L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend

nnms · May 21, 2012

RigaMortus2 said:
If 3 hit points off of 10 is a "near miss" then what is 3 hit points off of 60? The fighter has to make a saving throw.

Poinonous creatures don't necessarily have to mangle your flesh to inject their poison. The best ones barely do any damage at all.

It's also probably best to remember than a fighter with that many more HP is probably also going to have a way, way higher save.

How about an arrow attack? An arrow hits the Fighter for 3 damage. Realistically, you get hit with an arrow, you're as good as dead.

I'd recommend a documentary series called Weapons That Made Britain. Lots of cool info about armour and arrows and shields and stuff. You can get hit by an arrow and have it jam through your shield and into your arm, or bounce off your armour, or give you a hideous bruise.

But what if the arrow is poisoned? Now you have to make a save. So if the arrow missed you, it didn't really miss you.

This goes back to OD&D. Hit points are an abstraction. You could simply add on another line. You made your save, so it didn't really hit you.

What about falling 100 feet? Using current D&D math, thats 10d6 damage or 30 damage on average. The 10 hit point fighter goes splat (reasonable) but the 60 hit point fighter somehow 'bouces' off the ground with maybe a few bruises?

Yes, HP that go up with level have never been an accurate method of tracking damage to the human body. But they are going to stick around anyway because they're part of D&D tradition and are meat as an abstraction.

Its just one of those things I try not to think about too much.

Good plan. Though there are alternatives in other systems that go back decades that work just as well that don't create these issues. But not in D&D.

Incenjucar · May 21, 2012

nnms said:
As I mentioned above, I'm playing a BECMI clone right now and in that version of D&D, no one can do magical healing at level 1. Not even clerics. Yet we're managing with Keep on the Borderlands just fine. And this looks more forgiving than BECMI.

At level 1 you don't have that many HP to recover to begin with, so that's rather moot.

nnms · May 21, 2012

Slander said:
I do like that recovery HD are only useable outside of combat;

I do as well and hope that it turns out this way. I don't really want some guy to say "Hey, it's not that bad!" and that somehow is as good as actually tending to the injuries.

nnms · May 21, 2012

Incenjucar said:
At level 1 you don't have that many HP to recover to begin with, so that's rather moot.

We have one guy with, like, nine. And if we level up, maybe he'll get 15 or so at second level.

And then the cleric will be level 2 and finally can cast "cure light wounds" once per day and heal what? 1d6+1 for one person out of six?

Seriously. This D&DN HP scheme looks like easy mode compared to that. Need a healer? Hah! :lol:

Incenjucar · May 21, 2012

nnms said:
We have one guy with, like, nine. And if we level up, maybe he'll get 15 or so at second level.

And then the cleric can cast "cure light wounds" once per day and heal what? 1d6+1 for one person out of six?

Seriously. This D&DN HP scheme looks like easy mode compared to that. Need a healer? Hah!

HP will come back fast enough for wizards, but fighters will be subject to a lot of chance. Rolling 1s and 2s on a d10 happens. Not to mention that human behavior is to avoid starting off with anything less than 100% full, so we can look forward to the 15 Minute Work WEEK instead of the 15 Minute Work Day.

Ichneumon · May 21, 2012

This could be a pointer to where the warlord fits in - letting you spend your Hit Dice in combat, or even giving you bonus rolls.

It's obvious from the article that half hit points is still significant, though whether the condition is still called "bloodied" is yet to be known. I'd say it could be "injured".

Dausuul · May 21, 2012

Ichneumon said:
It's obvious from the article that half hit points is still significant, though whether the condition is still called "bloodied" is yet to be known. I'd say it could be "injured".

I suspect the term "bloodied" is not going to make an appearance in D&DN. It's a pity, because it's quite a good term given how they're envisioning the fiction. But too many folks would be reminded of the stuff they hated in 4E.

nnms · May 21, 2012

Incenjucar said:
HP will come back fast enough for wizards, but fighters will be subject to a lot of chance. Rolling 1s and 2s on a d10 happens. Not to mention that human behavior is to avoid starting off with anything less than 100% full, so we can look forward to the 15 Minute Work WEEK instead of the 15 Minute Work Day.

And yet, playing BECMI with d3 HP per fight and then 1 HP per day as recovery, we don't have a 15 minute work week or even a 15 minute work day.

The 15 minute work day is more of a spell casting refresh issue than HP.

Incenjucar · May 21, 2012

nnms said:
And yet, playing BECMI with d3 HP per fight and then 1 HP per day as recovery, we don't have a 15 minute work week or even a 15 minute work day.

The 15 minute work day is more of a spell casting refresh issue than HP.

And yet you're still at a low level and so the point is still moot.

MortalPlague · May 21, 2012

RigaMortus2 said:
But what if the arrow is poisoned? Now you have to make a save. So if the arrow missed you, it didn't really miss you.

The way I see it, if you take any damage at all (even just 3 out of 60 hit points), you took at least a scratch or bruise. So when the poisoned arrow scratches the fighter's forearm for a trifling amount of damage, he laughs and rolls a poison save. How many notable warriors, both real and fictional have been brought low by a small scratch from a poisoned weapon?

RigaMortus2 said:
What about falling 100 feet? Using current D&D math, thats 10d6 damage or 30 damage on average. The 10 hit point fighter goes splat (reasonable) but the 60 hit point fighter somehow 'bouces' off the ground with maybe a few bruises?

I picture it like this; the higher level character just has more fight, more skill, and more experience than the lower level one. A 10th level character would claw and grab for outcroppings to slow his fall, would know better how to brace his body for impact, would be more capable of rolling with the fall. A first level character would be panicking.

John MacLean and a rookie cop fall out of a window; who lives?

L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend

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