A chat about hitpoints and what they mean

[JadeDragon]

I have been thinking of this for some time and I wanted peoples opinion on it.

The way I view hit points is not as how much damage you can take. If you have 500 hit point, it doesn't mean you can take 50 sword hits and stay standing.

To me, it's a culmination of battle experience combined with how much you can maneuver in combat before becoming too tired to do so, and that last bit of 'damage' you take is the real 'hit' that drops you. So in essence every bit of damage you take until you drop is actually minimal. Scratches, minor bruises, burns etc.

This would make some sense to why healing kits help. You have to technically stop and catch your breath, it covers and eases some wounds that might hinder your movement, but just because you're 'near death' doesn't mean you look like a mummy. Role play wise, it makes no sense for any medkit to bandage you enough to keep fighting if you role played that near death means hacked to pieces and guts hanging out etc.

Some might ask, well, what about a fireball or a lightning bolt or an acid splash that damages a person, how can you explain how a person avoids that damage, or something like disintegrate magic or wail of the banshee or something.

Same idea. Magic doesn't have to be considered direct. Even with failed saves. As a person grows in battle they are still able to manage how to fight off the effects of some of it and ease how it effects them. Even magic missles that 'never misses' can still be semi dodged in essence, or if not, the 'damage' can be considered like being punched more than blasted.

The point I am trying to make is that I'd like to see more people treating injury less like a bloody mess, (because if it were that bad, bleeding to death would be a thing and it's not) and more like exhaustion.

Discuss.

[Edge]

It means whatever the individual player or overseeing DM wants it to mean.

The main issue I have with an interpretation of "hit point loss doesn't necessarily mean taking actual injury" is that poison, disease, and other on-hit effects don't really jive with that definition, since they're nine times out of ten coming from you being bitten, stung, or otherwise injured by something and injected, infected, or covered in whatever the assaulting material or chemical is. As such I usually personally go with "hit points = bodily injury" interpretation myself, and not the "hit points = exhaustion" one.

[JadeDragon]

Jun 23, 2020 21:23:14 GMT -5 Edge said:

It means whatever the individual player or overseeing DM wants it to mean.

The main issue I have with an interpretation of "hit point loss doesn't necessarily mean taking actual injury" is that poison, disease, and other on-hit effects don't really jive with that definition, since they're nine times out of ten coming from you being bitten, stung, or otherwise injured by something and injected, infected, or covered in whatever the assaulting material or chemical is. As such I usually personally go with "hit points = bodily injury" interpretation myself, and not the "hit points = exhaustion" one.

I understand. I did state though that 'minor injury' is part of it. But to me mostly resembles exhaustion. That allows for the toxins, and poisons and such to still play a role. Also, I wasn't looking for a ruling, just a discussion.

[Edge]

Yep, that's just my take on it. The official ruling is strictly the first line, everything after that is my personal 2cp.

[canticleofcocytus]

I'm inclined to agree with Edge   on this one. Coming from my pnp days I've never met a DM who interprets HP as anything other than "this is the number of times you can get hit before you die". I don't think - and this is pure opinion - that WotC, TSR, Bioware or any other company that has worked in the Dungeons and Dragons campaign settings ever intended for HP to be anything other than that. My reasoning: you have feats like expertise, improved expertise, insightful strike, monk ac, etc, that literally represent that combat prowess and expertise mentioned in the first post - and these feats / skills all have their own set of unique requirements to qualify for them. This, to me, signifies the effort and time your character devotes to mastering these skills for use in combat.

Further, HP is directly tied to 2 very important things: chosen character class (barb = d12 hitpoints each level vs. wizard = d4) and the Constitution stat. In the descriptions for the Constitution stat and the barbarian class per the player's handbook 3.5e:

Constitution represents your character's health and stamina. A
Constitution bonus increases a character's hit points, so the ability is
important for all classes.

(PHB 3.5e; p.9)

The barbarian is an excellent warrior. Where
the fighter's skill in combat comes from training and discipline,
however, the barbarian has a powerful rage. While in this berserk
fury, he becomes stronger and tougher, better able to defeat his foes
and withstand their attacks [. . .] A high Constitution score lets a barbarian rage longer (and
live longer, because it gives him more hit points)

(PHB 3.5e; p.24)

Now, CD diverges from the canon and established lore of Forgotten Realms, but to the best of my understanding the server is still founded upon and relies heavily upon the mechanics of 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons. So, to me, it would be safe to assume that your character's hit points are connected to Constitution and class choice as described in the two entries above. And since both of these entries specifically mention a correlation between hit points, Constitution, Toughness, and how long a character can live it doesn't really seem to imply - to me - that hit points encompass anything other than the amount of times your character can be hit before they have no more points left.

CD does, however, make a distinction between being reduced to -10 hp meaning you are "knocked out" vs. you are dead, but I think this is a concession that was made to maintain the integrity of the setting more than for mechanical reasons. After all, it doesn't take long for people to recognize / realize that nothing stays dead, and if that happened there'd be a whole can of existential issues that would arise that nobody really wants to deal with. So, based on that I guess if everyone came to a consensus that hit points represent something more than just the damage / harm your character can take there isn't anything stopping us from interpreting it that way. However, I think it's something everyone would have to agree on or the admins would have to rule on or else the inconsistency of one person playing HP as actual wounds and another playing it as "I'm at near death but I've only got scratches because I dodge good" could be very jarring to the immersion of many.

Lastly, I love high Constitution / high hit point characters and the rp that they can engage in because of their "toughness". I like how it provides a depth and immersion to the setting because we can have 70-80+ AC dex-wearing finesse fighters who are quick and dodgy but only have like 300ish hp and then we can also have big meaty bois with 700+ hp carrying big ole weapons and not bothering to dodge those pesky arrows and blades but just shaking it off and hitting back twice as hard. It lends to a nice diversity when compared to other servers I've played on where everyone was just a 200 hp gish rped in Baskin Robins' 34 flavors of meh.

Oh, and one last thing on med kits: the in-game description of them says they are a bundle of bandages, salves, herbs, and ointments - not just mummying supplies. And they are usable in combat and don't require you to stop to catch your breath. (Voss commends all the wonderful combat medics that have kitted him up for almost 100 hp per pop in mid-fight). So, while it may seem laughable to have characters that go to near death be "mummified", I think there's a lot of missed rp opportunities with kits in the form of rping out the effects of those numbing herbs, the soothing (potentially side-effect ridden) ointments and salves, and cut pieces of bandage to bind and cover specific wounds rather than wrapping someone head-to-toe. Of course, even with super high hp I don't think I would rp my character's guts hanging out even if they go to near death. I personally prefer to rp it as "he looks like he could keel over any moment and bleeds heavily from dozens of wounds, some nearly fatal". This leaves it up to those I rp with to decide the extent of the specific damage so I don't step on their rp with my own interpretation. Just my 2 cents, and I think the original poster's take on HP is very interesting despite it not quite seeming to fit with what the books say. Could be something fun to try out for a bit if everyone wanted to.

[Garage Trashcan]

Dissenting comment, because quite frankly, neither explanation of HP makes a lot of sense. That is, unless we start applying superhero logic to anyone over level 3 or 4.

Per the 5e PHB, "Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck." I want to say this is derived from Gygax's original thoughts on the concept, but I can't find the source on mobile at the moment. That's the only reason I bother bringing it up as I know it's a newer ruleset. This is why they're called "hit" points and not "health" points.

In total, 500 HP is the total of your ability to scrape by through skill, luck, or equipment and turn lethal blows into non-lethal ones. It's your endurance and morale to push forward and keep Fighting. Outside of Called Shots/Maiming, the only blow that's actually lethal is the last one -- the one that puts you at/below 0. Poisons, diseases, etc kind of require some hand-waving here and operate on the assumption that if you're rolling vs. one of these, you took some level of actual physical damage from them, be it a sting or a bite.

No matter which way you cut it though, both explanations kind of fall apart under scrutiny. Unless you're Thor or Wolverine, it doesn't make sense for for you to be able to be stabbed 10-20 times before falling over, but epic D&D doesn't really make sense, not is it balanced anyway. And the "HP are abstract" argument I pulled up here also doesn't really make sense for the reasons I've listed above -- certain attacks in ALL editions require a save and the assumption you've taken direct damage, creating exceptions to the "rule" that are assumed rather than implied rather than explicitly stated.

[JadeDragon]

*thumbs up* Enjoying the reads.

[kingofaquilonia]

I think that if you have more HP, you can get hit more and not die. >.> trolling aside..... My interpretation is sort of a mix of the above? Some of those hits are serious others might be superficial. I do see HP as partly being a culmination of your experience in battle and how to use your equipment natural abilities and for flavor even magic to turn that surely fatal blow into more of just a bad gash. When Kamon gets low on HP i typically dont over react to the state of his body until its happening frequently at least when it comes to CD. Where dungeons have monsters that spam stuff and very high AB where only casters and dexers can really tank because only they can get their ac high enough to not at the same time destroy their offense. Or in some cases cases arent so much tanking as they are just disabling a whole room so other people can mop up

[Edge]

Jun 24, 2020 5:32:33 GMT -5 Garage Trashcan said:

Dissenting comment, because quite frankly, neither explanation of HP makes a lot of sense. That is, unless we start applying superhero logic to anyone over level 3 or 4.

I mean, the level of things that IRL people can do comparing to the capacities of non-magical classes like Fighter, Rogue, and Ranger really tops out around level 4 or 5. So anything above that is essentially in superhero logic anyway. And adding magic to that only compounds that.

[Nibbles]

I think adding magic into the equation is definitely important. Remember without magic items we couldn't hit 700+ HP, if you are a normal human and go purely into CON and are rolling a Barbarian you will have 360 HP. That's the absolute maximum that a character that hasn't ascended past mortal means can achieve without magical aid, and that's only with the aid of letting the rest of their stats suffer quite severely.

My personal interpretation is sort of a brackets/percentage system. It makes sense that as Wizards level up and go adventuring they would get tougher and better at defending themselves but the fact remains that they spend very little time dodging, blocking, ducking, diving, and rolling around - and as such their HP reflects that. They don't get half as tough as your Barbarians who are constantly getting hit, and getting in the thick of it.

So HP does represent your ability to take a blow, but it does not represent only that. It also represents your ability to parry a lethal blow into a non-lethal one, to turn major life-threatening injuries into ones that you can endure. Think of it like Riddick - the character knows exactly where to get stabbed to make it so he can endure, and what would be lethal so he fights with that in mind. When he can't avoid a blow he takes it and that results in HP loss, but the HP loss has less impact on him than it would on someone that doesn't have that same understanding. 

So my personal reasoning is that it does represent how many blows you can take, but also how good you are avoiding lethal damage (which is also why CON us the stat used to avoid death). So a blow dealing 50 damage has a very different meaning to a character that has 120 HP than to one with 40 HP despite them being the same level.

[JadeDragon]

Just to add, a 15 dmg injury on a person with 5 HP would look like they were near or completely cleaved in half. But to a person with 150 hp, it would be a scratch. Now, how does one compare how the two injuries are so different? It surely can't be that they have thicker skin and bone and muscle density. (ONLY)

So, that's why I feel that it's more Hit Points represent more like Battle Points, where, in a battle, that's how many they can effectively lose, due to 'dodge, withstand, deflect, minimize, etc etc before they actually suffer a real injury.

[Nibbles]

Well it's simple, the person with 150 HP was able to deflect the blow to be a scratch.

[onivel]

Somewhere I had a really nice quote from Gygax himself about it... I'll have to dig it up later. But it basically goes along the lines of wearing down etc. Though obviously things like poison obviously come to play differently. Its pretty along the lines of nibbles explanation. 

[Sir Ven]

I'm inclined to agree with the majority, although the explanation isn't perfect.   At the end of the day, a degree of suspending disbelief is required and while my personal preference is to consider HP a combination of luck and fatigue, respect for other people's interpretations is paramount.  

As Edge said above "It means whatever the individual player or overseeing DM wants it to mean."

The same principle applies to how people RP their non-story deaths.   Some view it as actual death and being raised from the dead, others consider it to be more of a 'KO' and then revived by an ally (or left for dead and dragged back to a temple for healing in the event of a re-spawn).    Honestly, my experience is people mostly ignore it and pretend it didn't happen if nobody is watching (i.e. when solo-adventuring).

Playing on a server like CD means everyone is telling their own tale.  Try to ensure your story is respectful of others and doesn't force them to compromise their own story telling. Equally, respect the stories that others are telling and give them the freedom to tell it their way.  

At the end of the day, we all just came here for a good time.

[Plot Lost]

There are apples in game, if you consume these apples, you recover hit points. Ergo, hit points actually represent how sated your character is. Therefore, getting reduced to 0 hit points actually means that your character is dying of hunger.

Anyhow, I have largely always regarded D&D hit points as something more akin to a stamina bar combined with mental fortitude. Once you run out of it, you cannot do much. Therefore, a critical hit that deals hundreds of points of damage doesn't chop off limbs in my books, it is just something so devastating that brings one to the brink of giving and/or death. For example, collapsing to a corner, waving arms and whatever is in one's hands in a futile manner to maintain distance, wanting to flee, escape, and that is that... Which means that when one starts to bleed: that is the mortal wound that was delivered regardless of its source. Which is why whoever gets the last shot in, also gets the most experience for the kill even in game.