A suggestion to 'fix' hit points.

There's been a lot of discussion on the nature of hit points in D&D 4e recently and it seems to stir up a lot of emotion. I have to admit that in the past even I've been guilty of dissatisfaction with the hit point system and have sought out other solutions.

But after playing various systems and mellowing out in my old age I've come to not only accept the abstraction of the hit point system, but also to prefer it. For me, at least, complexity and simulationism are less important than simplicity and functionality.

Anyway, I brought up this topic with a friend of mine last night and although he could accept that the D&D hit point system is abstract and representative of a multitude of things in combat, he still couldn't wrap his head around the naming conventions. To him, if it was called a 'hit' point and if you did 'damage', then that's exactly what they were and exactly what you did.

Although I could see where he was coming from, personally, it just wasn't something that bothered me. I could just look past it and see the benefit of ignoring literal translation, but he couldn't. In effect, it ruined his suspension of disbelief.

So, I figured instead of arguing the point, we should try and come up with a solution. I was adamant that the system itself remain unchanged and the concept of hit points as being representative of many facets of combat stay as is. What obviously needed to change wasn't the system, just the terminology.

Now, I'm not claiming this is genius or even original. It's most likely been done already in thousands of games and probably even other systems around the world. I'm just posting it as a possible suggestion to help others accept and work with the system without jarring them out of their fantasy dreamings.

Basically, you change all the terminology to the following: Hit Points become Survival Points, Damage becomes Threat ('hitting' is folded into this term, instead of saying you hit, you say, "I do threat!") and healing becomes Restoration.

Combine this with imaginative gameplay and it becomes much easier and less jarring for all involved.

Fighter (rolls Attack): I threaten the orc with a mighty swing of my sword! (rolls Threat) A crit! 15 threat!
DM: (1 hit point left on the orc) the orc barely manages to bring his shield up in time as your sword blow smashes into it, sending wood flying into his face as he staggers beneath the blow. He grunts in obvious distress but manages to recover and thrust his spear at you... for 6 threat. The spear, though easily deflected with your sword, glances off your armour and causes you to side-step.
Fighter (rolls Attack): I follow it up with an upward sweeping blow for 8 threat.
DM: with his spear thrust he over extends himself, leaving a nice opening for you. Your sword connects with his midriff and bites deeply into the flesh as you slash upwards, blood spraying into the air as the orc falls at your feet.

Just a suggestion. Works for me

I remember a Spycraft game where someone was complaining about hp, and the GM took the time to explain that hp was just an abstraction of how many close calls you could have before you kicked the bucket, and that exactly what it mean would vary from character to character, and people started to refer to their hp as "Mojo points", "Awesome points" or "Marketability points". It was pretty fun. We went back to just saying hp eventually though.

I agree. Change the word "damage" to something else, and the whole issue suddenly goes away. I'm totally fine with the abstractness of the system (in fact, like you, I prefer it to simulationism) and I'm also fine with the terminology. But I do appreciate that some people hang up on the sacred cow of the terminology and that it causes problems.

We need a single word which says "Amount of luck, energy, heroism, cinematic X-factor and, to a small extent, physical endurance; in short, how lose you are to finally getting stabbed in a really nasty place"; unfortunately, I can't think of that word!

"Bond-ism"?
"Indiana-Jones-ism"?
"I-have-a-wallet-in-my-pocket-exactly-where-the-bullet-hit-me-ism"?
"Lucky-that-haystack-broke-my-fall-sim"?

Eh. Given the lack of a decent alternative, I'm happy with "hit points". It's not like the phrase means anything outside of the context of D&D anyway. It means what it means in D&D - i.e. "You're not dead yet - who cares why? Come up with something entertaining!"

Now that the bulk of damage dealing effects work via a 'hit' mechanic , the term 'hit point' seems more apropos than ever before.

Morrus has an excellent point there.

I dunno...since they somehow represent both the physical and psychological well-being of a character, I vote that they change the name to Trauma Points. Whether the orc actually cut your skin open, or just made you relive a humiliating experience on the Hogwarts' playground, in both cases you can claim to have been traumatized.

Honestly, I think that might help. I think the problem is the lack of consistency in language, hit points as an abstract vs. Blooded as a condition/cure wounds...etc. But that being said, something has occurred to me.

Assume for a moment that hit points did represent physical injury, allowing the character to empower their form beyond that which a normal person (read npc rules follower) would be able to. Fighters rise up like Jason Voorhees after blows that should have killed them. Have PC-hood be some sort of phenomina, make it poorly understood, and explore social interactions.

It seems like there might be story there, does that sound interesting to anyone else?

I actually like the term suggest by That Other Thread: stamina points. My dictionary (the Mac OS X dictionary widget) defines stamina as "the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort," and having positive hit points corresponds to having this ability. That said, I think "hit points" is acceptable, since the term is both established and accurate enough: they measure the number of hits a character can take before he or she lacks the stamina to act.

The real problem is with the term "heal," which strongly suggests that a character is regaining "health points," not "stamina points." If it were up to me, I would rename "Cure Light Wounds" to "Lesser Reinvigorate" (or something less clunky but with the same connotations).

The word "damage" also tends to suggest the inflicting of significant injuries (more than just scratches and knocking the wind out of somebody), although its dictionary definition is actually relatively abstract ("physical harm caused to something in such a way as to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function"). Since a character with positive hit points can act unimpaired, it might be more accurate to say that a character is only damaged when he or she falls to 0 hit points.

Unfortunately, I can't think of a more accurate word. I can't get behind "threat," since I would argue that an attack "threatens" a character regardless of whether it hits or misses. If the attack roll doesn't beat the armor class, I want the target to still feel threatened, even though the monster's claw misses entirely or glances off of armor!

All that said, I think the issues raised in other threads had less to do with terminology and more to do with whether the game mechanics believably model characters' adventuring abilities. Of course, I suspect that undiscussed disagreement over the meaning of terms certainly contributed to the confusion and argumentative tone of some threads.

When I started running a d20 Conan game a few years ago, I hated that the hp system was ported in essentially unchanged from D&D. It didn't lead to the kind of heroic, sword and sorcery feel you get from the Howard books, so I instituted a system that was even more lenient than the new 4e system. After every fight, everyone healed back to full HP as long as they could take a 10 minute breather. The monsters always got maximum HP and I threw a lot of bad guys at the party all at once, so every fight was pretty tough, but there was no problem of the 15 minute adventuring day and I really liked how my house rules worked out.

In order to emphasize the different playstyle I was trying to encourage with the players, I called HP "mojo" and that seemed to work to really emphasize that "hits" and "damage" were something abstract rather than actual sword blows and skin lacerations.

I agree with your sentiments, but people want to say:
"I hit!" and "You take damage!"

Like you, I have come full circle from thinking HP were the worst thing ever to actually being the best way of doing things. Once I accepted that, it wasn't a big deal to also accept 'hit' and 'damage.' It sounds better, and it's easier to teach, and it's what's expected (even if it's not exactly what's modeled.)

HP are a gauge of combat effectiveness, with a binary setting. Positive HP is combat effective. 0 or below HP, not combat effective.

So call them CE Points and you don't have to worry about anything else. That way after a short rest you regain some measure of combat effectiveness and after an extended rest you regain all combat effectiveness.

If you like, you may rename Healing Surges to Combat Surges and there you have it, you never have to worry about what Hit and Damage actually mean.

A hit that does damage wears down your Combat Effectiveness until you Reach 0 and then you are no longer Combat Effective.