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How do you handle hit points?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7590537" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Then you don't really spend them, do you. I mean, spending implies that they are a resource that you are voluntarily exchanging for something, in the way that in CoC 7e you might spend your luck points, or in a narrative game you might choose to spend some token of narrative influence. "Spend or die" is a false choice, and to the extent that it is not a false choice, the same choice can be made in D&D to stand helpless and unresisting against an attack and allow the attacker to kill you. That works I know in 1e and 3e, it's just not a choice we generally ever expect players to make (for obvious reasons). How often does it happen in your games that the player chooses to not spend his hit points?</p><p></p><p>I struggling to understand how this spending concept is more apt than the idea of losing it replaces, or how it really accomplishes anything.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But this has nothing to do with the concept of spending rather than losing, and could be applied as an idea to the idea of losing hit points. For example, a bar brawl in 3e D&D involving attacks without intent to cause lethal damage will result in pretty much the same idea, where at the end of it the losers will be knocked unconscious having taken non-lethal damage in excess of their hit points. </p><p></p><p>I can see some utility in using combat mechanics as a general process for handling any physical contest - say a tug of war or arm wrestling - but in this case the hit points being contested might in no way match the person or groups normal hit points used in combat. As for your idea of a pie eating contest, a person's "stomach points" might in no fashion match their hit points, but be based off of skill in consuming vast quantities of food (professional eaters in no fashion need to be professional boxers and vica versa). As such, that idea might be rather more difficult than not, and might require a supplement explaining the particulars of different sorts of contests - actually, I think EN published a supplement of that sort. </p><p></p><p>As for your idea of doing a duel to first blood using the normal combat mechanics and then resetting things, again I don't see how this has to do with the idea of "spending" hit points, and your description is a little bit weird. Surely a duelist with 4 hit points, suffering 10 points of damage - even if the intent of this damage was to not kill - and which is now bleeding now has somewhat less than 4 hit points? I would be quite wondering how much damage that blow did if it was not 10, and also I might be thinking that duels to 'first blood' were frequently lethal regardless of the intent of the duelists.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7590537, member: 4937"] Then you don't really spend them, do you. I mean, spending implies that they are a resource that you are voluntarily exchanging for something, in the way that in CoC 7e you might spend your luck points, or in a narrative game you might choose to spend some token of narrative influence. "Spend or die" is a false choice, and to the extent that it is not a false choice, the same choice can be made in D&D to stand helpless and unresisting against an attack and allow the attacker to kill you. That works I know in 1e and 3e, it's just not a choice we generally ever expect players to make (for obvious reasons). How often does it happen in your games that the player chooses to not spend his hit points? I struggling to understand how this spending concept is more apt than the idea of losing it replaces, or how it really accomplishes anything. But this has nothing to do with the concept of spending rather than losing, and could be applied as an idea to the idea of losing hit points. For example, a bar brawl in 3e D&D involving attacks without intent to cause lethal damage will result in pretty much the same idea, where at the end of it the losers will be knocked unconscious having taken non-lethal damage in excess of their hit points. I can see some utility in using combat mechanics as a general process for handling any physical contest - say a tug of war or arm wrestling - but in this case the hit points being contested might in no way match the person or groups normal hit points used in combat. As for your idea of a pie eating contest, a person's "stomach points" might in no fashion match their hit points, but be based off of skill in consuming vast quantities of food (professional eaters in no fashion need to be professional boxers and vica versa). As such, that idea might be rather more difficult than not, and might require a supplement explaining the particulars of different sorts of contests - actually, I think EN published a supplement of that sort. As for your idea of doing a duel to first blood using the normal combat mechanics and then resetting things, again I don't see how this has to do with the idea of "spending" hit points, and your description is a little bit weird. Surely a duelist with 4 hit points, suffering 10 points of damage - even if the intent of this damage was to not kill - and which is now bleeding now has somewhat less than 4 hit points? I would be quite wondering how much damage that blow did if it was not 10, and also I might be thinking that duels to 'first blood' were frequently lethal regardless of the intent of the duelists. [/QUOTE]
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