Hit Points--A study of humanoids.

[Nytmare]

Not sure why you pick on me so much Nytmare...starting to think you don't like me!

I'm not picking on you, I'm disagreeing with you.

Over the course of a battle, you take damage from attacks. Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.

Loss of hit points can, among other things, represent physical damage, a character's luck running out, or someone's will to go on. Likewise, healing can represent physical healing, divine providence, or inspired courage.

They are and always have been abstractions, and as such should be described in any way that makes sense to the people at that table. If a person is going to insist however, that the only way that abstraction makes sense to them is that hit points are an exact representation of how many times a person can have 1 hit point pieces lopped off of their body till they fall over dead, then they shouldn't then complain when that same rigid non-abstract view doesn't mesh with the rest of the game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

"stabbed, battered, bruised"---semantics, all the same thing just different forms.....

"luckily missed"---has nothing to do with hit points (AC is hit/miss, hit points are when you are hit)


"demoralized"---definately has zero to do with hit points (which track damage...demoralized would be status conditions or optional battle modifiers based on morale).

Here's a quote from the Compendium (emphasis mine):

Over the course of a battle, you take damage from attacks. Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve—all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.

Of course, we are in house rules, so you can change that part, too. But be aware that some stuff might not make sense anymore once you assume hit points are "meatness" points indicating your state of injuries. How does a Warlord heal you without magic or healing draughts or something like that, for example? What do temporary hit points represent?

 

[Nytmare]

I ninja'd you by like an hour and a half, Ridcully. You are getting slow in your old age...

 

[Rachel]

Sorry guys but I know all about that particular quote and I whole-heartedly disagree with it. That particular bit of fluff is total rubbish, imho. Some ppl might say you guys sure are good at following WotC's lead and buying w/e they sell you instead of thinking for yourselves...but I will be nice!

 

[the-golem]

Sorry guys but I know all about that particular quote and I whole-heartedly disagree with it. That particular bit of fluff is total rubbish, imho. Some ppl might say you guys sure are good at following WotC's lead and buying w/e they sell you instead of thinking for yourselves...but I will be nice!

Funny. I always thought of hitpoints as "the ability to keep fighting" more than "heres how much health I have" You can't numerically categorize how much "life" someone has, just as you cant numerically categorize their "ability."

HP, AC and Hit are abstractions of these concepts. Through experience and practice, one hones their skills and abilities. As a character "levels," he or she becomes better at fighting, better at avoiding blows, stronger, faster, better.

How else are you to quantify this in an RPG like D&D except through abstract concepts, such as the aforementioned AC, HP, and Attack numbers?

Think about it. Imagine a person wearing 100 pount plate, swinging around a 5-15 pound sword. After a while you are going to get tired and worn-out. As you get worn out, your ability to perform and pay attention decreases. As your overall ability declines, you run the risk of taking a rather unhealthy knock on the head. There are many, many things that factor into one's ability to keep going.

Thus, I agree with the current WotC view of HP. Not because WotC is all knowing. Not because "they said so."

In other words, I agree with Nytmare

 

[Nytmare]

Sorry guys but I know all about that particular quote and I whole-heartedly disagree with it. That particular bit of fluff is total rubbish, imho. Some ppl might say you guys sure are good at following WotC's lead and buying w/e they sell you instead of thinking for yourselves...but I will be nice!

Some might say that your choices of topics, and your flopping back and forth between baiting people and playing victim are the basic tactics of a troll, but I would never say that.

Hit points have been abstractions, and have been mistaken for a concrete measure of how physically beefy things are, long before WOTC even existed.

Have fun trying to come to terms with your 300+ hp fighter.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Sorry guys but I know all about that particular quote and I whole-heartedly disagree with it. That particular bit of fluff is total rubbish, imho. Some ppl might say you guys sure are good at following WotC's lead and buying w/e they sell you instead of thinking for yourselves...but I will be nice!

That explanation didn't come from WotC. Hp have always been that way (abstract).

Excerpt from the 1st edition Player's Handbook (page 34):

Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

 

[Rachel]

@Fanaelialae

That quote from the 1st edition PHB was really helpful. I've never read that book and I doubt I'll ever have the chance, so thanks for including that.

I think it comes down to a fundamental difference in perception that I have from many others when it coms to what HP represent. An analogy: some people say that money is a measure of a person's success in life. Others say money is a catalyst for confict, or the root of all evil. I see $$$ as nothing deeper than it's physical implications: it is a way to purchase goods and service. Nothing more. Everything else is existential to that. Kind of like how I see HP. Hit points are physical damage.
Luck, fortune, will to survive/persevere....all addressed by other things.

But I see where others are coming from.

 

[Rachel]

Some might say that your choices of topics, and your flopping back and forth between baiting people and playing victim are the basic tactics of a troll, but I would never say that.

I don't mind that you took a shot at me there, since I made a playful jab about how certain posters were "lock-stepping" with everything WotC throws at them. So I'll take the return fire and smile.

But to me a troll is someone who just went to everyone else's topics, flamed them with inane, unnescessary comments, then left all w/o contributing any original ideas of their own. That's a troll to me.

I don't do that. I've posted more original ideas and started more threads in like 2wks than many people will post this entire year.

As far as flopping back and forth baiting people yada yada...I have no idea what you mean by this. I start topics based on things I have observed about 4th edition D&D, or an idea or concept I thought might be neat, and then I read what people think about them. After I read others comments, I consider them with due respect, then agree or disagree and try to elaborate on my viewpoint in relation to the comments and the topic as a whole. Isn't that what a forum is?

Sorry if you don't care for my topics, but they are presented (by me) with only good intentions and b/c I enjoy sharing with others.

You upset me a bit b/c you seem mean-spirited. But it's not like I know you or anything so I'm trying not to be too judgemental.

 

[Oldtimer]

Kind of like how I see HP. Hit points are physical damage.

Then you really should be playing another game, because hit points have never been just physical damage in D&D. Not ever.

This debate has been going on since 1974, and will probably go on forever.

Some people insist on looking at hit points as purely physical damage, and then complains that 300+ hp is unreasonable for a human (or humanoid). Or 100 hp. Or 50 hp. Basically any amount which cannot be reduced to zero with a single blow of a sword.

But you can't ignore a vital piece the rules and then accuse the game of being unreasonable. Hit points in D&D are not physical damage. The rules say so. Always have.