"THIS does only 1d4 damage?!"

[CWD]

This is going to sound nutty, but when I DM games I take damage and Hit Points literally. I mean, its a fantasy game for goodness sake!

If my players pepper a high level fighter with arrows, I tell them, yes he has 15 arrows sticking out of him. So what?

Its all part of the high-fantasy feel. If a player mentions that no human can could take that kind of punishment, I agree and explain that a high level D&D character is basically a superhero minus the radioactive spider bites. If you accept that somewhat unusual premise, many of the rules of the game suddenly cease being unrealistic.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Oh....then there's the 20 always hits rule, then I could back that up with another 20, and crit that Mike Tyson sucker! Ha... Take that 4-6 points of damage Mikey!!!! Who's the man now?

 

[Mistwell]

I think that the HP thing is a measurement of ability to dodge, the measurement of armour's strength, a measurement of luck, and to a VERY SMALL DEGREE, a mesaurement of how much actual damage you can take.

Wait, so let me get this straight. When you lose hit points, you are losing some dodge, some luck and some armor strength. When a heal spell is cast on me (or when I sleep at night) I am gaining back dodge ability? Luck? Sleep heals my armor?

Come on now...

 

[Number47]

Unable to post anything useful, I just have this to say:

McNuggets!

 

[Tortoise]

Football running back metaphor for D&D combat.

Look at it this way.

A pro running back is less likely to get tackled than someone fresh off the street.

Why? Because he has practiced, trained, and has experience at dealing with the situation on the playing field. The guy off the street who has played next to no football is far more likely to hit the ground from a lesser impact than the pro who knows by habit how to compensate and dodge.

The tackle can still down both of them, but the pro won't be as easily had.

 

[Thistleknot]

Written by Mistwell:

Wait, so let me get this straight. When you lose hit points, you are losing some dodge, some luck and some armor strength. When a heal spell is cast on me (or when I sleep at night) I am gaining back dodge ability? Luck? Sleep heals my armor?

Come on now...

Acts like dodging and parrying swords and stuff make people fatigued. This could be represented from loss of hit points, because battle is very strenuous. Healing spells could get rid of some of that fatigue and restore those "dodge" hit points back. Sleep would do the same thing, though at a slower rate. Wounds close and you feel more refreshed after healing because you are less tired. With sleeping, some of your natural healing kicks in and removes some of the tiredness and some of your wounds knit together a little more securely.

In my view of how hit points work (see my above post), people lose some of their ability to dodge as well as take physical damage when they lose hit points, and healing spells and sleep would regenerate some of the fatigue as well as some of the physical damage as well.

Not all the damage has to come directly from the weapon hitting the character.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling really creative, I describe fights as "The draconian swings his greatsword at you with all his might, and you manage to deflect the swing, but your left arm twists painfully and you take 8 damage." or "You twist deftly as the rapier darts for your heart, and it catches you on the edge of your shoulder, cutting a shallow gash. You take 4 points of damage."

Sword and Fist has a combat described somewhat in this style between two duelists.

Then again, this is just a fantasy abstraction, and we all might be thinking about this way too much.

 

[SableWyvern]

Ah, deary, deary me.

Anything directly relevant that I would say has already been said, save one very important thing, which I have said on numerous occasions before (and which I am pretty sure is a paraphrased version of one of hong's laws):

Trying to precisely define the nature of hp is a task bound not only for failure, but the beginning of an unstoppable vortex that will suck you inexorably into the depths of the purest and most horrible insanity.

As to the question no-one seems to have noticed:

And why will armor prevent a character from being "hit" with a dice roll at all?

Attack rolls represent the ability to overcome all an opponent's defences, not simply hit him. For an armoured character with a positive dex modifier, an attack roll ranging from 10 to (9 + armour bonus) can be considered to have hit, but not with sufficient skill to find a weak spot or simply bash through.

Happy arguing all.

 

[Corinth]

I don't see the problem.

Hit points represent the ability to sustain damage and continue functioning, as well as the ability to turn a lethal blow into something less serious. In both cases, we are talking about sustaining physical injury. An experienced character is both tougher than a novice, and he's better able to roll with a blow or turn with a blade such that he can mitigate the injury to some degree.

The weapons in the game are calibrated against 1st level NPCs, such as commoners and warriors. They go down rather easy. With PCs, it's a little harder at 1st level and it gets harder still from there. That's how it's meant to be, folks; it's a feature, not a bug.

 

[Ruvion]

HPs...

So, here are the established features of Hit Points by the board members...

Hit Point represent...
...Dodging and parrying using weapons and armor
...Stamina
...Luck
...Turn major injuries into minor ones

Luck is the hardest one to explain, regarding how a healing potion (spell) can restore luck in a given individual. Well, I say an adventurer makes his own luck during a fight, but in order to make luck happen, he needs to be in a fighting trim condition. Lower the hit points (and more tired and sluggish you become) less chance to seize the opportunity to do a last minute (lucky) dodge that saves his life. To paraphrase, in order to avoid that leathal blow, a defensive roll may not save your life if not for a timely intervention (luck); however, if you did not have the stamina (ie HP) to do the roll in the first place, you may be toast regardless of the lucky intervention.

So higher the HP, higher the Dodge+Luck+Stamina factor

 

[SableWyvern]

Ruvion:

The luck element of hp and magical healing is actually quite easy to reconcile.

Healing spells are divine magic; hence they bestow the blessing of the gods upon characters, as well as performing conventional healing of physical wounds.