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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 9200813" data-attributes="member: 13107">The nature of hit points seems similar to the treatment given to electrons:  in one view, they are a continuously variable flow, in another, they are individual particles.A character receiving a strike perhaps can receive a similar strike ten times, successfully dodging or deflecting the strike nine times until the tenth gets through defenses and takes out the character.In game, instead of having strikes getting through one in ten times, the character is given a number of hit points, and a strike is set to remove, on average, one tenth of the hit points.  The tenth strike removes the last hit point, and the character is debilitated.Then, hit points are actual damage, but in an odd probabilistic sense.I don’t think whether this is better than a strike being debilitating is answerable.  I think it is a matter of preference.  However — I think — using hit points is more manageable.  Hit points become a managed resource.  Also, the use of hit points lets the game blur out the lethality of true combat.  That is to say, hit point healing should not exist.  That it does is a conceit of the game.  If one in ten strikes results in debilitating damage, that five strikes occurred but missed should not be erasable.TomB</blockquote>