D&D 5E Variant HP

[AverageCitizen]

Hit points have always posed a bit of a problem in D&D, which bothers some but not most. A quick recap for the purpose of discussion:

Armor class is your ability to avoid damage. Hit points are your ability to take damage and also your ability to avoid it. The problem comes from the overlap, which wreaks havoc on verisimilitude. There is a very long thread right now about martial athletes, and I think some of the posters are arguing about this HP ambiguity without realizing it.

Some groups avoid this by recasting HP as purely your ability to 'soak' damage, but this makes the game into a bit of a chopping contest where characters hack each other until they fall down.

Anybody have any thoughts on variant AC or HP systems that separate each function? Are there any confirmed for the DMG?

If not, how do you handle this quandary?

 

[Tormyr]

I honestly do not see the overlap. AC is a clean are you hit or not. HP is how bad was the hit. As your HP scales up, you are able to turn aside more of an attack, jump out of the way of more of a fireball and push yourself farther. Mechanically, these things do not happen in game. They are an illustration of why you can last longer in a fight. It is kind of like Inigo Montoya assaulting the castle in the Princess Bride. The guards and the six fingered man and Inigo have the same amount of blood in them, and the weapons all have the same ability to do damage, but the guards fell quickly and easily to a single stab from Inigo. Later the six fingered man makes several hits on Inigo, but Inigo's skill turns aside the attack from critical areas. He lasts long enough to turn the tide of the battle.

For most things like this that I encounter in the rules, I look for a story based reason for it working the way it does rather than why it would not work. YMMV. Now I will get out of the way for all of the people who actually have good ideas on how to change things.

 

[Paraxis]

I for one am fine with the by the book way of hit points and AC, for most campaign types.

For a darker grim and gritty type game I might want to use a wounds variant, AC and HP work as normal but any critical hit or any attack that drops you to 0 h.p causes a wound. Having a wound is just like taking a level of exhaustion, but a successful medicine roll say DC 10 is needed in addition to the long rest and food/water to remove a level of fatigue.

 

[GMMichael]

Armor class is your ability to avoid damage. Hit points are your ability to take damage and also your ability to avoid it. The problem comes from the overlap, which wreaks havoc on verisimilitude. There is a very long thread right now about martial athletes, and I think some of the posters are arguing about this HP ambiguity without realizing it.

Some groups avoid this by recasting HP as purely your ability to 'soak' damage, but this makes the game into a bit of a chopping contest where characters hack each other until they fall down.

Anybody have any thoughts on variant AC or HP systems that separate each function? Are there any confirmed for the DMG?

Agreed: armor class is ability to avoid damage.

Hit points are not your ability to avoid damage. This is from the basic rules:

"An attack that reduces you to zero hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

So, in the basic rules, even reaching zero hit points doesn't require bleeding. Think about what "damage" is in D&D (besides undefined in the basic rules): anything that reduces hit points. That's it. And damage in Dictionary.com: injury or harm that reduces value.

The "problem" comes from misunderstanding what "damage" is.

Solutions:
- Define damage. Assign damage types (like piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing). Create different hit points for different damage types.
- Let the players decide what hit points mean. Maybe one player wants to be winded, another wants to be wounded.
- There was a rule called "damage reduction," which didn't avoid damage; it reduced damage. You could leave your hit points rules intact if you properly implement DR rules.
- Dump hit points. They require too much math, anyway. Every time a character gets hit, he makes a saving throw. Fail your save, die.

 

[AverageCitizen]

Agreed: armor class is ability to avoid damage.

Hit points are not your ability to avoid damage. This is from the basic rules:

"An attack that reduces you to zero hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

I don't understand how you are disagreeing with me... If you have to reduce someone to 0 HP before you can hit them, then improving HP improves your ability to avoid damage. Ergo, HP represents your ability to avoid damage.

So, in the basic rules, even reaching zero hit points doesn't require bleeding. Think about what "damage" is in D&D (besides undefined in the basic rules): anything that reduces hit points. That's it. And damage in Dictionary.com: injury or harm that reduces value.

The "problem" comes from misunderstanding what "damage" is.

I really don't understand. I didn't say anything about bleeding. Are you saying reducing HP reduces a character's value? No it doesn't. It brings them closer to being incapacitated and dying. Character damage in D&D does not equal what damage is in a dictionary.

Solutions:
- Define damage. Assign damage types (like piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing). Create different hit points for different damage types.

That is an interesting idea, but it does not address what I outlined as the problem with HP. You'd still end up with either ambiguity between AC and HP or characters with thick hides that can take equal amounts of three types of damage that should, by all rights, kill them.

- Let the players decide what hit points mean. Maybe one player wants to be winded, another wants to be wounded.

This one also leaves the AC/HP ambiguity.

- There was a rule called "damage reduction," which didn't avoid damage; it reduced damage. You could leave your hit points rules intact if you properly implement DR rules.

Yeah, I think you are right. Then HP could just be 'soak' and anything that increased HP but was conceptually damage avoidance could be turned into DR.

- Dump hit points. They require too much math, anyway. Every time a character gets hit, he makes a saving throw. Fail your save, die.

I feel like you may be being facetious here, but if there was a variant that balanced this out I would consider it.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I honestly do not see the overlap. AC is a clean are you hit or not. HP is how bad was the hit. As your HP scales up, you are able to turn aside more of an attack, jump out of the way of more of a fireball and push yourself farther. Mechanically, these things do not happen in game. They are an illustration of why you can last longer in a fight. It is kind of like Inigo Montoya assaulting the castle in the Princess Bride. The guards and the six fingered man and Inigo have the same amount of blood in them, and the weapons all have the same ability to do damage, but the guards fell quickly and easily to a single stab from Inigo. Later the six fingered man makes several hits on Inigo, but Inigo's skill turns aside the attack from critical areas. He lasts long enough to turn the tide of the battle.

For most things like this that I encounter in the rules, I look for a story based reason for it working the way it does rather than why it would not work. YMMV. Now I will get out of the way for all of the people who actually have good ideas on how to change things.

Ok, that is cool. By itself, that works. But answer me this: Why does it take more magic to heal Inigo than one of the guards on the floor? (Assuming he isn't ALL dead).

 

[Tormyr]

Ok, that is cool. By itself, that works. But answer me this: Why does it take more magic to heal Inigo than one of the guards on the floor? (Assuming he isn't ALL dead).

Hmmm. Good question if HP represented wounds. There are many ways it could be looked. You would have to find one that you like. One interpretation would be that the higher stamina and will to live require more building up from the healing magic. Healing magic from a cleric not only restores wounds; it restores hope and stamina.

Or you could view it as Inigo has built up a resistance to healing magic and it takes more to get the job done.

 

[AverageCitizen]

Hmmm. Good question if HP represented wounds. There are many ways it could be looked. You would have to find one that you like. One interpretation would be that the higher stamina and will to live require more building up from the healing magic. Healing magic from a cleric not only restores wounds; it restores hope and stamina.

Or you could view it as Inigo has built up a resistance to healing magic and it takes more to get the job done.

I like the cut of your jib. Good stuff! But can you see how to make it fit you have to come up with pretty unconventional explanations?

 

[AverageCitizen]

I for one am fine with the by the book way of hit points and AC, for most campaign types.

For a darker grim and gritty type game I might want to use a wounds variant, AC and HP work as normal but any critical hit or any attack that drops you to 0 h.p causes a wound. Having a wound is just like taking a level of exhaustion, but a successful medicine roll say DC 10 is needed in addition to the long rest and food/water to remove a level of fatigue.

I like this one. But I'd add a wound at half HP or at a certain threshold, like 1/4 your HP at once. What do you think about that?

 

[Tormyr]

I like the cut of your jib. Good stuff! But can you see how to make it fit you have to come up with pretty unconventional explanations?

Although my first suggestion was actually more serious. The further you fall from damage be it physical, psychological or spiritual, the farther you need to be built back up. Part of that could definitely be additional small wounds that need be closed up as well as restore the well of stamina within.

Regardless, I think the issue is more figuring out why it takes more healing magic the more experienced one is than match it at the same to to one view of hp. The PHB describes what HP is. Does it talk about what healing is?