In 2007, how did you see hits and hit points?

[Ashtagon]

The paragraph below is from my house rules document:



Hit Points are a "hero shield", and do not necessarily represent not actual hits, but the amount of effort, chi, ki, stamina, inner beauty, divine providence, whatever, that went into avoiding the attack. Note that hit point damage can represent a minor scratch or bruise; this is how you can still be poisoned by a poisonous snake while “only” taking hit point damage.

Once you run out of hit points, any further damage is taken against your body points, and you begin to take real injuries.

 

[Omegaxicor]

I always thought of Hp as energy and skill, after a while you run out and get hit which is what 0/-9 is for then you get hit badly enough to bleed out and die at -10. When you are unstable you are bleeding to death but when you become stable you are just exhausted (skill wise) like lying on the battlefield exhausted but unhurt but I know several people have different (not always the same different) view points on it, since it isn't described at ALL it is open to assumption and different people assume different things.

one thing a friend asked that did shut me up, if Hp are energy...what is Damage Reduction? I still don't have a good answer for that...

 

[Ashtagon]

DR is "I know I can take that hit, so I'm not spending so much effort dodging it".

 

[Dozen]

I prefer to think of Hit Points as a slight variation of 1#, and the growth of it as growing accoustomed to danger and becoming "better at living", so to say. I go by the pseudo-logic that you can usually shake a wound off if you take one of those every day. Living beings, humans included, can survive injuries you would never believe is possible, so long the body can keep functioning; it's just rare that you are hurt in a way that doesn't harm those more important bits of you. That is, what D&D would call a Critical Hit. I've thought of playtesting a where critical wounds are the norm, but I don't think people would like it all that much. I just shake it off by saying "D&D chars are lucky as hell".

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I wonder, exactly how can you be "hit" without being hit? [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=2]#2 [/URL] doesn't make any sort of logical sense whatsoever.

It does make sense because hit points had long been officially described or defined by saying that only some of them would be representational of a characters capacity to withstand physical damage - and that could be quite a low amount. The rest were skill, luck, favor of the gods, fatigue, what-have-you. A higher level fighter in particular with a heavy total of hit points could sustain a great deal of "damage" from attacks that were determined to "hit" and while he could well be fatigued might still not be physically damaged.

 

[the Jester]

I have always viewed them through the lens of Gygax in the 1e DMG. Only a handful of hit points are actually physical damage, the rest are skill, luck and fatigue.

So #2 .

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=32740]Man in the Funny Hat[/MENTION], I'd always seen fighters as I see the big MMA/Boxing/KungFu fighters. They're definitely getting beaten to hell, but the majority of hits that land don't have much of an effect at all. Those smaller blows are representative of low damage hits, slowly chipping away at that total HP pool.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Should have been more specific options and multi-choice poll, but given the options, I went with 2.

An attack that mechanically "hits" and "does damage" could be represented as missing or being dodged or glancing off armor in the fluff, but that action still exhausting/harming the character to a similar degree as a small slashing could, at least for the low damage hits. IIRC, the 3E core books specifically mention the increased hp from higher levels representing things like "knowing how to move/deflect to turn what would have been a fatal blow at level 1 into a minor scratch," or something like that. Someone hits a dude in full plate with an oversized mallet and does only a little damage, you could easily fluff as striking the armor, but the force of impact still causing harm.

So again, I voted 2, but didn't truly like any of the options. In 2007, I thought things like fatigue and exhaustion could be represented as hp damage, rather than just actual wounds. But not things like fear effects, being insulted/demoralized, or whatever else can cause hurting/healing in 4E.

 

[Drowbane]

Anything that doesn't kill you... can be explained any number of ways.

 

[kingius]

Even today, I view damage as being physical damage to the body. "A blow that would kill a lesser man..." will not kill a high level fighter.