Hit Points - Why were they designed to be incoherent?

[harpy]

I've been mulling over the nature of hit points lately. One thing that keeps cropping up is the issue of their “incoherence.” That is, hit points are seen as both an abstract model, but also a “realistic” model (and I put those quotes around realistic for a reason, don't go there!). On the one hand hit points are supposed to represent a broad range of factors, including physical health, luck, skill, divine grace, etc. However when hit points have to be recovered naturally the recovery is at a rate that better represents bodily damage.

The incoherence began right from the start with Old D&D, however I'll skip over it because the game was still in an “accretion” state where game elements and assumptions were still forming. The references to hit points and there recovery are very brief and still assume some afterglow to miniature wargaming which is rife with deliberate abstraction. I'll also skip over Holmes Basic D&D because the language is terse to get a succinct rules package assembled.

It's when we get to Advanced D&D where Gygax has license and page count to go into a great deal of depth on what hit points represent and how they are recovered. It's here where the contradiction comes into high relief. He even tries to address it pretty head on in the first edition Dungeon Master's Guide, but the explanation doesn't seem to quite fit.

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

Already there is a problem here. Gygax pushes hard right at the beginning that hit points do not merely equate physical damage, and that as you gain levels the inflation of hit points means even less the capacity to absorb damage. Most of the hit points lean towards a sixth sense, luck, magic and divine protection. However, in that last sentence the sixth sense and luck are collapsed into a corporeal notion of “fitness.” He's trying to make a distinction between physique and fitness, but both analogies are tied to the body and not the more abstract notions of luck, fate, divine providence, or even just plain skill to avoid being hit.

Harkening back to the example of Rasputin [Gygax had mentioned Rasputin having a Constitution of 18], 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. Furthermore, these actual physical hit points would be spread across a large number of levels, starting from a base score of from an average of 3 to 4, going up to 6 to 8 at 2nd level, 9 to 1 1 at 3rd, 12 to 14 at 4th, 15 to 17 at 5th, 18 to 20 at 6th, and 21 to 23 at 7th level. Note that the above assumes the character is a fighter with an average of 3 hit points per die going to physical ability to withstand punishment and only 1 point of constitution bonus being likewise assigned. Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage.

Above Gygax goes into more depth of how hit points can be broken down conceptually with a character. There are the hit points you gain from the class, and there is also the hit points gained from Constitution. There is some assumption that character's simply become tougher over time through the level inflation of hit points. Adventurers become inured to the hostile life and gain a kind of pain tolerance or willpower that can hopefully see them through tough situations. And so if you were to slice hit points into different categories, the corporeal hit points that represent health, pain tolerance, willpower, etc. versus the incorporeal hit points that represent luck, magic, divine grace and the avoidance of damage through skill, what happens is that the minority of them are every the corporeal hit points.

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution. This character would have an average of 5% hit points per die, plus a constitution bonus of 4 hit points, per level, or 95 hit points! Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm - the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points.

Just as the first paragraph, this above paragraph seems fine until that last sentence. Once again we're given an explanation of how hit points function that seems to be at odds with itself. Gygax once again divides hit points into two broad categories, the physical hit points and the metaphysical hit points.

If one wanted a sense of verisimilitude in their game, then it makes sense that the physical hit points one has need a good deal of rest and recuperation if you were to lose them. If someone in real life gets stabbed by a sword it could take weeks, months, years or even permanent damage that can never be recovered. So in that regard long rest periods do make sense.

The incoherence comes from the metaphysical type of hit points needing the same amount of rest to be recovered. Why is luck, skill, divine favor or magic tied to the biological healing process? Why does a god only dribble out divine favor? Why is luck tied to tissue recover rates?

Today, unlike in the 1970s, one could make an argument that skill and general performance are impacted by things such as PTSD, so there is some overlap between wounds healing and a more ephemeral mental recovery, but the metaphysical is also pushed hard in the hit point explanation and it doesn't fit well together.

I've gotten ahead of myself a bit because we haven't looked at how hit point recovery happens in 1st edition. This is where the incoherence really hits hard because recovery rates are rather brutal, and the metaphysical elements are marginalized in specific ways.

For natural healing, true rest (no combat, spell casting, etc.) can be performed. A character gains 1 hit point per day in the first week. In the subsequent weeks they gain 1 hit point per day, plus their Constitution bonus per week. If a character rests continuously for 4 weeks they gain all of their hit points back regardless of the amount to be gained.

You can of course use magic to accelerate all of this. Spells, points, and other magic items will give you hit points at a much more accelerated rate. All of these magical effects are specifically defined as healing wounds.

However, that magic or divine grace is not as helpful you if you have gone to 0 hit points or less unless it is very powerful. The character is automatically in a coma for a bit even if they gain positive hit points, and more devastatingly, they simply can not function and must rest for a week, even if they were brought to maximum hit points. The only thing they can do is stumble out of the dungeon and find a bed to collapse into.

I'm walking through all of this because I just have to ask, why were hit points envisioned this way? Why stress the metaphysical when it came to absorbing damage, but when it came to recovery it was slanted towards the physical?

The alternative is seen today in a variety of mediums. Most video games today with a health bar, which is just hit points presented in a different manner, generally have some kind of auto regeneration effect.

Take your typical shooter today and how the health bar works is that if you take too much damage in a short period of time then you could die, but if you are able to duck, hide or generally pull yourself out of the line of fire you'll get your health back and can then rejoin the battle. This approach isn't realistic. If you get shot in real life you're pretty much shut down due to pain, bleeding and shock. However conceptually it emulates the metaphysical a bit more. In a sense you're not truly getting hit, instead you're getting grazed, or need to duck and your nerves are being overwhelmed, to the point where you finally do take an incapacitating hit.

Likewise, with 4th edition of D&D there is finally an introduction of a more explicit metaphysical statement of hit points through healing surges and second winds. Characters have the capacity to regain some of their hit points in a variety of ways, including just taking a breather for a moment to collect themselves. Anyone who plays a sport or has been in highly physical situations knows full well that your capacity to output energy has a limit, but that if you manage the pace of that expenditure it can be sustained over a long period of time. So 4th edition is trying to address the kind of ebb and flow of a person's performance in stressful situations through hit points.

So having some of those alternatives out there now, why weren't these ideas being used or considered back in the 1970s? Why wasn't there a “second wind” or say after five minutes of rest you'd regain half of your hit points, or any other metric where at least a portion of the metaphysical hit points could quickly come back to a character?

 

[kitcik]

So having some of those alternatives out there now, why weren't these ideas being used or considered back in the 1970s? Why wasn't there a “second wind” or say after five minutes of rest you'd regain half of your hit points, or any other metric where at least a portion of the metaphysical hit points could quickly come back to a character?

Short answer to a long-winded question:
Because it's a game mechanic for a fantasy role-playing game that worked.

 

[Niccodaemus]

I think the reason was to make magical healing necessary as part of the game.
In this way, healing is a limited resource, like any other spell.

As for me, I rule that you get half your missing hit points back for each hour of rest. If you fall to zero or below, then it becomes "real" damage. Death or dismemberment is at negative con

 

[krupintupple]

So having some of those alternatives out there now, why weren't these ideas being used or considered back in the 1970s? Why wasn't there a “second wind” or say after five minutes of rest you'd regain half of your hit points, or any other metric where at least a portion of the metaphysical hit points could quickly come back to a character?

...because no-one thought of it until they did, and it didn't exist until it did? Not to pull a Black Swan event here, but the rules evolved through fits and starts until they generally coalesce into an acceptable form and then are grouped accordingly into an edition - this tends to set the vantage points for the realm of gaming possibility. It's like other things, such as S.T.R. when dealing with suspected stroke victims, or certain maneuvres to prevent pasta from sticking together, or how to open a bottle effortlessly: nobody did that in the past because noone had thought to, even though the newer method, trick, or rule may be superior.

Not to be flip, but generally, I take that Gygax likely attempted to deflect criticism from his detractors by being fairly accurate and as realistic as possible - insofar as fantasy gaming was concerned. I imagine that, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, no one game had come out on top, and anyone who attempted to float "Just imagine a long red bar that says Hit Points, and every time you get dinged, it goes down, but healing and potions make it go up, okay?" would probably be sneeringly laughed out of the gaming arena. I try to situation these questions around who the early gamers actually were. During this period, D&D was in its infancy, and comprised mostly of veteran war-gamers, Tolkien fan-boys, literary nerds, history and war buffs, and bookish kids who felt that reading a few encyclopedias worth of rules was more entertaining and fun, than say, going down to the creek to catch fish, or race bikes (I'm definitely in the first group of gaming nerds, do not take this as a criticism).

At any rate, it may well be that it was merely "baked in" to the ruleset, and, as it seemed to work all around, nobody really ever managed to unseat it. I'm sure in the early issues of Dungeon or Dragon, people wrote in about how to fix it, or change it, or make it more realistic, but all things considered, most of the changes would likely add an unwieldy set of additional rules and slow gameplay to a crawl.

So, here's my appraisal, in sum: his audience demanded not factual reality, but something that was plausibly real; it is a sacred cow, not to be touched or messed with; and finally, it would bog down an already immense ruleset.

 

[trancejeremy]

Because D&D wasn't played the same was then as now.

The current mode of playing seems to be going all out - encounters require all the player's magic and possibly hit points.

Instead, it was a game of resource management. You basically keep going until you run out of everything, then go back to civilization until you are ready for another expedition (usually the next play session).

Look at the classic example of how hit points work - the Die Hard movies. Does Bruce Willis pause to take a nap in between fights? No. And the end he is all worn out and tired and beat up, then waits a few years for his next adventure.

Or look at football - they go all out for 3 hours, then need a week to recover, basically. There's a reason they don't play every day.

Ultimately, it's an abstract system. Saying you think that the metaphysical hit points should return quickly as opposed to slowly is just as arbitrary.

 

[Mock26]

Hit Points are certainly more coherent than a lot of attempts to figure them out! I personally see them as an abstract system designed to reward success by and thereby giving characters a chance to face tougher and tougher monsters. I have yet to see a better system of explaining why the hero is able to stand up against the red dragon while the peasants can not. The alternative would be to have it based solely on physical attributes and that will make adventuring extremely deadly, and while I do not mind character death I do not relish the idea of losing a character every couple of adventures! Imaging if a hit points were based on Constitution (say 1 for 1). A fighter with 18 hit points would pretty much always have 18 hit points. That would be find against kobolds or orcs or maybe even ogres, but how could such a hero ever hope to stand up against a dragon?

 

[Tomn]

I've actually been working on a system that would do just that. Your health is based on a racial hit die added to your constitution. Also, you can take abilities (similar to feats, but more powerful) as you level to increase your health, if you want. Mostly, though, your health is stuck at your initial score. The reason you survive is that when you are fighting something, you and the thing make opposed rolls. The difference between the rolls (with modifiers) is the damage dealt. This way, a high level fighter can take on a dragon without having hundreds of hit points. He survives based on pure skill and luck.

 

[Arrowhawk]

Thought I'd drop by to give you an empty answer (I know, big help aren't I?). Anyone who has seriously thought about the plausibility of any RPG inevitably runs into these types of wtf questions. For me it's the no dex bonus mechanic, for a fellow DM, it's the merging of damage reduction and avoidance into a single armor class number.

At the end of your post, you ask why? Why wasn't this done or this thought of before? The simple answer is everybody focuses on different things. For Gygax and crew the incoherence of hit-points was a non-issue. For you it is. So if ten different people were to create a game, each of them would probably focus on something different. Some might want a more rigorous combat system, some might focus on social interaction.

Throughout the years since D&D became formalized, numerous people have explored various was to make this or that aspect more plausible/detailed. But there is no right answer to the balance between playability and plausibility.

 

[FEADIN]

Because the system evolved from Chainmail which came from the tabletop Wargame and in WG your unit has a valor and when you run out of points....no more unit.
It's abstract and allows for heroic deeds as said above I played "realistic" RPG like Légendes Celtiques (French) or another one called Hawkmoon, I died in the first battle, at the first hit because the hp from my legs were negative and so on....very sad, 2 hours of caracter creation and 1 hour of play
You can always use "wind" hp and keeps the 1st level hp as real "blood" hp or any other personnal rule the more important thing is that each player at the table knows the rule to play the same game and enjoy it.

 

[kitsune9]

When I was just getting into rpgs at a young age, as I read the rules for each game, I would imagine the "logic" behind each rule and what it represented. Nowadays, I don't care. I just read the rules and if the game appeals to me, I go with the flow. HP is just one of those rules where it's been around for so many years, I've long since stopped thinking about it's logic or realism and just accept it.