I Define hit points as overall ability to reduce or avoid bodily harm. Since even a charater fighting at 1 hit point has no penalties I say that he isn't really all that wounded he just has been harassed and beaten around to the point that he has lost the coordination to properly defend himself, so the next time a troll hits him with an uprooted sapling the outcome would be a lot closer to what you'd expect if you got thumped by a 8ft tall cretin that can benchpress a sedan
I think I'm pretty happy in this area but it gets harder to define when magic is involved, particularily healing. Cure light wounds can take a commoner from the brink of death to full health in under 3 seconds but the same spell used on a barbarian of high level and you might as well be giving him children's tylenol.
Then you have odd spells like Phantasmal Killer that does damage on a successful will save, A commoner is still scared into the grave, but a sturdy character it barely......ummm........frightinjured?
Just wanted to here some feedback on how to represent/explain some of this stuff
P.S. I realize the game mechanics can never be completely rationalized but the closer I get to understanding the more real my world seems to become
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I like your way of thinking about hit points in general. As far as the Phantasmal Killer, I don't see a problem. The high level character is just tougher mentally after seeing and doing the things they have done to get there.
The healing is a little bit tricky though. I supose you could say that levels are like energy and it requires more to "refuel" a PC than a commoner.
I kind of think that there is more than just fatigue involved with hit points dispite the lack of penalties-- sorta like in action movies where they don't seem to get tired even after all the punishment they take. More hit points are more like a generic number value of how tough and skilled a character is, so it works.
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I like your way of thinking about hit points in general. As far as the Phantasmal Killer, I don't see a problem. The high level character is just tougher mentally after seeing and doing the things they have done to get there.
The healing is a little bit tricky though. I supose you could say that levels are like energy and it requires more to "refuel" a PC than a commoner.
I kind of think that there is more than just fatigue involved with hit points dispite the lack of penalties-- sorta like in action movies where they don't seem to get tired even after all the punishment they take. More hit points are more like a generic number value of how tough and skilled a character is, so it works.
I agree completely.
This is a tough Question.
While I generally agree with the whole fatigue and ability to keep going in a fight (rather than just straight damage), here is where I have a proble with it:
Damage that is not directly related to combat.
By that I mean we can use the high level fighter being able to "roll with the punches" to explain why he'd survive from an Ogre's punch and why a commoner might not.
But how do we explain it if both get knocked into a steaming pool of very hot water (say one that does 5D6 points of Damage per round or something..and it takes 2 rounds to get out). The fighter MIGHT survive but the commoner almost surely would not. I find it hard to explain using the "rolling with the damage" explanation.
So in conclusion it might be "toughness" in general...experience in "rolling with the punches" etc.. but part of it just has to do with life force or some such phenomenon (sorry if its misspelled).
I still grapple with this question since I began playing...and if anyone has found a logical answer to this please let me know lol.
The healing is a little bit tricky though. I supose you could say that levels are like energy and it requires more to "refuel" a PC than a commoner.
I kind of think that there is more than just fatigue involved with hit points dispite the lack of penalties-- sorta like in action movies where they don't seem to get tired even after all the punishment they take. More hit points are more like a generic number value of how tough and skilled a character is, so it works.
I agree with the action hero low hit points. The "he shouldn't be able to get back up after that" but then he does because he's more than just you're average human
As far as the "refilling the soul" idea I like it
It also lets characters have a limited understanding of hit dice
Spellcasters especially
I Define hit points as overall ability to reduce or avoid bodily harm. Since even a charater fighting at 1 hit point has no penalties I say that he isn't really all that wounded...
You have it exactly right. You're also correct to note that the various cure spells break the model. That's because game balance demands it.
If cure spells followed the model, a cure light wounds spell would heal something like "1 hit point per HD of the target," so it would only heal a 1st-level commoner of 1 hp, but a 10th-level barbarian would get 10. Unfortunately, that would also make it useless for adventurers at low levels, when they need it most. So instead, we have the current system, which makes cure light wounds the functional equivalent of heal for 1st-level characters, but a "light damage remover" for higher-ups.
Why does it take 10 arrows to kill a high level fighter? The way I see hit points, there more like ADVENTURE POINTS. Your high level fighter doesn't really get hit by all 10 arrows, but seems to just dodge them or get out of the way in time, and it's that last one (the one that gets you below 0 hp) that really gets ya.
I see Indiana Jones as a 15th lvl adventurer with many hit points. He dodges arrow traps, pit traps, closing door traps, giant boulder traps and then gets shot at several times by nazi soldiers and inca pigmies, and still makes his escape... unharmed? No. He's probably down to 13 hit points and calls it a day when he reaches the getaway plane.
Ultradan
I agree with the aspect that a lot of Hp loss is just exertion, fatigue in battle, etc., and that the fighter probably doesn't get hit by all 10 arrows, because, well, he'd probably die after just one or two if he did. But, this then raises a mechanics question for me: If he's not really getting hit by all those arrows, just getting tired, do they still do piercing damage? This is often negligable, but there are times, particularly with damage reduction or such things, where it might matter. So, if the mace actually missed you, but the effort of dodging still wore you down, did you take bludgeoning damage or not?
I was going to say you could just use touch ACs to see if it really hit, but if it got the target's normal AC, then it certainly hit the touch. I'd say in the arrows example, they struck hard enough to knock some wind out of the fighter, maybe lodging in his plate mail or something, but not really making a flesh wound. For something like a sword... you block it with shield or armor, but it still delivered a good bruise from the force, I guess. It can get very tricky to decipher and describe.
But how do we explain it if both get knocked into a steaming pool of very hot water (say one that does 5D6 points of Damage per round or something..and it takes 2 rounds to get out). The fighter MIGHT survive but the commoner almost surely would not. I find it hard to explain using the "rolling with the damage" explanation.So in conclusion it might be "toughness" in general...experience in "rolling with the punches" etc.. but part of it just has to do with life force or some such phenomenon (sorry if its misspelled).
I still grapple with this question since I began playing...and if anyone has found a logical answer to this please let me know lol.
When something like this happens I have to play it by ear and see what is in the environment to help explain why he's not dead. He grabs something and qiuckly pulls himself out. fell into it at the end of the round and got out first thing next round so he wasn't wallowing around in it for an actual 6 sec.
If he stays in there for more than one round I start using the item's he's wearing. Magic items don't offer any statistical advantage to protecting a PC unless that's it's function in the first place but they are all assumed to be extrodinarily ressilient in their own right (thats why they get a saving throw vs being torched by a fireball even when their not attended) If your fighter is wearing a magical cloak say that he wraps it around himself to keep some of his body from being as badly burned. Meerly for a description of course the cloak wouldn't be in any danger
This one is simple but it works for most...
For standard D&D: When explaining hit points to a n00b I try to convey that HP are the character's physical "bank" of points that allow him to remain upright and conscious. It does not matter how low he gets in his "bank account", he is still able to carry on in the activities (If he can pay, he can play)...but when he drops into the negatives, then he feels the effects of being overdrawn. (heh)
Sorry for the banking terms...but it's the easiest way to demonstrate that with either 1 or 100 HP, you can still actively participate.
For home grown system: Completely different...total HP are spread throughout the body...another tale indeed...
Stillfoxx
"Live or die, you decide..."
I like the massive damage system used in D20 modern. Your CON score is your massive damage threshold and if any single attack exceeds your CON score in damage, you make a DC15 Fort save or be at -1 hit points immediately.
I don't use it in D&D--I use the rules as written (50 pts), but it's a good alternative. I would only use it in D&D if I also allowed action points. However, I would make the DC of the Fort save DC10 + damage rolled above your massive damage threshold.
This one is simple but it works for most...
For standard D&D: When explaining hit points to a n00b I try to convey that HP are the character's physical "bank" of points that allow him to remain upright and conscious. It does not matter how low he gets in his "bank account", he is still able to carry on in the activities (If he can pay, he can play)...but when he drops into the negatives, then he feels the effects of being overdrawn. (heh)
Sorry for the banking terms...but it's the easiest way to demonstrate that with either 1 or 100 HP, you can still actively participate.
For home grown system: Completely different...total HP are spread throughout the body...another tale indeed...
Stillfoxx
"Live or die, you decide..."
I choose to live, thank you.
Working in finances, I really like your analogy on the situation.
I use the hit points to help visualize the state of the character... Like Bruce Willis at the end of one of his Die Hard movies, would be at around 4 hp on a total of 80, and James Bond would always be over 75% of his total throughout his films. Hence, your character should not show up at a formal banquet at 5 hit points on a total of 115!
Ultradan
With a DC20 successful Disguise roll, I would allow the character with 5 hp out of 115 to show up at the formal banquet without drawing too many stares, but he'd have to make a series of Bluff rolls to prevent people from noticing his wincing and limping if he decided to move around too much.
I'll take my martini shaken, not stirred, please....ouch!
I like to think of hp as sort of a combination of vitality and luck, i.e. when a 10th level fighter gets zinged with a hobgoblin arrow for 5 damage, it does in fact graze him or just barely poke through her armor, but the 1st level sorcerer takes it to the meaty bit of the shoulder and begins to dispense copious amounts of rich arterial blood onto the dungeon floor. As far as healing goes, well, it is divine magic after all, so it may be easily presumed that most of the energy of a cure light wounds cast upon a high level character would actually be used in restoring the fortunes of the individual, vis-a-vis the impending encounter with a cantankerous ogre in the next chamber.
Regarding the miraculous recovery of a peasant laid low and dying who recieves the ministrations of the hamlet's 1st level cleric: this is a situation which can be rectified by sort of ignoring the limit of -10 hp for peasant types and let a falling slab of granite knock that poor loser down to -43 hp and way out of cure light wounds territory.
As far as pools of boiling water or one-way trips down hundred foot long vertical corridors goes, well, people walk away from disasters like that every day, in a D&D campaign, it just happens to always be the same four people.
With a DC20 successful Disguise roll, I would allow the character with 5 hp out of 115 to show up at the formal banquet without drawing too many stares, but he'd have to make a series of Bluff rolls to prevent people from noticing his wincing and limping if he decided to move around too much.
Good point... And good use of those skills too.
Ultradan
From the 1st Ed DMG:
(re-translated from the german edition on the fly, so allow for errors)
It would be unlogic to assume that a character by gaining a level in his class he would be able to sustain more damage.
[...] a human gets killed by a single blow of a sword, a hero could take five such blows.
[...]on the other hand (the hit points) stand for an advancement in areas like fighting prowess or for a routine in similar life-threatening situations. They are a "sixth sense" (...) pure luck, the gift of magical protection and/or protection from the gods.
(describing a high level fighter)
After he lost 40 or 50 hit points, our fighter is covered from head to toe with small wounds, scratch, cuts and bruises. This makes a long time of recovery necessary until he is back on full hit points.
So much for that from the olden times :-))