WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Or by RAW at 0.

"An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

It's not all being winded or scratched.

I was talking about hit points representing being winded or scratched up until you run out of them. Then it becomes physical. Not sure what you're getting at here?

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Meaning, we don't narrate them being thrown through a wall and landing on a bunch of jagged rocks until they get to a blow that takes them down.

Exactly my point.

 

[Umbran]

I'm obviously in the "hp are a big bundle of things for game purposes, and the lens you see them through is cloudy" camp.

Yeah. HP are a game system abstraction that doesn't have a clear single narrative interpretation. Looking at them too closely for specifics is a fool's game, because being non-specific is the point of the abstraction.

I think the simplest way the system gives us to model lasting injury would be to assign a level of exhaustion each time one hits 0 HP.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I was just thinking that the title of this thread gets funnier every day.

 

[Oofta]

I just keep it simple. HP is an abstraction, a simplification we make to have a game that's easy to play. One which has been adopted by many other games because even though it's not a good system it's simple, easy and for most people works reasonably well.

I can't even imagine how you'd go about modeling anything at all realistic to replace hit points. We can break it up into two categories where one is sort-of-damage and another is actual-real-damage, but does that really make sense? One guy who relies on dodging out of the way, rolling with blows or deflecting blows has exactly the same numbers and structures as that big hulk of a guy that gets punched in the stomach and doesn't even flinch? One is relying on talent and luck to avoid physical damage, the other just takes it because that's just how tough they are. Whether either option makes total sense in the real world, they are common tropes in popular fiction. Think of every time the protagonist goes up to "the big guy" and punches them and looks surprised when big guy only grins. The protagonist still wins the fight in the end of course because they're the heroes of the story.

In most fiction, the combatants are effectively going full blast until one drops. Often the protagonist almost goes down until they get a second wind because they think of how much they love the fluffy bunnies the opponent is going to slaughter if they lose and then they hop up to deliver the final blows. Even when someone was knocked out they hop up, stagger for a moment and then are good to go.

D&D is not a reality simulator. Like almost all games that involve combat, it's a fiction simulator.

 

[Maxperson]

I was talking about hit points representing being winded or scratched up until you run out of them. Then it becomes physical. Not sure what you're getting at here?

Once you get to half hit points, you start being bruised and cut which means meat hit points happen. Then there are things like scorpions and giant spiders that hit you and do poison damage, except if nothing is meat until 0, it would be impossible for them to poison you. Then as I mentioned before, resistance and damage types are worthless until you hit 0, because nothing affects your physicality until then so those things can't come into play prior to that.

It doesn't have to be a high percentage, but some percentage of hit points must be meat in order for those things to function properly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just keep it simple. HP is an abstraction, a simplification we make to have a game that's easy to play. One which has been adopted by many other games because even though it's not a good system it's simple, easy and for most people works reasonably well.

I can't even imagine how you'd go about modeling anything at all realistic to replace hit points. We can break it up into two categories where one is sort-of-damage and another is actual-real-damage, but does that really make sense? One guy who relies on dodging out of the way, rolling with blows or deflecting blows has exactly the same numbers and structures as that big hulk of a guy that gets punched in the stomach and doesn't even flinch? One is relying on talent and luck to avoid physical damage, the other just takes it because that's just how tough they are. Whether either option makes total sense in the real world, they are common tropes in popular fiction. Think of every time the protagonist goes up to "the big guy" and punches them and looks surprised when big guy only grins. The protagonist still wins the fight in the end of course because they're the heroes of the story.

In most fiction, the combatants are effectively going full blast until one drops. Often the protagonist almost goes down until they get a second wind because they think of how much they love the fluffy bunnies the opponent is going to slaughter if they lose and then they hop up to deliver the final blows. Even when someone was knocked out they hop up, stagger for a moment and then are good to go.

D&D is not a reality simulator. Like almost all games that involve combat, it's a fiction simulator.

Of course hit points are an abstraction. That doesn't mean I have to double down on action movie physics and have damage not matter. There is a spectrum here, and it doesn't have to be dialed to 11.

 

[Oofta]

When it comes to armor as DR, I disagree. It make the game more complex and screws around with balance. Let's take two different monsters, a hydra and a frost giant.

A hydra starts with 5 heads and can grow more. It's average damage is 10 points but it compensates by getting a lot of attacks. Compare that to a frost giant which does 25 point of damage on a hit but only gets 2 hits. Both are CR 8.

In the current system, ignoring crits, both do a maximum 50 points of damage turn. With DR? If you have a DR 10, the hydra will do 0 damage, the frost giant is getting 30. DR 5? Hydra does 25, the giant 40. I don't see how to fix that without completely changing how we handle attacks and damage.

Look at it from the PC side of things. While it varies significantly rogues and fighters in my game average out to about the same amount of damage. The rogue does it in 1 hit, the fighter across multiple. I don't see any way of fixing that.

But DR is also not particularly realistic. The best way to take someone out with high quality plate armor if you didn't have a cannon (or high-powered rifle at close range) handy? Grapple them to the ground and stab them in the face with a dagger. Finding a chink in the armor, a gap that your weapon could penetrate, was typically how you took out someone in armor. Not a bigger hammer.

I just don't see how accurately modeling armor, lighter armor but dexterity based, or monsters that rely on scales, dex, sheer size for defense, is ever going to work. Much like HP, AC is the worst possible system created but probably about as good as we're ever going to get for a game with the simplicity of D&D.

 

[Gradine]

D&D should adopt the health system from Dwarf Fortress. Not nearly enough tracking spleen damage at the table

 

[Oofta]

Of course hit points are an abstraction. That doesn't mean I have to double down on action movie physics and have damage not matter. There is a spectrum here, and it doesn't have to be dialed to 11.

I just don't find other systems any more accurate. There are too many complexities with real world wounds, all simulations that would work in a game we can run at the table fall apart if you look at them too closely. Unless of course you want the option for anyone no matter how experienced or how much plot armor to be taken out by 1 lucky blow while some other novice can escape with minimal injuries out of sheer luck.

Should we also throw in cholera and dysentery? Because those were major killers. How about sepsis? Internal bleeding that lets you finish the fight and then keel over dead a minute later? Location based damage?

We are always going to simplify because we have to. In my opinion, none of the other systems do a significantly better job. I'd rather just keep it simple because it's easier to track and keeps the game moving.