D&D General Are Hit Points Meat? (Redux): D&D Co-Creator Saw Hit Points Very Differently

D&D co-creator Dave Arneson wasn't a fan of hit points increasing with level. According to the excellent Jon Peterson's Playing at the World he felt that hit points should be fixed at character creation, with characters becoming harder to hit at higher levels.

Of course, this is an early example of the oft-lengthily and vehemently discussed question best summarised as ‘Are hit points meat?’— a debate which has raged for over 40 years and isn’t likely to be resolved today! (but no they’re not)

Arneson's Hit Points for Characters

Game Wizards is very decidedly not a book about who invented which system in D&D. But early drafts of the book did track one design choic...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

Arneson later created a hit point equation in his 1979 RPG Adventures in Fantasy which was a game in which he hoped to correct "the many errors in the original rules".

 

[billd91]

Call of Cthulhu is more like a boardgame than a standard RPG where the game is designed to kick players out.

Not really. It's as much a role playing game as D&D, just with less plot armor.

 

[Maxperson]

Not really. It's as much a role playing game as D&D, just with less plot armor.

And with an inevitable horrible demise.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Whilst I really don't need D&D to simulate realistic injury, I have to say that the recent editions have gotten a tad too gamey for my liking. I find it super jarring that it is literally impossible to be hurt so badly that you wouldn't be perfectly fine the next day! I use a bit modified gritty rests and healing kit dependency, and whilst far from realistic it seems more suitable for my somewhat fragile disbelief suspenders.

To me oD&D is a tad too gamey for my liking. When a character can be pounded on for an entire minute (or even six seconds) by an orc with an axe who explicitly hits with a natural 20 and gets the maximum possible damage then you are necessarily playing superheroes.

And the difference between needing a day to heal from the worst an orc can do with an axe and needing a week is pretty trivial, especially as you are fully capable in that time. It may for you be the straw that broke the camel's back - but this is just one straw when the camel was already carrying bales of hay in a way that most other RPGs don't.

Call of Cthulhu is more like a boardgame than a standard RPG where the game is designed to kick players out.

D&D is literally a hacked tabletop wargame. There's a case to be made that 4e was a hacked boardgame rather than being a hacked wargame, admittedly. But if D&D is like anything it's a computer RPG - or, more accurately, most computer RPGs are based on games that were directly based on D&D. And no, that's not how CoC plays.

 

[Lanefan]

That is, 4e characters start with seemingly very high HP, but gain HP seemingly very slowly. For anyone who doesn't know: In 4e, every class has a base HP value, to which you add your Constitution score--not modifier, the whole actual score--at first level. A Fighter, for example, gets 15+Constitution at 1st level. If their Con increases later, that gives them more HP, but they only add their Con score once. After that, it's just a static amount of HP per level (6 for Fighters), unless you spend other resources (mostly feats, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were PPs, EDs, or maybe even magic items/boons/etc. that could increase hit points).

This means that, yes, 1st level PCs look incredibly beefy....but it's not because they ARE beefy.

When held up against a typical commoner (the usual point of comparison when looking at what 1st-level PCs have going for them) they are as beefy as hell.

It's because now they can actually take two hits and decide to get out of dodge. It's because they no longer have the issue where two hobgoblins ganging up on the Wizard means instant death, which the brand-new Wizard player could not possibly have known. It's because they have the ability to make a mistake or two and correct for it, rather than just ending up splattered on the floor.

There's a middle ground here. If one has death occurring at -10, then while getting hit once or twice might knock you out it isn't going to kill you. And that's the middle ground: in the 4e paradigm the character can take a couple of hits and still be fully functional, while in the 0e paradigm that character is dead; the middle ground is that after those hits the character is on average still alive but somehow less functional.

That's an incredibly valuable thing, especially for bringing new blood into the hobby. The fact that such a thing can conflict with the (perfectly cromulent) desire for a "zero-to-hero" story, where classic fans WANT that risk of getting splattered for making one wrong move, is why D&D desperately needs a robust "zero levels"/"novice levels" system built into the PHB. That way, the default--which is where newbies are going to start--will be welcoming and effective for introducing them to the hobby, while the well-supported option to go for high lethality remains for those who want to opt into doing that.

The bolded is one of the biggest holes in 4e's design IMO. There's about 4 or 5 levels worth of gradation in there between commoner and 1st-level PC that was never really explored or put to any use, which is kind of a shame.

Even 1e, where 1st-level PCs are much closer to commoners than they are in 4e, has provision for an intervening 0th level; first seen in UA in both the Cavalier write-up and the rationale behind cantrips. There's also whichever adventure module it is where each character grows into its class as they go along but doesn't achieve 1st level until the adventure's end, that kinda waves at the concept but doesn't really nail it down.

DCCRPG doubles down on this as part of its "funnel method" of character generation/selection.

 

[Lanefan]

And the difference between needing a day to heal from the worst an orc can do with an axe and needing a week is pretty trivial, especially as you are fully capable in that time.

If you're safe in town, yes. If you're still in the field with danger all around, however, that difference between a day and a week recovery time can become very significant indeed.

The fully-functional-while-hurt piece is another issue entirely, but a valid one. 4e's bloodied condition takes a very tiny step toward fixing this but IMO what's really needed is some sort of body point/fatigue point system for hit points, where you're still fine while in fatigues but as soon as you're into body points your functionality decreases somehow.

 

[Neonchameleon]

When held up against a typical commoner (the usual point of comparison when looking at what 1st-level PCs have going for them) they are as beefy as hell.

4e first level is about the equivalent of 3rd level in other editions, yes. And third level fighters are beefy as hell compared to first level commoners in any edition.

There's a middle ground here. If one has death occurring at -10, then while getting hit once or twice might knock you out it isn't going to kill you. And that's the middle ground: in the 4e paradigm the character can take a couple of hits and still be fully functional, while in the 0e paradigm that character is dead; the middle ground is that after those hits the character is on average still alive but somehow less functional.

Oddly enough the 4e paradigm is a middle ground. If you take a few level appropriate hits you go down and are temporarily incapacitated but can be stabilised and recover with a few minutes or some significant outside help. The extreme is the oD&D/AD&D paradigm when you're fine until you're not.

The bolded is one of the biggest holes in 4e's design IMO. There's about 4 or 5 levels worth of gradation in there between commoner and 1st-level PC that was never really explored or put to any use, which is kind of a shame.

The main exploration method got left behind basically with DL1. The "gather mob handed with a dozen or so henchmen" game wasn't the default even at the end of Gygax's tenure at TSR. And it's not a coincidence that a smart 3.0 wizard could have three spells per day at level 1 when the oD&D wizard started with one.

That said I normally start my 5e campaigns at level 0 and have the characters make an in character choice in the first adventure to find out what their class will be. 4e that would be a lot harder. I felt a lot less able to do this in 3.X because it included things like ages for starting characters so you must have been studying as a wizard's apprentice to become a wizard.

 

[Lanefan]

That said I normally start my 5e campaigns at level 0 and have the characters make an in character choice in the first adventure to find out what their class will be. 4e that would be a lot harder. I felt a lot less able to do this in 3.X because it included things like ages for starting characters so you must have been studying as a wizard's apprentice to become a wizard.

For all classes other than Fighter I've always assumed (and baked into my roll-up process) a period of training - between 3-5 years, usually; arcane casters double that - leading to 1st level. For Thief-types this represents learning the basics of thievery and cutting your teeth; for Cleric types this is time spent as a temple acolyte or, if isolated, as a religious seeker or pilgrim; for Cavaliers and Pallies it's the time spent learning the knightly arts; for Rangers it's the years spent in a living-rough lifestyle; and for arcanists it's the rough equivalent of doing a Bachelors and Masters degree combined. Obviously, Monks and Bards also spend a long time learning before heading itno the field.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There is such a system in 5e. It is called levels one and two. All is needed is big box that says that it is fine to start on level three if you want to avoid 'can be killed by a cat' experience.

And yet people still insist on starting at level 1, consistently. I have seen easily five times as many 5e DMs who adamantly insist on starting at first level, no matter what rather than starting any higher, even with new-to-RPGs players who were unlikely to know how to play safe. And I have twice personally seen this insistence directly lead to a campaign folding because characters (plural) died at first or second level due exclusively to the swinginess of the dice, and not any fault of the player.

This box idea doesn't work. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It doesn't actually get people to see "the default" as 3rd level, no matter how much the system has been designed to make 3rd level the default, no matter how much the designers insist that that's what they intended people to do.

The bolded is one of the biggest holes in 4e's design IMO. There's about 4 or 5 levels worth of gradation in there between commoner and 1st-level PC that was never really explored or put to any use, which is kind of a shame.

Oh, absolutely. If I'd had my druthers, 4e would have started with Themes and Backgrounds integrated together into a single unit: your Heroic Origin, which tells the tale of how you got your start as a hero. You'd then have a full HOPPED system: Heroic Origin, Paragon Path, Epic Destiny. A complete hero's journey from humble beginnings to phenomenal power.

Zero/novice levels would then be a specific way for either growing into a specific Heroic Origin, or constructing your own over the course of however many stages. So, you'd unlock various static bonuses (like class defense bonuses), additional HP or surges, and your 1st level powers, alongside your Heroic Origin features, and possibly even other things like racial features. This could even be structured so that, instead of "graduating" to 1st level when you've picked up everything, you could linger at that highest level and start replacing features if you decide you don't care for an option you've taken (like switching to a different Origin or even a different class).

 

[RareBreed]

What is dismaying to me, is that because so many people come to roleplaying through D&D, a lot of gamers seem to feel that "this is how health and combat is supposed to work for RPGs". Since so many gamers seem loathe or unwilling to learn new non-d20 game systems, it exacerbates this notion. I kind of wonder how gamers feel like when they learn a system doesn't have to have hit points as luck, there are rules for blocking/dodging, that armor soaks damage instead of reducing the odds to hit (and can even make you easier to hit), or that there are alternative initiative systems etc.

I have a hunch that if more people were exposed to other game systems that handle combat and health differently, then more people would be willing to have a radical change to how D&D handles it.

My suspicion is that the majority of gamers who feel damage is inconsistent either gave up fighting about it (because D&D is what most others want to play) or they are not really bothered by the inconsistencies enough to try another game system. I also feel that one of the reasons hit points wasn't changed to be meat, was that if they changed that, they would have to change other rules too. Like how AC works, or add some karma/fate pool, and change how healing works. They would probably also have to add in rules for dodging/parrying, and then factor that into the initiative system (how many times can you parry a turn?). In other words, tweaking one thing causes a cascade of other effects that would also need to be changed.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I have a hunch that if more people were exposed to other game systems that handle combat and health differently, then more people would be willing to have a radical change to how D&D handles it.

Probably not in the way that gets bandied about in D&D circles where the focus seems to be on increasing lethality and/or death-spiral creating penalties.