D&D 5E Hit points explained

[neq.the.glockenspiel]

Hit Points are the number of models to remove from a unit on the tabletop based on an enemy unit's attack (dividing through for multi hit models).

It's just now there are 1 model units and the models are optional.


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[Sir Brennen]

I came into this thread just to laugh at that awesome flowchart post.

Carry on.

 

[Ratskinner]

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?

Yes, and perhaps more importantly, whatever the defense/save is *happens* in the fiction. So, two characters evading a Fireball with different defenses might have very different results. The Rogue might "Leap out the way" and move 10 ft in the process. The Warrior might "Take it on my shield", and remain in place.

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.

Yeah, that's kinda where I lean.

But, some questions:

Sure, its just a step beyond spitballing, honestly.

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?

Either straight death, or a more general "at the mercy of" trigger. That might mean a bunch of different things. Another way to handle it might be to have some kind of event. I've suggested that something like hitting 0 HP might trigger rolling dice or flipping coins to answer these questions:
a) Are you still conscious?
b) Are you dying?
c) Have you lost something? (shield, hand, rations?)
d) Do you get to narrate this? (If not, the DM does.)

- - How does this (or does it at all) allow for and handle injuries or lingering wounds?

Those would be the "last" ones chosen by a player taking a hit. Mostly because they are the ones that are the hardest to clear or restore. (barring magical healing) They could be defined by the amount of time it takes to recover the slot. So, any Serious Wound you take might take 1d4 weeks to heal on its own. If desired, a specific list of injuries and associated penalties could be used to fill in those slots as they are used.

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?

I think generally "Variable depending on defense type" is the correct response, technically. I wouldn't have any trouble saying that most defenses would (by default) recover after a long rest. As you note Equipment might require repair, and as I mentioned, the wounds would take longer to recover on their own.

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)

You would just pick a defense and apply it. The result would be somewhat like a normal fireball. The target's ability to take further similar damage is reduced, but we would know exactly how it was reduced. A Fireball's advantage would be that it would make more than one character mark off a defense.

In many ways, its just adding a prescriptive narrative to HP (and reducing their number/increase with level) rather than the very sloppy postscriptive narrative we use now. So, to compare a Wizard and Fighter. In the current system, the Fighter uses his higher HP total and AC to take more combat damage, in the proposed system, he'd have more "parry" saves or whatever than the wizard would. Similarly, the Wizard has higher Intelligence (or Spell, in previous editions) save values, meaning he is less likely to be affected by mental effects than the fighter. Same in the new system, the fighter has few, if any, saves to use to resist the willpower effect or whatever.

What it doesn't allow for (so far, anyway), is the pre-emptive SoS spell-effect to short-circuit the narrative. I can see two methods of putting a similar effect back in:
A) Offer the spell impact as an alternative to marking your own save. So somebody casts Entangle at you. You choose whether you mark of one of your save to dodge it, or accept the "Extracting myself from the Tangle" condition (which you might shake/recover faster than you can recover your own defense...possibly with a DC 15 Strength check.)
B) Same thing, but its not an offer, spend your save, but you still get a chance of suffering the spell's consequence.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, and perhaps more importantly, whatever the defense/save is *happens* in the fiction. So, two characters evading a Fireball with different defenses might have very different results. The Rogue might "Leap out the way" and move 10 ft in the process. The Warrior might "Take it on my shield", and remain in place.

So this removes the random roll aspect of the current saving throw? If yes, that's really going to have some impact and major knock-on effects, not least of which is that targeted offensive magic (hold person, finger of death, etc.) might as well disappear as who would ever bother when it's guaranteed to Do Nothing.

Also, this makes something like Fireball all-or-nothing rather than all-or-half, if I'm reading it right...which will also have some impact. In effect, you're not only giving Monk/Rogue-like evasion to everyone but you're making it a chooseable at-will ability as long as you've any defenses left. So, if I start a combat with 6 defenses I can eat 6 Fireballs and not take a scratch, where now even half-damage from 6 Fireballs would put me either in a grave or a world o' hurt.

Either straight death, or a more general "at the mercy of" trigger. That might mean a bunch of different things. Another way to handle it might be to have some kind of event. I've suggested that something like hitting 0 HP

You mean 0 defenses, don't you? I thought h.p. went away with this system...

might trigger rolling dice or flipping coins to answer these questions:
a) Are you still conscious?
b) Are you dying?
c) Have you lost something? (shield, hand, rations?)
d) Do you get to narrate this? (If not, the DM does.)

OK, I think I see where this part is going. Maybe a random d% table of negative effects with high being death; and each time you roll on it after the first time (assuming you survive the first time) you add 25 to the roll?

Example: you're out of defenses and you get hit - you roll low and merely lose your shield. Then you get hit by a fireball, you roll low + 25 and take a major injury to your leg. Then the archer gets you, you roll middling + 50 and drop dead.

I think generally "Variable depending on defense type" is the correct response, technically. I wouldn't have any trouble saying that most defenses would (by default) recover after a long rest. As you note Equipment might require repair, and as I mentioned, the wounds would take longer to recover on their own.

Variable by defense type makes the most sense but would be the hardest to track.

You would just pick a defense and apply it. The result would be somewhat like a normal fireball. The target's ability to take further similar damage is reduced, but we would know exactly how it was reduced. A Fireball's advantage would be that it would make more than one character mark off a defense.

In many ways, its just adding a prescriptive narrative to HP (and reducing their number/increase with level)

Ah. I was assuming these defenses would accrete with level much like h.p. do now. (and how would you randomize this to reflect random h.p. rolls?)

rather than the very sloppy postscriptive narrative we use now. So, to compare a Wizard and Fighter. In the current system, the Fighter uses his higher HP total and AC to take more combat damage, in the proposed system, he'd have more "parry" saves or whatever than the wizard would. Similarly, the Wizard has higher Intelligence (or Spell, in previous editions) save values, meaning he is less likely to be affected by mental effects than the fighter. Same in the new system, the fighter has few, if any, saves to use to resist the willpower effect or whatever.

The problem here - as you indicate just below - is that there's never a chance of getting someone on the first try. As it stands now it doesn't matter if a wizard has save values up the wazoo against willpower effects: a 1 is a 1 is a 1. The attacker always has a chance.

With this system the attacker doesn't have a chance until she's attacked enough times to exhaust the target's defenses...which works fine for melee but not at all for spells.

What it doesn't allow for (so far, anyway), is the pre-emptive SoS spell-effect to short-circuit the narrative. I can see two methods of putting a similar effect back in:
A) Offer the spell impact as an alternative to marking your own save. So somebody casts Entangle at you. You choose whether you mark of one of your save to dodge it, or accept the "Extracting myself from the Tangle" condition (which you might shake/recover faster than you can recover your own defense...possibly with a DC 15 Strength check.)
B) Same thing, but its not an offer, spend your save, but you still get a chance of suffering the spell's consequence.

'A' will never be used against certain types of effects e.g. fatal ones. That said, I'd assumed acceptance of the spell effect (or weapon strike) in this system was always an option - nothing forces you to use a defense if for some reason you don't want to.

In part this is why I suggested earlier that the save-vs.-magic system should stay as is (particularly against spells that bypass hit points) and use this new system for physical combat only. The problem there becomes what to do with spells that cause full/half damage without making them full/none.

Thinking about this, I would never want to play a caster in this system unless all it ever did was (boring) buff-utility-support-defense. Offensive casting of any kind gets almost completely neutered - it would even take two or three fireballs to obliterate the goblins that previously couldn't survive one - while defensive casting becomes paramount.

The only way around this that I can think of - and it presents its own host of headaches - is to introduce some sort of effect or spell that prevents use of (some or all types of) defenses for however long.

Lan-"and then there's the whole realism aspect, which we haven't got to at all yet"-efan

 

[Ratskinner]

So this removes the random roll aspect of the current saving throw? If yes, that's really going to have some impact and major knock-on effects, not least of which is that targeted offensive magic (hold person, finger of death, etc.) might as well disappear as who would ever bother when it's guaranteed to Do Nothing.

I admit that that's a hitch, but I don't think that it insurmountable. Additionally, the system has been drifting away from "Save or Die" for a while.

Also, this makes something like Fireball all-or-nothing rather than all-or-half, if I'm reading it right...which will also have some impact. In effect, you're not only giving Monk/Rogue-like evasion to everyone but you're making it a chooseable at-will ability as long as you've any defenses left. So, if I start a combat with 6 defenses I can eat 6 Fireballs and not take a scratch, where now even half-damage from 6 Fireballs would put me either in a grave or a world o' hurt.

Only if you have enough defenses that apply. You can't "Iron Will" your way out of a Fireball, for instance. Otherwise, its just resource attrition like HP already are.

You mean 0 defenses, don't you? I thought h.p. went away with this system... OK, I think I see where this part is going. Maybe a random d% table of negative effects with high being death; and each time you roll on it after the first time (assuming you survive the first time) you add 25 to the roll?

Something like that. (yes no HP, but you can apply this bit to reaching 0 HP in the standard system). I actually have you roll four dice. Even numbers are yes and odd no. Apply them to the questions as you see fit. I would suppose that might be a solution to your concern about SoS spells. Maybe each gets a table of lesser effects to apply upon using a save/defense.

Ah. I was assuming these defenses would accrete with level much like h.p. do now. (and how would you randomize this to reflect random h.p. rolls?)

I'm not sure that's necessary or desirable, honestly. I could imagine a version of the system where your stats determine how many defenses of each type you get, but without playtesting...

The problem here - as you indicate just below - is that there's never a chance of getting someone on the first try. As it stands now it doesn't matter if a wizard has save values up the wazoo against willpower effects: a 1 is a 1 is a 1. The attacker always has a chance.

With this system the attacker doesn't have a chance until she's attacked enough times to exhaust the target's defenses...which works fine for melee but not at all for spells.

'A' will never be used against certain types of effects e.g. fatal ones. That said, I'd assumed acceptance of the spell effect (or weapon strike) in this system was always an option - nothing forces you to use a defense if for some reason you don't want to.

In part this is why I suggested earlier that the save-vs.-magic system should stay as is (particularly against spells that bypass hit points) and use this new system for physical combat only. The problem there becomes what to do with spells that cause full/half damage without making them full/none.

Thinking about this, I would never want to play a caster in this system unless all it ever did was (boring) buff-utility-support-defense. Offensive casting of any kind gets almost completely neutered - it would even take two or three fireballs to obliterate the goblins that previously couldn't survive one - while defensive casting becomes paramount.

The only way around this that I can think of - and it presents its own host of headaches - is to introduce some sort of effect or spell that prevents use of (some or all types of) defenses for however long.

There are some tricks that could be taken from other games....the mob of goblins might have "-1 goblin" be a save, for instance. As I mentioned above, you could make the lesser effect automatic and the major effect be dependent on a save/defense not being spent.

I'm not saying its a perfect, or even complete system, but I think it is a proof of concept for an alternative idea that mostly avoids Death Spirals and yet maintains some of what's preferable about HP results, without the narrative fuzziness that comes with HP systems.

 

[Lanefan]

I admit that that's a hitch, but I don't think that it insurmountable. Additionally, the system has been drifting away from "Save or Die" for a while.

I don't see that drift as a feature, though.

Only if you have enough defenses that apply. You can't "Iron Will" your way out of a Fireball, for instance. Otherwise, its just resource attrition like HP already are.

In a broad sense that's exactly how I'm looking at this: a different type of resource attrition with more (and more varied) narrative to back it up.

I'm not sure that's necessary or desirable, honestly.

Which one - the accretion or the randomizing?

Without accretion of defenses to replicate accretion of hit points one of the biggest benefits of levelling - increased toughness and resilience - goes away. Now this may or may not be a good thing depending on one's point of view, but be aware of it and be aware of how it'll affect the game - and how people approach it.

And what's the point of a randomized game when it isn't random?

There are some tricks that could be taken from other games....the mob of goblins might have "-1 goblin" be a save, for instance. As I mentioned above, you could make the lesser effect automatic and the major effect be dependent on a save/defense not being spent.

That's one possible solve for the half-damage issue, yes.

I'm not saying its a perfect, or even complete system, but I think it is a proof of concept for an alternative idea that mostly avoids Death Spirals and yet maintains some of what's preferable about HP results, without the narrative fuzziness that comes with HP systems.

Looking at the bit I bolded - I should ask, I suppose, how much risk of character death you prefer your games to have.

Me, I look at it from an old-school almost Rogue-like approach where death and other extreme risks (level loss being one) are relatively frequent occurrences. Flip side: I don't mind there being means within the game to revive the dead, particularly at higher levels, and with some sort of hard outer limit (for example the 1e rule where the hard limit to the number of times you can be revived is your starting Con score).

5e - like 4e - is a different animal, where due to there being so much in-combat healing available it's generally harder - not impossible, but harder - to kill one or two characters in a combat without taking down the whole party.

Lan-"you know you're in over your head when the fireball takes you from full to dead even on a made save"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't see that drift as a feature, though.

SoD's (S-o-anythings, really) have serious issues under BA. Serious enough 5e probably should have comprehensively removed them in favor of current-hp (or other-hp) thresholds.

5e is a different animal, where due to there being so much in-combat healing available it's generally harder - not impossible, but harder - to kill one or two characters in a combat without taking down the whole party.

There's not really a lot more in-combat healing than in other editions, but there is more /flexibility/ in using slots to heal than ever (even more than 3e clerics spontaneously casting Cure..Wounds, since that's now only 1 spell to prep, and oddball healing like Healing Word can now also be cast spontaneously, y'know, because everything just is), and whack-a-mole healing (heal from 0), and the way dying rules make instant death increasingly unlikely as you level...

 

[Lanefan]

SoD's (S-o-anythings, really) have serious issues under BA. Serious enough 5e probably should have comprehensively removed them in favor of current-hp (or other-hp) thresholds.

What are these serious issues, other than players potentially having to sit out for a while?

Funnelling everything into simple h.p. damage is really dull.

There's not really a lot more in-combat healing than in other editions, but there is more /flexibility/ in using slots to heal than ever (even more than 3e clerics spontaneously casting Cure..Wounds, since that's now only 1 spell to prep, and oddball healing like Healing Word can now also be cast spontaneously, y'know, because everything just is), and whack-a-mole healing (heal from 0), and the way dying rules make instant death increasingly unlikely as you level...

A 3e Cleric spontaneously casting Cure xxx Wounds still had to get into the fray (thus taking risk) and close to the target, cast the spell (at serious risk of interruption), and touch the target.

Wands of CLW were the go-to combat healing source as they could be done at range...and this is a large part of why they were broken.

I've had Clerics be "wild-card" on all their spells for nearly ever (much like 3e Sorcerers) but in-combat healing has always been quite uncommon, mostly due to the risk of interruption.

Lanefan

 

[Tony Vargas]

Funnelling everything into simple h.p. damage is really dull.

Explain that to everyone who clamors for the 'simple fighter.' ;P

Seriously, thuogh, not what I was suggesting. Rather effects succeeding based on different hp thresholds. Less profound effects could compare more 'damage' against the threshold to see if they worked...

A 3e Cleric spontaneously casting Cure xxx Wounds still had to get into the fray (thus taking risk) and close to the target, cast the spell (at serious risk of interruption), and touch the target.

Exactly, the 5e cleric has greater flexibility, because he can spontaneously cast any spell he preps (a 3e cleric could heal at range, though, depending on build...)

Wands of CLW were the go-to combat healing source as they could be done at range...and this is a large part of why they were broken.

They were most broken out of combat, but they do illustrate how less healing is available in 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

Explain that to everyone who clamors for the 'simple fighter.' ;P

Like me, you mean?

Seriously, thuogh, not what I was suggesting. Rather effects succeeding based on different hp thresholds. Less profound effects could compare more 'damage' against the threshold to see if they worked...

You mean, if someone's at <20 h.p. effect x works but they need to be at <10 h.p. for effect y to work, is that it?

(a 3e cleric could heal at range, though, depending on build...)

By spell? Not that I ever saw... (though I'm talking pretty much original 3e, no splats and no 3.5, as that's what I played)

They were most broken out of combat, but they do illustrate how less healing is available in 5e.

Less healing overall, maybe, but more in-combat healing and a much greater range of classes able to heal...which mitigates or even reverses the less-healing-available point, depending on party makeup.

Lanefan