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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6862702" data-attributes="member: 42582">My own view is that hit points straddle a line between serving the sort of representational function that you describe, and being a purely metagame device.There's no doubt that characters can (in the fiction) feel tired, forlorn, etc, and the way that the player acquires awareness of this is via hit point depletion.But hit point depletion can also correlate to a loss of resolve, and to ablation of luck and divine protections (Gygax emphasises these things in his AD&amp;D rulebooks). I'm not sure that the character is necessarily aware of these things. In my own life, I know that I'm not always the best judge of when my resolve is failing, or of when I need bucking up.In my 4e game, when the player of the cleric or paladin asks &quot;Does anyone need healing?&quot; and the players all report on their hit point status, what I envisage happening in the fiction that the character is looking around to see if any of his/her comrades appears to be flagging or looking hard-pressed. S/he then speaks a word of benediction (Healing Word, Word of Vigour), perhaps while gently touching the ally (Lay on Hands), and the character's spirits are raised and s/he is able to go on.I don't have such a strong mental image for what happens in AD&amp;D or 5e, which seem to use more of a &quot;cure wounds&quot; model and which also require the cleric or paladin to choose how much healing to do (level of slot; or hit points of LoH) - which sort of implies that high level characters (like Conan) have gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, and hence need more powerful magic in order to be roused when their spirits flag.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6862702, member: 42582"] My own view is that hit points straddle a line between serving the sort of representational function that you describe, and being a purely metagame device. There's no doubt that characters can (in the fiction) feel tired, forlorn, etc, and the way that the [I]player[/I] acquires awareness of this is via hit point depletion. But hit point depletion can also correlate to a loss of resolve, and to ablation of luck and divine protections (Gygax emphasises these things in his AD&D rulebooks). I'm not sure that the character is necessarily aware of these things. In my own life, I know that [I]I'm[/I] not always the best judge of when my resolve is failing, or of when I need bucking up. In my 4e game, when the player of the cleric or paladin asks "Does anyone need healing?" and the players all report on their hit point status, what I envisage happening in the fiction that the character is looking around to see if any of his/her comrades appears to be flagging or looking hard-pressed. S/he then speaks a word of benediction (Healing Word, Word of Vigour), perhaps while gently touching the ally (Lay on Hands), and the character's spirits are raised and s/he is able to go on. I don't have such a strong mental image for what happens in AD&D or 5e, which seem to use more of a "cure wounds" model and which also require the cleric or paladin to choose [I]how much[/I] healing to do (level of slot; or hit points of LoH) - which sort of implies that high level characters (like Conan) have gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, and hence need more powerful magic in order to be roused when their spirits flag. [/QUOTE]

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