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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bramadan" data-source="post: 4218758" data-attributes="member: 1064">The philosophy behind hit-points the way I see it is as follows(I believe it has not really changed ever since 1st ed. AdnD):1. Most injuries made by lethal weapons have capacity to be incapacitating.2. Human beings and other creatures have capacity to ignore such injuries to a certain extent. 3. Some fraction of that capacity comes from the physical bulk and stamina. This fraction is relatively high for non-human creatures such as giant bears, dragons, etc and is very small for humans and human-like creatures. 4. For (somewhat normal) humans, most of the injury ignoring capacity comes from bravery and grit - ability to just clench one's teeth and carry on...4a. For heroes: the bravery and grit are taken to the extreme, in addition divine favor, luck and innate ability to turn greater injury into a lesser one are all at play. Gary Gygax in 1st ed DMG stated that for a 90HP fighter - only about 15HP represent the physical injury and 75 the insubstantial karma that is being slowly eroded away as the combat goes on. Those 15HP worth of injuries are the sort of cuts and blows that would have downed even a considerable normal person but our 10th level fighter manages to fight through them because of his great self discipline and pain tolerance.In this picture - Minion is a sort of creature that has very little basic bravery and grit, they panic easily and freeze with fear as soon as they take the first hit - even if they are physically capable of continuing to fight. They will certainly not have inner reserves of fortitude and collectedness that are needed to keep on going.In that they are similar to great majority of people in the "real world". If Minion is in the presence of an inspiring leader or drunk or drugged or some such - they will have their natural bravery and grit supplemented which will be reflected by them having temporary hit points. To go back to your village example, if little Tim gets a nasty knife cut he immediately drops what he is doing and bawls for his mother. If his father does likewise he is probably able to continue doing what he is doing provided it is important enough. If his father gets hit by the saber over the face - even if he survives he is not likely to seek inner fortitude to fight on (unless for example his wife and kids are at stake). He is not (necessarily) dead but he is out of combat. If you take into account that incapacitation =/= death then minions and their hit points start making ways more sense.</blockquote>

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