D&D General Hit Points are a great mechanic

[SkidAce]

Can't say that I agree with much of the OP.

I do agree that the "fire and forget" part is nice. Yes, there is an elegance to simplicity. I can buy all that.

However, I find that HP is a barrier to many common tropes:
•Hostage situation? Hostage has enough HP to survive, so no narrative tension.
•Rushing to save someone from falling off a cliff? Meh, they'll survive the fall damage, so no narrative tension.

I also disagree with the verisimilitude stance presented, as it conflicts with personal experiences of having found victory in spite of injury.

We had a short (lol) game one time where if you weren't in "combat", i.e. couldnt use your "stamina, training, or luck, then you only had first levels hp.

So tied up with a dagger to your throat?

As you would expect, game became a contest of putting enemies in a vulnerable situation. Kinda fun for a while. Different for sure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Edit: dupe post

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you know what IMO stands for?

Did they say IMO? If so, I missed it and I apologize.

 

[GMMichael]

Both you and the previous commentor were not talking about HP, but random damage which is a different concept IMO.

No, I was talking about hit points. Fixed or random, if an amount of damage is a small enough percentage of your opponent's total HP, the coolness of your move won't mean diddly to your opponent. Heck, an overwhelmed GM, who has too many things to keep track of, can record 90% damage to an NPC and that NPC will still appear fresh from the barracks (until it reaches zero HP).

In general HP are a great system and there is a reason there are one of the oldest (video) game abstractions. I wonder if alternatives would be viable?

The reason is that the system is simple. Another one of the oldest abstractions is three lives, no hit points. You get a soft reset upon taking a mortal blow. I'd try it - you might get more teamwork out of your allies if they all felt a lot more fragile.

How about instead of descending the hitpoints of your enemy, you ascending your own IDK "combo points", "flow-points" whatever and when you fill them you can choose a decisive action that changes the course of the encounter. A progress bar instead of depletion bar. Would that change anything? Would it be unnecessary?

Modos RPG uses ascending damage. No hit points, you just have a maximum damage threshold. One thing it changes is that you don't have to do any subtraction in the middle of all the addition. Until you don armor, that is. Even then, it's mostly single-digit-math.

There's no reason why the enemy's rising damage couldn't unlock special moves . . .

 

[kermit4karate]

No, I was talking about hit points. Fixed or random, if an amount of damage is a small enough percentage of your opponent's total HP, the coolness of your move won't mean diddly to your opponent. Heck, an overwhelmed GM, who has too many things to keep track of, can record 90% damage to an NPC and that NPC will still appear fresh from the barracks (until it reaches zero HP).


The reason is that the system is simple. Another one of the oldest abstractions is three lives, no hit points. You get a soft reset upon taking a mortal blow. I'd try it - you might get more teamwork out of your allies if they all felt a lot more fragile.


Modos RPG uses ascending damage. No hit points, you just have a maximum damage threshold. One thing it changes is that you don't have to do any subtraction in the middle of all the addition. Until you don armor, that is. Even then, it's mostly single-digit-math.

There's no reason why the enemy's rising damage couldn't unlock special moves . . .

The player is the character's conduit to the real world. The character is just an avatar. D&D's HP mechanic works so well because when a character has only 5 HP remaining before the next battle, the player sure as heck feels it. That anxiety is real! The effects it has on gameplay decisions are also real.

 

[Vael]

It's not perfect, it takes out 1-hit KOs off the board (kinda), but I am currently quite pleased with Daggerheart's HP system. Small numbers of HP (PCs only have between 5 and 12 of them), but combined with damage thresholds, you still get the joy of rolling lots of damage dice (I love that this system allows you to use d20s as damage dice) and preventing HP bloat.

Just to provide an example:

PC A has 5 HP and Damage Thresholds 10 and 20
PC B has 6 HP and Damage Thresholds 14 and 26

So if a Monster hits them both for 12 damage, A marks 2 HP lost from the attack, but B only marks 1 HP because it's under their 1st Damage Threshold.

I like that is also gives HP a quality ... like B's HP are more robust than A's. It gives a pretty consistent floor and ceiling, 1 to 3 HP on a successful attack (There is an optional rule to deal 4 HP if you get more than twice the severe threshold, so >=52 on PC B, for example), and while it took a moment to get used to ... it doesn't feel that slow at the table. Add up numbers and which is bigger is a standard RPG math exercise.

 

[kermit4karate]

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.

Agreed. That should be made to be a rare occurrence, which is what "DM magic" and house rules are for. Drama = fun in most TTRPGs. A lack of suspense/fear/anxiety/worry at the table doesn't equate to the kind of fun that TTRPGs can deliver.

I mean, if a table is having fun playing a game that lacks suspense/fear/anxiety/worry, then that same group of people would probably have just as much fun playing Pictionary or Charades.

 

[soviet]

The player is the character's conduit to the real world. The character is just an avatar. D&D's HP mechanic works so well because when a character has only 5 HP remaining before the next battle, the player sure as heck feels it. That anxiety is real! The effects it has on gameplay decisions are also real.

I agree that's a cool thing at low levels.

However, there is a big 'but' here, because once you get to mid levels (or even earlier in modern editions of the game) you have so many hit points that you pretty much know you are insulated against these worries. The anxiety, the feeling that any mistake could be fatal, the effects that has on gameplay decisions... all go away. Instead play is like 'I have enough hit points to just leap off the top of this building and not really notice', 'Ah well an ambush, it's OK I can take a few hits'.

Other games that don't rely on a hit point mechanic, or at least not an inflating one, do not tend to feature this drop-off in vulnerability and suspense.

This is also why I think old school level drain is a cool mechanic, because when it occasionally shows up, generally in mid levels, you get to feel that anxiety again.

 

[AlViking]

I agree that's a cool thing at low levels.

However, there is a big 'but' here, because once you get to mid levels (or even earlier in modern editions of the game) you have so many hit points that you pretty much know you are insulated against these worries. The anxiety, the feeling that any mistake could be fatal, the effects that has on gameplay decisions... all go away. Instead play is like 'I have enough hit points to just leap off the top of this building and not really notice', 'Ah well an ambush, it's OK I can take a few hits'.

Other games that don't rely on a hit point mechanic, or at least not an inflating one, do not tend to feature this drop-off in vulnerability and suspense.

This is also why I think old school level drain is a cool mechanic, because when it occasionally shows up, generally in mid levels, you get to feel that anxiety again.

If you feel "safe" in every or even the majority of combats I'd say the DM is not running challenging enough encounters if that's what you want. I've knocked one or more character down to zero in a combat at all levels up to 20th. Meanwhile there's far fewer accidental deaths where you're walking along, don't notice that pit trap and now you have to roll up a new character. Different strokes and all.

 

[kermit4karate]

I agree that's a cool thing at low levels.

However, there is a big 'but' here, because once you get to mid levels (or even earlier in modern editions of the game) you have so many hit points that you pretty much know you are insulated against these worries. The anxiety, the feeling that any mistake could be fatal, the effects that has on gameplay decisions... all go away. Instead play is like 'I have enough hit points to just leap off the top of this building and not really notice', 'Ah well an ambush, it's OK I can take a few hits'.

Other games that don't rely on a hit point mechanic, or at least not an inflating one, do not tend to feature this drop-off in vulnerability and suspense.

This is also why I think old school level drain is a cool mechanic, because when it occasionally shows up, generally in mid levels, you get to feel that anxiety again.

I agree, which is why I've mentioned that house rule I've done re: max damage die rolls for the past 40 years.