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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 4012234" data-attributes="member: 32164">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.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.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).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.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.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.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."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.</blockquote>

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