D&D 5E Hit points explained

[Krachek]

Hit points are what your character loose when he take damage in DnD.
Damage is what makes your character loose hit points.

 

[Mercule]

Hit points should be a controlled substance. They're highly addictive and symptoms of withdrawal frequently include death.

Tolerance to hit points may occur, requiring an ever increasing quantity to achieve the same effect.

 

[Nagol]

Hit points should be a controlled substance. They're highly addictive and symptoms of withdrawal frequently include death.

Tolerance to hit points may occur, requiring an ever increasing quantity to achieve the same effect.

Yeah hit points are the dihydrogen monoxide of D&D. Addictive, dangerous, and ubiquitous.

 

[Kabouter Games]

Hit points are an abstraction that can represent almost anything you want, from sheer superhuman toughness, to incredible luck, to flesh wounds, to simple fatigue.

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."

That's still pretty vague, but I always thought he meant 'until you take a vital hit' or something like that. Either way, it stuck with me to this day.

As I recall the AD&D DMG, that's precisely what GGG meant - until your foe lands the killing blow, hit points are an abstract, the wearing down of your stamina and defenses. Being reduced to zero hit points means your foe landed the killing blow. Before then, you get knocked about, nicked up, bruised and scratched. It's a melee, fer crissake.

The way D&D in its multiple iterations manages the reduction of combat stamina is not perfect, but it's quick, it's easy to grok, and it's easy to build a game engine to resolve.

Gary's concept of HP as abstract is also why this...

Consider the case of an assassin with a poison dagger. Even at full hp, if the dagger hits, the target will have to save versus poison. Clearly that is not a case of a blocked attack or a mere bruise. The target must have been cut (even if it is only a scratch) in order to introduce the poison to the bloodstream (which in turn prompts the saving throw).

...makes sense, especially in the context of the many save or die poisons in AD&D.

It also is partly consistent with this...

Read the sidebar from page 197 of the PHB. I'll quote the relevant part below.

"When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises."

That right there proves that more than bruising happens at 1-49%. You also get cuts, and cuts bleed. They just don't bleed enough to threaten your life like the serious cuts that happen when a PC hits 0. It also shows that piercing and slashing damage do puncture the skin and do more than bruise PCs. Same with spells.

...but not entirely. I think somebody dropped the ball on this, and that it needs to be addressed in future printings, as it is incompatible with a target taking poison damage before being reduced to half hit points.

In other words, "you take 6 points of piercing" doesn't necessarily equate to "the goblin shoots you with an arrow for 6 points of piercing damage." The arrow doesn't have to actually puncture your skin to deal the damage. It can be abstracted as the stamina reduction of dodging out of the arrow's path. If you have some sort of physical or magical resistance to piercing damage, you could abstract that as your adamantine armor means you don't take full stamina damage from dodging - because you don't have to dodge by leaping out of the way - but the physical blow of the arrow hitting you might leave a bruise, you still flinch, and that distracts you.

As others have noted, this argume...I mean debat...I mean discussion has been recurring for 40 years. The only workable way I've seen to make HP less abstract within the D&D umbrella of games is the old weapon vs. armor type tables of AD&D. Those were clunky, slowed the game to a crawl, and frankly still didn't capture the differences in combat damage application. Even other systems, like Rolemaster, with infinitely more realistic combat and damage mechanics, still rely on HP as abstract to a greater or lesser extent.

The trouble is HP as abstract isn't very satisfying as a story element. That's understandable, as this whole shebang developed as an expansion of tactical wargaming rules. And once anyone noticed, it was The Way We Do Things, and now it's so firmly traditional that to change it would change the flavor of D&D to its detriment. That makes resolving the discussion, as others have pointed out above, a fool's errand. All we can do is cope with it as best we can. Personally, when I DM I try to remember how each PC can conceivably take physical damage, so as to describe the HP reductions in a way which is consistent with my concept of "HP as abstract." That's as far as I can go without porting over the Rolemaster combat rules - which I have considered!

Cheers,

Bob

www.r-p-davis.com

 

[robus]

The thing that bugs me is why do I have to reduce a target to zero hit points to knock them out? If HP is measuring your ability to take blows (by actively dodging, deflecting etc) then knocking someone out should be much easier (if the circumstances are right of course).

Which is why I've home-ruled that it's a STR vs CON opposed check. Disadvantage if the target is larger and advantage if the target is smaller.

So if someone wants to sneak up and knock a guard out that's all they have to do. Of course if they fail then combat will most likely break out but at least they have a decent chance of succeeding without requiring an extended combat.

 

[cmad1977]

Hit points are all kinda of things at all kinds of times.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[robus]

As folks have mentioned a poisoned weapon always delivers its poison so it must always actually penetrate skin

I know this is fools errand but how about this:

While your efforts enable to you to deflect most of the energy from the attack you still feel the effect
of the attack:

Bludgeoning damage -> bruise.
Slashing damage -> minor cut
Piercing damage -> minor prick (feels like a large thorn)

Once you get below 50% of your HP you're starting to look pretty rough - you've got enough cuts and bruises to be looking worse for wear.

But the wounds above are all treatable with a bandage or a poultice or whatever.

We've all seen duels in the movies where the opponents get cut and bloodied before the killing blow is landed.

 

[Caliban]

Hit points explained:

Hit points are those things you lose when you get hit. Lose enough and you are out of the game until you get more.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't know why we still are debating what hit points are. They were explained as far back as in 1979 pretty darn clearly:

Each character has a varying number of hit points,' just as monsters do.
These hit points represent how much damage (actual 01: potential) the
character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit
points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained.
The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands
for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take
about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th
level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his
constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit
dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It
is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much
punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and
the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit paints aresymbolic of combat
skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

 

[ccs]

People tried to discuss what hit points are and that they are not just meat during DOAM discussions unfortunately many grogs were too thick and others didn't want fighters to have nice things.

Nah, we know what HP are. Gygax explained them well enough to us long before you were born. Go read a 1e DMG.
We just really didn't want that stupid 4e garbage of rewarding failure to make it into the next edition.
You want to do damage to a target with your sword or whatever? Roll high enough.
If you don't roll high enough? Suck up your failure this round & try again next round.