Why Not Just Call Them Stamina Points?

[HatWearingFool]

And what is that situation? Let's focus on the amulet of health. That's a magic amulet that does something for you. What does it do precisely? I shan't speculate. But whatever it's doing, that thing is all that's keeping you alive; if you take it off, you drop dead.

If you are dependent on a magic amulet to keep you from dying, there is obviously something wrong with you. Healthy people can survive without a magic thingy to keep them on their feet.

Ummm.. It seems to me that you aren't actually at 1 hit point in this situation. You are actually in negative hitpoints with a magic item keeping you alive & mobile. If you were actually at 1 HP yourself you would be okay if you lost the amulet.

Basically you are saying if you take away a man's iron lung he'll die. Well duh, the iron lung is the only thing keeping him alive. Just because he has an iron lung he isn't fine. He's in bad shape & has an iron lung.

 

[Warbringer]

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual physcial ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses - and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection.

Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain and that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into the non-physical areas already detailed. Furthermore, these actual physical hit points would be spread across a large number of levels, starting from a base score of from an average of 3 or 4, going up to 6 or 8 at 2nd level, (and so on)...Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage.

Got to say that Gary clearly envisioned that 1st level + Con bonus was were physical damage was taken, and everything else was skill, luck, with maybe a little bit of incremental hit points being physical.

 

[JohnSnow]

Got to say that Gary clearly envisioned that 1st level + Con bonus was were physical damage was taken, and everything else was skill, luck, with maybe a little bit of incremental hit points being physical.

Well...I'd say that's pretty close...as long as characters had between 1 and 14 hit points. But even then, Gary was speculating that it would be a max of 4 at 1st level. Where I wrote "and so on," Gary actually went into exhaustive detail enumerating the progression for 7 levels.

Further, he went on to say the following:

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution. This character would have an average of 5 1/2 hit points per die, plus a constitution bonus of 4 hit points, per level, or 95 hit points! Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm - the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the right moment. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points.

I put in that bold for a reason. Gary was theorizing that the "metaphysical" would recover as slowly as the physical. If instead, you theorize that the metaphysical hit points aren't tied to physical recovery, there's no reason for the long recoveries hypothesized by Gary.

Terribly interesting...

 

[KarinsDad]

My first ever PC was a 1st level thief (In OD&D+greyhawk rules). I had 1hp and was part of a party of 14 adventurers - and one of the three survivors. Along the way I fired a slingshot stone at an iron golem (*I* didn't know what it was), stole some big rubies, helped fight a 4th level fighter (and managed to end up with his dancing sword because nobody else remembered it) and slew a large earth elemental through sheer geekiness (aka strong familiarity with Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

By 'eck we were tough in those days

Mine was a first level Magic User. I took Sleep. We were walking up a road and "natives" attacked us from hills on either side. So, I cast Sleep at one hill and they all fell asleep. A moment later, I took an arrow in the back from an attacker on the other hill and died.

I guess my Magic User was not as tough as your Thief.

 

[KarinsDad]

I posted this earlier in the thread. As I said, it's from the First Edition DMG (p. 82, if you want to read it). You can call it a "philosophical argument" all you want, but it says a great deal about how the game has historically been played. AND, moreover, it's wholly consistent with the Saga description of hit points.

The concept of 9 dodges and a single 10th hit is NOT from AD&D 1st edition. It's new.

AD&D 1st stated something similar to what I have stated several times in this and other threads, hit points are two things: actual damage and the ability to lessen damage (3E rules). The 1E PHB rules are:

These hit points represent how much damage (actual and potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stand for skill, luck, and/or magical factors.

The SWSE concept of dodging so many earlier attacks and then finally getting hit is recent. Quote an old source of it. You won't find one.

Even the 1E rules indicate that damage occurs in a relative way as more damage is accumulated:

However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage, our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises.

Not, he got missed a lot, but will soon start taking real damage as per that definition from a SWSE designer.

 

[Kzach]

Gary could define them all he liked, but in reality Hit Points means "Hits To Kill" and really are nothing more than that; anything else, at best, was self-delusion (and more often is outright fraud).

Yes, you're right, and the game-designer who created the rules and described them is wrong.

*rolleyes*

 

[The Little Raven]

A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stand for skill, luck, and/or magical factors.

Some are an indication of physical integrity, some are a factor of your ability to trivialize a serious blow because of training (aka skill), luck, or magic.

Hit points (sometimes abbreviated "hp") represent 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 graze or near miss. As you become more experienced, you become more adept at parrying strikes, dodging attacks, and rolling with blows such that you minimize or avoid significant physical trauma, but all this effort slows you down.

Some are an indication of physical integrity, some are a factor of your ability to trivialize a serious blow because of training (aka skill), luck, or magic.

1e and Saga both indicate that some HP is physical damage, while the majority is ability to resist harm through skill, luck and/or magic (aka dodging, parrying, rolling with blows, and minimizing personal damage). Both indicate that over time, minor physical damage will probably be occurring (unless you think being grazed by an energy weapon or physical weapon won't result in nicks, scratches, cuts, bruises and minor burns).

 

[bramadan]

Gary could define them all he liked, but in reality Hit Points means...

In reality ???

I have to say I am fascinated with this statement, even on a DnD board

It is something like saying "Dude, Lucas got it all wrong, there is no midichlorians, in reality force is all about...."

 

[DandD]

I really wish Lucas never came up with midichlorians...
Back on topic...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Can't we just say that KarinsDad has "won" and that, despite all evidence to the contrary, hit points primarily represented meatiness in previous editions, and therefor it makes sense that the recovery time were as long as they were, and curative magic was the only thing that didn't make sense. And then we go on that whatever might have been true in previous editions, it is not true in 4E, and if he doesn't like it, he can ignore 4E, or buy the books and burn them ritually, or houserule it in his own campaign, or add a injury subsystem, switch to a vitality / wound point system or do whatever he wants?

I am really getting a little tired of this hence and forth, and unfortunately, it's coming up in a lot of threads, and I haven't seen anything that adds substantial information that would change someones mind or could further enlighten someone who hasn't made up his mind yet...

Or, a short summary:
- Hit Points are an abstract measure to determine how much more punishment a character can take.
- Hit points represent the ability to go on despite of possible injuries (meatiness as well as pure stamina/endurance) as well as the ability to turn a dangerous blow into a less dangerous, a characters sixth sense ability to evade a dangerous attack, luck or the gods favor for a character.
- Hit Point loss aka "Damage" can represent physical injuries, fatigue, a characters luck running out
- Hit point recovery means that the sustained damage is healed or otherwise "overcome".

The questions are:
- What hit point recovery rate is reasonable in this context?
- If hit points represent injuries, shouldn't there also be penalties for injuries that restrict what you can do?
- What do the existing recovery rates, penalties for wounds or states (bloodied/dying/dead) in the different editions tell us about what the hit point model focus on - meatiness/injuries or sixth sense/fatigue?
- Is it even sensible to ask for specifics if the system is meant to be abstract?
- If there is a a change over editions, is that bad or good, or is it just important to recognize (and possibly accept this?)
- Is there a system that is superior or at least more consistent then another one?
- How many more threads can be created for this topic, or can be capped for this topic?