D&D 5E The "everyone at full fighting ability at 1 hp" conundrum

[3catcircus]

I was assuming the party was closer to level 9. In any case, it does a good job of highlighting the disparity between classes that can hit hard (like the wizard, rogue, and paladin) vs the classes that can hit more often (such as the fighter, ranger, and monk); in that the latter are incapable of contributing under this model.

Remember, the damage from a weapon attack does not scale at all with level. Only sneak attack and spell slots have scaling damage. It doesn't matter if you're a level 20 fighter, making 4-8 attacks in a round, because each hit still does exactly as much as it was doing at level 1.

Of course, if you did have a weapon that was theoretically capable of killing a dragon, then it would be dead in two hits. It's either invincible, or trivial, with nothing in between.

This is where the Gygaxian multiple attacks but only one hits with any real damage per 6 second round model comes into play - multiple successful attacks per round in a normal hit point based system all add up and subtract from your hp total. Here, since we are comparing to thresholds rather than subtracting, the total damage per round is compared to hit point wound thresholds.

So - a 9th level fighter (assume STR 18 and longsword) that takes an action surge can get off 3 attacks in a round. Best case, he'll do 36 points of damage in a single round - enough to cause moderate wounds - which then combined with an additional moderate wound results in a serious wound.

This easily narrates as the fighters wear down the dragon while waiting for the rogue to get into position for the killing backstab.

I suppose you could, if you wanted to follow the model of subtracting damage from hp, you could alternately leave the existing hit point model and declare wound levels as you get to certain hit point levels (e.g. once you get down to 75% of your total hp, you have a moderate wound), but this doesn't really have the same impact since there is no way to have multiple wounds turn into a more serious injury.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@dnd4vr - at first glance this idea has merit. A few thoughts and questions:

Do body (meat) points and fatigue (SLSF) points work the same when being cured by a spell? If yes, should they? If no, any specifics in mind?

I'll throw out there that your recovery-by-rest speed for body points is too slow. What about 1 point for the first long rest and 1 + Con mod. for each subsequent long rest?

Does this system unfairly penalize high-Con characters? For example, if two characters have 30 hit points each but one has Con 7 and the other Con 17, in typical adventuring the Con 17 person is much more often going to go into body points and thus need more time to recover than the Con 7 person; even though the Con 17 person should in theory recover faster.

To make it more reflective of the idea that everyone's bodies are more or less the same, and that those bodies don't intrinsically change as one advances in level, instead of using one's Con score as the basis I'd instead use a flat number determined by a die roll. As the average person's Con is about 11, that would want to be the average base score; but to determine your actual base number you'd roll 2d3+7. (though if you wanted to be really boring you could just set everyone to the same base number, but where's the fun in that?)

This Base Number would be locked in once rolled, and would never change again.

Then, proceed exactly as above except using the Base Number in place of the Con score.

Make sense?

Thanks. I like the idea as a measure of meat vs. fatigue.

My initial thoughts about healing spells depends on how you want to treat the idea. If tracked separately, then curing spells would heal one MP per spell level, and work normally for the other HP. If not tracked separately, just have it work normally. It really is only a matter of preference.

I'd still keep the long rest requirement per MP. IRL, it takes time to heal. Even with a max CON 20, it would only take three weeks to heal completely. People take much longer to heal, so to me it is generous. Of course, then it depends on the level of realism you want. Maybe add CON bonus after a week as well.

The CON 17 vs 7 is a good point, but for two characters with such different CONs to both have about 30 hp, they would have to be much different levels most likely. The CON 17 would be 3rd or 4th maybe and the CON 7 would be 6th or 7th. With that much more experience, skill, etc. the CON 7 person would refresh those HP much faster.

Finally, I don't think everyone's bodies are more or less the same. Differences in size, frame, conditioning, age, and general health all has a big impact on the amount of physical trauma the body can take. Right now, our "wound" system uses 5 + CON mod as the meat portion because we found the full CON score was too high for our house-rules. Since medium creatures use a d8 for HP, going with 5 works well on the concept of size of the character. Small characters are penalized in that respect, using only a d6 and having 4 + CON mod but we are okay with that. Your CON 7 would have only 3 WP (wound points), but the CON 17 would have 8 WP and could literally take over twice the physical punishment as far as meat body is concerned.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Excepting that CON with its function as Stamina does not necessarily mean resisting meat damage it very much sounds like it could be resisting fatigue particularly when it increases by levels, which to my thinking invalidates huge amounts of the assumptions about meatitude making the percentages still smaller (to perhaps fully ambiguous amounts).

To my thinking dagger damage by normal strength human with nominal skill in a full meat attack means dead human (being a tough guy doesnt change what even half a foot of steel in your chest cavity can do.) ... so that is your absolute cap on meat points for most pcs.

Well, obviously I disagree.

A lot of people won't die from a dagger attack unless it is a critical hit. Either way, see my above post as to why we changed from straight CON to 5 + CON mod for meat body points. If you think of the average person with 5 MP, and a dagger does d4, or 2d4 on a critical hit, the critical hit on average would be enough to take down the average person. That seems right to me.

 

[Garthanos]

Well, obviously I disagree.

A lot of people won't die from a dagger attack unless it is a critical hit.

Magical thing critical hits are... they didnt exist when hit points were conceived and gygax argued strongly against them. A normal person could only do 4 damage.
.The implausibility of the skilled knight being unable to skewer and kill even one heartier peasant with a normal dagger attack is just one more reason why meat points were never a significant part of hit points and sure if you make something not hit points and say see look you can do it that way you are again admitting hit points might as well be called NOT MEAT POINTS because it is ridiculous.... might as well face all the people asserting meat are changing the game its ok to change the game. Heck the 5e optional rule is even reinforcing the hit points are NOT MEAT.

 

[Ratskinner]

It isnt whether I like the concept or not. (its very much one of our Nerd arguments)
I said - "So D&D hit points do not do either of those effects for PCs" AND if a critical hit can cause those impairing wound effects without being caused by hit point loss it directly logically implies no hit points loss is a distinct from the impairing wounds just like it has been in every edition...

I think you were complaining "At how many HP can you narrate someone's arm getting lopped off? An eye taken out?" And in most editions I think none (for PCs) was the answer without some house rule or maybe now some optional rule.

That was me. I've had HP issues for a long time.

I think its hilarious that 4e is the edition where the idea of a significant injury under just the conditions in 5e optional rule actually came out since its the evil that cannot be named. AND so completely unable to do gritty things.

At least for me, 4e is not the edition that shall not be named. There are parts of it that I really liked (especially the DM-facing stuff). FWIW: Depending on how you view the Stamina/Health rules like that (at least as house rules) had been around for some time as house rules, and I think had shown up in on of the WOTC Star Wars editions before 4e had them. However, 4e is certainly not, for me, the edition to end all editions. It added even more of the things that give me narrative headaches about HP in general. Things which have little to do directly with "gritty" and more to do with narrative consistency.

 

[Garthanos]

That was me. I've had HP issues for a long time.

I had HP issues when I was first introduced to them. For me embracing their abstraction fully fixed it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Magical thing critical hits are... they didnt exist and gygax argued strongly against them.

True, there is no need for them in the game. The fact a weapon's damage is variable is what determines the severity of the hit, not the number rolled to make it. A longsword that does 8 damage is critical.

.The implausibility of the skilled knight being unable to skewer and kill even one heartier peasant with a normal attack is just one more reason why meat points were never a significant part of hit points and sure if you make something not hit points and say see look you can do it that way you are again admitting hit points might as well be called NOT MEAT POINTS because it is ridiculous.... might as well face all the people asserting meat are changing the game its ok to change the game. Heck the 5e optional rule is even reinforcing the hit points are NOT MEAT.

First, this is what I meant in a post before about your responses. There is not a single period in this after you begin, it is just one long sentence and confusing to read. You do have an ellipsis, though. I'll do my best though.

First, you went from a normal person with normal skill using a dagger to kill someone to a "skilled knight". Please keep things consistent. A normal peasant (i.e. the "commoner" in 5E) has only 4 hp. A dagger or any other weapon (besides a blow gun, unarmed strikes, and a net) can do 4 damage. So, yes, even without a critical hit the game is designed that anyone can kill a peasant with a "normal attack."

You don't need to explain to me what HP are in 5E.

Every once in a while this comes up. We resolved it by removing "meat" from the equation. IRL, a successful sword hit would take down just about any one, regardless of experience in battle, etc. "Hit points" = "combat effectiveness" at our table. Loss of hp sometimes represents injuries, a loss of energy, your luck running out, your skill tested too far, etc.

We play the "killing blow" which reduces your hp to 0 is the strike, spell, etc. that finally does you in. That's it, you've had too much and simply can't avoid, absorb, dodge, etc. anymore. You are done and drop.

In movies, imagine the flashing exchange of attacks and parries and dodges, until finally one combatant runs the other through! That is the final blow that reduced hp to 0. Some of the earlier attacks "hit" and reduced hp, others missed completely.

It reminds me of when we first started with nearly all new players! One character, a monk, tried an unarmed strike on an ogre and "missed". The player asked, "How could I actually miss?!" We explained there as a good chance you might have made physical contact, but your strike was ineffective in reducing the combat effectiveness of the ogre (i.e. you did no damage).

It works for us and we don't have any confusion about it. I explain the concept to new players and they get it after a bit. Maybe it will help your table? Maybe not?

This was the third post in the thread. My suggestion above is for tables who want to play that some portion of HP represents "meat body."

 

[Garthanos]

First, this is what I meant in a post before about your responses. There is not a single period in this after you begin, it is just one long sentence and confusing to read. You do have an ellipsis, though. I'll do my best though.

I don't think pretending the insomnia I have had for the last week will be a good excuse (because not using punctuation is probably just a horrible habit that I can demonstrate even fully rested). So yes I will try to do better on punctuation since that is good advice.

I also massively over use ellipses...

First, you went from a normal person with normal skill using a dagger to kill someone to a "skilled knight". Please keep things consistent. A normal peasant (i.e. the "commoner" in 5E) has only 4 hp. A dagger or any other weapon (besides a blow gun, unarmed strikes, and a net) can do 4 damage. So, yes, even without a critical hit the game is designed that anyone can kill a peasant with a "normal attack."

A skilled knight in 1e, when hit points were arguably at least elaborated on if not designed, isn't necessarily doing any more than d4 damage in a dagger hit same is technically true in 5e but highly unlikely. We are still limited to 4 as meat for your "natural critical" in 5th edition.

This was the third post in the thread. My suggestion above is for tables who want to play that some portion of HP represents "meat body."

Got ya... Its kind of mental backflips but if people are looking for it, I withdraw objection.

 

[Garthanos]

I think I have heard some argue they want advancing hit points to actually reflect someone able to take horrible wounds and resist dying with supernatural will force and keep on kicking so there is that... I just wonder why anyone would want that and object to overnight recovery.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't think pretending the insomnia I have had for the last week will be a good excuse (because not using punctuation is probably just a horrible habit that I can demonstrate even fully rested). So yes I will try to do better on punctuation since that is good advice.

Thanks, and I appreciate you taking my criticism well. I mean it honestly and meant no offense. I prefer to have a nice discussion, but when posts are like that I find it hard to respond.

A skilled knight in 1e, when hit points were arguably at least elaborated on if not designed, isn't necessarily doing any more than d4 damage in a dagger hit same is technically true in 5e but highly unlikely. We are still limited to 4 as meat for your "natural critical" in 5th edition.

Well, 4 isn't far off from 5 that we use as the base for our MP or BODY score. Also, if you factor in the very likely STR 12+, the maximum 4 for a dagger strike would probably more be a maximum 5 or 6. Even for non-critical hits, this would be sufficient to drop a commoner with 4 hp.

Even in 1E, 4 hp was the base for 0-level NPCs. A blacksmith might have 5-7, and a scribe likely only 3, etc.

Got ya... Its kind of mental backflips but if people are looking for it, I withdraw objection.

Yep. 5E handles it differently from the 1E/2E I love most. Hence my post #3 explaining how we visualize it in 5E. I know at times it is difficult to track everyone's responses in longer threads, so no worries. I just wanted to make certain you knew I was offering ideas for others as well.