :)

Yeah :)
I think that depending on how 'real' you are aiming for that that description can be fine. I've always (since the hay day of 2ndEd) thought of higher hitpoints in characters as their ability to avoid being skewered with a bit of 'can just keep going even though my ribs are broken'. They always take some sort of injury, by it a nick from the arrow or a bruise from the floor as they dive out the way of the archer, whereas a first level character goes 'oh look, he's got a bow' and then gets shot in the chest.

[BlackSheep]

The guideline my Star Wars GM uses is that if damage exceeds your damage threshold, or puts you to zero, it's a real physical injury. If not, it's either superficial damage (cuts, bruises, scorch marks) or it didn't connect at all.

[loseth]

Maybe, just maybe, this time they'll actually achieve this goal where previous editions failed.

Oh, I wish it were true. But, based on past experience, I'm 99% sure that they'll fail again because they won't follow through with the minor rules tweaks (falling damage, poison, natural healing, etc.) and terminology changes ('cure serious wounds' --> 'major invigoration'; 'hit your opponent' --> 'succcessfully press your attack'; 'take X points damage' --> 'lose X HP'; etc.) that would stop the average Joe player from getting the mixed message that, 'In one tiny paragraph hidden away in the PHB we're going to tell you that HP don't (for the most part) represent taking physical punishment, but then throughout the rest of the game we're going to consistently treat HP, in terms of terminology and game mechanics, as if they did in fact represent real physical damage.'

:(

[Turloigh]

Oh, I wish it were true. But, based on past experience, I'm 99% sure that they'll fail again because they won't follow through with the minor rules tweaks (falling damage, poison, natural healing, etc.) and terminology changes ('cure serious wounds' --> 'major invigoration'; 'hit your opponent' --> 'succcessfully press your attack'; 'take X points damage' --> 'lose X HP'; etc.) that would stop the average Joe player from getting the mixed message that, 'In one tiny paragraph hidden away in the PHB we're going to tell you that HP don't (for the most part) represent taking physical punishment, but then throughout the rest of the game we're going to consistently treat HP, in terms of terminology and game mechanics, as if they did in fact represent real physical damage.'
That's exactly why it's never going to work. Hit points are counter-intuitive to the point of absurdity.

All IMHO, and YMMV, but as long as there is an "attack roll" that beats "armor class" and does "damage", which in turn can be healed by "cure" spells, there's no way to make sense of it.

So I think we should stop worrying, start to love the bomb, and move on.

[Nahualt]

DM decide it means for the narrative at the time

Lol, I love it. They actually are giving up on explaining hit points and just passing the baton to the GM.

So after several failed attemps to explain to explain hit points, it all just fall down to "Let the DM interpret it as he wants'. ;)

Oh well at least that means they will focus on other stuff. :p

[ResplendentScorpion]

Lol, I love it. They actually are giving up on explaining hit points and just passing the baton to the GM.

So after several failed attemps to explain to explain hit points, it all just fall down to "Let the DM interpret it as he wants'. ;)

Oh well at least that means they will focus on other stuff. :p

Isn't this what they did in 3e as well? I remember reading it in the books someplace.
Anyway, with HPs=morale... 4e is not like WoW, it is like LOTRO! :p

[loseth]

...I think we should stop worrying, start to love the bomb, and move on.

Or, alternatively, take a few hours to houserule different terminology and fix the few subsystems that don't fit conceptually with abstract HP.

[Crazy Jerome]

I think the only real knock on hit points is that it is a very simple idea, well explained in 1st ed. even, that nevertheless an inordinate number of people are incapable or unwilling to grasp. To me, this reflects more on the people than the idea, but YMMV.

[Icon]

I think the only real knock on hit points is that it is a very simple idea, well explained in 1st ed. even, that nevertheless an inordinate number of people are incapable or unwilling to grasp. To me, this reflects more on the people than the idea, but YMMV.

I think you're very much wrong.

The knock on hp is the disconnect between the claims of it not representing physical damage you can take and then it generally being about physical damage you can take.


Guess MMDV.

[loseth]

I think the only real knock on hit points is that it is a very simple idea, well explained in 1st ed. even, that nevertheless an inordinate number of people are incapable or unwilling to grasp. To me, this reflects more on the people than the idea, but YMMV.

Given that most of the people I have met who can't or won't 'get it' are intelligent, well-adjusted people, I can't really agree with your analysis. I understand that some people are not bothered at all by the (small number of) contradictions inherent in the D&D HP system, but that's something that has to do with personal taste rather than an inability or unwillingness to grasp the concept. If you're the type that has a lower tolerance for gaps in verisimilitude or mechanics-story consistency, you're going to be bothered by the D&D HP system, at least occasionally. If your tolerance is higher, you'll be fine with the HP system. Which of the two categories you fall into has nothing to do with inability or unwillingness to grasp the concept, anymore than a preference for chocolate ice-cream results from an inability or unwillingness to grasp the flavour of vanilla ice-cream.

[Crazy Jerome]

The knock on hp is the disconnect between the claims of it not representing physical damage you can take and then it generally being about physical damage you can take.

Except, that is only true if you approach hit points with your idea of what hit points are already firm. If you approach it more open, then your statement no longer holds. To wit: Hit points never where for me about physical damage you can take--falling damage and "cure" spells notwithstanding. Having that approach, it was very easy to fit falling damage and "cure" spells into the expected mental framework.

Bah, it's as bad as alignment argument, though. This topic was getting a little too comfortable on the other side, so thought I'd throw a grenade into the mix. ;)

[Justin D. Jacobson]

I must agree. Millions of people (including myself) have been playing D&D for many years without suffering from the hp contradiction. It's just like suspension of disbelief when you go to see a movie. D&D is a fantasy movie -- not a documentary.

[Icon]

Except, that is only true if you approach hit points with your idea of what hit points are already firm. If you approach it more open, then your statement no longer holds. To wit: Hit points never where for me about physical damage you can take--falling damage and "cure" spells notwithstanding. Having that approach, it was very easy to fit falling damage and "cure" spells into the expected mental framework.

Except its untrue as represented by the mechanics themselves.

Falling has rules for how many hp you lose. Am I losing my confidence because I fell a certain distance? Perhaps my luck got lowered?

Poison is clearly sapping my luck and willpower to overcome a situation, right?

You can say to ignore all the times when hp are about damage, but that's the problem--you have to ignore all the times hps are about damage.

One has to wonder why, if hps represent strength of will (amongst other things), you don't get an hp bonus from a high Wis score or perhaps from a high Cha score due to high force of personality, as opposed to only getting it from a score that implicitly is tied to you being able to take damage.

[Icon]

I must agree. Millions of people (including myself) have been playing D&D for many years without suffering from the hp contradiction. It's just like suspension of disbelief when you go to see a movie. D&D is a fantasy movie -- not a documentary.

Noting the contradiction and "suffering" are two different things.

Of course without being overly dramatic the position fades I suppose.

[Crazy Jerome]

Given the confrontation syntax of my opening, I don't blame you, but...

Given that most of the people I have met who can't or won't 'get it' are intelligent, well-adjusted people, ...

Note that "unable to grasp" is not necessarily tied to intelligence. As your sig explains, intelligence is overrated when it comes to understanding. Likewise, "unwilling to grasp" is not necessarily tied to being well-adjusted. I'm "unwilling to grasp" many things (e.g. heavy metal music, baseball, etc.) but am reasonably well adjusted.

So hit points are like the attacks of opportunity in 3.*. There is nothing inherently wrong with them. Lots of people use them, as intended, just fine. The only real knock against them is that a lot of people don't really get them (down to the comfort level). Which would be pretty bland, except that I don't go around slamming heavy metal or baseball. :D

[Icon]

I'm "unwilling to grasp" many things (e.g. heavy metal music, baseball, etc.) but am reasonably well adjusted.



Foghorn Leghorn notes that there is something kinda "Eeeeh" about a boy who don't know nothing about baseball. :p


For my money, if I were interested in statistics I would go play with census data as opposed to get wrapped up in baseball.

[Crazy Jerome]

Falling has rules for how many hp you lose. Am I losing my confidence because I fell a certain distance? Perhaps my luck got lowered?


Hit points are physical and the other stuff.

There is a difference between a fall where you grabbed the edge of the wall going down, slowing your fall slightly, and made a decent landing--versus you fell screaming and landed on your head. Granted, falling gets pretty crazy when you talk about, say, 15th level characters--but then, those are crazy characters anyway.

But yeah, I'd say that if you survive a fall into an 80 foot pit, you used up some luck or something very much like it.

[Pillsy]

Oh, I wish it were true. But, based on past experience, I'm 99% sure that they'll fail again because they won't follow through with the minor rules tweaks (falling damage, poison, natural healing, etc.) and terminology changes ('cure serious wounds' --> 'major invigoration'; 'hit your opponent' --> 'succcessfully press your attack'; 'take X points damage' --> 'lose X HP'; etc.) that would stop the average Joe player from getting the mixed message that, 'In one tiny paragraph hidden away in the PHB we're going to tell you that HP don't (for the most part) represent taking physical punishment, but then throughout the rest of the game we're going to consistently treat HP, in terms of terminology and game mechanics, as if they did in fact represent real physical damage.'
Well, it looks like they've dramatically rejiggered the healing rules, at least. The fact that an ability called "second wind" gives you hit points back actually helps push the abstraction quite a bit.

3.x already addressed some of the other complaints. There's a reason that poisons do stat damage, and that natural healing heals an amount of damage based on your hp (although they did botch that one a little bit).

[Icon]

Hit points are physical and the other stuff.

And yet when things in the game affect the "other stuff" you don't lose hps.

When was the last time Feeblemind lowered someones hps?

Drop a curse of unluck on someone and you migh give them negatives to their die rolls, but you don't drop their hps.

[Pillsy]

Perhaps my luck got lowered?
Your luck isn't necessarily lowered, but it does turn a serious injury into a more minor one. OTOH, the idea that luck is something you can run out of hardly originated with D&D.

[Crazy Jerome]

Heh, I know a bit about baseball. I know just enough to be dangerous in the discussion. I generally dislike the, "he just doesn't get it," expression, but really, that's the difference here. I understand the basics of baseball, but I don't, "get it"--the appeal, why things are done exactly as they are, etc. From the outside, knowing a little, baseball can look stupid and contradictory. But to really get something, you have to take it on its terms, not yours.

[loseth]

It's just like suspension of disbelief when you go to see a movie.

Yes, it's something like that. Or like suspending your disbelief while reading a book. Though tolerance for inconsistency also comes into play, whether or not you'll find yourself occasionally bothered by the HP system might depend to some extent on what kind of film or movie you want D&D combat to be like. If you want combat in your game to be like George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, HP could bug you a lot. If you want it to be like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it might bother you occasionally. If you want combat in your game to be like The Princess Bride, you'll be just fine with the D&D HP system. All of those are entertaining works of art, so you're no better or worse for preferring your D&D combat to be like one rather than the others. And if you've got a high tolerance for inconsistency? Then it doesn't really matter what kind of book or movie you want your combat to imitate, because you can just ignore the disconnect. It all depends on the tastes of the player.


D&D is a fantasy movie -- not a documentary.

And that's a false dichotomy. ;)

There are many grades of verisimilitude within the desgination 'fantasy' and there are many shades of grey in between totally surreal fantasy at one extreme and a super-realistic medieval history documentary at the other extreme. Few people's tastes will fall at one of the extremes--most will fall somewhere in the middle.

[loseth]

Note that "unable to grasp" is not necessarily tied to intelligence. As your sig explains, intelligence is overrated when it comes to understanding. Likewise, "unwilling to grasp" is not necessarily tied to being well-adjusted. I'm "unwilling to grasp" many things (e.g. heavy metal music, baseball, etc.) but am reasonably well adjusted.

If 'unable/unwilling to grasp' is basically being used as a synonym for 'doesn't personally like/enjoy,' then I totally agree with you. :D

[Lizard]

For the 5th or 6th time (depend on your reckoning), the designers attempt to define HP as being not-literal measurements of a character's physical damage capacity. Maybe, just maybe, this time they'll actually achieve this goal where previous editions failed.

Good luck with that.

This is a case where the believability of the game falls entirely on the narrative skill of the DM, and, sadly, that's something which is almost impossible to teach.

[loseth]

This is a case where the believability of the game falls entirely on the narrative skill of the DM...

Or on the ability of a group to come up with a few appropriate houserules that adjust the HP system to their taste, which is--fortunately--something a group/GM can easily get help with.

[Nahat Anoj]

Falling has rules for how many hp you lose. Am I losing my confidence because I fell a certain distance? Perhaps my luck got lowered?

Poison is clearly sapping my luck and willpower to overcome a situation, right?
IMO, you put too much importance on trying to effectively model "reality." I have no problem interpreting falling damage or poison damage as a conglomerate of physical wounds, exhaustion, exertion, "lowered" luck, lost favor of the gods, or what have you.

You can say to ignore all the times when hp are about damage, but that's the problem--you have to ignore all the times hps are about damage.
The concept of hps is very fluid to me. I am comfortable interpreting them in different ways for different sorts of damage from one moment to the next. It doesn't break the game for me.

One has to wonder why, if hps represent strength of will (amongst other things), you don't get an hp bonus from a high Wis score or perhaps from a high Cha score due to high force of personality, as opposed to only getting it from a score that implicitly is tied to you being able to take damage.
People often refer to Wisdom as "mental Con." You could also refer to Con as "physical Wis." Con can represent your body's "will" to remain anchored to the mortal realm and to "ignore" ailments. Usually this manifests as good physical health, but you could narrate it however you want (this is not the traditional way to narrate it, I will admit).

[Icon]

IMO, you put too much importance on trying to effectively model "reality." I have no problem interpreting falling damage or poison damage as a conglomerate of physical wounds, exhaustion, exertion, "lowered" luck, lost favor of the gods, or what have you.

IMO you don't get it.

The point is that all the other things that go into hps do not end up lowering your hp when those things are negatively impacted, putting to a lie that hps are all those other things.

Something saps your will to go on, your hps don't change.

Something curses you with bad luck, your hps don't change.

The thing that changes your hps time and time again is physical damage, even though hps are not supposed to represent physical damage.

[Nahat Anoj]

The thing that changes your hps time and time again is physical damage, even though hps are not supposed to represent physical damage.
I do see where you're coming from, and I admit that even I tend to associate hp loss with more with physical damage than with mental or spiritual damage. But to some degree I see physical, mental, and spiritual things as having some overlap, so it works for me.

And having said that, I can see an idea for a martial controller who does "area attacks" by hurling insults and curses, thereby shaking his opponents' wills and reducing their hitpoints. Maybe such a class will one day exist in 4e?

[Lizard]

IMO you don't get it.

The point is that all the other things that go into hps do not end up lowering your hp when those things are negatively impacted, putting to a lie that hps are all those other things.

Something saps your will to go on, your hps don't change.

Something curses you with bad luck, your hps don't change.

The thing that changes your hps time and time again is physical damage, even though hps are not supposed to represent physical damage.

Stupid rules about rings don't bother you.

Stupid rules about hit points don't bother me.

So it goes.

You have some interesting points, though -- what if you had to make a Will save to benefit from a Heal spell? Or from some of them? Forex, a cleric magically heals you. That's magic, it works no matter what. But a Warlord says "Get out there and FIGHT, you PANSY!", and you have to make a will save in order to muster your courage and keep going (heal damage).

Ooooh...I like this...

[Icon]

I do see where you're coming from, and I admit that even I tend to associate hp loss with more with physical damage than with mental or spiritual damage. But to some degree I see physical, mental, and spiritual things as having some overlap, so it works for me.

But you can't see why it doesn't work for others?

Because if I apply mighty magics and blast a person's mind out of existence (so no force of will or personality is left), and then apply curses to negate any luck he has, if he had 100 hp before the process he still has 100 hp even though he is utterly devoid of luck, will, or any other contributing factor to his hp total.

It is part of the reason I really had hoped they might go to a state change system ala Mutants and Masterminds for handling health in 4e.

[Icon]

Stupid rules about rings don't bother you.

Hps don't bother me either, at least not enough to keep me from playing the game.


The point here, as oppose the one you tried to set up, is that I am arguing that there is a disconnect.

As goes rings, I did not debate that there was a disconnect. Feel free to read what I actually am saying as opposed to spinning to some creation of your own.

[BlackSheep]

It is part of the reason I really had hoped they might go to a state change system ala Mutants and Masterminds for handling health in 4e.
Have they confirmed whether a SWSE-style condition track will be in 4E?

Because while that's an addition to HP rather than a substitute, it does allow you to incapacitate someone by magically shredding their will or cowing them into submission, as well as by beating them into unconsciousness with a stick.

[Beginning of the End]

Oh, I wish it were true. But, based on past experience, I'm 99% sure that they'll fail again because they won't follow through with the minor rules tweaks (falling damage, poison, natural healing, etc.) and terminology changes ('cure serious wounds' --> 'major invigoration'; 'hit your opponent' --> 'succcessfully press your attack'; 'take X points damage' --> 'lose X HP'; etc.) that would stop the average Joe player from getting the mixed message that, 'In one tiny paragraph hidden away in the PHB we're going to tell you that HP don't (for the most part) represent taking physical punishment, but then throughout the rest of the game we're going to consistently treat HP, in terms of terminology and game mechanics, as if they did in fact represent real physical damage.'

3rd Edition is (almost) perfectly consistent in this regard.

1 hit point of damage always represents a physical wound. However, the severity of that wound depends on how many hit points the victim has.

For a character with 1 hp, then 1 hp of damage represents a serious wound -- a punctured lung, a broken leg, or something of that ilk.

For a character with 10 hp, then 1 hp of damage represents a meaningful wound -- a deep cut or a broken rib.

For a character with 100 hp, then 1 hp of damage represents an essentially inconsequential wound -- a scratch, a bruise, or the like.

The reason a particular character has fewer or more hit points (and, thus, varying the severity of any given wound they receive) is abstracted. For some characters its skill; others luck; others physical toughness; others divine grace; others magical protection; and so forth. For most PCs, its some combination of all these things.

The only inconsistency that remains are the cure spells, which -- unlike the natural healing mechanics -- don't scale with level. This is a legacy issue (i.e. sacred cow) and completely gamist in its origin. But if you fixed those spells to scale with level, then the system works with perfect consistency.

However, if you go with the completely untenable idea that "sometimes you take hit point damage without suffering a wound", then the entire system falls apart. So if it's true that 4th Edition is embracing that interpretation of hit points, then it's rather unfortunate.

If they had to embrace one of the two major hit point fallacies, I'd actually prefer it if they embraced the other one: 1 hp of damage = 1 hp of damage = 1 hp of damage, so if you've been hit by a sword 3 times it means you've been stabbed through the heart 3 times and yet, somehow, you're still alive!

[Pillsy]

However, if you go with the completely untenable idea that "sometimes you take hit point damage without suffering a wound", then the entire system falls apart.
This may be obvious to you, but it's not obvious to me. If they were keeping a bigger slice of the older edition's mechanics WRT healing, I'd agree, but they aren't. Sure, under the old system, where the only thing that would heal you was magic, medical treatment or bed rest, it was hard to see how they could measure "determination" and the like, but now that an inspiring speech can do it, I think the abstraction is pretty different, but not necessarily worse.

Indeed, a lot of the bigger conceptual difficulties with doing things that way seem to have been ameliorated by the new "model" they have for various abilities. You only get so much luck, determination and divine favor to last you through the day (or the fight) after all.

This is one area where we need to see a bit more of the system to say for sure, though.

[Nahat Anoj]

But you can't see why it doesn't work for others?

Because if I apply mighty magics and blast a person's mind out of existence (so no force of will or personality is left), and then apply curses to negate any luck he has, if he had 100 hp before the process he still has 100 hp even though he is utterly devoid of luck, will, or any other contributing factor to his hp total.
I'd have no problem with a mindblast that does hp damage (it sounds like what a mind flayer, actually) or curses which do damage instead of inflicting conditions. I do agree that D&D has rarely handled things that way, but I don't think they are beyond the realm of what hps can explain. I also don't have a problem with curses or mind attacks which inflict conditions, nor do I have a problem with physical attacks which inflict conditions.

It is part of the reason I really had hoped they might go to a state change system ala Mutants and Masterminds for handling health in 4e.
I enjoy M&M, but I find the simplicity of hps to be much more desireable than M&M's toughness save system.

[wdarkk]

I think of hit points as maybe an action movie thing.

In Die Hard, Bruce Willis can survive falling 30 feet (or explosions, or getting shot in the gut) and nameless grunt 53 can't. It's a sort of "fuck you, I'm still moving" thing.

[eugee]

I like hit points. I remember running Powers & Perils before, and the combat was... needlessly complex.

I get that there's a disconnect: there's an obscure paragraph that says, "Hit points are more than just physical health." Then the only things that reduce hit points are physical damage. I just don't care. If I want to argue why it's stupid, archaic, or broken, I just have to read it that way. But if I want to read it as, "So when the dragon claws you for 10 of your 120 hit points, he nicked you, he's caught your pack and thrown you off balance, it didn't get through your armor and you're suffering the impact of it. I'm reading: "You're 10 damage closer to 0."

Does it rely on my narrative? It can. Some games you just say, "You take 10 slashing damage from the dragon's claw." Others (me included) say, "The dragon reaches out for you faster than you expected something that big to be able to, and swipes at you. Your shield prevents you from being sliced in half, but you can feel the sticky wetness of a fresh cut running down your side. (You take 10 damage.)"

So if I can read that into the damage roll, why can't I read that Cure Moderate Wounds restores hit points? I, personally, don't give a shit was hit points are, just that this spell gives some of them back.

I'm just not understanding why I have to read, "Everything that can hurt you has to attack your hit points." I also don't see the need to read, "The sword did 10 damage to you." to mean that you've been run through. If you have 8 hit points--run through is good. If you have 1 hp left when you get hit--lopped your frickin' head off is more like it.

But again, saying that's how I read it doesn't mean someone else is wrong for reading it differently. My way is right to me, and it sure makes the game feel right, and not needlessly complex. There's Powers & Perils for that.

[Pillsy]

So if I can read that into the damage roll, why can't I read that Cure Moderate Wounds restores hit points?
You can. The baffling part is that cure light wounds will fix Wimpy the Dirt Farmer after he gets a sword through the lungs, but will barely fix one of Sir Meathead the Manly's paper cuts. You'd think, if anything, it would be the other way around.

[Tetnahkshem]

I like hit points. I remember running Powers & Perils before, and the combat was... needlessly complex.

I get that there's a disconnect: there's an obscure paragraph that says, "Hit points are more than just physical health." Then the only things that reduce hit points are physical damage. I just don't care. If I want to argue why it's stupid, archaic, or broken, I just have to read it that way. But if I want to read it as, "So when the dragon claws you for 10 of your 120 hit points, he nicked you, he's caught your pack and thrown you off balance, it didn't get through your armor and you're suffering the impact of it. I'm reading: "You're 10 damage closer to 0."

Does it rely on my narrative? It can. Some games you just say, "You take 10 slashing damage from the dragon's claw." Others (me included) say, "The dragon reaches out for you faster than you expected something that big to be able to, and swipes at you. Your shield prevents you from being sliced in half, but you can feel the sticky wetness of a fresh cut running down your side. (You take 10 damage.)"

So if I can read that into the damage roll, why can't I read that Cure Moderate Wounds restores hit points? I, personally, don't give a shit was hit points are, just that this spell gives some of them back.

I'm just not understanding why I have to read, "Everything that can hurt you has to attack your hit points." I also don't see the need to read, "The sword did 10 damage to you." to mean that you've been run through. If you have 8 hit points--run through is good. If you have 1 hp left when you get hit--lopped your frickin' head off is more like it.

But again, saying that's how I read it doesn't mean someone else is wrong for reading it differently. My way is right to me, and it sure makes the game feel right, and not needlessly complex. There's Powers & Perils for that.

I totally agree. HPs are supposed to be abstract. However you want to flavor it, at the end of the day, you're closer or farther away from 0 (or -10).

If you want to describe your hero as being demigods that can ignore mortal injuries up to a point, great. If you want to describe a varying mix of luck, fatigue and physical damage, go for it. Either way, I think the important thing is to be on the same page as the DM so that depending on who gets to describe the effects of a given attack, you don't end up with mismatched expectations.

Also, there are effects that impact hps beyond merely inflicting or taking away raw physical wounds. Mostly, from what I've seen, they end up being inspirational type deals that give you temporary hps. But, there's nothing really stopping you from coming up with a new spell (or hell, just reflavoring existing ones) that lowers your hps by say, swaying your fate towards favoring doom instead of physically burning you with a fireball.

Similarly, take clerical curative spells and let them be flavored as blessings/benedictions/whatever to respond to the appropriate hp damage be it raw physical wounds, luck, fatigue, whatever. That is, you don't need to memorize 3 different types of Cure X Wounds, Cure X Fatigue, Cure X Luck, etc. Just memorize the cure x wound spell and flavor it as an appropriate prayer when you cast it. Hell, 3.X clerics get spontaneous curative magic anyway. Be creative and throw in your deities portfolio flavor.

[Tetnahkshem]

You can. The baffling part is that cure light wounds will fix Wimpy the Dirt Farmer after he gets a sword through the lungs, but will barely fix one of Sir Meathead the Manly's paper cuts. You'd think, if anything, it would be the other way around.

I think this comes down to which way you prefer things.

If you're in the "hps is only pure physical damage crowd", then yeah, it's a little odd, but you're probably well served going with one of those ideas I've seen in some other threads on this board like, "Over the course of his adventuring career, Sir Meathead has taken so many wounds, and had curative magic used on him so much that, on the one hand, he's supernaturally resistant to wounds that would kill a "mere mortal" but he needs ever increasing amounts of curative magic to get fully healed".

If you're in the "hps can be a lot of different things, abstractly" crowd, then his paper cut gets healed, but you account for his lower current narrative hps when you next apply damage. Similarly, another cleric could along and bless Sir Meathead with something like the favorable gaze of his deity or whatever to further raise Sir Meathead's hp total towards the max written on the character sheet (which unless you're breaking the 4th wall, none of the characters can see anyhow).

[loseth]

3rd Edition is (almost) perfectly consistent in this regard.

1 hit point of damage always represents a physical wound. However, the severity of that wound depends on how many hit points the victim has.

For a character with 1 hp, then 1 hp of damage represents a serious wound -- a punctured lung, a broken leg, or something of that ilk.

For a character with 10 hp, then 1 hp of damage represents a meaningful wound -- a deep cut or a broken rib.

For a character with 100 hp, then 1 hp of damage represents an essentially inconsequential wound -- a scratch, a bruise, or the like.


This is definitely more consistent, although it does come at the cost of suspension of disbelief in the narrative and also limits narrative possibilities considerably. You get all sorts of weird effects attacking a pixie with an axe ('I've "scratched" it four times?! The axe blade wieghs 20 times more than the pixie does!') or a ranger shooting well enough to scratch a druid 5 times in a row with his arrows, but not well enough to actually hit the druid. Or situations like...

GM: 'The goblin slashes with his poison dagger and scratches you! Let's have a FORT save off you!'

Player: 'Through my full plate? Again?!'

GM: 'Well...he scratched you through your visor.'

Player: 'Is that where he scratched me the other 7 times he hit me?'

GM: 'Erm, yes.'

Player: 'But my visor's just got thin vertical openings--how can he slash me through that?'

GM: 'OK, so he pokes you through your visor with the tip of his dagger.'

Player: 'He's poked me 8 times? Can he even reach my visor?'

GM: 'Well...he jumps up really high every time he pokes you through your visor. Or...no...wait! I've got it! He slashed through the mail in your knee joint!'

Player: 'That opening's, like, 1cm wide. He did that eight times? '

GM:'OK, well...let's call it two in each elbow and two in each knee.'

Player: 'And he can slash hard enough and accurately enough to cut through the steel mail in the 1cm openings at my joints, but not well enough to hurt me?'

GM: 'Yes...you see cutting through the mail takes most of the force out of the blow.'

Player: 'Twice at each joint? Didn't he slash through it the first time?'

GM: 'OK, OK, I've got it now: he just manages to slash through the mail, but not hard enough to hurt you badly, once at each elbow joint, once at each knee joint, once at each ankle joint and once at each wrist joint. Yeah, that's it!'

Admittedly, many people aren't bothered by such things, and situations like the ones I outlined above will be rare in practice. However, my personal preference is still for making the few minor tweaks necessary to make more abstract HP work. I think it allows the narrative to become more varied, more believable and more exciting.


The only inconsistency that remains are the cure spells...


There's also falling, non-lethal damage from suffocation, environmental effects like damage from cold, and probably others I've forgotten.

I agree that the cure spells are most likely a legacy thing, but I think that's true of a lot of stuff with hit points. If the WOTC designers were approaching it without any sacred cows, I bet they could fix it inside of a few hours.

[The Wyzard]

It'd be pretty cool if Poison abilities were mostly usable only on Bloodied targets - then we could say you'd started taking appreciable physical damage only when you were bloodied.

[Pillsy]

D&D has a tendency to crumble extra pretty badly when confronted edge cases. Most of the situations where the hp model gets daffiest are edge cases, where really weak NPCs are beating on each other[1], or a high level character gets caught in a fight without armor, or you've got a bunch of insanely trashy low-level monsters going up against a character who's much higher level than they are.

Or someone falls off a high building. OK, maybe that shouldn't be an edge case, but hey.

The other possibility is just freaky ass luck. The character briefly ponders the weird reversals of fate that led him to being grazed by five arrows in a row, and then gets back to the killing and looting. The freaky ass luck happens in pretty much any game, and even happens in real life from time to time.

[1] The infamous house cat v. commoner death match!

[OldKentuckyShark]

It'd be pretty cool if Poison abilities were mostly usable only on Bloodied targets - then we could say you'd started taking appreciable physical damage only when you were bloodied.

In one of the example DND 4e mini abilities, a drow's "poisoned weapon" ability caused them to do an extra 5 damage vs. bloodied targets. So, maybe.

[Pete Whalley]

One thing I'm curious about. Who is Ceti quoting in the OP? I see it came from ENWorld, but are we reading something from a 4e developer, or the musings of J. Random Poster?

As I say, just curious.

Oh, and for the record I've always treated Hit Points as a real measure of physical toughness. 10th level characters really can survive hideous amounts of bloody terror to the body, plummet 50' and walk away with barely a limp and all the like. It makes for some fun gaming- especially moments such as the dwarven cleric being smashed to the ground by a massive catapulted boulder, only to roll it off and scream "Right! That's it! You're for it now!" (In his very best Basil Fawlty voice, of course).

[Nahat Anoj]

One thing I'm curious about. Who is Ceti quoting in the OP? I see it came from ENWorld, but are we reading something from a 4e developer, or the musings of J. Random Poster?
Chris Sims, a developer for 4e. His EN World handle is "Khur."

[The Wyzard]

Oh, and for the record I've always treated Hit Points as a real measure of physical toughness. 10th level characters really can survive hideous amounts of bloody terror to the body, plummet 50' and walk away with barely a limp and all the like. It makes for some fun gaming- especially moments such as the dwarven cleric being smashed to the ground by a massive catapulted boulder, only to roll it off and scream "Right! That's it! You're for it now!" (In his very best Basil Fawlty voice, of course).

This is also cool. It goes along with one of my planned in-game metaphysics as well.

[Old Geezer]

For the 5th or 6th time (depend on your reckoning), the designers attempt to define HP as being not-literal measurements of a character's physical damage capacity. Maybe, just maybe, this time they'll actually achieve this goal where previous editions failed.

No.

The original brown-box edition stated this clearly, and less than a year after publication people were already treating it like "You can stab a 10th level guy in the heart nine times and he's OK."

The cause, I believe, is explained by "Wizard's First Rule".

[Pillsy]

The original brown-box edition stated this clearly, and less than a year after publication people were already treating it like "You can stab a 10th level guy in the heart nine times and he's OK."
One of the things I find amusing about all these hp misconceptions is that when me and my friends first started playing, we were always baffled by the fact that you could stab a guy in the foot ten times and kill him. :o

[Monkey King]

One of the things I find amusing about all these hp misconceptions is that when me and my friends first started playing, we were always baffled by the fact that you could stab a guy in the foot ten times and kill him. :o
You probably could. There's a lot of blood flow to the extremities. Without any medical attention, ten stab wounds to the foot would probably bleed a guy out.

Falling damage and the wording of "Cure" spells still need to be rethought, though. Those are really the main two places where the abstract HP model falls apart. I think they might be halfway there with the "bloodied" condition. Just require a bigger cure spell for bloodied targets, since you're healing real wounds and not just bruises, and the system makes sense at any level. Grog the Barbarian just gets bruised a lot more than Phil the Commoner before actually taking a sword through the gut.

[Pete Whalley]

Chris Sims, a developer for 4e. His EN World handle is "Khur."

Ok, thanks for that. I reckon I'll ignore it and carry on carrying on with my way though.

This is also cool. It goes along with one of my planned in-game metaphysics as well.

Really? Care to share the details?

The cause, I believe, is explained by "Wizard's First Rule".

I've not read that one (heard too many horror stories about Goodkind), but I'm curious as to what the explanation might be.

[Pillsy]

You probably could. There's a lot of blood flow to the extremities. Without any medical attention, ten stab wounds to the foot would probably bleed a guy out.
These sorts of finer details are often lost on ten-year-olds. :)

[Mortality]

GM: 'The goblin slashes with his poison dagger and scratches you! Let's have a FORT save off you!'
Player: 'Through my full plate? Again?!'
GM: 'Well...he scratched you through your visor.'


Unless... maybe if you're abstracting HP you could abstract the fortitude save too (I mean, both of them are based off Con, right?). So if you make the fortitude save, maybe you didn't actually get scratched (or not badly enough to be poisoned). I realise that's not the literal interpretation of 'fortitude save' that's given, but hey, you're already abstracting hit points.

Also means they aren't shrugging off umpteen doses of the deadliest poison known to man every fight.

[loseth]

Unless... maybe if you're abstracting HP you could abstract the fortitude save too (I mean, both of them are based off Con, right?). So if you make the fortitude save, maybe you didn't actually get scratched (or not badly enough to be poisoned). I realise that's not the literal interpretation of 'fortitude save' that's given, but hey, you're already abstracting hit points.

Also means they aren't shrugging off umpteen doses of the deadliest poison known to man every fight.

Yes, I (and apparently the 4e designers) prefer more abstraction, not less. My example was illustrating a problem inherent in a less abstract version of HP (i.e. one where all HP loss represents physical damage resulting from the attack). If you can abstract HP enough that not every instance of HP loss has to literally be a damaging 'hit', then your narrative possibilities expand considerably.

But that's just my preference. Really, whatever way is the most fun for you is the best way to view HP.

[Mortality]

Yes, I (and apparently the 4e designers) prefer more abstraction, not less. My example was illustrating a problem inherent in a less abstract version of HP (i.e. one where all HP loss represents physical damage resulting from the attack). If you can abstract HP enough that not every instance of HP loss has to literally be a damaging 'hit', then your narrative possibilities expand considerably.

But that's just my preference. Really, whatever way is the most fun for you is the best way to view HP.

Ah, sorry, I thought you were making a slightly different point, in that even if HP are abstract, in order for the fact that a successful attack means you have to save vs. poison, an enemy wielding a poison blade has to injure you every time (because you are making a fortitude save) unless fortitude saves are also abstracted away from being specifically about you resisting the poison you have been affected by.

Unfortunately, I think even people who see HP as an abstract resource are likely to see Fortitude saves as an actual physical thing. I know I do (though I'd never thought about it in those terms). The actual description is a little vague but seems to support that assumption:

These saves measure your ability to stand up to physical punishment or attacks against your vitality and health.

[loseth]

Unfortunately, I think even people who see HP as an abstract resource are likely to see Fortitude saves as an actual physical thing. I know I do (though I'd never thought about it in those terms).

I think so too. I've also often heard the complaint that if a successful FORT save vs. poison weapons means the weapon didn't actually draw blood, then the save should actually be a Reflex save, rather than Fortitude. Personally, I'd like the designers to just re-jigger poison so that it works with abstract HP (where HP loss does not automatically mean an actual hit) and still uses the FORT save in a logical way. One possibility might be that to 'draw blood' and thus force a target to make a poison save, the attacker has to exceed the target's AC by 5 or more; the strength of poison could then be upped slightly to account for the increased difficulty of scoring a 'hit' that will trigger a FORT save vs. poison. But I'm sure the designers could come up with many other clever options.

[DDogwood]

hp as will has been soming that has been around for some time

if I have 152 hp and the orc hits me for 8 points then 9 points then 12 then 22 on a crit have I been stabed 4 times and if so am I still ok to fight on as I have more than 2/3 of my hp left :eek:

You've hit on one of the (many) problems with hit points. According to the rules, a single attack roll doesn't even represent a single attack - it represents a bunch of thrusts, parries, ripostes, and so on. In fact, hitting someone with a sword doesn't even necessarily reflect hitting someone with a sword - it could just as easily be explained as knocking the opponent's shield out of the way with your own sword, and then kicking him in the ribs.

The thing about hit points, and the reason that it's stuck around as a mechanic in so many RPGs (and most video games), is that it is simple and intuitive (at least, intuitive as long as you don't think about it very much). The people who argue that hit points don't make sense are almost always people who have been playing RPGs long enough to start thinking about it. New players usually find hit points much easier to understand and accept than things like AC, to-hit bonuses from Strength, or character level.

I personally like mechanics like the M&M/True20 'damage save', but they are a lot harder to use than hit points (especially for new players). I expect Hit Points will be a core part of D&D forever, simply because playability is more important than consistency.

[Icon]

I personally like mechanics like the M&M/True20 'damage save', but they are a lot harder to use than hit points (especially for new players).

I would disagree that it is much harder to use, but it lacks the simplicity of the "gas gauge" approach to character health--"Oh, I've got a quarter tank left, good enough for a another few swings."

[Old Geezer]

I've not read that one (heard too many horror stories about Goodkind), but I'm curious as to what the explanation might be.


"Wizard's first rule is, 'people are stupid'. "

Which is my explanation for why people treat 10 HD as 9 stabs in the heart and you're ok, despite every edition of the rules including the original in 1973 explicitly stating that this is not so.

Exemption to the above granted to those under the age of 14 at the time they first encountered HP.

[jakspade]

"Wizard's first rule is, 'people are stupid'. "

Which is my explanation for why people treat 10 HD as 9 stabs in the heart and you're ok, despite every edition of the rules including the original in 1973 explicitly stating that this is not so.

The way HPs "read" and how they are played are usually two different things. The D&D books might read that "hit points aren't really signs of damage", but the game might play completely contrary to what the rules state.

The definition and implementation of said rules don't meet with people's expectations. Mine included.

jak

[Pillsy]

The way HPs "read" and how they are played are usually two different things. The D&D books might read that "hit points aren't really signs of damage", but the game might play completely contrary to what the rules state.
Well, yeah. But the books also don't quite say that hps aren't signs of physical damage.

What they say (as of 3e, at least) is that hps all represent physical damage, but just how much physical damage they represent is not specified. The only things you can be sure of is that they don't represent enough damage to render you hors d'combat, and that they don't represent something that doesn't hurt you at all. I'm not even sure that will change in 4e.

[Icon]

Well, yeah. But the books also don't quite say that hps aren't signs of physical damage.

At one point it was very explicitly stated (1st ed DMG I believe). If that is not repeated somewhere in 3rd ed I'd been surprised.

[Turloigh]

In Die Hard, Bruce Willis can survive falling 30 feet (or explosions, or getting shot in the gut) and nameless grunt 53 can't.
WAS he really shot in the gut, even if the attack roll overcame his armor class and the weapon caused damage to him?

I think that is an important question, but the way hit points work, I really don't have a clue.

[The Wyzard]

Really? Care to share the details?


I've posted about this before, but I do think it's kinda cool. I originally wrote this when I saw E6. The idea is that the normal world of D&D runs by E6. Fifth or sixth level is the upper limit of human ability, and that usually in NPC classes. PCs, and some NPCs (not necessarily "important" ones, there are lots of kings that aren't high level) break this level. It's a matter of both capability and choice. In order to break the limits of human achievement, you have to do something outside of your station, in a metaphysical sense. You break the bounds of what your destiny should have been, and take on that promethean fire that lets you be more than human. It's inherently transgressive against the order of the world, and acts as a sort of pressure release valve for the PC races.

I originally conceived of using it in combination with the Living Dungeons idea - delving into the heart of an alien entity and killing it corresponds in kind of cool ways with the Hero's Journey, and it also means that I don't have to require the PCs to do anything they wouldn't be doing anyway. However, there's an explicit statement that they have, when they hit seventh level, edged slightly beyond the bounds of mortality.

And that's reflected by the fact that they can fall huge distances, dodge blows that they couldn't have seen coming, and cast earth-shattering magics, despite being apparently normal humans. They carry the promethean fire inside them, and are no longer bound by the constraints of mortal beings. It's expended as it's exerted, and recharges over time. High-level characters have more than low-level characters.

I may rewrite this somewhat for 4E, but the idea is that there isn't such a thing as a fifteenth-level commoner. They just don't exist. Going out and doing crazy stuff is a prerequisite for being over level five or six or so - people who stay within their destiny just don't get those kinds of abilities.

I think 4E might actually represent this better than 3.x, with the bloodied rules, level-based AC, and even untrained skills increasing (if it's like SAGA.) Then there is going to be a defined point where the PC's spirit is guttering and they're starting to get cut up (they could probably still lose more blood than a normal person), all their capabilities will be slowly raised even without them trying, until they're all-around superhuman, and they're just supernaturally hard to land any kind of blow on.

As an aside: I think part of the reason different people like different things in combat systems is that we have different assumptions about what combat in an RPG should look like. Some of us have these impressions informed by martial arts or SCA experience, some of us have been in a shit-ton of fights or have military training/experience, some of us have just seen a lot of action movies.

Part of the challenge here is fitting the HP model to what we want the fight to look like. One of my favorite fight scenes ever is at the end of Rob Roy. I know that as soon as I start reading 4E, I'm going to be trying to mechanize that duel in my head, and figure out how it "works" in that game, whether I want to or not. To some extent, we can attenuate the tendency to argue about it by figuring out that, essentially, we all have different fight scenes in our head when we're talking about the HP abstraction and trying to make it fit.

I don't have any particular problem saying that Rob Roy was losing a lot of hit points and ended up Bloodied way before Archibald, because Rob Roy was a fighter who had a lot of HP to lose and Archibald was some kind of a rogue or swashbuckler with a crazy AC. But when that critical (or grapple check? or, perhaps, per-day power?) came down, the show was pretty much over.

"Wizard's first rule is, 'people are stupid'. "


Genius.

[Pillsy]

At one point it was very explicitly stated (1st ed DMG I believe). If that is not repeated somewhere in 3rd ed I'd been surprised.
Then evidently it's changed in 3rd edition, then, at least based on the way the glossary in the PHB describes them.

[randar23rhenn]

I like those ideas, it's just so friggin hard to incorporate though.

How does one, as a DM, explain to their players any of these concepts? I mean I'm not even sure I get it myself. If your attack roll beats AC, and then does damage... how is that not physical punishment?

I'm fairly bad at staging encounters myself. I mean I've had epic battles, but most of my campaigns are investigation and storyline... not dungeons and battles. So this element appeals to me, but seems so hard to do.

How does one determine "Well you took a hit, but it only made you more angry."?

How does a DM decide what to do about all this?

[Lizard]

I like those ideas, it's just so friggin hard to incorporate though.

How does one, as a DM, explain to their players any of these concepts? I mean I'm not even sure I get it myself. If your attack roll beats AC, and then does damage... how is that not physical punishment?


It's the degree of punishment and the current state. Assume a hit for 5 points of damage.

At 55 hit points out of 60? "The attack dents your armor a little. Your shoulder is bruised."

At 30 hit points out of 60? "The sword cuts down hard. You deflect part of it with your shield, but you still get a nasty gash along one leg. You feel hot blood trickle down your leg and pool on the ground below."

At 10 hit points out of 60? "The blow easily slips past your guard and pierces your shoulder, narrowly missing your lung. Your vision swims for a second and you know death is breathing hard on your shoulder."

[Bradford C. Walker]

No.

The original brown-box edition stated this clearly, and less than a year after publication people were already treating it like "You can stab a 10th level guy in the heart nine times and he's OK."

The cause, I believe, is explained by "Wizard's First Rule".
There's a big reason for the problem, and that's because the fluff--the definition--never matched the crunch. So far, it looks like the crunch may actually do what the fluff text claims this time; that alone would be a significant improvement.

[Zeea]

My game system has "Advantage Points" instead of hitpoints, and over and over uses convoluted, precise language to remind people that losing AP doesn't necessarily represent physical injury, and has several paragraphs consisting mostly of sentences saying the same thing, and then when running the game I'll mention it over and over again, and then have examples of NPCs in play attacking each other with non-damaging attacks and cause AP loss...

...and some people STILL won't get it.

So, yeah, I agree with Old Geezer's explanation and paraphrase of Wizard's First Rule. (It's actually something close to "People will believe something if they want it to be true or they fear it might be true." But it's demonstrated as "people are stupid" when a wizard, without using magic, manages to convince an angry mob of men that he's physically taken their sexual organs away with magic to punish them and won't give them their parts back unless they disperse, and they believe him even when they check themselves. And yes, Goodkind is a dick but the first book was mostly alright.)

EDIT: And yes, D&D has lots of contradictions about this, but you'd think that people that always whine about how HP is unrealistic would at least bother to reread the little section on what hitpoints really are before posting a long rant about them.

[jakspade]

EDIT: And yes, D&D has lots of contradictions about this, but you'd think that people that always whine about how HP is unrealistic would at least bother to reread the little section on what hitpoints really are before posting a long rant about them.

He has the right to rant, just like you have the right to "enlighten us" on the true meaning of HPs. Of course, those of us who dislike the Hit Point system can only dream that the game that we hope to spend our hard earned money on would work the way we want it to right out of the box.

Wizards of the Coast hasn't gotten any money from me for 3.5 (not after I spent big money on 3.0), and they probably won't get any from me for 4e. And, yes, it's because of the contradictions. But you know, hey, I'm voting with my money.

jak

[JSpektr]

It seems pretty easy to fix hps to me.

You get your hitpoints at first level. That's it.

Those are your physical health. Anyone can die from a stab wound, fire, falling off a roof, etc.

Heroic PCs get "fate points" each level after 1st. They can spend these points to counter events that would have killed them. Did someone throw a fireball at you? Spend fate to reduce the 20 points of damage that would have reduced you to ash to zero points of damage. Thanks to your insane luck, you got behind a wall at the last second.

The major difference is it would muck up healing, since Cure Light Wounds is all anyone would ever need. Replace the other healing spells with "Restore Divine Favor" and presto, you're done.

Almost no mechanical changes to the game, but it makes completely implicit what has been previously implied, in a way that no one can get confused about.

[Ferrinus]

I'm strongly suspicious that there are no "you regain 5 hp" healing spells in the game anymore. It could be that all healing powers are of the "Character uses one of his healing surges" style, and healing surges, like in Star Wars Saga, always restore a percentage of your max hp.

Advanced healing powers could actually replenish a target's surges or allow him to use two at once or something.

[Beginning of the End]

This may be obvious to you, but it's not obvious to me. If they were keeping a bigger slice of the older edition's mechanics WRT healing, I'd agree, but they aren't. Sure, under the old system, where the only thing that would heal you was magic, medical treatment or bed rest, it was hard to see how they could measure "determination" and the like, but now that an inspiring speech can do it, I think the abstraction is pretty different, but not necessarily worse.

The problem is that you end up with poison being delivered despite the blow missing entirely. Or characters falling over dead not because they've ever suffered a single injury, but because they've run out of luck.

And there's really no way to fix that. In fact, if you start throwing in mechanics which EXPLICITLY model this "you lost hit points despite not taking a physical blow", then you're only going to end up with more of these absurd "death by winding" scenarios.

There's also falling, non-lethal damage from suffocation, environmental effects like damage from cold, and probably others I've forgotten.

None of those things cause problems. Why? Because those can all be explained by a character being tougher, luckier, more skilled, benefiting from divine grace, or some combination of all of the above.

It'd be pretty cool if Poison abilities were mostly usable only on Bloodied targets - then we could say you'd started taking appreciable physical damage only when you were bloodied.

This type of mechanic just makes it worse. Because you've gone from the sniper knowing that, because he saw the wizard cast a fireball, there's no way he can kill him with his first shot, to the sniper knowing that he can't even hit him with the first shot.

Are there problems when you take the existing abstraction of hit points and try to intuit predictable specificity out of them? Of course. That's the nature of an abstraction. But the absurdities become much worse when you try to switch that abstraction to "sometimes you lose hit points even when the other guy misses".

[KujakuDM]

I play lots of console games, so abstraction of HP or lifebars has never been a problem to me.

[Logomachist]

I think WyzardWhately had the right idea in trying to solve the mystery of HP by adding in a layer of metaphysics.

Suppose they just renamed HP "chi" wouldn't that mostly solve the problem? Chi being a force tied to your health but encompessing more than just health.

If you die, you're out of chi and if you run out of chi you die. But you can lose chi through magic, through wounds, through exhaustion, age or even abaondonment.... modeling the cliche case of "dying of a broken heart".

A character with 35 of 70 Chi may be a physically healthy barbarian who has seen horrors and has lost his nerve and as a result, or a wizened elven wizard in poor health but boundless resolve.

Any character who only has 5 chi would be physically cured by a cure spell, but the the hardy barbarian would not be helped much because he's already physically healthy, and the wizard would not be helped much becuase, although he is physically cured, his existing endurance came from his spirit, not his health.

Course... they're obviously not doing that if they're just saying "Let the GM decide!". But people who ignore the "what HPs mean" paragraph would not easily ignore an explination of chi tied to setting fluff and it successfully models both characters who can be stabbed in the heart 9 times and don't die, and physically healthy characters who suffer serious damage.

[Mortality]

Oh, and for the record I've always treated Hit Points as a real measure of physical toughness. 10th level characters really can survive hideous amounts of bloody terror to the body, plummet 50' and walk away with barely a limp and all the like. It makes for some fun gaming- especially moments such as the dwarven cleric being smashed to the ground by a massive catapulted boulder, only to roll it off and scream "Right! That's it! You're for it now!" (In his very best Basil Fawlty voice, of course).

Random inspiration hit last night (several miles from a keyboard...)

Moving on from this idea, with a little modification, how about a hit is a hit, but HP represent what stops you dying from that hit, as determined by the player (or GM, for NPCs). NB Not neccesarily the best suggestion for your more serious campaigns.

So for a Barbarian, the above is true, they can take a boulder to the face and keep on ticking. For a warrior, maybe the damage is all to their armour, the solidest of blows doing little but cause a dent and some sparks.
A wizard holds himself together with magical energy ("Damn, broken arm. Tenser's emergency splint!"), a Cleric is restored or protected by the power of his god, a Rogue rolls with the punches and a Necromancer, well, just keeps going.

As an aside, some of the above might explain why higher level characters need more healing.

Wizard: "Man, am I beat up. Got some divine power spare?"
Cleric: "Sure, what's wrong?"
W: "My lungs have collapsed."
C: "What?"
W: "Yeah, lungs collapsed, that demon caught me on the backhand."
C: "How are you even..."
W: "Talking? I'm not. Illusion. Now hurry up, I've got a box of force in my ribcage stopping any more damage but if I fall asleep it'll fade and I die, so get with the healing..."

[Ratpick]

Isn't this what they did in 3e as well? I remember reading it in the books someplace.
Anyway, with HPs=morale... 4e is not like WoW, it is like LOTRO! :p

My thoughts exactly. :D

Now that I think about it, I'd really like HP to represent a character's fighting spirit (Yes, I've been watching Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann). I might actually have to make my first 4e character a Tiefling Warlord named Aniki who refreshes his comrades' hit points (i.e. fighting spirit/spiral energy) by making long, macho speaches. :D

[vivsavage]

Inflating hit points is never going to achieve any logical sense. It's one of those "grandfathered' concepts that D&D still hangs onto, even though it's a very outdated concept. Then again, D&D is still a game that lags behind more modern game development in so many ways - they're now just adding in the "bloodied" penalty for losing HP even though other games have been doing it for 20+ years. Non-restrictive skills and such were heralded as a major breakthrough in 3e even though that had been done by other games for ages as well. I'm excited about 4e but my guess is that it will still be adding things that other RPGs have been doing for years. Maybe by the time 5e rolls around they'll add virtues & flaws and get rid of levels.

[Scoundrel]

Random inspiration hit last night (several miles from a keyboard...)

Moving on from this idea, with a little modification, how about a hit is a hit, but HP represent what stops you dying from that hit, as determined by the player (or GM, for NPCs). NB Not neccesarily the best suggestion for your more serious campaigns.

So for a Barbarian, the above is true, they can take a boulder to the face and keep on ticking. For a warrior, maybe the damage is all to their armour, the solidest of blows doing little but cause a dent and some sparks.
A wizard holds himself together with magical energy ("Damn, broken arm. Tenser's emergency splint!"), a Cleric is restored or protected by the power of his god, a Rogue rolls with the punches and a Necromancer, well, just keeps going.

As an aside, some of the above might explain why higher level characters need more healing.

Wizard: "Man, am I beat up. Got some divine power spare?"
Cleric: "Sure, what's wrong?"
W: "My lungs have collapsed."
C: "What?"
W: "Yeah, lungs collapsed, that demon caught me on the backhand."
C: "How are you even..."
W: "Talking? I'm not. Illusion. Now hurry up, I've got a box of force in my ribcage stopping any more damage but if I fall asleep it'll fade and I die, so get with the healing..."


I just wanted to say that that was flat fucking awesome. I could totally see that in a higher-level D&D game.

Here's my two coppers: If a SWSE style condidtion track is used, why not let THAT be actual physical woundage, and let HP equal the wacky ability to turn a sucking chest wound into a 'mere fleshwound?'

[Ranx]

Inflating hit points is never going to achieve any logical sense. It's one of those "grandfathered' concepts that D&D still hangs onto, even though it's a very outdated concept. Then again, D&D is still a game that lags behind more modern game development in so many ways - they're now just adding in the "bloodied" penalty for losing HP even though other games have been doing it for 20+ years. Non-restrictive skills and such were heralded as a major breakthrough in 3e even though that had been done by other games for ages as well. I'm excited about 4e but my guess is that it will still be adding things that other RPGs have been doing for years. Maybe by the time 5e rolls around they'll add virtues & flaws and get rid of levels.

If 'bloodied' is some kind of wound penalty I'll eat my hat. The in-game rationale for inflating hitpoints is irrelevant to their actual purpose, which is to allow higher-level characters to absorb the proportionately more deadly attacks of higher-level foes. It's a system that works well, at least in theory, and it's not outdated just because a bunch of other games with different design goals don't use them.

[Gloombunny]

Bloodied is not a wound penalty. In many ways it's a wound bonus. It also has a negative side in that some of your enemies will have extra abilities to use on you when you're bloodied, but that's not exactly the same as "-2 on rolls because you're wounded".