Why do we really need HP to represent things other than physical injuries?

[Andor]

Are there problems with HP? Yes. But if I may paraphrase Winston Churchill for a moment: Hit Points are the worst form of damage tracking, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

 

[Fanaelialae]

There is an important difference between "all hp represent physical toughness (ie meat)" and "all hp loss (ie damage) is physical injury". The first entails the second. But the second doesn't entail the first.

I think 3E, by its official rules, asserts the second but denies the first. It has rules features, though, that encourage the first (ie hp = meat) interpretation (I mention 4 of them below).

I think that 4e, by its offical rules, rejects both proposition. This opens up the door for martial healing, fear attacks causing psychic damage, etc.

I think that AD&D is ambiguous as between the 3E and 4e approaches, but it certainly has some features that (in practice) push in the hp = meat direction.

One of points that I've been trying to make in this thread has been that both the 4e and 3e approaches leverage the meta concept for defense, unlike hp as meat. The damage divisor is effectively that meta concept in action, allowing a high level fighter to take significantly less injury from damage than he would have a few levels ago.

I see the two styles (3e/4e) as just different sides of the coin.

3e uses the meta concept, but states that some physical injury must occur in order for meta elements to be affected. Of course, it contradicts itself in this respect numerous times, such as with the psionic power Inflict Pain. Pain isn't an injury; it's just a sensation that can occur from injury. Therefore, why does pain result in hp loss in 3e, if not for the meta element?

The only thing that 4e changes is the idea that when taking damage, some fraction thereof must be physical. You can attack the meta hp without having to cut through the "meat" hp.

And I'll freely admit, the implementation wasn't perfect. But that could be solved very easily, by placing a keyword on Vicious Mockery and the like to prevent them from reducing a target below 1 hp. This was the first time they attempted such an approach blatantly. They were bound to make a few mistakes. With another go at it, I think they could significantly improve upon the implementation, to address the concerns of most people.

I agree with this as a problem for the "hp as meat" approach. But you can hold that "all hp loss is physical damage" without holding that "hp are meat" - for example, by taking the "damage divisor" approach instead. (You could also go DougMcCrae's way, and say that high level PCs become magical or quasi-magical meat - the barbarian's hp become an EX ability, a bit like a troll's regeneration - less than mundane in some fashion, although not being lost in an anti-magic field.)

The magical meat approach is what I refer to when I say anime-like. As I've said, I've got no qualms with its sense of versimilitude, but it isn't the type of game I typically want to play.

By "damage divisor" approach I mean the idea that all hp loss represents physical damage, but that the amount of physical damage that X lost hit point represent is proporionate to level.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up.

On this approach, when a 2nd level PC add a second die of hp, it's functionally equivalent to keepig hp static, but dividing all damage by 2. And, in general, when an Nth level PC has N hit dice, that is the functional equivalent of dividing all damage taken by N.

I think this is a very common interpretation of the standard rules text on hp, especially this from the d20 SRD:

Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.​

One natural reading of that sentence, in light of the way that hp work, is that all hit point loss represents physical damage, but a given amount of hit point loss means more or less damage depending on the total number of hp that the PC in question possesses. (That passage, for example, seems to rule out purely mental or emotional effects - like fear or 2nd ed-style Psychic Crush - causing hp loss. It also seems to rule out your swashbuckler narration - the swashbuckler is not making more serious blows less serious, but avoiding them altogether.)

The main places where the "divisor" approach breaks down are these:

*classic healing magic - if 32 hp on my 8th level fighter represents the same amount of injury as 4 hp on my 1st level fighter, how come Cure Light Wounds can fully heal the injury of the second character, but barely help the (ostensibly identical) injury of the first character?

*falling damage - how does fighting skill let you turn a fall into something less serious? are all high level PCs thief-acrobats?

*AoE damage - when you're caught in the middle of a fireball or dragon's breath, how can your fighting skill make that less serious? (Not everyone has a shield to duck behind, and not all these effects are directional.)

*the killing blow.

The last of these is interesting. Think about an actual "divisor rule" with standard D&D rounding down: an 8th level PC would take no damage from an attack dealing fewer than 8 hp. So no matter how badly injured, a blow would have to be at least an 8 hp blow (the best possible sword attack from an ordinary person with a longsword) to drop the PC. A 7 hp blow would do nothing.

Whereas with the actual hp mechanics that we have, the 7 hp blow can drop the 8th level PC to 1 hp, and then the merest scratch of a dagger can drop him/her. I don't know what those who hold with the "all hit points are physical, but there is a divisor effect" approach make of this fact, that when we get to very low hp left blows that should be having no effect can in fact drop the character. It's as if, at very low hp totals, the divisor is suddenly lost - the character loses his/her combat skill.


That's why I say that, on the divisor approach, you have to squint a bit to make it work. (On the pure "hp as meat" approach, in which we ignore the second phrase in the SRD definition, we don't get any of these squinting issues. Damage hacks away meat, while healng spells pack it back on. But of coures we do get the much more blatant issue of high level fighters being meatier than dinosaurs.)

That's why I like the meta approach (or abstract approach if you prefer). Hp are whatever you want them to be, but when you reach zero you're dying. Then I can have my deft swashbuckler who almost never (from a narrative perspective) suffers injury despite losing hp, while someone else can play their revenant barbarian as having magical meat hp.

And the nice part about it is, when hp are abstract, you don't need to squint as much to make it work. It's about freedom. You can describe hp any which way you want. More importantly, you have a lot more freedom to express certain mechanics.

It allows you to create the following:

Fear Spell
While affected by the fear spell, every round you must either take a full movement action away from the caster of this spell, or suffer 15 ongoing psychic damage.

When I played fighters and barbarians in 3e, I absolutely abhorred how my supposedly brave warrior could be routed so easily by fear effects (because their willpower saving throws typically were terrible). This allows those warriors to dig deep and stand their ground, albeit at significant risk.

I fail to see what's so bad about that.

I think when the 1st ed says both that hp loss is not all physical damage (in the famous/notorious essay) and also glosses loss of hit points as physical damage (in the footnote to the psionic combat table) it has fallen into contradiction.

I don't think it's an especially severe contradiction. My only point was that even the 1st ed DMG had trouble making up its mind what hp loss represents.

As I've said, I don't see any contradiction whatsoever. He explained in one section how hp work. He explained in another section how psionics cause harm. He didn't go out of his way in the equipment section to restate how weapons interact with meta aspects either. Presumably, two essays were considered to be sufficient commentary on the matter.

 

[Hassassin]

The only thing that 4e changes is the idea that when taking damage, some fraction thereof must be physical.

With the side effect of making no hp loss physical, since it can always be "healed" without healing.

 

[Steelwill]

I think its fine, its a good abstraction if you don't want the game to bog down too much with hit location, loss of limbs, etc. Besides, when a foe dies, more times than not that is the only time it will have needed to exist in game, so I don't mind letting the players describe the death scene as quick or gory as they like, or I will do it for em. HP works fine as representing physical damage. The only spot where that gets wierd in terms of making internal sense with the games own reality is explaining how the fighter who lost 150HP in last night's battle (which if HP are physical damage should mean that guy is messed up and needs to go to the ER) wakes from an extended rest fully healed.

 

[Fanaelialae]

With the side effect of making no hp loss physical, since it can always be "healed" without healing.

No, healing has always been abstract.

Otherwise, how does the same 1d8+5 (let's say max roll, or 13 hp) Cure Light Wounds spell bring a 1st level mage from death's door to full health, but only heal a minor injury on a high level barbarian? The 4 hp mage was at -9 hp, so clearly he was very badly injured. A 130 hp barbarian who is reduced to 117 hp on the other hand, is barely injured (if at all).

The only explanation that I can see is that the CLW restores mostly physical hp to the wizard, but primarily meta hp to the barbarian. As such, healing is abstract and therefore could always be either.

As for 4e making no hp loss physical, that's simply untrue. Some hp must be physical, because otherwise how could you die? I could easily make a revenant barbarian whose hp are represented primarily by "meat" in 4e. What it did was redefine healing.

What 4e essentially does is make hp abstract, therefore healing is also abstract. Let's assume, for arguments sake, that a particular 100 hp character is defined as normally having 10% physical hp, and 90% meta hp. Keep in mind, 4e does not make this statement, I'm simply using it for purposes of illustration about "hp fluidity". That character is reduced to 5 hp, and has clearly suffered physical harm (since he's at 5% of his total hp). 4e doesn't say that a warlord can shout the character's wounds closed, restoring him to 100% health (as being 10% physical and 90% meta). What it says is that the warlord inspires the character to power through, "substituting" morale hp, in lieu of physical and other meta hp. So after healing, the character would still be at 5% physical hp, but the rest would be 95% meta (some of which would be morale, or inspiration).

Your hp total defines how much harm can be thrown at you without you dying. How you fill, or refill, that tank is left up to the table.

Let me put it another way. My roommate has cats. Sometimes they scratch me. When they do, it hurts, but a few moments later it's forgotten. There's no reason why those scratches would impair me if I got into a real fight later. The idea that they would slow me down even a little (1 hp worth) strikes me as absurd.

I've been hurt a lot worse than just cat scratches. It's impressive what the human mind can power through and bounce back from. When I was a kid I smashed the back of my head into a metal door frame by accident. There was blood EVERYWHERE. Fortunately, my aunt knew first aid and managed to stop the bleeding, then rushed me to the doctor where I received quite a few stitches. Nevertheless, a few hours later I was running around and playing as if nothing had happened. Was I some child-paragon of tenacity? Yeah right! I'm pretty sure I still cried over scrapped knees back then. Yet, despite suffering what might have been a potentially life-threatening injury earlier in the day, a few hours later I was perfectly fine.

Abstract hp make perfect sense, as does abstract healing.

 

[Hassassin]

No, healing has always been abstract.

Otherwise, how does the same 1d8+5 (let's say max roll, or 13 hp) Cure Light Wounds spell bring a 1st level mage from death's door to full health, but only heal a minor injury on a high level barbarian? The 4 hp mage was at -9 hp, so clearly he was very badly injured. A 130 hp barbarian who is reduced to 117 hp on the other hand, is barely injured (if at all).

Because it's magic? No, seriously that was one of the "hp as meat" things pemerton mentioned. I'd like to get it fixed, but it isn't difficult.

As for 4e making no hp loss physical, that's simply untrue. Some hp must be physical, because otherwise how could you die? I could easily make a revenant barbarian whose hp are represented primarily by "meat" in 4e. What it did was redefine healing.

I should have qualified: 4e makes all hp loss that isn't immediately lethal (work as if it is) non-physical.

Abstract hp make perfect sense, as does abstract healing.

I'm sorry for quoting myself, but this is why I don't think abstract 4e style hp make sense:

[F]or consistency the main requirement is that I know at the time of the hit how I can describe it without causing narrative inconsistencies later if some kind of ability or power is used.

In 4e I simply cannot describe damage consistently, unless I assume that no damage is physical, except that which kills a character (and even that isn't known before death saves).

 

[Hussar]

In 4e I simply cannot describe damage consistently, unless I assume that no damage is physical, except that which kills a character (and even that isn't known before death saves).

That's actually not true. While there might be problems if you are very specific in your description ("The arrow plunges deep into your shoulder"), most of the time it's not really a problem (The arrow slams into your armor, causing lots of bruising, but you don't think anything is broken).

Even in the case where the character goes down ("The troll slams into your with it's huge club, Sir Billingsley crashes to the ground with a sickening thud!") is still fairly easy to narrate ("But, the blow, despite it's power, merely winded you, and you drag yourself to your feet badly battered!")

I mean, you only have to look at genre fiction to see thousands of examples of a character taking hits and either fighting through them, or, even after being brought down, shaking his head, standing back up, and keeping going.

And this is where the problem with HP=Physical Damage 100% comes in. In that model, anything that drops you below zero hp is always a serious wound. You can't just stand up afterward. Unless, of course, the cleric makes it better. Which removes from the game lots of the very exciting scenes that you see in all sorts of action movies where the good guy or bad guy, gets up after being knocked down.

In LotR, when Frodo get's tagged by the Cave Troll (in the movie I'm talking about), you cannot do that scene with the HP=Physical Damage model. Frodo dropped, and certainly not from any non-lethal attack. Without a cleric, he bleeds to death most of the time, or, even if he's helped by friends, he's not standing up without serious bedrest.

In Empire Strikes Back, when the Wampus knocks Luke down and takes him out, you can't have the rest of the scene using 3e style HP mechanics. It doesn't work. Luke either bleeds to death, or, he's conscious but below 0 HP, which means he cannot fight, let alone escape.

Yes, there are corner cases where you can find the "Schrodinger's Wounds" issue. But, that's almost always caused by DM's being too specific in their descriptions of wounds when it's both unnecessary to be that specific and most likely very unrealistic.

In a game where it's perfectly reasonable for a high level fighter to take on an elephant with a sword, are you really going to get hung up on this for realism?

 

[JamesonCourage]

In LotR, when Frodo get's tagged by the Cave Troll (in the movie I'm talking about), you cannot do that scene with the HP=Physical Damage model.

My RPG has two types of HP: physical wounds (HP) and a sort of in-combat fatigue (THP). In my game, as long as damage reduction from armor (which it grants in addition to AC) prevents some damage, half of all lethal you take is converted to nonlethal.

If the cave troll's damage was severely hampered by the damage reduction of the mithril armor, it would deal a couple points of lethal, and of nonlethal (after it wiped out his THP). He'd have a bad bruise (a couple days to heal, maybe). I also allow a Fort save (DC 10 + current negative HP value) to stay conscious when in the negatives. This could be why he's not unconscious.

Or it was, potentially, a simple stunning effect when it dealt no or very low damage (half of which went to nonlethal). Take your pick. Definitely doable in a "HP=Physical Damage model."

In Empire Strikes Back, when the Wampus knocks Luke down and takes him out, you can't have the rest of the scene using 3e style HP mechanics. It doesn't work. Luke either bleeds to death, or, he's conscious but below 0 HP, which means he cannot fight, let alone escape.

We went over this and showed how it could work in another thread. Especially if he had nonlethal damage on him prior to being hit from the cold weather. But either way, we're talking about "HP=Physical Damage model" and not 3.X, as far as I know. And with that model, there's certainly ways it can happen. My game would support it fine.

In a game where it's perfectly reasonable for a high level fighter to take on an elephant with a sword, are you really going to get hung up on this for realism?

Yep (not that that's really feasible for a long, long time in my RPG). As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

The damage divisor is effectively that meta concept in action, allowing a high level fighter to take significantly less injury from damage than he would have a few levels ago.

I see the two styles (3e/4e) as just different sides of the coin.

3e uses the meta concept, but states that some physical injury must occur in order for meta elements to be affected. Of course, it contradicts itself in this respect numerous times, such as with the psionic power Inflict Pain. Pain isn't an injury; it's just a sensation that can occur from injury. Therefore, why does pain result in hp loss in 3e, if not for the meta element?

The only thing that 4e changes is the idea that when taking damage, some fraction thereof must be physical. You can attack the meta hp without having to cut through the "meat" hp.

I agree that Inflict Pain contradicts the "official" 3E line on hp. I see this as analogous to Gygax apparently contrdicting himself when he describes hp loss from psionics as physical damage, although elsewhere he's told us that hp loss can represent a wearing down of luck, skill etc. Psionics is apparently a ripe source of contradictions in the presentation of hp!

I don't see any contradiction whatsoever. He explained in one section how hp work. He explained in another section how psionics cause harm.

I think the contradiction is in describing hp loss as physical damage, when elsewhere it's been expressly stated that hp loss is not exclusively, or for a high level PC perhaps even primarily, physical damage.

And I'll freely admit, the implementation wasn't perfect. But that could be solved very easily, by placing a keyword on Vicious Mockery and the like to prevent them from reducing a target below 1 hp.

Personally, I would not be a big fan of that keyword. I like Vicous Mockery and fear that can kill. I think they fit the fantasy genre.

I fail to see what's so bad about that.

I don't think anything is wrong with it at all. That's why I play 4e, and why 4e is the only version of D&D that I have any serious interest in playing.

But there are others who apparently do think there is something wrong with it. They appear not to like the possibilities that it opens up (like hp loss from purely mental/emotional effects, martial healing, etc).

With the side effect of making no hp loss physical, since it can always be "healed" without healing.

I should have qualified: 4e makes all hp loss that isn't immediately lethal (work as if it is) non-physical.

In 4e to lose hit points is to lose the capacity to survive in a fight. So you are right that hit point loss is not physical. Hit point loss is not, per se, anything in the gameworld. It is primarily a metagame status. But it can be the result of physical injury. It can also be the result of other things, including fear or mind blasts.

In 4e I simply cannot describe damage consistently, unless I assume that no damage is physical, except that which kills a character (and even that isn't known before death saves).

I don't think that this is genuinely the case. For example, I frequently describe physical injury to the PCs in my 4e game - they are struck by blows, grazed by swords, etc. As they "heal" - being urged on by the cleric, or catching their second wind - they fight one despite these injuries. There is no problem with describing damage.

It is a consequence of 4e that no hit point loss, except (perhaps) damage that drops a PC below 0 hp, can be described in such a way that it would be impossible to fight on in disregard of it. (So no disembowelling, maiming etc). But that has always been true of D&D, because D&D has never, in any edition, had mechanical consequences of hit point loss consistent with a PC having been disembowelled, maimed etc.

I should add - this constraint only applies to PCs. For most monster and NPCs, which have no access to in-combat healing, narration can generally be a bit more gory if desired.

 

[pemerton]

Are there problems with HP? Yes. But if I may paraphrase Winston Churchill for a moment: Hit Points are the worst form of damage tracking, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

I don't agree with this. Hit points can work as a damage tracking mechanism. It's notorious that they can be wonky when it comes to falling damage and some AoE damage.

I think 4e is the most consistent version of hit points to date, and it really puts their metagame character to flavoursome work (eg with martial healing, psychic damage etc).

Other systems of damage tracking, in which damage is tracked mostly in accumulated wound penalties (Rolemaster and Burning Wheel are examples of this, and Runequest has some similarities to it), can produce a more visceral and gritty vibe in play. They don't have the same versatility for incorporating moral effects, though.

So I wouldn't say that hp are superior. But undoubtedly they are viable.