D&D 5E Hit points explained

[Azzy]

All this overthinking and rationalization is kind of amusing.

 

[Yunru]

Unavoidable Lunge When you make a melee weapon attack on your turn, you can expend one superiority die to get inside the opponent's guard and make the attack unavoidable. You add the superiority die to the attack’s damage roll and if you miss, you still deal half the damage, rounded down.

That is all.

 

[robus]

Depends on the system you are playing (as I mentioned) but again it's the results that describe the action not the action describing the results. This might also be why half damage on saves wasn't an AD&D thing (it might have been i just don't remember... i'm old now)

I'm confused. We're not discussing 5e? Unless you preface your comment with an edition reference we're going to assume you're talking about 5e.

But agreed it won't be resolved here but I'm happy to have had some ideas for how I can better describe damage at my table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This might also be why half damage on saves wasn't an AD&D thing (it might have been i just don't remember... i'm old now)

AD&D had plenty of saves for half damage. Every edition has. (OK, except, technically, 4e, which used attack rolls for all attacks, instead of saves, so had half damage on a miss for all sorts of spells and other dailies.)

That isn't the system fault or hp fault. Its describing what happened fault.

anyways this is a decades long discussion that I dont think will ever have a conclusion. It will be on going and spur people to create new systems that make sense to them, that others will not get or they will.

Not for lack of adequate explanations given back in 1979, but yeah.

 

[Lanefan]

AD&D had plenty of saves for half damage. Every edition has.

Not for poison however; which is what was being talked abou there.

Until 5e (or 4e?), poison was usually all or nothing. You make your save, you're fine. Fail it and you're hurt or staggered or asleep or paralyzed or dead or some other not-pleasant consequence.

Lan-"there was also a time when poison use was specifically defined as an Evil act"-efan

 

[Ratskinner]

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.

That's not quite what "dissociated" means, I think: "Dissociated mechanics can also be thought of as mechanics for which the characters have no functional explanations." From here. Although I should point out that I don't buy into the concept very much myself, I feel it falls apart the closer you look at it.

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."

So a 100HP Fighter takes a 16 point "hit". Its completely within (Gygax's) reasoning then to narratively describe this mechanical outcome as a complete miss (barring other factors like poison that introduce other mechanical complications.)* In fact, this can happen 6 times for that fighter without worry, but the 7th time, is suddenly a deadly matter. Now, the player notes this, because a number on the sheet tells him that he has only 4 HP left. How does the character note this when all he sees are his attacker's swing going wide?...can you feel how much luck you have at any given time? how about divine favor, if you believe in that sort of thing? Skill?....does the fighter lose "skill" as the fight goes into round number 7? Why? How is his skill in avoiding this hit any different from the oft-derided-as-"dissociated" ability to trip or CaGI an opponent in 4e? (or Alexandrian's one-handed catch possibility?) Does he suddenly forget how to dodge or deflect the blow?** I submit that if the Fighter's max HP is only 31, rather than 100HP that the situation is precisely the same as Alexandrian's one-handed catch example. Its just a little....squishier...mathematically.

AFAICT, the only substantive difference is in how familiar people are with HP.

*This makes the "to hit" roll dissociated as well, (especially with 1 minute rounds) since the roll has no directly associative event in the gameworld.

**If "exhaustion" plays a part in your response...why doesn't the Fighter lose HP when running across the room, or jumping or climbing, or marching all day? Why do Old-school character's not have more HP as soon as they wake up?

 

[Lanefan]

*This makes the "to hit" roll dissociated as well, (especially with 1 minute rounds) since the roll has no directly associative event in the gameworld.

Well, it does have a directly associative series of events all bundled into one, as the roll to hit is assumed to be your best attempt out of all those thrusts and parries over that minute.

**If "exhaustion" plays a part in your response...why doesn't the Fighter lose HP when running across the room, or jumping or climbing, or marching all day? Why do Old-school character's not have more HP as soon as they wake up?

This is one case where even I, as a realist, simply give in to the convenience factor of not having to constantly track such things.

But you're quite right: if hit points are partly or mostly fatigue then exertion - particularly extended exertion - should realistically drain them somewhat. That said, 5e does have exhaustion mechanics which kinda wave at this, if imperfectly.

Lanefan

 

[Ratskinner]

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.

Yeah, I've thought about this a bit, for just this reason.

Currently, my (completely un-playtested) best take is to give each character "saves", which are lists of expendable "ways of not getting killed". (I feel justified in doing so, since I would wrap in both saving throws and HP into the same system.) Saves could come in a variety of flavors and degrees of specificity, although I'm not sure that its worth the effort to have a broad "Combat Reflexes" save as well as more specific "Parry" and "Dodge" saves. They could be sourced or modified by class, race, equipment etc. Thus, a wizard does not have so many "Combat Reflexes" saves for the swordfight, but he might have plenty of "Strength of Will" saves for resisting the siren (or what have you). Similarly, the rogue will have more "leap out of the way" saves than the typical fighter, who will have more "parry the blow" saves. Carrying a shield might give you a few "Take it on my shield" saves.

So long as a character has an unmarked "Save" which makes sense to use, they may mark that to avoid being killed by the incoming attack. The "final" saves would be the ones that have narrative "kick" as consequences for the character. So, maybe a shield has 4,
"take it on my shield" saves, but it also has a "Splintered my Shield!" save that stops the attack but destroys the shield. The "final" saves for characters would represent actual wounds and injury.

Benefits:
a) You actually know what happened when you didn't get killed or suffer the consequences.
b) Room for much specialization of equipment, race, class, etc.
c) You actually know when you are wounded, rather than "low on luck right now".
d) Could give narrative weight to downtime as a method to restore saves to equipment.

Drawbacks and questions:
a) Adds a decision point to the round...possibly many. -could slow combat
b) Tracking might be tedious. (dunno)
c) Not sure how the DM's side works, especially for mobs. Do the whole mass of goblin goobers get a mass of them to use? I don't think I want to 6 saves in 4 categories for all 16.
d) Inverse relationship between flavor specificity and utility. "I'm not dead, yet" is the ultimate save...and its like the current HP system

But that's just an idea I had kicking around.

 

[Tony Vargas]

How does the character note this when all he sees are his attacker's swing going wide?...can you feel how much luck you have at any given time? how about divine favor, if you believe in that sort of thing? Skill?...

You might have an intuitive feel for any/all of those, sure. Nothing as quantified as the hp abstraction, though.

How is his skill in avoiding this hit any different from the oft-derided-as-"dissociated" ability to trip or CaGI an opponent in 4e? (or Alexandrian's one-handed catch possibility?)

Exactly the same, really. An attribute shared with all TTRPG mexhanics, really. You're a nerd sitting at a table: the dissociation between you and you imaginary character is absolute. Unless you go all Tom Hanks in Mazes & Monsters it's going to stay that way.

**If "exhaustion" plays a part in your response...why doesn't the Fighter lose HP when running across the room, or jumping or climbing, or marching all day? Why do Old-school character's not have more HP as soon as they wake up?

Go far enough back and there were exhaustion - it may have been 'forced march,' specifically - rules that resulted in hp loss. FWIW.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I've thought about this a bit, for just this reason.

Currently, my (completely un-playtested) best take is to give each character "saves", which are lists of expendable "ways of not getting killed". (I feel justified in doing so, since I would wrap in both saving throws and HP into the same system.) Saves could come in a variety of flavors and degrees of specificity, although I'm not sure that its worth the effort to have a broad "Combat Reflexes" save as well as more specific "Parry" and "Dodge" saves. They could be sourced or modified by class, race, equipment etc. Thus, a wizard does not have so many "Combat Reflexes" saves for the swordfight, but he might have plenty of "Strength of Will" saves for resisting the siren (or what have you). Similarly, the rogue will have more "leap out of the way" saves than the typical fighter, who will have more "parry the blow" saves. Carrying a shield might give you a few "Take it on my shield" saves.

So long as a character has an unmarked "Save" which makes sense to use, they may mark that to avoid being killed by the incoming attack. The "final" saves would be the ones that have narrative "kick" as consequences for the character. So, maybe a shield has 4,
"take it on my shield" saves, but it also has a "Splintered my Shield!" save that stops the attack but destroys the shield. The "final" saves for characters would represent actual wounds and injury.

First immediate response: keep this physical defense system split out from the current saving throw system (which works fine as is) and use a different term for this new mechanic: call them "Defenses" or whatever and use them for combat only, as opposed to magical effects.

If I'm reading this right, when successfully hit the attacked PC's player chooses from a list of available defenses and tallies one off. In effect this is the "damage" taken. Correct?

Benefits:
a) You actually know what happened when you didn't get killed or suffer the consequences.
b) Room for much specialization of equipment, race, class, etc.
c) You actually know when you are wounded, rather than "low on luck right now".
d) Could give narrative weight to downtime as a method to restore saves to equipment.

Drawbacks and questions:
a) Adds a decision point to the round...possibly many. -could slow combat
b) Tracking might be tedious. (dunno)
c) Not sure how the DM's side works, especially for mobs. Do the whole mass of goblin goobers get a mass of them to use? I don't think I want to 6 saves in 4 categories for all 16.
d) Inverse relationship between flavor specificity and utility. "I'm not dead, yet" is the ultimate save...and its like the current HP system

But that's just an idea I had kicking around.

For the mass of goobers just note they each have x number of defenses without bothering to note exactly what each one is. Just like hit points in effect, only you only ever lose one per hit and (as a goober) you only start with three or four; and tracking them ends up the same as tracking their hit points right now.

But, some questions:

What happens when someone runs out of defenses then gets hit again? Straight death? If yes, then
- - How does this (or does it at all) allow for and handle unconsciousness?
- - How does this (or does it at all) allow for and handle injuries or lingering wounds?
How and when are these defenses recovered? Obviously defenses related to broken equipment are recovered when the equipment is repaired or replaced, but what about dodge or parry or luck saves? Recovered on a long rest? Short rest? Variable depending on defense type? Partial or full recovery?

And if you leave it as you've got it now with magic saves mixed in, how does it handle "half-damage" saves e.g. vs a fireball? And, is there still a die roll for saves against magic or does the player just get to pick a defense and apply it? (this would absolutely nerf area-damage effects, most of the time; and completely neuter most single-target magic)

Lan-"interesting idea, but..."-efan