HP Flavor Confirmation Bias Thread

[Bjarkmundur]

Can you help me make the following interpretation of Hit Points make sense for me? How does it differ from your (or RAW) definitions?


When attacked, you can effortlessly negate the attack using Saves and Armor Class (and some attacks simply miss the mark altogether). Other attacks, however, require copious amounts of effort to avoid, leaving you fatigued, cut and bruised until you can recover. Doing so represents many of the same maneuvers as Save and Armor Class, such as parrying or dodging, except for the fact that it depletes a finite resource called Hit Points. Just like a runner can only sprint until he's out of breath, a fighter can only fight until his Hit Points run out, and the amount of effort needed to avoid lethal hits can really add up over a short period of time.
This clarification is made to emphasize that Hit Points are not ‘Life Points’, and represents stamina, bruises, and minor cuts. That's how you can recover from getting hit by five arrows in just a short rest. It is not that you got hit five times, but instead that five times it took significant effort to avoid being hit.




What features and mechanics exist that support this flavor?
Is there anything missing to make this flavor really POP!, some some glaring oversight that makes the whole flavor fall apart?

CONTINUATION:

Well, since you guys did so well tearing the first bit apart, I thought I might feed you the rest and see what holes you might be able to find.

How does the flavor add up?
Does the flow feel good?
Is there any step that feels off?
Is there something that doesn't add up from a narrative point of view?

Happy hunting!.


Reduced to 0 Hit Points
When your hit points finally do run out and you are too exhausted to fend of the incoming attack, you take a direct hit and gain the dying condition.


Dying Condition
Some collapse in exhaustion from their wounds, while others make one last heroic attempt to defend themselves.
- When you gain the Dying condition you have to make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or fall unconscious.

- If the attack that delivered the Dying condition dealt 10 or more damage, you receive one Minor Injury.

- If your hit points reach a negative number equal to half your hit point maximum your character is dead.

- If you regain any number of hit points you are no longer Dying.

- At the start of your turn make a Death Saving Throw.


A dying character can be stabilized with a use of a Medicine check and a Healer's Kit, at which point the character stops making death saving throws until damaged. A stable character also regains 1 hit point in 1d4 hours.
When receiving healing, the hit point total is first increased to 0 before applying the additional hit points.


Death Saving Throws
Death Saving Throw is an unmodified d20 rolls with a DC of 10. If you roll a 20 on a death saving throw you regain 1 hit point and are no longer dying. Once you’ve accumulated three failed death saving throw you are dead. Your number of failed death saving throws is reset at the end of a long rest.


Minor and Major Injuries
You gain one Minor Injury whenever you take 10 or more damage from a single source either when Dying, while Incapacitated, or as a result of fall damage. You instead gain a Major Injury if the damage is 20 or more. Whenever you would gain a Minor or Major Injury, you can choose to gain one failed death saving throw instead. Minor and Major Injuries can be removed via the Recover downtime activity.

Minor Injury (roll 1d20)
1-3 Injured Leg - Movement speed reduced by 10 feet
4-8 Injured Arm - Can't use a shield and disadvantage on using that hand.
9-11 Multiple Injuries - Max HP reduced by 5, or half the damage taken, whichever is higher.
12-16 Badly Beaten - Disadvantage on Constitution saving throws
17-19 Ringing Blow - Stunned until the end of next turn and deafened until you Recover.
20 Blow to the Head - Unconscious for 2d12 hours.

[PhantomSoul]

Are you asking specifically for the finite resource aspect, of the definition/description as a whole? (The bolding makes it look like maybe it's for that in particular, but that might just be a convention you have for your notes/documents.)

[Bjarkmundur]

The Hit Points = Fatigue
So definition part, mainly.

I'm looking for mechanics that support or completely topple this flavor packet over :)

This is the flavor I intend to use, I just need to know if I'm going to run into a mechanic that makes no sense when paired with this flavor, down the line. ^^

[Reevh]

The Hit Points = Fatigue
So definition part, mainly.

I'm looking for mechanics that support or completely topple this flavor packet over :)

This is the flavor I intend to use, I just need to know if I'm going to run into a mechanic that makes no sense when paired with this flavor, down the line. ^^

It seems like it doesn't quite fit with getting knocked out. Like you've avoided all these attacks through your moxie (HP), but a final one hits you after you've spent your reserves of moxie (HP), and you get KO'd. Great. But then your cleric casts a spell and returns some moxie (HP) to you, and you ignore the gaping wound you took from the monster?

Honestly, I'm fine with these sorts of inconsistencies, but it sounds like you want to reflavor to try to avoid the weirdness and inconsistency that's HP.

[Bjarkmundur]

Yyou ignore the gaping wound you took from the monster?

Wound? What wound? You just fainted from fatigue, essentially. I have a lingering wound / long rest death saves mechanic to take care of the wound aspects. Hit Points only represent the fatigue / stamina part.

[Reevh]

Wound? What wound? You just fainted from fatigue, essentially. I have a lingering wound / long rest death saves mechanic to take care of the wound aspects. Hit Points only represent the fatigue / stamina part.

OK, so you weren't ever hit, because your stamina allowed you to continue to avoid the attacks. Finally you run out and collapse. The monster turns to your compatriots. You start making death saves, and without any actual physical wound, you lose 3 death saves and die. You died from simple exhaustion?

[Bjarkmundur]

OK, so you weren't ever hit, because your stamina allowed you to continue to avoid the attacks. Finally you run out and collapse. The monster turns to your compatriots. You start making death saves, and without any actual physical wound, you lose 3 death saves and die. You died from simple exhaustion?

Ah! There it is! This is exactly why I need your help guys/gals, to find the places this doesn't add up! Well observed!

Keep em coming, let's see if we can't completely break this thing.

[Reevh]

Ah! There it is! This is exactly why I need your help guys/gals, to find the places this doesn't add up! Well observed!

Keep em coming, let's see if we can't completely break this thing.

:D Glad I could help!

[KRSW]

I think a good distinction comes from 4e where half hp is called "Bloodied" meaning your character is bleeding, but still capable of fighting effectively. I think its good to flavor HP as both lethal damage and also stamina/fatigue. Say you take damage from a dragon breath weapon, you make the save but still lose HP, you avoided the breath weapon but it still took a great deal of effort to evade, tiring you.

Second Wind, You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm. restores hit points in the flavor of stamina. I think just flavoring it as both covers both in combat healing like cure wounds and also short rest healing as well as deathblows. It also gives more variety to narrating combat, if also more demanding of the narrator.

[RSP]

Any sort of situation where someone is defenseless (under the effects of Hold Person perhaps) might make it really unbelievable that they’re spending “stamina” to avoid the nasty crits they’re taking, not to mention how they’re using their stamina to avoid hits while they can’t move.

There’s also the dropping to zero/incapacitated issue mentioned up thread, in that if 0 HP means you’re not wounded, just tired, why isn’t the enemy finishing you off? Ina 6-second time span two creatures are fighting to the death and one essentially trips and falls over. Instead of taking advantage of their enemy on the ground, they ignore them and find someone else to fight? Seems very odd, for both intelligent and unintelligent creatures to just ignore the fallen opponent.

Likewise, would it actually finally be a “hit” if they didn’t ignore the incapacitated character? And, if so, wouldn’t that injured incapacitated character still get healed during a short or long rest anyway (which it sounds like is what you’re trying to avoid showing in-game)?

[Bjarkmundur]

I think a good distinction comes from 4e where half hp is called "Bloodied" meaning your character is bleeding, but still capable of fighting effectively. I think its good to flavor HP as both lethal damage and also stamina/fatigue.

Aw man, I miss 4e sometimes, in a rose-tinted glasses kind of way.
Maybe I should add bloodied to my games, it was a fun distinction to make.


Any sort of situation where someone is defenseless (under the effects of Hold Person perhaps) might make it really unbelievable that they’re spending “stamina” to avoid the nasty crits they’re taking, not to mention how they’re using their stamina to avoid hits while they can’t move.

There’s also the dropping to zero/incapacitated issue mentioned up thread, in that if 0 HP means you’re not wounded, just tired, why isn’t the enemy finishing you off? Ina 6-second time span two creatures are fighting to the death and one essentially trips and falls over. Instead of taking advantage of their enemy on the ground, they ignore them and find someone else to fight? Seems very odd, for both intelligent and unintelligent creatures to just ignore the fallen opponent.

Likewise, would it actually finally be a “hit” if they didn’t ignore the incapacitated character? And, if so, wouldn’t that injured incapacitated character still get healed during a short or long rest anyway (which it sounds like is what you’re trying to avoid showing in-game)?

This is a very good point!

Hold Person: Paralyzed doesn't really work with stamina now does it :O.
Drop to 0: I have very good altered Death Saving Throw and Lingering Injury mechanic that supports hitting creatures while they're down (page 4) (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fqVaIbHNWRzWJ11L7aAuxxPqPdTp39zZ6DVBo7sXaD8/edit?usp=sharing), so that's not a problem.

Edit: Since this thread is not meant to delve into my houserules and solutions to these problem, It'll simply suffice to mention that both of the aformentioned probles have been solved. Thanks for bringing this to my attention <3.

[Emongnome777]

What about fall damage? Did you get “drained” by not landing?

[Bjarkmundur]

What about fall damage? Did you get “drained” by not landing?

Ugh, I'm starting to regret starting this thread. You guys are too good at this xD

Edit: Okay, managed to incorporate it, thanks for your help!

[Finieous]

OK, so you weren't ever hit, because your stamina allowed you to continue to avoid the attacks.

Except you somehow still took poison damage from the giant scorpion's sting, even though it missed you because of all your stamina and whatnot, and then the poison really got into your system (failed save) and you took even more poison damage! And let me tell you: All that poison damage from the sting that missed is REALLY tiring.

[Reevh]

Except you somehow still took poison damage from the giant scorpion's sting, even though it missed you because of all your stamina and whatnot, and then the poison really got into your system (failed save) and you took even more poison damage! And let me tell you: All that poison damage from the sting that missed is REALLY tiring.

I think maybe it's more about the exhaustion of considering how awful all that poison would have felt.

[Finieous]

I think maybe it's more about the exhaustion of considering how awful all that poison would have felt.

Yeah, should do extra psychic damage!

[Chronos]

There are three ways we can look at something to decide what it "should be": We can look at D&D as a game, as a story, or as a simulation.

If we look at it as a game, then it makes no difference how we interpret HP. It's just a number, and when that number goes to 0, you stop fighting.

If we look at it as a story, then it makes a lot more sense to interpret HP as actually referring to your meat and the actual damage to it. After a fight, are you really going to say "Wow, that ogre got really close to hitting me! You'd better pass me one of those healing potions, to settle my nerves"? If you roll well on your attack, is the DM going to tell you "You missed, but the orc looks really uncomfortable about it"?

And if we look at it as a simulation, then it also makes a lot more sense to interpret HP as meat. Take a look at real-world people who are the equivalents of high-level adventurers, and a lot of them really did take a heck of a lot of real, physical damage, without being killed by it. We're talking things like taking a direct hit in the face from a sniper rifle, or getting the skin mauled completely off their back by a bear.

The way I see it, it takes about 200 points of damage to reduce a human-sized body completely to hamburger. Most ordinary people will die long before that point. A single dagger thrust will kill most people, even though the body is almost entirely intact. But that high-level barbarian? Yeah, reducing him completely to hamburger is pretty much the only way you're going to stop him from fighting.

[Bjarkmundur]

Except you somehow still took poison damage from the giant scorpion's sting, even though it missed you because of all your stamina and whatnot, and then the poison really got into your system (failed save) and you took even more poison damage! And let me tell you: All that poison damage from the sting that missed is REALLY tiring.

Oh boy
*starts researching effects that deal poison damage*

Edit: I'll add cuts and bruises to my definition, to accommodate effects that deliver poisons on hit.

[Sigreid]

I'd go with honed survival instincts meaning you don't avoid all the damage but you avoided most of it. That sword swing? Would have taken a less skilled warrior's head off but you were able to make it just a scratch. That fall off the cliff? when others would have plummeted to their death, you managed to grab at some outcroppings and handholds on the way down so the impact wasn't as bad but you're still bruised all to hell. That sort of thing.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'd go with honed survival instincts meaning you don't avoid all the damage but you avoided most of it. That sword swing? Would have taken a less skilled warrior's head off but you were able to make it just a scratch. That fall off the cliff? when others would have plummeted to their death, you managed to grab at some outcroppings and handholds on the way down so the impact wasn't as bad but you're still bruised all to hell. That sort of thing.

That's exactly what I'm going for. I just want to clarify it in terms of cuts, bruises and stamina. There's a reason for this distinction that I won't go into detail on this thread. But you are absolutely on point! There is definetly a narrative step between targeting a creature with an attack and resolving its effects. <3

[Finieous]

Oh boy
*starts researching effects that deal poison damage*


**deleting at OP's request due to an edit crossing in the night**

Last word: This is a game where you can be burned badly enough that you'll die within seconds, but if someone spends a few seconds bandaging you, you're stable and will recover fully after eating a sandwich. Best to keep it abstract: it's "some combination" of this and this, that and that. As soon as you try to say, "It's this but not that," the rules are going to fight you.

[RickAllison]

I figure that dropping to 0 means that the enemy finally gets that solid shot in. So if they try to make it nonlethal, it's whacking you upside the head and knocking you out. If not (or they can't like if it was magic or ranged), it is a dangerous wound they inflict.

They can also be grazing wounds. Losing all your HP means it is a serious blow.

[Bjarkmundur]

I figure that dropping to 0 means that the enemy finally gets that solid shot in. So if they try to make it nonlethal, it's whacking you upside the head and knocking you out. If not (or they can't like if it was magic or ranged), it is a dangerous wound they inflict.

They can also be grazing wounds. Losing all your HP means it is a serious blow.

You got it ;)
That 'solid shot' is my means of discouraging yoyo-healing.

[Yuki Akuma]

OK, so you weren't ever hit, because your stamina allowed you to continue to avoid the attacks. Finally you run out and collapse. The monster turns to your compatriots. You start making death saves, and without any actual physical wound, you lose 3 death saves and die. You died from simple exhaustion?

I couldn't resist pointing out that in D&D 5e, you can literally die from exhaustion. :smallwink:

[Bjarkmundur]

**deleting at OP's request due to an edit crossing in the night**

Last word: This is a game where you can be burned badly enough that you'll die within seconds, but if someone spends a few seconds bandaging you, you're stable and will recover fully after eating a sandwich. Best to keep it abstract: it's "some combination" of this and this, that and that. As soon as you try to say, "It's this but not that," the rules are going to fight you.

Thanks for editing your comment, sorry I wasn't quick enough to edit mine!

As long as its the fellow forumites fighting on the behalf of the rules, I know it'll be fight bringing great honor to both the victor and the loser.

....you're probably right tho

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Aw man, I miss 4e sometimes, in a rose-tinted glasses kind of way.
Maybe I should add bloodied to my games, it was a fun distinction to make.

"Bloodied" as a description is also really handy for DMs when players want to know how close to dead a monster is. Giving them an HP value is not very immersive, nor is giving their health as a fraction or percentage. Describing them as bloodied once they reach half health is a nice halfway point between purely descriptive and purely mechanical. Maybe upgrade it to "very bloodied" once they're below 1/4th.

Also yeah, I've been feeling real nostalgic for 4e lately too.

[Bjarkmundur]

I think the bulk of the work is done. Thank you so much for your help. If you think of something else, please leave a reply.

You can see the results of this thread in my Houserule Document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fqVaIbHNWRzWJ11L7aAuxxPqPdTp39zZ6DVBo7sXaD8/edit?usp=sharing), Chapter 2b (it's hyperlinked). There you can see how your comments helped, especially in terms of Dying, Incapacitated and Lingering Injuries.

I couldn't have done this without your help <3

[AdAstra]

Yeah damage mitigation feel accurate to what HP should represent. Not being able to avoid damage or just absorb it, but being able to reduce it's effect on you such that you can still fight. They're the resource you use to just barely avoid dying or suffering debilitating injury. On the other hand, I wouldn't overthink it too much. HP can be many things, and sometimes it really is more fun to be able to take a dozen arrows to the chest and still fight.

(also, as a side note, noticed you adopted something similar to my revised TWF rules for your own homebrew; I'm flattered!)

[loki_ragnarock]

What features and mechanics exist that support this flavor?
Poison damage supports that flavor. Probably someone has said the opposite, but I actually think it supports the stamina/luck side of hp more than undermines it.

Poison kills you... when it's delivered the right way. If that deathadder or another 3 step snake actually bit you, you aren't mildly impaired until a short rest, you're dead. But if a drop of virulent venom falls on your skin in an incidental way? That won't kill you, not directly.

So if the poison damage does enough to actually bring you low, they probably got an actual bite in. If a little poison got on your clothes, skin, or armor, that might incidentally make it into a wound later. That's just HP as stamina/luck.

[JackPhoenix]

Except you somehow still took poison damage from the giant scorpion's sting, even though it missed you because of all your stamina and whatnot, and then the poison really got into your system (failed save) and you took even more poison damage! And let me tell you: All that poison damage from the sting that missed is REALLY tiring.

If it's just the damage, it's not really any different from the piercing damage of the sting, or fire damage from a Fireball, or whatever. When conditions get applied, it's different, but damage type isn't really important to HP interpretations.


And if we look at it as a simulation, then it also makes a lot more sense to interpret HP as meat. Take a look at real-world people who are the equivalents of high-level adventurers, and a lot of them really did take a heck of a lot of real, physical damage, without being killed by it. We're talking things like taking a direct hit in the face from a sniper rifle, or getting the skin mauled completely off their back by a bear.

You mean people who were incredibly lucky to survive what 99% of other people wouldn't, and still had to spend weeks or months in recovery, possibly without even being back to normal, and also not really being differeniated from people who aren't "equivalents of high-level adventurers"? There was a flight attendant who survived fall from 10 kilometers, but instead of being incredibly lucky, you claim that she's somehow "equivalent of high-level adventurer", and would also survive being shot in the face?


The way I see it, it takes about 200 points of damage to reduce a human-sized body completely to hamburger. Most ordinary people will die long before that point. A single dagger thrust will kill most people, even though the body is almost entirely intact. But that high-level barbarian? Yeah, reducing him completely to hamburger is pretty much the only way you're going to stop him from fighting.

Human-sized body, as a medium object, has about 4 hp (1d8), as it's not especially resilient. That's the damage it can take before it "loses its structural integrity". By coincidence, a commoner also has 4 hp.

[RSP]

Another thing: healing. If no one is actually injured, why would a caster waste spell slots to heal them? In-game this is an issue as it would always make sense to save your spells for something other than Bill just being winded.

[Bigmouth]

Another thing: healing. If no one is actually injured, why would a caster waste spell slots to heal them? In-game this is an issue as it would always make sense to save your spells for something other than Bill just being winded.
I was surprised that the thread made it to the second page before the most glaring, most obvious, and most troublesome problem with the not-meat HP is brought up. Healing and recovery. Not as bad in 5E as earlier editions as one long rest heals you completely, but still weird. Of course, on the flipside, HP being purely meat makes the D&D world feel very much like a cartoon.

[Finieous]

I was surprised that the thread made it to the second page before the most glaring, most obvious, and most troublesome problem with the not-meat HP is brought up. Healing and recovery. Not as bad in 5E as earlier editions as one long rest heals you completely, but still weird. Of course, on the flipside, HP being purely meat makes the D&D world feel very much like a cartoon.

Which is why it has to be an abstract mix of things. It's fatigue, running out of luck, divine favor, etc., when that makes sense, and it's meat when that makes sense.

The actual rules seem to do a good-enough job of making this clear:



Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile.


Maybe don't house rule it.

[RickAllison]

Another thing: healing. If no one is actually injured, why would a caster waste spell slots to heal them? In-game this is an issue as it would always make sense to save your spells for something other than Bill just being winded.


I was surprised that the thread made it to the second page before the most glaring, most obvious, and most troublesome problem with the not-meat HP is brought up. Healing and recovery. Not as bad in 5E as earlier editions as one long rest heals you completely, but still weird. Of course, on the flipside, HP being purely meat makes the D&D world feel very much like a cartoon.

This lends some credence to two schools of thought. The first is, naturally, the grazing wounds. Blocking a blow with shield, but injuring your arm in the process, getting just scratched with a poisoned blade rather than stabbed (like Qrow v. Tyrian in RWBY), avoiding a giant's club but slivers from a smashed crate get embedded in you, etc. This then leads into 4e's bloodied condition. The scratches and bruises add up and lead to a very worn-down person. It's at this point that deities of Life will offer aid via their clerics; they can Channel Divinity to heal up to this point, a token of mercy to repair serious wounds. This is also the average threshold of how much damage you can heal with the hit dice you can regain in a long rest, so this threshold is the theoretical amount that you can take a breather and recover from.

I'd generally treat it as the top half of your HP as your adroit mitigation of damage. You'll suffer bits and pieces of damage, but nothing is very deep or large in this side of things. The bottom half includes non-debilitating, but concerning injuries. Flesh wounds, hairline fractures, things you don't want to take but you can recover from. Then hitting 0 HP is, well, ill-advised.

[Tanarii]

If you roll well on your attack, is the DM going to tell you "You missed, but the orc looks really uncomfortable about it"?
I've got several players that can't stand abstraction of HPs. Dropping this line as a joke next opportunity I get. :smallamused:

[Sigreid]

I was surprised that the thread made it to the second page before the most glaring, most obvious, and most troublesome problem with the not-meat HP is brought up. Healing and recovery. Not as bad in 5E as earlier editions as one long rest heals you completely, but still weird. Of course, on the flipside, HP being purely meat makes the D&D world feel very much like a cartoon.

Cuts, bruises and sprains are painful and can slow you down quite a bit. Spending a spell slot to heal the battered, bruised and bleeding combatant so he's ready for the next challenge makes a lot of sense to me.

[Kane0]

Of course, on the flipside, HP being purely meat makes the D&D world feel very much like a cartoon.

I'm OK with that. It might not be 100% meat, but when I say 'you hit' it means you hit. I've routinely run combats where whatever big n' nasty the party fights is a pincushion full of arrows, bolts and javelins by the time the fight is over.

[Sigreid]

I'm OK with that. It might not be 100% meat, but when I say 'you hit' it means you hit. I've routinely run combats where whatever big n' nasty the party fights is a pincushion full of arrows, bolts and javelins by the time the fight is over.

You could also go with it is 100% meat and player characters and major villains are essentially on the level of the demigods of Greek myth with abilities and resilience well outside what normal people are capable of.

[Kane0]

Wait wait wait!

HP is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% will, 5% pleasure and 50% pain meat.

[Witty Username]

Another thing: healing. If no one is actually injured, why would a caster waste spell slots to heal them? In-game this is an issue as it would always make sense to save your spells for something other than Bill just being winded.

I figured that is what the short rest hit dice are for.


How I think of it

damage that can be healed with short rest, fatigue.
damage that is more than that is minor injuries, exhaustion, and other things that a night of bed rest can cure.
damage that reduces the character to zero, a lethal wound that requires attention from, usually, a cleric.


Also, we have little clue what healing could actually do to fix a person, maybe healing spells restore lost stamina as well as mending torn flesh and bone.

If you want higher verisimilitude, drop the full heal on long rests so characters need a few days to recover from severe injuries.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Human-sized body, as a medium object, has about 4 hp (1d8), as it's not especially resilient. That's the damage it can take before it "loses its structural integrity". By coincidence, a commoner also has 4 hp.

So the last 4 HP are actual injuries once you run out of stamina? Or maybe even the last 1 HP (bodies are a lot easier to kill than, say, a door). That does make a certain amount of sense as far as yoyo healing goes, though does fall short on explaining why a spell that can heal a sword through the chest can't do more than restore a small amount of stamina on a mostly uninjured person... unless maybe it works on number of injuries regardless of severity, so it's great if you've got a gaping wound (0HP) but very inefficient if your just covered in small scratches/bruises/microtears in your muscles from overexertion/scattered burns from getting drips of poison or acid on you (normal HP loss). That has the potential to be pretty internally consistent (unless I'm missing something obvious).

[KRSW]

I figured that is what the short rest hit dice are for.


How I think of it

damage that can be healed with short rest, fatigue.
damage that is more than that is minor injuries, exhaustion, and other things that a night of bed rest can cure.
damage that reduces the character to zero, a lethal wound that requires attention from, usually, a cleric.


Also, we have little clue what healing could actually do to fix a person, maybe healing spells restore lost stamina as well as mending torn flesh and bone.

If you want higher verisimilitude, drop the full heal on long rests so characters need a few days to recover from severe injuries.

I agree, that's why I brought up the bloodied 4e example as well as the fighter second wind. Survivor from Champion is a good example of fatigue healing too. Both ways work, and I think they work best if you combine them.

[Sharur]

I'm in the "its a mix of things" camp, but I think I can sum up hitpoints as "one's ability to keep going". Which also explains why HP is binary: either you can continue or you can't. Due to genre conventions, most heroes, monsters and villains fight until they drop (or flee). Extreme duress and affliction is generally not caused by foes attacks, but by environmental factors or prolonged fighting. See the Exhaustion rules.

HP is physical, obviously, because if you can't continue if you are destroyed/killed. "Structural integrity" is the term used earlier in the thread, and its a good one. This encompasses both fatigue and gradually increasing physical damage.

HP is also psychological, because a "mentally tough"(for lack of a better term, which can include being under the effects of adrenaline or other psychoactive chemicals) individual can force their way through situations where "weaker" individuals would fold. To use a particularly apt if disturbing example imagine two people with their hand crushed beneath a giant boulder, a "weaker" person might give up and die, while a "stronger" person might saw their hand off to escape.

I would also note that under this model "Fear" and "Charmed" affects are not mental damage, but mental compulsions.

Poison is "messy", but that is partially because this damage type collates a variety of effects. Take snake venom for example. Most snake venom can be categorized into four types, with two sub-types: localized and non-localized.
Localized venom includes Proteolytic venom(which tears molecules apart, meaning it is essentially acid) and Cytotoxic(it biologically kills affected cells, which is generally the realm of necrotic damage); basically these represent "poison damage". Hemotoxic venom(which attacks the cardiovascular system) and Neurotoxic venom(which attacks the nervous system) are best described as not dealing "poison damage", as they are slower and affect the whole body, but rather as the "poisoned" condition.

The major weakness of this model is that one falls unconscious at 0HP...maybe you don't necessarily fall "truely" unconscious but become preocuppied with one's wounds and/or fatigue.

[Tanarii]

A "solution" to the healing "problem" is simple: they heal physical damage very well, but not fatigue, luck, or skill factors. Only powerful spells, or those boosted by powerful spell slots, can restore some of that.

So a healing word can heal you from 0 HPs and extreme injury that threatens death fine, but doesn't restore the abstract stuff that higher HPs pools represent very effectively.

Of course, some people might feel that seems back to front. :smallamused: But it fits the model.

[Randomthom]

It's times like this I miss the old Star Wars d20 system with separate Vitality Points and Wound Points. VP went up with level, WP were equal to your con score. Critical hits didn't do extra damage, they just applied instantly to your WP. Other attacks only reduced your WP once VP were expended. Various other abilities also spent from your VP. VP really did represent fatigue in this. Great system!

I'd suggest that if you're aiming for good verisimilitude then you apply similar logic, ruling that only the blow that takes someone below 0hp to be an actual physical wound. Critical Hits are more complex, I know some folks prefer to use injury charts for such things.

This PDF (https://sterlingvermin.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/critical-hits-revisited.pdf) has a decent injury chart on P7, the rest is a little unbalancing perhaps (though it looks fun).

[Kane0]

What we do have however is Exhaustion. Too bad it's criminally underused.

[Contrast]

I feel like anyone who has a problem conceptualising how HP works should watch literally any action movie.

You very rarely see protagonists taking actual crippling injuries but you can easily tell when they're 'low on HP' (sweating, dirt, graze on face/small cut above eye) and it doesn't seem weird when they recover when receiving medical treatment (take an aspirin, tie a bandage round your leg and your limp mysteriously vanishes!).

If you want to describe enemies doing brutal gory things, take a lesson from movies and make sure you have some NPCs running around.

[RSP]

I just go with what the rules give us: in-game people heal a lot faster than we do. I know some think the people in-game need to replicate real humans, but there’s already a ton of class features that go against that, as well as the xp leveling system, and magic.

[Nagog]

Ah! There it is! This is exactly why I need your help guys/gals, to find the places this doesn't add up! Well observed!

Keep em coming, let's see if we can't completely break this thing.


It seems like it doesn't quite fit with getting knocked out. Like you've avoided all these attacks through your moxie (HP), but a final one hits you after you've spent your reserves of moxie (HP), and you get KO'd. Great. But then your cleric casts a spell and returns some moxie (HP) to you, and you ignore the gaping wound you took from the monster?

Honestly, I'm fine with these sorts of inconsistencies, but it sounds like you want to reflavor to try to avoid the weirdness and inconsistency that's HP.


Wound? What wound? You just fainted from fatigue, essentially. I have a lingering wound / long rest death saves mechanic to take care of the wound aspects. Hit Points only represent the fatigue / stamina part.

I believe the description is conveying that you do take the last hit. For example, a weary fighter has 6 HP left, the enemy, lets say a giant scorpion, swings to claw at them. It deals 7 damage. The fighter is now at 0 HP. Translated via the description, the swing would need 7 points of energy to evade, deflect, etc., but the fighter only had 6. The attempt was still made, but it wasn't enough, and the fighter gets clawed pretty badly. They're now on the ground bleeding out, but if the healer can get over there and heal the wound (either with magic or a healers kit) they can revive the fighter. I'd imagine the flavor of a healing potion or other relatively mundane healing (like the healers kit combined with the Healer feat) to be magic healing plus an energy drink to get you the energy you need to keep going.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I just go with what the rules give us: in-game people heal a lot faster than we do. I know some think the people in-game need to replicate real humans, but there’s already a ton of class features that go against that, as well as the xp leveling system, and magic.

Yeah. My head-canon is that HP is a literal reservoir of healing energy within a soul. As long as you have HP to expend, your body will heal very fast, prioritizing the serious injuries once you've taken a bit ("bloodied" at half HP). At 0, your body is scrambling for anything it can find, including cannibalizing tissues to heal the crippling ones.

For NPCs, I run injury rules at 0 HP. The hit that takes them to 0 leaves relevant injuries, assuming they survive. Legs heal, but heal crooked unless you get medical attention while at zero. And yes, healing magic generally leaves injuries. Healed, but wrong. Got to leave something for the medical professionals to handle :smallsmile:

For PCs, injury rules are too much effort. It's a game abstraction that I'm not willing to deal with for them.

This also explains HD healing--HD are deep, slow reserves. You can, given uninterrupted time, pull on those to replenish your "ready reserve" (ie HP). But those take time and sleep to recover themselves.

Diseases don't do HP damage--they attack the body-soul connection. They're almost more spiritual than physical. I don't do microbe theory--diseases are caused by various things including bad air, spiritual maladies, etc. Poisons do some combination of HP (physical) and spiritual damage and thus can leave longer-term effects (the poisoned condition).

[RickAllison]

What we do have however is Exhaustion. Too bad it's criminally underused.

I love the idea of exhaustion, but it's too punishing in the wrong ways. Like the first level is straight disadvantage on all ability checks, which is critically debilitating in everything but combat. I think exhaustion would work better if, rather than a set of binary penalties, it had escalating penalties. But that's not really how 5e works...

[Damon_Tor]

I mean, it's called a hit. I think it's fair to assume that a hit... is a hit.

Cuts and bruises? Yeah, sure. That's fine. But hitpoints as an abstraction for stamina for dodging... nah, I can't get behind that.

Generally I treat hitpoints as a measure of pain tolerance, wounds that may not be life threatening but hurt. Too much pain (0 hp) and you go into shock and pass out... and shock can kill you, yes.

Lasting damage to your body is tracked by hit dice, which is why they are recovered more slowly than hitpoints.

[Bjarkmundur]

Continuation added the the OP.

Let's if you can't poke more holes in my mechanics ^^

[AdAstra]

Definite first problem is more of an implementation issue than anything, but how exactly are hit point gains halved? Just take what you'd normally receive and halve that? Or only halve the hit die value? If the former, then the benefit of Con for most characters is going to be severely curtailed, since for most characters Con is only useful for HP and saving throws. Needing to boost your Con score by 4 for (1 hp per level above 1) + 2 (since starting Con bonus is doubled) is just not going to be worth it.

Also, I'm not really sure how this mechanic supports the theme any better than the existing ones. Boosting starting HP and lowering HP gains doesn't really help make HP feel like stamina to me. Plus it changes a bunch of balance assumptions (ex: under your system a Wizard with 14 Con has 73 HP at level 20. This would make Disintegrate very nearly a Save-or-Die that requires True Resurrection to fix, at all levels. Power Word Kill is just Die unless you have Death Ward or something to boost your max HP). It's not like, an actively bad change, I just don't see how it achieves your specific goals.

EDIT: Removed this section after seeing the bit about healing bringing you back to zero before applying, removes any complaints about negative HP for me.

Overall though, the Dying rules are very interesting, and the Minor Injury if a knockout blow deals 10 or more damage definitely solves the pop-up healing problem. One thing is the recovery. Isn't downtime like 5 days at minimum? That seems a little long to deal with some Minor Injuries, like Injured Leg or Arm. I don't see any reason why a Long Rest wouldn't be sufficient.

[Bjarkmundur]

Half Hit point bit is still in playtesting, and not really relevant to the flavor/verisimilitude discussion this thread is about. I'll remove it so we can have a separate discussion about that bit later.

Regarding Injuries; we take downtime every 3 sessions or so, and then we take 30 days in one go. I ultimately decided on a relatively (RELATIVELY) minor penalty and have the main bummer be its duration. Since this is most likely to happen at the half-way or end of an adventure the penalty should only be present for a session or two. The opportunity cost of not taking any other downtime is a huge thing in my games, since I've tried to make downtime activities as beneficial as I can without breaking anything.

I'm still mulling over the specifics of the injuries, but at least you don't need a high-level healing spell to get back your eyes or something.

[Chronos]

Quoth JackPhoenix:

You mean people who were incredibly lucky to survive what 99% of other people wouldn't, and still had to spend weeks or months in recovery, possibly without even being back to normal, and also not really being differeniated from people who aren't "equivalents of high-level adventurers"? There was a flight attendant who survived fall from 10 kilometers, but instead of being incredibly lucky, you claim that she's somehow "equivalent of high-level adventurer", and would also survive being shot in the face?
OK, yeah, that flight attendant was mostly just lucky (though she might have had a couple of levels in something-or-other). But on the other hand, take a look at this picture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4#/media/File:Simo_hayha_second_lieutenant_1940.png), taken some time after the subject suffered a headshot from an enemy sniper. If you're going to say that he was just lucky, too, is it just a coincidence that he also happens to be the most successful sniper in history?

[Bjarkmundur]

Wait, who are you answering? Did I shoot someone or throw someone out of a plane? I'm confused Who's lucky?

[BoringInfoGuy]

Just to add one more consideration into the mix.

Life Cleric Channel Divinity: Preserve Life.

It gives the Life Cleric a pool of healing that can be used to bring characters up to the halfway mark on their HP. So a character with a Max HP of 40 currently had 13 HP remaining. They could receive up to 7 points of Healing, bringing him up to 20. But no more. Any remaining healing in the pool could be used on yourself or other allies below the 1/2 way point, or is lost.

So, why the 1/2 HP limit? Out of character, the answer is probably game balance, since it is a short rest recharge Healing ability and would be easily abusable otherwise.

But in universe? HP may not be meat, but my personal head canon is that the top half of your HP is more your “fighting spirit” or whatever.

But once you get below the halfway mark, your body is starting to take real damage.

Preserve Life therefore restores the body, but not the spirit.

Naturally, when you try to apply too much logic to an abstract system, flaws appear. But it works well enough for me.

To the OP: Have you though about how the 1/2 life limit on Preserve Life fits into your system?

[Kane0]

Just to add one more consideration into the mix.

Life Cleric Channel Divinity: Preserve Life.

It gives the Life Cleric a pool of healing that can be used to bring characters up to the halfway mark on their HP. So a character with a Max HP of 40 currently had 13 HP remaining. They could receive up to 7 points of Healing, bringing him up to 20. But no more. Any remaining healing in the pool could be used on yourself or other allies below the 1/2 way point, or is lost.

So, why the 1/2 HP limit? Out of character, the answer is probably game balance, since it is a short rest recharge Healing ability and would be easily abusable otherwise.

But in universe? HP may not be meat, but my personal head canon is that the top half of your HP is more your “fighting spirit” or whatever.

But once you get below the halfway mark, your body is starting to take real damage.

Preserve Life therefore restores the body, but not the spirit.

Naturally, when you try to apply too much logic to an abstract system, flaws appear. But it works well enough for me.

To the OP: Have you though about how the 1/2 life limit on Preserve Life fits into your system?


Wait wait wait!

HP is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% will, 5% pleasure and 50% pain meat.

Matches up nicely :D