Why Not Just Call Them Stamina Points?

[JohnSnow]

What he said. The only flaw in 3rd edition's Hit Points in the "Cure x wounds" spells. What wounds do they cure if you are just resisting actual physical damage?

But all in all, 4e makes it clearer. Regarding hit points at least.

Well, I'd argue that the "Cure X wounds" spells are especially suspect.

Would anyone argue that 1d8+level hit points is actually curing "light wounds?" On a high-level fighter sure. But to Joe-Bob the peasant, that 5-9+ hit points will bring him back from the brink of death and put him out plowing the next day.

"Cure Light Wounds" my rosey red butt.

 

[pawsplay]

It's pretty obvious if one carefully reads what is in the 1E through 3E rules that hit points in those games were a combination of actual damage (e.g. the Massive Damage rule) and the ability to deflect serious damage into minor damage.

They tried to do this with Star Wars d20. It didn't work very well.

 

[hong]

"Cure Light Wounds" my rosey red butt.

Okay. Hold still!

 

[JohnSnow]

They tried to do this with Star Wars d20. It didn't work very well.

It works just wonderfully with Star Wars Saga Edition, which uses...hit points.

It does not work with the earlier edition wound point and vitality point rules. It introduces needless complexity that adds swingy results (characters getting one-shot-killed) to the game.

Hit Points as an abstraction that represents mulitple things works fine. Trying to break those things out, for the most part, introduces complexity that, as the designers have said, "makes a few people happy at the cost of added complexity that most players neither want nor need."

IMO, it's much better to target the game at the many, even if it upsets a few people's sense of "realism."

 

[KarinsDad]

Nonsense. A PC with 1 hit point is in no life threatening danger - unless he's attacked again. He is, for all intents and purposes, unimpaired and unhurt.

Is he now?

I'll ignore the rest of your post and just concentrate on this misconception (or should I call it nonsense like you did?).

A Barbarian that is Raging can be a PC with 1 hit point.

He stops raging. He minimally goes into a dying state. Worse case scenario, he dies immediately.


Alternatively, a PC with an Amulet of Health at 1 hit point takes it off (or he walks into an Antimagic Field). He minimally goes into a dying state. Worse case scenario, he dies immediately.


In neither of these cases was the PC attacked.


You position is not supportable and flawed. A PC that is not at max hit points is damaged. Bottom line.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

A Barbarian that is Raging can be a PC with 1 hit point.
He stops raging. He minimally goes into a dying state. Worse case scenario, he dies immediately.
Alternatively, a PC with an Amulet of Health at 1 hit point takes it off (or he walks into an Antimagic Field). He minimally goes into a dying state. Worse case scenario, he dies immediately.
In neither of these cases was the PC attacked.
You position is not supportable and flawed. A PC that is not at max hit points is damaged. Bottom line.

For the most part I'm fairly neutral in this argument, but I actually laughed reading "Your position is not supportable and flawed"

What YOU just posted, KarinsDad is an incredibly flawed argument.

It's not the being at ONE that kills these characters, it's the being negative that results from the situations you described. The poster's original point stands. There's NOTHING wrong with you while you are at one HP.

Fitz

 

[JohnSnow]

Thanks Fitz. I'll just take your answer.

 

[KarinsDad]

What YOU just posted, KarinsDad is an incredibly flawed argument.

It's not the being at ONE that kills these characters, it's the being negative that results from the situations you described. The poster's original point stands. There's NOTHING wrong with you while you are at one HP.

Nothing? Other than the fact that one is a hair width from death? Other than the fact that a single attack will usually kill someone at 1 HP whereas it typically won't at significantly higher levels?

Other than the fact that the character at 1 HP needs healing to continue?

There's a lot of things wrong with a PC at 1 HP.

For one thing, it will drastically affect which actions the player of that PC takes in combat. Just because it won't affect dice rolls does not mean that it won't affect combat.

If you think nothing is wrong with the PC at 1 hit point, you aren't too aware of the true nuances of the game system and the people who play it.

Talk about a flawed argument.

PCs at one hit point tend to run away like little girls. If there were nothing wrong with them, why would they do that?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Let's take a step further back...

Hit points are an abstraction originally based on mass combat.

A single figure on the battle mat is a "unit". A unit might have been, back in the pre-Chainmail days, 100 or 1000 men -- it varied.

Zero hit point means the unit is "ineffective". Does that mean 100 (or 1000) men are dead? No. It means there are enough men are dead or wounded in that unit, particularly among the leaders, that this unit is no longer worth thinking about for the rest of the battle.

That is why the various death and dying rules never made much sense when you got down to the nitty gritty details -- Gary borrowed these concepts from historical miniatures games where people did not really sweat about the details of what happened the day after the exciting battle was already over. If the unit is no longer effective in this battle it is "dead" -- remove it from the field of battle, for the sake of convenience.

In this context, rolling d6 for the hit points of a basic vanilla military unit seems somewhat reasonable. Some units have men who will rise to the occasional when the leader has fallen. Or not. It is not necessarily predictable beforehand, until that moment of truth occurs.

Furthermore, some rare units are battle-proven elites. They might have 2d8 or 3d8 hit points -- these unit never run away ("die") early in a battle. If 50 men fall the remaining 50 will fight even harder...to a point.

Gygax recognized that one could push the envelope and use these same abstractions down at the single man level.

Did the abstractions still make sense? Yes and no. For a game with a mishmash of pseudo-historical, mythic, and fantasy elements, it was not radically worse than its ancestors. Anyone dare to argue that those historical miniatures rules Gary borrowed from were "realistic" in their own right? Do not go there.

Really who cares? I honestly doubt Gary cared. What was really important was...it worked. Why waste time arguing when there was fun gaming to do?

Hit points never really made sense. Never. Ever.

This is a "functional" mechanic with an ad hoc definition fitted after the fact. Does the mechanic make the game more interesting and fun? Yes? Then it is a "good" mechanic.

Does the mechanic make exact literal sense from a realistic point of view? I have ~150 board games and ~200 RPG books/supplements. Do any of them really make sense?

And if I cared greatly about that kind of thing, I would not be playing D&D. I would be playing Harnmaster or Riddle or Steel instead.

 

[VannATLC]

Nothing? Other than the fact that one is a hair width from death? Other than the fact that a single attack will usually kill someone at 1 HP whereas it typically won't at significantly higher levels?

This is what I love about arguments like this.. People never actually examine the other person's arguments.

Sit back. Take the other persons position. Work through it. Put aside your preconceptions.
Which one, for all editions, makes more sense? Which edition stands out like a sore thumb?

If you really think HP can have any serious reflection upon injury to a PC, if you do as I've suggested, then I'd be very interested in hearing the structured argument as to why.
Terminology used in game is irrelevant. Replace as desired. What does the concept *have* to imply?

I've done this. I've been over what the options are, what HP could mean in the relationship to the game system they have. I did it the first time I played the game, at 12 years old, in 1992. There was no concievable way HP could represent Meat. It had to be, exactly as the GG DMG quote gives, terminology aside.

Other than the fact that the character at 1 HP needs healing to continue?

There's a lot of things wrong with a PC at 1 HP.

For one thing, it will drastically affect which actions the player of that PC takes in combat. Just because it won't affect dice rolls does not mean that it won't affect combat.


If you think nothing is wrong with the PC at 1 hit point, you aren't too aware of the true nuances of the game system and the people who play it.

Talk about a flawed argument.

PCs at one hit point tend to run away like little girls. If there were nothing wrong with them, why would they do that?

This works better for the HP = Stamina argument than it does for the bleeding everywhere one.

I, personally, don't like to get involved in a fight when I'm exhausted. My guard is down, my mind is wandering, I'm an easy target.
DnD has *always* dealt with the idea that the only serious injury a PC takes is the one that drops him. It might leaving him bleeding out, it might just leave him unconsious.

Magic is the only thing that seriously causes problems, with that view. It always has. Magic is hard to model.. we don't have a system for it.

Personally, I've always preferred, prior to 4th, to give my PC's a 'meat points' HP level, equal to their constitution. This is addition to their HP pool, and is depleted only be certain truly nasty attacks (like Save or Die things, generally) or once their HP is reduced to 0.

I've ruled meat points heal 1/week. You can accelerate this with magic at 1 x spell level per day.

I *had* to do this, to get any level of reasonable meat woundage, from any addition of DND.

I might included in 4th ed, I may not. It works, in fact, quite well. if I take 0hp to equal -1/2 total hp.