D&D General Hit Points as a Spendable Resource (Feels bad even for non-meat HP?)

[Cadence]

For the below, say we've accepted the premise that HP aren't meat. That is, a "hit" indicates some level of exhaustion, being worn down, loss of vitality, fraying concentration, or depletion of luck - and that if we're having physical wounds at all they're either cosmetic until zero or there is another wound track.

Note: By responding to this thread you are in no way legally, morally, ethically, intellectually, spiritually or otherwise binding yourself to the position that HP are vegetarian.

There are many powers and activities in D&D and the related fiction that seem like could be related to exhaustion or exertion: casting an overpowered spell, rememorizing spells without sleeping, going beyond the proficiency per day limit of something, an extended march, going without food, a huge physical exertion to do a stunt of some sort, trying to shrug off a magic effect. This might be related to exhaustion in the core 5e, short rest recharge, or exertion in A5E.

If HP aren't meat but are related to exhaustion and exertion, then:

• Is another resource like exhaustion or exertion even needed?
• Would it feel bad to have HP spent to do things like use a proficiency-per power one more time?
• Why does it feel bad to me at first blush? (Just too many years playing D&D?)
• Is a lot of it just in our heads and akin how life total is viewed by many beginning players in MtG vs. skilled ones?
• Is anything lost as either in terms of a game or verisimilitude by viewing HP that way (keeping in mind the premise and that there could be a wounds system on the side)?
• What other systems use spendable HP?

 

[Voadam]

It can be useful to have a separate mechanic for expendable resources other than hit points to keep you alive.

A paladin expending their magic to charge up their swords should still be good at fighting and tanking even if they can't do more magic.

From a game design perspective, it is good to have hit point reserves to keep characters alive. Keeping that separate from resources to actively do things (powerful martial maneuvers, magic, action point type things for advantage on skills or saving throws) can make sense.

It can be OK to go the other way, and tie magic to hp exhaustion for example which will keep casters weaker, but it has an effect on survivability tradeoffs for powers.

 

[iserith]

I use hit dice for this sort of thing sometimes.

 

[Cadence]

It can be useful to have a separate mechanic for expendable resources other than hit points to keep you alive.

A paladin expending their magic to charge up their swords should still be good at fighting and tanking even if they can't do more magic.

From a game design perspective, it is good to have hit point reserves to keep characters alive. Keeping that separate from resources to actively do things (powerful martial maneuvers, magic, action point type things for advantage on skills or saving throws) can make sense.

It can be OK to go the other way, and tie magic to hp exhaustion for example which will keep casters weaker, but it has an effect on survivability tradeoffs for powers.

So, in the case of the paladin, I can completely see there being some level of divine connection (or whatnot) that is being depleted. Similarly for casters just having a certain amount of brain space to store spells.

The place that it gets me is when it is pushed off to the "martial" type things where it's described as exertion or effort. Story-wise, I'm having trouble with why maneuvers (say) wear one down in a totally different way than the soaking or dodging in the
non-meat part of HP does.

 

[Cadence]

I use hit dice for this sort of thing sometimes.

That does feel better to me as a mechanic but I'm having trouble thinking about why.

Trying to visualize the way it works in world, I'm having trouble picturing why someone is long term worn down (fewer HD) with no short-term effect (HP). I wonder if this is related to some posts elsewhere about how in real life combat a lot is just shrugged off with adrenaline while it's happening, but then it catches up with them afterwards.

 

[Stalker0]

The game design reason is this: giving players the ability to consume their “defense” to run their “offense” can lead to bad behavior.

A player who uses this to go ham then gets killed by a breeze, and feels bad. A player paranoid about death never uses it, and so feels left out of the cool stuff the others are doing.

In some ways this is the old “cleric feels obligated to save their spells for healing instead of cool stuff” problem but even more magnified.

This is why some separation is useful.

 

[Cadence]

The game design reason is this: giving players the ability to consume their “defense” to run their “offense” can lead to bad behavior.

A player who uses this to go ham then gets killed by a breeze, and feels bad. A player paranoid about death never uses it, and so feels left out of the cool stuff the others are doing.

In some ways this is the old “cleric feels obligated to save their spells for healing instead of cool stuff” problem but even more magnified.

This is why some separation is useful.

I guess this is where the life as a resource in MtG analogy breaks down. In an MtG tournament you can lose 1 out of 3 games and still win all of your matches. In D&D that's a lot of missed adventure time rolling up new characters.

 

[aco175]

Can hit dice be like 4e surges? Use them for healing either in a fight or out, but also allow PCs to burn them for cool powers. This adds some of what @Stalker0 is saying above, but players have a choice or just use them when things are really bad.

 

[Dausuul]

• Is another resource like exhaustion or exertion even needed?
• Would it feel bad to have HP spent to do things like use a proficiency-per power one more time?
• Why does it feel bad to me at first blush? (Just too many years playing D&D?)
• Is a lot of it just in our heads and akin how life total is viewed by many beginning players in MtG vs. skilled ones?
• Is anything lost as either in terms of a game or verisimilitude by viewing HP that way (keeping in mind the premise and that there could be a wounds system on the side)?
• What other systems use spendable HP?

In general, I am wary of allowing PCs to trade a defensive resource for offensive power or utility. It sets up a situation where there is constant tension between "do fun stuff" and "keep your character alive."

In the few cases where 5E allows this tradeoff, it's set up so that you can generally do fine by always taking the offensive option (e.g., barbarians and Reckless Attack -- the only times I see barbarians decline to use Reckless Attack is when they have advantage from something else).

There are other issues related to vegetarian hp, but we are assuming that premise has been accepted in this thread, so I won't get into those.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think it's challenging from a design perspective. Not impossible, but definitely challenging.

Having seen that type of mechanic in plenty of video games (as well as occasionally in RPGs), the biggest issue with it is that I think it has a narrow sweet spot (which becomes practically impossible to hit if you're rolling HP).

HP help you survive, so they have a discrete value even if you can't spend them on anything else. Charge too many HP for too weak an effect, and it becomes a trap that anyone with good sense avoids using. Charge too few HP and it becomes easily spammable.

Resources that are only used for one thing (spell slots) are far easier to dial in correctly, because they're not trying to do double duty. If you have X spell slots, you can cast X spells per day. If you have X hit points, you can use Y hp powered abilities per day - D (amount of damage you take) + H (healing received). It's a LOT harder to get right.