Why rename HP & Saves?

[mmadsen]

Ah, but D&D has also never had a system for modeling fatigue. Which is just as dependent (probably moreso) on one's general health and well being (Constitution, that is) as one's resistance to physical injury.

I think we need to admit that hit points don't model anything sensible, at least not as written so far, but they can work with some hand-waving, which is what you're doing.

They obviously don't model fatigue. There's no reason dodging an ogre's club should be more fatiguing than dodging a fencer's rapier -- but big weapons in the hands of strong attackers do more damage than nimble weapons in the hands of agile attackers. And, of course, it's easy to recover from fatigue, but hit points take days and weeks to heal -- or a healing potion.

See, hit points have never been intended to be your ability to suck up gaping wounds. They've always been (primarily) about your ability to avoid taking a gaping wound.

We already have a stat for that; it's called armor class. The real issue is that hit points scale well, and AC doesn't. One extra hit die means you can take one more hit. One extra point of AC can mean you can take twice as many attacks.

 

[Rex Blunder]

They're a totally "gamist" construction. Their greatest strength is that they make for more fun gameplay than spiral-of-death mechanics. Their greatest weakness is that they do not model reality at all, and thus engender nearly constant message board discussion.

 

[mmadsen]

They're a totally "gamist" construction.

Exactly.

Their greatest strength is that they make for more fun gameplay than spiral-of-death mechanics.

Is that the only alternative?

Their greatest weakness is that they do not model reality at all, and thus engender nearly constant message board discussion.

Ideally we'd find a new system that worked just as well for gaming but also kinda, sorta modeled "reality".

Naturally, I think expanding the role of hit points and divorcing them from toughness does just that.

 

[kinem]

Hit points have always been 'abstract' but the idea that you do take some physical injury when you take hp damage has always been there. That's why, if you are hit by a giant scorpion's stinger and take damage, you can be poisoned as well.

4e seems to throw that model out the window. So you were hit by the scorpion, took damage, and were poisoned. Now the warlord shouts some encouraging words and "heals" you. Storywise, we now know that you don't have a scratch on you, just like in the movies. So how the heck do you have poison in you?

 

[Dragonblade]

Given that the game uses the term "damage" whenever an attack lands, I think the rename should be "Damage Threshold".

Instead of having a HP total that's reduced by damage, the paradigm is that you start with 0 damage and accumulate damage as you're hit. Surges and other healing reduce your damage. Temporary hit points are renamed to temporary threshold increases.

So if you're hit in combat and the DM says "take 5 damage", you don't reduce your total HP by 5. Instead, you literally take 5 damage--you add 5 to your total amount of accumulated damage.

This is more intuitive, and negates the whole "what are hit points?" question. "What is damage threshold?" is self-evident; damage threshold is your threshold for soldiering on despite accumulated damage. Exceed it, and you drop.

The question "what is damage" is answered by the game itself. The game already uses the terms "weapon damage", "radiant damage", "poison damage", and so on. Take fire damage and you're burned. Take poison damage and your brain is fried. If you take too much damage, you drop.

When you're sorely wounded, you don't call out "Guys! I'm low on hit points!" Instead, you yell "Guys! I can't take much more damage!"

Makes sense to me!

Really nice work! I think I may adopt this system. I like the notion of adding my damage up instead of subtracting it as I get hit. Very intuitive and works perfectly well with the existing structure. Your max HP = max damage you can take and Bloodied still occurs at the same point.

However, one advantage of retaining HP as they are now is that you always know how much more damage you can take. When going up, its not obvious without doing a little math in your head.

 

[Lacyon]

Ideally we'd find a new system that worked just as well for gaming but also kinda, sorta modeled "reality".

It is my humble opinion that the greatest strength of D&D has always been its predeliction to place the ideal of a fun gaming experience over the concept of modeling anything at all.

 

[JohnSnow]

I think we need to admit that hit points don't model anything sensible, at least not as written so far, but they can work with some hand-waving, which is what you're doing.

They obviously don't model fatigue. There's no reason dodging an ogre's club should be more fatiguing than dodging a fencer's rapier -- but big weapons in the hands of strong attackers do more damage than nimble weapons in the hands of agile attackers. And, of course, it's easy to recover from fatigue, but hit points take days and weeks to heal -- or a healing potion.

Of course there is. A couple very good reasons.

First off, I didn't say "dodging." I said "avoiding taking serious injury from..." That's a whole different kettle of fish. Secondly, we're not talking about the sport of modern fencing, we're talking about a fight to the death in which you are as concerned with not getting hit as you are with scoring a point. That's a much different form of fighting than winning a fight via right-of-way. The fighter who gets stabbed solidly without right-of-way is just as dead.

A rapier - not a fencing foil, a rapier - is a thrusting weapon which can also inflict surface scratches. Assuming you are not entirely naked, most rapier slashes are surface wounds. They fatigue you, wear you out, and tire you, but they won't for the most part, kill you. The thrusts are another matter. However, D&D also uses "rapier" for the earlier weapon that the Italians called a "Spada da lato" ("sidesword" in English). That's a heavier weapon that uses just as much cutting as thrusting. A slash from a sidesword can kill you.

I admit to having never fought an ogre using a club. However, I can tell you that fighting with longswords (what D&D would call a "bastard sword") and backswords (heavier arming blades), as well as against them, is harder than fighting someone with a rapier. Rapier combat is quick, no doubt, and can be fatiguing for that reason, but those heavier blades have to be blocked or evaded, rather than just parried. That's a LOT more work.

Also, speaking from personal experience, rolling with a blow from a rapier in order to minimize damage is comparatively easy. With a greatsword, not so much. Even a glancing blow can lay you out.

However, your last point is correct. The recovery of hit points has always been the thing that was "out of sync" with the rest of the system. Fix that, and the system works just fine, and jives much better with Gary's explanation of hit points waaaayyy back in the first edition AD&D Dungeon Masters' Guide (page 82). That passage has been quoted here a few times since Fourth Edition previews started, initially by me, but others have picked it up of late.

We already have a stat for that; it's called armor class. The real issue is that hit points scale well, and AC doesn't. One extra hit die means you can take one more hit. One extra point of AC can mean you can take twice as many attacks.

I beg to differ. From what we know, in Fourth Edition, AC scales just fine. It escalates at precisely the same rate that attack bonus does. However, you're mistaken. AC doesn't model your ability to avoid serious injury, it models your ability to avoid being injured at all. All hits below your AC either miss or glance off your armor. They don't "drive the rings of your mail shirt into you skin and bruise your ribs." They "absorb the blow." Likewise, the blow to your helmet that brought stars to your eyes didn't not damage you, even if it failed to split your skull open.

If hit points weren't abstract, you'd have to build a fatigue tracker (and trackers for all kinds of combat impairment) into the D&D combat system. Characters would become more likely to take serious injury as they got more tired (or saw spots, or whatever). On the other hand, such a system wouldn't need to have hit points escalate, because, let's face it, even the most experience fighter dies if you put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Bodily resistance to injury doesn't increase. And while a system like this can be made to work fine for humanoid vs. humanoid fights (see Riddle of Steel), it totally sucks for fighting monsters.

The abstract nature of hit points lets you make combats vs. monsters more interesting than "miss, miss, miss, miss, you die...", and still works just fine for humanoid vs. humanoid contests if you let it.

 

[D'karr]

It is my humble opinion that the greatest strength of D&D has always been its predeliction to place the ideal of a fun gaming experience over the concept of modeling anything at all.

Concur

 

[JohnSnow]

Hit points have always been 'abstract' but the idea that you do take some physical injury when you take hp damage has always been there. That's why, if you are hit by a giant scorpion's stinger and take damage, you can be poisoned as well.

4e seems to throw that model out the window. So you were hit by the scorpion, took damage, and were poisoned. Now the warlord shouts some encouraging words and "heals" you. Storywise, we now know that you don't have a scratch on you, just like in the movies. So how the heck do you have poison in you?

BZZZZZZ! Wrong.

We now know that that giant scorpion's stinger just barely grazed your leg. The injury from the hit was inconsequential. However, it still struck you with a poisoned stinger. It may be a surface scratch, but that poison is still in your blood. Storywise, being "poisoned" requires you to have been at least "nicked," so you were at least "nicked."

But does that have to be the case for things that don't require it? When a non-poisoned sword batters you in the head, does it have to have drawn blood? Or can it just have raised stars in front of your eyes as you nearly lost consciousness. I mean, maybe it even caused a messy looking scratch that clotted quickly. So it looked nasty at first, but it was, in reality, more showy than serious.

Get the idea?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Given that the game uses the term "damage" whenever an attack lands, I think the rename should be "Damage Threshold".

This makes a lot of sense to me and really resonates well with me. As far as I can tell, it's basically identical to the current system, only yours counts upward, the HP system downward.

However, doesn't the abstraction problem remain? Namely, if I deal 6 damage with my longsword, that means something very different for a character with DT 6, as opposed to DT 90. One is dropped, the other is scratched.