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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 5103328" data-attributes="member: 9053">Are hit points necessary? First of all, depending on how broad your definition of hit points is, just about every game has them. I'm going to step away from that issue, since it can only sidetrack the discussion.For a game like D&D, I'd say they, or some variation quite close to them, certainly are. The notion that you have a reserve that tells you how well you're doing in a fight, and how you're going to be after the fight is over is essential to the D&D mindset of the "adventuring day."True20, for instance, has a small series of conditions, and any given attack gives you one of those conditions, or else has no effect. I would argue that a system like that makes the notion of 4-5 combat encounters before calling it a day both difficult to implement (i.e., it would require a lot of luck not to be dead or incapacitated long before that) but also not very interesting either. To me, I'm not playing a True20 session for a lot of combat.Now one might say "good riddance!" to that 4-5 encounter a day mindset, but as you do that you're changing another very common notion of what makes D&D, well, D&D.In addition to D&D I've played a lot of different games, and the ones without hit points encourage a very different playstyle. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I've read more than a few rulebooks where the notion "if your players bring a D&D mindset to this game, they'll die," is commonplace. To me that means without hit points they're accepting that you're playing a different type of game.So I guess I'd say that, yes, you can have D&D without hit points, but at that point it really starts to be another type of game entirely.--Steve</blockquote>

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