D&D 5E Hp as meat and abstraction

[pemerton]

There is no hidden truth to be unveiled by ruthless application of logic or reference to chapter and verse. Hit points are a game mechanic, just like xp, and nobody sits around asking what an xp models.

No one asks what an XP models? Re-read your DMG!, where Gygax explains why XP are awarded for looting rather than for training. Clearly some people thought (or think) that XP modelled learning, and therefore complained about XP-for-gold.

I'm not saying that those thoughts and complaints were warranted. But I think they've clearly occurred.

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.

I agree that this is part of the genius of D&D - it mixes the ingame and metagame in a way that few other RPG designs do.

From WotC's point of view, I can therefore understand why they might have though powers in 4e for all classes would fly - a martial encounter power or daily power is the same sort of thing, an action token dressed up in the trappings of ingame capabilities, stamina etc. I feel a bit sorry for them that they couldn't carry their audience with them from the damage system to the action/attack system.

Traditionally, an attack roll represents a period of fighting, and success and failure determine if you successfully deal damage. The nature of that damage is ambiguous. The result is a consistent level of abstraction.

Damage on a Miss makes attack rolls slightly less abstract by trying to simulate particular aspects of the attack without also making defense less abstract at the same time.

I don't follow this. As I think about it, DoaM means that, after the relevant period of fighting, the foe is guaranteed to be worn down at least this much. It seems to reinforce the abstraction of the attack roll, and emphasise the ineluctable power of the great weapon fighter. I don't see how it undermines the abstraction.

 

[Bluenose]

Thinking too hard about hit points does 1d6 per round damage.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Is there anyone who still views it as purely physical? I'm not saying such a person exists, but I've not encountered one.

There are. There's a poster on RPGnet who imagines that characters have no bones or innards, due to the way hit points work. Instead, characters on the inside are composed of a uniform spongy material.

I myself use a variant of the meat point explanation. No abstractions.

Actually, on second thought, that might be a bad idea. The "hit points as nonphysical combat efficacy" people would keep missing their opponents, but still think that they were wearing them down due to their hilariously off-target blows eroding their enemies' luck and divine protection. The "hit points as meat" crowd would then proceed to beat the ever-loving crap out of them, thus showing that the "bloodied" condition is, in fact, literal.

Brilliant, I'll buy a front-row ticket!

 

[jasper]

Group 3 for me. 3 are silly game thing and we are playing a silly game.
If you want to argue go make the Booze run and get back to me. I drink Jimmy Walker Blue. And you are buying.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

A cheap and easy way to blend both is to take the Mages & Monsters approach ... HP up to your CON score represent meat; HP beyond that represent luck/fatigue/whatever. M & M includes a mechanic to allow some non-magical healing of those HP above CON via a short rest (ala DDN hit dice or 4E healing surges), but the mechanic does not work for "meat" wounds.

It's sort of like a WP/VP system, but more streamlined with less bookkeeping.

 

[Alzrius]

Although the "hit points as meat" crowd would actually look rather pathetic as warriors, since they'd be so bad at fighting that it could take like 15 or more slices with a longsword to actually finally kill someone. Hell, every single swing at that point you might as well just call "damage on a miss", since they'd be able to do no better than a series of small papercuts to their opponent over and over again until they finally get that last cut to kill him after a dozen previous so-called "hits". They'd look like klutzy idiots swinging those swords around nicking people like a dull razor.

That analogy doesn't translate nearly as well, since it seems to be presuming nothing but bad attack rolls and minimal damage rolls, which can somehow be nudged into being "miss damage."

Take a -2 penalty and downgrade your name to Defcon 3.

The 2nd level rogue with a 12 dex can dodge the lightening bolt taking no damage, even if there is zero cover to dodge behind, thanks to his evasion ability.
The other guy standing next to him, who is 20th level and has a 25 dex and high bonus to his reflex save that rolls a natural 20 on his saving throw still takes half damage from the same lightning bolt.

That's not a hit point issue - that's an issue regarding saving throws and class abilities. It's also not that difficult of an issue to resolve, if you accept that Reflex saves are non-magical dodging, and the evasion ability represents special capability in that regard...capability which even someone who's naturally talented, and has plenty of life experience, doesn't possess. Being 20th level doesn't make you omni-talented, after all.

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.

Leaving aside the mischaracterization of "righteous indignation" - it's really more of an amused derision (for the concept, not the people) - the latter is clearly the lesser of two evils, where "realism" is concerned.

That's because the lava thing is a rarely-occurring corner case. Likewise, the idea that you can take a lot of little wounds that are individually minor but collectively life-threatening isn't implausible, at least not on its face (which is all it needs to be for an RPG).

That's opposed to someone yelling at your character in every single combat to suddenly make their god love them again.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That analogy doesn't translate nearly as well, since it seems to be presuming nothing but bad attack rolls and minimal damage rolls, which can somehow be nudged into being "miss damage."

Take a -2 penalty and downgrade your name to Defcon 3.

Yes... I'm presuming that the game will occasionally present a situation where a swordfighter has a series of bad damage rolls. As a result, if a "hit is a hit"... then an enemy can get hit with a sword 15 to 20 times without dying. That is just as unrealistic as the idea you could use to justify "damage on a Miss." So everyone who thinks "hit points as meat" are realistic is basically ignoring all the ways that it isn't. They are voluntarily putting their heads in the sand about certain aspects of the absurdity of hit points. Which is why I reject their claims that other absurd aspects of hit points (i.e. damage on a Miss) have no place in the game. They are ALL ridiculous attempts to make story sense of a game mechanic, none of which actually work 100%. Every attempt at story justification of hit points falls through one way or another.

If you don't like the concept of "damage on a Miss", that's cool. But don't try and claim it has no place in the game due to any inane concept of realism or the dictionary definitions of what "hit", "miss" and "damage" are.

 

[dmgorgon]

For my game hit points have always been whatever they needed to be at the moment.

It all depends on the situation that is being being described. An arrow in the shoulder or a fall from a great height can be considered meat damage. Other situations like the blow from a great axe that does max damage when at full HP might not.

The abstract nature hit points allows them to be anything you need them to be. The moment you force them to always be endurance or always be meat is the moment hit points stop being abstract.

With that said, if I describe damage to be meat one round I certainly don't want it healed with inspiration the next round. That damage must remain defined for the duration of the wound. If my character is hit with a sword of wounding then I expect that wound to bleed until the physical wound is healed.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yes... I'm presuming that the game will occasionally present a situation where a swordfighter has a series of bad damage rolls. As a result, if a "hit is a hit"... then an enemy can get hit with a sword 15 to 20 times without dying. That is just as unrealistic as the idea you could use to justify "damage on a Miss."

First off, no it isn't. Surviving fifteen marginal sword blows is pretty ridiculous, but it's not the same thing as causing harm to a person, by making an attack with your weapon, without actually touching them.

Putting that aside however, isn't that the rationale behind E6? It's a characteristic feature of 3e/d20 system games at least, that low level play is considerably more "realistic" than high level play. For a character at single digit levels to survive double digit numbers of hits, those hits have to be pretty demonstrably pathetic. It's not at all unrealistic to think that a trained warrior could survive twenty hits if I was the one swinging the sword (or in context, a commoner or a halfling with a strength penalty). If one believes DMG demographics, there are only a very small number of people in the world who have a high enough level to create the really wild outcomes.

This is a very different dynamic than the whole DoaM thing, wherein it's available at low levels and is actually more nonsensical given that the characters using it aren't necessarily even all that good at what they do.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I don't follow this. As I think about it, DoaM means that, after the relevant period of fighting, the foe is guaranteed to be worn down at least this much. It seems to reinforce the abstraction of the attack roll, and emphasise the ineluctable power of the great weapon fighter. I don't see how it undermines the abstraction.

When a great weapon fighter and a goblin attack one another, it isn't really two separate actions. Those two rolls represent the combined effect of that period of combat. Damage caused to the goblin is rolled up in the fighter's attack roll, and vice versa. Giving the fighter damage on a miss alters this abstraction by trying to separately model an element that was previously rolled in with the rest.

And it does so without accounting for the different ways the goblin might defend itself, such as by avoiding as opposed to blocking, or the relative strength of the goblin. This is what I mean by altering one half of the abstraction without altering the other.