How do you handle hit points?

jasper said:

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.LS4G4lYg2oD0ED2iUeA86QHaFM&w=189&h=132&c=7&o=5&pid=1.7

This commoner took 16 points of damage to his face when he was kid. He became a fighter swashbuckler.

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What system are you playing that a 0th level commoner youth has 16 hit points?

And it was 1987... surely he became a duelist: http://www.bobsenk.com/rpg/rules/chclass/duelist.html

He only became a fighter/swashbuckler in the remastered edition: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html.

I prefer seeing hp as something you spend rather than something you lose.

The default assumption is that if an opponent wants you dead and manages to overcome your defenses (with a successful attack roll or a failed save on your part); you're dead, (or dying to stay within D&D ruleset). If the opponent wants to incapacitate you; you're unconscious. If the opponent wants to slightly annoy you, you're slightly annoyed, etc. All your opponent has to do is succeed on its attack roll (or create the effect and wait for you to fail your saving throw)

Now as a player, you may not want this to happen to your character, so you can spend a number of hit points to *somehow* avoid the condition. How many hp? That depends on the severity of the attack, which is measured in damage. Additional effects carry over normally; maybe some of the poison did get into your system after all, or the mere presence of the undead sucked the life out of you. You escaped the vines, but it remains difficult to progress forward.

As long as you spend enough hp to negate the damage of the attack, you're fine for now. But since your hp are a finite resource, you won't be able to stay like that forever. I leave it up to the players to imagine or narrate how the condition was avoided. In extremis dodge? A lucky fumble on your part? Your weapons were locked in a parry? The attack bounced on that heavy pendant on your chest? Your helmet saved you from an otherwise fatal blow? It left a nasty but non-threatening cut? You just have that much "meat" on you? You just don't care as a player? All are equally valid; the point is that you're still up and fighting. You could describe yourself at 1 hp all bloody and bruised, unscathed but thoroughly spent, scratched up and visibly at the end of you rope, or any other description you can come up with.

So a character with a lot of hp is just that ; a character who can stay fine for a longer time despite the danger. Because of whatever reasons the player comes up with.

Some people like to play hp as a completely abstract measure. Others prefer a physical wounds causality, or somewhere in between where injuries start being visible past the 50% hp mark. Some change back and forth over the course of a game. I find that this way I can satisfy everyone's taste.

Laurefindel said:

I prefer seeing hp as something you spend rather than something you lose.

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If you choose not to spend them, what happens?

The first rule of hit points is... don't think too deeply about hit points.

Celebrim said:

If you choose not to spend them, what happens?

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The dm forecloses on your pc for not helping the action economy. Then he raises your taxes.

Two parts to this: A) I do narrate blows, but not all of them. If I do, the description should be reflecting the severity of the blow. B) I'm firmly in camp Gygax. HP are, until you start running low on them, a buffer that allows you to avoid beeing actually hit for good. Sure, a high level Barbarian or Fighter might actually take a solid hit now and then and keep going (thematically), but all things considered I usually stay away from a char being smashed around the room for 10 rounds with slowly decreasing hitpoints. All of the above also applies to NPCs and Monsters.

[MENTION=6990899]Arvok[/MENTION]

Celebrim said:

If you choose not to spend them, what happens?

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Well, going by the description [MENTION=67296]Laurefindel[/MENTION] provided, I'd say that the attacker gets to succeed. Meaning if the attacker is trying to kill you, you die.

What a really fantastic way of modeling HP. Consider that yoinked. I LOVE that interpretation. It makes HP actually make sense. It's a player resource that they spend to avoid negative consequences. Which means that you could easily model just about anything you want to model.

Such as, say, a duel where the goal isn't to kill the other, but, rather, to the first hit. Nobody actually scores a hit until someone runs out of HP. Or, if the PC falls off a cliff and doesn't die, it's because there was a tree sticking out that broke your fall, placed there by the expenditure of HP.

Wow. I can see this being a fantastic way of running the game. And, as far as something like a poisoned weapon goes, well, sure, you can avoid the HP ablation of the weapon, but, the poison effect is separate, so, because of the poisoned weapon, you are somewhat constrained in how you spend your HP to avoid effects. No different than you can only avoid half of a fireball in a saving throw, not the whole thing.

Sure, there might be some wonky corner cases, but, that's always going to happen when using HP. But, this, unlike virtually every other interpretation I've ever seen, actually works the most often.

Differently depending upon the player and the action.

Quickleaf said:

[MENTION=6990899]Arvok[/MENTION]

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This is awesome.