D&D 5E Hp as meat and abstraction

[darjr]

I don't think it does that. It says it's part meat, part non-meat, and ultimately an abstraction. Which is what I said, and what you said Bingo! to.

To be specific, 5e says, "Hit points represent a combination of [physical] and [mental durability, the will to live, and luck]. Hit points are an abstraction that represent a creature’s ability to survive the many perils lying in wait. "

Overnight healing and the hit on a miss killing it's target, among other things, make it to abstract for me.

 

[jodyjohnson]

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130527

What do you want HP to emulate today?


I do think the default needs to be the HP as Meat+ which has already been mentioned.

Each "hit" causes "damage" which won't just go away with a 10 minute rest.

This is simply most consistent with the majority of the existing editions, IMO.

I will not feel 'slapped in the face' or 'kicked in the teeth' if my preference isn't the default.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm good with thinking like this. Why? Because that physical effect would include getting tired and fatigued. Which means that if fighting causes you to get tired and fatigued... then that absolutely can still occur even when you are missed with an attack. He swings, you dodge, you suffer the physical injury of fatigue, you lose hit points.

Easy peasy.

I think for me the distinction of suffering the damage from the attack is an important point in the fiction. Not that the injury came as a result or consequence of the attack, but that the attack caused the injury directly. Which is to say, a hit PC saying "I sprained my ankle during a dodge!" doesn't jive as well with me. It is the HIT that did something to you. If you dodged, you'd be fine. And if you could take damage from a successful dodge that "made you tired," there's no reason you'd take more from ducking a red dragon's bite than you would from a peasant's drunken punch. Also no reason the former would also deal fire damage.

I mean, if damage from an attack can be narrated as a result of you avoiding the attack, then it can get kind of absurd: "The snake's fangs didn't touch me, I took damage and got poisoned because I ate some bad meat at breakfast, the snake missed me." Or "Oh, I dodged the orc king's fierce axe blow, and died because I had a heart attack coincidentally at that very moment."

A hit is a chance for someone else to do something to your character. It robs you as a player of agency. That's part of its power, part of why it's something we want to avoid: it makes this story about how your enemy came out ahead this time.

So I'm not a big fan of "I'm just tired after all this amazing dodging I just did!" as an explanation for damage. Come on, man. If you dodged, you'd be uninjured. Your dodge was not good enough to avoid the blow. It might have been good enough to avoid it opening up your ribcage, but those fangs broke skin, that axe hurt.

That's me personally, though.

 

[Wulfgar76]

Not particularly, since that relies on the incorrect assumption that a successful Reflex save means completely dodging something, rather than "reacting in a manner so as to make a serious blow less serious."

Of course, it doesn't matter either way, since there's surely another character to yell at my PC, and in doing so restore his fatigue, his luck, and his God-given sphere of protection.

Right.

So while damage on a miss and yelling wounds closed fills you with righteous simulationist indignation, your high-level character bathing in lava and needing 100 'light scratches' from a greataxe before suddenly fainting is the epitome of realism.

 

[Jester David]

The idea is some people view hp as meat and others don't. The question is how can fifth edition allow both playstyles to exist in the same game but at different tables?

One problem that has come up is damage on a miss for weapon attacks. For the hp is meat crowd it doesnt make sense. If you miss there is no physical damage. A fireball makes sense because the fire can move around all defenses.

I suggest for damage on a miss that if you miss by three points or less you deal the str mod damage. This should make both camps happy.

I've written about this a buncha times. I have a big blog post here and a comic here.

Really, the best thing 5e can do is say "hitpoints measure both health and energy" but leave the exact ratio vague and let people decide for themselves. While also avoiding adding mechanics that lean to far one way or the other, options that invalidate the choice of the DM.

 

[Lokiare]

Some people in this thread are missing the point. This discussion is not about whether hp are meat or not, its about how we can get both views in the game with the least amount of rules.

Whether or not HP is stamina which can be worn down which leads to an actual killing blow or whether they are literally carving off pieces of meat is moot.

The point is there are at least 2 very different styles of play. We need to come up with a way to allow both play styles into the game with the least amount of rules.

My suggestion in the first post was that for damage on a miss for melee weapon attacks would key off missing by only a few points. This would simulate the target creature blocking or their armor (natural or otherwise) absorbing most of the blow, but the attack is so powerful that some of it still gets through.

This would be demonstrated by those movies where you see people sword fighting but one of them shakes their hand after blocking several blows from a stronger opponent because their opponents attacks are way too powerful. That is damage on a near miss. This makes it believable to both groups.

What are other rules we can use or changes to rules we can use to allow both camps to be able to play how they want?

 

[Ahnehnois]

So while damage on a miss and yelling wounds closed fills you with righteous simulationist indignation, your high-level character bathing in lava and needing 100 'light scratches' from a greataxe before suddenly fainting is the epitome of realism.

Even though those are fairly extreme examples that are impossible in most D&D games (unlike damage on a miss and martial healing, which are present in many abilities available to low-level characters), they really aren't that bad.

Lava deals something around 70 damage a round. Almost any character is going to be incinerated within six seconds, and even those high level martial characters aren't exactly taking a bubble bath. Those heroes of legend still won't last a minute. And it's pretty clear that damage that is minuscule relative to the target's health represents glancing or marginally effectual blows; that's not some big reach. These things certainly aren't real, but they're fine for a fantasy "heightened reality".

But even given that hp are not a perfect model of reality (which they surely aren't), that doesn't mean that anything goes.

 

[Lokiare]

Even though those are fairly extreme examples that are impossible in most D&D games (unlike damage on a miss and martial healing, which are present in many abilities available to low-level characters), they really aren't that bad.

Lava deals something around 70 damage a round. Almost any character is going to be incinerated within six seconds, and even those high level martial characters aren't exactly taking a bubble bath. Those heroes of legend still won't last a minute. And it's pretty clear that damage that is minuscule relative to the target's health represents glancing or marginally effectual blows; that's not some big reach. These things certainly aren't real, but they're fine for a fantasy "heightened reality".

But even given that hp are not a perfect model of reality (which they surely aren't), that doesn't mean that anything goes.

If you people want to discuss hp is meat please start a thread about that. This thread is about how we can have both groups using the same rules.

 

[dd.stevenson]

These debates for me really illustrate what an ingenious mechanic HP really are. For they're a blatant plot token system: no two ways about it. But they are so close to representing actual wounds, that if you just dress it up a little bit, say associate them with the con score and name the hp-restorative powers "cure light wounds" that people who want to see them as non-gamist constructs, can.

Genius.

Anyone who's designing a game mechanic can only aspire to this standard--to dress it up so well that people will argue (and argue, and argue...) about what they really are.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

The idea is some people view hp as meat and others don't. The question is how can fifth edition allow both playstyles to exist in the same game but at different tables?

One problem that has come up is damage on a miss for weapon attacks. For the hp is meat crowd it doesnt make sense. If you miss there is no physical damage. A fireball makes sense because the fire can move around all defenses.

I suggest for damage on a miss that if you miss by three points or less you deal the str mod damage. This should make both camps happy.

If you leave out mechanics such as "damage on a miss" you take much of the spotlight away from the absurdity of "hit points" in general. By leaving out these mechanics then you leave it up to each group to decide how they want to define hit points. Now when you hard code those mechanics into the system, then you blatantly point out how contradictory the hit point mechanics can be. The best way to handle it would be to make these types of mechanics purely optional and avoid making them a part of the default mechanics.