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

[Hassassin]

But in that moment of the combat how is the difference described? Describing something way after the fact is a little difficult unless you are writing down each how much damage each "hit" does seperately. I think most of us just subtract hit points from the total hit point pool, we don't have a list of the damage we have taken.

However you like. If you see that the fighter lost 50% of his HP you can describe it in a certain way, if 10% then in another. There's no need to wait until after the fact, just until you've rolled damage and seen whether he dropped.

 

[Kingreaper]

Mine is a very naive and honest question. Why can't we just live with HP representing only a creature's ability to take physical damage and injuries before dropping? What are the bad things that will happen to the game if we do that?

Either we change HP scaling completely, making it much much slower, and increase defense scaling to compensate.

OR

We have a world where a fighter with 27 arrows in him is able to carry on fighting just fine.

 

[Blacky the Blackball]

The problem with using "hit points=physical damage" is that it's a slippery slope.

First you decide that hit points should equal physical damage.

Then you decide that this makes it unrealistic to have them so inflationary, so you keep the value static.

Then you decide that this makes it unrealistic for armour to reduce your chance to be hit but be unable to stop damage if you are hit, so you make armour act as damage reduction.

Then you decide that this makes it unrealistic because a good fighter has no better way of dodging blows than a poor one, so you introduce a parry mechanic.

Then you decide that this makes it unrealistic because thieves taking damage to their hand from a trap can be killed by it just as easily as people being stabbed in the face, so you introduce locational hit points and rules for limb loss.

And before you know it you're playing Runequest, and killing ducks.

So please, before you start using "hit points = physical damage", think about what it will lead to and those poor ducks that you're dooming.

Won't somebody please think of the ducks?

 

[Bluenose]

Won't somebody please think of the ducks?

Isn't dead ducks generally considered a bnous?

 

[Bobbum Man]

Personally, I think after 4 editions D&D is ready for wound point/stun point system or whatever you want to call it in the core.

4e went close with that with heal surges, but it failed with having all of them get back at the end of the day instead of via healing, which angered a lot of people.

If they could make it an optional module, so that if you don't want it you can just use old style HPs, well I have no idea about how it could be done, but I really think that would be the first mark for me that it could be the "best edition evah".

Sorry...but you already have games like Rolemaster and Runequest for this.

Hit points may be more abstract than some people want, but as a mechanic they do their job.

Ask yourself, if the impetus of your desire to see wound penalties become part of core has more to do with utility, or with personal validation.

 

[Dausuul]

Mine is a very naive and honest question. Why can't we just live with HP representing only a creature's ability to take physical damage and injuries before dropping? What are the bad things that will happen to the game if we do that?

It's a very legitimate question and worth discussing.

The purpose of hit points is to be limited but reliable protection versus death. As long as you have a decent amount of hit points left, your character is safe from being wiped out by a single lucky hit. However, that protection is exhaustible, so you can still die if you get in over your head. D&D expects player characters to get in a lot of fights, and the hit point system is a nice way to balance "PCs should live longer than half a session" against "PCs should not be invulnerable."

What this means is you need to have enough hit points that one hit can't kill you. For many people, this introduces believability issues, since in real life one hit can quite easily be fatal. Those issues get worse as characters advance and their hp increase*; as others have noted, you get to the point where fighters routinely take dozens of stab wounds without going down. Gary Gygax addressed those issues with the very first Hit Points Are Not Physical Toughness Paragraph. Every edition includes a version of this paragraph somewhere in the core rulebooks, and every edition except 4E totally ignores it throughout the rest of the system.

I do think that every hit which deals damage should be narrated as connecting, for a whole bunch of reasons--for example, many attacks have "rider" effects such as poison or weakness, and those don't make any sense if the attack didn't inflict some kind of injury. But an attack which inflicts 10 points of damage has to be narrated differently depending on the target's hit point total. To the high-level fighter with 100 hit points, it's a grazing cut. To the apprentice wizard with 5 hit points, it's a critical and possibly mortal wound.

Myself, I would like to see D&D move to a wound/vit system where "physical toughness" and "defensive skill" are split out into their own pools. It addresses this concern as well as several others. I don't expect it to be the default system in 5E, but perhaps it can be an optional module in the core.

[SIZE=-2]*The need for hit points to increase with level is a separate issue. There are reasons why I think it's a good idea, but I won't get into that just now.[/SIZE]

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's how they work in pre-4e, and I don't feel the OP was asking for anything new, although I could be wrong.

Nope, his was an honest question and you're right in that this is how 'pre-4E' looked at it. But here's the thing...

People who do not like (and have chosen not to play) 4E due to the healing surge system, usually say its because hit point loss no longer represents physical wounds, because they can get removed by inspirational talk by warlords and the like. There is a disconnect there between the game mechanics and how they would choose to describe what is happening in-game. To them, it makes horrible narrative sense and breaks their immersion.

Many of us who like the healing surge mechanics do so because in 'pre-4E' the 'hit points as wounds' idea we feel is ALSO a horrible narrative sense and a breaking of immersion. As Minigiant said quite well... if every attack that hits is a physical 'wound' that doesn't just go away and has to be magically healed, then a kobold can 'wound' you 15+ times during a combat (doing a 5 HP 'wound' each time). And many of us find the concept of being hacked by a sword 15 times without dying to be as patently absurd as "shouting someone better".

In both situations, both sides easily handwave away the disconnect between mechanics and narrative in those parts we're fine with... but we fight tooth and nail against the disconnect that we just CAN'T accept. And unless a system with options are put into place for 5E where both sides can get closer to what they want... we're never going to have a consensus.

 

[Danzauker]

Sorry...but you already have games like Rolemaster and Runequest for this.

Hit points may be more abstract than some people want, but as a mechanic they do their job.

Ask yourself, if the impetus of your desire to see wound penalties become part of core has more to do with utility, or with personal validation.

I don't care at all about Rolethis and Runethat, I care about D&D. If another system has something worthy, I'm happy if the system I like implements something similar.

Expecially if I specified that it should be optional.

And, yes, it's personal validation. I'm just stating what I would like. Isn't it the sense of a public forum?

 

[Naszir]

However you like. If you see that the fighter lost 50% of his HP you can describe it in a certain way, if 10% then in another. There's no need to wait until after the fact, just until you've rolled damage and seen whether he dropped.

And if everyone sees that the fighter just lost 50% of his hit points in a single hit of physical damage from the maw of a dragon he ... what ... I'm trying to figure out a way to describe this ... he was bitten badly but not badly enough that it broke any bones? He was just bitten by a dragon. The bite actually hit the fighter. Where's the wiggle room in the description of actual physical damage that the fighter took? A scrape isn't going to run the fighter down 50% of his hit points in a single shot.

 

[CleverNickName]

[MENTION=82555]the[/MENTION] OP:

Short answer: we don't. But hear me out.

I think the "need" for a soft, flexible definition of hit points came from a desire for heroic roleplay (instead of a more classic style). Some players prefer that their characters be able to heal themselves of damage, but not have to rely on magic to do so. This creates a need for explanation. How does a character "heal" himself of damage, without actually healing the damage?

The answer is, well, you can't. So you have to redefine the word "healing," or you have to redefine "damage." And that's where this whole debate came from.

It's kind of like our Federal Income Tax. When the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1893, the government had two choices: they could either (a) change the wording of the tax bill, or (b) change the wording of the Constitution. So they amended the Constitution, and presto, the FIC is no longer unconstitutional.*

Some players want to play heroic, Hollywood action hero-style characters. And in order for this to happen, characters need a plot device that lets them heal, ignore, or otherwise recover from damage at critical moments of the story. For most of us, this is done on the "healing" side, through the use of magic spells or potions or similar devices. But others prefer to explain it on the "damage" side, changing the definition of damage so that their mechanic works.

There's nothing wrong with either style of play. I prefer the original description of "hit points", in the Basic Players Rulebook:

In the game, when any creature is hit (either monster or character), damage is caused. There is a way of keeping track of damage, called hit points.

The number of hit points is the amount of damage that a creature can take before being killed. Hit points can be any number; the more hit points a creature has, the harder it is to kill. We often use an abbreviation for hit points: it is hp.

Your fighter starts with 8 hp (hit points) and still has all 8, since the goblin never hit you. He may have hit your armor or shield, but never got through your protection, so these attacks are still called "misses" -- they didn't actually damage your character."

This was the first definition that I ever learned, and it has always been good enough for me and my players. So I believe the OP is asking a loaded question...of course we don't "need" to redefine hit points; some of us just want to. And that's cool.

-----
*Yes, I know that I am glossing over a lot here, what with all the property taxes and Civil War funding and what-not. But you get the point, right?