Hit Points vs Resilience [3.5]

[kulosle]

So I recently got into a discussion with a friend about what is a better buy. Hit points or damage reduction. Our discussion started off talking about our homebrew system specifically were hit points cost 2 points each but has a cap and damage reduction, which reduces most damge even magical or energy damage, cost 10 points per point of reduction. I argued that its better to have damage reduction because it makes your hit points last longer and it takes less resources to heal you. While he argued that there is always some way of getting around everything except hit points. Hit points are your last line of defense that no one can take away from you. Then I remembered a quote from the players hand book. "It doesn't matter how many hit points you have, a knife to the eye is a knife to the eye." The the discussion shifted over to other systems, primarily D&D.

What are you opinions?

[Longcat]

For D&D? Hit points. All the way. DR doesn't do jack squat vs most magic.

[kulosle]

I should clarify a bit. So for this to be the same argument but for different systems we referred to resilience over all. So in D&D that would be Damage reduction and resistances. So what would you prefer 5 hit points or 1 point of damage reduction and resistance 1 to all energy types? That 5:1 ratio was because DR cost 10 points while hit points cost 2.

[betelgeuce]

For D&D? Hit points. All the way. DR doesn't do jack squat vs most magic.

Depends on what kind of DR you are talking about. DR magic blows chunks, agreed. DR/Adamatine, DR/Silver (Who the hell carries silver???!?), DR/Alignment, DR/(anything other than magic or basic weapons) is excellent. It gets down to RNG. Preventing damage is better than taking damage. While it's important to have MASSIVE MEGA HP, no DR is almost as good as not wearing armor because we all know that at a high level AC basically become useless in the sense that, you have creatures WHO'S BAB IS YOUR AC.....!!!!

Bottom Line:
HP Awesome,
DR Better if it's the right kind; If you don't have access to the right kind, prepare to HP whore.

Edit: Also I think you are talking about Magic as in Fireball magic, and that's where Energy Resistance comes in. Resist that firefail with your magic I hate fire powers. *Shrug*

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

Depends on how much damage the attack does. Damage Reduction is the same as virtual hit points that get added everytime you are hit.

example:
A- 115 hit points, damage reduction 0
B- 100 hit points, damage reduction 5
C- 85 hit points, damage reduction 10


Situation 1:
enemy does 10 attacks, each does 14 damage
Remaining HPs:
A: dead
B: 10 HPs remaining
C: 45 HPs remaining

Situation 2:
enemy does 3 attacks, each deals 35 damage
A: 10 HPs remaining
B: 10 HPs remaining
C: 10 HPs remaining

Situation 3:
enemy does 1 attack, it deals 105 damage
A: 10 HPs remaining
B: dead
C: dead

[betelgeuce]

Depends on how much damage the attack does. Damage Reduction is the same as virtual hit points that get added everytime you are hit.

example:
A- 115 hit points, damage reduction 0
B- 100 hit points, damage reduction 5
C- 85 hit points, damage reduction 10


Situation 1:
enemy does 10 attacks, each does 14 damage
Remaining HPs:
A: dead
B: 10 HPs remaining
C: 45 HPs remaining

Situation 2:
enemy does 3 attacks, each deals 35 damage
A: 10 HPs remaining
B: 10 HPs remaining
C: 10 HPs remaining

Situation 3:
enemy does 1 attack, it deals 105 damage
A: 10 HPs remaining
B: dead
C: dead

Agreed. Excellent point. I thumbs up this.

[Tyndmyr]

I should clarify a bit. So for this to be the same argument but for different systems we referred to resilience over all. So in D&D that would be Damage reduction and resistances. So what would you prefer 5 hit points or 1 point of damage reduction and resistance 1 to all energy types? That 5:1 ratio was because DR cost 10 points while hit points cost 2.

I think that's a reasonable ratio, because it makes me actually think about it a bit. At lower ratios, I'd automatically take the DR, because it works on literally everything, and it usually takes several hits to kill a player anyway. Plus, DR basically negates large volume/low damage attacks, so it's situationally awesome.

I think, given that trade-off, I'd grab a minor amount of DR(2 probably), then a few hit points.

[Flickerdart]

At high levels, everyone whose business is hurting people will have (or should have) access to either damage that ignores DR (such as Force) or simply so much damage that DR doesn't matter. At the levels you're likely to see goblins with 1d4 swords and nothing else, though, DR is pretty sweet.

[ericgrau]

The question seems like "which is longer, a rope or a chain?" That's a pretty meaningless point to argue. First ask how long each one is before trying to make a point. Figure out how many times you expect to get hit, like what sephiroth did. That's how many hp a point of DR is worth. The OP has DR at 5 times the cost of hp. I'd expect to get hit more than 5 times since it's per hit not per round. Include spells like the OP did and it's even more than that. The DR is a better deal, and if I were playing in that group I'd get as much DR as I could until either hitting the limit or reaching the damage of the smallest attack I expect to face. Then I'd make a new comparison ignoring the weakest attacks to decide if I wanted more DR or not.

Now if you're asking this for balance, it gets more complicated. Foes have more attacks at higher levels and less at lower levels. Heck before level 5 most foes hit once a round and even on the above scale hp would be a little better than DR. Levels 5-10 I might get hit once or twice a round so DR should cost about the same as the OP's rate or slightly more. Level 11+ it should cost more than that.

[kulosle]

Plus, DR basically negates large volume/low damage attacks

I think this is really important. In almost every campaign there are always of few fights where you are fighting a horde of enemies. A little damage reduction in these scenarios means you basically never get hurt. You can feel confident jumping into a horde of underlings or raiding a small town.

But as for everything else I do pretty much agree with it all. That is about how it works in D&D. So to relate this back to our homebrew, something that's really important. 10 is the usual max for hit points, unless you're particularly epic (rarely happens) then you can have 15. There is no cap on damage reduction though.