Dausuul said:
First of all, because it's a crappy definition. It's a vague handwavey thing. You can't sum it up in one quick sentence the way you can with virtually any other key statistic (except Armor Class, but that has its own problems); which means that when people are first learning D&D, they're apt to boil hit points down to their most obvious meaning, which is, "Hit points are how tough you are."
It would be more accurate to say "Hit points represent your resilience in the face of injury." But that's a little bit too high-Gygaxian for most people.
Dausuul said:
Second, they fluff it as representing all these abstract things, but then they go ahead and treat it like pure physical injury in the actual rules. Examples:
"Rider" effects on attacks, that only trigger if the attack inflicts damage (e.g., poison, energy drain). This implies that any attack which inflicts damage has actually connected and caused a wound--none of this "near-miss" business.
Like many people, you're operating under the mistaken assumption that "a hit is a hit is a hit." That's just not the case, even in real life. And certainly not in a game like D&D. By way of example, I got hit in the face with a sword last spring. I was not wearing any protective gear. What I got was a scratch and a black eye, and NOT a split skull. That was "luck," but, as D&D might say, "I lost a few hit points." A few minutes later I was effectively fine, but for a few moments, I was knocked down, bleeding, and dazed. On the other hand, if that sword had been poisoned, I'd have had said poison in my system.
Dausuul said:
Environmental hazards which do a given amount of damage per round. This implies that damage is independent of character; that is, 10 points of damage to Joe Commoner and 10 points of damage to Thorzod Tarrasquebane means they're taking the same amount of "punishment." Thorzod may soak it better, but he's getting hit just as hard.
The damage may be as severe, but since Thorzod is only losing a tiny fraction of his many hit points, and Joe Commoner is, well,
dead, one can reasonably assume it isn't the same amount of punishment. Thorzod may be tougher, he may have a higher tolerance for the hazard, or he might just be narrowly avoiding the injury for some reason (divine grace, luck, whatever).
Dausuul said:
Healing magic which heals a given amount of damage. This implies that 10 points of damage represents the same degree of injury regardless of whether Joe or Thorzod suffered it. Plus, of course, it's called "heal," not "restore your mystical defense abstraction."
Natural healing is on a daily basis. This implies that hit points represent real injury, since you don't recover any hit points by taking a five-minute rest break.
Ah. In these instances you have me. These are the two wonky representations of hit points that lead people to believe they represent actual physical toughness. Assuming WotC fixes these, everything else can be explained in a proper narrative fashion.
Dausuul said:
Hit points do not change regardless of character status. If you're paralyzed or unconscious, you keep all your hit points. This implies that the ability to consciously dodge and defend is not a factor in your hit point total.
Tellingly, in a Coup de Grace situation, your hit points don't count at all. In fact, they're utterly, and completely worthless.
If the person doesn't take the time to make sure they finish you off properly, you might get lucky. The classic example is the execution style shot in the head where the bullet deflects off a particularly strong bone. Is this likely in the real world? No. If it happened, we'd think "gee, that guy was soooo lucky." And that's largely what hit points represent, the heroic luck, divine grace, or whatever that keeps a hero
alive.
Dausuul said:
Constitution affects your hit points, but Wisdom and Dexterity do not. This implies that being physically durable is important to determining your hit point total, but willpower, perception, and quick reflexes are irrelevant.
Since hit points are partially about your ability to withstand damage or to push through with minor injuries, it stands to reason that Constitution would have the biggest effect.
D&D has no score to measure "heroic luck" save one - Level. It has no score to measure "the ability to roll with a blow," except by giving different abilities to classes with different fighting skill. Like giving the highest hit point totals to fighting classes and the lowest to classes who rarely get into a physical confrontation.
Dausuul said:
Some of these are "corner cases," but many of them are not. True, you don't encounter poison in every fight, or even in most fights. How many fights do you encounter healing magic in or after? Oh, yes--all of them (at least for a typical 3E game). How often do you apply your Constitution modifier when calculating hit points? Every time you calculate your hit points. If you don't want to think about what hit points mean, that's fine, but as soon as you start taking a serious look at them, you'll run into huge problems.
Ultimately, it is far, far simpler to explain hit points as "your character is crazy tough" and ignore all the half-assed efforts to cram other stuff in there. Everything in the rules, from 1E through 3.5E, has supported that view. (In fact, as far as I know, 3E has never even tried to claim that hit points mean anything other than raw toughness.)
One of the truly awful failings of 3E was its equation of hit points with raw toughness. It leads to the mistaken belief that a D&D character can take a direct hit from 300 arrows and survive. Such a character is obviously "inhuman."
Dausuul said:
I just hope the mechanics are consistent with whatever definition they settle on. If they want hit points to represent all this other stuff, then that needs to be factored into the rules.
Agreed. I think they can fix it all by altering just two things - healing magic and natural healing. Assuming those are consistent with the "abstract" nature of hit points, then the whole system is coherent.
Hit point aren't about your ability to dodge. They're about your ability to turn a lethal hit into a near (or even total) miss. But in doing so, you spend some of that precious luck.
When a PC actually gets physically injured, it's mostly because "his luck has run out."
Needless to say, the way I see hit points, a character could be sporting dozens (or even hundreds) of minor abrasions and bruises (or patched up cuts) and still be at full "hit points."
Probably there needs to be some limit to characters' ability to keep going indefinitely, but I don't know what that limit should be. Or even if it should be up to the game system to provide it.
No hospital needed.
