Are Hit Points necessary?

[GSHamster]

The key question is "When does the encounter end?"

Hit Points are an easy way to determine when an encounter ends, but is also flexible enough to create encounters of vastly different lengths and strategies. For example, if minions have few hitpoints, they may be killed quickly before the boss. If they have many hitpoints, it may be better to control them instead, and kill the boss first.

They also allow an easy mechanism for the healer role.

As well, hit points allow characters to increase in power without changing the basic fights. For example, a character increases in level and does +5 damage per round. But she also gains +50 hp. The two increases balance each other out. But the character is still more powerful than before.

It's possible to make other systems, but they are rarely as simple, flexible, and intuitive as hit points are. That's why hit points have survived for so long.

 

[Orius]

I do not want to see steaks or burgers made out of hit points! Yes, they are a sacred cow, and they're one of the things that make D&D D&D.

Hit points might not be the most realistic system out there, but as others have said they survived this long because they're easy to use.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I think, for me, part of why I don't like it is that they are called Hit Points, and yet they are so very, very vague in a way. You can take damage from physical harm, mental harm, fatigue sometimes takes hit point damage, etc...all these different ways of suffering damage that all work on one core body tracking element.

This is one area where FantasyCraft did it right, and FC is my d20 game of choice right now. But in general, hit points just don't make a whole lot of sense. Not to me anyways.

I've played other games where there have been similar systems, or how they handled hit points makes more sense to me, like in Gurps, where it never goes up, same for Talislanta 4e. Hero System you have Body and Endurance, and basically they can go up if you want them to, but what you have to start with is what you have. I've tried playing M&M, I do like how they did damage in that and did away with hit points, same for True20, where I think True20 was amazing. Wild Talents and the ORE has one of the best systems for dealing with damage and hit locations. Shadowrun is another beast where what you have when your done making your characters is what you pretty much have till you die. HARP is a great level based game where you can choose if your hit points increase or not, but its not hard coded into the leveling aspect, same for Alternity I think. d6 System uses Body Points and/or Condition Tracks, it has rules for both, which is nice.

So, I've read and played a wide variety of games over the years. In most of these games how health is handled makes total sense, but when it comes to d20/D&D/OGL related games, hit points and keeping track of them just don't make any sense at all.

And I think a lot of the issue could be resolved with a basic name change to them that represents the whole of damage, because to me, hit points represents body damage, not mental damage or fatigue damage or stun. So, to represent all of those in one category, I think changing the name would make the most sense. I guess, but really idk.

Which is why i was asking.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Some possible replacements for "Hit":
* Battle.
* Combat.
* Encounter.
* Heart (yes, it seems very similar, but you can always justify the name as representing both damage and morale).
* Moxie.
* Badass.
* Hero.
Those are the best I can come up with at the moment.

 

[Aus_Snow]

'Vitality' works well, I think.

Hence, Vitality/Wounds is quite neat. But it doesn't play out how I'd like. With some work though, it's not a bad idea.

 

[Bluenose]

Some possible replacements for "Hit":
* Battle.
* Combat.
* Encounter.
* Heart (yes, it seems very similar, but you can always justify the name as representing both damage and morale).
* Moxie.
* Badass.
* Hero.
Those are the best I can come up with at the moment.

Defeat Points. That is what they measure, how hard it is to defeat you in a fight.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Hit points certainly aren't necessary, and of all the sacred cows to slay I wish this one had been done a long time ago.

No system could ever keep track of the dynamic and complex entity that is the human body, but I want something that acknowledges that death can come to anyone and damage causes hindrances and can't be healed in a day. Of the available alternatives, I think vp/wp does these things the best, although the UA implementation needs a great deal of work to be usable.

 

[Animus]

d20 Modern uses HP with a Damage Threshold equal to your Con score. If a single hit does that much damage you make a Fort save or be reduced to 0 immediately IIRC. I liked that and think that a modification of the system would work for me.

 

[Umbran]

Hit points certainly aren't necessary, and of all the sacred cows to slay I wish this one had been done a long time ago.

No system could ever keep track of the dynamic and complex entity that is the human body, but I want something that acknowledges that death can come to anyone and damage causes hindrances and can't be healed in a day.

Well, to me that's somewhat more than a "sacred cow" - it is more a basic tenet of D&D's genre that damage isn't particularly hindering, and that it can be healed in a day.

Most games in my experience don't have long-lasting damage - it gets in the way of a heroic life something fierce, and tends to act like an extension of the death spiral.

 

[1Mac]

I'm sort of surprised people favor hit points because they ostensibly involve little bookkeeping. They're one of the bookkeeping-est aspects of OGL d20. People erase holes into their character sheets from keeping track of them.

It's possible that a damage save and condition track system involves as much bookkeeping, but you can have damage saves without condition tracks. In fact I made such a system, though this is the wrong forum for it.