4e Hit Points and pre-4e Hit Points: A Comparison

[mmadsen]

It may be semantics, but I don't think hit points are intended to model anything. Rather, they are an abstraction of how long a character can last in a fight.

Then they model how long a character can last in a fight, something we might call defensive combat strength, if we were war-gamers.

Although billd91 does point out that they don't model just how long a character can last in a fight:

Since other events and conditions cause the loss of hit points, they've pretty much always been the character's ability to endure physical stress, whether that stress be through being wounded in a fight, be caused by deprivation of food and water, or be caused by hazards such as falls, fires, and landslides. Fights are merely the most common way this resource is depleted in a typical adventure.

I'm willing to say that hit points often stop making sense, and suspension of disbelief goes out the window, when things like falling damage come into play. "I know I will survive a fall at terminal velocity?"

To a lesser extent, a similar abstraction could be made for other aspects of the game as well: the half level bonus to defenses, attack rolls, skill checks and ability checks are usually explained as increasing skill on the part of the character. However, part of the increase could also be attributed to divine favor or luck if the player wants to narrate it that way.

The problem with hit points is not that they're too abstract and lack sufficient detail. I'm certainly not arguing for a "which major artery is severed" chart.

The problem is that hit points are a terrible model of combat, real or fictional. If you try to narrate what's happening, you have to gloss over a lot of nonsense.

Divine Favor and Luck can't be modeled. Luck means a degree of uncertainty you can't predict. Divine Favor doesn't exist in the reality.

Divine favor and luck may be perfectly palpable forces in a world of fantastic heroes with great destinies -- especially since we've already decided that some of them are PCs whose stories we were presumably following for a reason.

But it models them in a very clever way, by staying very abstract and creating a system that is very easy to use.

I am a fan of abstract and easy to use. The opposite of abstract and easy to use is not realistic.

It's all about what you are willing to give up when playing the game. Are you willing to forego a detailed damage track in order to speed up game play? Then go with hit points. There are other systems that can better model combat in a more realistic way. But, they are slower.

There are other systems that can model combat in much more detail. Often they're no more realistic. Abstract does not mean unrealistic, and realistic does not mean detailed.

Hit points are a bad model of "reality", but so are most of the more detailed models that are more "realistic".

Absolutely.

That's because reality has the nasty habit of throwing up really strange events every so often, which the rules aren't going to repeat. I don't think there's many sets of rules which can cope with Alexander the Great surviving a ballista bolt in the chest while other people are being killed by one lucky hit with an arrow. And rules which allow someone to be struck through the eye slit of their helm with a sword, turn on their attacker and strike them down, and then collapse and die aren't easy to find.

We can agree that those rules aren't easy to find, but they are easy to write.

HP should represent physical damage as it started as.

Hit points obviously never stood purely for physical toughness. Gygax said as much. In fact, a high-level fighter's hit points have always been 90 percent intangibles: skill, luck, divine favor, etc.

 

[Hussar]

Alright, substitute "detailed" for "realistic" in my quote. Makes no big difference to me.

 

[billd91]

I'm willing to say that hit points often stop making sense, and suspension of disbelief goes out the window, when things like falling damage come into play. "I know I will survive a fall at terminal velocity?"

I don't find that any more unbelievable than a PC knowing they will survive being trampled by an elephant. Both, in real life, would be highly improbable even if a high level PC could do either without feeling threatened. Game mechanics, after all, do have limited ability to model reality. How they try to do so matters for the feel of a game, but we all should recognize that there will be dissonance from time to time. The trick is to minimize the disruption caused by the dissonance.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I wanted to check my books before replying to this. Page 293 of the 4e PH states:

"Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character's skill, luck, and resolve - all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.​

So, a high-level 4e character who is low on hit points because he has turned deadly strikes into glancing blows (and is thus covered in nicks and scratches), out of breath from exhausting his physical endurance, and dangerously close to running out of luck is consistent with the 4e definition of hit points.

Until his buddy gives him a pep talk, and then either all those nicks and scratches either get "talked away", or they are no longer represented by hit points (and the description given above becomes less accurate).


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Nicks and scratches -- individually so inconsequential that they do not hamper the character's ability to fight -- add up to impalement.

Nah, not in any edition.

Hit points are on a relative, not an absolute, scale. The only hit point loss that represents impalement in any way, shape, or form, is the one that impales you. This is true for all editions....even 4th.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think this is the only definition of hit points that can hold up to scrutiny.

Obviously, I disagree. I believe that the 1e model holds up to scrutiny quite well.


RC

 

[SteveC]

Obviously, I disagree. I believe that the 1e model holds up to scrutiny quite well.


RC

And it may surprise you to know that others disagree. The Hit Point debate has been going on for over 30 years, with no end in sight. I have no idea how long you've been playing D&D, but as someone who has played it from the original white box, I can say that as long as there have been hit points, there have been arguments about them. The Hit Point system is the most common mechanic that was changed by games created in response to D&D. It's even more common to houserule than Vancian magic. Taking a look at Runequest, we see one of the earliest examples of HP done "right," for example.

1E Hit Points work for you, and that's great. For me, and my group, 4E HP work just fine. There's no objectively better going on here: they all give problems when looked at too closely. They all can be shown to be absurd and unrealistic and just flat out not to model anything very well depending on how closely you examine them. To say otherwise is either because you haven't been long involved in the debate, perhaps by being new to the hobby, or the Internet, or that you're being argumentative merely to annoy people who enjoy 4E. If there's some third reason, I'd honestly like to hear it.

--Steve

 

[Lacyon]

Until his buddy gives him a pep talk, and then either all those nicks and scratches either get "talked away", or they are no longer represented by hit points (and the description given above becomes less accurate).

It will never make sense to me that a wound (particularly a minor wound) has to be physically closed and flesh made whole before it can cease to have a detrimental impact on a character's ability to "stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle" or his "skill, luck, and resolve - all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation."

 

[Cadfan]

It seems like I see a lot of 4E players saying that hp represent anything you like -- possibly disassociated from all physical injury, possibly reduced by Intimidate checks, etc. I suppose that could be a poll question.

I'd be careful not to oversell the part in bold. I can think of one and only one method, in all of 4e, that allows one to non magically intimidate someone into losing hit points. I mean, the power that does it is there, it exists, its real, so I guess 4e has this. But I think that both the fans and detractors of "hit points are more abstract now" should maybe take a step back from this point, and stop letting it dominate conversation.

The opposite, of course, is quite common- you can regain hit points by regaining your will to continue fighting. But you can't lose hit points by losing your will to fight (not counting damage from magical/psychic attacks themed as attacking your will to fight), except through one particular attack power.

For some reason, I'm ok with the basic system. I think its a little silly to lose hit points because you were intimidated into surrendering. But I think it makes decent sense to allow you to regain hit points by regaining determination. It fits the genre- I stab you a bit, you look like you might die, but then you surge to your feet in defiance and desperately battle some more, and I have to stab you a few more times before you actually die.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And it may surprise you to know that others disagree. The Hit Point debate has been going on for over 30 years, with no end in sight.

No surprise at all. The hp discussion in the DMG is a direct result of that debate, which certainly predated 1e.

I have no idea how long you've been playing D&D

I ran my first game on Christmas Day, 1979.

1E Hit Points work for you, and that's great. For me, and my group, 4E HP work just fine. There's no objectively better going on here: they all give problems when looked at too closely.

Please note that I said "I believe that the 1e model holds up to scrutiny quite well.", not "I believe that the 1e model holds up to scrutiny absolutely.

Overall, I have argued that the 1e and the 4e hp paradigms are different, not that one is better than the other.

However, that said, I do believe that the 1e hp paradigm is superior to the 4e one, if only because the 4e system consistently leads to absurd results. IOW, while I agree (to a point) that they "all can be shown to be absurd and unrealistic and just flat out not to model anything very well depending on how closely you examine them", it takes little more than casual examination to see the problems with the 4e paradigm.

This seems, IFAICT, to be the general consensus -- never have I been advised to "just not think about it" so often as with the 4e hp/healing system. Even the most ardent defenders of the system....people who are really happy with how the mechanics work.....seem willing to admit that the hp system is glitchy if (1) thought about, (2) damage is described before it is healed, or (3) both.

Even so, there are things that I like about the 4e hp paradigm. If the designers had given it more thought, it might seem less like Monty Python & the Holy Grail and more like what the designers (presumably) had in mind. As I have said earlier, a previous thread offered several improvements to the 4e hp system that would have been nice to have as a codified product if the GSL allowed it.

Perhaps the new GSL (should it ever appear) will allow it.

Perhaps 5th edition will sweep away the problems by fully embracing the new hp paradigm.....I would be willing to concede that many of the problems 4e has re: damage and healing are based on a schitzophrenic attitude toward the old and new paradigms.

It is, if anything, a testament to the strength of the 1e hp system (and Vancian magic) that, as "the most common mechanic that was changed by games created in response to D&D", it is also one of the most enduring. And, it is equally telling that, repeatedly, changing that system causes unexpected problems in the game's design.

Finally, it is also telling that, although many 4e supporters are willing to concede the point that the 4e hp paradigm requires a willingness to retcon/an acceptance of the absurd/choosing not to describe/etc., the diehard "There is no problem" folks tend to be the same diehard "There was no problem" folks when 3e problems were discussed. And they tended to change their mind when 4e was announced, and WotC started talking about the same problems.

If 4e hp work for you and your group, that's great. I don't want to take your game away from you. Reworked and fully committed to, the 4e hp paradigm might prove equal to or better than the 1e paradigm.

But I don't want to see the current 4e hp paradigm through the rose-coloured glasses some would like to force others to wear, either.

(And by "some", I most emphatically do not mean you, SteveC.)



RC