D&D 5E Hit points explained

[jodyjohnson]

It's going to be so nice when Xanathar's comes out in a couple months and we have fresh topics of discussion.

For the record I go down both sides of the flowchart - the left for monsters and the right for players.

Anyone have a link to Mike Mearls' 'Hit My Points' article during the playtest where he theorizes that how hit points are handled reflects the style a table wants to emulate?

 

[Ganymede81]

The OP's description is roughly similar to this cut-out on page 197 of the PHB.

"Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

May that be of use if it wasn't already quoted in the pages between One and Nine.

 

[Ratskinner]

Once again, for the last time. If you have a point attack coming at you, it can miss you completely, or you can dodge it completely. Ergo, an attack roll. If you are in an area of effect and can't get out, you WILL suffer something. Because it's AOE that impacts everything in that area. That's the point of an AOE. There is no "missing" there compared to a point attack. That is a HUGE difference. It's why it IS a DEX save as opposed to an attack roll, because it's a completely different attack type.

Aye. But we know, IIRC because Gygax told us so, that an attack roll "back in the day" didn't represent a singular swing in those minute-long combat rounds. So, this interpretation fails.

HP have always been an abstraction, and dare I say it, a bad one for many narrative purposes. They are the original, dissociated mechanic, but, because so many grognards are so accustomed to them, they don't catch the same flack that others do. (And you'll see plenty of excuse-making for them.)

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[Lanefan]

Aye. But we know, IIRC because Gygax told us so, that an attack roll "back in the day" didn't represent a singular swing in those minute-long combat rounds.

Quite right, along with various other insstances where a single die roll represented the best of (in theory) multiple attempts e.g. a pick locks roll.

HP have always been an abstraction, and dare I say it, a bad one for many narrative purposes.

While still not perfect, they become a bit more salvageable once you adopt almost any reasonable kind of wound/vitality or body/fatigue system. As a pleasant side effect this also ties much better into realistic healing, where wound or body points are way harder to recover by resting than vitality or fatigue points are.

They are the original, dissociated mechanic

Perhaps.

So the challenge is to come up with a better way of game-mechanicizing the very reasonable (in a fantasy sense) idea that a seasoned veteran is most of the time considerably tougher and harder to put down than a raw recruit. Do that, and hit points can give way to this new mechanic.

Lan-"mechanicize this: a single arrow kills an orc but it takes dozens to finish off Boromir"-efan

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But a long time ago I actually asked Gygax when I was attending Gen Con. He told me to think of it as "points until you get hit."

I know that sounds like the dumbest thing that anybody has ever said about any topic in all of history, but to be fair, Gary was playing in a game before the invention of role-playing or the differentiation between player knowledge and character knowledge. He never had to ask himself how, given that premise, the character would actually know they needed healing.

The game has come a long way since those primitive days.

 

[DocMindwipe]

Best explanation I have seen is in the Gygax books, aka 1st Ed.

Paraphrased : Hitpoints are a combination of fatigue, lige essence, lucky hits (on you (hits you feel but doesn't do much real harm)) and general combat fitness.

I'll look up the exact wording when I get home from work

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[Maxperson]

HP have always been an abstraction, and dare I say it, a bad one for many narrative purposes. They are the original, dissociated mechanic, but, because so many grognards are so accustomed to them, they don't catch the same flack that others do. (And you'll see plenty of excuse-making for them.

Probably because it's not dissociated, but rather variably associated. The damage done is associated with the attack coming in. A fireball might damage through burns, heat exhaustion, diving out of the way and impacting the ground, or a number of other things ASSOCIATED with a fireball. That's not the same as failing a climb check and having a storm happen as a result.

 

[Maxperson]

Best explanation I have seen is in the Gygax books, aka 1st Ed.

Paraphrased : Hitpoints are a combination of fatigue, lige essence, lucky hits (on you (hits you feel but doesn't do much real harm)) and general combat fitness.

I'll look up the exact wording when I get home from work

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Gygax listed physical hit points as part of what they represent as well. It wasn't all things like luck, skill and divine blessings.

"Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain, and that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into the non-physical areas already detailed."

 

[DocMindwipe]

Gygax listed physical hit points as part of what they represent as well. It wasn't all things like luck, skill and divine blessings.

"Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain, and that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into the non-physical areas already detailed."

Yeah, though as I don't bring neither book to work, it was a little hard to quote the exact text as you have.

D&D have a very abstracted combat system, no matter which version, and so the hitpoints aren't only representing the actual life force, but is a culmination of many many things.

If you want a system representing hitpoints=actual life force, may I suggest RoleMaster

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[Sacrosanct]

Best explanation I have seen is in the Gygax books, aka 1st Ed.

Paraphrased : Hitpoints are a combination of fatigue, lige essence, lucky hits (on you (hits you feel but doesn't do much real harm)) and general combat fitness.

I'll look up the exact wording when I get home from work

Sent from my SM-G935F using EN World mobile app

You don't have to. I posted the quote from the PHB yesterday earlier in this thread.