Scrivener of Doom
Adventurer
Go back to old issues of Dragon covering OD&D=>1E or 1E=>2E. Nothing has changed beyond the actors as you have mentioned.
D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!
Go back to old issues of Dragon covering OD&D=>1E or 1E=>2E. Nothing has changed beyond the actors as you have mentioned.
Phaezen
First Post
None, other than an abstract quality that measure how tough something is to kill based on a combination of physical bulk, toughness, willpower, experience and other.
Well sure, but that's the line I'm running! Ie hit points don't measure any biological property or quantity at all.
I've got nothing against people playing with hp as meat if they want to.
I've got nothing against people taking the view that, for them, every rules resolution procedure must correspond to an ingame causal process, and using this as a criterion for ingame consistency in their play.
But I do get a bit put out by someone who takes these views then saying that everyone else, who doesn't accept either premise in the way they play the game, therefore has an inconsistent gameworld. There is nothing inconsistent about my gameworld - it's just that I don't assume that the procedures used to play the game at the table actually correspond in any isomorphic way to ingame causal processes.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
They aren't radically different. They're recognizably different. Beowulf was a great swimmer, and while someone like Michael Phelps might be a better one in real life, we know for a fact that the laws of physics are at least subtly different because there's no way you could get a huge giant (humanoid), or a gargantuan flier, if they were using our own laws of physics. So they tweak it, to better fit the fantasy stories we want to tell, and the logical extension of those tweaks is to encourage the fighter to go swimming while the rogue sits on the sideline.
Hit Points are possibly the only mechanic which are hard to pin down satisfactorily, because they try to make it cover so many different aspects. It is explicitly the ability of a creature to not be incapacitated by attacks, but that's an aggregate of a number of different features like toughness, skill, determination, luck, divine favor, etc.
Which isn't to say that those factors couldn't be independently quantified. It's merely that, from our perspective, separating them out is more trouble than it's worth, so we don't have all of the information necessary to accurately reconstruct those factors. The game rules are only a pale imitation of the reality of the game world.
Kind of like how you might have three different components to your SAT score, but the first pass at the admissions office can get enough information out of just your total that it doesn't need to look at the components.
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The Crimson Binome
Hero
I believe that is actually the definition of "process sim", as detailed in these forums a couple of months ago. That's the kind of game I've always run D&D as, with little to no difficulty throughout the earlier editions (and making a hard break at 4E). It's the sort of thing that I require from any game I play, if I'm going to consider it worth my time.
The isomorphic requirement is a particularly strong version of process-sim. As I posted upthread, I don't think any of RM, RQ or Classic Traveller is committed to it. (For instance, RM permits multiple processes for concussion hit loss when struck by a weapon - read off an attack table, or read of a crit result, or (less commonly) read off a fumble result - but they are not different sorts of events in the gameworld.)
Sword of Spirit
Legend
(Post not directed at permerton; just a general response.)
Example Hit Point Breakdown:
1st-level Human Fighter; 12 hp
- 6 hp = physical trauma necessary to kill him
- 6 hp = stance and dodging to reduce incoming damage
10th-level Human Fighter; 84 hp
- 15 hp = physical trauma necessary to kill him (increased via physical conditioning)
- 69 hp = stance and dodging to reduce incoming damage
Typical Encountered Ogre; 29 hp
- 20 hp = physical trauma necessary to kill him
- 9 hp = stance and dodging to reduce incoming damage
Typical Encountered Harpy; 31 hp
- 11 hp = physical trauma necessary to kill her (includes superior biology granting greated tensile strength to muscles and ligaments)
- 20 hp = stance and dodging to reduce incoming damage
Example Damage Taken From an Incoming Longsword Attack:
Longsword Attack vs. 1st-level Human Fighter; 8 hp slashing damage
- 3 hp = physical trauma received
- 3 hp = trauma avoided via stance and dodging
Longsword Attack vs. 10th-level Human Fighter; 8 hp slashing damage
- 2 hp = physical trauma received
- 6 hp = trauma avoided via stance and dodging
Longsword Attack vs. Typical Encountered Ogre; 8 hp slashing damage
- 5 hp = physical trauma received
- 3 hp = trauma avoided via stance and dodging
- 3 hp = physical trauma received
- 5 hp = trauma avoided via stance and dodging
One could also include separate factors for stamina or luck if so desired, without invalidating this sort of simulationist approach.
Interpretation of Official, Published Texts:
Simulationist Approach:
- Not all hp of damage taken represent physical (or in rare cases, psychic) trauma, but:
- A minimum component of any hit point loss is considered to actually be representative of the damage type (in the example, slashing damage)
Narrativist Approach:
- Damage can represent a variety of different sources, any of which may be absent in an individual damage-taking instance, so:
- Regardless of damage type, actual hit point loss need not be attributed to any particular damage type (in the example, the characters may have completely avoided taking any slashing injury)
It is extremely difficult to make a valid argument than any version of the rules dictated either of those approaches.
Everyone Agrees:
- Not all hit points lost to an attack necessarily represent physical trauma received
- The amount of damage that can possibly be attributed to physical trauma varies by creature type of level (ie, a 10th-level fighter doesn't have more "meat" than a couple heavy warhorses)
The Rules Can Be Interpreted to Support
- Hit points can be lost due to slashing damage, even though the attack completely fails to make contact or slash the target; or conversely that:
- Hit points lost due to slashing damage must include actual physical contact resulting in slashing damage
If you (directed at no one in particular) disagree, feel free to hunt for evidence that contradicts my assertion that the rules books can support either view. I could be wrong. My research consulted 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e, but wasn't entirely intensive.
Unless someone can clearly and unequivocally provide evidence to the contrary, it is purely a matter of choice, playstyle, and preference as to how it is interpreted. Personal interpretations tend to fall along simulationist vs. narrativist "camps."
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Hussar
Legend
Who said anything about CR? CR is a relative scale based on how hard it would be for four average PC's of a given level to defeat this monster. It's derived AFTER the creature is built, not before. ((Well, I suppose you could build to CR, but, that's another issue as well - certainly one I would think the simulationist crowd would have an issue with))
And it's got nothing to do with verisimilitude and everything to do with consistency. Bigger creatures have more HP. That's a given isn't it? So, why does a harpy have more HP than an ogre? Why does a halfling have the same HP as a human and gain HP (through levels) at exactly the same rate?
It's not about CR or the choice of how many HD a monster has. Those are purely gamist decisions to give DM's a palette of monsters to use based on the level of the PC's. After all, why is a troll between an ogre and a hill giant. There's no particular reason why a troll is that size. But, it's that size because you need a giant type creature between 4 and 8 HD.
So, my issue is entirely about consistency. There simply isn't any. If the rules for HP were consistent, you'd be able to tell me what those rules were. But, no one can. Not one single person can explain to me why a Harpy or a Medusa has more base HP than an ogre, despite being about 1/4 the size.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
No, it is not a given that bigger creatures have more Hit Points, because Hit Points are a collective name for many different things which each contribute to making something less likely to fall.
All else being equal, sure, a bigger creature is going to have more Hit Points than a smaller one. All else being equal, a skilled combatant will have more Hit Points than a less-skilled one. If nothing is equal, and the bigger creature is less skilled, then we don't have enough information to say which will have more Hit Points.
It's not inconsistency. It's just a multi-variable equation.
That's a nice breakdown. Just a question about these longsword attacks - if the 1st level human fighter has 1 hp left, and is ht by a longsword for 8 hp, are you saying the breakdown wold be the same as if the character was at full (12 hp) and took the same hit?
The reason I ask is because it seems to me that a wound that knocks you unconscious (or, in 1st ed AD&D or earlier editions kills you, because dropping you to -6 in a single blow) is of necessity physically more traumatic than a wound that does not knock you unconscious or kill you.
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