HP and its implementation

[Rukelnikov]

So, given the talk about HP in the optimization thread, I was thinking how could we balance HP?

What is the narrative function of HP? It tells us when our characters can't keep going anymore, something hits, we fall a great ditance, something hits us some more, and we are out for the count. No surprise here, HP is an abstraction of how much trauma the characters can endure.

Now, the abstraction can be done in many ways:

An attack roll represents exactly one attack and a successsful attack is weapon connecting with flesh, a failed attack misses altogether, or glances on armor.
It may represent a couple seconds of combat that include many attacks parrys and counters from both sides, where a successful attack roll is not necesarily very different visually that a failed attack roll, but at the end of the scuffle one of the combatants looks wearier than before.
Nothing ever damages you in the narrative except the hit that takes you to 0, trauma here is your luck is running out (or stamina, or divine protection, or whatever it is that's allowing you narratively to endure the hazzards of the situation)
As many ways as you can come up with that your table is willing to put up with.


But regardless, in any implementation there's a case when our characters evade the trauma (ie: Attack doesn't hit AC), and there's a case where the characters have to endure trauma (ie: Attack hits AC)

The most basic of said traumas is being attacked in combat. Now of course being attacked by randoms with pitchforks or by King Arthur wielding Excalibur is not the same measure of trauma. Let's start with one of the simplest kind of antagonists, the henchmen, unnamed mooks that usually serve the villain (the kind of henchmen the Joker has).

So putting this together, how many instances of a mook getting a punch, upper hand, or lucky blow, you believe a fighter should be able to endure before falling?

[Unoriginal]

So, given the talk about HP in the optimization thread, I was thinking how could we balance HP?

What makes you think it is not balanced?



So putting this together, how many instances of a mook getting a punch, upper hand, or lucky blow, you believe a fighter should be able to endure before falling?

Well, there is many answers to that question.

The answer 5e gives, assuming that the Fighter is a lvl 1 Fighter with a typical 14 in CON, and that the mook in question is a standard Bandit:


-Mook's punching damage: 1.

-Fighter's HP: 12, recovery of 1d10+1 (average 6.5) on a bonus action.


In other words, 5e assumes that the starting fighter is someone who can endure 18.5 punches (or narrative equivalent) from a mook, before falling.

[strangebloke]

5e is very much a mechanics first system. The explanation for what the mechanics mean is left as an exercise for the player/DM.

Nominally AC is "how hard is it to hit them" and HP is "how many hits to kill them" but because high level PCs and NPCs have big HP bars (and also because psychic damage exists, and also because morale-bonus THP exists) people resort to ALSO making HP represent "plot armor" or something similar. In other words HP doesn't work if you go with "how many hits before dead" so people steal some of the justification for AC. And this is only the start of the problems because you have things like damage resistance, uncanny dodge, Goliath's damage absorb reaction, etc.

None of these mechanics have ANY real tangible explanation other than a very generalized sense of "toughness."

Does an attack that goes through the shield spell break through the shield, or does it skillfully bypass the shield. It really is just up to your narration tbh. Do what you want. The system is not concerned with explaining what any of this action actually looks like.

[Rukelnikov]

What makes you think it is not balanced?

I think the difference in HP between fighter types and the rest is not as big as it should be, I remember this difference being more prominent in earlier editions and I think it served better to represent


Well, there is many answers to that question.

The answer 5e gives, assuming that the Fighter is a lvl 1 Fighter with a typical 14 in CON, and that the mook in question is a standard Bandit:

-Mook's punching damage: 1.

-Fighter's HP: 12, recovery of 1d10+1 (average 6.5) on a bonus action.

In other words, 5e assumes that the starting fighter is someone who can endure 18.5 punches (or narrative equivalent) from a mook, before falling.

Do you think its fitting? Do you agree, so to speak, with this answer?


5e is very much a mechanics first system. The explanation for what the mechanics mean is left as an exercise for the player/DM.

Nominally AC is "how hard is it to hit them" and HP is "how many hits to kill them" but because high level PCs and NPCs have big HP bars (and also because psychic damage exists, and also because morale-bonus THP exists) people resort to ALSO making HP represent "plot armor" or something similar. In other words HP doesn't work if you go with "how many hits before dead" so people steal some of the justification for AC. And this is only the start of the problems because you have things like damage resistance, uncanny dodge, Goliath's damage absorb reaction, etc.

None of these mechanics have ANY real tangible explanation other than a very generalized sense of "toughness."

Does an attack that goes through the shield spell break through the shield, or does it skillfully bypass the shield. It really is just up to your narration tbh. Do what you want. The system is not concerned with explaining what any of this action actually looks like.

That's why I put that paragraph up there, regardless of implementation, there's always the endura trauma case (attack hits AC), and the evade traume case (attack doesn't hit AC).

How many instances of not being able to evade trauma (however you choose to represent it), should a fighter be able to endure from a henchmen trying to attack them?

[False God]

So putting this together, how many instances of a mook getting a punch, upper hand, or lucky blow, you believe a fighter should be able to endure before falling?

8 IMO.

Because 5 feels like too few and 10 too many and the average would be 7.5 but I like to fudge in favor of my players.

Half that for a "intermediate challenge" and half again for a "serious challenge". That's still 2 solid hits from a "serious challenge".

[truemane]

Ever since I started playing D&D (way, way back when) I've always narrated individual attacks in combat in a 'realistic' fashion. When someone stabs you and rolls a high number I'll say "The get you right in the kidney" or the like. Even though that means a high level Fighter might get stabbed in the kidneys a dozen times.

I've never really worried about it. And none of the many groups I've played with over the years have really worried about it.

In my experience, people grasp the idea reasonably intuitively. Especially as most of us have grown up with video game health bars. If you kill enough bad guys you can take more daggers to the kidney.

[Rukelnikov]

Ever since I started playing D&D (way, way back when) I've always narrated individual attacks in combat in a 'realistic' fashion. When someone stabs you and rolls a high number I'll say "The get you right in the kidney" or the like. Even though that means a high level Fighter might get stabbed in the kidneys a dozen times.

I've never really worried about it. And none of the many groups I've played with over the years have really worried about it.

In my experience, people grasp the idea reasonably intuitively. Especially as most of us have grown up with video game health bars. If you kill enough bad guys you can take more daggers to the kidney.

One of my first DM's does something similar, when I DM DnD I usually do something more like the second example I used (an attack roll is a couple seconds of combat and may include multiple individual "attacks", though its all subsumed in the attack roll)

I have no trouble with warrior being able to sustain 10 daggers to the kidneys, I'd have trouble if they couldn't past a certain point, my problem is the warrior being able to endure that, and the wizard being able to endure 7 of those, I think the difference should be more prominent in how many daggers to the kidney each can take.

[Unoriginal]

I think the difference in HP between fighter types and the rest is not as big as it should be, I remember this difference being more prominent in earlier editions and I think it served better to represent

Would you mind expending on that a bit, please? Which earlier editions?



Do you think its fitting? Do you agree, so to speak, with this answer?

It fits what the games want to be.


To go further:

Let's assume the fighter in question is one who is strong, but not made for fistfighting, giving them STR 16.

With 4 damages, assuming everything hit, the fighter needs three turns to down the mook. With perfect accuracy, it means that 3 mooks would be unable to do enough damage to make the fighter fall before they're all defeated.

In other words, the starting fighter is someone who can take down three mooks in a fistfight and win.

[Frogreaver]

HP has its roots in war gaming where each squad consists of multiple individual units. If you rolled 3 hits you would remove 3 units.

HP was extended from that concept to a single character and allow him to take more than 1 hit. Except the hit in fictional terms means nothing apart from the narration and the hp mechanic does not attempt to say anything about what the fictional narration should be in any situation - other than 0 hp (or bloodied if you played 4e).

As such, loss of hp is whatever we want it to be - and not just physical trauma.

Characters meant more for the front lines should have more hp because narratively they should be harder to take down. IÂ’d go as far to say that their ACs should be higher as well for the same reasons. The takeaway here is that back line casters get too much hp and ac in 5e to establish the necessary fictional tropes. (And IÂ’m talking solely about single classes classes).

[Unoriginal]

I have no trouble with warrior being able to sustain 10 daggers to the kidneys, I'd have trouble if they couldn't past a certain point, my problem is the warrior being able to endure that, and the wizard being able to endure 7 of those, I think the difference should be more prominent in how many daggers to the kidney each can take.

A lvl 1 Wizard with CON 14 will be able to endure 8 punches from a mook before falling.

That's less than half what the fighter with the same CON score can endure.



At lvl 10, the Fighter can endure 99 punches from the mook and fall on the 100th, assuming they have not improved their CON at all.

At lvl 10, the Wizard can endure 61 punches from the mook and fall on the 62nd, with a similar assumption.

[clash]

HP works in movies too


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f7/b8/c5/f7b8c54cb4c66c4516eb873c4cdb5cb4.gif

[Dr.Samurai]

I hate that even at level 20 my fighter deals ~11 damage with a longsword, so he can't 1-hit kill a CR 1/2 orc.

But the wizard was taking groups of them out with fireball 15 levels ago.

Hit points suck when the warriors have to hack and hack and hack just to kill something. I just imagine them holding up their sword and looking at it like "Is this thing sharp??"

[stoutstien]

HP is fine until it not like most things. I've found that roughly ~lv 10 is when it gets annoying to deal with.

[Rukelnikov]

Would you mind expending on that a bit, please? Which earlier editions?

2e (we used barbarians and kits, but we almost didn't use players options, midway thru adopting them we switched to 3.0) and 3.x (.0, .5, .P)


To go further:

Let's assume the fighter in question is one who is strong, but not made for fistfighting, giving them STR 16.

With 4 damages, assuming everything hit, the fighter needs three turns to down the mook. With perfect accuracy, it means that 3 mooks would be unable to do enough damage to make the fighter fall before they're all defeated.

In other words, the starting fighter is someone who can take down three mooks in a fistfight and win.

Or they could have 4 HP and be able to down one per attack, being able to defeat 5 at a time, maybe even 6 if he beats at least 3 in initiative.


A lvl 1 Wizard with CON 14 will be able to endure 8 punches from a mook before falling.

That's less than half what the fighter with the same CON score can endure.



At lvl 10, the Fighter can endure 99 punches from the mook and fall on the 100th, assuming they have not improved their CON at all.

At lvl 10, the Wizard can endure 61 punches from the mook and fall on the 62nd, with a similar assumption.

And that's part of the problem, the Fighter went from more than double to about half again as much, and I think the same happened during editions, the fighter went from being more than double as resilient as the wizard to about half again as much.

[clash]

I've often dabbled with the idea of scaling ac as levels increase instead of HP. Basically you always only have like 10 HP but your AC scales up to like 100 just to throw a random number out there. And every time an attack misses you it decreases your AC by 5. This represents your endurance for dodging decreasing or your armor chipping away. The problem is it would require reworking all the damage scaling and class features as well which is considering more work.

[Rukelnikov]

I've often dabbled with the idea of scaling ac as levels increase instead of HP. Basically you always only have like 10 HP but your AC scales up to like 100 just to throw a random number out there. And every time an attack misses you it decreases your AC by 5. This represents your endurance for dodging decreasing or your armor chipping away. The problem is it would require reworking all the damage scaling and class features as well which is considering more work.

I've dabbled with a similar concept many times, I've tried to make it so attacks, hit, and misses become just a representation of the positioning characters have or get in a fight, with few blows ever landing, allowing for a dagger thru the eye to remain a dagger thru the eye, but also for a skilled combatant to defeat hordes of enemies.

If you know Exalted it uses a similar principle, where your attacks win you "initiative" which you can then spend for telling blows. So basically what you are doing during combat is maneuvering the fight into an advantageous position, where you can finally strike your enemy down ("It's over Anakin, I have the higher ground!")

[False God]

I've often dabbled with the idea of scaling ac as levels increase instead of HP. Basically you always only have like 10 HP but your AC scales up to like 100 just to throw a random number out there. And every time an attack misses you it decreases your AC by 5. This represents your endurance for dodging decreasing or your armor chipping away. The problem is it would require reworking all the damage scaling and class features as well which is considering more work.

I did sort of the reverse:
Everyone starts with Con Score HP.
Everyone gets a bonus to this equal to the full class HD at 1st level.
Thats it. That's all the meat you get ever.

Your class HD become "Fatigue Dice" and you get some bonus Fatigue Dice, same size as your class HD. based on your Con Mod. You can spend these dice to temporarily increase your AC or save against attacks or to increase your own attack or DC, get a bonus to a check and so on or recover HP during a short/long rest. You can spend multiple dice at once or not, but no more than 1/2 your level on any single thing, minimum 1.

I didn't make any other changes to the game. Characters go down easier at higher levels, but there's also a feeling of getting to control the amount of effort you're putting into any given action. Makes the game a bit more active too, since players have more available reactions to take without needing to be *special class* or have *specific feat*. They're also pretty simple and straight-forward reactions, so it doesn't result in any real slowdown (a little, but an acceptable amount for what I wanted to achieve).

NPCs can do it too. Though I usually cap them at 1 die per action, unless they're supposed to be important.

Getting hit at all becomes a BIG deal though, which was the goal.

[strangebloke]

That's why I put that paragraph up there, regardless of implementation, there's always the endura trauma case (attack hits AC), and the evade traume case (attack doesn't hit AC).

How many instances of not being able to evade trauma (however you choose to represent it), should a fighter be able to endure from a henchmen trying to attack them?

Infinite blunt trauma, 3-4 instances of all other types.

Movies frequently show people surviving ridiculous situations. Getting thrown out of moving vehicles, getting hit by the tail of a dragon and thrown 300 feet. But bring out a knife or a gun and suddenly everyone's shocked and scared. So lethal!

You used to see this in DND discussions too where people would argue that guns should be some kind of reflex/dex save or die weapon. Sure your fighter can fall 3000 feet after getting clubbed in the face by a storm giant but guns are DEADLY! People used to have concerns about limbs getting hacked off but it was much rarer to bring up broken bones or concussions or such.

There's reasons why people think about this in this way (imo it mostly comes back to TV and movies being averse to show blood) but it doesn't really matter. The upshot is that everything gets narrated as (effectively) blunt/psychic damage (in other words 'glancing blows') unless they're getting close 0 hp.

[Unoriginal]

2e (we used barbarians and kits, but we almost didn't use players options, midway thru adopting them we switched to 3.0) and 3.x (.0, .5, .P)

Thank you.



Or they could have 4 HP and be able to down one per attack, being able to defeat 5 at a time, maybe even 6 if he beats at least 3 in initiative.

Possible, but in that case the mook would be a Commoner.




And that's part of the problem, the Fighter went from more than double to about half again as much, and I think the same happened during editions, the fighter went from being more than double as resilient as the wizard to about half again as much.

Indeed, without spending any ASI in CON, the Fighter went from having 2.38x the Wizard's HPs, to having 1.61x the amount.

But that's mostly due to the impact of Second Wind being greater at low level.

If the lv 10 Fighter spent 2 of their 3 ASIs in CON to have a matching 18 CON and STR, they have 1.93x the amount.

[NichG]

One way to go would be something like:

- Let people spend HP to add to their saving throws 1-for-1, even after rolling, even if flatfooted, and even if unaware of the save (barring a natural 1). Potentially allow specific narrow class features or metamagic or spells to bypass this but be very very careful with that design choice, because its a big impact!
- Standardize attacks vs AC into a saving throw as well. Expanded crit range soft-expands the 'natural 1' range of the save against that effect - if the defender rolls in that range, the number of HP per point they pay to raise your save is multiplied by the crit multiplier, but its not an auto-fail. Anything that's 'crit on a 20' ends up with a 1-2 range; 19-20 is 1-3, etc.
- Make the effect of a failed save against a weapon attack be direct damage to Constitution score - the full damage, as it would normally be.
- Make the effect of a failed save against the usual set of damage spells be 1 point of Constitution per dice in the damage dice pool.
- Make healing magic/effects only heal Constitution and not directly recover HP. Temporary HP, increasing HP recovery on rest are fine.

[Tanarii]

Don't forget that larger HD and higher con count twice. Once when you determine max HPs to start the adventure and once when op you spend the HD during a short rest.

Possibly more than that if you're also getting topped off by magical healing or Healer + healing kits or the like

[Kane0]

What is the narrative function of HP? It tells us when our characters can't keep going anymore, something hits, we fall a great ditance, something hits us some more, and we are out for the count. No surprise here, HP is an abstraction of how much trauma the characters can endure.

So putting this together, how many instances of a mook getting a punch, upper hand, or lucky blow, you believe a fighter should be able to endure before falling?

10% Luck, 20% Skill, 5% Concentrated Power of Will, 5% Pleasure, 50% Pain
I fall into the Pulpy approach. If you're getting hit you're *getting hit*. It's not realistic, but its also not all superheroes and no blood.

At level 1 a PC might be able to take one or two hits before one comes along that leaves them lying in a pool of their own blood. For each additional level they can take one or two more, and it can get pretty comical when a PC is turned into a pincushion by an enemy archer but hey, that's what Cure Wounds is for.

[Goobahfish]

So, given the talk about HP in the optimization thread, I was thinking how could we balance HP?

What is the narrative function of HP? It tells us when our characters can't keep going anymore, something hits, we fall a great ditance, something hits us some more, and we are out for the count. No surprise here, HP is an abstraction of how much trauma the characters can endure.

Now, the abstraction can be done in many ways:

An attack roll represents exactly one attack and a successsful attack is weapon connecting with flesh, a failed attack misses altogether, or glances on armor.
It may represent a couple seconds of combat that include many attacks parrys and counters from both sides, where a successful attack roll is not necesarily very different visually that a failed attack roll, but at the end of the scuffle one of the combatants looks wearier than before.
Nothing ever damages you in the narrative except the hit that takes you to 0, trauma here is your luck is running out (or stamina, or divine protection, or whatever it is that's allowing you narratively to endure the hazzards of the situation)
As many ways as you can come up with that your table is willing to put up with.


But regardless, in any implementation there's a case when our characters evade the trauma (ie: Attack doesn't hit AC), and there's a case where the characters have to endure trauma (ie: Attack hits AC)

The most basic of said traumas is being attacked in combat. Now of course being attacked by randoms with pitchforks or by King Arthur wielding Excalibur is not the same measure of trauma. Let's start with one of the simplest kind of antagonists, the henchmen, unnamed mooks that usually serve the villain (the kind of henchmen the Joker has).

So putting this together, how many instances of a mook getting a punch, upper hand, or lucky blow, you believe a fighter should be able to endure before falling?

You need to be a bit careful here, mostly because there are secondary effects within games which actually narrow down the interpretation of HP can be. I'm talking specifically, about poisoned weapons. Mostly because... the poison has to have made contact to have effect. Which means that when you lose HP from a dagger... you kind of need to have been hit in a way that could transmit the poison. This is one example, which... if you start thinking too hard will make things really, really inconsistent.

----

Discussion point two. Also keep in mind that compared to early D&D because Con didn't count for anything character had much lower effective HD. Nowadays, each class has an Effective HD one or two die higher than before.

Con = 14? D6=>D10. Con = 16? D10 => D16 (what's a D16 eh?).

Basically, this changes the effective toughness of classes dramatically.

A Fighter used to have 5D10 compared to 5D4... now... it is more like 5D16 compared to 5D12... Fighters actually became 'less tough' relative to wizards over editions. So yeah, it is kind of bad.

----

Discussion point three. My solution was just to have armour grant damage reduction and have your 'to-hit' and AC determined by skill ranks (read class level).

When Heavy Armour gives you -1 AC but Damage reduction 3, it really begins to 'feel' like heavy armour. A dagger, does... nothing (unless it crits you through the face). A -4 to hit great-club is scarier. Meanwhile, the high agility fighter might not get hit much, but if they do... it is curtains.

There is no 'mental model' I can come up with that lets you do that with 18 AC for Full plate and an agile monk. Big hammer = good vs Full plate. Small dagger = good vs unarmoured monk... in real life anyway... in D&D? Why use a dagger when a great-club does more damage?

[OvisCaedo]

You need to be a bit careful here, mostly because there are secondary effects within games which actually narrow down the interpretation of HP can be. I'm talking specifically, about poisoned weapons. Mostly because... the poison has to have made contact to have effect. Which means that when you lose HP from a dagger... you kind of need to have been hit in a way that could transmit the poison. This is one example, which... if you start thinking too hard will make things really, really inconsistent.


It's not really the only example, either. Almost any attack with a "rider" effect will tend to only make sense if the attack in question actually struck. A t-rex's bite would be rather hard to justify as a near miss or glancing blow when the result is that you are now restrained in its mouth. At some point the level of coincidental reality-warping that is needed to avoid thinking of characters as superhumanly durable becomes much more unbelievable than just accepting it. It doesn't have to ALL be thought of as "meat" as the discussion goes, of course, but DnD creatures and characters are pretty unambiguously genuinely tougher than real world counterparts. Even mid-level adventurers will often be fine to just stand up and walk away after plummeting several hundred feet into the ground.

And a group of four seasoned warriors, even without magic, will often be able to beat an armor-scaled monster the size of a house to death in under 30 seconds. (you know, if it sits there and fights instead of flying away)

[Tanarii]

Poison doesn't require actual contact to do HP damage. Luck, skill, fatigue, plot armor etc can all be decreased to larger degree avoiding taking an egregious/fatal wound from a poisoned weapon.

[OvisCaedo]

Ah, of course, it's just a constitution saving throw against how bad that poison could have been if it had actually hit you.

Though really I was generally thinking more of the actual condition, but glancing through stat blocks, actually inflicting the poisoned condition from poisonous attacks is MUCH rarer than I had assumed it to be.

[RSP]

Ah, of course, it's just a constitution saving throw against how bad that poison could have been if it had actually hit you.

Though really I was generally thinking more of the actual condition, but glancing through stat blocks, actually inflicting the poisoned condition from poisonous attacks is MUCH rarer than I had assumed it to be.

Yeah, a personal pet peeve of mine from the devs: they go through all the trouble of putting this in the rules…

“Poisons come in the following four types:

Contact: Contact poison can be smeared on an object and remains potent until it is Touched or washed off. A creature that touches contact poison with exposed skin suffers its Effects.

Ingested: A creature must swallow an entire dose of ingested poison to suffer its Effects. The dose can be delivered in food or a liquid. You may decide that a partial dose has a reduced Effect, such as allowing advantage on the saving throw or dealing only half damage on a failed save.

Inhaled: These poisons are powders or gases that take Effect when inhaled. Blowing the powder or releasing the gas Subjects Creatures in a 5-foot cube to its Effect. The resulting cloud dissipates immediately afterward. Holding one’s breath is ineffective against inhaled poisons, as they affect nasal membranes, tear ducts, and other parts of the body.

Injury: Injury poison can be applied to Weapons, Ammunition, trap components, and other Objects that deal piercing or slashing damage and remains potent until delivered through a wound or washed off. A creature that takes piercing or slashing damage from an object coated with the poison is exposed to its Effects.”

…then create the MM where none of it apparently applies.

[Joe the Rat]

For the highly gamist-tactical origin, hit points are surprisingly narrative.

Hit points for humanoids are in part health and resiliency, in part luck and experience, and (mostly) plot armor. Luck and experience is about avoiding or mitigating real damage - trading heart stabs for shoulder stabs, rolling with the hammer to lessent the blow. You know, stuff that in a highly technical game gets turned into increased defense or damage reduction (which can be one and the same, if your roll to hit determines how much damage you do). If the poison blade hits, just a scratch will do. it point based poisons are really about reducing your effectiveness, not necessarily killing you outright. it eats away at how much pain you can ignore, it taps out your energy to where you are more likely to take a solid hit. Duck and cover from the fire breath, use your experience to know when to hold your breath so you don't fry your lungs, and ignore the singed flesh for now. You don't take a life-threatening blow until you get down to 0.

This is why I am a big fan of bloodied the "stuff gets serious at half hp" concept. It's still all scratches and sliced sleeves, but now you've got some damage on you. Maybe not impaled through the lung, but you've got a decent tear that's leaking. I'm also very much in the "every crit is a telling blow" camp, even if it doesn't come with effect riders.

This is one of the things that 3e poisons and diseases (and the remnants in shadows and intellect devourers) did well - bypass hit points and attack the attributes directly. A bridge too far in complexity for 5e, I guess. But you can take someone to 0hp by drowning them as well - because dying doesn't happen until you are at 0.

Monsters are more likely to be more meat than plot armor, but you can still get a mix here.

Again, narrative. It does leave you with a lot of vaguery about "what's a miss, what's stopped by armor, what's stopped by defense, what's actually a wound." Or perhaps you don't, and let your heroes become heroic to mythic. Your warlock, rogue, and fighter upgrade to Rasputin, Blackbeard, and Jagganoth.

That doesn't answer the lack of Sweep (the instakill your level in adjacent 1hd creatures w/ greatweapons) or Great Cleave (keep on cutting till you stop dropping them). The standard orc is just as hearty, but your own output doesn't scale with your exceptional endurance. While the narrative leans heroic, you are scrapping just as hard as ever. The minion system was wonderful for this, though your the lack of area effect bladework does limit you to 1-5 kills per round as a fighter.

[Sigreid]

5e is very much a mechanics first system. The explanation for what the mechanics mean is left as an exercise for the player/DM.

Nominally AC is "how hard is it to hit them" and HP is "how many hits to kill them" but because high level PCs and NPCs have big HP bars (and also because psychic damage exists, and also because morale-bonus THP exists) people resort to ALSO making HP represent "plot armor" or something similar. In other words HP doesn't work if you go with "how many hits before dead" so people steal some of the justification for AC. And this is only the start of the problems because you have things like damage resistance, uncanny dodge, Goliath's damage absorb reaction, etc.

None of these mechanics have ANY real tangible explanation other than a very generalized sense of "toughness."

Does an attack that goes through the shield spell break through the shield, or does it skillfully bypass the shield. It really is just up to your narration tbh. Do what you want. The system is not concerned with explaining what any of this action actually looks like.

Every since 1e HP has always been described as a combination of physical toughness, skill at minimizing damage taken, endurance, luck and divine favor all rolled into a hero of legend at higher levels.