Hit points as luck

[zarionofarabel]

I think it depends on the amount of HP, and how they are utilized. I generally compare PC HP to the kind of damage a mid range weapon does when I classify what HP represents.

In D&D, and other similar systems; HP is usually a single pool of points, often in a large numbers relative to weapon damage, that grows as the PC becomes more powerful. So HP at 1st level is the PCs ability to sustain physical damage, how physically tough the PC's body is. As they gain levels and HP, it becomes not only toughness, but also a combination of luck, stamina, and prowess in combat. PCs have to be "worn down" before they actually take physical damage, with only the last wound (the hit that kills them) actually representing physical damage. It also helps to justify how fast "natural healing" occurs, as HP can be fully restored with a good night's rest.

With a system like Mythras; where HP is more on par with a mid range weapon, and doesn't increase as PCs become more powerful, HP is always just physical toughness. Which also justifies why "natural healing" takes days, weeks, or even months. Someone smashing your arm with a sword, probably breaking bones and gashing it open, takes a long time to recover from.

 

[Committed Hero]

I view HP kind of like a Captain America movie where Thanos gives him a beatdown and he stands up saying he can do this all day.

John McClaine in Die Hard. We know running across broken glass with bare feet will hurt, but the only effect it has is staining the windows.

 

[Retros_x]

I dislike HP purely as Luck, because it doesnt make sense. HP loss can ALSO mean endurance, luck etc. But if a Barbarian crits the orc with his battleaxe I for sure won't narrate that the orc is now REALLY out of breath. Whatever makes sense in the narration.

I also like the fantasy of heroes being hit multiple times but still standing, battered and tattered, clothes ripped, bleeding from dozens of superficial wounds, but continuing to fight due to pure grit. That makes them heroes and not NPCs.

I really don't like the fantasy of you getting hit and that means you "have less luck than before" and when you get to 0HP, you are "out of luck" and suddenly you drop unconscious after one real hit. Thats not how luck works. There is no measure and reserve for luck. You can't heal or refill your luck. This feels non sensical and absurd to me.

At least thats how I feel with systems with one HP Pool. Its different if you have two HP pools, one for stamina one for "flesh and blood".

Using HP for different mechanics I would be careful with, but it depends on the system.

 

[Gimby]

Player: Damn, I rolled a 3. My save vs poison is 10, so I failed.
GM: Then you die.
Player: Well, that sucks. Can I spend HP to improve my saving throw result?
GM: Sure, go ahead. That'll cost you 7 HP.
Player: Better than being dead!


What do you think? Has anyone ever used this sort of thing as a houserule? How do you think, having played/run Cypher, the Pool/Effort system makes it different from other RPGs?

You can argue quite well that this is essentially already what goes on - the PC is hit by a sword, which will normally kill or maim someone. The GM rolls and determines how many hit points it'll cost the PC to not be killed or maimed (this is termed a "damage" roll). If the PC can't afford the cost, down they go.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Mornard had it right when he said (paraphrasing): 'I don't know what a 'pacing-mechanism' is, and whatever Gary said about luck was post-hoc justification. When we played, hit points measured hit points, and they stood for hit points.' They are a gamist measure used because they are super-convenient, similar to a life bar in a video game.

Personally, I think of each time you taking 1+ hit points of damage should include some level of wounding. If only to make cure spells and poisoned-blades-transferring-their-poison-on-a-hit effects make sense. But until you drop someone to 0 hp, those wounds are scratches, contusions, or minor wounds. Only when someone is dropped is the effect a serious wound. All of this is to whatever level of realism the genre fiction in your head demands. Those of use who grew up with The Princess Bride may well consider a knife to the gut a less deadly effect than someone wanting hyper-realism.

 

[Cadence]

It feels like luck is a part of them, but having to use them as a resource feels like it might lead to some unintended issues (should sorcerers multiclass as fighters to have more to spend). A few were brought up in the thread: D&D General - Hit Points as a Spendable Resource (Feels bad even for non-meat HP?)

One thought was using HD instead of HP.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Hit points are whatever the GM can intuitively accept and get his players to intuitively accept. In D&D and most of its variants, it's a hash, largely because of the way the various healing spells work.

The usual default seems to be treat them as proportional meat-points mixed with luck, combat skill, and such, and then to handwave the inconsistencies. Under this interpretation, a 4 hp character who has taken 2 points of damage has the same degree of physical injury as a 40 hp character who has taken 20 points of damage, with the higher numbers representing the greater difficulty of inflicting that degree of physical injury on the character with the higher numbers.

Personally, I'd like to run inflationary hit points as a pure luck/survival skill/combat skill pool, with meat points/actual physical injury being a separate thing. But all the attempts I've seen to implement such a system have fallen to a powerful roaring intuition and desire that there must must must must be ways - common ways, frequently encountered ways - to bypass that hit-point pool and inflict physical meat-point damage directly. And IMHO, having such bypasses available does too much to void the advantages of having an inflationary hit-point system in the first place.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hit points are whatever the GM can intuitively accept and get his players to intuitively accept. In D&D and most of its variants, it's a hash, largely because of the way the various healing spells work.

The usual default seems to be treat them as proportional meat-points mixed with luck, combat skill, and such, and then to handwave the inconsistencies. Under this interpretation, a 4 hp character who has taken 2 points of damage has the same degree of physical injury as a 40 hp character who has taken 20 points of damage, with the higher numbers representing the greater difficulty of inflicting that degree of physical injury on the character with the higher numbers.

Personally, I'd like to run inflationary hit points as a pure luck/survival skill/combat skill pool, with meat points/actual physical injury being a separate thing. But all the attempts I've seen to implement such a system have fallen to a powerful roaring intuition and desire that there must must must must be ways - common ways, frequently encountered ways - to bypass that hit-point pool and inflict physical meat-point damage directly. And IMHO, having such bypasses available does too much to void the advantages of having an inflationary hit-point system in the first place.

Well, the poison problem is a big one if you can't bypass the luck pool. I still have a big problem with damage types being meaningless if there's no contact.

 

[DarkCrisis]

A combo of luck, martial skill, and actual health. Fighters have more because they have more defense training than say a Wizard.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

HP are only luck in the sense that "you are lucky that (arrow) didn't kill you". Which is why experience allows you to create more "luck" - you get better at knowing how to turn at the last moment to take the arrow on your shoulder, where your armor is thickest, and it cracks off only leaving a bruise instead of collapsing a lung.

It IS luck, but it is (IMO) better described as effort. Things are just happening so fast, that you are lucky that your efforts pay off and you don't get yourself killed. Some of that is also "grit", in that a lesser person might give up and die, while you suck it up and carry on.

I (respectfully) don't like the OP's suggestion regarding spending it to avoid dying from poison, because that is already what is happening when you take 12 poison damage but have 14 HP. If the poison is enough to kill (drop) you, it should do that. You shouldn't be able to pay some lesser amount of HP to avoid it. (Unless, you know, you have poison resistance, but again, that is already accounted for).