It was one of those over dinner kinds of revelations. Since back in the misty days of yore when Gary Gygax or whoever it was said that hit points aren't a measure of physical punishment so much as pluck, resolve, stamina, and morale--I've always hated it, and fought against it tooth and nail. It seemed overly abstract, clunky, hard to narrate, and a drama killer, all just to give PCs a safety net that it'd be more fun to do without. I hated it.
Then some articles came out for 4e, where they were talking about taking the old sad idea and actually flesh it out with some nice mechanics that took it seriously. Now PCs could step back behind the line of defenders, take a round to catch their breath, and get back some hit points. Inspiring leaders could stoke the courage of their fellows, and it would be reflected in hit points regained. There were even fun ideas that maybe divine "healing" was less a matter of mending shattered bones and more about instilling zealous faith to soldier on.
That got me thinking tonight. If that's what hit points are, then why does losing all one's hit points necessarily mean they're dying? I mean what if their resolve just gives out and they're too tired to raise their sword for another attack? What if their morale breaks and they run? What if they just lose all hope? I mean if hit points aren't your meat and bones, then might the loss of them be interpreted more broadly? Certainly it would give a lot more narrative power to the DM, the ability to paint neat scenes where badguys are driven off or surrender rather than always die. Likewise TPK's would have a new possible resolution other than defilement by monsters followed by rolling up new characters.
It got me thinking of all sorts of things. Heavy armor and weapons costing HP to wear or use. Fear effects that drain HP. All sorts of novel takes on the idea.
I dunno. I think I may be warming up to it.
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I took the opposite approach.
Instead of having "one number to rule them all", I house ruled wounds and vitality (from UA) and fatigue effects (from the A Game of Thrones hardcover).
Obviously I did that because the right amount of detail it's what floats my boat, and not because of some intrinsic righteousness of the mechanics involved.
Yeah, I've always been a heavy house rules guy myself. Our way of dealing with hit points in our games was that you get them based off race (cause the halfling barbarian with 12 hp versus the half-orc wizard with 4 hp was just ridiculous to us) modified by Con as usual. And that's it. You can buy Toughness. You can raise your Con stat. That's it. No swelling hit points per level. That way weapons work the way they should without becoming meaningless dink damage. Armor gives damage reduction (like in UA, but we give it DR equal to the normal AC of the armor which in nicely beefier). We scale down magic and abilities that do multiple dice of damage and turn it into an add. 4d6 turns into 1d6+4 and so on.
What results is an awesomely gritty game where things can take about the amount of damage you'd expect and all is right with the world. It's still heroic. Heck our Pathfinder group took on the Sandpoint attack from Fortress of the Stone Giants and totally schooled--and they were a fourth level group. So it's not especially uberdeadly even. It just feels right.
So yeah, I'm right there with you.
That said, I'm hoping at least for a while, to go a different way with 4e. To try and take it at face value and play around with the system a bit. I really like this new take on hit points because it feels like they're finally taking it seriously and not trying to handwave it away.
But yeah...a game where TPKs don't necessarily end the game, or where reducing a badguy's HP to zero doesn't necessarily mean killing him. Heck it could mean scaring him away. Wow, that's just a cool thing.
Of course now there's one new snag. You'd have to find something else to call effects that reduce hitpoints--cause damage really isn't what it is.
I've always felt that nothing good will ever come from thinking about or talking about what HP represents. The HP system works beautifully because it's abstract to the point that you can't even be sure what it's representing abstractly. It's a number, when people hit you with swords it goes down, and when you don't have any you die; when people try to be more specific about it then that, I tend to stick my fingers in my ears, because if it represents something then a lot of things will suddenly seem like good ideas that actually just make things a lot more complicated. The HP representation of health is patently unrealistic, and it's a good thing, because when you try to portray these things realistically you end up with hit location tables and scaling universal penalties and every attack suddenly gets a lot more complicated.
Zero HP never meant dying to me. It meant unconscious. Now if your group has to bail and can't take you with them, well you are most likely dead, unless the DM comes up with a good reason the enemy doesn't kill you outright. I was always a fan of (neg con) or (neg con+10) equals dead.
HP is abstract. It can't just be physical damage, or you wouldn't gain more for leveling up. It can't just be morale, because I don't care how 'inspired' you are, because getting hit over and over will kill you eventually.
"HP is abstract. It can't just be physical damage, or you wouldn't gain more for leveling up."
Why can't it be all physical damage? It seems to me that you are making the assumption that when you level up, your body does not become increasingly tougher; but that is just that: an assumption.
I can imagine that, for example, as you level up, you manage to turn dangerous, life-threatening blows into minor nicks and scratches (that basically amounts to assuming that your body becomes physically tougher).
Actually, this interpretation of becoming physically tougher as you level up works well with all (99.9%) rules of previous editions. It just does not work at all with 4th edition though where people (e.g., warlords) can "inspire" you to regain hit points.
If HP just represent morale rather than physical health, why don't insults deal damage? Or fear spells and effects?
"Your mother was a hamster, your father smelled of elderberries!"
Player: Oh shit! I'm negative and bleeding now.
I actually like the idea that things like potent taunts and fear effects might drop hit points. It might be a fun way to try out. I personally like the narrative freedom.
That said, I think the idea of people turning into hitpoint balloons is just dumb. You want to reflect that people are getting thicker as they adventure (a questionable hypothesis, but okay) then give them natural armor like every other thing out there that gets a benefit from being thick and hard to hurt. There you go. Certainly I don't see someone with 12 hitpoints suddenly exploding out to 20 hitpoints because he got tougher. That rate of gain is just silly. It doesn't reflect the ability to turn axeblades with your leather tough skin, it represents axes digging into you as hard as they can and not dropping you, arrows raining down on you until you're Mr. Porcupine, falling off hundred foot cliffs rather than walking around just to save some travel time and dusting yourself off. Silly. Now if you're playing a nice game of Dragonball Z on the other hand, maybe this works.
Anyhow I like the idea of taking the abstraction and running with it--taking it at its word and having some fun with it. If it doesn't work out I can always go back to the old reliable system of folks with 8 hitpoints. It ain't goin' anywhere.
"HP is abstract. It can't just be physical damage, or you wouldn't gain more for leveling up."
Why can't it be all physical damage? It seems to me that you are making the assumption that when you level up, your body does not become increasingly tougher; but that is just that: an assumption.
I can imagine that, for example, as you level up, you manage to turn dangerous, life-threatening blows into minor nicks and scratches (that basically amounts to assuming that your body becomes physically tougher).
Actually, this interpretation of becoming physically tougher as you level up works well with all (99.9%) rules of previous editions. It just does not work at all with 4th edition though where people (e.g., warlords) can "inspire" you to regain hit points.
I should have been more clear. I refuse to believe that swords just hurt less because you're 20th level. I do agree that you're turning life-threatening blows into minor nicks, but that sounds like a skill to me.
Also, for some monsters, like Air Elementals, its hard to imagine them actually being damaged, so HPs might represent something separate for them.
I am not arguing for warlords. As I said, I don't care how many times you're 're-inspired', eventually those dragon claw-marks will kill you. On the other hand, the current healing system, makes sense even if it isn't physical damage. An infusion of positive energy could heal wounds, since it is the force of life, but also restore energy and vitality spent avoiding wounds.