D&D General What “hit points” is?

[Tony Vargas]

In that game, every normal figure has 1 hit point. Every hit you deal, if it beats the toughness and armor of the defender, kills a figure. Heroes, and some other figures, are special in that they might get extra hit points: 2 or 3 hit points.
This means, conceptually, that everything has 1 hit point and every weapon deals 1 damage.

Because D&D is smaller scale, the low detail of tabletop wargames feels a bit coarse. The idea in D&D was to take that scheme and add some dice to it for variety. Instead of having 1 hit point, you had 1 hit die and instead of weapons dealing 1 damage, they dealt 1 die of damage. d8 was the "good" hit point and weapon die size.

I don't recall where I encountered it, but I remember seeing hit points labeled "hits to kill" somewhere - at that time (woulda been c1981, maybe?) I thought it was a callback to those mysterious versions of the game that preceded Basic & AD&D, because whaddidIknow.

But it stuck with me, and it gave me that same impression you relate, above.

Funny coincidence.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hit points are simply a value with no direct correlation to the fiction. All we can say for certain of hitpoints is that the more you have of them the harder you are to defeat in battle.

 

[CleverNickName]

I think the nature of hit points will always be sticky in games, because they try to model too many things at once. Sometimes they represent your character's health. Other times, they represent your character's mental wellness. Or the amount of armor they are wearing. Or their stamina, or their strength. Or the amount of damage they have taken so far, the the amount of damage they can continue to avoid, or both, or neither. Depending on how hard you want to stare at them, Hit Points in D&D can represent your character's ability (or luck, or skill, or training) to ignore (or avoid, or endure, or absorb) a potential (or immediate, or previous) amount of harm (or trauma, or effort) of a physical (or mental, maybe even spiritual or arcane) nature, before dying (or falling unconscious). Or not.

I don't think there will ever be a satisfactory way to model them, so for the sake of my own sanity I had to quit trying. Hit points are immersion-breaking, but this is also a game, and games need points and rules to resolve things.

 

[Maxperson]

That is true only in 5th edition (as far as I know), which for my purposes here I am not concerned with. I am certain nothing along these lines existed in 1E/2E, but I didn't play 3E long and never played 4E. My comments were meant to be restricted to the origins of hp as in the OP, so my apologies for the overlap.

1e was similar. Gygax built in a number of purely physical hit points and then hit points above that number abstract with fatigue, divine favor, skill, etc. He didn't specifically state when you took the physical damage, whether it was after all the abstract stuff was lost or as a small portion of each hit, but physical wear and tear and eventually severe bodily damage was built into his hit point system. I can't remember if that stuck around for 2e or not, and 3e didn't have it.

 

[Celebrim]

He didn't specifically state when you took the physical damage, whether it was after all the abstract stuff was lost or as a small portion of each hit...

"Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of physical harm..." - Gygax, DMG, page 82

I can't remember if that stuck around for 2e or not, and 3e didn't have it.

So far as I know neither 2e or 3e redefined the hit point. The general idea that a higher level character was, for a given amount of damage, turning that damage into a less serious of would through skill I'm pretty sure remained consistent until 4e.

4e abandoned the older description and 5e has largely followed the 4e model.

 

[jgsugden]

This is answered by the book: Your character’s hit points define how tough your character is in combat and other dangerous situations. Your hit points are determined by your Hit Dice (short for Hit Point Dice).

Accordingly, when something reduces your hit points, it is taxing your toughness. It might reflect wearing you out, nicking you up, giving you a bit of heat exhaustion, stressing you out, or filbering your flabergabby. You and the DM are free to implement whatever story you'd like in order to reflect how a loss of hit points are manifested in the narrative.

 

[Hriston]

My comment about "how the combat happens" was in reference to the idea that the fortune mechanic works no matter how the narrative is played out. Obviously other factors (resistance to fire) for instance can have a narrative effect when the character takes fire damage. But the actual attack roll and damage roll is independent.

Maybe I didn't say that well? I don't know, I have to run to work LOL!

Okay, I think I’ve got it. By “how the combat happens” or “how the narrative plays out”, I think you mean the post-resolution narration, and I agree. As long as the character still has hit points, there’s nothing there to narrate except, “You’re still up!” Of course, you can narrate other things that are consistent with the established fiction, but that isn’t coming from the hit points/damage, which only tells you if the attack killed or not, or in 5E, for example, if it resulted in a PC being knocked out and beginning to make death saves, or staying on his/her feet and continuing to fight.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't recall where I encountered it, but I remember seeing hit points labeled "hits to kill" somewhere - at that time (woulda been c1981, maybe?) I thought it was a callback to those mysterious versions of the game that preceded Basic & AD&D, because whaddidIknow.

But it stuck with me, and it gave me that same impression you relate, above.

Funny coincidence.

That is so cool you mention HTK, as I was going to quote him and bring it up as well! LOL. My first exposure of the phrase was in Role-Aids: Dragons. In here, it simple was a different term for HP, but equivalent.

I still have it and love the options it opened for 1E dragons!

Anyway, the idea prompted me to create an actual HTK mechanic for D&D with our DM a while ago. It makes the math of HP much simpler! A 20th level character would at most 12 HTK, however you attempt to soak each hit you take. If you are successful, you don't lose any HTK. That's the jist anyway.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Okay, I think I’ve got it. By “how the combat happens” or “how the narrative plays out”, I think you mean the post-resolution narration, and I agree. As long as the character still has hit points, there’s nothing there to narrate except, “You’re still up!” Of course, you can narrate other things that are consistent with the established fiction, but that isn’t coming from the hit points/damage, which only tells you if the attack killed or not, or in 5E, for example, if it resulted in a PC being knocked out and beginning to make death saves, or staying on his/her feet and continuing to fight.

Yep, you got it.

 

[Mistwell]

Hit points are the count down to your luck running out.