Please take the whole "Hit Points and Regaining Hit points" back to the drawing board

[The Little Raven]

Actually the detail wasn't that very far. You still haven't proven the actual percentages as to what was physical and what wasn't.

You aren't putting forth anything that hasn't already been said. We have all stated that hit points have always been an abstract.

You are claiming that the physical/metaphysical distribution of hit points was 50/50. Thus a character with 95 hit points has 47/48 physical hit points, according to you. Gary's explanation of the breakdown of the amount of hit points that would be physical directly contradicts that claim, because his examples given have physical hit points being far less than 50%. And that's in addition to his constant statements that physical damage comprise a small amount of the hit point total as opposed to luck/morale/divine favor/skill/whatever.

 

[Christian]

Where are you getting the 95 from?

Average hit points for a 10th-level AD&D1 fighter with 18 Constitution, I'd surmise.

 

[Kzach]

I say scrap the whole current concept and start over. I don't like how they describe hit points and how they work in the game. It sounds to me like they are just hitting each other with foam bats until someone passes out from exhaustion.

I find it bizarre that in a game of imagination, people don't want to use their imaginations.

I'm not trying to disparage you, just saying that in my experience you form the majority and not the minority.

When I became exasperated by people complaining about hit points I started to describe 'hits' differently and explained to my groups that nothing other than the blow that reduced you to 0 or lower was anything serious. I became very animated and imaginative about how hit points were lost describing loads of cool situations of near misses, scrapes, facial scars, etc.

And yet... I got mocked. Laughter and incredulity greeted me, not amazement and astonishment at the awesomeness of my creativity. I tried also enforcing players to be creative about 'hit' descriptions and got stonewalled.

It seems people just can't get past the terms 'hit' and 'damage'. To me, that showcases a very rigid mind that is unwilling to engage creative interpretations and would rather be miserable in conformity than happy in creativity.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I say scrap the whole current concept and start over. I don't like how they describe hit points and how they work in the game. It sounds to me like they are just hitting each other with foam bats until someone passes out from exhaustion.

I also don’t like the concept of regaining all of your hit points after a full rest. I prefer to gain hit points at either a slow rate or at a faster rate with magic.

It sounds to me like the whole “Healing Surge” type mechanic that is built in with your HD is supposed to represent healing as the stamina part. I don’t know, it all just seems very clunky to me.

I want them to go back to gaining your Con mod along with your HD when gaining HP per level.

Please scrap the three death saves as well. I want dying to be a bit easier. I don’t want to have to jump through five different hoops in order to kick the bucket – In my opinion, it takes away a lot of the danger.

Can't XP, but I agree. Let's define hit points narrowly and concretely, put anything else important in a separate mechanic or mechanics, and then build on that.

 

[Stalker0]

You aren't putting forth anything that hasn't already been said. We have all stated that hit points have always been an abstract.

While true, an organized collection of rebuttal can itself be a powerful argument, more so then the arguments repeated over many threads.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I find it bizarre that in a game of imagination, people don't want to use their imaginations.

I'm not trying to disparage you, just saying that in my experience you form the majority and not the minority.

When I became exasperated by people complaining about hit points I started to describe 'hits' differently and explained to my groups that nothing other than the blow that reduced you to 0 or lower was anything serious. I became very animated and imaginative about how hit points were lost describing loads of cool situations of near misses, scrapes, facial scars, etc.

And yet... I got mocked. Laughter and incredulity greeted me, not amazement and astonishment at the awesomeness of my creativity. I tried also enforcing players to be creative about 'hit' descriptions and got stonewalled.

It seems people just can't get past the terms 'hit' and 'damage'. To me, that showcases a very rigid mind that is unwilling to engage creative interpretations and would rather be miserable in conformity than happy in creativity.

Perhaps the players like to imagine their characters having actual wounds (without having to be below 0 hp and dying to get them), but the triviality of hit point damage precludes this. Perhaps they feel entitled to inflicting some meaningful harm when they themselves attack and roll a hit, rather than hearing how their attack did nothing meaningful even though they rolled well. The rules describe near misses and scrapes very well using low attack and damage values. They don't describe characters getting hurt very well.

I see it as an issue of hit points constraining the imagination by not allowing many meaningful outcomes to an attack.

 

[Campbell]

Warning: Thinking too hard about Dungeons and Dragons has been known to collapse the space time continuum. Doubly so when it comes hit points. Honestly the way that hp/damage and attack/AC work together is a pretty disjointed mechanic, but it's part of what gives D&D its charm.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Full HP after one rest seems a bit much, but otherwise I like the approach.

Ditto. No more than half IMHO.

 

[LordGraz'zt]

If you did not have full HP after a rest - doesnt it just slow down the game?

 

[triqui]

You do realize that you helped my argument. Thank you!

I had already stated that hit points have always been a bit of an abstraction. Gygax pretty much had it at 50/50.

Like they are now. There's virtually no difference between AD&D description and DDnext description. You can dislike hit points, a ton of people do. But then, you dislike Gary Gigax hit points as much as Mike Mearls. Hit points is one of those things Mike Mearls said he won't touch, because they "are D&D"