ForbidenMaster said:
Its been like that in every edition of D&D. This is nothing new for 4th edition, so please stop saying that it is.
No, it hasn't always been that way. That statement is pure urban legend. It was only vaguely applicable to PCs or other more or less humanoid races to begin with, and the greater level of abstraction is certainly new to 4e.
Unless you are claiming that an ancient gold dragon has roughly the same 10 physical hit points that a 2nd level halfling fighter has. That the layers upon layers of meat, scale and bones, literally tons of it, has nothing to do with the increased hit points.
Because, even in the 1st edition DMG, it wasn't said that
none of the hit points were meat. It was said that only a small portion were, after mid levels. And again, no one reading the books at the time thought that giants, golems or dragons only had about 10 meat points, and the rest was their ability to dodge, shrug it off, or grit their teeth against the pain.
If it had been true 'since the beginning', Int or Wis would have some effect on hit points. Yet, the only score that affected hit points was... Constitution. A character's general health, in other words. The ability to survive being raised or resurrected. The ability to mitigate the effects of poison (saves) or magic (dwarves and gnomes).
So, the idea that hit points are the same in 4e as they were in 1st is
wrong. This has been pointed out numerous times in numerous places. Continuing to use this as some kind of proof is akin to laughing at Al Gore for
claiming to have invented the internet. People who know better will instantly dismiss almost everything else you have to say, as will other people who eventually find out the same.