Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?

[pemerton]

Yeah, it's workable, but I think it's an unnecessary constraint. Why limit interesting design possibilities that way?

I'm the wrong person to ask! But presumably, the answer is "to satisfy those who don't like warlord healing".

In fact, non-physical hp are part of D&D tradition, in that psychic mental attacks could result in hp loss well before 4e.

Can you give some examples? (Not that I'm doubting - I'm just coming up blank at the moment.) Could psionic blast vs non-psionic (in the AD&D DMG) do hp damage?

Perhaps an attack might offer a choice; take X hp damage or flee in fear for X rounds.

I'd like to see more of this sort of thing in 4e.

That is not to say that every attack must inflict hp damage. In fact, I doubt that that is even on the table, as the designers already abandoned that philosophy (albeit, a fair ways into the 4e production cycle).

I won't mention Sleep, Grease, Hypnotic Pattern, Maze of Mirrors, etc if you don't!

 

[D'karr]

Can you give some examples? (Not that I'm doubting - I'm just coming up blank at the moment.) Could psionic blast vs non-psionic (in the AD&D DMG) do hp damage?

Psionic Blast no, but Ego Whip (3.x) was a psionic attack that would do ability damage to Charisma. In 3.x, any creature reduced to 0 in an ability is killed. It could also be used against non-psions, psions just had the advantage that they could resist it if they had Power Resistance. This power does no HP damage, but it can kill. By the way this is a 2nd level power.

Off the top of my head I can't recall others, but that does not mean they didn't exist.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Can you give some examples? (Not that I'm doubting - I'm just coming up blank at the moment.) Could psionic blast vs non-psionic (in the AD&D DMG) do hp damage?

The Astral Searcher, from the Fiend Folio, would be a 1e example.

Astral searchers attack the psyche (so all victims are treated as AC 5 against their attack, regardless of physical or magical protection) though their victims will believe the attack to be physical and sustain damage accordingly. All damage inflicted by astral searchers is illusory and will fade in 3-12 rounds following the termination of the astral searchers' attack.

It goes on to explain how someone killed by an astral searcher has their mind destroyed and their body possessed...

Psychic Crush, from The Complete Psionics Handbook, would be a 2e example.

If this attack is used against any mind that the psionicist has contacted, the victim much make a saving throw vs. paralyzation. Failure costs the target 1d8 hit points.

Sadly, my copy of the Complete Psionics Handbook for 3.5 was destroyed last summer due to flooding, so I'll have to quote an example for 3e from the 3.0 Psionics Handbook. Inflict Pain is a fine 3e example. Please note that as it has the [Mind-Affecting] descriptor, it is quite clearly mental in nature.

You telepathically stab the mind of your foe, causing horrible agony. The telepathic strike deals 3d6 points of damage.

All three of these are mental assaults with killing potential. Now granted, the astral searcher's damage is considered illusory and therefore fades after approximately 7 minutes, but if you face goblins during that span, the hp damage is considered just as real as a dragon bite. The other two attacks result in hp loss that must be healed normally.

 

[Andor]

In 3.x, any creature reduced to 0 in an ability is killed.

No they aren't. Only a 0 con equals death. The other 5 stats amounted to paralysis at 0 due to weakness or madness or the brains of a rock.

And for 5e I'm going to make the radical suggestion that we not make the rules offer an explict description of how the mind, brain, body and soul interact to form the self. No offense to Monte Cook, but I'm fairly sure he's no Rene DeCartes.

If a fear effect can kill, that's all we need to know. If you died because if scared your soul out of your body, or because it induced such a massive adrenaline surge that your blood pressure spike caused a spontaneous aneurism in the medula oblongata is a level of detail that the HP system does not attempt to capture.

If a cure light wounds spells heals the sub-lethal damage that fear spell caused by calming your fearful spirit and binding it more tightly to your mortal frame, or by reducing your intracranial blood pressure and removing excess epinephrine from your system is also not modeled.

Carry on.

 

[pemerton]

Psychic Crush, from The Complete Psionics Handbook, would be a 2e example.

In 1st ed AD&D this is a % chance of instant death, rather than hp damage. It is described as "a massive assault upon all neurons in the brain, attempting to destroy all by a massive overload of signals". This attack can only affect another psionic target.

A quick check of the other psionic attack matrices shows that only a psionic blast can kill, and only against a defencless psionic, or against a non-psionic target with a combined INT & WIS of 13 or less.

The only way that psionics can do hp damage in 1st ed AD&D is if a psionic attack would cause the loss of psionic strength points, and the target has none left, in which case the attack "results in physical damage (hit points) being taken by the defender on a point for point basis." (DMG p 77)

I think that the logic behind all this is that a sufficiently powerful mental blast can cause physical damage (primarily if not exclusively to the brain). That is also my default narration for psychic damage in 4e if it causes physical debilitation to the victim.

 

[Hassassin]

I think that the logic behind all this is that a sufficiently powerful mental blast can cause physical damage (primarily if not exclusively to the brain). That is also my default narration for psychic damage in 4e if it causes physical debilitation to the victim.

Or maybe it works like illusions? You take damage because your mind is forced to believe you do.

 

[Fanaelialae]

In 1st ed AD&D this is a % chance of instant death, rather than hp damage. It is described as "a massive assault upon all neurons in the brain, attempting to destroy all by a massive overload of signals". This attack can only affect another psionic target.

A quick check of the other psionic attack matrices shows that only a psionic blast can kill, and only against a defencless psionic, or against a non-psionic target with a combined INT & WIS of 13 or less.

The only way that psionics can do hp damage in 1st ed AD&D is if a psionic attack would cause the loss of psionic strength points, and the target has none left, in which case the attack "results in physical damage (hit points) being taken by the defender on a point for point basis." (DMG p 77)

I think that the logic behind all this is that a sufficiently powerful mental blast can cause physical damage (primarily if not exclusively to the brain). That is also my default narration for psychic damage in 4e if it causes physical debilitation to the victim.

By this logic, does a high level fighter have more neurons, more resilient neurons, or better brain signal dampening? It clearly takes more psychic crush attacks to kill him, so he can either suffer a greater amount of brain damage (physical debilitation) than a low level fighter, or he is better at limiting the amount of actual physical harm the power inflicts upon him then he was at a low level (perhaps repeated beatings resulted in a thickening of his skull, limiting the amount of psychic energy that could penetrate into the brain).

Or, his brain is no more physically resilient than it was at 1st level, but there are meta factors to account for the difference. I know which explanation I think is most reasonable.

 

[Andor]

By this logic, does a high level fighter have more neurons, more resilient neurons, or better brain signal dampening? It clearly takes more psychic crush attacks to kill him, so he can either suffer a greater amount of brain damage (physical debilitation) than a low level fighter, or he is better at limiting the amount of actual physical harm the power inflicts upon him then he was at a low level (perhaps repeated beatings resulted in a thickening of his skull, limiting the amount of psychic energy that could penetrate into the brain).

Or, his brain is no more physically resilient than it was at 1st level, but there are meta factors to account for the difference. I know which explanation I think is most reasonable.

I believe I just covered that. HP is abstract. Do not examine it too closely, that way lies madness.

If a fear effect can kill, that's all we need to know. If you died because if scared your soul out of your body, or because it induced such a massive adrenaline surge that your blood pressure spike caused a spontaneous aneurism in the medula oblongata is a level of detail that the HP system does not attempt to capture.

If a cure light wounds spells heals the sub-lethal damage that fear spell caused by calming your fearful spirit and binding it more tightly to your mortal frame, or by reducing your intracranial blood pressure and removing excess epinephrine from your system is also not modeled.

Carry on.

 

[Mallus]

HP is abstract. Do not examine it too closely, that way lies madness.

And whenever you use the words "logic" and "hit points" in the same sentence, you've already lost whatever argument you were trying to make!

 

[enigma5915]

I appreciate what you are doing [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION], but isn't it a bit of as stretch, requiring too much work to get to a point where HP as physical damage only is feasible? It seems much easier to stick with Gygax and see HP as an abstraction representing different factors.

That said, I see no reason why D&D Next couldn't include some kind of body point system (e.g. body points = CON) as a modular option.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well and great things usually come from hard work. It may be a bit tricky at first to divise a physical damage only system, but the results would be awesome! IMHO. Physical, fatigue, and mental damage should all be tracked separately and resulting trauma from such damage...at least this what I prefer. And the tracking for this does not have to be convoluted... just saying.