D&D 5E Hit Points as a Ki Force Shield or a Life Force Field

[Ilbranteloth]

Yes, I'm talking about house rules.

Because RAW, the rules don't mechanically support in-game effects from lower hit points. Either you have x number of hit points, or you're at 0, unconscious and dying. There's no battle fatigue. No being slowed or staggered from taking more than 50% of your hit points, nothing until you reach 0 hp.

While the explanation might sound complicated, it's really not. And it's designed to support exactly what's missing with hit points:

When you suffer a critical hit, you make a Dexterity or Constitution saving throw (although we've been discussing using your primary stat saving throw instead), the DC = 8 + the attack modifier of the attack that hit you. If you fail, you're wounded.

If you are reduced to 0 hit points, you're wounded.

If you're wounded, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion, and make a death save each round. If you fail, it gets one level worse. If you're hit, it's automatically a critical hit that inflicts one more level, two if you fail the saving throw against the critical hit. If you succeed on 3 non-consecutive saves, then you don't have to make saving throws anymore. You can heal it with a healing kit, the medicine skill, or a spell. It also heals with a short rest.

It uses the existing 5e exhaustion track, and the death save mechanic with a different ratio.

 

[neogod22]

Yes, I'm talking about house rules.

Because RAW, the rules don't mechanically support in-game effects from lower hit points. Either you have x number of hit points, or you're at 0, unconscious and dying. There's no battle fatigue. No being slowed or staggered from taking more than 50% of your hit points, nothing until you reach 0 hp.

While the explanation might sound complicated, it's really not. And it's designed to support exactly what's missing with hit points:

When you suffer a critical hit, you make a Dexterity or Constitution saving throw (although we've been discussing using your primary stat saving throw instead), the DC = 8 + the attack modifier of the attack that hit you. If you fail, you're wounded.

If you are reduced to 0 hit points, you're wounded.

If you're wounded, you suffer 1 level of exhaustion, and make a death save each round. If you fail, it gets one level worse. If you're hit, it's automatically a critical hit that inflicts one more level, two if you fail the saving throw against the critical hit. If you succeed on 3 non-consecutive saves, then you don't have to make saving throws anymore. You can heal it with a healing kit, the medicine skill, or a spell. It also heals with a short rest.

It uses the existing 5e exhaustion track, and the death save mechanic with a different ratio.

I never said thsst the rules said that, I said it's how I explained hitpoints. I don't understand how you people don't understand why they try and keep the rules as simple as possible. This is a game of imagination. If you think your character's skin actually grows harder as you level up, or you have some sort of magical forcefield kudos to you, but my explanation makes logical sense to me, and this what I image how hitpoints work.

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[Ilbranteloth]

I never said thsst the rules said that, I said it's how I explained hitpoints. I don't understand how you people don't understand why they try and keep the rules as simple as possible. This is a game of imagination. If you think your character's skin actually grows harder as you level up, or you have some sort of magical forcefield kudos to you, but my explanation makes logical sense to me, and this what I image how hitpoints work.

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I totally get why they try to keep the rules as simple as possible. And despite the fact that I do have a lot of house rules, that's my goal as well. Where we decide we'll use a houserule, I like to use existing mechanics where possible.

I was responding specifically to this post:

I've always explained hit points as your character's skill to not die. For example a,person with 10 hit points get stabbed with a sword, and take 8 points of damage, that's a near fatal wound. He was only skilled enough to deflect the blow in a way that didn't kill him immediately, but his wounds are so grievous that he doesn't have the strength to deflect another blow.

On the flip side, a person with 100 hit points gets attacked with a sword and take 8 points of damage. This person is a veteran, he deflected the blow in such a way, it only causes minor damage, a mere scratch. Of course after a few rounds and 50 HPs later, he is starting to slow down, the bleeding from many minor wounds are starting to add up, while still in good shape, the cuts are starting to hit their mark.

Fast forward, he's down to 20 HP. He is blooded, his movements are slowed. The sword attacks are actually hitting vital organs, the waalrrior is in trouble and will soon die if this fight goes on much longer.

5 HP, he can barely move, his wounds are grievous, and like the inexperienced fighter, the next blow will kill him, but at least he took 10 of his enemies down first.


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The first part is almost exactly how I explain hit points to people, and has been for years. The reason I've always described hit points as skill (other than the hp you have at 1st level) is because you gain hit points as you increase in level. It just makes sense. In general I like the abstract nature of combat and hit points.

From "On the flip side..." and the rest of your post, though, the rules don't do that. Especially the bolded parts. At least not mechanically. Instead, we see lots of threads where people recommend that you are better off waiting until somebody is at 0 hp to use your healing magic, instead of when they are at 1 hp.

While I have some players that just role-play it the way you describe, others want a rule with a mechanical impact to help with their role-playing. Since that's what my players were looking for, it's easy to come up with a solution. The house-rule has nothing to do with "your skin growing harder," forecefields, etc. It was specifically to address the issue that my players didn't like: RAW is that being reduced to 1 hp is exactly the same as being at 100 hp.

 

[jodyjohnson]

You're thinking something similar to the way it works in RWBY?

Maybe, I've never seen it.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Nothing wrong with taking the RWBY approach, but that is going to have very significant implications for your setting and ought to be incorporated into your world building.

I am working on world building at this point. Building the physics of the world based on an interpretation of the way the rules work - a sort of neo-Eberron for 5e. I should probably sample a little RWBY.

Hit points. Economy. Magic creation. Magic costs. Casting. Healing. Monsters and heros.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I think you're overthinking this.

D&D is an action movie. Hit points are the stuff that keeps Bruce Willis alive all the way through Die Hard. You don't need to posit a magical life-force shield to explain how he can survive all that gunfire, stabbing, and explosions. He just... does.

This is my default position. But 'Die Hard' toughness doesn't explain getting shot in the head while paralyzed and shrugging it off as well. Or how your gear is protected from a Fireball.

It's not that I need to explain these away but if I want to - a force field seems provide an explanation for when someone is Held immobile and it takes multiple blows (as criticals) from the entire party and it only whittles down Hit Points. Unless the target dies it is good as new the next morning by RAW.

 

[Azzy]

The facts are that hp is just a number that tells you how close your character is to buying the farm. There's a lot of mumbo jumbo by different people (including those that write the game) that will happily tell you what hp "actually" represent. They're all full of it—it's just an abstraction for a glorified game of playing pretend, and they're all overthinking it. However, if you find an explanation that works for you, then run with it—it's your game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is my default position. But 'Die Hard' toughness doesn't explain getting shot in the head while paralyzed and shrugging it off as well.

It explains it as not getting shot in the head. Maybe the gun misfired, or the attacker was distracted at just the right moment by something...

Or how your gear is protected from a Fireball.

The same way you are. You didn't get burned to a crisp, neither did your stuff. (Though, to be fair, in some prior editions said protection only applied when you made your save - if you failed, your items then all made separate saves, sometimes with hilarious results.)

It's not that I need to explain these away but if I want to - a force field seems provide an explanation for when someone is Held immobile and it takes multiple blows (as criticals) from the entire party and it only whittles down Hit Points. Unless the target dies it is good as new the next morning by RAW.

Nod. It's a perfectly workable way to visualize things, if you want a world where everyone has a force field. Which is, y'know, a little unusual. It's like the Asgardian theory of hps: your character doesn't get bigger, but he does get denser.... Or the Highlander theory of hps: instead of the life-force being on the outside and shielding you from harm, it's on the inside, letting you regenerate.