Describing Hit Points


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Kurik Grandhelm wrote:
rgrove0172 wrote:
Ill admit I think the roleplaying aspect loses alot from the fact that characters cant be injured. Its a mainstay of fiction where the beaten up, limping, bloody hero struggles to his feet and keeps fighting.
I've felt plenty beaten and bruised after some of my fights.

But you had not reason to if all those 'hits' were actually near misses as some here have claimed.

Silver Crusade

rgrove0172 wrote:
But you had not reason to if all those 'hits' were actually near misses as some here have claimed.

Having a Colossal centipede step on your face isn't a near miss.


I hear you but if you didnt drop below 0HP, some would say it missed you.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Well, in this case he DID drop below zero, so yeah. :) (Diehard was a good feat choice.)

But I've had plenty of fights that were knock down drag out, and regardless of what you think HP represent the characters definitely felt battered and bruised.


Look at the strain injury variant.

You can have your cake and eat it too.

To take Jiggy's example of the coup de grace damage, because CDG does critical hit damage, all of it would take the form of injury, and thus require treatment to heal.

The entire extreme example he gave makes perfect sense in Strain-Injury, and requires almost no changes to the rules balance.

Now, to move beyond a shameless plug, the major lesson we learned from creating that HP variant was that HP claims to include abstract damage, but the healing rules treat it all as concrete damage. The rules contradict themselves on this point.

If you sort out the healing rate for abstract vs. concrete, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.


Ill give it a look.

In the meantime, Ive opened a thread on the HouseRules forum about modifying magical damage as has been discussed here.


Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

Look at the strain injury variant.

You can have your cake and eat it too.

To take Jiggy's example of the coup de grace damage, because CDG does critical hit damage, all of it would take the form of injury, and thus require treatment to heal.

The entire extreme example he gave makes perfect sense in Strain-Injury, and requires almost no changes to the rules balance.

Now, to move beyond a shameless plug, the major lesson we learned from creating that HP variant was that HP claims to include abstract damage, but the healing rules treat it all as concrete damage. The rules contradict themselves on this point.

If you sort out the healing rate for abstract vs. concrete, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.

So magical healing affects strain on a different scale than injury in your system Mr. Lincoln?


A long time ago, there was a great (if somewhat flippant) post by Hong on EN World that talked about "Dude Factor," and how losing HP represented the loss of Dude Factor, and spells restored Dude Factor. Dude Factor was the difference between the action hero who takes a pounding and keeps going and the schlub who dies when someone more important looks at him funny. I have no idea if the post even still exists, since that was years ago and EN World's server migrated since then.

I tend to treat HP as a mix of receiving glancing blows and sheer supernatural toughness, because high level characters are functionally superheroes. Which one I emphasize would probably depend on the receiving party.


rgrove0172 wrote:
So magical healing affects strain on a different scale than injury in your system Mr. Lincoln?

Negative.

We aimed to leave the exact same combat balance in place. Magic heals Strain and Injury at the same rate. If you're bleeding, it closes up your wounds. If you're tired, it invigorates you. If you're tired because you've been bleeding, it still makes you feel alright.

The only thing we changed was the natural healing rate. Abstract defense loss, the one that makes up half the RAW definition of hit points, now recovers very quickly — fast enough that if you're just tired from 2 minutes of swordfighting, you'll be okay for the next scene.

Concrete injuries just don't heal. Or rather, some people give them very slow natural healing rates, but that might as well be "never" if magical/mundane treatment can be had.

In our rule, they both come from the same pool, so other than the healing rate Hit Points behave exactly as they do in the RAW.

I'm happy to discuss the rule more in the Strain-Injury thread. It is relevant to this discussion, however, that:

A) The RAW defines hit points as physical injuries plus other defense loss. A helpful list of defenses lumped into HP: tiring parry or dodge, armor or shield wear and tear, superficial cuts, bruises and pricks, divided attention, dwindling morale and dumb luck. (from the Strain Injury rule, but highly relevant for the OP)

B) The healing rates in the RAW are borked. All defense loss is lumped into a single category, which heals inhumanly fast for concrete injuries, and obstinately slow for abstract defenses. In truth, this works just fine for most people. It's playable. If it doesn't work for you, use strain-injury. You track one extra number and the whole system suddenly makes sense.

Even if you're not into my variant rule, it's still a good rule of thumb to describe "mere hits" as successful attacks that will not require treatment, and critical hits as things you really need a medic to look after. "His massive claw clamps onto your armored forearm and squeezes until it hurts like hell" vs "his claws tear through the armor on your forearm and blood gushes forth." The last attack that puts the creature below 0 hp counts as a crit for purposes of description.

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