Hit Points - Why were they designed to be incoherent?

[Straybow]

HP is a resource (coherence is irrelevant to this).
The quantity of a resource influences options.
Therefore, the quantity of HP influences options.

If the first two are true, the third follows. HP can be completely incoherent - I'd argue it pretty much is - and it still works.

I pointed out to FF several times that limiting options due to low HP is simply not the same as actually changing measured capabilities that would be effected by wounds. Pretending the fighter is "hurt" and can't face the ogre is not the same as game mechanics that model injury.

As long as FF could calculate that his fighter wouldn't reach 0 hp, FF would have the fighter take any action he wanted, even jumping off a cliff rather than spend time finding another way down! The end result, as expressed before, is that the only hit point that really matters is the last hit point.

A person who would flippantly jump off a 30' cliff just because he's mystically certain that it won't kill him (due to the hp model and falling damage rule), and because somehow nobody ever gets injuries less than mortal wounds (due to the hp model)... that doesn't sound like it works to me.

Yes, it "works" as far as all the creatures in the game are modeled the same way, and everybody just shrugs and rolls the dice. That is consensus, not coherence.

[Knaight]

I pointed out to FF several times that limiting options due to low HP is simply not the same as actually changing measured capabilities that would be effected by wounds. Pretending the fighter is "hurt" and can't face the ogre is not the same as game mechanics that model injury.

It isn't the same. That doesn't mean the options aren't limited - we've gone over this. As I've been saying, the HP can't be said to mean "hurt", due to being largely incoherent (with the one exception covered), but it still has an effect due to its nature as a resource. Does it "work"? Not really, but that has never been my argument.

[TheOOB]

A person who would flippantly jump off a 30' cliff just because he's mystically certain that it won't kill him

Is a high level adventurer in a fantasy setting. Keep in mind that any past say, level 3 in D&D is superhuman. A level 4 fighter is stronger, more capable, and more powerful than any human ever.

In the Iliad, Achilles fights through swarms of enemies, and never takes an appreciable wounds, in Conan, everyone's favorite Barbarian can be hit by spells, monsters, and swords and still manages to call upon all his strength to fight a snake monster after all that. In Lord of the Rings Gimli fights Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep for literally hours and never misses a beat.

High Fantasy characters don't get stopped because of flesh wounds, they don't get bones broken and become useless and bleed out. Wounds that don't kill them only make them more pissed off.

D&D health is designed to represent that sort of fiction, High Fantasy characters who keep going until they can't go on any more. If you don't like it, don't play D&D, or house rule it.

But stop acting like the system doesn't make sense. It is objectivly coherent, even if you are incapable of understanding it(that's your problem). From the American Heritage dictionary Coherent: logically connected; consistent: a coherent argument. That's not a matter of opinion. The system makes sense in world do, as it's very similar to how many other fantasy works that pre-date D&D depict their characters fighting.

I understand that your incapable of understanding that someone can know they're wounded and shouldn't go fight a dragon without several internal organs spilling out onto the floor. You've made that abundantly clear. You also are incapable of understanding that a 10 damage sword hit nearly cleaves a level 1 commoner in two, while for a level 20 fighter, through a mix of skill, toughness, and luck, only manages to nick their cheek. Just because you can't comprehend how the system works and to logically apply it, don't start saying it doesn't work.

[Frozen_Feet]

I pointed out to FF several times that limiting options due to low HP is simply not the same as actually changing measured capabilities that would be effected by wounds. Pretending the fighter is "hurt" and can't face the ogre is not the same as game mechanics that model injury.

However, limited options due to low HP are changes in mechanically measured abilities. That is, and has been, the crux of my point. It doesn't actually matter if HP quantify health or running out of icecream, the change in capability is still clear.

It's a mechanically measurable capability if you survive X+1 instead of X rounds.

It's a mechanically measured capability if you're 95% likely instead of 50% likely to survive next connecting blow.

It's a mechanically measured capability if you can fall 60' instead of 30', or if you can take 30' fall thrice instead of twice.

The exact number of HP affects these. Ergo, other values than 1 and 0 for HP do matter for character capability.

EDIT: Once again: what HP doesn't do is tangential to my point. It doesn't matter if it doesn't limit capabilities like you'd expect or want to: it still limits character capability, period. And different HP values affect it differently.

As long as FF could calculate that his fighter wouldn't reach 0 hp, FF would have the fighter take any action he wanted, even jumping off a cliff rather than spend time finding another way down! The end result, as expressed before, is that the only hit point that really matters is the last hit point.

*groan* I actually did an example with falling showing how the exact number of hitpoints affects game maths. It isn't the same if you survive 0%, 1% 15% or 99% of the time. That marks a clear difference in capability.

Let's take CODA system. In it, getting injured nets a growing penalty to all actions. Having that -7 from being incapacitated doesn't actually prevent you from trying to do whatever. However, it means everything you do is less likely to succeed. The mathematical effect on character abilities is comparable.

... as for flippantly jumping from great heights under reasoning "oh, I'll be fine", I suggest you watch a few episodes of Jackass. The verisimilitude problem you posit only exists because you think people wouldn't act like that in real life. Hint: they do.

[Straybow]

In the Iliad, Achilles fights through swarms of enemies, and never takes an appreciable wounds, in Conan, everyone's favorite Barbarian can be hit by spells, monsters, and swords and still manages to call upon all his strength to fight a snake monster after all that. In Lord of the Rings Gimli fights Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep for literally hours and never misses a beat.

In the Iliad, Achilles is the immortal son of a nymph. Nymphs were quasi-deities who were undying but could be slain, who could bear similarly immortal children to mortal mates or divine children to deities. He was granted impregnable armor by the gods. In addition, he never fought open battles alone, but lead a troop of elite soldiers who had his back. So, yes, an immortal in impregnable armor with a cadre of high level followers attacking in formation will roll through armies of mostly 0 level levies and 1st level soldiers.

Tolkien is a bad example to invoke, as nothing in D&D is remotely Tolkienesque except the use swords and the English language. As for Conan, never read the books, read a few comic book versions, wasn't too impressed. Not my cup of tea. But I'll not disparage the literary genre just to tweak you, go ahead and enjoy them.

But stop acting like the system doesn't make sense. It is objectivly coherent, even if you are incapable of understanding it(that's your problem). From the American Heritage dictionary Coherent: logically connected; consistent: a coherent argument. That's not a matter of opinion.

Hmmm, that's odd. I can come up with examples all day long that point out the incoherence of the system, and you keep saying "LA LA LA LA can't hear you, but if I could I'd say just pretend you're Conan." So, quit whining that I point out the system's weaknesses and disagree with you.

The system makes sense in the same way that math makes sense. Where it loses coherence is when you try to apply the abstract math to the modeled actions. The problem isn't the math, it is the model.

[Straybow]

Let's take CODA system. In it, getting injured nets a growing penalty to all actions. Having that -7 from being incapacitated doesn't actually prevent you from trying to do whatever. However, it means everything you do is less likely to succeed. The mathematical effect on character abilities is comparable.

In other words, wounds effect other measured capacities, even when you aren't faced with somebody trying to injure you. There is no comparison between calculating whether or not you can keep from hitting 0 hp and actually having capabilities effected, and that is a weakness of the hit point system. Thank you for, again, demonstrating my point.

... as for flippantly jumping from great heights under reasoning "oh, I'll be fine", I suggest you watch a few episodes of Jackass. The verisimilitude problem you posit only exists because you think people wouldn't act like that in real life. Hint: they do.

... and that's why the show is called "Jackass," not "rational being who doesn't want to be injured doing something both foolish and avoidable." Hint: they don't have to face an ogre trying to smash their skulls in, they just have to pay a medical bill and maybe spend some time in a hospital.

[Frozen_Feet]

I wonder how the ogre got involved in the jumping example? But if your point is that people don't get into fights because they think "oh, I can handle it", I suggest you take a look at any martial arts... or just Jackass, again.

It's entirely tangential that what they do is stupid. People do stupid things routinely even when it carries equally high risk of injury or death. But a lot of people have confidence, warranted or not, to do things that would make weaker-stomached people gringe. See Parkour, downhill skiing or skateboarding.

As for injury penalties, contrast and compare the following with my earlier example of jumping down a cliff:

It's Easy TN (Target Number) 5 Swiftness test to survive jumping down a cliff.

Jill is uninjured. On a 2d6 roll, he makes it 83.33% of the time.
Jack, however, is wounded, gaining a -5 penalty. Thus, he only makes it 16.67%

(Calculations for HP are omitted, but only out of convenience, CODA's health points serve the same purpose, they just have injury penalties as added mechanic.)

Just like with differing amount of HP in the earlier example, the capability being changed is the character's chance of surviving. Names of variables changes, but the effect is identical.

I do agree that adding penalties to lost HP models injury better than just HP, but things affected by HP alone are still actual capabilities.

You say I'm demonstrating your point, but your point is still tangential to mine. My point is about what Hit Points do and how they work; you complain about what they don't do and how they don't work. But you can't deny what they do based on what they don't. Apples don't cease to be apples just because they aren't oranges.

My argument is "Exact amount of Hit points affects character capability" - exact amount of capabilities it affects is irrelevant. It isn't mutually exclusive with or countered by your "Hit Points don't affect X, Y or Z, so they're a bad system".

[Straybow]

I wonder how the ogre got involved in the jumping example? But if your point is that people don't get into fights because they think "oh, I can handle it", I suggest you take a look at any martial arts... or just Jackass, again.

The ogre got involved because this is DnD. When the doofus fighter decides to shrug off 3d6 of foolish, avoidable damage, he must be aware that a random wilderness encounter could pop up in the next hour. If Durkon isn't there to heal him up after the jump he will be in deep doo-doo. Johnny Knoxville doesn't have to worry about that after he jumps off a balcony. If injured he'll go to the hospital in an ambulance and spend the recovery time in comparative luxury. Security will keep any wandering ogres out.

My argument is "Exact amount of Hit points affects character capability" - exact amount of capabilities it affects is irrelevant. It isn't mutually exclusive with or countered by your "Hit Points don't affect X, Y or Z, so they're a bad system".

Except, again, having 1 hp or many doesn't effect the character unless facing the possibility of hp damage, and the exact capabilities not effected are relevant. It is the point, the weakness that hp are completely abstracted, to the point where there is no connection to physical reality whatsoever. So much so that the Sage has to remind everybody that no actual damage occurs until the last positive hp is gone.

[Straybow]

You also are incapable of understanding that a 10 damage sword hit nearly cleaves a level 1 commoner in two, while for a level 20 fighter, through a mix of skill, toughness, and luck, only manages to nick their cheek. Just because you can't comprehend how the system works and to logically apply it, don't start saying it doesn't work.

Oh, I forgot to add:

No, the 10 hp sword damage does only moderate harm to the commoner. If the poor schlub had only 1 hit point at full health he is dropped to –9. He isn't dead, but he will bleed to death in a few seconds. If his wound is bound up he will recover fully in about 10 days with no surgery, antibiotics, or advanced medical care necessary. There isn't even an explicit need to stitch up the wound, so it can't really be that bad. As soon as he has his 1 hit point back, he'll be as good as new.

[Ironvyper]

Actually (depending on edition) the average commoner has around 4 HP. That 10pt shot puts him at -6. Out on the floor, grievously wounded and bleeding to death.

And not just kind of bleeding to death like the paramedics have a half hour in the ambulance to get you to a doctor. Bleeding to death like in 24 SECONDS he is dead. 24 seconds is nothing.

Do go back to pointlessly bashing HP in a mysterious effort to make yourself look foolish though. Its very entertaining.

[Straybow]

You mock my pain.

You might notice that I said "bleed to death in a few seconds" without comment on how ridiculous it is that a single round of attention by a person with no emergency medical training by modern standards could stabilize somebody that severely wounded.

Nonetheless, my point was that this supposedly mortal wound is completely healed in ten days of simple bed rest, with essentially no medical care by modern standards.

As absurd as that may be, the inconsistency is that the supposedly real, traumatic, mortal wound hit points heal just as fast and just as easily as the mystical scrape and bump hit points that aren't even worth counting as a hundredth of a point of real damage.

That is indeed entertaining.

[Knaight]

As absurd as that may be, the inconsistency is that the supposedly real, traumatic, mortal wound hit points heal just as fast and just as easily as the mystical scrape and bump hit points that aren't even worth counting as a hundredth of a point of real damage.

That is indeed entertaining.

It is even more entertaining when you consider healing spells. Cure Serious Wounds can bring you from the brink of death to up and about. It can also marginally increase your ability to not get hurt when you aren't even meaningfully injured. You'd think that something that brought one from death's door to up and about would do more than that, but nope, it doesn't.

[Ironvyper]

You guys need to either watch more action movies and learn how heroic health like D&D uses works or just switch to warhammer or NWoD. Both of those have brutal HP systems that model real wounds very well.

But if you insist on playing a game of high heroic fantasy you cant crap all over the idea of high, heroic, health.

Its one or the other. Gritty and realistic, or high and heroic. Both are good but have to pick one. Playing one and pissing and moaning about it not being the other is just ridiculous.

Your basically ordering from Pizza Hut and bitching that they didnt bring you Chinese food.

[Lord_Gareth]

It is even more entertaining when you consider healing spells. Cure Serious Wounds can bring you from the brink of death to up and about. It can also marginally increase your ability to not get hurt when you aren't even meaningfully injured. You'd think that something that brought one from death's door to up and about would do more than that, but nope, it doesn't.

Hit points = gallons of blood man. I'm telling you, it's the only way it makes sense. They just store all the blood you're not using right now in Roguespace.

[Knaight]

Hit points = gallons of blood man. I'm telling you, it's the only way it makes sense. They just store all the blood you're not using right now in Roguespace.

I'd prefer to just throw away the concept of approximate conservation of volume entirely. You know I'm down with this model.

[Straybow]

Its one or the other. Gritty and realistic, or high and heroic. Both are good but have to pick one. Playing one and pissing and moaning about it not being the other is just ridiculous.

We are men of action. Lies do not become us.

Did I say it had to be gritty and realistic? Nope. I just agreed that the net effect of the model is that only the last hp really matters. I insisted that to play differently when down to the last few hp isn't the same as any system that incorporates some additional measure of effect of wounds, fatigue, etc.

Where I would disagree with you is that I did give an excellent example of a high fantasy movie where a major character was wounded and his performance degraded as a result. So it doesn't have to be exclusive to one or the other.

D&D and similar hit point systems have only one advantage: extreme simplicity. Now, there you have the choice: it must be either extremely simple or not. Just don't pretend that simplicity is somehow more pure or virtuous and get upset if we jest at its incoherence as a model.

[Fatebreaker]

We are men of action. Lies do not become us.

Odd choice of words for a man pretending to be something he's not.

[Straybow]

I'm just quoting from the high heroic fantasy movie that treated wounds as wounds, not as hits that become cinematic misses without real damage. You know, to counter the idea that high heroic fantasy has to look like D&D hit points.

Folks keep using those words. I don't think they mean what folks seem to think they mean.

I'm not sure what you think I'm pretending to be, nor what it is you think I really am beneath the sinister cloak of internet anonymity.

[Fatebreaker]

*shrug* Roleplaying games, by definition, are about pretending to be something you are not.

[Razanir]

Because you really are just that tough. A 10th-level fighter/barbarian isn't some random guy with a sword, he's freaking Conan. He can take inhuman levels of punishment before going down.

Just my 2 cp, Gandalf, you know, Stormcrow, the Gray Pilgrim, the one who goes on to be Saruman, THAT Gandalf? Meh. Lv 5. I'm serious, check it out online! Even summoning fire on Caradhras was only a 3rd level spell. And Aragorn? Lv 5 as well. We are WAY underestimating Lv 10 by saying he's only spuerhuman, not Superman.

Also, OP, why do you have a problem with DnD hit points but not games with auto recovery? The latter makes less sense to me

[TheOOB]

Just my 2 cp, Gandalf, you know, Stormcrow, the Gray Pilgrim, the one who goes on to be Saruman, THAT Gandalf? Meh. Lv 5. I'm serious, check it out online! Even summoning fire on Caradhras was only a 3rd level spell. And Aragorn? Lv 5 as well. We are WAY underestimating Lv 10 by saying he's only spuerhuman, not Superman.

Also, OP, why do you have a problem with DnD hit points but not games with auto recovery? The latter makes less sense to me

Well, LotR is Low Fantasy while D&D is distinctly High Fantasy, comparing them is like comparing apples to magic apples that grant wishes and shoot fireballs.

[Razanir]

Well, LotR is Low Fantasy while D&D is distinctly High Fantasy, comparing them is like comparing apples to magic apples that grant wishes and shoot fireballs.

At the very least, Wikipedia considers them both high fantasy. Low fantasy High fantasy. Lord of the Rings takes place far enough in the past that it is considered a different world for fantasy. Also, it would make sense that they're the same type, because if you go back far enough, they get intertwined enough that halflings were once called hobbits.

[TheOOB]

Perhaps I'm wrong, bu those were not the definitions of high and low fantasy I am familiar with. I always felt that low fantasy is a world that fundamentally follows the rules of the real world, where magic is rare and doesn't impact the day to day life of most people, whereas high fantasy doesn't follow the rules of the real world whatso ever.

Regardless, while LotR inspired much of D&D, trying to describe LotR characters power in D&D terms is kind of silly. Gandalf is a demi-god, and the warriors of the fellowship are some of the best warriors in the world, even if, by a strict interpretation of D&D rules none of them are near double digits.

[Fatebreaker]

At the very least, Wikipedia considers them both high fantasy. Low fantasy High fantasy. Lord of the Rings takes place far enough in the past that it is considered a different world for fantasy. Also, it would make sense that they're the same type, because if you go back far enough, they get intertwined enough that halflings were once called hobbits.

The two have diverged over the years to such a degree that it would be overly simplistic to label them as members of the same sub-genre just because they were once within shouting distance of one another.

Or, put another way, from an outsider's perspective, the Lord of the Rings movie looks a lot more "high fantasy" than, say, the Conan movie. But both are pretty tame compared to D&D.

I do think pre-4th D&D makes a mistake by not defining what levels of skill represent; the "only 5th level" argument makes a lot of sense from certain perspective. But it should tell you something that folks can legitimately arrive at a 5th-level world for Lord of the Rings. Other folks posit a higher-level world, certainly, but when the granduncle of modern D&D can be viewed through a 5th-level lens, it might be time to reevaluate whether the two are even members of the same sub-genre.

Moreover, even if you do categorize them together, it's worth asking whether the standards of one are relevant to the standards of the other. 3.x isn't trying to "model" Lord of the Rings, so does it matter if Lord of the Rings functions differently?

[Straybow]

I think much of the "only 5th level" view of LotR is because magic is so subdued. Nobody has spells like D&D, not even Gandalf. Frodo and Gandalf are the only ones who have magic weapons, and only Frodo has magic armor. But that is also why the fighters have to be much higher than 5th or 6th level.

In the battle by the river they are outnumbered 20 to 1. Aragorn is cutting uruk-hai down left and right, attacking far more effectively and frequently than the orcs. No way can a fifth level fighter do that with no magic armor or weapons. At a minimum he would have 3/2 attacks, but 2/rd is more likely which puts him well into double digit levels. If he were a non-spellcasting ranger variant he might get attack boosts at 7th and 13th like regular fighters, otherwise he'd have to be 15th minimum.

I'm now speaking in AD&D terms, when fighters were actually better at fighting than other classes and could attack multiple targets with their extra attacks. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas wade through uruk-hai for hours after the wall is breached at Helm's Deep. They don't have healing potions, rings of protection, or any of the other common items found on mid-single-digit level D&D characters, so again they have to be much higher level just to survive.

I would also say that Saruman equipped the leader of the hobbit-hunting party with powerful magic arrows, which is how he was able to penetrate Boromir's mail so easily and kill him with just a few arrows.

Nonetheless, I'm inclined to agree that LotR can't be compared to D&D effectively.

[Doug Lampert]

Heh. The actual lineage of the vitality/wound point system goes more like this:

Star Wars d20 system (2000) -> Spycraft 1.0 (2002) -> Spycraft 2.0 (2005) -> Fantasy Craft (2009).

Since The Book of Experimental Might came out later in 2009, Monte Cook would likely have decided to apply this to fantasy roleplaying independently from FC, but it doesn't seem unlikely that he might also have drawn inspiration from Spycraft or Star Wars d20.

You forgot the old DragonQuest RPG released by SPI in 1980. Which used a fatigue/wound system.

[Electric knight]

My general view is that a medieval fantasy world is one where the laws of physics co-exist with the laws of magic - they haven't been replaced by them. A wizard can produce lightning bolts from nothing, but if he's stabbed a few times he'll bleed to death. If we are trying to simulate reality in the game, let's try to be consistent about it. And cinematic doesn't have to mean unconvincing.

I'm not sure I completely understand the argument being made against Straybow, but it seems to be this: "A character being aware that his hit points are at a dangerously low level, and his behaviour being influenced by that awareness of reduced survival capabilities, demonstrates that those hit points represent something more than blood and guts."

No, I don't see a logical connection there. You might convincingly argue that only the last HP is physical and all those before represent luck, but then regenerating HP would require magical means such as a 'potion of fortune' or clerical blessing - rest and medical care would make no difference. It's pretty clear that hit points overwhelmingly represent the ability to take physical damage. This works quite plausibly at first level, but the mechanism of hit points increasing with experience is absurd and the only reason I ever accepted it was because I didn't think about it much. I reckon the best way around it is to come up with a magical reason why hit points improve with experience, or a magical mechanism which produces a trend to that effect.

For all it's faults, D&D is a game well worth saving.

[Knaight]

I'm not sure I completely understand the argument being made against Straybow, but it seems to be this: "A character being aware that his hit points are at a dangerously low level, and his behaviour being influenced by that awareness of reduced survival capabilities, demonstrates that those hit points represent something more than blood and guts."

You're conflating several arguments that address different points. The basics:
Argument 1: Hit points are incoherent / Hit Points are coherent.
Argument 2: Only the last hit point counts / Any variation in hit points count.
Argument 3: Hit points represent only health / Hit points represent a bunch of stuff.

Behavior influence due to HP variation plays into Argument 2, and only Argument 2. It is utterly irrelevant to arguments 1 and 3. Moreover, among those who subscribe to any variation counting for argument 2, there are disagreements regarding arguments 1 and 3. There are also cases where 1 and 3 connect, where people will support either answer for 1 provided that the corresponding answer for 3 is supported, but will consider the other 1, 3 pair mutually exclusive.

[Electric knight]

You're conflating several arguments that address different points. The basics:
Argument 1: Hit points are incoherent / Hit Points are coherent.
Argument 2: Only the last hit point counts / Any variation in hit points count.
Argument 3: Hit points represent only health / Hit points represent a bunch of stuff.

To make myself clear, then:

Arg. 1: HP are fairly coherent at 1st level but the notion of HP increasing with experience is absurd, especially because . . .

Arg. 3: HP obviously represent physical health - that's why they diminish with combat and accidents, and why healing restores them.

Argument 2 and the subject of behaviour influence add nothing meaningful to the discussion.

[Matthew]

In the Iliad, Achilles is the immortal son of a nymph. Nymphs were quasi-deities who were undying but could be slain, who could bear similarly immortal children to mortal mates or divine children to deities. He was granted impregnable armor by the gods. In addition, he never fought open battles alone, but lead a troop of elite soldiers who had his back. So, yes, an immortal in impregnable armor with a cadre of high level followers attacking in formation will roll through armies of mostly 0 level levies and 1st level soldiers.

It is not Achilles' armour that is impregnable, it is his very self after having been dipped in the river Styx, but having been held by the heel that point remained vulnerable. However, all of that is later accretion, in the Illiad he is just a ferocious guy with semi-divine parentage (but then all the heroes in the Illiad are descended from the gods, even the Trojans trace their heritage back to Zeus, for example: Hector, son of Priam, son of Laomedon, son of Ilus, son of Tros, son of Erichthonius, son of Dardanus, son of Zeus).