D&D General Hit Points are a great mechanic

[loverdrive]

So after a few years of running a lot of games with different variations of wounds system, I can say only one thing: I hate them. Hate-hate-hate them.

It doesn't matter how cool, interesting, engaging, realistic or flavorful your mechanic is, if it's annoying to actually use at the table, and any sort of wounds mechanic that apply any sort of lingering effect after taking damage is beyond annoying.

The greatest strength of HP is that they are fire-and-forget, you don't have to keep them in mind until they are actually relevant. You never get in a situation like "Hell yeah! Crit! Ah, shucks, wait, I have Level 2 Harm and roll with -1D... Lemme re-roll it" because it doesn't matter if you are at 1 or 101 HP until you get hit.

Tangentially: they are also pretty verisimilitudous, as far as I'm concerned. "You are perfectly fine and then suddenly you are dead" is a reasonable model for armed fighting -- there aren't many ways to inflict or sustain non-lethal injuries in a swordfight -- you aren't going to survive your hand being cut off. Or your leg. Or head.
Even those you can are bound to become lethal a second later -- sure, you can survive your hand being broken, but now the enemy can do whatever the hell they want with you, and there's nothing you can do to stop them. Unarmed vs a sword is a pipe dream, not going to happen -- you present no threat and they just move in and skewer you.

 

[DragonLancer]

I fully agree. In all the games I have played nothing works as well as the D&D hit point system. Easy to keep track off and doesn't hurt the brain.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well I tend to think of Hit Points as Stamina with exhaustion levels and lingering injuries as actual wounds which affect action declarations and recovery (at least with our homebrew rules).
So yes Hit Points work and if you want more complexity, options for a more nuanced system exist as an add-on.

 

[Celebrim]

So after a few years of running a lot of games with different variations of wounds system, I can say only one thing: I hate them. Hate-hate-hate them.

I don't know that I hate them, but I do think that after 4 years of play, the lack of hit points in WEG D6 is starting to ruin the game for me as a GM. It's just so impossible to provide balanced encounters. The difference between mooks that will go down without trouble and an utterly lethal opponent is pretty slender. Preparing a game is just so hard in a system without hit points.

And I think it's a testament to how good the mechanic is that in all the experimenting video games have never gotten away from them really.

 

[loverdrive]

I don't know that I hate them, but I do think that after 4 years of play, the lack of hit points in WEG D6 is starting to ruin the game for me as a GM. It's just so impossible to provide balanced encounters. The difference between mooks that will go down without trouble and an utterly lethal opponent is pretty slender. Preparing a game is just so hard in a system without hit points.

And I think it's a testament to how good the mechanic is that in all the experimenting video games have never gotten away from them really.

Yeah, 100%, it's great even beyond just logistics of tabletop play.

David Sirlin puts it quite nicely:

Fighting games don’t usually have slippery slope. In Street Fighter, for example, your character still has all of his moves even when he’s about to lose. Getting hit puts you behind in life totals (in “score”) but doesn’t limit your gameplay options in the way that losing a piece in Chess does or losing a unit in StarCraft does. An unusual example of a fighting game that does have slippery slope is Bushido Blade. In that game, getting hit can cause you limp around or lose the use of an arm. This is extremely rare in the fighting game genre though, and for good reason.

While it might be "realistic" for a nearly dead character to limp, move slowly, and have generally less effective moves, it's not fun. (At least in Bushido Blade's case, this part of the game lasts only a couple seconds, then you lose.) Meanwhile in Street Fighter, comebacks are frequent and games are often "anybody's game" until the last moment. Street Fighter does have some very minimal slippery slope aspects (if you're very near death you have to worry about taking damage from blocked moves which aren't a threat if you have full life), but overall it's pretty "slippery slope neutral."

You can still secure a win at 1 HP, so combat is tense till the very end. Can't do that with ten billion debuffs from wounds, so combat is kind of over the moment a single hit lands.

 

[Deset Gled]

Perfection is the enemy of "good". Hit points are a great example of "good enough".

Most importantly, hit points are fun. It's fun to roll high and damage enemies. It's fun to barely win with 1 HP left. It's fun to get more HP and kill enemies with more HP. It's even fun to heal HP.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Perfection is the enemy of "good". Hit points are a great example of "good enough".

Most importantly, hit points are fun. It's fun to roll high and damage enemies. It's fun to barely win with 1 HP left. It's fun to get more HP and kill enemies with more HP. It's even fun to heal HP.

"hehe number go sine wave"

 

[Laurefindel]

I like both systems for different reasons, but what I prefer is systems that incorporate both. I like the diversity of a hit point/stamina pool that depletes rapidly in combat and refreshes rapidly with rest, along a system of wounds that are inflicted sporadically but cause longer consequences.

My favourite example is The One Ring rpg; hits cause loss of Endurance, but 1 in 6 rolls also cause a piercing blow, forcing an armor save to avoid a wound.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well I tend to think of Hit Points as Stamina with exhaustion levels and lingering injuries as actual wounds which affect action declarations and recovery (at least with our homebrew rules).
So yes Hit Points work and if you want more complexity, options for a more nuanced system exist as an add-on.

Amusingly, under this interpretation potions of healing and potions of vitality are named backwards. But, yeah, I also prefer this interpretation.

 

[GMMichael]

Most importantly, hit points are fun. It's fun to roll high and damage enemies.

There's a flipside to that. Getting a crit on the enemy just to realize that the enemy didn't notice is a bit of a buzzkill.