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L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend
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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5916692" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>Originally, there was no unconsciousness threshold. There were only two states of being: Alive and fighting, or dead. If you hit zero hit points, you'd kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. You were an ex-adventurer.</p><p></p><p>This was fine when D&D was basically a wargame, and PCs were disposable game pieces. However, as people began to identify with their characters and want to keep them around for long periods, the idea that you weren't necessarily <em>all</em> dead at zero hit points became popular. Unconsciousness served as a nice intermediate stage. A PC reduced to zero was still out of the fight, and would be a while recovering (in 2E you couldn't just drop a couple <em>cure</em> spells on the mostly-dead, they were out for days at a minimum), but wasn't gone for good. To make things a little edgier, they added ongoing hit point loss and the need for stabilization.</p><p></p><p>For something that wasn't so much designed as evolved, it's a pretty good system. Once you're unconscious, there's no reason for the monsters to keep pounding you unless the DM is feeling exceptionally spiteful, so your main worry is stabilizing before you bleed out or fail your third death save. As long as your fellow party members are on the ball, they can save you. I think 3E and 4E made it too simple to get an unconscious PC back up, but that's mostly a matter of taste.</p><p></p><p>Fiction-wise, I agree that it's kind of weird you always end up unconscious before you die. But it's a useful cheat.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5916692, member: 58197"] Originally, there was no unconsciousness threshold. There were only two states of being: Alive and fighting, or dead. If you hit zero hit points, you'd kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. You were an ex-adventurer. This was fine when D&D was basically a wargame, and PCs were disposable game pieces. However, as people began to identify with their characters and want to keep them around for long periods, the idea that you weren't necessarily [I]all[/I] dead at zero hit points became popular. Unconsciousness served as a nice intermediate stage. A PC reduced to zero was still out of the fight, and would be a while recovering (in 2E you couldn't just drop a couple [I]cure[/I] spells on the mostly-dead, they were out for days at a minimum), but wasn't gone for good. To make things a little edgier, they added ongoing hit point loss and the need for stabilization. For something that wasn't so much designed as evolved, it's a pretty good system. Once you're unconscious, there's no reason for the monsters to keep pounding you unless the DM is feeling exceptionally spiteful, so your main worry is stabilizing before you bleed out or fail your third death save. As long as your fellow party members are on the ball, they can save you. I think 3E and 4E made it too simple to get an unconscious PC back up, but that's mostly a matter of taste. Fiction-wise, I agree that it's kind of weird you always end up unconscious before you die. But it's a useful cheat. [/QUOTE]
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