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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 9218501" data-attributes="member: 13107">Apologies up front for the mathy-ness of this note.In my view, hit points aren't trying to directly simulate anything.  Hit points do relate to all manner of character state, for example, Health, Vigor, and Divine Favor.  The relationship, however, is indirect: Hit points are intended to represent an expectation of how many successful attacks the character should be able to receive before being rendered unable to act (before being "taken out" of a fight).For example, if a character should, on average, require two successful attacks to be taken out, then that character has two hit points, scaled upwards to enable attacks of different relative strengths.  Then, if a character can survive two sword attacks, and a sword attack is assigned a relative strength of 4, then the character is given 8 hit points, and a sword attack is assigned either 4, or, for greater variability, 1-7 hit points of damage.Then, attempting to relate "hit points" directly to actual damage is not a meaningful exercise.  Hit points are a way of mapping out a probability space, in which "attacks" inevitably lead to "damage", but only as an eventual outcome, not as an immediate consequence.TomB</blockquote>