NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7828981" data-attributes="member: 58172">With regard to hit points, I love 5e. For me, the visualization feels realistic when hit points are stamina and luck, eventuating in superficial damage, and culminating in the ‘luck runs out’ and going down at 0 hit points. I am glad, they are called ‘hit’ points rather than ‘health’ points. I think of a reallife boxing match. At first it is all stamina, eventually they get bloodied, but press on exhausted and sloppy, until one of them goes down because of the hit at zero hit points. Totally realistic to me. (Oppositely, the idea that a hero is stabbed thru the heart 20 times is ridiculous to me.)All of that praise said, three things bother me about the hit point system.When a creature finally does go down, with that proverbial stab thru the heart at zero hit points, the idea of popping back up without any consequences feels impossible. Whenever a character reaches zero hit points they must incur at least a chance of lingering wounds. The Exhaustion mechanic seems designed for the Barbarian class specifically, and it is awkward but serviceable to represent a lingering condition if reaching zero hit points.There are no broken bones in D&D. People who complain about the Warlord ‘growing back an arm’ are speaking ignorantly. Because in D&D normal combat NEVER results in a broken arm or a lost limb. There are no mechnics for something like this to happen. The Warlord is simply inspiring resolve and facilitating alertness − the way a coach does during a boxing match − and therefore refreshes hit points. The problem of healing someone at zero hit points is because of the wider problem of anyone springing back up from zero without any consequences.This relates to the third awkwardness of the hit point system. Reaching zero hit points and going unconscious is lethal. Note, this is mitigated by the rules that have the attacker decide whether the final attack causing zero hit points will be lethal or nonlethal. In other words, the boxer could choose to kill an opponent that goes down. But, I would rather have zero hit points be unconsciousness with a chance of serious injury, and the attack can then hit the incapacitated opponent with a coup-de-grace to kill.Finally, I would prefer if ‘death’ at zero hit points means: the loss of ‘life or limb’. Thus reaching zero always means unconscious only, but ‘death’ from failed saving throws normally means a broken arm or broken limb or broken nose, and only possibly means the loss of a limb or death from internal bleeding.</blockquote>

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