Are Hit Points necessary?

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I was just wondering from all of you if you think hit points are a necessary component for d20 games or if you think that a different system for representing a character's overall measure of damage would be better?

Me, I hate hit points. They are a nuisance and an old Sacred Cow that has been kept around for decades but there are always arguments about what they really mean or represent, and despite this we have used them for decades because, well, I guess for no better reason than just because that's how it's always been, and thats a very crappy reason to keep using a system like that where there could be a better method to use.

I just don't know right now what that other measure of damage would be, beyond taking the Condition Track from SWSE and modifying it somehow.

My other huge beef with them is the ever present escalation of hit points that keep going up with each level, but that's me. I might not be so bothered by them if there was a d20 game that didn't have such an escalation of hit points but so far that hasn't been made, or if it has, I might not know about it.

So.....are they necessary?

 

[Greg K]

My preference is for Toughness/Damage saves per Mutants and Masterminds and True20.

If I use hit points, I use the Death and Dying Rules from Unearthed Arcana to get rid of negative hit points and also use a condition track of sorts.

 

[Umbran]

I might not be so bothered by them if there was a d20 game that didn't have such an escalation of hit points but so far that hasn't been made, or if it has, I might not know about it.

As noted, Mutants and Masterminds and True20 use alternative systems.

So.....are they necessary?

Clearly not, as M&M is an excellent game without them.

However, I think hit points are good at what they do. They're intended to give you a slow march towards your demise without notable degradation in power or "death spiral". It's one style, and it works pretty well for D&D's brand of heroic fantasy. I think you'd find that using something else will dramatically alter the feel of the system, which may not be what you want if your main problem is with the concept, rather than how it plays out.

 

[Celebrim]

Hit points aren't necessary, but they do have advantages. Hit points make it very easy to craft balanced challenges and they greatly reduce the effect of lucky or unlucky dice on combat especially at high levels. This is the reason that no major computer RPG has ever gotten away from the hit point mechanic. When you got to some other sort of mechanic, you get much more unpredictable combat and it really mechanically steers you away from making lethal combat a centerpeice of what you are doing to challenge and entertain the players.

It is absolutely untrue that the reason hit points persist is that they are 'sacred cow' that people keep using because they haven't considered the alternatives. Having hit points in a game creates a particular kind of experience. Having a condition track creates a different kind of experience. Hit points are popular because they create an experience people on the whole prefer. That doesn't mean that they are right in every situation, but that does mean that they may be right for 'Dungeons and Dragons'.

There are plenty of D20 games that don't use hitpoints. Mutants and Masterminds for example uses a condition track similar in concept to the sort WEG Star Wars used. My suspicion is that your lack of appreciation for what hit points bring to the table is based on a lack of familiarity with the alternatives. My recommendation would be to broaden out and play a bunch of systems. Once you've experienced alot of systems you'll begin to see the advantages and disadvantages to different sorts of designs. Class based character systems and hit points have there place. They aren't inherently inferior to other sorts of designs.

 

[Runestar]

Hit points got okay once I stopped bothering about just what they are supposed to represent or simulate.

 

[Crothian]

Both systems have their advantage and disadvantages. With games like M&M one of the frustrating things is to get taken out first hit by making a bad damage save. I'm also not a fan of the death spiral that can happen as one keeps getting negatives that stack up.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Hit points aren't a necessary aspect of d20, as evidenced by True 20 (which uses a saving throw vs damage system instead).

That said, I think hp are a good mechanic. While I've used systems with condition tracks in the past, I much prefer hp.

Condition tracks usually introduce additional modifiers that one has to track, and more importantly often cause unheroic death spirals (once injured, you suffer penalties to attacks, defenses and speed which make further injury likely, and death potentially inevitable). IME, systems that use condition tracks tend to be quite deadly. On the other hand, I'll grant that it's more realistic.

Hp are simple to track and generally don't involve nasty death spiral mechanics. I find it's also easier to estimate the outcome of a given match in an hp system (though that may just be because I have more experience with D&D than other systems). IMO, hp are an excellent mechanic for modeling heroic fantasy. They're less ideal for grittier genres (having played d20 Call of Cthulhu, I felt hp and the d20 system in general were a poor fit).

 

[Aus_Snow]

If HPs don't escalate ridiculously (see 3e and 4e, for example) they work quite elegantly, IMO. Simple, hardly any bookkeeping -- they do have this going for them.

Others have already mentioned some of the d20 variants that exist. And, naturally, the death spiral has been brought up. A system that provides a neat alternative to that approach is EABA. It's not d20-based (though there are conversion guidelines available) but I suspect some bits of it -- like, as is directly relevant here, the 'inverse death spiral' or Diminishing Returns -- could easily be imported anyway.

To answer the question, no, they're not necessary. But neither do they have to be as cumbersome / ludicrous as they are often presented nowadays.

 

[fba827]

hit points in of themselves aren't necessary.

Spefically refering to a system like D&D though, it is too built-in to all the powers and assumptions (i.e. what do you do with powers that grant 10hp veruses powers that grant a sugre+3d6hp and so on - it would go from simple house rule to fullblown convoluted houserules that may as well be a separate system).

But there isn't any reason a system couldn't be built around something like the SWSE condition track that you mention.

 

[El Mahdi]

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