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Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 03:43 PM
Everyone likes to talk about how hp going out of you aren't actually really representing wounds. Just you getting worn out from fighting, and eventually, that last blow really hits. It sounds good, too, it really does. Dramatic, even.

But see, the problem is, examples in the game system itself don't use this model. They prefer to describe a hit, with blood, pain, the whole bit. Now, I can hear your cries of protest already. "Fluff and rules are separate, you can just refluff it!", you tearfully cry.

Ah, but it's not just fluff. First off, low hp doesn't model tired/exhausted/worn out well at all. You fight just as awesomely as when you started. There are actual conditions like fatigue and exhaustion that do model these concepts, though.

Now, people are going to say "er...they can both be worn out. Er...different KINDS of worn out." or some equally silly thing. This runs into a few obvious problems. First, dodging things results in less hp loss. This makes perfect sense if hp represent your remaining health after being hit. If they represent how worn out you are, it makes no sense. After all, not dodging is easier.

Next up, we have damage reduction. "A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective).". Explain that away as not being actual wounds, eh? In a "tired" system of hp, tiring your opponent out with non-damaging actions and minor hits would be indistinguishable from the effects of DR.

Go on, re-fluffers. Explain to me how hitpoints don't represent being hit.

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 03:44 PM
Because, you see, it results in very strange behavior from weapons, wherein a sword strike from a very strong person might cause an insignificant amount of damage, contradictory to the way swords work.

Furthermore, damage-as-actual-damage results in the same situation that comes up in most video games--namely, wounds are not impediments until the very last one, which destroys you.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 03:47 PM
But very strong people do MORE damage with swords than regular people do with the same weapon, to the same target. Is this not logical? Clearly, all other things being equal, hitting harder is gonna leave a bigger mark.

Now sure, some guys are just so badass they can take a beating before they go down. That's not the fault of hp, it's how levels work. Targetting hp or not, low level things suck vs high level things.

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 03:49 PM
HP also vastly outpaces damage. While at low levels weapons function reasonably, at higher levels they do not, even against foes of the same level.

Now, you could have it both ways. Most hits are glancing blows, that hit hard enough to tire out or cause minor injury, but not enough to impair. This keeps the 'hit' aspect, while still explaining the mechanics of combat.

DeltaEmil
2010-09-03, 03:49 PM
You hit, but the other can deflect your hit narrowly. If you don't hit, or if they have specific parrying abilities, they deflect them much earlier and cooler.

Aside from that, a knive in your eye only does 1d4+strength and other-stuff damage, and nothing more. Puny fighters, you suck so hard.
I mention this to ridicule the entire concept of hit points being real damage that cause blood and scars and terrible wounds.

Your real fleshy hit points are 1 to -9. Everything above 1 is whatever you want to fluff it. Everything below is death.

Sipex
2010-09-03, 03:51 PM
This thread seems like it's only purpose is to start an arguement, maybe reword your first post so it doesn't come off so condescending towards...your opponents (whoever that is?) opinion.

Temotei
2010-09-03, 03:52 PM
Because I said so. I'm the DM! :smalltongue:

Seriously, though, there's more to it than a two-way perspective of tired vs. hit. I'm lazy and describe battles with direct hits when they hit, however, so I'll let others argue. :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 03:53 PM
Now, a knife in the eye sounds like a crit to me. Therefore, it'd do a bit more damage. Pick a bigger weapon if you want to do even more.

But hey, superman can take a BULLET to the eye. Apparently, he has massive DR. So why can't a super-heroic character in a fantasy world do something similar? It's not going to be trivial damage until high levels, which are something the real world explicitly does not have.

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 03:53 PM
Note also that not all hits do damage. Or does the Full Plate work by letting you dodge blows? :smalltongue:

Superman is immune to damage. :smalltongue:

DeltaEmil
2010-09-03, 03:54 PM
This thread and that one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166973) should be merged together.

Skorj
2010-09-03, 03:54 PM
I've never been a fan of D&D-style HP. I don't mind the "full strength at 1 HP" stuff so much - it's merely a simplification to speed play. I fluff that as "you're seriously injured, but we're going to ignore it for game purposes because otherwise battles take to long to run". Sure, that's "meta-fluff", but I'm cool with it.

It's the silly ratio of hit points from low to high levels I've never much liked. I always end up fluffing damage as proportional to HP. A 20th level fighter just "takes less damage" from a sword attack than 1 1st level mage. It's not that he just ignores the wound, it's that HPs represent (to me) the combination of how much damage you can tak, which would be more for a fighter especially in a fantasy world, and basic luck at avoiding damage. Get your sword blow past a 1 Wizzie's guard for 8 HP You connect solidly, and possible cut him in half. Get your sword blow past a 20 fighter's guard for 8 HP? He twists out of the way almost fast enough, and takes only a minor wound.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 03:54 PM
Those get represented by misses. Bounced off the armor, so didn't actually get through to hit you and your squishy insides. Thus, does not cause hp damage.

kamikasei
2010-09-03, 03:55 PM
Everyone likes to talk about how hp going out of you aren't actually really representing wounds. Just you getting worn out from fighting, and eventually, that last blow really hits. It sounds good, too, it really does. Dramatic, even.
I'm not sure I've ever heard that explanation. I've heard it said that hit points represent an abstract ability to avoid taking worse damage, but that's not "getting worn out". "Composure" might be a better way to think of it.

Ah, but it's not just fluff. First off, low hp doesn't model tired/exhausted/worn out well at all. You fight just as awesomely as when you started.
Yes, this is a terrible blow to the realism of HP-as-exhaustion. Clearly HP-as-actual-physical-wounds explains how your ability to continue fighting is unaffected by already having been grievously wounded. ...?

Hit points don't make sense at all, like most of the D&D combat system. Pointing out that one attempt at fluffing them fails to be perfectly realistic doesn't do much to make your preferred fluff look better in comparison.

This thread seems like it's only purpose is to start an arguement, maybe reword your first post so it doesn't come off so condescending towards...your opponents (whoever that is?) opinion.
Also, this.

Draz74
2010-09-03, 03:56 PM
If we accept that HP only represent physical wounds, lots of things don't make sense.

If we accept that HP are abstract and represent all kinds of getting worn out, even more things don't make sense.

If we accept that HP are a DM-governed mishmash of multiple interpretations, that has its own problems.

Basically, the system just isn't set up well for verisimilitude in general. You need to re-write it if you want it to make sense. I favor approaches that do so by setting it up as worn-out damage (not physical wounds; a la Vitality Points).

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 03:56 PM
Those get represented by misses. Bounced off the armor, so didn't actually get through to hit you and your squishy insides. Thus, does not cause hp damage.
Indeed. Yet they are still hits, invalidating the point about the word hit in 'hitpoint'.

Cespenar
2010-09-03, 03:58 PM
HP is never meant to represent tiredness etc.

Injury poisons require you to deal at least 1 points of lethal damage. End of argument.

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 03:59 PM
BUT it also CANNOT represent actual wounds, at least wounds of the sort that weapons would actually cause. Therefore, it is either entirely nonsensical, a combination of varying degrees of wounds and wearing out, or both!

Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 04:02 PM
BUT it also CANNOT represent actual wounds, at least wounds of the sort that weapons would actually cause. Therefore, it is either entirely nonsensical, a combination of varying degrees of wounds and wearing out, or both!

As in a # of wounds? One hit dealing you 37 wounds? Never heard of anyone stating that. No...it's slightly more abstract than that. Looking at it as a percentage system makes sense. If you have 100 hp, a hit that dealt 37 hp was a hit that landed a pretty solid blow.

Skorj
2010-09-03, 04:02 PM
BUT it also CANNOT represent actual wounds, at least wounds of the sort that weapons would actually cause. Therefore, it is either entirely nonsensical, a combination of varying degrees of wounds and wearing out, or both!

That's not entirely true. Weapons, even big nasty weapons, can cause minor wounds as well as major ones. And while some people go into shock and become inefffectual from even a minor wound, others fight on unslowed by multiple gunshot wounds. Presumably HP from levels could be explained in that way.

Saph
2010-09-03, 04:03 PM
If I remember right, the PHB specifically says that hit points represent two things; sheer physical toughness and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one. A dagger hit against a 4 HP commoner might be a dagger in the eye; a dagger hit against a 12 HP fighter might be a nasty but not immediately fatal slash along the face.

This has always seemed reasonably logical to me, so I'm not quite sure why people get so worked up about it. HP = toughness + defensive skill. Simple enough.

DeltaEmil
2010-09-03, 04:05 PM
Tyndmyr wants to prove somebody wrong... whoever that is...

Morty
2010-09-03, 04:11 PM
The best way to deal with the way HP work in D&D is: not to dwell too much on it. The way Saph describes is a good way to do that, IMO. I still think HP are badly designed, but it's nothing you can't get over.

Cespenar
2010-09-03, 04:14 PM
If I remember right, the PHB specifically says that hit points represent two things; sheer physical toughness and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one. A dagger hit against a 4 HP commoner might be a dagger in the eye; a dagger hit against a 12 HP fighter might be a nasty but not immediately fatal slash along the face.

This has always seemed reasonably logical to me, so I'm not quite sure why people get so worked up about it. HP = toughness + defensive skill. Simple enough.

This. It's not even worth arguing over.

Spiryt
2010-09-03, 04:16 PM
Everyone likes to talk about how hp going out of you aren't actually really representing wounds. Just you getting worn out from fighting, and eventually, that last blow really hits. It sounds good, too, it really does. Dramatic, even.

But see, the problem is, examples in the game system itself don't use this model. They prefer to describe a hit, with blood, pain, the whole bit. Now, I can hear your cries of protest already. "Fluff and rules are separate, you can just refluff it!", you tearfully cry.

Ah, but it's not just fluff. First off, low hp doesn't model tired/exhausted/worn out well at all. You fight just as awesomely as when you started. There are actual conditions like fatigue and exhaustion that do model these concepts, though.

Now, people are going to say "er...they can both be worn out. Er...different KINDS of worn out." or some equally silly thing. This runs into a few obvious problems. First, dodging things results in less hp loss. This makes perfect sense if hp represent your remaining health after being hit. If they represent how worn out you are, it makes no sense. After all, not dodging is easier.

Next up, we have damage reduction. "A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective).". Explain that away as not being actual wounds, eh? In a "tired" system of hp, tiring your opponent out with non-damaging actions and minor hits would be indistinguishable from the effects of DR.

Go on, re-fluffers. Explain to me how hitpoints don't represent being hit.

I don't really see any problems, here... :smallconfused:

To the top of all that HP can represent, creature has some tough skin/organism/whatever, so hit can be additionally described as being non threatening, non visible, or not being hit's at all, as creature can avoid/slip off, or again whatever blows without tiring, stopping, giving up...

Really, this is kind of searching problems where there are none.... And then starting a thread about it, seemingly to show people that they have problems even though, obviously, they didn't really had any. :smalltongue:

Snake-Aes
2010-09-03, 04:23 PM
quantum health! When you manipulate the wound, you can't see where it is!

Shortly, "HP" is an abstract and inconsistent value that represents how much it takes for you to die from wounds. What that actually means is not modeled.

Spiryt
2010-09-03, 04:27 PM
quantum health! When you manipulate the wound, you can't see where it is!

Shortly, "HP" is an abstract and inconsistent value that represents how much it takes for you to die from wounds. What that actually means is not modeled.

Now it reminds me that my Grand parents pointing breed (R.I.P.) once killed a chicken by trapping it in enclosed space under the stairs.... And trying to reach it so relentlessly, that poor bird died of stress/panic/heart attack, whatever for sure it was, without any outside injuries at all...

Not that it's strictly connected with topic... :smalltongue:

liquid150
2010-09-03, 04:28 PM
There are d20 systems with rules that allow for you to sustain quite permanent damage in combat. They are more realistic, and often quite deadly.

I was looking at a d20 book for the Black Company world last night. The guy that handed it to me said there are rules for combat where you can lose an eye, eyes, fingers, hands, even arms and legs. I didn't see them myself, but I believe him.

D&D on the other hand abstracts your health from hit points, and as long as you have 1 left you are still as good at everything as you were before. It's just the nature of the rules, unfortunately, and you have to suspend your disbelief in the mechanics of it a little bit.

lesser_minion
2010-09-03, 04:34 PM
Damage does two things:

It acknowledges in the rules that the character was hurt by the attack.
It acknowledges in the rules that the attack could have been fatal that moment.


The RAW make certain assumptions -- for example, that you aren't about to do experiments on them*, and that every wound is either incapacitating or superficial, with no middle ground.

* The rules describe what happens in general, but they don't describe the exact reality of the game world. Throwing a hundred people off a cliff is out of their scope.

Temotei
2010-09-03, 04:36 PM
Oh, and: http://a.imageshack.us/img245/2465/hitpoints10a761cvu4.jpg


Take three hundred characters with 21 hitpoints each, and you won't find that all of them can survive falling off a 20 foot cliff but some of them will be mortally wounded if you chuck them off a second time the same day. You'll find that, over many experiments, it seems like a third of people like this who fall down a 20 foot sheer drop die.

The thing is, falling twenty feet only does 2d6 damage, I thought. :smallsigh:

lesser_minion
2010-09-03, 04:54 PM
The thing is, falling twenty feet only does 2d6 damage, I thought. :smallsigh:

That's the point. When you experiment on the physics of your world, you're moving outside of the scope of the rules.

The rules say that none of those guys will die the first time, but some of them might on the second.

In the reality of the game world, any of those guys could have been fatally injured on any of the jumps. If they couldn't have died from the fall, they wouldn't have taken damage from it.

AmberVael
2010-09-03, 04:58 PM
What a funny thread.


What Hit Points Represent

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.

SRD link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/injuryandDeath.htm#lossOfHitPoints)

Now, if you want to debate the fine points of what "taking physical punishment" and "turn a serious blow into a less serious one" means, go ahead. But arguing about what HP is seems fairly silly when it is said straight up.

So yeah, this basically just backs up what Saph said.

lesser_minion
2010-09-03, 05:06 PM
What a funny thread.

I believe this thread is supposed to continue a 'death by dodging' argument that came up in another thread, even if the OP didn't make that clear.

arrowhen
2010-09-03, 05:12 PM
Hit points are a timer that shows how much longer you can stay in the fight. No matter how you fluff it, it's a simple game mechanic that *works* - at least until high levels, but everything else gets silly then too.

Yahzi
2010-09-04, 01:24 AM
Go on, re-fluffers. Explain to me how hitpoints don't represent being hit.
I find the simplest explanation to be taking the system at face value.

Human beings have 1D4+CON hit points. That's flesh and blood.

Everything else is magic. Class-based hit points represent regeneration ability. The hero takes a spear to the face, pulls it out, and keeps going. The damage is immediately healed.

Until he runs out of class-based hit points. Then he stops regenerating.

Consider this: the Harm spell used to reduce you to 1D4 hit points - in other words, it stripped you of all your magic enhancement.

Classes represent supernatural abilities. Ordinary differences between humans - training, toughness, etc. - are represented by stats. Mike Tyson is STR 18 CON 18 DEX 14... but he's still just a lvl 1 commoner.

Orzel
2010-09-04, 02:10 AM
HP represent everything that can go right in the characters favor. It show show that an act that could have been fatal wasn't.

Damage represents the threat to the character's life. The more damage the more luck is need to keep the target not dead.

A rogue sneak attacks a guard and deal enough damage to bring him down to 24% of his total HP. What could have happened..


The rogue actually miss the lethal spot and hit a less damaging area.
The guard moved at the last second for some random reason and the rogue missed.
The guard was lucky and happened to hear the rogue at the last second. He flinched and caused the rogue to miss and hit his armor.
The guard was lucky and happened to hear the rogue at the last second. He made a lucky parry and the rogue missed.
The guard was lucky and happened to hear the rogue at the last second. He made a last second dodge and came off with just a scratch.
The sun got in the rogue's eye and he missed.
A fly buzzed in the guard's ear and he just happed to turnaround while swatting right before the rogue stabbed him.
A loose floorboard creaked under the rogue's foot and the guard hear him right before getting stabbed.
A deity warned the guard at the last second.
The guard just happens to have a holy book right where he got stabbed and the book takes all the blow.
The guard is strangely moving a lot (probably swaying or dancing) and the rogue mistimes his attack.

Sindri
2010-09-04, 03:57 AM
There are two basic types of wounds:
Some, like beheading or a sword through the heart, are instantly and definitely fatal, except in very rare circumstances. These are represented by the rules for death from massive damage.

Others, like a sword in the gut or a severed limb, might be fatal but only if you lie down and die from them (or leave them untreated for an extended period). An average mook, commoner, or wizard is fairly likely to lie down and die from a sword in the gut, while a raging barbarian is more likely to pull the sword back out of his gut and throw it through it's owner's head.

As you gain levels, you learn to keep going through wounds that would have killed you earlier. Most serious injuries would cause long term complications in the real world, but the prevalence of magical healing, the toughness of adventurers in general, and the difficulty of working out a reasonable set of rules for medical problems in a roleplaying game mean that long-term effects generally get ignored.

Basically, the same amount of damage represents the same injury, and HP represents how much punishment you take before you lay down and die. Any injury resolved with HP instead of saving throws is not instantly lethal, but there's a certain level of pain and blood loss at which point you give up, and leveling up allows you to endure more.

stenver
2010-09-04, 05:36 AM
People in D&D are superheroes. So really, hp 40 is about as good as 10 average persons melded togather.

Anyone ever see the show Spartacus: blood and sand? People there got punched and hit in every possible way, but still kept going.

Thats how i like to imagine things. Another good examples are Hulk, Die hard and so on.

If you want realistic hp, use grim and gritty

Tyndmyr
2010-09-04, 07:07 AM
I believe this thread is supposed to continue a 'death by dodging' argument that came up in another thread, even if the OP didn't make that clear.

It's a theme I've heard presented repeatedly. That thread provided the motivation to make the thread, but it wasn't the sole reason.

Hp as dodging is a bit silly, but it's pretty reasonable to say that high level characters simply don't take as much damage(proportionately speaking) from a weapon as a low level one, for reasons of skill, toughness, etc.

The "class hps are magical" one is interesting...I don't think it's intended that way in 3.5 any more, but it's certainly justifiable.

hotel_papa
2010-09-04, 07:20 AM
Honestly, if the hit point system is that unrealistic, consider adding the condition track from SW: SE to your game. Any single attack doing damage equal to 10 + your fort save + maybe your armor bonus (?) takes you down one step on a five step track. Each step carries with it a penalty, with 5 steps being unconscious, regardless of current hit point total. It's something I put into just about every system I homebrew.

When in doubt, change things.

Dragosai
2010-09-04, 07:49 AM
Everyone likes to talk about how hp going out of you aren't actually really representing wounds. Just you getting worn out from fighting, and eventually, that last blow really hits. It sounds good, too, it really does. Dramatic, even.

But see, the problem is, examples in the game system itself don't use this model. They prefer to describe a hit, with blood, pain, the whole bit. Now, I can hear your cries of protest already. "Fluff and rules are separate, you can just refluff it!", you tearfully cry.

Ah, but it's not just fluff. First off, low hp doesn't model tired/exhausted/worn out well at all. You fight just as awesomely as when you started. There are actual conditions like fatigue and exhaustion that do model these concepts, though.

Now, people are going to say "er...they can both be worn out. Er...different KINDS of worn out." or some equally silly thing. This runs into a few obvious problems. First, dodging things results in less hp loss. This makes perfect sense if hp represent your remaining health after being hit. If they represent how worn out you are, it makes no sense. After all, not dodging is easier.

Next up, we have damage reduction. "A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective).". Explain that away as not being actual wounds, eh? In a "tired" system of hp, tiring your opponent out with non-damaging actions and minor hits would be indistinguishable from the effects of DR.

Go on, re-fluffers. Explain to me how hitpoints don't represent being hit.

So the old figher with a hundred hp vs the farmer with 1 has never been shown to you? So if HP are the amount of direct damage and nothing else then if a fighter has 100hp and he removed his armor and lays down gives Joe Blow a longsword and says kill me, and we assume Joe Blow never misses it would take Joe over 22 strokes of ye longsword before the fighter would even be at the point where he 'could' die 25 strokes of the long sword to make sure he was dead dead. So how do you explain this? Joe has to stab this naked guy laying on the ground about 22 times to even get him to the point where he might bleed to death. Sorry HP is abstract all day and all night forever and ever.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-04, 08:16 AM
So the old figher with a hundred hp vs the farmer with 1 has never been shown to you? So if HP are the amount of direct damage and nothing else then if a fighter has 100hp and he removed his armor and lays down gives Joe Blow a longsword and says kill me, and we assume Joe Blow never misses it would take Joe over 22 strokes of ye longsword before the fighter would even be at the point where he 'could' die 25 strokes of the long sword to make sure he was dead dead. So how do you explain this? Joe has to stab this naked guy laying on the ground about 22 times to even get him to the point where he might bleed to death. Sorry HP is abstract all day and all night forever and ever.
Like Yahzi said, the fighter is magical. He's a sexy shoeless god of war...well, demigod anyway. Literally. That's why high level characters can survive wounds that would kill Joe Shmoe and why they can do absurd things like swim through lava and reliably survive falls of any distance.

hotel_papa
2010-09-04, 08:18 AM
That's... kinda silly.

If the DM of that scenario doesn't just rule it as a CDG, with the fighter autofailing his Fort Save, then the DM's kinda silly, too.

HP are an abstract concept and deconstructing the logic (or lack thereof) behind them is a bit of a useless mental endeavor, unless you can come up with a viable alternative. HP are there because they work.

A dagger can kill a man, regardless of the adventures he's had and monsters he's slain. A sword can do it faster. That's reality. Reality, much like a game where a sword hit cripples or kills you regardless of level isn't widely regarded as fun.

Math_Mage
2010-09-04, 08:23 AM
So the old figher with a hundred hp vs the farmer with 1 has never been shown to you? So if HP are the amount of direct damage and nothing else then if a fighter has 100hp and he removed his armor and lays down gives Joe Blow a longsword and says kill me, and we assume Joe Blow never misses it would take Joe over 22 strokes of ye longsword before the fighter would even be at the point where he 'could' die 25 strokes of the long sword to make sure he was dead dead. So how do you explain this? Joe has to stab this naked guy laying on the ground about 22 times to even get him to the point where he might bleed to death. Sorry HP is abstract all day and all night forever and ever.

Fred the Fighter is tougher than Joe Blow. A swing that would cut Joe in two leaves a small gash in Fred's stomach.

Fred the Fighter is more resilient than Joe Blow. A wound that would be fatal for Joe is just a flesh wound to Fred.

Additionally, consider that the situation you delineate would constitute voluntary subjection to coup de grace. If Joe has a greatsword, that's 10+4d6+2*Str on the Fort save DC; Fred could fail that on the first try. So your example does not have the consequences you think it does.

Orzel
2010-09-04, 08:24 AM
The thing is, in D&D a character is ALWAYS dodging and parrying attacks. ALWAYS.
Even when prone.
Even when unconscious.
EVEN when tied up.

If you try to stab a naked sleepy guy laying on the ground, he WILL dodge and block all your attacks until his HP runs out. Because he's that awesome.

The odd thing about D&D is that you can't really allow an attack to a vurnerable area hit you on purpose. You MUST attempt to not die or choose to fail the CdG save. Even when you should not be able to not let yourself die.

stenver
2010-09-04, 08:38 AM
{Scrubbed}


So the old figher with a hundred hp vs the farmer with 1 has never been shown to you? .....

You little farmer simply cant kill someone so easily, someone who can take 20 crossbow bolts into his chest and still walk around happily. And besides, there is a fort save for coup the grace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT1q-qD6HHw&has_verified=1
Check this fight and you will see how much beating a demigod can take. just turn off the volume, it is low quality

The fluff is, that if you are demigod. You dont need to try explain how a guy can survive 20 hits from glaive. He is superhero. period.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-04, 08:41 AM
That's... kinda silly.
Welcome to D&D!

If it doesn't seem silly yet, you haven't been paying attention. :smallwink:

Kurald Galain
2010-09-04, 08:45 AM
Hm... it strikes me that the rulebooks are consistent with neither the idea that HP equals damage, nor with the idea that HP equals dodging-and-such.

Orzel
2010-09-04, 08:48 AM
What many people forgot is HP are not one thing. It's a combination.

HP is a combination of dodging, parrying, blocking, toughness, divine intervention, knowledge of the damging item, and pure luck.

Boci
2010-09-04, 08:50 AM
Hm... it strikes me that the rulebooks are consistent with neither the idea that HP equals damage, nor with the idea that HP equals dodging-and-such.

Pretty much. HP = damage and you face why doesn't my character bleed/take penalties for being cut up, HP = doging and why do I need silver to stop a werewolf from dodging my attack so well?

Math_Mage
2010-09-04, 08:52 AM
The thing is, in D&D a character is ALWAYS dodging and parrying attacks. ALWAYS.
Even when prone.
Even when unconscious.
EVEN when tied up.

If you try to stab a naked sleepy guy laying on the ground, he WILL dodge and block all your attacks until his HP runs out. Because he's that awesome.

The odd thing about D&D is that you can't really allow an attack to a vurnerable area hit you on purpose. You MUST attempt to not die or choose to fail the CdG save. Even when you should not be able to not let yourself die.

Um...is this sarcasm? A helpless character is not dodging or parrying attacks; that's what allows a CdG in the first place. What stands between the character and death there is the character's native toughness and fortitude.

oxybe
2010-09-04, 08:55 AM
if i had my books out i'd check it to verify, but unless memory fails me 3rd ed is pretty much the only edition of D&D where it doesn't outright state HP (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitPoints)is a mix of physical durability (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadeOfIron), close calls, luck, plot armor (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor), phlebotinum (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum), handwavium, bacon and other good stuff.

every other edition has pretty much stated : "HP is abstract, live with it, fluff it however you want."

if you want Vorpal Von Hackenslash to be walking around with a back full of arrows, a face full of handaxes, 3 bardiches in his chest and a plutonium katana in his liver, so be it.

if Dirk Dextrous the Dashing Dandy is hopping around barely dodging every blow like 6 year old on the worst sugar rush only an imp could have created and is hurt (and felled) by his last HP's, so be it.

use whatever works best for your PC.

Orzel
2010-09-04, 08:58 AM
Um...is this sarcasm? A helpless character is not dodging or parrying attacks; that's what allows a CdG in the first place. What stands between the character and death there is the character's native toughness and fortitude.

Actually, if you CDG someone and they both make the save and have HP, they are still alive. If this happens, this means either:
The attacker actually missed
The attack doesn't harm the character much
The target somehow moved out the way of the attack and was not seriously harmed
OR
Pelor did it

Tyndmyr
2010-09-04, 09:00 AM
That's... kinda silly.

If the DM of that scenario doesn't just rule it as a CDG, with the fighter autofailing his Fort Save, then the DM's kinda silly, too.

No. A DM who rules that a single commoner can CDG me, and no, I don't get a fort save is running on wild fiat, and is likely to have his players consider him a jerk. Just because you get stabbed isn't an autokill. That's not what D&D is about.

There are other systems that model such behavior, but the very idea that a single blow from a commoner is an autokill to a high level player is ridiculous in the context of D&D rules.

hotel_papa
2010-09-04, 09:08 AM
The auto kill is only because of the context. The fighter is committing suicide via farmer with dagger. As such... I'm not actually disagreeing with anything else you've said.

Boci
2010-09-04, 09:18 AM
The auto kill is only because of the context. The fighter is committing suicide via farmer with dagger.

Then the fighter is just voluntarily failing his fort save against the CDG.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 10:33 AM
What do hit points mean in D&D? Nothing. It's the number that tells you when you drop. The D20 System's main weakness is its overly abstract rules mechanic. Nothing in the game ever really matches a real-life event or experience. If you want that, you should try other games, that try for more realism, like GURPS. No amount of fluff is ever going to reconcile D20 and real world physics/biology/economics/whathaveyou.

Note that this is not necessarily a bad thing, it just makes D&D more "game-y" and less simulation-like. Some players like that, others don't. Those who like it tend to be the game-geek types who like to analyse rules more according to how they work than according to what they represent. The world-simulator types tend to drift towards other systems, as do the genre-action people.

D20: "Wow, what a cool combo."
Not D20: "Wow, that was like in that movie...."
Not D20 either: "Wow, just like that famous duel back in 1752..."

The Big Dice
2010-09-04, 11:04 AM
What do hit points mean in D&D? Nothing. It's the number that tells you when you drop. The D20 System's main weakness is its overly abstract rules mechanic. Nothing in the game ever really matches a real-life event or experience.
This.

In particular the combat sequence of "Once every six seconds, you stand still and I take a swing, then I stand still and you take a swing" and everything that stems from that don't hold up well to scrutiny. It works great when its units in an army exchanging blows. When it's modelling people, it kinda doesn't work too well.

But the whole thing of you kill stuff, so you become more resistant to all forms of physical, chemical and energy based trauma, as well as being more able to dodge and roll with blows in hand to hand combat, doesn't really make much sense as being described as anything other than your life meter in a video game. You kill enough things, your life bar grows a bit. You kill more things, it grows even more.

Hit points, like levels and the six stats that define a character, are holdovers from an erlier time. We have them now because D&D is a legacy game, and they are among the sacred cows that come with that. Debating what they represent isn't really worth the effort. As all they really do is keep tabs on how long before your character goes from fully functional to non functional to dead.

arrowhen
2010-09-04, 11:51 AM
In particular the combat sequence of "Once every six seconds, you stand still and I take a swing, then I stand still and you take a swing" and everything that stems from that don't hold up well to scrutiny.

The mechanics of the combat sequence work just fine. What doesn't hold up well to scrutiny is the narration of the combat when the mechanics are described too literally.

In previous editions, it was explicitly stated that an attack roll didn't represent the only attack in the (minute long!) round. Combatants were assumed to be dodging and weaving, jockeying for position, attacking, parrying, feinting, riposting, etc. the whole time. The attack roll just represented the one attack that had the best chance of actually getting through your opponent's defenses.

With the switch to 6-second rounds, the mechanics have gotten more detailed, but there's still no reason to assume that a combatant is just standing there for the 5.5 seconds in which he's not swinging his sword.

I'd interpret this exchange...



I parried his attack, and he mine. Then I lunged, was parried, was attacked and parried again myself.
I tried a very fancy attack I'd learned in France, which involved a beat, a feint in quarte, a feint in sixte, and a lunge veering off into an attack on his wrist.
I nicked him and the blood flowed.

(Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber)

...as a single round with each combatant making a single attack roll.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 12:10 PM
That's all fine and well for your inner-eye-cinema, but it doesn't really say much. With that kind of reasoning you need almost no rules at all. I'm sure that computer programs could break down all the variables to, say, 3 or 4 die rolls: who wins, how many hp do they have left, how many spells and potions did they expend, did anyone flee alive.

What I'm trying to say by that is that your argument could be used to justify any level of abstraction - but D20 doesn't go there. It still comes with a high-detail system, but asks me to accept high abstraction as well. And that can only be justified by the gaming aspect.

The Big Dice
2010-09-04, 12:12 PM
The mechanics of the combat sequence work just fine. What doesn't hold up well to scrutiny is the narration of the combat when the mechanics are described too literally.

In previous editions, it was explicitly stated that an attack roll didn't represent the only attack in the (minute long!) round. Combatants were assumed to be dodging and weaving, jockeying for position, attacking, parrying, feinting, riposting, etc. the whole time. The attack roll just represented the one attack that had the best chance of actually getting through your opponent's defenses.

With the switch to 6-second rounds, the mechanics have gotten more detailed, but there's still no reason to assume that a combatant is just standing there for the 5.5 seconds in which he's not swinging his sword.

I'd interpret this exchange...



I parried his attack, and he mine. Then I lunged, was parried, was attacked and parried again myself.
I tried a very fancy attack I'd learned in France, which involved a beat, a feint in quarte, a feint in sixte, and a lunge veering off into an attack on his wrist.
I nicked him and the blood flowed.

(Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber)

...as a single round with each combatant making a single attack roll.
The problem being the disconnect between description and mechanic. And D&D isn't alone in being guilty of this. There's a LOT of RPGs where the defender doesn't actually have any input into whether or not he gets hit.

The problem I get is, moments like...



Elric leapt at him, Stormbringer shreiking through the air to crash against the scarlet buckler and crash again. Three blows he delivered before Jagreen Lern's axe sought to wriggle through his defense and he halted it be a sideways movement of the Chaos Sheild. The axe succeeded only in grazing his arm near the shoulder. Elric's sheild clanged against Jagreen Lern's and Elric attempted to exert his weight and push the Theocrat backwards, meanwhile stabbing around the rims of locked sheilds and trying to penetrate Jagreen Lern's guard.

(Michael Moorcock, Stormbringer)

You just can't represent them particularly well in D&D terms. It would come out as something like:

Elric: Ok, I make three attacks. (Dice roll) Missed on all three.
Jagreen Lern: I get an attack. (Rolls) Miss. Oh well, back to you.
Elric: I'll uhhh... *thinks for a moment or two* I'll sheild bash! (Rolls dice, Jagreen Lern rolls dice, GM looks up rules in books, game grinds to a halt for a bit while things get worked out)

D&D combat works in the sense that it's fairly quick and once you get the hang of it, bashing things is fairly intuitive. But as combat systems go, it is Rock'em Sock'em Robots at the core.

Boci
2010-09-04, 12:15 PM
The problem being the disconnect between description and mechanic. And D&D isn't alone in being guilty of this. There's a LOT of RPGs where the defender doesn't actually have any input into whether or not he gets hit.

The problem I get is, moments like...



Elric leapt at him, Stormbringer shreiking through the air to crash against the scarlet buckler and crash again. Three blows he delivered before Jagreen Lern's axe sought to wriggle through his defense and he halted it be a sideways movement of the Chaos Sheild. The axe succeeded only in grazing his arm near the shoulder. Elric's sheild clanged against Jagreen Lern's and Elric attempted to exert his weight and push the Theocrat backwards, meanwhile stabbing around the rims of locked sheilds and trying to penetrate Jagreen Lern's guard.

(Michael Moorcock, Stormbringer)

You just can't represent them particularly well in D&D terms. It would come out as something like:

Elric: Ok, I make three attacks. (Dice roll) Missed on all three.

Not if those three attacks where just fluff. What you just described there looks like a single round of combat between two combatants skilled enough to have 2-3 attacks per round from BAB. Eric landed one attack, attempted to trip, and possibly made one more attack that missed + a couple more fluff attacks and his opponent hit him a single time out of I do not know how many attacks.

Lapak
2010-09-04, 12:20 PM
Since the original D&D rules, HP has been explicitly stated in the rule books to be a combination of factors, an abstraction that includes anything from actual damage to subconscious reflexes to divine favor. In the 1st edition DMG, that very abstraction was pointed out as the reason that saving throws were allowed. The question was (roughly): if I took damage from the giant scorpion's sting, how can I save against against its always-lethal poison? The answer given: well, hit point damage don't necessarily represent actual, physical harm in all cases.


That's all fine and well for your inner-eye-cinema, but it doesn't really say much. With that kind of reasoning you need almost no rules at all. I'm sure that computer programs could break down all the variables to, say, 3 or 4 die rolls: who wins, how many hp do they have left, how many spells and potions did they expend, did anyone flee alive.

What I'm trying to say by that is that your argument could be used to justify any level of abstraction - but D20 doesn't go there. It still comes with a high-detail system, but asks me to accept high abstraction as well. And that can only be justified by the gaming aspect.What part of the 3rd edition combat system had a high level of non-abstract detail that would require hit points to be physical damage?

The Big Dice
2010-09-04, 12:22 PM
Not if those three attacks where just fluff. What you just described there looks like a single round of combat between two combatants skilled enough to have 2-3 attacks per round from BAB.
Fluff and crunch need to work together. Otherwise it's like a bacon and egg sandwich, but with bacon flavour corn chips instead of actual bacon.

That's how I feel about things anyway. And really, most people I've gamed with tend to get less and less enthusiastic about verbose descriptions of everything they do when they're in an environment that has fights go by a simple binary Hit/Miss system.

GURPS and RuneQuest are much more entertaining from the perspective of descriptive combats. Because the systems give you choices on how to defend yourself. Mechancally, a GURPS Dodge, Parry or Block are more or less the same in that they turn a hit into a miss. But fluff wise, they all feel very different and the player quite often gets more into things. Even to the point of miming his actions and generally feeling like they have some kind of control over whether or not they take damage.

ericgrau
2010-09-04, 12:23 PM
HP also vastly outpaces damage. While at low levels weapons function reasonably, at higher levels they do not, even against foes of the same level.

Average Monster Stats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7035533&postcount=5)
Vanilla Fighter Stats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8888663&postcount=15) (no tricks)

{table]CR|Monster HP|Monster AC|Vanilla Fighter Damage (Level=CR+2 for "very difficult" fight)|Fighter AB|Hits Needed to Kill|Rounds Needed to Kill (Single Attack Round 1)
5|56|17|17.9|13/8|3.1|2.7
15|225|30|34|28/28/23/18/13|6.6|2.8
[/table]

Anyhoo, bad rumors out of the way, I like the OP's idea that HP represents damage and nothing more specific. It is meant to be a vague generalization, mythic/Hollywood in realism. At low levels you jump through mundane fire and get burnt. At high levels you brush it off without even dodging it. At low levels you can get gutted and the dragon laughs at your pointy stick, at high levels it takes a legendary weapon or dragon claw to hurt you and your swings are painful to the dragon.

Boci
2010-09-04, 12:27 PM
Fluff and crunch need to work together. Otherwise it's like a bacon and egg sandwich, but with bacon flavour corn chips instead of actual bacon.

That's how I feel about things anyway. And really, most people I've gamed with tend to get less and less enthusiastic about verbose descriptions of everything they do when they're in an environment that has fights go by a simple binary Hit/Miss system.

Well no one's stopping you from describing low level combat as two oponents standing next to each other taking turns hit/miss 1 every 6 seconds, we're just pointing out there are more realistic ways to do it.

ericgrau
2010-09-04, 12:30 PM
True even by RAW there's supposed to be several attempts at hits, parries, fakes, etc. until the important swing. It's up to the DM / players to fluff it.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-04, 12:43 PM
That's how I feel about things anyway. And really, most people I've gamed with tend to get less and less enthusiastic about verbose descriptions of everything they do when they're in an environment that has fights go by a simple binary Hit/Miss system.
That's a good point. In both 3E and 4E, combat takes quite long enough already without people making lengthy descriptions of what their attacks look like.

Boci
2010-09-04, 12:46 PM
That's a good point. In both 3E and 4E, combat takes quite long enough already without people making lengthy descriptions of what their attacks look like.

With a bit of practise it becomes easy and doesn't really slow down the game. For example, you can say your flavour text while you're rolling your to hit dice.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 12:58 PM
What part of the 3rd edition combat system had a high level of non-abstract detail that would require hit points to be physical damage?

None, but that's just my point. It's abstract, yet detailed. So it's not a simulation of anything, but a complex game, the purpose of which is merely to play it. It's like chess - a game inspired by warfare, but with no real connection to the actual thing. The fun comes not from feeling like you are fighting a war, but from playing chess. Likewise, the fun in D&D doesn't come from feeling like you are in the middle of a fight with a dozen orcs, but from playing D&D. So hit points represent nothing, neither physical damage, not anything else, any more than a chessrook represents an actual fortification.
Again, that's legitimate. I enjoy D&D. But it lacks the immersion of more hands-on systems. It gets something for it - superior gameplay. It's up to you what you want, but it makes the debate about what hitpoints are supposed to be pointless.

To the fluffers:
Are you serious? A combat round can take several minutes to play, and now I'm to get a Moorcock-style description of it on top? No, just no. I could use that time for actual roleplaying, you know. I don't mind a few general pointers as to how my comrades fight, but no details please. The wonderful thing about a less abstract combat system is that it tells me this at the same time we're playing it. So, once the mechanics are through, I know what my fellow players did and can play it out in my head. I don't just see an "I hack, you hack" fight scene that then gets special effects added digitally, I can see the footwork and swordplay live, and then go on and play.

Boci
2010-09-04, 01:02 PM
So, once the mechanics are through, I know what my fellow players did and can play it out in my head. I don't just see an "I hack, you hack" fight scene that then gets special effects added digitally, I can see the footwork and swordplay live, and then go on and play.

I am confused. Are you saying D&D players cannot see this in their heads?

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 01:07 PM
It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such as assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses - and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness)

(snip paragraph on Rasputin)

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution. This character would have an average of 5 1/2 hit points per die, plus a constitution bonus of 4 hit points per level, or 95 hit points! Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm - the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment.

This is from the 1st edition AD&D DMG, written by Gary Gygax.

I'll take Gary's word for it.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-04, 01:08 PM
With a bit of practise it becomes easy and doesn't really slow down the game. For example, you can say your flavour text while you're rolling your to hit dice.

Was that a suggestion, or does your entire group actually play like that?

Halaster
2010-09-04, 01:08 PM
Not as a direct derivative of the game action. So it's either tell everyone what's going on, or else everyone has their own different image. If the rules represent actual moves everyone has the same idea. If the D&D rules are assumed to depict actual moves, the result looks funny at best. If you do the same thing with GURPS, it works. No explanations needed.

Boci
2010-09-04, 01:10 PM
Not as a direct derivative of the game action. So it's either tell everyone what's going on, or else everyone has their own different image.

Do you think thats a problem?


Was that a suggestion, or does your entire group actually play like that?

Me and the DM did. The second player was knew to the game though, and the third didn't, but he wasn't bothered by us either.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 01:16 PM
Do I think that's a problem? No. Just kinda pointless. Enjoy yourself, it's your time. I'd rather play something less abstract and be done with it.

Boci
2010-09-04, 01:18 PM
Do I think that's a problem? No. Just kinda pointless.

What's piontless about 5 people picturing 5 different fights based off the same dice rolls?

arrowhen
2010-09-04, 01:25 PM
To the fluffers:
Are you serious? A combat round can take several minutes to play, and now I'm to get a Moorcock-style description of it on top? No, just no. I could use that time for actual roleplaying, you know.

I consider describing your character's actions -- including their actions in combat -- part of "actual roleplaying".

Halaster
2010-09-04, 01:32 PM
Well, it doesn't accomplish anything.
It doesn't promote the story.
It doesn't flesh out the characters.
It doesn't create mood (it creates five different ones, which is as good as none).
It doesn't interact with other people.

What else is the point in a roleplaying game?
I mean, you can do that all day long, play out imaginary fights in your head. You don't need your group or the game for that.

@arrowhen:
Fine. I'm not saying you shuoldnt. But I don't. I find it says little about who you are when you tell me precisely how pick that lock, climb that wall or swing that sword. If you tell me how he taunts his foes, what battlecries he utters, describe the expression of savagery, fear or cold calculation on his face - great. But I don't get anything out of you telling me about whether he feints right or left before he finally lands that smashing blow.

jmbrown
2010-09-04, 01:42 PM
That's a good point. In both 3E and 4E, combat takes quite long enough already without people making lengthy descriptions of what their attacks look like.

"Lengthy" description? What's your definition of lengthy?

Scenario 1
Fighter: I attack three times. 15, 20, and 21.
DM: Miss, miss, hit. Roll damage.
Fighter: 15
DM: A nice blow. Next.

Scenario 2
Fighter: I make an overhead chop with my axe at 15, a sidesweep at 20, and a rising arc at 21.
DM: The chop is dodged, the sideweep nicks his armor, but the rising arc carves through his flesh.
Fighter: 15 points of damage.
DM: A deep blow that draws blood.

I mean, c'mon now. Descriptions are just as important to role playing as actual interaction. I dread playing in any group that's so boring and descriptively un-stimulating that they can't take 5 seconds to briefly describe an action in a manner that doesn't refer to mechanics.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-04, 01:44 PM
What many people forgot is HP are not one thing. It's a combination.

HP is a combination of dodging, parrying, blocking, toughness, divine intervention, knowledge of the damging item, and pure luck.
Yes, this is the official company line. It doesn't really mesh with the rules though; if it did, I'd expect any stat to modify hit points. (Maybe based on your class, maybe based on your highest stat, or maybe even all of them; whatever.)

But in every single edition of D&D, and every single other game I'm aware of, hit points are always modified by Con/toughness/stamina/whatever. (Specific 3e D&D undead modify their hp with Cha, but those're non-PC corner cases.) So while the official company line says "HPs are a combo of everything," the rules say "HPs are a combo of constitution and supernatural toughness."

This doesn't make the official company line wrong; it just makes it equally as silly as the "I'm a sexy shoeless god of war" explanation of HPs.

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 01:47 PM
Yes, this is the official company line. It doesn't really mesh with the rules though; if it did, I'd expect any stat to modify hit points. (Maybe based on your class, maybe based on your highest stat, or maybe even all of them; whatever.)

But in every single edition of D&D, and every single other game I'm aware of, hit points are always modified by Con/toughness/stamina/whatever. (Specific 3e D&D undead modify their hp with Cha, but those're non-PC corner cases.) So while the official company line says "HPs are a combo of everything," the rules say "HPs are a combo of constitution and supernatural toughness."

This doesn't make the official company line wrong; it just makes it equally as silly as the "I'm a sexy shoeless god of war" explanation of HPs.

Please read my earlier post.

Spiryt
2010-09-04, 01:52 PM
Well, it doesn't accomplish anything.
It doesn't promote the story.
It doesn't flesh out the characters.
It doesn't create mood (it creates five different ones, which is as good as none).
It doesn't interact with other people.

What else is the point in a roleplaying game?
I mean, you can do that all day long, play out imaginary fights in your head. You don't need your group or the game for that.

.

D&D isn't really about all those things. It's about combat. Almost every spell, every even not directly martial ranger/whoever ability, has much of it's practicality devoted to fighting stuff better.

That's this system generally, and if you fight whole time, you may at least make it interesting.

In my games, I don't really like to make hack&slash whole time, I promote using other skills as well, and nice description of climbing, diplomacy or whatever is just as good.


Please read my earlier post.

Or most posts in the thread, as well.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-04, 02:00 PM
Yes, this is the official company line. It doesn't really mesh with the rules though; if it did, I'd expect any stat to modify hit points. (Maybe based on your class, maybe based on your highest stat, or maybe even all of them; whatever.)

But in every single edition of D&D, and every single other game I'm aware of, hit points are always modified by Con/toughness/stamina/whatever. (Specific 3e D&D undead modify their hp with Cha, but those're non-PC corner cases.) So while the official company line says "HPs are a combo of everything," the rules say "HPs are a combo of constitution and supernatural toughness."

This doesn't make the official company line wrong; it just makes it equally as silly as the "I'm a sexy shoeless god of war" explanation of HPs.
Higher Con = more stamina = longer duration of dodging without tiring.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 02:11 PM
That's this system generally, and if you fight whole time, you may at least make it interesting.

Right. But it is. It's a most interesting tactics game. It's more detailed than any tabletop I've played so far, except maybe Battletech. That's fun. In itself. It doesn't need the fluff and it sure doesn't require anyone to know what hit points stand for. I've spent many a tension-packed hour hunched over a battleplan, trying to make the right move. It's a fun game in its own right. Intersperse it with scenes of nice, enjoyable IC gaming in between and you can have tons of fun. I don't quite see the point in trying to make D&D fights into something they're not - cinematic action sequences. I prefer to play them as what they are - tactical games.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-04, 02:14 PM
Higher Con = more stamina = longer duration of dodging without tiring.
Fair enough.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that you can't dodge the ground, or lava, what about the rest of the official company line? (Luck, divine favor, parrying, knowledge, blocking, etc.) If HPs are supposed to reflect those things, shouldn't I be able to add my charisma (luck), wisdom (divine favor), dexterity (parrying), intelligence (knowledge) and/or strength (blocking) to my HPs?

FMArthur
2010-09-04, 02:21 PM
I have no problems with heroes with life-threatening wounds staving off death because they're 'just that tough'. In all sorts of fiction - books, movies, animated series - the tougher you are generally means that, even though you take the same wounds, you just don't quit. In almost every case this directly corresponds to exactly how 'powerful' the author wants to portray the character.

D&D characters get more powerful and more hit points correspondingly as they level up. The nature of the story you're telling by playing evolves as your characters become more and more powerful. Even an unprotected wizard at sufficienty high 'levels' of badassery is going to push his way out of a mob of armed peasants stabbing and slashing at him, because he's just that heroic. You're also going to survive falls from the sky, you're going to live through being stabbed through the gut, you're going to withstand powers through force of will that would destroy ordinary mortals, just like important characters in other mediums of fiction.

D&D isn't a simulation, it's a medium for creating works of fiction thematically similar to popular story archetypes, nothing more.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-04, 02:22 PM
Fair enough.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that you can't dodge the ground, or lava, what about the rest of the official company line? (Luck, divine favor, parrying, knowledge, blocking, etc.) If HPs are supposed to reflect those things, shouldn't I be able to add my charisma (luck), wisdom (divine favor), dexterity (parrying), intelligence (knowledge) and/or strength (blocking) to my HPs?

Sure, but adding just Con is simpler and gives Con something to do besides Fort saves. Same deal with Cha modding SLAs and Wis modding Perception, Profession, and Survival.

EDIT: Not to mention feats like Brains Over Brawn that change your HP from Con to Int.

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 02:31 PM
Fair enough.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that you can't dodge the ground, or lava, what about the rest of the official company line? (Luck, divine favor, parrying, knowledge, blocking, etc.) If HPs are supposed to reflect those things, shouldn't I be able to add my charisma (luck), wisdom (divine favor), dexterity (parrying), intelligence (knowledge) and/or strength (blocking) to my HPs?

Per my quote above, those are represented by the per-level hp adjustments, while the con bonus represents actual ability to withstand more physical damage.

jmbrown
2010-09-04, 02:37 PM
Right. But it is. It's a most interesting tactics game. It's more detailed than any tabletop I've played so far, except maybe Battletech. That's fun. In itself. It doesn't need the fluff and it sure doesn't require anyone to know what hit points stand for. I've spent many a tension-packed hour hunched over a battleplan, trying to make the right move. It's a fun game in its own right. Intersperse it with scenes of nice, enjoyable IC gaming in between and you can have tons of fun. I don't quite see the point in trying to make D&D fights into something they're not - cinematic action sequences. I prefer to play them as what they are - tactical games.

I feel sorry for you if you look at it as nothing more than a tactical war game without being capable to intersperse roleplaying into it. A barbarian who brutalizes his opponents with overhead chops is a very different person than a refined fighter who flourishes with his blade before striking. A rogue who snaps his fingers before unlocking a chest has a far more interesting personality quirk and character than the player who simply says "I roll open locks 25."

If combat means nothing to you other than dice and numbers why have combat at all? It's not like D&D's combat is even remotely near the top of the list when it comes to in-depth battle systems. Something like GURPS or HERO have far more nuances and options for tactical play. If I wanted 1s and 0s in my battle system I'd say "screw role playing" and just play D&D miniatures.

If you're the type of person who needs to neatly separate the mechanics from the fluff do yourself a favor and play video games instead.

arrowhen
2010-09-04, 02:42 PM
@arrowhen:
Fine. I'm not saying you shuoldnt. But I don't. I find it says little about who you are when you tell me precisely how pick that lock, climb that wall or swing that sword. If you tell me how he taunts his foes, what battlecries he utters, describe the expression of savagery, fear or cold calculation on his face - great. But I don't get anything out of you telling me about whether he feints right or left before he finally lands that smashing blow.

In the tabletop games I run, there's usually a huge range of detail in the way we describe combat actions. When a player makes an attack roll, they might say anything from "18. That's a hit. 7 damage." to "I bash the orc's blade out of line with my shield then step in for a thrust at his midsection. He blocks it. His counterattack is fast and vicious but I manage to twist aside at the last instant and score a long, shallow cut along the inside of his sword arm. 7 points of damage." or even "I go like this and then do one of these", pantomiming their characters' thrusts and swings and making amusing "combat faces".

Other times someone will roll to hit and damage and look to me to describe it. Or I'll roll an attack against their character and they decide to describe where and how it hit. Sometimes we'll all just roll and call out numbers and then I'll summarize how all the simultaneous action went down.

Occasionally, someone will offer their opinion of what a particular attack looked like and someone else will suggest further details, and before long the whole group will have contributed to crafting a very clear and memorable description of the event. Critical hits that result in death are particularly prone to this treatment.

In short, my ideal combat encounter amounts to a conversation, guided by dice, about how awesome the PCs are. :D

Fiery Diamond
2010-09-04, 02:52 PM
Two things:

This-

if you want Vorpal Von Hackenslash to be walking around with a back full of arrows, a face full of handaxes, 3 bardiches in his chest and a plutonium katana in his liver, so be it.

if Dirk Dextrous the Dashing Dandy is hopping around barely dodging every blow like 6 year old on the worst sugar rush only an imp could have created and is hurt (and felled) by his last HP's, so be it.

And this-

I have no problems with heroes with life-threatening wounds staving off death because they're 'just that tough'. In all sorts of fiction - books, movies, animated series - the tougher you are generally means that, even though you take the same wounds, you just don't quit. In almost every case this directly corresponds to exactly how 'powerful' the author wants to portray the character.

D&D characters get more powerful and more hit points correspondingly as they level up. The nature of the story you're telling by playing evolves as your characters become more and more powerful. Even an unprotected wizard at sufficienty high 'levels' of badassery is going to push his way out of a mob of armed peasants stabbing and slashing at him, because he's just that heroic. You're also going to survive falls from the sky, you're going to live through being stabbed through the gut, you're going to withstand powers through force of will that would destroy ordinary mortals, just like important characters in other mediums of fiction.

D&D isn't a simulation, it's a medium for creating works of fiction thematically similar to popular story archetypes, nothing more.

I like to play it the "why yes, I can still fight with five sword buried to their hilts in my stomach. I'm just that badass!" and the "You call that a sword thrust? Maybe that would have impaled a lesser man, but all you did was make a little dent in me. I'm just that tough!" ways.

nightwyrm
2010-09-04, 02:56 PM
Hit Points is Plot Armor (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor). To imagine it as anything else is to invite headaches and unnecessary complications.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 02:58 PM
@jmbrown:
No need to feel sorry. I've currently got no D&D games running, precisely because I find it hard to "get into the action" there. Instead I play a whole lot of games where this comes more naturally, because of their less abstracted systems. Sure, GURPS has more tactical options, but it layers them in simulation. In GURPS, what I do in combat has a lot more to do with my character precisely because of those options.
The high abstraction level of D&D however allows me to take the combat system as an enjoyable mini-game in the greater game. Therefore it becomes a purpose in itself. As a GM I tend to search the MM for monsters that will give an interesting encounter, rather than offer interesting interaction.
That said, it may have a little to do with my gaming community. The D&D players I know are all passionate roleplayers, who fill their characters with lots of life, but they are also rules buffs, who like the tactical challenge of combat. That promotes a separation of combat and roleplaying experience. Players who don't want to do that generally refuse to even consider D&D.

As for the characterization: I can get that better just about everywhere else in the game. If you need combat and skill rolls as occasions to display who your character is, then your game does not have enough conversational parts. Besides, it's absolutely not true that the cleaving barbarian and the flourishing swordfighter are necessarily different. Both can be honourable, but a little gruff and taciturn, with a short fuse and an amorous disposition. It's just that one of them learned fighting in Florence and the other in Oslo. I can't tell by seeing them fight, so I've learned little to nothing.

@arrowhen:
Sounds about right to me. Let everyone have it as they like. That's best. If you're under the impression that I cut off anyone who tries to sneak in some description, that's probably my fault, but I'm not that much of a gaming table tyrant. I just don't do it myself and don't encourage it.

Math_Mage
2010-09-04, 03:12 PM
Actually, if you CDG someone and they both make the save and have HP, they are still alive. If this happens, this means either:
The attacker actually missed
The attack doesn't harm the character much
The target somehow moved out the way of the attack and was not seriously harmed
OR
Pelor did it

I go for #2, and explain it with...you guessed it...the character's native toughness and fortitude. How about that.

Dragosai
2010-09-04, 03:15 PM
Like Yahzi said, the fighter is magical. He's a sexy shoeless god of war...well, demigod anyway. Literally. That's why high level characters can survive wounds that would kill Joe Shmoe and why they can do absurd things like swim through lava and reliably survive falls of any distance.

Yes this is what I am saying, when I said HP are abstract. Be it magic, fatigue, dodging, skill, armor, being tough, having the juju, etc and what ever. My example was trying to show that imagining that every sword blow is stabbing, cutting, or causing a meaningful wound does not add up to HP. It goes back to the abstracting of combat rounds; does anyone still imagine fights as the combatants all standing there taking turns swinging weapons or casting spells at each other?

Dragosai
2010-09-04, 03:25 PM
Fred the Fighter is tougher than Joe Blow. A swing that would cut Joe in two leaves a small gash in Fred's stomach.

Fred the Fighter is more resilient than Joe Blow. A wound that would be fatal for Joe is just a flesh wound to Fred.

Additionally, consider that the situation you delineate would constitute voluntary subjection to coup de grace. If Joe has a greatsword, that's 10+4d6+2*Str on the Fort save DC; Fred could fail that on the first try. So your example does not have the consequences you think it does.

So I am not sure why people keep quoting my posts and try to point out that my example is wrong, by giving examples on why HP ARE abstract, when my whole argument is the yes HP ARE abstract. My example has the EXACT consequences I think it does, it shows as you (Math_Mage) pointed out that Fred the fighter can take a "wound" that would be fatal to Joe and only have a flesh wound. Bringing up coup de grace rules are not relevant to the conversation as no one is arguing that a "helpless" defender can and should be killed by a single blow.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-04, 03:38 PM
Sure, but adding just Con is simpler and gives Con something to do besides Fort saves.
What'd be any more complicated about "Use your highest stat to calculate HPs?" Besides, aren't folks always complaining that Con is the universal 3e god-stat because it's the one that mods HPs 99% of the time? Would it be so horrible if Con was just for Fort saves and Concentration checks? (I don't think there's a clear yes or no answer; my point is just that simplicity and balance aren't high on the 3e priority list.)


Per my quote above, those are represented by the per-level hp adjustments, while the con bonus represents actual ability to withstand more physical damage.
That sounds reasonable enough. But the fact that Con is the default HP stat suggests, at minimum, that HPs are primarily a matter of physical toughness. (And the fact that high level characters can survive lava and such just cements this conclusion even further.)


Yes this is what I am saying, when I said HP are abstract. Be it magic, fatigue, dodging, skill, armor, being tough, having the juju, etc and what ever. My example was trying to show that imagining that every sword blow is stabbing, cutting, or causing a meaningful wound does not add up to HP. It goes back to the abstracting of combat rounds; does anyone still imagine fights as the combatants all standing there taking turns swinging weapons or casting spells at each other?
Um, I think one or both of us are miscommunicating here. I'm saying that the simplest and no less silly explanation for HPs is that they are not abstract. I imagine and describe every hit as a meaningful wound because it's simple, effective and realistic [once one accepts the idea that characters are demigods who can simply self-heal gaping chest wounds].

This is a better explanation for me than the extremely utilitarian "HPs are plot armor" explanation, or the "HPs are dodging ability in most situations, but sometime they're flesh wounds, and other times they're luck, and when my character survives lava or a long fall I don't know what HPs are" explanation.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-04, 03:41 PM
What'd be any more complicated about "Use your highest stat to calculate HPs?" Besides, aren't folks always complaining that Con is the universal 3e god-stat because it's the one that mods HPs 99% of the time? Would it be so horrible if Con was just for Fort saves and Concentration checks? (I don't think there's a clear yes or no answer; my point is just that simplicity and balance aren't high on the 3e priority list.)

Yes and no. 4e has a thing where you use 'highest of 2' stats to determine stuff like defenses and init. 3e doesn't do that at all, instead preferring to go with single-stat always adjusts. It makes leveling and creating characters easier, for starters, and keeps weird things from happening when you take ability damage (if Wis or Cha mods Will, and you have 18 Wis and 16 Cha, and take 4 Wis damage, you have to remember that your Cha mods your Will now instead of your Wis, for instance). It's a simplicity thing in that it will always be the same from character to character barring specific feats.

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 04:30 PM
That sounds reasonable enough. But the fact that Con is the default HP stat suggests, at minimum, that HPs are primarily a matter of physical toughness.


I suggest you read my first post in this thread, where the inventor of the D&D hit point system explicitly states that this is not the case.

If you wish to interpret them differently, that is fine. However, this is pretty clear evidence that from the earliest days of the system hit points were not intended to strictly represent the physical ability to take damage.

Math_Mage
2010-09-04, 04:32 PM
So I am not sure why people keep quoting my posts and try to point out that my example is wrong, by giving examples on why HP ARE abstract, when my whole argument is the yes HP ARE abstract. My example has the EXACT consequences I think it does, it shows as you (Math_Mage) pointed out that Fred the fighter can take a "wound" that would be fatal to Joe and only have a flesh wound. Bringing up coup de grace rules are not relevant to the conversation as no one is arguing that a "helpless" defender can and should be killed by a single blow.

Actually, I think the original misinterpretation rests with you. You interpret Tyndmyr's claim "HP simply represents being hit; this 'I dodge your attack and take HP damage' stuff is nonsense" as "HP is not abstract." Show me where Tyndmyr claims that HP is not abstract, and you have an argument.

From where I'm standing, you were attempting to counter Tyndmyr's contention that HP simply represents getting hit, and you provided an example of why this nominally does not make sense. I showed why, in your example, Tyndmyr's interpretation still holds, and additionally noted that the example is a corner case (CdG applies) and therefore lacks general applicability. Fred and Joe take the same hit; what changes is the toughness and resilience of the person taking the hit (a direct consequence of how much HP they have and how high their Fort save is). Do you agree with this interpretation, or is it insufficiently abstracted for you?

Lev
2010-09-04, 04:47 PM
Here's a good trick I use, I ratio how effective a hit is by the damage vs their current HP, then I roll 1D8 to determine wound.

I separate the characters into 3 groups pre-game when they complete their characters by doing this:

I put a little marker dot on each players sheet, in 3 colors:

:smallwink: Green dot means they are protected entirely by the rules of the game, wounds generally don't effect them when applying damage unless it specifically says to, called shot, ect.

:smallconfused: Blue dot means they are semi-protected by the rules of the game, but also that they experience a "half and half" version of realism, they may not get an infected wound but they will get cut the hell up by something sharp and pointy, and they will bleed, ect.
To counter this I give each of my players a free feat, a small bonus, and an additional small bonus every levelup-- these small bonuses I determine through rolling a few d20's and compare it to a character sheet with all the available options with numbers 1-20 then repeating and I kind of go from there, when I find something it gives bonuses to I think about fluff, if I can't easily fluff it into their character I reroll. Eg.: My halfling barbarian can take 10 on ride checks when jumping onto and from his wardog mount.

:smallfurious: Red dot means they are not protected by the rules and are either very brave or very suicidal, monsters in my game are all red dot unless they are important-- when you are red dot you can fall 10' and break or strain a leg, you can get infectious diseases from small cuts if it's unsanitary, hunger and thirst and heat and cold become liabilities.
On the other side, red characters get 2 free feats, can start 1 level higher, get 1 large bonus, 1 medium bonus and 1 small bonus and an additional medium bonus every levelup.

When damage is rolled the D8 is also rolled, the higher it is the higher chance it will hit something important, 8 being vital organs, 1 being biceps, triceps, butt, ect.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 05:17 PM
@Math_Mage:
Dragosai has it right. As soon as I say "HP represent....", they are no longer abstract. They represent something. Abstract means they are just a number that has no relation to anything but game mechanics. Which is how things are.
If I connect HP to toughness, dodging, combat experience or whatever, I can then rate how they compare to how that should work, what represents this elsewhere in the game rules, etc.

I think what's confusing you is that the game declares them to be an abstraction, that is, having a real, but tenuous relationship to reality - they represent something, but not something specific.
Dragosai (and myself) argue that they are abstract - entirely disconnected from real phenomena. They represent nothing.

Math_Mage
2010-09-04, 05:29 PM
@Math_Mage:
Dragosai has it right. As soon as I say "HP represent....", they are no longer abstract. They represent something. Abstract means they are just a number that has no relation to anything but game mechanics. Which is how things are.
If I connect HP to toughness, dodging, combat experience or whatever, I can then rate how they compare to how that should work, what represents this elsewhere in the game rules, etc.

I think what's confusing you is that the game declares them to be an abstraction, that is, having a real, but tenuous relationship to reality - they represent something, but not something specific.
Dragosai (and myself) argue that they are abstract - entirely disconnected from real phenomena. They represent nothing.

In that case, I do not understand why he feels my counterargument to his example to be an argument that HP is abstract.

Halaster
2010-09-04, 05:45 PM
I don't really see one, beyond simply restating the faulty assumption. People don't work that way. No matter how tough you get, you don't get 100 times as tough as someone else.
Hit a flabby academic like me with a sword. I die.
Ram that same sword into a boxing champion. He dies. Sure, he might make it to a phone to call a doctor, because he has learned to live with pain, because he has more blood to lose and is generally tougher. But he won't just walk away. A punctured lung is a punctured lung.

So it's not just toughness. It's not just dodging. It's not really a combination of both. It's nothing really. You are far from countering that.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-04, 05:54 PM
Hit a flabby academic like me with a sword. I die.
Ram that same sword into a boxing champion. He dies. Sure, he might make it to a phone to call a doctor, because he has learned to live with pain, because he has more blood to lose and is generally tougher. But he won't just walk away. A punctured lung is a punctured lung.

Stab Superman. He doesn't die.

That is your typical D&D character at 4+.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-04, 06:04 PM
"Lengthy" description? What's your definition of lengthy?
One to three sentences per attack roll, such as by reading the fluff text of a power out loud, is definitely what I would consider too lengthy.



Fighter: I make an overhead chop with my axe at 15, a sidesweep at 20, and a rising arc at 21.
This I like and I don't see anybody objecting to. Incidentally I am a big fan of the OTE rules where merely saying "I hit him" gives you a penalty to your attack roll.

Oslecamo
2010-09-04, 06:18 PM
Stab Superman. He doesn't die.

That is your typical D&D character at 4+.

Well superman isn't a very fair case. You can stab him with a magic kyryptonite +5 Vorpal kryptonian longsword and he still wouldn't die, puting him clearly at around more level 20.

But now look at Julius Caesar. Twenty five dagger blows to take him down. To be expected due to his long and sucessfull military career.

The pirate black beard on the other hand needed several sword blows and gun shots before finally falling dead on his last stand.

The first big stomach scientific research was made thanks to a soldier who took a large shot to the belly but even then didn't die, despite being by all records a 100% untretable fatal wound.

Real world people can also be pretty tough. History is filled with heroic examples of people who just refused to die despite massive injuries.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-04, 06:25 PM
But now look at Julius Caesar. Twenty five dagger blows to take him down. To be expected due to his long and sucessfull military career.

:julius: Wait, I think I failed a spot check.
:brutus: Sneak attack, booyah!

...what? :smallcool:

Math_Mage
2010-09-04, 06:39 PM
I don't really see one, beyond simply restating the faulty assumption. People don't work that way. No matter how tough you get, you don't get 100 times as tough as someone else.

In fantasy? Really? Who is the one making assumptions here?


Hit a flabby academic like me with a sword. I die.
Ram that same sword into a boxing champion. He dies. Sure, he might make it to a phone to call a doctor, because he has learned to live with pain, because he has more blood to lose and is generally tougher. But he won't just walk away. A punctured lung is a punctured lung.

Ram that same sword into a fantasy character. Guess what fails to happen a lot of the time. This is ignoring the lack of correspondence with real-world events that other posters have described above.


So it's not just toughness. It's not just dodging. It's not really a combination of both. It's nothing really. You are far from countering that.

Since my argument was meant to counter a specific example and not an overarching position, I don't see what that has to do with anything. Nonetheless, neither you nor Dragosai has demonstrated the inadequacy of interpreting HP as damage to the body, which is Tyndmyr's position.

Frozen_Feet
2010-09-04, 08:07 PM
I'm a fan of percentual view of hitpoints. 50 points of damage represent the same injury to a fighter with 100 hitpoints than 2 points of damage to a commoner with only 4. Of course, while this avoids high-level warriors having to pull spears from their gut every other second, it still begs the question why the same blow would kill a lesser being.

My rationale is similar to many people before me: D&D rules explicitly allow a person to transcend limits of a normal person. Common sense and real-life logic is meant to cover gaps in the rules, but hitpoints aren't one! It's pretty clear the characters are meant to reach superhuman levels of toughness after a certain point. What that point is is debatable, but with dedicated warriors (represented by classes like Warrior, Fighter, Barbarian etc.) it's somewhere around levels four and five, and a bit higher with the weaker folks.

A monk at level 5 is Rasputin, capable of surviving poison, gunshot wounds and being thrown in a cold river while shackled, before finally drowning after slipping from his binds because the ice above him is too thick. A monk at level 20 is young Son Goku, capable of taking landscape-altering strikes to the chest and shrugging it off. In a fantasy game, it in no way breaks my verisimilitude when the party beatstick says "No sell" to the enemy and blocks a sword with bare hands without suffering anything more than minor bleeding.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-04, 09:48 PM
I suggest you read my first post in this thread, where the inventor of the D&D hit point system explicitly states that this is not the case.
The inventors also thought that races as classes were a good idea, and that demihumans should be flat-out better than humans except with level limits, and that certain classes should have insanely high stat prereqs, and all kinds of things that the game has grown beyond. Do you play the original D&D? Even if you do, you're not obligated to just ignore what the game rules suggest.


But now look at Julius Caesar. Twenty five dagger blows to take him down. To be expected due to his long and sucessfull military career.
As an aside from the whole HP thing, if JC really was assassinated by all those senators, he probably didn't last long enough for "Et tu Brute?" because of his soldiery. More likely the senators, who would have all been soldiers also, intentionally stabbed him in non-vital areas so that they could say they all took part. And then Brutus performed the CdG.

Or ya know, he could have died after the first stab and they all simply stabbed his corpse for good measure. And then a few centuries later, Shakespeare invented the whole "Et tu Brute" thing.

Realistically speaking, the number of wounds doesn't matter as much as where you're wounded. A brain shot and you're dead instantly; a lung shot and you're just as certain dead within a few minutes; a muscle shot and you'll live if you can stop the bleeding. Willpower hardly matters at all; at most you'll be able to kill your attacker before you die if you don't just freak out. Sometimes someone gets lucky, like the workman who went to the ER with a headache, and discovered that a stray nail from a nailgun was lodged exactly between his two brain lobes, but that's pure luck and doesn't happen often at all.

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 09:55 PM
The inventors also thought that races as classes were a good idea, and that demihumans should be flat-out better than humans except with level limits, and that certain classes should have insanely high stat prereqs, and all kinds of things that the game has grown beyond. Do you play the original D&D? Even if you do, you're not obligated to just ignore what the game rules suggest.


Yes, and all of those things have substantially changed since then.

Hit points, on the other hand, have not.

At any rate, you're moving the goalposts. You claimed that HP must represent physical toughness due to con bonuses, and I pointed out logic (by the creator of the game) that had them represent a mixture of physical toughness and other factors. If you'd like to counter that explanation, by all means do so.

And it doesn't really matter anyway. If you want to say, in your game, that hp represents solely the physical ability to take more damage, feel free. But it's pretty clearly not the original intent of the system authors. I've shown that to the early days of the system, and as far as I know similar explanations have been in every version since then.

Zhalath
2010-09-04, 10:20 PM
It represents the tolerance of your characters. When they run out of HP, the actors decide to take a nap or quit, rather than put up with all this abuse. :smallbiggrin:

HP is how much you can be hit or shot at before you fall over and die. The abstract nature of the system means it's kind of hard to tell if they actually mean you're getting hit. Like, if a character is wearing full plate armor, and someone starts hitting them with a stick (club for 21d6 damage). Fluffwise, unless the someone is really strong, the armor man isn't going to really even notice; but ruleswise, as long as the club user hits, the guy is taking damage. Ladies and gentlemens, that does not make sense But it's not designed to be realistic. D&D is a game of heroic fantasy, after all.

Crow
2010-09-04, 10:22 PM
Tyndmyr.

I have tried the whole "HP is more than just damge angle." You are right.

HP just works better in D&D when you just call it damage. It makes a hell of a lot more sense when you're DMing than trying to explain to the player that their "hit", doesn't really mean they hit.

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 11:04 PM
Tyndmyr.

I have tried the whole "HP is more than just damge angle." You are right.

HP just works better in D&D when you just call it damage. It makes a hell of a lot more sense when you're DMing than trying to explain to the player that their "hit", doesn't really mean they hit.

I don't really buy the "you dodged it" angle, either. But I do describe hits in terms of their impact on the character - a 5 hp shot will get a different description ("a deep, gashing wound") to someone with 8hp than it would ("the blow barely slips past your defenses, giving a light slash") for a target with 100hp.

Eldariel
2010-09-04, 11:04 PM
I can't buy HP damage simply being hits. No matter how heroic you are, you don't survive head chopped off (Vorpal weapon property makes this abundantly clear). Same would apply to other forms of obviously lethal wounds like losing your lungs or having your heart hit. Since such conditions remain equally lethal regardless of your HP, I've concluded getting more HP can't present ability to withstand such hits but simply the heroics (skill/durability/luck/etc.) to avoid such hits.

Of course, this is why I no longer use the HP system; WP/VP system makes it abundantly clear what is what and it makes sense. You can always land a telling blow (if you roll a critical) regardless of opponent's HP, but tough opponents are harder to land such blows against (VP damage). Once they get winded (run out of VP) they take penalties and eventually falter though.


So yeah, my take, HP sucks, don't use it.

kyoryu
2010-09-04, 11:17 PM
I can't buy HP damage simply being hits. No matter how heroic you are, you don't survive head chopped off (Vorpal weapon property makes this abundantly clear). Same would apply to other forms of obviously lethal wounds like losing your lungs or having your heart hit. Since such conditions remain equally lethal regardless of your HP, I've concluded getting more HP can't present ability to withstand such hits but simply the heroics (skill/durability/luck/etc.) to avoid such hits.

Of course, this is why I no longer use the HP system; WP/VP system makes it abundantly clear what is what and it makes sense. You can always land a telling blow (if you roll a critical) regardless of opponent's HP, but tough opponents are harder to land such blows against (VP damage). Once they get winded (run out of VP) they take penalties and eventually falter though.


So yeah, my take, HP sucks, don't use it.

I do like the WP/VP system. It maintains the parts of HP that work, but produces more logical results overall.

I don't bother running it because, hey, the game is fun even with the illogic of HP (and HP *are* illogical, no matter what you do).

Halaster
2010-09-05, 03:48 AM
In fantasy? Really? Who is the one making assumptions here?


Ram that same sword into a fantasy character. Guess what fails to happen a lot of the time. This is ignoring the lack of correspondence with real-world events that other posters have described above.


Don't go there, man. Trying to define "fantasy" is the same minefield you get with every genre. But even if you take Boromir's death as the ultimate definition of how much a fantasy character can take (I think it was something like a dozen swordstrikes and again as many arrows), you arrive at what has been pointed out before: Plot Armor. The story requires that the hero live for a specified amount of time, having him stay uninjured all that time would be undramatic or ludicrous, so you just have him survive it. But that in itself is abstract. It has nothing to do with how things work, in reality or in-world. It serves a storytelling purpose and the story is an abstract. Likewise in D&D it serves a gameplay purpose - abstract.



Since my argument was meant to counter a specific example and not an overarching position, I don't see what that has to do with anything.
I don't see what nitpicking at specifics has to do with the greater question either, but I'm not the one doing it....


Nonetheless, neither you nor Dragosai has demonstrated the inadequacy of interpreting HP as damage to the body, which is Tyndmyr's position.
If you say so, who am I to contradict, wise one...

@Oslecamo:
True, humans can survive all sorts of things. I don't deny that. But that has very little to do with their training. What about Phineas Gage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage)? Gage was a railroad worker. 1st level commoner, maybe expert. No military experience, no nothing. Still he survived an iron rod going through his head. He never could in D&D - and a 10th level fighter would have that iron rod bounce of his bony brows. That's silly, plain and simple.
As for Caesar and Blackbeard, they would have died from a lot less than they took. Caesar was a political case, they all had to stab him, to show their commitment. Blackbeard wasn't much saner than Rasputin and that can mean he could still walk around even though he had no chance of surviving his injuries.

But of course, that is the other HP-related problem. When you do run out, you drop. Period. Actual people walk around, or lie around and moan, for quite a while after they get hurt and then sometime, they die. The whole 0 to -9 HP thing doesn't nearly cover the possible range of "you're mostly dead" thing. People have been dead without noticing it hundreds of times.


I mean, why is this so hard to accept: any explanation serves as well as any other, because none of them need to make any sense. It's just a number. Explain it any way you like.

Sindri
2010-09-05, 04:55 AM
True, humans can survive all sorts of things. I don't deny that. But that has very little to do with their training. What about Phineas Gage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage)? Gage was a railroad worker. 1st level commoner, maybe expert. No military experience, no nothing. Still he survived an iron rod going through his head. He never could in D&D - and a 10th level fighter would have that iron rod bounce of his bony brows. That's silly, plain and simple.

The GM rolled minimum damage. Depending on Con, a commoner can still be conscious after 8 points of damage, so the damage for that attack might have been as high as 8d12 (average of 52, enough to take down a 9th level fighter with average Con). The dice just turned up that 1 in 429,981,696 chance that he would be left at zero HP.

To all the people discussing "obviously fatal" injuries to PCs:
there are multiple recorded incidents of people fighting on after being disemboweled, shot in the lung, having multiple severed limbs, etc. The combination of adrenaline and endorphins mean that a sufficiently determined person can ignore injuries and continue to function right up to the point where they die, anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to multiple hours later. Magical healing or a really good doctor (a modern medical professional can be assumed to be a 1st level expert, with masterwork equipment, 16+ stats, and max ranks in Heal, so that's a +9. An average 10th level character who put ranks in heal gets a +15 with improvised tools) can prevent death from any injury that isn't fatal yet. And no injury is really "instantly fatal" other than some varieties of brain damage; removal of the heart just stops blood flow, and so the body is perfectly functional for several seconds and the brain survives for 5-7 minutes; even beheading takes a matter of seconds to minutes to kill.

The problem comes when people just lay down and die after injuries; a low level warrior would have a tendency to take any injury as an excuse to stop fighting, meaning that they "run out of HP" much faster than the person who continues hacking until the accumulated blood loss and organ damage does them in.

Confidence, toughness, aggression level, threshold of pain, experience in dealing with injuries, and above all determination decide how long it takes for a person to die from a given injury. Since combat usually ends in less than a minute and then magical cure-alls are handed out, it's not an issue as long as you can keep going long enough.

That said, removal of limbs or destruction of eyes are things that can't be fixed by magic until higher levels, so critical hits and called shots should have lasting effects. The issue with this is that it rapidly becomes very complex.


Blackbeard wasn't much saner than Rasputin and that can mean he could still walk around even though he had no chance of surviving his injuries.

You think that people who dedicate their lives to going into holes in the ground, getting beat up by monsters, and hopefully surviving long enough to get out with bundles of gold are sane? And as for the "no chance of surviving his injuries" bit, adequate medical help could have saved either of them, and magical healing is a whole lot better.

FelixG
2010-09-05, 05:00 AM
I have always looked at it from a DBZ perspective.

They beat the ever loving [exponent deleted] out of one another all day, they bruise and get messed up royal, cough up blood ect, that just represents an [exponent deleted] load of HP.

And HP as dodging is just a silly concept, sure you can shift and take a more shallow cut or roll with a punch instead of taking vital damage, like the DMG suggests. But dodging is just idiotic, thats why people have dex to AC and dodge bonuses and the like.

Orzel
2010-09-05, 05:20 AM
Last week a guy fall 40 stories from a building and onto a car and survived with just broken limbs.

HP represent a combination of things all at once.

A high fall: Toughness
A sword stab: High parrying ability
An axe swing: A sidestep dodge
A dragon's breath: Toughness AND a sidestep dodge
A Harm spell: The cleric's opposing deity blesses you
A sneak attack: Pure #$%&ing luck

All that matters is.
As long as he's got positive HP, whatever you did: did not kill him.

Kaww
2010-09-05, 05:44 AM
Out of curiosity:

Has anyone changed their original opinion (after reading a witty remark from the opposed debating team) while reading these posts?

Math_Mage
2010-09-05, 07:59 AM
Don't go there, man. Trying to define "fantasy" is the same minefield you get with every genre. But even if you take Boromir's death as the ultimate definition of how much a fantasy character can take (I think it was something like a dozen swordstrikes and again as many arrows), you arrive at what has been pointed out before: Plot Armor. The story requires that the hero live for a specified amount of time, having him stay uninjured all that time would be undramatic or ludicrous, so you just have him survive it. But that in itself is abstract. It has nothing to do with how things work, in reality or in-world. It serves a storytelling purpose and the story is an abstract. Likewise in D&D it serves a gameplay purpose - abstract.

Then everything in D&D is abstract; everything in D&D serves a gameplay purpose. Congratulations, you've defined yourself to victory. Except that then you run into the problem where many mechanics that 'serve a gameplay purpose' (redundant; that's what a game mechanic does) actually represent something, so arguing that HP is abstract is no longer an argument that it does not have a consistent representation such as Tyndmyr's.


I don't see what nitpicking at specifics has to do with the greater question either, but I'm not the one doing it....

So at least one rhetorical faux pas has been avoided in your posting. Glad to hear it. In any event, as that one example constituted the entirety of Dragosai's argument in his initial post, I felt quite comfortable responding to it as a means of responding to his argument.


If you say so, who am I to contradict, wise one...

As able as any other, provided you have something logical to contradict with.


I mean, why is this so hard to accept: any explanation serves as well as any other, because none of them need to make any sense. It's just a number. Explain it any way you like.

It's a number in a system where lending narrative verisimilitude to the description of numbers is of primary importance. Naturally, people will attempt to determine what description of this number gives it the greatest verisimilitude in the general case.


Out of curiosity:

Has anyone changed their original opinion (after reading a witty remark from the opposed debating team) while reading these posts?

On the Internet?

Since the discussion has never turned towards what I think of HP, there hasn't been a real opportunity to change my opinion.

Halaster
2010-09-05, 08:27 AM
@Math_Mage:
Well, of course, to a point, everything is abstract, that's why it's a ruleset and not a science textbook. In a way, when you look at something and try to describe it, you always abstract, that's what thought and language do. But lest I wax too philosophical: some things are more abstract than others.
Actually, the game designers admit that HP refers to more than one concept in the real world. This thread has seen some eloquent listings, of what having lots of hit points could refer to in any given case. But there lies the problem: if you include too many things in a system like hit points, the whole thing becomes vague and arbitrary. If a term can mean anything, it really means nothing. So, ultimately, the only thing you can really say about hit points is that they represent a character's ability to survive. That's about as abstract as you can get. Take for comparison the attack bonus. It clearly represents skill and precision with weapons - a game world concept mapped to game rule concept, pretty much one-to-one. Not much abstraction there.

Take other roleplaying game rules and it might become clearer.
Rolemaster for example uses hit points exclusively to refer to all the minor mayhem that comes with combat: bruises, pain, shock, blood loss, disorientation. It never represents actual injury - the game has actual wound descriptions for that. So, having many hit points in Rolemaster clearly represents one thing: toughness. You could die from hit point loss, basically being so knocked out your system just shuts down, but it's really rare. Mostly, you'd be dead for other reasons long before. The rules surrounding hit points reinforce that concept - they depend on race, not class, they increase by training, like skills, they recover quickly, and so on. Rolemaster has a clear idea, what hit points mean and uses them accordingly.
They are still an abstraction, but way less abstract than D&D hit points. Of course, that comes with a price, a more complicated combat resolution. D&D avoids that by abstracting more, sacrificing clarity of concept in the process.

Finally, you said that narrative verisimilitude is of primary importance. I would contradict that. D&D values good gameplay more highly than verisimilitude, as elaborated above. That's in itself a fine thing, but it defeats the search for answers to questions like the one posed by Tyndmyr.

PS: You're right of course, you haven't said what you imagine hit points to be. Might you elaborate?

Kaww
2010-09-05, 08:33 AM
Then everything in D&D is abstract; everything in D&D serves a gameplay purpose. Congratulations, you've defined yourself to victory. Except that then you run into the problem where many mechanics that 'serve a gameplay purpose' (redundant; that's what a game mechanic does) actually represent something, so arguing that HP is abstract is no longer an argument that it does not have a consistent representation such as Tyndmyr's.



So at least one rhetorical faux pas has been avoided in your posting. Glad to hear it. In any event, as that one example constituted the entirety of Dragosai's argument in his initial post, I felt quite comfortable responding to it as a means of responding to his argument.



As able as any other, provided you have something logical to contradict with.



It's a number in a system where lending narrative verisimilitude to the description of numbers is of primary importance. Naturally, people will attempt to determine what description of this number gives it the greatest verisimilitude in the general case.



On the Internet?

Since the discussion has never turned towards what I think of HP, there hasn't been a real opportunity to change my opinion.

Are you a 'Math_Mage' or a linguist, or just too literal?:smalltongue:

Oslecamo
2010-09-05, 08:57 AM
@Oslecamo:
True, humans can survive all sorts of things. I don't deny that. But that has very little to do with their training. What about Phineas Gage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage)? Gage was a railroad worker. 1st level commoner, maybe expert. No military experience, no nothing. Still he survived an iron rod going through his head. He never could in D&D - and a 10th level fighter would have that iron rod bounce of his bony brows. That's silly, plain and simple.

Hey, D&D says there exists high level commoners and experts! His job was clearly dangerous and allowed him to gain exp to gain some levels. Phineas also clearly got lucky with his Con score, rolled max health and probably even picked toughness as his bonus feats. His companions laughed when he did so, but he was the one laughing when he had an iron bar trough his brain and could still walk.




As for Caesar and Blackbeard, they would have died from a lot less than they took. Caesar was a political case, they all had to stab him, to show their commitment.

Yes, because all those senators were dagger masters that knew the precise places where to stab a person whitout killing it.

So on one moment, every blow is potentially fatal, the next a bunch of politicians can slowly bleed a trained soldier multiple times whitout killing him?:smallamused:



Blackbeard wasn't much saner than Rasputin and that can mean he could still walk around even though he had no chance of surviving his injuries.

Like already pointed out, that's the kind of stuff heroes/villains are made off. We're not playing Bob the commoner who dies when someone hits him with a rock. We're playing BlackBeard and Rasputin and sometimes even Phineas Gage who're just that tough/lucky.



But of course, that is the other HP-related problem. When you do run out, you drop. Period. Actual people walk around, or lie around and moan, for quite a while after they get hurt and then sometime, they die. The whole 0 to -9 HP thing doesn't nearly cover the possible range of "you're mostly dead" thing. People have been dead without noticing it hundreds of times.

Less than the number of people who took clearly fatal wounds and lived to tell the story. The other ones clearly took diehard and kept moving untill they suddenly droped dead.



I mean, why is this so hard to accept: any explanation serves as well as any other, because none of them need to make any sense. It's just a number. Explain it any way you like.

Because some effects simply cannot be parried/dodged, yet high HP allows you to survive them anyway.

Well, unless you take a page from Exalted and say the fighter parried the fireball with his sword, but that's just as silly as the fighter shrugging off having his skin burned off.

Halaster
2010-09-05, 10:01 AM
Hey, D&D says there exists high level commoners and experts! His job was clearly dangerous and allowed him to gain exp to gain some levels. Phineas also clearly got lucky with his Con score, rolled max health and probably even picked toughness as his bonus feats. His companions laughed when he did so, but he was the one laughing when he had an iron bar trough his brain and could still walk.

Nice circular reasoning there. Since hitpoints mean physical, people who survive bad physical damage must've had lots of hitpoints, which proves your point. Sorry, dude, not falling for that one.



Yes, because all those senators were dagger masters that knew the precise places where to stab a person whitout killing it.

No, why would they? They all stabbed as best they knew, which did the trick. Half of them would have been enough is all I'm saying.


So on one moment, every blow is potentially fatal, the next a bunch of politicians can slowly bleed a trained soldier multiple times whitout killing him?:smallamused:

Funny, eh, how human bodies work. Sometimes a single bullet does the trick (see Horatio Nelson, trained soldier, survived losing an arm and all), sometimes people survive the most terrible things. There's not really a linear logic to this, like hitpoints suggest.


Like already pointed out, that's the kind of stuff heroes/villains are made off. We're not playing Bob the commoner who dies when someone hits him with a rock. We're playing BlackBeard and Rasputin and sometimes even Phineas Gage who're just that tough/lucky.

Right. Say with me: Plot Armor. No relation to any facts or aspects of the real or the game world. Heroes fight longer and party harder. Just the way it is. That needs a number and there we are, calling that number "hit points".



Less than the number of people who took clearly fatal wounds and lived to tell the story. The other ones clearly took diehard and kept moving untill they suddenly droped dead.

I don't have any hard numbers and neither do you, so let's drop the point.



Because some effects simply cannot be parried/dodged, yet high HP allows you to survive them anyway.

Well, unless you take a page from Exalted and say the fighter parried the fireball with his sword, but that's just as silly as the fighter shrugging off having his skin burned off.
Right, and some effects should do the same damage to anyone, yet they don't, so toughness doesn't cut it either.

Orzel has it about right, lots of explanations cover individual aspects of hp, none covers them all, so any explanation works part of the time and all of them are ultimately equal. That's what you get for abstractions.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-05, 10:28 AM
At any rate, you're moving the goalposts. You claimed that HP must represent physical toughness due to con bonuses, and I pointed out logic (by the creator of the game) that had them represent a mixture of physical toughness and other factors. If you'd like to counter that explanation, by all means do so.
Whoa, whoa, let's take a time out [since apparently we're playing soccer]. I use must statements in my engineering classes, not in D&D. Here, I present what the game rules suggest, and my opinion about it.



And it doesn't really matter anyway. If you want to say, in your game, that hp represents solely the physical ability to take more damage, feel free. But it's pretty clearly not the original intent of the system authors. I've shown that to the early days of the system, and as far as I know similar explanations have been in every version since then.
I'm not contradicting this -- that Dave and Gary thought of HPs as abstract. I'm simply saying that I don't care what Dave and Gary thought about this particular issue. The rules that D&G wrote, and the rules that evolved from those rules, suggest that HPs are not in fact abstract.

If you want to treat HPs as abstract because D&G said so, feel free. But I'm not that Lawful, so I've never felt that authority figures or tradition are good reasons to ignore the facts of [in-game] life. "PCs are sexy shoeless demigods of war" is the simplest explanation for HPs that works 100% of the time.

Halaster
2010-09-05, 10:44 AM
@Tequila:
As much as I like the quote, how is that not abstract? It's the idea, repeated several times in this thread that "PCs are just that cool". Coolness, however, is basically an abstract concept, not a reference to anything concrete.

BTW, one more for the toughness faction: at 15 inches thick, a 20th level barbarian is made of solid wood (150hp, hardness 5)... :smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet
2010-09-05, 11:48 AM
Funny, eh, how human bodies work. Sometimes a single bullet does the trick (see Horatio Nelson, trained soldier, survived losing an arm and all), sometimes people survive the most terrible things. There's not really a linear logic to this, like hitpoints suggest.


But there isn't a linear logic to injury in D&D either!

Hitpoints, even if taken to mean just damage, are not the be-all-end-all of wound modeling withing the d20 mechanic. Fatigue, attribute damage, non-lethal hitpoint damage, saving throws and various other things have been left to the wayside for much of this discussion.

Besides, even hitpoint damage can appear non-linear within the context of the game. A sword does 1d8 damage. If a level 1 commoner is hit by a sword, 50% of the time he's left bleeding on the floor, while some of the time he survives with little consequences. By RAW definition of HP, 1 point of damage can mean suffering just a scratch, or a hit superficially similar to 8 points of damage that just fails to hit important vitals on its way. (Ie., most of the time people die when a chunk of metal punches though their skull, yet sometimes people walk away from it. Ta-da!)

The Glyphstone
2010-09-05, 11:51 AM
@Tequila:
As much as I like the quote, how is that not abstract? It's the idea, repeated several times in this thread that "PCs are just that cool". Coolness, however, is basically an abstract concept, not a reference to anything concrete.

BTW, one more for the toughness faction: at 15 inches thick, a 20th level barbarian is made of solid wood (150hp, hardness 5)... :smallbiggrin:

....20th level barbarians are witches!:smallcool::smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2010-09-05, 12:34 PM
....20th level barbarians are witches!:smallcool::smallbiggrin:

I would love to play a game in which all the magic users set out to the barbarians house with torches and pitchforks to dispose of the evil non-magic user. Clearly, his power must stem from a pact with the devil.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-05, 12:37 PM
@Tequila:
As much as I like the quote, how is that not abstract? It's the idea, repeated several times in this thread that "PCs are just that cool". Coolness, however, is basically an abstract concept, not a reference to anything concrete.
When I say "sexy shoeless god of war," the relevant word is 'god.' As in, PCs are literally god-like. Every character has a reservoir of supernatural healing mojo (their HP total), and they use that magic mojo to heal themselves. Which is why until that reservoir runs dry, they can simply self-heal axe wounds to the face. It's not a matter of coolness; it's magic.

The idea that every single PC is supernatural might sound silly, but I don't find it any more so than "my high level character can dodge the ground." And it's simpler because it explains HPs in every circumstance that a D&D character might encounter. No muss, no fuss.

Frozen_Feet
2010-09-05, 12:42 PM
Just a pet peeve of mine, but superhuman is not the same as supernatural. While all D&D characters become superhuman sooner or later, this does not necessarily mean they're supernatural in any way. They can still follow limitations of nature, even if they don't follow limitations of human nature. "Magic!" is not the only possible explanation for how a level 20 fighter can survive orbital re-entry, no matter how unintuitive or far-fetched the naturalistic explanation might sound. <_<

Tyndmyr
2010-09-05, 12:47 PM
"Magic!" is not the only possible explanation for how a level 20 fighter can survive orbital re-entry, no matter how unintuitive or far-fetched the naturalistic explanation might sound. <_<

What other possibility could there be, some sort of super-material designed vehicle to "shuttle" him down? Ludicrous!

Sindri
2010-09-05, 01:18 PM
There appears to be only a few possibilities that are even being discussed here:

PC's somehow magically heal all the damage they take, and die when it runs out. In most circumstances this works, if you want a TOON-ish slapstick game rather than a relatively serious combat and adventure game. The problem is when you run into completely non-magical characters (ie. superstitious magic fearing barbarian) or an antimagic field or something similar.

HP represents dodging and parrying, or luck preventing the blow from actually connecting, and you never actually take any damage until you stop dodging. This is the easiest to imagine to most people (especially those who've never been seriously injured) but is least supported by the rules. Why does the same spell allow someone who's still standing to dodge more effectively, but actually remove the sword from their gut and close the hole if cast on someone with negative HP? Why is Dex applied to AC, rather than HP, if HP is your ability to dodge? How does the poison on their knife enter your bloodstream if that was a near miss? This explanation just breaks down on many levels.

HP represents the same attack dealing less damage, so you take a scratch across the torso instead of being bisected. This is closest of what I've seen here to a good explanation; it allows damage to actually be damage without invoking magic. The main issue is that an axe swing from a high Str barbarian, at an unarmored human, aimed in exactly the same way, by this explanation will stop a quarter inch in if the target is an adventurer, but go straight through if they're a normal person, breaking down the realism of the damage. There's also the issue that death from massive damage doesn't occur at a percentage of your HP, it occurs at a specific number determined by size category. This strongly implies that, by the rules, the same amount of damage is the same injury.



There are a multitude of examples of different people in the real world taking the same injury in different ways. A spike through the head, a dozen stab wounds, or a gunshot will probably kill someone, but depending on their toughness, combat experience, determination, and level of insanity, it might not. In my mind, the same amount of damage from the same attack will always inflict the same wound, and HP represents whether the character allow that wound to take them down. Both real life examples and the rules as written seem to agree with me, and I haven't heard any good arguments against yet.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-05, 01:49 PM
PC's somehow magically heal all the damage they take, and die when it runs out. In most circumstances this works, if you want a TOON-ish slapstick game rather than a relatively serious combat and adventure game.
More slapstick than "I just got stabbed in the face, but I'll stop the bleeding and brain-loss through sheer determination"? That doesn't sound very serious to me.


The problem is when you run into completely non-magical characters (ie. superstitious magic fearing barbarian) or an antimagic field or something similar.
I don't see a problem. A magic-fearing barbarian doesn't call his mojo 'magic.' He calls it 'divine help.' As to antimagic fields, there are plenty of magical things in D&D that lack the official MAGIC label and thereby ignore antimagic stuff. HPs are simply one of those things.


Both real life examples and the rules as written seem to agree with me, and I haven't heard any good arguments against yet.
Funny, I think the rules agree with me. :smallbiggrin: I also don't see how reality agrees with you any more than anyone else here, but whatever. Que sera, sera.

Kaww
2010-09-05, 02:06 PM
How come a barbarian is more magical than a wizard?

And why does he have better 'plot armor'?

kyoryu
2010-09-05, 02:28 PM
Funny, I think the rules agree with me. :smallbiggrin: I also don't see how reality agrees with you any more than anyone else here, but whatever. Que sera, sera.

To quote 4e (my 3.0 stuff is packed away, and I never had 3.5):


Hit points measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character's skill, luck, and resolve - all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.

The rules do not agree with you. Interpretations of other rules may somewhat agree with you, but the very definition of hit points itself disagrees with you.

If you want to make an argument that your definition is better, fine, but that's a different argument than "the rules say it's just endurance." They explicitly do not.

Oh, another point. Prior to 4e, AC is determined entirely by stats and equipment. Which would mean that if hp do not also model the defensive capabilities of a character, that a 15th level fighter in a given type of armor is exactly as easy to hit as a 1st level fighter, or even a commoner. I just can't buy that the system does not model the defensive capabilities of a character in any way.

The Big Dice
2010-09-05, 03:08 PM
Oh, another point. Prior to 4e, AC is determined entirely by stats and equipment. Which would mean that if hp do not also model the defensive capabilities of a character, that a 15th level fighter in a given type of armor is exactly as easy to hit as a 1st level fighter, or even a commoner. I just can't buy that the system does not model the defensive capabilities of a character in any way.
D&D doesn't model anything particularly well if you're after something that's going to allow for interactions that represent real life.

How do you represent a broken leg in D&D? Or a punch in the nose? There's no difference between the kind of injuries you get from a sword, a mace or a Fireball. Despite lacerations, blunt trauma and burns all being very different forms of injury. And despite a punch in the nose have very well understood and easily described (in real life) effects, there's nothing to model that in D&D.

And that's not a problem. If I want to play a character that breaks fingers, gouges eyes and uses effective joint locks, I'll play GURPS and make a Martial Artist.

As for those who talk about people surviving what should be fatal injuries, for every person who survived there are a thousand who didn't. The fact is, if you fall far enough to reach around 25-30 feet per second falling speed, you're probably going to break bones when you land. Faster than about 50 fps is most likely going to kill you. When you read about people who survived falls of over 30 feet or so, it's because those kind of falls usually result in either severe injuries or fatal ones. And because that's the normal result, it's barely worth documenting.

The guy who dies leaping from a 5th floor window to avoid a fire makes the local news because it's a tragedy, but not a story of national interest. The guy who survives the same fall makes the national news because such a thing is rare, not because it's common.

As for hit points in D&D, if it was possible to point at a specific thing and say categorically "This is what hit points represent and this is why" then there's no reason to debate and discuss it. Because there's a grey area there, hit points are obviously an abstract.

Halaster
2010-09-05, 03:35 PM
Somebody asked if anyone changed their minds during this discussion, and, well, I have, at least a little.

I do get the point that not everyone is happy with just shrugging and saying "well, it's a rules thing". D&D is a roleplaying game, and while simulation and immersion often take the back seat to game mechanics in the rules, people want to imagine the action as more than just numbers and dice rolls.

So, looking at the game, I must say that I ultimately agree with the godlike/superhuman/magical interpretation of hit points. PCs get all sorts of abilities that defy a naturalistic interpretation, and the game designers have not always bothered to give an actual explanation for how they come about. Smite Evil is explained - channeling divine power. Barbarian Damage Reduction is not explained. He just gets that. So it's got to be some kind of semi-magical effect. Sort of the inherent magic of the game world working its mojo. Hit points are the same kind of thing, then.

The one thing that bothers me about this is that the game doesn't really make that explicit. I think that's what caused some of my problems I described earlier with getting into the whole thing imagination-wise.
I compare it to Earthdawn, which explicitly states that the characters aquire magical abilities and makes their magic an integral part of the gameworld. D&D just tries to sneak it past the players radar. So I catch myself wondering: why the hell can this character do that? Can you actually learn that kind of thing? Doesn't seem right to me. If I treat it as a magic-like ability, it works, just as well as an Earthdawn warrior turning his skin to wood and walking on air. So I guess I learned something that might help me wrap my imagination around D&D. Thanks, everyone.

Oh, and is it just me, or is that one hell of a step away from AD&D? I mean, not as far as hit points go, but as far as the game worlds are imagined. After all, in AD&D, characters never got these kinds of abilities, and now the world is full of people who can teleport through shadows, become tough as hard wood and react faster than their own senses. Shouldn't that change the way these worlds work? Shouldn't there be some kind of in-game fluff to explain this? Guess I'll have to make something up.

@supernatural vs. superhuman:
D&D certainly makes that distinction. All the specials are either extraordinary or supernatural, with the former representing superhuman abilities that work without full-scale magic. Hit points seem to be this kind of more subtle magickery.

Frozen_Feet
2010-09-05, 05:12 PM
What other possibility could there be, some sort of super-material designed vehicle to "shuttle" him down? Ludicrous!
I'm going to swallow this hook, line and sinker.

There are various possibilities. For example, I'm fairly certain a sufficiently knowledgeable writer could create a scientifically plausible scenario where human body can go through slow transition from ordinary flesh to extremely tough metamaterials while still retaining its "normal" functionality.

The scenario would be as fantastic and far removed from your everyday life than any magical tale. After all, it still contains a person capable from falling from orbit, now he's just scientifically justified.

But you know what they say: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinquishable from magic. Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinquishable from technology. And all technology is magic to someone who does not understand it. :smallwink:

Lev
2010-09-05, 06:02 PM
How come a barbarian is more magical than a wizard?

And why does he have better 'plot armor'?

Plot armor, now that's interesting.
I think I'll give my players bonus action points for high charisma.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-05, 06:14 PM
How come a barbarian is more magical than a wizard?
The barbarian's self-healing reservoir is bigger because he uses it more often. It's like muscle; the more you use, the more you get.


To quote 4e (my 3.0 stuff is packed away, and I never had 3.5):
That's fluff, not rules. (Which, incidentally, 4e explicitly encourages players to change at their whim.)


Oh, another point. Prior to 4e, AC is determined entirely by stats and equipment.
One of the many reasons that 4e is now my edition of choice. :smallwink: Anyway, you make a good point. Conan being just as easy to hit as Joe Blow is rather silly, making my explanation that much more sillier pre-4e.

So, I'm not certain yet, but my opinion may have just changed -- at least for pre-4e editions.

kyoryu
2010-09-05, 06:40 PM
One of the many reasons that 4e is now my edition of choice. :smallwink: Anyway, you make a good point. Conan being just as easy to hit as Joe Blow is rather silly, making my explanation that much more sillier pre-4e.


I've actually wondered if some of 4e's "grindiness" is due to the fact that it now uses both increased AC, as well as increased hp, to represent defensive proficiency. It's kind of like the double-dip effect you see in MMOs, where a character a few levels higher does more damage, is harder to hit, is more likely to hit you, and takes more damage than you.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-09-05, 06:52 PM
I've actually wondered if some of 4e's "grindiness" is due to the fact that it now uses both increased AC, as well as increased hp, to represent defensive proficiency. It's kind of like the double-dip effect you see in MMOs, where a character a few levels higher does more damage, is harder to hit, is more likely to hit you, and takes more damage than you.
IME, grindiness comes from the HP-to-damage ratio being too high. It's not that I don't hit often enough in 4e; it's that I don't often feel threatened. My hits don't take as big a HP percentage as I'd like, and monster hits don't take much out of me. (This became painfully apparent during the SoW wraith encounter; my gods, insubstantial monsters suuuck!) Hopefully my group's other DMs will start using MM3 monsters, which should help eliminate this feeling of security I have. :smallamused:

EDIT: This has been my experience in the heroic tier; at higher levels, the math hole deepens and whiffing certainly can contribute to grind.

Math_Mage
2010-09-05, 11:16 PM
@Math_Mage:
Well, of course, to a point, everything is abstract, that's why it's a ruleset and not a science textbook. In a way, when you look at something and try to describe it, you always abstract, that's what thought and language do. But lest I wax too philosophical: some things are more abstract than others.
Actually, the game designers admit that HP refers to more than one concept in the real world. This thread has seen some eloquent listings, of what having lots of hit points could refer to in any given case. But there lies the problem: if you include too many things in a system like hit points, the whole thing becomes vague and arbitrary. If a term can mean anything, it really means nothing. So, ultimately, the only thing you can really say about hit points is that they represent a character's ability to survive. That's about as abstract as you can get. Take for comparison the attack bonus. It clearly represents skill and precision with weapons - a game world concept mapped to game rule concept, pretty much one-to-one. Not much abstraction there.

Take other roleplaying game rules and it might become clearer.
Rolemaster for example uses hit points exclusively to refer to all the minor mayhem that comes with combat: bruises, pain, shock, blood loss, disorientation. It never represents actual injury - the game has actual wound descriptions for that. So, having many hit points in Rolemaster clearly represents one thing: toughness. You could die from hit point loss, basically being so knocked out your system just shuts down, but it's really rare. Mostly, you'd be dead for other reasons long before. The rules surrounding hit points reinforce that concept - they depend on race, not class, they increase by training, like skills, they recover quickly, and so on. Rolemaster has a clear idea, what hit points mean and uses them accordingly.
They are still an abstraction, but way less abstract than D&D hit points. Of course, that comes with a price, a more complicated combat resolution. D&D avoids that by abstracting more, sacrificing clarity of concept in the process.

To be honest, I think we largely agree. In the last thread that discussed this topic, I wrote that trying to clarify what HP represents is a futile exercise, because all that matters is picking something that makes sense for an individual situation, and just about any interpretation can be extended to cover any situation with enough rationalization. That said, I have something of a working interpretation of HP, which I note below.


Finally, you said that narrative verisimilitude is of primary importance. I would contradict that. D&D values good gameplay more highly than verisimilitude, as elaborated above. That's in itself a fine thing, but it defeats the search for answers to questions like the one posed by Tyndmyr.

This is certainly true when talking about the game system. It values facilitating gameplay over establishing consistent and believable interpretations of its mechanics. But when you move from the game system to the game in play, the players will often take for granted the mechanic's gameplay elements, and be more concerned with how to interpret or represent that mechanic for roleplaying purposes.


PS: You're right of course, you haven't said what you imagine hit points to be. Might you elaborate?

Well, you described the attack bonus above, and that's where I'd start. Because a common argument is that if hit points directly represent damage, then the same amount of hit point damage should represent the same wound. But damage is not actually a characteristic of the person being attacked. Its source is the attacker. Attack bonus represents the accuracy of the blow; damage represents the power of the blow. And the same blow can do completely different amounts of damage depending on who is being struck. People vary in their native ability to take damage. The two primary factors that go into that are toughness (inherent or built-up), and skill in taking hits. Luck? I dislike that interpretation, because HP is reliable. Divine favor is such a corner case (maybe it's half of a cleric's d8?) that I tend to ignore it as well. Different situations will entail different ratios of skill to toughness, but the core interpretation--everyone takes the same hit, but some are hurt less than others because they're better at taking hits--doesn't change.


Are you a 'Math_Mage' or a linguist, or just too literal?:smalltongue:

The alias comes from when I was playing Magic: the Gathering. Actually, now that I think about it, it's only a couple letters off from 'math major', which is almost prescient.

And I am a pedantic sonofagun. :smallbiggrin:

Halaster
2010-09-06, 01:02 AM
@Math_Mage:
And here I thought we were having totally different ideas about this. Glad to hear it's not so.

@topic:
Well, I've slept over the whole question and come to this (for the moment final) conclusion:
D&D game worlds are suffused with magic. It forms a kind of field that is everywhere, like background radiation. FR calls this the weave, so I'll stick with that term for now. People and creatures are constantly in interaction with that weave. This allows creatures to do physically impossible things, like a dragon flying and a giant walking upright. Most people have at best very limited interactions with the weave. Adventurers however, who constantly get into dangerous situations, develop an instinctive feel for the weave and the way it flows. When threatened, they instinctively use it to defend themselves. They may not even realize what they are doing, but they are using magical energy to deflect or slow sword blows, arrows and even magical attacks, turning them from deadly strikes into minor scratches. This is not enough to stop the attack completely, so damage is still done, just proportionally less. Naturally, people who tend to fight a lot have a more finely tuned defensive reflex and thus more hit points. In other characters this kind of reflexive magic use may develop into a sort of sixth sense (trapsense, uncanny dodge) supernatural sensory acuity (swift tracker) or unusual self-command (slippery mind, skill mastery).
Now this is all reflexive and instinctual, and essentially passive. The character reacts to a change in the environment, and the weave changes itself to match. By contrast, some characters learn to manipulate the weave to create active magical effects. They poke at the weave, pull its threads and receive an effect, like a bard song or a spell. That's what most people call magic. The other thing, what all characters do, gets put down to luck, skill, toughness or divine blessing. However, the smarter spellcasters observe this behaviour and have found ways to exploit it (temporary hp, harm spell etc.). Still as the connection to the weave remains passive, requiring no input on part of the hero, no one has found a way to block this, because all spells and effects that block magic only "firewall" the spellcaster's side of the bargain: he cannot sense the weave anymore, but the weave can still sense him.
This would explain even the most amazing extraordinary special abilities and also solve the hit point question. I like it, because it gives the world a magical feel and makes the characters special.

Math_Mage
2010-09-06, 02:56 AM
stuff

Sounds like a great basis for a campaign setting.

Questions: does the weave encompass both divine and arcane magic? Are the unconscious manipulations of the weave by 'mundane' characters considered arcane, divine, or a third category?

kyoryu
2010-09-06, 03:44 AM
D&D doesn't model anything particularly well if you're after something that's going to allow for interactions that represent real life.

How do you represent a broken leg in D&D? Or a punch in the nose? There's no difference between the kind of injuries you get from a sword, a mace or a Fireball. Despite lacerations, blunt trauma and burns all being very different forms of injury. And despite a punch in the nose have very well understood and easily described (in real life) effects, there's nothing to model that in D&D.

And that's not a problem. If I want to play a character that breaks fingers, gouges eyes and uses effective joint locks, I'll play GURPS and make a Martial Artist.


This is basically my position as well. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

HP as a combination of endurance, luck, skill, etc. gives reasonable results in a large number of cases that will be most commonly dealt with by players. In some other cases, it is completely bonkers.

I accept this, because the system, overall, is fun to play and lets me beat up orcs, hang out with friends, and maybe drink a few beers. It's not simulationist, and I accept the HP definition as written because, well, it works well enough in most cases, and bugs me less in the cases where it doesn't work than the alternate suggestions.

If I want strong realism or even verisimilitude, I'll play a game more suited to it, GURPS being the most likely candidate.


That's fluff, not rules. (Which, incidentally, 4e explicitly encourages players to change at their whim.)


It's sort of fluff, I'll grant. But refluffing it isn't like describing the effects of a Magical Missile as shooting purple rocks or having a flock of fairies descend on the target to bonk them with their wands, it's more like stating that Strength actually represents the underarm stank of the character, and the nauseous spell makes it harder for people to defend themselves, as well as just taking outright damage from the stank.

Your point seems to be "hp as straight damage makes more sense with RAW, if you ignore the part where they say what it represents, and ignore the large sections of rules where it does make sense. But if you focus on these bits over here and here where hp as the combined stuff doesn't make sense, then you'll agree that hp as straight damage makes more sense."

And I'll grant that there are sections of rules where "hp as combined factors" fails miserably, and is completely illogical. I'm generally okay with that, as those seem to be the things that PCs encounter less frequently.

Compare:

HP as combined factors:
Melee combat - makes sense!
Magic - makes some sense, can be fluffed around
Falling/swimming in lava/environmental hazards - WTF?

HP as straight damage:
Melee combat - WTF? (lack of modeling defense, etc.)
Magic - doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense, but sure.
Falling/swimming in lava/environmental damage - makes as much sense as any explanation could.

The problem is that hp doesn't represent reality in all cases, unless you basically break reality (which is what most of the proposed alternate solutions actually do). At the end of the day, you get to choose which scenarios are illogical.

And for the most egregious cases where hp as combined factors fails, I can always invoke the chunky salsa rule.

Halaster
2010-09-06, 04:53 AM
Arcane and divine magic interact in ways that suggest that they are both part of the weave. In a way gods are just creatures that know the weave inside out and can do awesome stuff with a wiggle of their pinky. Clerics essentially don't cast spells but have the gods wiggle just a little.
The unconscious use of magic would have to be a third category, since it is not "magic" in the strictest sense. It's just the weave reacting to the needs of people attuned to it. Magical power is involved but "magic" in the sense of manipulation of that power isn't.

Reis Tahlen
2010-09-06, 11:08 AM
Hit Points equals Manga style fighting.

'nuff said.