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This is something consistent across every edition, that regardless of empty throwaway text claiming they represent a broad spectrum of stuff, the reality is they are physical condition and nothing else. Not luck, not skill, not desire to fight on, nor anything else.

We can see this in the way hit points interact with other parts of the game.

1) How do you lose them? Being hit with weapons, monster attacks, poison, falling, physically-damaging spells and so on. All impacts on health.

2) How do you get them back? Magical healing and/or natural healing through rest. All relating solely to health.

You might argue a small exception to this with 4th edition, where hit points possibly represent fatigue rather than health, since with a 10 minute rest you can restore them all via Healing Surges, and you get all your Surges back with a eight hour's rest. Furthermore, there are means besides being attacked to lose those Surges (such as being exposed to extreme climates) and "inspiration" as a way of getting them back (Warlord "shouting wounds closed" as some people like to disparage it), which again reinforces the fatigue, rather than health notion.

Otherwise, though, straight up health. Throughout the editions.

That's my position on the thing, I've yet to have anyone offer any evidence to the contrary. So if you have such things, from actual books rather than your own house rules, please regale me with ways of losing hit points and more importantly ways of regaining hit points that aren't physical*.


*Hint: subdual doesn't count, since that's merely non-lethal physical.

Hit Points as purely physical - this doesn't explain why HP increases so greatly - or are all Level 10+ characters He-Men.

Hits Points are simply a measure of combat advantage.

I'm afraid you are wrong.  Even way back in the 1e PHB, when HP are very clearly more than health when they talk about a fighter with 55 hp.  The fact that a 55 hp fighter can withstand multiple hits that would kill lower hp fighters is proof that experience plays at least a factor.  I.e., the experience of that higher level fighter allows him to effectively turn those severe blows into glancing blows.

If you want more proof, the fact that the natural healing rate in D&D is extremely accelerated over "real" healing, which is reflective of how some hp loss is tied to fatigue and exhaustion.

*Edit*  here's the passage:

QuoteA 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, stands
for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take
about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th
level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his
constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit
dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It
is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much
punishment.

OK. Lets run with this HP as physical health only idea for a moment.

Why can a fighter with a max HP total of 50, fight without penalty with 5 hp remaining?

At only a tenth of his vitality, he certainly should by all accounts be ready to collapse? Per RAW he can go out and continue to chop through orcs all day like that.

It may take him awhile to recover all the luck and stamina needed to go the distance in a tough battle but if he is able to hack through the remainder of the day without penalty, then he can hardly be all THAT physically wounded.

I agree with the others.  Underscore - the leveling is the fly in this ointment.  No amount of killing rats can make you twice as healthy physically.  But that's the effect of going to level two.

HP were originally abstract.

One could argue that only about 6 of your hp are 'real wounds' and the rest are the various ways your character can avoid damage.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;673282OK. Lets run with this HP as physical health only idea for a moment.

Why can a fighter with a max HP total of 50, fight without penalty with 5 hp remaining?

At only a tenth of his vitality, he certainly should by all accounts be ready to collapse? Per RAW he can go out and continue to chop through orcs all day like that.

It may take him awhile to recover all the luck and stamina needed to go the distance in a tough battle but if he is able to hack through the remainder of the day without penalty, then he can hardly be all THAT physically wounded.

Fighting at full power while crippled is not realistic, but may be better than tracking wound penalties.

Quote from: Bill;673289HP were originally abstract.

One could argue that only about 6 of your hp are 'real wounds' and the rest are the various ways your character can avoid damage.

They were defined as abstract but then only had "physical means" of getting rid of them.

They didn't have Luck Absorbing creatures.
Constitution is the determining stat.

Quote from: Bill;673292Fighting at full power while crippled is not realistic, but may be better than tracking wound penalties.

The entire point is that the 5 hp fighter is not crippled. He is just out of luck/mojo and a significant hit against him now WILL be physical.

Quote from: Bill;673292Fighting at full power while crippled is not realistic, but may be better than tracking wound penalties.

An article in the early Dragon magazine covered this.  Rules for pain and wounds and all that.

End result?  People didn't like tracking one more thing, and to that level.

So HP are abstract and everyone moved on.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;673300The entire point is that the 5 hp fighter is not crippled. He is just out of luck/mojo and a significant hit against him now WILL be physical.

Depends how you choose to visuualize it. Abstract.

Many will find visualizing a fighter full of arrows appealing, others will visualize it as nicks.

Quote from: Bill;673307Depends how you choose to visuualize it. Abstract.

Many will find visualizing a fighter full of arrows appealing, others will visualize it as nicks.

After all, Boramir was still killing orcs with a half dozen arrows in him

Quote from: Sommerjon;673296They were defined as abstract but then only had "physical means" of getting rid of them.

They didn't have Luck Absorbing creatures.
Constitution is the determining stat.

Your points are valid but its also a very old game, and has logic flaws built in.

Quote from: Bill;673307Depends how you choose to visuualize it. Abstract.

Many will find visualizing a fighter full of arrows appealing, others will visualize it as nicks.

Either vision works within the abstraction.

I think Kiero's position holds up - if you view the physics of the fantasy world as very abstract. Fighters bristling with impaling arrows, slashed and hacked with dozens of injuries, scorched by dragon breath weapons, lightning bolted by a wizard. If the interchange of combat, and degree of injury is abstracted to all hell, what does it matter if HP = Health?

If you're trying to model any element of realism when it comes to Health, then I think the position goes out the window. And there are plenty of better systems to model realistic injury than D&D (of course).

P.S. Though, I won't agree that this is consistently the case across editions. Or any rubbish about "empty throwaway text".

A body is only so durable. Maybe whatever you had when you gained your first level is actual durability. The rest is luck - luck from the gods or whatever.

I don't agree with nicks and protruding arrows when you still have 50 hit points left. If that were the case, you'd be making saving throws over and over again from poisen, you'd be taking more damage from the protruding arrows over time, etc, because you'd be re-damaging yourself when you move around. That kind of damage over time is accounted for separately in special instances, special abilities, etc. So I believe then that the "threat" of these types of damage is passed - achieved by burning your luck.

As you level up, you gain more HPs and your saving throws improve. The gods, fate, the universe all agree you are more powerful and more deserving of preservation, not because you can physically take as much damage as 10 other healthy adults. HPs preserve you until you run up against someone else's luck. For example - consider the old assassin's assassinate skill. It could bypass hit points entirely, using a normal weapon. His success means you've been marked for death, no matter how great a hero you've become.

At least with HPs, you have X number of steps before you have to deal with real consequences, as with saving throws.

Quote from: Kiero;673273This is something consistent across every edition, that regardless of empty throwaway text claiming they represent a broad spectrum of stuff, the reality is they are physical condition and nothing else. Not luck, not skill, not desire to fight on, nor anything else.

We can see this in the way hit points interact with other parts of the game.

1) How do you lose them? Being hit with weapons, monster attacks, poison, falling, physically-damaging spells and so on. All impacts on health.

2) How do you get them back? Magical healing and/or natural healing through rest. All relating solely to health.

You might argue a small exception to this with 4th edition, where hit points possibly represent fatigue rather than health, since with a 10 minute rest you can restore them all via Healing Surges, and you get all your Surges back with a eight hour's rest. Furthermore, there are means besides being attacked to lose those Surges (such as being exposed to extreme climates) and "inspiration" as a way of getting them back (Warlord "shouting wounds closed" as some people like to disparage it), which again reinforces the fatigue, rather than health notion.

Otherwise, though, straight up health. Throughout the editions.

That's my position on the thing, I've yet to have anyone offer any evidence to the contrary. So if you have such things, from actual books rather than your own house rules, please regale me with ways of losing hit points and more importantly ways of regaining hit points that aren't physical*.


*Hint: subdual doesn't count, since that's merely non-lethal physical.

RE: 4E.  Yesterday my character took damage from several "psychic" attacks; I'm pretty sure those weren't physical damage. I'm not even going to speculate on the (meta)physical nature of those 40 "temporary hit points" I used to protect my character from an insubstantial necrotic parasite. Good luck explaining that in terms of "physical" damage. :D

Quote from: Sean !;673278Hit Points as purely physical - this doesn't explain why HP increases so greatly - or are all Level 10+ characters He-Men.

Hits Points are simply a measure of combat advantage.

Combat advantage...that only returns with healing. Right. All you've done is highlight another problem with them, not address the central question.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673280I'm afraid you are wrong.  Even way back in the 1e PHB, when HP are very clearly more than health when they talk about a fighter with 55 hp.  The fact that a 55 hp fighter can withstand multiple hits that would kill lower hp fighters is proof that experience plays at least a factor.  I.e., the experience of that higher level fighter allows him to effectively turn those severe blows into glancing blows.

If you want more proof, the fact that the natural healing rate in D&D is extremely accelerated over "real" healing, which is reflective of how some hp loss is tied to fatigue and exhaustion.

*Edit*  here's the passage:

That would be the case if there were actually means besides healing to recover hit points, or if healing was level-linked. But they're not, so it's another classic example of some text that doesn't actually reflect the way the various bits of rules interact with each other.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;673282OK. Lets run with this HP as physical health only idea for a moment.

Why can a fighter with a max HP total of 50, fight without penalty with 5 hp remaining?

At only a tenth of his vitality, he certainly should by all accounts be ready to collapse? Per RAW he can go out and continue to chop through orcs all day like that.

It may take him awhile to recover all the luck and stamina needed to go the distance in a tough battle but if he is able to hack through the remainder of the day without penalty, then he can hardly be all THAT physically wounded.

Except once again, the only way they come back is with healing or rest.

How do you get hit points back through luck-recovery?

Why don't curses cause hit point-damage?

Quote from: mcbobbo;673288I agree with the others.  Underscore - the leveling is the fly in this ointment.  No amount of killing rats can make you twice as healthy physically.  But that's the effect of going to level two.

That merely tells you something else with the implementation of hit points is inconsistent, it doesn't change how you lose them, or how you get them back.

As above, healing should probably be level-linked, that might at least make the whole "skill in minimising injury" thing true.

But unless you add something non-physical in the means of recovery, it's still a physical measure.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;673300The entire point is that the 5 hp fighter is not crippled. He is just out of luck/mojo and a significant hit against him now WILL be physical.

Luck/mojo that requires physical healing to restore it. Again, it doesn't work.

Quote from: Bill;673312Your points are valid but its also a very old game, and has logic flaws built in.

Not so much "logical flaws built in" as "not very well thought through". Or maybe whomever was writing the bit on healing didn't really communicate with whomever wrote the stuff elsewhere about what hit points represented.

Quote from: Sommerjon;673296They were defined as abstract but then only had "physical means" of getting rid of them.

They didn't have Luck Absorbing creatures.
Constitution is the determining stat.

Good point on the last, the health-stat is the one that determines the bonus. Along with the physicality of the class determining how big your hit dice are. Or are we arguing Fighters are luckier than Mages?

It's not too fucking tricky. Who's to say that CLW doesn't replace luck, energy etc? The Gods are certainly able to replace such depleted resources through their vessel, the Cleric. Potions? Well, they can improve your vitality as well as close your physical wounds. It's the one reason that i've always thought that the Warlord shouting wounds closed actually made sense - but you have to buy into the healing from previous editions being more than just wound closure. If you can believe the one, then it doesn't make sense not to believe the other. well, unless you're an edition warrior, anyhow.

Quote from: One Horse Town;673343It's not too fucking tricky. Who's to say that CLW doesn't replace luck, energy etc? The Gods are certainly able to replace such depleted resources through their vessel, the Cleric. Potions? Well, they can improve your vitality as well as close your physical wounds. It's the one reason that i've always thought that the Warlord shouting wounds closed actually made sense - but you have to buy into the healing from previous editions being more than just wound closure. If you can believe the one, then it doesn't make sense not to believe the other. well, unless you're an edition warrior, anyhow.

The reason I wasn't a big fan of 4E  hp and healing had more to do with making hp a tactical resource instead of a strategic one.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;673352The reason I wasn't a big fan of 4E  hp and healing had more to do with making hp a tactical resource instead of a strategic one.

Even though I happily play 1e and 4e, I agree the hp recover rate in 4e is way too fast for my preference.

Quote from: One Horse Town;673343It's not too fucking tricky. Who's to say that CLW doesn't replace luck, energy etc? The Gods are certainly able to replace such depleted resources through their vessel, the Cleric. Potions? Well, they can improve your vitality as well as close your physical wounds. It's the one reason that i've always thought that the Warlord shouting wounds closed actually made sense - but you have to buy into the healing from previous editions being more than just wound closure. If you can believe the one, then it doesn't make sense not to believe the other. well, unless you're an edition warrior, anyhow.

The speed with which hit points come back in 4e makes any claim to them being purely physical somewhat ridiculous. Since a night's rest restores you to full hit points. In that context, Warlord healing by inspiration is perfectly fine.

By contrast a night's rest in older editions restores a small number which isn't even level-related. 4E at least fixed that part since a Surge is 25% of your hit points.

Hit points are an exact and precise measure of the amount of hit points you have.

Quote from: Piestrio;673364Hit points are an exact and precise measure of the amount of hit points you have.

This is very true. Refer to Abstract for the win.




I love level one characters with 1 hp at max.

They can't be wounded!  

Sweet!

Quote from: K Peterson;673324P.S. Though, I won't agree that this is consistently the case across editions. Or any rubbish about "empty throwaway text".

That's the thing about Kiero's argument: even he acknowledges, with stuff like the "throwaway text" and redefining subduing a creature as physical damage, that the rules say otherwise. See, it's one thing to look at the rules and say "I don't like this part about hit points being luck, because I don't think the rest of the rules support it well, so I'm going to change it." And it's another thing to say "The rules don't actually say that, because LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Quote from: Kiero;673273We can see this in the way hit points interact with other parts of the game.

1) How do you lose them? Being hit with weapons, monster attacks, poison, falling, physically-damaging spells and so on. All impacts on health.

2) How do you get them back? Magical healing and/or natural healing through rest. All relating solely to health.

#1 is wrong, because not all monsters that do hp damage have physical forms. Sometimes, you die for other reasons, or you're turned into a mind-controlled automaton when you hit zero points, etc.

# 2 is wrong, because there are spells and magic that provide boosts above normal hit points. Not to mention the intoxication rules on pp. 82-83 of the 1e DMG, which state that Moderate and Severe Intoxication add hit points over and above your normal hit points.

I now you hate being wrong, so I'm going to rub it in and quote part of that "empty text".

Quote from: 1e DMG, p. 82HIT POINTS

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 physical ability of the character to withstand damage -- as indicated by constitution bonuses -- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar 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. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

Etc. Gygax must have been psychic, because he goes on for a couple more paragraphs demonstrating why hit points were never meant to represent just physical damage. Why you consider it "empty text", I don't know, since it is describing hit die advancement and hit points increasing with level, something that is very integrated into the rules and does not support hit points as physical damage AT ALL.

But that's not all! What about saving throws?

Quote from: =1e DMG, p. 81Poison Saving Throws For Characters:

For those who wonder why poison does either killing damage (usually) or no harm whatsoever, recall the justification for character hit points. That is, damage is not actually sustained -- at least in proportion to the number of hit points marked off in most cases. The so called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill, and perhaps a scratch, and thus the saving throw. If that mere scratch managed to be venomous, then DEATH. If no such wound was delivered, then NO DAMAGE FROM THE POISON. In cases where some partial damage is indicated, this reflects poisons either placed so that they are ingested or used so as to ensure that some small portion does get in the wound or skin of the opponent.

See? The whole idea of save vs. poison ties into the idea of hit points being luck. You save vs. poison because sometimes no amount of luck is going to save you from that snakebite. The same would apply to the Finger of Death. These rules, plus the intoxication rules, plus many other rules, are the "support" for hit points as luck and skill that you say is missing.

Now, you can say "those are bad rules, so I'm going to change them so that hit points only represent physical damage". Or you could play another edition or another game entirely that you feel has better integrated rules. But stop claiming that something that is obviously there is not there. It just makes you look like an idiot.

Quote from: Piestrio;673364Hit points are an exact and precise measure of the amount of hit points you have.

Correct. *You can fiddle and diddle, moan, groan and split hairs, but it really comes down to this.

(*not you, general you)

Quote from: Piestrio;673364Hit points are an exact and precise measure of the amount of hit points you have.

Quote from: One Horse Town;673376Correct. *You can fiddle and diddle, moan, groan and split hairs, but it really comes down to this.

(*not you, general you)

Heck yeah. In Chainmail, 1 hit = 1 kill. Although that's a physical effect, it doesn't mean that a hit "represents" physical damage. Heroes in Chainmail, for example, require 4 hits to kill, not because they are physically sturdier, but because it takes more men, or a monster equal to many men, to bring down a hero.

OD&D changed that from "1 to 1" to "1d6 to 1d6" to introduce variety. Luck, as we say. Sometimes, when you make a deadly attack that would kill most men, your opponent doesn't die. Heroes and creatures with more than 1d6 for hit dice are even luckier and harder to kill. Size and toughness certainly play a role, but why is a wizard (8+1 hit dice) so hard to kill in physical combat? Do M-Us bulk up as they gain magical knowledge? Should Arnold Schwarzeneger or Jean-Claude Van Damme play Gandalf in a LotR remake?

Gary always claimed that the D&D combat system was built to model the fight between Erol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in "Robin Hood". That fight seems to have nothing to do with physical damage.

*cough cough*

Quote from: Adventurer Conqueror King System, page 18HIT POINTS

Hit points are a measure of a character's ability to survive in combat. When a character, or any other being, is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, he is incapacitated and possibly dead. Hit points are not a direct representation of the character's capacity to receive physical injury. Rather, they represent a holistic combination of fighting skill, stamina, luck, and the favor of the gods, all of which contribute to helping the character roll with blows and survive attacks that would have killed a lesser combatant.

That's taken from the game Kiero wants to see emulated by all other variants of D&D because "hit points represent physical damage only."

...

*blink blink*

I guess Kiero hasn't read his own rules book. ;)

Quote from: Piestrio;673364Hit points are an exact and precise measure of the amount of hit points you have.

The best definition of HP I read ever was Tim Kask basically saying that hit points represent just that: the amount of hits or near hits, abuse, dodging etc you could take before you took an actually lethal blow in a fight. Which amazingly, ACKS basically paraphrases in the quote in my previous post!

But Kiero has a big fucking problem with it... and wants D&D games to take notice of ACK and do just like it!

The mind. It boggles.

Quote from: Benoist;673386The best definition of HP I read ever was Tim Kask basically basically saying that hit points represented just that: the amount of hits or near hits, abuse, dodging etc you could take before you took an actually lethal blow in a fight. Which amazingly, ACKS basically paraphrases in the quote in my previous post!

But Kiero has a big fucking problem with it.

The mind. It boggles.

Which makes sense in the fact that in AD&D, you had one attack per round, but a round lasted 1 minute.  It's entirely reasonable to view "you lost 4 hit points" as "you got hit 4 times in that one minute of combat."

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673387Which makes sense in the fact that in AD&D, you had one attack per round, but a round lasted 1 minute.  It's entirely reasonable to view "you lost 4 hit points" as "you got hit 4 times in that one minute of combat."

A "hit" in that one minute of combat could be actually a series of cuts, blows exchanged, maneuvering around each other and so on. It's basically up to specific interpretations in each particular situation depending on context. Which is why (IMO) the hit points abstraction is formidable such as it is.

Hit points in Runequest were designed specifically to mirror physical damage vs. D&D's abstract damage. In fact, pretty much everything in Runequest was done to objectify purposefully abstract D&D concepts. If you somehow think hit points = physical damage in D&D, either you've never read a single D&D book or you're playing devil's advocate (or maybe you're trolling).

EDIT: For characters. Monster HD is directly related to physical damage.

Quote from: Brad;673390If you somehow think hit points = physical damage in D&D, either you've never read a single D&D book or you're playing devil's advocate (or maybe you're trolling).

or in the case of the OP, you're thick.

I'm not particularly interested in gnawing at the philosophy of a bunch of rules that some guys made up on the go because nobody has done so before them, but on a practical level, I've introduced a houserule into a campaign that IMO worked well and which addresses the issue of how HP (as written) are just too abstract to really explain satisfactorily.

So, in my game, HP strictly represent stamina, parrying, rolling with the blow, willpower, resisting shellshock and not getting slowed down by light bruises and cuts - so, the sort of thing official HP is supposed to largely represent. Since it explicitly does not include actual metal-in-your-guts injuries, they return at a rather fast rate naturally - taking a breather and quaffing down some fine wine as you sit on the giant carcass of a slain monster will return you a small handful, a night's decent sleep by a campfire after a frugal supper will restore 1 HP per level, and a night in a proper soft bed at the inn after a hearty meal will restore it all.

However, when you're at 0 HP, it means you're just too fatigued and shell-shocked to properly defend yourself. If you take any more damage, it gets doubled (I might forego this step in a more heroic campaign), and is deducted directly from your Strength, Dexterity or Stamina, chosen at random. This way, actual serious stabs, cuts and the like DO immediately decrease your combat effectiveness by reducing your strength bonus and AC. Any one of your stats reaching 0 means you're dead.

Yup, it's pretty much the Classic Traveller wound system bolted onto D&D Hit Points, and I found it works well.

Is it 1978 up in this bitch?

Quote from: Benoist;673381That's taken from the game Kiero wants to see emulated by all other variants of D&D because...

Not sure where you got this from. If you've bothered to read any of his posts on his campaign set up, he has rather significantly houseruled ACKS. I've thought on occasion that he would be far better served by a game that isn't a D&D derivative at all.

Quote from: Benoist;673381*cough cough*

 

That's taken from the game Kiero wants to see emulated by all other variants of D&D because "hit points represent physical damage only."

...

*blink blink*

I guess Kiero hasn't read his own rules book. ;)

You mean yet more meaningless text I discarded while I changed how the actual mechanics worked?

Because the critical stuff is on p104-5, which I altered thus:

QuoteEffects of Damage (p104)

Record your Bloodied value underneath your hit points; this is equal to one half of your full hit points. The first half of your hitpoints represent bruising, minor fatigue, minor cuts and grazes. Drop into the second half (Bloodied) and you're into major fatigue, heavier bruising, more serious cuts, muscle pulls and so on, which give a -1 to hit, Proficiencies and saves and movement is reduced by 30'.

Hit zero (and up to negative your Constitution score) and you're in danger of going unconscious, having to make a Fort (Poison and Death) save every round to stay with it. Even then you're at a -2 to hit, Proficiencies and saves, and movement reduced by 60'. Fail a save or drop below negative your Constitution and you're unconscious (and we get into Mortal Wounds).

QuoteHealing (p105)

Natural healing is equal to half your level in hp per day. If this is less than 1hp, then you take a number of days equal to that fraction to recover one hp. This is halved if a character is Bloodied (once you are above ½ maximum you return to the normal rate). This is doubled if under the care of someone with the Healing Proficiency. Furthermore, for every week of complete rest (no major exertion such as combat, running, swimming and so on), you recover an additional amount of hit points equal to your Con bonus.

Note that the healing times required to return to 1hp from the Mortal Wounds table still apply.

Quote from: talysman;673374That's the thing about Kiero's argument: even he acknowledges, with stuff like the "throwaway text" and redefining subduing a creature as physical damage, that the rules say otherwise. See, it's one thing to look at the rules and say "I don't like this part about hit points being luck, because I don't think the rest of the rules support it well, so I'm going to change it." And it's another thing to say "The rules don't actually say that, because LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

There's no redefinition necessary, subdual is about non-lethal damage. It's "flat of the blade" and all that jazz. That's still physical. Or are you seriously arguing the rules say you sweet-talk that dragon into serving you?

Quote from: talysman;673374#1 is wrong, because not all monsters that do hp damage have physical forms. Sometimes, you die for other reasons, or you're turned into a mind-controlled automaton when you hit zero points, etc.

Monsters don't have to have a physical form to do physical damage, that's the supernatural bit. Because unsurprisingly magic-related stuff tends towards exceptions to the usual run of things.

How come non-physical attacks like charm person or fear don't do damage?

Quote from: talysman;673374# 2 is wrong, because there are spells and magic that provide boosts above normal hit points. Not to mention the intoxication rules on pp. 82-83 of the 1e DMG, which state that Moderate and Severe Intoxication add hit points over and above your normal hit points.

I now you hate being wrong, so I'm going to rub it in and quote part of that "empty text".

Stuff that invariably provides temporary and small boosts to hit points, and still don't impact recovery.

Quote from: talysman;673374Etc. Gygax must have been psychic, because he goes on for a couple more paragraphs demonstrating why hit points were never meant to represent just physical damage. Why you consider it "empty text", I don't know, since it is describing hit die advancement and hit points increasing with level, something that is very integrated into the rules and does not support hit points as physical damage AT ALL.

Which aren't actually linked into how you recover hit points. It's almost as if he's saying something without bothering to support it.

We have a supposed level-related "increase in skill" at avoiding damage, yet nothing on the recovery side of the equation to reflect that same skill. If healing was level-linked this might have some truth to it (and it would represent some actual integration between the two), but it doesn't. So it's bunk.

Like I said, empty text. Tell me anything you like about how you'd like to imagine these things, but I look to how the mechanics actually work, and they contradict this.

Quote from: talysman;673374But that's not all! What about saving throws?



See? The whole idea of save vs. poison ties into the idea of hit points being luck. You save vs. poison because sometimes no amount of luck is going to save you from that snakebite. The same would apply to the Finger of Death. These rules, plus the intoxication rules, plus many other rules, are the "support" for hit points as luck and skill that you say is missing.

Now, you can say "those are bad rules, so I'm going to change them so that hit points only represent physical damage". Or you could play another edition or another game entirely that you feel has better integrated rules. But stop claiming that something that is obviously there is not there. It just makes you look like an idiot.

They're exceptions that work around hit points. Which doesn't actually change anything in the lack of linkage between level and recovery.

It's like you didn't even read my post, which was #3 I think.  The recovery mechanic in D&D since day one pretty much tells you that all hit point loss isn't physical damage.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673424It's like you didn't even read my post, which was #3 I think.  The recovery mechanic in D&D since day one pretty much tells you that all hit point loss isn't physical damage.

Fatigue and exhaustion are still elements of physical condition.

And again, higher level characters should surely recover those elements faster, if that's what is inflating their totals.

Quote from: Kiero;673426Fatigue and exhaustion are still elements of physical condition.

And again, higher level characters should surely recover those elements faster, if that's what is inflating their totals.

From Sacrosanct's post quoting the AD&D DMG:

QuoteThe remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors.

Don't see anything about fatigue or exhaustion anywhere in there.

Quote from: Brad;673390If you somehow think hit points = physical damage in D&D, either you've never read a single D&D book or you're playing devil's advocate (or maybe you're trolling).

EDIT: For characters. Monster HD is directly related to physical damage.

funny.

As much as I think of HP as abstract I've still always described damage as psyical.

It's just not a big deal.

8 damage on a level 2 fighter is a "vicious slash across the chest, spraying blood on the wall", and 8 damage on a 10th level fighter is "a cut on the arm, dripping blood down onto your hand".

As people level they deal/receive less damage?  Unless it's magic, then it's kinda the same all the way up.

One way to look at it I guess

Quote from: Sommerjon;673436As people level they deal/receive less damage?  Unless it's magic, then it's kinda the same all the way up.

One way to look at it I guess

I've been playing and running D&D for almost 20 years and its just never been an issue.

It feels like an "Internet problem".

Quote from: Piestrio;673438I've been playing and running D&D for almost 20 years and its just never been an issue.

It feels like an "Internet problem".

There are plenty of systems out there that don't use escalating hit points.  Saying it's an "Internet problem" isn't all that accurate.

I'm glad you found a way to make it work for you and yours
(http://www.truckdriversnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/attaboy.jpg)

Quote from: Kiero;673273You might argue a small exception to this with 4th edition, where hit points possibly represent fatigue rather than health, since with a 10 minute rest you can restore them all via Healing Surges, and you get all your Surges back with a eight hour's rest.

I'm just going to link here for my definitive discussion of this topic: Explaining Hit Points (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1034/roleplaying-games/explaining-hit-points)

But 4E really does present a completely different paradigm from previous editions. And it's not a "small exception". A lost hit point in previous editions always represents a physical wound (although the severity of a 1 hp wound varies depending on the character who suffered it). A lost hit point in 4E might represent a physical wound, but it could also represent fatigue or flagging morale or a number of other things.

And what makes 4E particularly pernicious in this regard is that you're not allowed to know what type of wound was inflicted until it's been healed. Which makes it literally impossible to describe the game world in a coherent fashion.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;673454I'm just going to link here for my definitive discussion of this topic: Explaining Hit Points (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1034/roleplaying-games/explaining-hit-points)

But 4E really does present a completely different paradigm from previous editions. And it's not a "small exception". A lost hit point in previous editions always represents a physical wound (although the severity of a 1 hp wound varies depending on the character who suffered it). A lost hit point in 4E might represent a physical wound, but it could also represent fatigue or flagging morale or a number of other things.

And what makes 4E particularly pernicious in this regard is that you're not allowed to know what type of wound was inflicted until it's been healed. Which makes it literally impossible to describe the game world in a coherent fashion.

Fair point and an interesting essay, though I was trying to avoid turning it into a "look at how much more coherent and consistent 4E is in this regard" sideline away from the main argument.

Because I think we all know how rapidly the thread could disappear down that rabbit hole.

Quote from: Piestrio;673433As much as I think of HP as abstract I've still always described damage as physical.

I haven't always. It completely depends on the situation, the particular opponents involved, and so on. And even when it is about actual physical damage, it's all about however we see the situation at hand in our mind's eye, not just me, but the players' also. The descriptions will vary accordingly.

When I play I love to describe my actions as "I take a few swings at the Ogre to try to distract him and go for the jugular..." *rolls d20* or *after opponent knight's attack fails* "I interpose my shield and try to sustain the onslaught of his flail (after the DM actually described the knight attacking in such a fashion, of course), then make a large arc with it to create some distance between him and me and strike tip first with my sword in the movement..." *rolls d20*

Which then the DM can respond to seeing the results of my rolls and describing say, in the first case, on a successful hit and high damage on a fresh ogre "your blow would have decapitated any lesser being, and probably the ogre too, if your blade had not met its jaw bone squarely which, amazingly, caused your blade to ricochet off it and slash a huge bleeding cut on the side of its head, making the ogre even more pissed at you right now..." or in the second case, same thing, on a successful hit and high damage on a low HP knight "you stretch as far as you can and impale the knight squarely through his stomach. Blood gushes forth through his mail, and then his plate seems to fill with a wet 'thud' with guts and gore as he expires before your eyes..."

That's the magic of abstract HPs to me. You can riff off the actual same hit - damage mechanics and describe the results in completely different ways depending on the circumstance. Not to mention, the various applications this could have on home brew spells and items and whatnot.

I find myself siding with Kiero and Piestrio.

the fact that there is loads of discussion and description of HPs as luck and fatigue and skill etc doesn't matter if the opnly mechanical way you can get them back is healing.

I can write pages of stuff in a rule book about how loads of stuff but its just fluff unless the mechanics support it.

Its not hard to understand. If HP can only be regained through healing they have to be injury. It might not tie in with the fluff written about HP but meh.

So Piestrio has the right of it. Think of wounds as % of your HP. So a 10 HP hit that kills a 1st level theif becomes a deep cut that hurts a 4th level thief or a minor cut to a 10th level thief.
The lack of a death spiral is a quirk and you could introduce one if you felt like it at say 25%, 50% 75%, 90% but with HPs at low level being so low survivability would drop very fast.

Now for my games I moved HPs to model much closer to 4e about 20 years ago because I didn't want playability of the game to hinge on magical healing because magical healing is practically non existant in the source material especially as combat medic insta heal.
So to play the games I wanted to play but to keep the core D&D engine we loved to use I make HPs actually represent fatigue, luck, stanima, skill and added a wound mechanic underneath it, complete with death spiral and what not.
Makes games much more lethal as a dagger at the throat can actually kill a 10th level figther without having to invent a new ruling on the fly etc etc. But also means a party can get through a fight with scratches and bruises and no major injury and rest up and then be off again at moreorless full competance without having to glug healing potions or get cured or what not.

Now I don't think they will change HP for D&D and the majority of folk are comfortable with it and its inconsistencies but I don't think that those people should try to pretend it's something that its not. So lets not pretend HPs are well thought out consistent and immersive, lets just admit that they are a very playable abstract system that allows the level mechanic to reward players by increasing survivability of their PCs and allow them to take on increasingly tough opponents.

Quote from: jibbajibba;673493I find myself siding with Kiero and Piestrio.

the fact that there is loads of discussion and description of HPs as luck and fatigue and skill etc doesn't matter if the opnly mechanical way you can get them back is healing.

I can write pages of stuff in a rule book about how loads of stuff but its just fluff unless the mechanics support it.

Its not hard to understand. If HP can only be regained through healing they have to be injury. It might not tie in with the fluff written about HP but meh.
.

I think there's a few things people keep forgetting.  For one, resting isn't always healing.  If I drive myself to the point of exhaustion, it may a few days or even a week or longer to get back into full strength.

Secondly, AD&D also had psionics, and that is not always physical damage.  Life drain in 2e for example (actually in general as well).  It's draining the life force from a target, not necessarily physical damage.  Lend health is another example.  Same with Psionic Blast and Psychic Crush.  These are all things that affect hit points but are not physical in nature.

Thirdly, the 1e DMG does in fact say you get your Con bonus after a certain period of time, and then after that, you're automatically healed up to full.  So Joe Blow who had 250 hit points and was down to 1 will heal up to full after a few weeks.  That's a hell of a lot faster than a normal person's healing rate after suffering major wounds/fatigue/spirit/etc.

And of course all of that is beside the fact that the 1e DMG is very clear about what hit points are, and explicitly says that a 8 damage sword thrust that kills a level 1 fighter will only result as a nick (with the same 8 points) on a fighter with much more hit points.

So even though the majority of hp loss is through physical wounds, it's not the only way to lose them or get them back.  Just isn't.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673501I think there's a few things people keep forgetting.  For one, resting isn't always healing.  If I drive myself to the point of exhaustion, it may a few days or even a week or longer to get back into full strength.

Secondly, AD&D also had psionics, and that is not always physical damage.  Life drain in 2e for example (actually in general as well).  It's draining the life force from a target, not necessarily physical damage.  Lend health is another example.  Same with Psionic Blast and Psychic Crush.  These are all things that affect hit points but are not physical in nature.

Thirdly, the 1e DMG does in fact say you get your Con bonus after a certain period of time, and then after that, you're automatically healed up to full.  So Joe Blow who had 250 hit points and was down to 1 will heal up to full after a few weeks.  That's a hell of a lot faster than a normal person's healing rate after suffering major wounds/fatigue/spirit/etc.

And of course all of that is beside the fact that the 1e DMG is very clear about what hit points are, and explicitly says that a 8 damage sword thrust that kills a level 1 fighter will only result as a nick (with the same 8 points) on a fighter with much more hit points.

So even though the majority of hp loss is through physical wounds, it's not the only way to lose them or get them back.  Just isn't.

Step back a sec....

Drive your self to exhaustion then you will take physical damage and you need to heal. Physical damge doesn't have to be a cut or a bruise it can be dehydration, Hyperthermia, frostbite, starvation loads of things cause physical damage.

Psionics are different but they should heal differently in my opinion. Very few peopel woudl say the psionic rules are a well thought out subsystem.....

Healign HP in AD&D with 'and on day 31 all the rest of your hit points instantly recover' is again not a great rule to cite.

The fact that a guy with 1 hp can be fine then get stabbed and be at deaths door and then be fine tomorrow isn't going to get fixed in any iteration fo D&D HP paradigm....

I just don't know whay you are saying that healing isn't the only way to regain HPs because it plainly is.
Take some examples....
I am in a room it fills with gas, I take 10 HP damage. How do I recover this damage?
I get hit by an orc I take 5 damage how do I get back that damage?
On a wilderness treck I don't have enough rations and I take 5 points of damage over a week from starvation. How can I get that back?
I pick up an antagonistic Intelligent sword and take its ego in damage. How do I get that back?



You are dead right when you say a 8 hp cut is jut a scratch to a 10th level guy , that was exactly what I said thing of damage as % rather than raw numbers.

You simply can not reconcile HPs as decribed in TSR D&D with HPs as they actually work. its not possible. So the best you can do is hand wave it and just get on with the game or come up with new mechanics that let you play the game you like.

Quotethe fact that there is loads of discussion and description of HPs as luck and fatigue and skill etc doesn't matter if the opnly mechanical way you can get them back is healing.

The rules of D&D are generally inconsistent.  Gygax said a lot of things, not all of them made much sense.

Ultimately I feel that D&D is just a game, and hit points are perfectly designed to model hit points. However all that abstraction can spoil immersion somewhat, so here is my perspective on the issue for when you need a better idea of what's going on (all the following is IMO etc. etc.)

I picture HP loss as mostly damage and fatigue, as you lose them when you get hit. The amount of actual damage you take is relative to your total HP*. Fatigue factors in because getting hit is tiring, even if there is no visible evidence, and I suspect the reason higher level characters can go further is because they tire less easily, but they're still better at taking damage too (hey, why not? It's no less easy to buy than anything the wizard is up to at this point). Also exposure and dehydration etc.

To me, 0 HP and fewer do not reflect death, but penalties and death spirals are too much effort, so you're just down (maybe the blood loss has overcome the adrenaline, or something has broken). You can do simple things (if you pass a fortitude save), but you're not in a fit state to protect yourself from enemies, so you're subject to coup-de-grace attacks.

A few things aren't well modelled by HP loss, such as falling, and lava. I feel falls should be handled by saving throws for incapacitation and death rather than HP loss (and there's no save against lava).

One thing that I think HP definitely do not represent is luck. Luck is already very well modelled in damage and to-hit rolls. If you're lucky, you didn't get hit, or they rolled a 1 for damage. More HP doesn't change that. Also luck isn't a recharge thing where you can go and sleep, luck is when you're lucky. You can't bank it for another day.

--
* As a corollary, you should also recover HP at a rate of level per day, or say 1/4 per day, rather than the 1HP per day (which could leave you not at peak for months), while negative HP are recovered more slowly, say the same number as before, but per week. I don't like the 1/day rule as in TSR D&D -- that makes no sense, as a fighter who apparently wasn't injured can take a month's rest and still not be at peak (although I'm sure I remember a rule somewhere that said after 4 weeks you recover all remaining HP).

Quote from: jibbajibba;673493Now I don't think they will change HP for D&D and the majority of folk are comfortable with it and its inconsistencies but I don't think that those people should try to pretend it's something that its not

I don't pretend it's anything other than an abstraction. If I want a realistic game, well there go the magic missiles, fireballs and longswords+1. It's just an abstraction for a bit of fun, like chess or monopoly. Nobody wants realism, though. "Oh my god why can't my cleric have a sword? Real-world priests had swords!"
"Okay, you can be a real-world cleric with a sword, and a real-world cleric with no spells."
"Oh no, I want realism when it favours me, the rest of the time I want a fantasy game."

If Kiero insisted that high hit points were unrealistic, I'd offer an easy solution: he's not allowed to roll more hit points for his characters after 1st level. Just his characters, though. Everyone else can roll.

If someone really wants a simulation of reality, I recommend GURPS. Someone even made welding rules (https://sites.google.com/site/nymdoksgurpsaddons/Home/gurps-welding). Now there's an exciting premise for a campaign.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;673567I don't pretend it's anything other than an abstraction. If I want a realistic game, well there go the magic missiles, fireballs and longswords+1. It's just an abstraction for a bit of fun, like chess or monopoly. Nobody wants realism, though. "Oh my god why can't my cleric have a sword? Real-world priests had swords!"
"Okay, you can be a real-world cleric with a sword, and a real-world cleric with no spells."
"Oh no, I want realism when it favours me, the rest of the time I want a fantasy game."

If Kiero insisted that high hit points were unrealistic, I'd offer an easy solution: he's not allowed to roll more hit points for his characters after 1st level. Just his characters, though. Everyone else can roll.

If someone really wants a simulation of reality, I recommend GURPS. Someone even made welding rules (https://sites.google.com/site/nymdoksgurpsaddons/Home/gurps-welding). Now there's an exciting premise for a campaign.

Plenty of people do want more realism :), its all about degree, but the thrust of your point is spot on.

My contention is merely that saying HPs do something that according the rules as opposed to the fluff they clearly don't do is a bit daft. Accept them as what they are or don't and change them. Saying they are X when all the data clearly shows they are Y and calling others to task for suggesting they are Y is clearly a bit silly.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;673567I don't pretend it's anything other than an abstraction. If I want a realistic game, well there go the magic missiles, fireballs and longswords+1. It's just an abstraction for a bit of fun, like chess or monopoly. Nobody wants realism, though. "Oh my god why can't my cleric have a sword? Real-world priests had swords!"
"Okay, you can be a real-world cleric with a sword, and a real-world cleric with no spells."
"Oh no, I want realism when it favours me, the rest of the time I want a fantasy game."

If Kiero insisted that high hit points were unrealistic, I'd offer an easy solution: he's not allowed to roll more hit points for his characters after 1st level. Just his characters, though. Everyone else can roll.

If someone really wants a simulation of reality, I recommend GURPS. Someone even made welding rules (https://sites.google.com/site/nymdoksgurpsaddons/Home/gurps-welding). Now there's an exciting premise for a campaign.

Your stupid analogies aside, it doesn't surprise me that you still don't get it, and think this is all some sort of attempt to get an advantage.

There's a really easy fix to this: make recovery level-linked. Then we really are into the realm of hit point inflation reflecting something more than "being tougher" and fixing the rather glaring omission.

And in my game, no one rolls for hit points. They get max at 1st level and half HD every level thereafter up to 9th.

Otherwise, fuck GURPS, I can manage an appropriate level of "realism" in D&D just fine without touching that shit.

Quote from: Kiero;673569Your stupid analogies aside, it doesn't surprise me that you still don't get it, and think this is all some sort of attempt to get an advantage.

There's a really easy fix to this: make recovery level-linked. Then we really are into the realm of hit point inflation reflecting something more than "being tougher" and fixing the rather glaring omission.

And in my game, no one rolls for hit points. They get max at 1st level and half HD every level thereafter up to 9th.

Otherwise, fuck GURPS, I can manage an appropriate level of "realism" in D&D just fine without touching that shit.

Recover was linked to level by 3e where you regain level HP per day rather than HP. That makes the model work better but the more realistic soution is to rate all heals as a %.

So if we suppose all HPs are physical wounds then lets say we heal (5 + con bonus)% of HPs per day. If you want to be vague then you take the max hit point so a guy with 10 HPs heals at .5 HP a day or one every 2 days and a guy with 100 HPs heals 5 per day. Now that is going to be a bit fiddly so add and a mimimum of 1HP though that does mean Wizards haal faster than fighters.

You might say  (5 + con bonus)% of lost HPs per day so a guy down 20 HP heals 1 HP per day.

Or you might track each wound independently and have them all heal at (5 + con bonus)% so a 5 HP wound would heal at a rate of 1 point every 4 days. But the 10 HP wound you took would heal at the same rate so 1 HP every 2 days. Might get really fiddly :)

Now if we assumed that HPs are the ablative stuff and wounds underly them then the HPs heal at a 4e type rate and wounds heal 1 per week and give you a death spiral. Thsi si by the way how I have played D&D for 20 years.

My current heartbreaker is a little different with very low HP (a 4th level fighter in the game has 14 HP) and a wound death spiral with 7 wounds.

For D&D now I would give all PCs 1d6 as their 0 level HPs or make it a round 4 + con bonus. Then keep all Level acquited HP separate. So long as you draw from the Level stuff its skill and stamina and luck and energy and it recovers fast. If you have to dip into the 0 level stuff its wounds. Heal that slowly, give penalties and maybe roll specific injuries.

Means 1st level guys last longer and you have a number you can use for all those times when a hit will cause a real wound, hostages, hanging , beheading etc.....

Or just leave it as it is and put up with the inherent inconsistencies which si also fine if that is how you roll :)

Abstract HP model = No reason to apply more than minimal real world logic.

Realistic HP = Reason to apply real world logic.



I might prefer 'realistic' HP, but I am fine with abstract hp.

Well, to be very cynical about it, hit points are physical condition + plot immunity.

D&D has to go through considerable circumlocutions to handle Smaug getting killed by an arrow, because in the game a Smaug would have more plot immunity built in than an arrow can deal with. Though an arrow can kill a large animal. Sometimes. These examples have been hashed to death many times over of course.

You'd think somebody would have come up with an uncontroversially & universally better way of handling what hit points handle by now, but I guess it's a difficult thing to abstract because physical condition can vary widely and plot immunity is a thing that RPGs want to keep at a good arm's length and under plausible deniability unless they decide that the game is really about predetermined plots, storygame elements, etc. Hit points are simple. Just don't look at them very hard.

I tend to imagine PC hit points as partially... not so much luck, as fate, whose hand the spells of a priest can stay a little bit longer, hence the reason cure wounds spells help, though of course actual wounds figure in as well and it's a big ol' mess if you look at it closely. You don't want to tempt fate too much, so a high-level character that comes back from a real beating would want to rest longer than his wounds would suggest. Yep, kinda stupid, but less work. Fate, after all, is plot immunity made into an independent quality...

As an AD&D player I have to agree with the OP.

At 1 HP you're good to go and at 0 HP you're dead.  The idea of HP as abstract representation of stamina, luck and rolling with the punches is a belief system that you have to buy into.

Quote from: jibbajibba;673514Psionics are different but they should heal differently in my opinion. Very few peopel woudl say the psionic rules are a well thought out subsystem.....
.

Just because you think they should be handled differently, or if they happen to be a poorly thought out system is irrelevant because that wasn't the argument.  The argument was that there was no other way to lose hit points or gain them back outside of healing physical damage.

And that's simply not true.  Sure, the vast majority of the time it's true because the vast majority of time PCs are in physical combat.  And sure, the vast majority of players think that's true because of the above reason as well.  However, it's a black and white example of it not always being the case.  And if you have even just one example of it not being the case, then you can't say something is always one way.

QuoteWelding
IQ/A
Defaults: Machinist -2, Metallurgy -4
 
This is the modern skill of welding using localized heat from a flame or Electric Current to join 2 pieces of metal. For forge welding See Smith B221.
 
Success results in a weld that is visibly noticeable, by structurally identical to the base material. In the union of 2 dissimilar metals, use the lowest DR and HP.
 
Failure results in a union that has DR of 5% less per margin of failure on the roll for both DR and HP (Round Down). In the case of dissimilar metals again, use the lower DR and HP.
 
It takes 1 minute to create a 1 foot , 1/4" deep weld.
 
Example:
 
The Sinister Red Lincoln chains our hero, The Mighty Blue Miller to a wall by welding his 1/4" chains to steel plates in the wall. Lincolns Welding skill is a 11 and he rolls an 16 for a margin of failure of 5. This means that the DR of the weld holding him is only 75% the DR of steel (about DR:5 and HP 11 for the 1/4" steel bars that make up the chain) for a final DR:3 and HP:7. If he can manage 10 points of damage, He'll be free from the wall, but not the chains!

(http://i.imgur.com/YccUyW3.gif)

Quote from: Orpheo;673604As an AD&D player I have to agree with the OP.

At 1 HP you're good to go and at 0 HP you're dead.  The idea of HP as abstract representation of stamina, luck and rolling with the punches is a belief system that you have to buy into.

*cough cough*

Quote from: AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, page 82HIT POINTS

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 [hit points] reflect both the actual physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by constitution bonuses - and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill in combat and similar 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. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

In other words: hit points themselves are an abstraction of all these things including physical ability to withstand damage, skill in combat and life-or-death situations, sixth sense warning the individual of unforeseen events (i.e. rolling with the blows, anticipating hits, near dodges etc.), sheer luck, and fantastic elements which are part of the make up of the game world. Constitution is part of the equation to represent this specific part of progression of physical training and fitness, but it is not the whole of the equation.

Also...

Quote from: AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, page 82Zero Hit Points

When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally as low as -3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious. In each of the next succeeding rounds 1 additional (negative) point will be lost until -10 is reached and the creature dies.

It goes on, but the point is, BTB you don't die at 0 hit points. You're unconscious, bleeding, convulsing or have stopped breathing, etc (the paragraph actually enumerates several possibilities, the point being, you could be unconscious for a number of different reasons, up to interpretation), and if you reach -10 without receiving first aid (which could be a number of things, up to interpretation) in the meantime, you die.

Quote from: Orpheo;673604As an AD&D player I have to agree with the OP.

At 1 HP you're good to go and at 0 HP you're dead.  The idea of HP as abstract representation of stamina, luck and rolling with the punches is a belief system that you have to buy into.

I deeply dislike dead at 0 (I also think HP has nothing to do with luck, as that is already accounted for by the dice). While there are many ways to die quickly on a battlefield, a great many will only disable you, maybe leading to death a few days later. There has to be a buffer between fighting and dead. Removing that aspect not only hurts believability, it also removes a great number of interesting outcomes from combat.

If someone is in negative HP and you really want them dead, spend the action to coup-de-grace. The game is lethal enough as it is without adding in a rule whose sole purpose is to emulate one fight from one film -- there are many other films with interesting fight scenes and outcomes to explore.

Quote from: spaceLem;673847I deeply dislike dead at 0 (I also think HP has nothing to do with luck, as that is already accounted for by the dice).

Wrong meaning of the word "luck", dQQd.

Folks, Kiero is right this time.  What he's pointed out is the difference between what a thing is said to be and what it actually is; it does not matter how many definitions you cite and quote because those are not what actually is.  What actually is consists of the observed results of the thing in action, and that is the relevant evidence that Kiero cites to support his argument- and he draws the correct conclusions accordingly.  "What you see is what you get." is a better way to summarize this principle.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;673872Folks, Kiero is right this time.  What he's pointed out is the difference between what a thing is said to be and what it actually is; it does not matter how many definitions you cite and quote because those are not what actually is.  What actually is consists of the observed results of the thing in action, and that is the relevant evidence that Kiero cites to support his argument- and he draws the correct conclusions accordingly.  "What you see is what you get." is a better way to summarize this principle.

Uh, no. It's not just the definitions, it's the rules that he discounts because they fail to prove his point. There's plenty of examples of hit points that can't possibly be physical damage. He's just cherry-picking examples and ignoring or redefining anything that doesn't fit his theory.

Quote from: Kiero;673461Fair point and an interesting essay, though I was trying to avoid turning it into a "look at how much more coherent and consistent 4E is in this regard" sideline away from the main argument. Because I think we all know how rapidly the thread could disappear down that rabbit hole.

Fair enough. But you aren't going to get anywhere discussing what hit points represent if you roll 4E and previous editions into one big lump. Like a lot of 4E mechanics, they use the same name but they do something significantly different.

It would be like trying to discuss what a "save" means while lumping 4E and pre-4E together. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/10686/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-the-design-history-of-saving-throws)

Quote from: Orpheo;673604At 1 HP you're good to go and at 0 HP you're dead.  

That's a bottomless pit, though.

You start by saying: "Well, the system is abstract and doesn't model the debilitating effects from wounds, so it's unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

So you add some wound penalties. Say, -1 penalty for every 1/4 of your total hit points are depleted.

And then you say: "Well, jeez, this system is so abstract it's not even modeling the fact that wounds are suffered to different parts of the body. A cut on the arm shouldn't affect my ability to run! So it's clearly unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

So you add hit locations.

And then you say: "Well, jeez, this system is so abstract it's not even modeling the potential for wounds to deteriorate or for extreme actions to make the wounds worse, so it's unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

So you add rules for that.

And then you say: "Well, jeez, this system is so abstract it's not modeling the distinctions between different types of wounds. Cuts should be different from bruises and both of those should be different from broken bones, so this is clearly unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

The real root of the problem here is not the mechanic. It's that you've failed to understand the concept of abstraction.

The Alexandrian has the right of it.

At some point you have to abstract things. Any system at the lowest level of its abstraction is absurd. What you hope to get is that when looked at from higher levels, things come out reasonable.

I remember years ago playing a wargame of the Allied invasion of German-occupied Europe. The smallest unit, apart from a few specialist ones, was the "division", which in reality is 8-24,000 men. During combat, a division could be eliminated or forced back - that was all. In reality, divisions are rarely eliminated entirely, they get some casualties and become ineffective, if they can withdraw and get their shit together they'll come back strong as ever.

Looked at the lowest level of its abstraction, an entire division disappearing from the battlefield instantly is absurd. But since they game had 100+ divisions a side, the overall result of the campaign was much what we got or could have got in reality, the Germans defeated by April 1945, or the Allies knocked off the beaches in June 1944, etc.

So while the lowest level of abstraction was nonsense, it actually worked to make a big picture that made sense. You choose a level of abstraction you're comfortable with.

In Dave Arneson's original fantasy campaign, the first combats were "A meets B, both roll, higher roll wins, either A is killed and B is fine, or vice versa." When people were playing with 20+ miniatures each, they were happy with that level of abstraction. When they had just one, they found this unsatisfying. Arneson pulled Ironclad down from the bookshelf, a game where heavily armoured ships fire heavy shells at each-other and basically batter each-other into destruction... thus Armour Class and Hit Points.

The players were happier with this level of abstraction, since instead of a single dice roll there were several, and they could imagine the back-and-forth of a lengthy combat. The end result was just the same - someone died, someone lived and walked away - but it felt different.

Somewhere along the spectrum Justin describes you find the level of abstraction you're comfortable with. Nowhere on that spectrum is more or less "realistic". It just feels different.

Many of us confuse detail with realism, just as if I say someone's height is 1.78543m you are more likely to believe me than if I say it's "about 2 metres." Accuracy (whether the measure is correct) is one thing, precision (how many decimal points the measure is to) is another. Many games go for precision in striving for accuracy; thus GURPS welding rules. But you can be accurate without being precise, and vice versa.

The different levels of abstraction are different levels of precision. None of them are terribly accurate. You know, fireballs and stuff. Hit points are not physical damage, nor luck, nor anything else. They're an abstraction, as meaningless as the individual division in the board game. But looked at from a distance, they work fine. Experienced warriors should last longer in combat than inexperienced ones. There are lots of ways of modelling that, hit points increasing with level are just one of them.

Hit points are simply the answer to the following question:

How hard is it to kill this motherfucker?

How a player or DM wants to rationalize why one PC or monster is harder to kill than another is their lookout. Ditto for explaining how healing works, what healing is, what exactly is being healed, and so on.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;673454But 4E really does present a completely different paradigm from previous editions. And it's not a "small exception". A lost hit point in previous editions always represents a physical wound (although the severity of a 1 hp wound varies depending on the character who suffered it). A lost hit point in 4E might represent a physical wound, but it could also represent fatigue or flagging morale or a number of other things.

Wow. So, in this thread we find that Justin has not read, or does not remember, 1e D&D rules regarding hit points.  Nor has he read the thread he's posting to, where people went to quite some lengths to post the relevant and quite lengthy text which completely and totally refutes what Justin thinks the rules were.

I know you're about to respond with some bullshit snark Justin, so I'll just say this before you do - read the fucking thread first dude, and then if you want to make the claim you just made, at least you will be equipped to actually know what it is you're trying to refute.  Because 1e was super-clear in saying you're quite wrong.  Hit Points in 1e absolutely did not represent a physical wound most of the time, and Gygax didn't hedge that explanation or leave any wiggle room to think otherwise.

Quote from: Mistwell;673955Wow. So, in this thread we find that Justin has not read, or does not remember, 1e D&D rules regarding hit points.

Well, I know that Justin Alexander just doesn't get 1E, for sure, but I agree: it's pretty obvious at this point that folks are just not reading others' posts.

So... *shrug* Moving on.

Quote from: Mistwell;673955Wow. So, in this thread we find that Justin has not read, or does not remember, 1e D&D rules regarding hit points.  Nor has he read the thread he's posting to, where people went to quite some lengths to post the relevant and quite lengthy text which completely and totally refutes what Justin thinks the rules were.

I know you're about to respond with some bullshit snark Justin, so I'll just say this before you do - read the fucking thread first dude, and then if you want to make the claim you just made, at least you will be equipped to actually know what it is you're trying to refute.  Because 1e was super-clear in saying you're quite wrong.  Hit Points in 1e absolutely did not represent a physical wound most of the time, and Gygax didn't hedge that explanation or leave any wiggle room to think otherwise.

What the blurb say about hit points in AD&D does not match how Hit points actually work in AD&D that is the point.
If I hit you with a poison dagger you need to save v posion, if its a posion where you take damage regardless of the save then you take damage as the wound is a physical wound the whole of the HP paradigm works that way in AD&D.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673611Just because you think they should be handled differently, or if they happen to be a poorly thought out system is irrelevant because that wasn't the argument.  The argument was that there was no other way to lose hit points or gain them back outside of healing physical damage.

And that's simply not true.  Sure, the vast majority of the time it's true because the vast majority of time PCs are in physical combat.  And sure, the vast majority of players think that's true because of the above reason as well.  However, it's a black and white example of it not always being the case.  And if you have even just one example of it not being the case, then you can't say something is always one way.

How do you regain HP lost through a psychic attack? Healign isps facto they are physical wounds and really ...psionics .... possibly the worst though out subsystem in the game that is your go to example?

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;673872Folks, Kiero is right this time.  What he's pointed out is the difference between what a thing is said to be and what it actually is; it does not matter how many definitions you cite and quote because those are not what actually is.  What actually is consists of the observed results of the thing in action, and that is the relevant evidence that Kiero cites to support his argument- and he draws the correct conclusions accordingly.  "What you see is what you get." is a better way to summarize this principle.

Amen brother

Quote from: jibbajibba;673959What the blurb say about hit points in AD&D does not match how Hit points actually work in AD&D that is the point.
If I hit you with a poison dagger you need to save v posion, if its a posion where you take damage regardless of the save then you take damage as the wound is a physical wound the whole of the HP paradigm works that way in AD&D.

So, again, someone who decided to not read the thread he's replying to.

Talysman responded to this point, with text from 1e.  It's not even some interpretation - Gygax speaks directly to this point, and says you're wrong.  It's almost like he's responding to your actual post...as if Gygax saw into the future, saw your post, and said no jibbajibba that's really not what these rules mean.  

I don't get it - is this some contest to just see how much people can talk without listening? Come on guys, what's the point of a message board if you don't read other people's messages?

Go back and read his post where he quotes the 1E DMG.  If you need help finding it, it's on the first page, and you can search for the words "damage is not actually sustained" or "expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill".  Either will get you there.

Any way you look at it though, what Justin said is flat out wrong.  Him saying that the rules said it was physical wounds is wrong.  Him saying the rules described it in pre-4e versions of the game in a way entirely different from how they were described in 4e is wrong.  The rules were quoted, and they say they opposite...the 1e description of what hit points represent is rather similar to the 4e description of what hit points represent. Both 1e and 4e describe hit points in terms of luck, skill, and other non-wound, non-endurance terms, using almost the same examples to describe hit points.

Quote from: Mistwell;673972I don't get it - is this some contest to just see how much people can talk without listening? Come on guys, what's the point of a message board if you don't read other people's messages?

I long ago decided that internet forums are a write-only medium.

Quote from: Mistwell;673972Any way you look at it though, what Justin said is flat out wrong.  Him saying that the rules said it was physical wounds is wrong.  Him saying the rules described it in pre-4e versions of the game in a way entirely different from how they were described in 4e is wrong.  The rules were quoted, and they say they opposite...the 1e description of what hit points represent is rather similar to the 4e description of what hit points represent. Both 1e and 4e describe hit points in terms of luck, skill, and other non-wound, non-endurance terms, using almost the same examples to describe hit points.

He's wrong in some particulars, but unless I'm misinterpreting him, his main point is that they are an abstraction, which can be interpreted and house-ruled to match individual tastes. If so, I agree with that.

Excellent, now that's settled. And Kiero is still only allowed to have 1d6 hit points for his character. It's okay that he hasn't read the rules, players aren't meant to read the DMG anyway.

Quote from: talysman;673974I long ago decided that internet forums are a write-only medium.



He's wrong in some particulars, but unless I'm misinterpreting him, his main point is that they are an abstraction, which can be interpreted and house-ruled to match individual tastes. If so, I agree with that.

The quote I am disputing of his is this:

Quote from: Justin Alexander;673454But 4E really does present a completely different paradigm from previous editions. And it's not a "small exception". A lost hit point in previous editions always represents a physical wound (although the severity of a 1 hp wound varies depending on the character who suffered it). A lost hit point in 4E might represent a physical wound, but it could also represent fatigue or flagging morale or a number of other things.

Pretty clear to me he thinks a lost hit point in all other editions, like 1e, cannot be things like flagging morale or anything other than a physical wound...even though Gygax spelled it out (repeatedly and at some length) as including things just like that.  

For example, "...a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors'; and "...skill in combat ...a "sixth sense" which warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck, and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine protection"; and "The so called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill...".

That's the sort of explanation for hit points you find in 4e as well.  1e and 4e, for this issue, are quite similar.  Which is contrary to Justin's claims.

Quote from: Mistwell;673955Hit Points in 1e absolutely did not represent a physical wound most of the time, and Gygax didn't hedge that explanation or leave any wiggle room to think otherwise.

You're simply wrong about this.

AD&D DMG, pg. 82: "Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage."

Each hit specifically contains a portion which is "basic physical damage sustained", while any damage beyond that is not actually physical damage. This is literally synonymous with what I wrote in Explaining Hit Points (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1034/roleplaying-games/explaining-hit-points).

Still don't believe me?

AD&D DMG, pg. 82: "Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm..."

But it always does physical harm. I describe that as a percentage of each hit point suffered in a wound; Gygax describes it as a percentage of the total hit points inflicted in each wound. If the wound is 1 hp these are literally identical statements and in all other cases they're conceptually and mathematically equivalent. In either case, it still results in the same thesis statement:


Gygax said so. Zeb Cook said so. Tweet, Cook, and Williams said so. 'Nuff said.

EDIT: And while I can see why the quote about poison saving throws can be confusing, I suggest you take a second look at it. A physical wound (in this case a scratch) is being inflicted and the saving throw is being made to see "if that mere scratch managed to be venomous". And simply citing the phrase "not actually sustained" while ignoring the rest of that sentence which specifically clarifies what that phrase means ("in proportion to the number of hit points marked off") is an absurd misreading of what Gygax actually wrote, particularly in light of the explicit statements on the subject.

Quote from: Mistwell;673955Wow. So, in this thread we find that Justin has not read, or does not remember, 1e D&D rules regarding hit points.  Nor has he read the thread he's posting to, where people went to quite some lengths to post the relevant and quite lengthy text which completely and totally refutes what Justin thinks the rules were.

No, all we've seen is people quoting Gygax's post-hoc rationalisations of game design decisions he didn't make.

Dave Arneson invented hit points. The history is well understood.

QuoteGameSpy: So you started playing Chainmail using the fantasy rules. How did you have to change the rules around?

    Arneson: We had to change it almost after the first weekend. Combat in Chainmail is simply rolling two six-sided dice, and you either defeated the monster and killed it ... or it killed you. It didn't take too long for players to get attached to their characters, and they wanted something detailed which Chainmail didn't have. The initial Chainmail rules was a matrix. That was okay for a few different kinds of units, but by the second weekend we already had 20 or 30 different monsters, and the matrix was starting to fill up the loft.


    I adopted the rules I'd done earlier for a Civil War game called Ironclads that had hit points and armor class. It meant that players had a chance to live longer and do more. They didn't care that they had hit points to keep track of because they were just keeping track of little detailed records for their character and not trying to do it for an entire army. They didn't care if they could kill a monster in one blow, but they didn't want the monster to kill them in one blow.

http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/540/540395p3.html‎

From the basic idea, Arneson introduced all kinds of variants on the Hit Point idea, such as the idea that hit points increase for each new level. At one point, he wrote adventures in which hit points get multiplied based on a creature's morale as well as level -- so particularly fanatic orcs might have 2x the usual number of hit points, because they'll keep on fighting despite being wounded.

So the short answer is, hit points reflect the ability of civil war ironclads to absorb damage, and armour class, equally, represents star trek style shields, which was bolted on to Chainmail and then D&D with no real thought as to what either of these two concepts actually represented for characters. Various variations on the hit point idea were tried, such as morale multipliers and hit-die-per-level boosts. Arneson subsequently adopted the idea that hit points represent "dodging mojo", but without making this consistent with other parts of the rules that assume they represent purely physical damage. Gygax is not responsible for designing any of this, as far as anyone can determine, so his opinions are of little value to the discussion.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;673983You're simply wrong about this.

AD&D DMG, pg. 82: "Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage."

I've long since given away my 1st ed. stuff, but I think the money quote says something like "each wound represents some kind of glancing blow, scratch, or bruise".

I've always imagined a knight  slowly being battered down with blow after blow, dinging and denting his armour, until he's he's finally knocked into submission. I'm pretty sure that, when they bothered to create a concrete image, this is what Arneson, Gygax etc. imagined as well.

Quote from: talysman;673895Uh, no. It's not just the definitions, it's the rules that he discounts because they fail to prove his point. There's plenty of examples of hit points that can't possibly be physical damage. He's just cherry-picking examples and ignoring or redefining anything that doesn't fit his theory.

Not even the author's own rationalisations become "rules" just because they said it.

Once again, look at how the thing functions, not the bollocks spewed about how we're supposed to fool ourselves as to what's "really" happening.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;673975Excellent, now that's settled. And Kiero is still only allowed to have 1d6 hit points for his character. It's okay that he hasn't read the rules, players aren't meant to read the DMG anyway.

What the fuck are you on?

In any case, I don't play that mother may I bullshit, which is why I'd have no interest sitting at your table, thanks.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;673906Fair enough. But you aren't going to get anywhere discussing what hit points represent if you roll 4E and previous editions into one big lump. Like a lot of 4E mechanics, they use the same name but they do something significantly different.

It would be like trying to discuss what a "save" means while lumping 4E and pre-4E together. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/10686/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-the-design-history-of-saving-throws)



That's a bottomless pit, though.

You start by saying: "Well, the system is abstract and doesn't model the debilitating effects from wounds, so it's unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

So you add some wound penalties. Say, -1 penalty for every 1/4 of your total hit points are depleted.

And then you say: "Well, jeez, this system is so abstract it's not even modeling the fact that wounds are suffered to different parts of the body. A cut on the arm shouldn't affect my ability to run! So it's clearly unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

So you add hit locations.

And then you say: "Well, jeez, this system is so abstract it's not even modeling the potential for wounds to deteriorate or for extreme actions to make the wounds worse, so it's unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

So you add rules for that.

And then you say: "Well, jeez, this system is so abstract it's not modeling the distinctions between different types of wounds. Cuts should be different from bruises and both of those should be different from broken bones, so this is clearly unacceptable / unrealistic / dissociated."

The real root of the problem here is not the mechanic. It's that you've failed to understand the concept of abstraction.

I don't disagree with any of this nor do I frantically obsess over the fact that at 1hp you're good to go and at 0hp you are dead. As a D&D player it is something that I accept about D&D and it is preferable to a convoluted attempt to simulate the reality of wounds with rules and processes.

I haven't failed to understand the concept of abstraction. We are invited to accept a belief that your HP represent more than the physical damage you can take whereas in reality this is not so. The reality of the game just doesn't play that way which is why I can't accept that belief in the same way that I can't accept that the Earth was created in 6 days because the author said so. It doesn't impact upon my enjoyment of the game, though.

The next time one of my players excitedly announces a hit for 10 hit points of damage, I shall piss on his bonfire by telling him that he only actually caused one point of physical harm and the other nine were lost 'cause his enemy is feeling a bit peaky this combat round. Then I'll turn every killing blow into death by exhaustion.

Quote from: Kiero;674003What the fuck are you on?

D&D. That is to say, the game which you are discussing. You should try it sometime, rather than just speaking authoritatively about it.

QuoteI'd have no interest sitting at your table, thanks.

Had someone invited you? You probably wouldn't even bring snacks.

Quote from: Mistwell;673972So, again, someone who decided to not read the thread he's replying to.

Talysman responded to this point, with text from 1e.  It's not even some interpretation - Gygax speaks directly to this point, and says you're wrong.  It's almost like he's responding to your actual post...as if Gygax saw into the future, saw your post, and said no jibbajibba that's really not what these rules mean.  

I don't get it - is this some contest to just see how much people can talk without listening? Come on guys, what's the point of a message board if you don't read other people's messages?

Go back and read his post where he quotes the 1E DMG.  If you need help finding it, it's on the first page, and you can search for the words "damage is not actually sustained" or "expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill".  Either will get you there.

Mate you misunderstand my point. I don't give a shit what Gygax says Hit points might be described as being liek fairy moon dust. The point is that in paly they only recover through healing.
What's more is that the 4e hit point paradigm of regain HP through a short rest, or through a Warlord shouting at you are uniformly hated by the very same people that are saying HPs are fatigue, and skill and energy and not just physical damage....

Quote from: Orpheo;674009I don't disagree with any of this nor do I frantically obsess over the fact that at 1hp you're good to go and at 0hp you are dead. As a D&D player it is something that I accept about D&D and it is preferable to a convoluted attempt to simulate the reality of wounds with rules and processes.

I haven't failed to understand the concept of abstraction. We are invited to accept a belief that your HP represent more than the physical damage you can take whereas in reality this is not so. The reality of the game just doesn't play that way which is why I can't accept that belief in the same way that I can't accept that the Earth was created in 6 days because the author said so. It doesn't impact upon my enjoyment of the game, though.

The next time one of my players excitedly announces a hit for 10 hit points of damage, I shall piss on his bonfire by telling him that he only actually caused one point of physical harm and the other nine were lost 'cause his enemy is feeling a bit peaky this combat round. Then I'll turn every killing blow into death by exhaustion.

Fighting at full strength at 1hp actually has two huge advantages.

Sure, it's not 'realistic' but....


Most players feel excitement, sense of danger, fear, etc... when they are one hit away from death. Thats a good thing.

And, tracking wound penalties is record keeping, and penalties for being wounded often just guarantee you die.


So I don't mind the 'full power at 1hp' thing.


Not saying it is realistic, but it works.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;673983You're simply wrong about this.

AD&D DMG, pg. 82: "Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage."

Each hit specifically contains a portion which is "basic physical damage sustained", while any damage beyond that is not actually physical damage. This is literally synonymous with what I wrote in Explaining Hit Points (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1034/roleplaying-games/explaining-hit-points).

Still don't believe me?

AD&D DMG, pg. 82: "Each hit scored upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm..."

But it always does physical harm. I describe that as a percentage of each hit point suffered in a wound; Gygax describes it as a percentage of the total hit points inflicted in each wound. If the wound is 1 hp these are literally identical statements and in all other cases they're conceptually and mathematically equivalent. In either case, it still results in the same thesis statement:

Any time you suffer hit point damage in pre-4E D&D, you have suffered physical harm.

Gygax said so. Zeb Cook said so. Tweet, Cook, and Williams said so. 'Nuff said.

EDIT: And while I can see why the quote about poison saving throws can be confusing, I suggest you take a second look at it. A physical wound (in this case a scratch) is being inflicted and the saving throw is being made to see "if that mere scratch managed to be venomous". And simply citing the phrase "not actually sustained" while ignoring the rest of that sentence which specifically clarifies what that phrase means ("in proportion to the number of hit points marked off") is an absurd misreading of what Gygax actually wrote, particularly in light of the explicit statements on the subject.

I hate to break this to you, but not every instance of losing hit points is the result of taking a hit, which is a key requirement in all of your examples.  Heck, even in your edit, you do realize that there are ways to get poisoned other than a needle, right?

Quote from: jibbajibba;674018Mate you misunderstand my point. I don't give a shit what Gygax says Hit points might be described as being liek fairy moon dust. The point is that in paly they only recover through healing.
.

Did either of you fellas bother to read my post a couple pages back?  You know, the one with examples of how hit point loss and recovery are done without any sort of physical wound?

Life Drain: no physical wound
Transfer Life: no physical healing or wound; it's simply life energy
Aid/Tenser's Transformation, etc spell: temp max hit points, which you gain even if you are at full hit points from the start.  Do you expect me to believe you get "extra" healed?
Natural rest: after X amount of time, everyone is brought to max, regardless what that is
Level Drain: the hit points lost due to level drain are those that were acquired by the other part of what hit points are: experience and luck.  You don't always suffer a wound on level drain hit point loss, nor are you healed of a wound on a restoration spell

Those are just examples off the top of my head.  So yeah, while the vast majority of hit point loss and gain is tied to physical wounds and therefore that's what people think of it as, it's not always the case, so please stop saying it is.  You are objectively wrong on this.

Quote from: jibbajibba;674018Mate you misunderstand my point. I don't give a shit what Gygax says Hit points might be described as being liek fairy moon dust. The point is that in paly they only recover through healing.

And alcohol. Don't forget alcohol.

Quote from: talysman;674085And alcohol. Don't forget alcohol.

And when a high-level druid turns into a bird, reptile or mammal.

Quote from: Elfdart;674221And when a high-level druid turns into a bird, reptile or mammal.

In newer editions, you don't need to be high level.  Heck, in Next, you can do it at level 1.

Quote from: Kiero;673273This is something consistent across every edition, that regardless of empty throwaway text claiming they represent a broad spectrum of stuff, the reality is they are physical condition and nothing else. Not luck, not skill, not desire to fight on, nor anything else.

Maybe in your game they are but in mine, they work just fine as luck, skill, willpower, etc.

Quote from: The_Rooster;674245

Quote from: Kiero;673273This is something consistent across every edition, that regardless of empty throwaway text claiming they represent a broad spectrum of stuff, the reality is they are physical condition and nothing else. Not luck, not skill, not desire to fight on, nor anything else.

Maybe in your game they are but in mine, they work just fine as luck, skill, willpower, etc.

That's another thing: Kiero heavily house-rules ACKS to make the hit points more representative of physical damage. So why does he discount common house rules, like heal all hit point loss after a night's sleep, hps restored by a good meal, drink, or listening to music, etc.?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674057I hate to break this to you, but not every instance of losing hit points is the result of taking a hit, which is a key requirement in all of your examples.  Heck, even in your edit, you do realize that there are ways to get poisoned other than a needle, right?




Did either of you fellas bother to read my post a couple pages back?  You know, the one with examples of how hit point loss and recovery are done without any sort of physical wound?

Life Drain: no physical wound
Transfer Life: no physical healing or wound; it's simply life energy
Aid/Tenser's Transformation, etc spell: temp max hit points, which you gain even if you are at full hit points from the start.  Do you expect me to believe you get "extra" healed?
Natural rest: after X amount of time, everyone is brought to max, regardless what that is
Level Drain: the hit points lost due to level drain are those that were acquired by the other part of what hit points are: experience and luck.  You don't always suffer a wound on level drain hit point loss, nor are you healed of a wound on a restoration spell

Those are just examples off the top of my head.  So yeah, while the vast majority of hit point loss and gain is tied to physical wounds and therefore that's what people think of it as, it's not always the case, so please stop saying it is.  You are objectively wrong on this.

Dude......
Tensers transformation represents getting bigger stronger etc so you can take more damage. You are not regaining lost hit points you are getting new ones. If you were being logical enlarge would give you more Hit points cos you got bigger, doesn't but it woudl be a logical extension. (alcohol is a bit liek that too with its temporary ability to take more damage)
Spells that drain HPs ... those HPs can only be recovered by healing, it doesn't matter how damage is dealt  if it can only be recovered through healing it is physical damage.
Natural rest ...WTF...this is healing ... you can change the word healing to Rest so that the sentence natural healing will restore 1 HP per day reads different but it's just a semantic change.

Level Drain is interesting you definitely loose HPs but you might as well say gaining a level doesn't heal you... its outside the damage paradigm itself and instead is part of the level paradigm. HPs are one of the intersection points.

The fact is that HPS are described as one thing but treated in play as another.

Take V&V. V&V uses hit points but it also has Power. Hit points are physical damage Power is your skill luck, stamina and endurance. As you get hit you roll some of that damage off your power, your power is also used to run the engine for your super abilities. Now Power heals fast, well its not physical damage its luck, skill endurance etc... Hit points are physical they heal slowly.
Now V&V is one of the first games that took what HitPoints claimed to be and made them actually work like they said they did but to do it they had to separate them. D&D didn't do that and until 4e treated Hit points like physical damage with a set healing rate.  In 4e you can regain HP in non healing ways so for the first time they actually treat them as not being physical damage only.
Also think about this if Hit points are skill and luck and all that how come you only get HP bonuses from Constitution. surely a quick guy can turn a blade and dex should help or a smart guy can know when to move? Power in V&V by the ways uses all these things.

Quote from: jibbajibba;674289Dude......
Tensers transformation represents getting bigger stronger etc so you can take more damage.

Bigger or stronger has never correlated to more hit points in D&D.  No, hit points are based on level+occupation+constitution.  Zero correlation with size.

QuoteYou are not regaining lost hit points you are getting new ones. If you were being logical enlarge would give you more Hit points cos you got bigger, doesn't but it woudl be a logical extension. (alcohol is a bit liek that too with its temporary ability to take more damage)

Your hit points increase with Tensor's Transformation because the spell turns you into a fighter-type.  That's the intent of the spell.  It has nothing to do with getting more hit points by getting bigger, it has to do with fighters having more hit points based on things identified in the rules.  You know, like calling out that hit points include experience and luck, especially at higher levels.  So as a magically transformed fighter, you are able to take advantage of the reason why fighters have more hit points (having the experience in battle to avoid the worst of the blows, the fortitude to continue to fight longer, etc)

You also didn't address Aid spell, or similar spells.  They don't change your size.  That fact that enlarge doesn't increase hit points should show you that you're wrong on this.

QuoteSpells that drain HPs ... those HPs can only be recovered by healing, it doesn't matter how damage is dealt  if it can only be recovered through healing it is physical damage.

Wrong.  Seriously, please go back and read my prior posts and it would save you a lot of time.  Transfer health is a) not a spell, and b) allows a target to recover HP outside of physical healing.  It's a transfer of life energy.

QuoteNatural rest ...WTF...this is healing ... you can change the word healing to Rest so that the sentence natural healing will restore 1 HP per day reads different but it's just a semantic change.

Natural rest from being overly tired or exhausted isn't really healing, unless you're really stretching.  Seeing as how everyone goes back to max HP at the end of a certain time frame automatically, regardless if they were down 15 hp or 150 hp tells you that the recovery is for more things than just wounds.

QuoteLevel Drain is interesting you definitely loose HPs but you might as well say gaining a level doesn't heal you... its outside the damage paradigm itself and instead is part of the level paradigm. HPs are one of the intersection points.

The argument was that the loss of hit points was always tied to a physical wound.  Even if you throw everything else out, level drain right there proves that wrong.  Levels are representative of experience.  That proves that hit points are exactly what they are defined as: significantly representing experience and luck at higher levels, and not just physical damage threshold.

QuoteThe fact is that HPS are described as one thing but treated in play as another.
.

So what if a lot of people view hit points as only physical damage.  That doesn't make that assumption accurate or correct.  I've just given you several examples of how this is objectively untrue.  I can only assume you are being deliberately obtuse to have seen these examples more than once already, yet continue to argue.

Quote from: valency;674000I've long since given away my 1st ed. stuff, but I think the money quote says something like "each wound represents some kind of glancing blow, scratch, or bruise".

Yup. Exactly. (Although it can be inferred that wounds that make up a substantial portion of your maximum hit points would represent more severe physical wounds.)

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674057I hate to break this to you, but not every instance of losing hit points is the result of taking a hit, which is a key requirement in all of your examples.

Well, sticking to the immediate topic of discussion: Do you have a quote from the AD&D core rulebooks stating that these other sources of hit point loss don't include a physical wound?

Quote from: Elfdart;674221And when a high-level druid turns into a bird, reptile or mammal.

On that note, I seem to recall polymorph self restored some hp when you returned to your normal form.

I think overall HP are abstract and vague, including a number of different elements. I wouldn't look to other parts of the system to find logical consistency because I don't think the designers were striving for that. But I have a hard time not seeing physical damage as a component of each HP. Might be my own hang up or just how the system trained me to view them but when they tried to de-emphasize the physical in 4E and allowed non magic fast healing of HP I found incredibly jarring.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;674370I think overall HP are abstract and vague, including a number of different elements. I wouldn't look to other parts of the system to find logical consistency because I don't think the designers were striving for that. But I have a hard time not seeing physical damage as a component of each HP. Might be my own hang up or just how the system trained me to view them but when they tried to de-emphasize the physical in 4E and allowed non magic fast healing of HP I found incredibly jarring.

I hate non magical fast healing.

I think 4E trapped themselves with a concept of 'Normal play involves back to back combat encounters'

Quote from: Justin Alexander;674332Well, sticking to the immediate topic of discussion: Do you have a quote from the AD&D core rulebooks stating that these other sources of hit point loss don't include a physical wound?

Do you really need a specific quote that says hp loss from level drain, transfer life (which is literally transference of life energy), energy drain (hell, it's right there in the name of the spell), and ingested or contact poison doesn't have to come from a physical wound?

Come on now.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;674332Well, sticking to the immediate topic of discussion: Do you have a quote from the AD&D core rulebooks stating that these other sources of hit point loss don't include a physical wound?

From a logic standpoint it may be safe to say that ingested poison can cause physical damage of a sort.

Energy drain OTOH, is purely magical effect by which the only hp loss comes from losing life-energy levels which are intangible resources as far as the inhabitants of the campaign are concerned. The hp lost during the process cannot be healed by magical spell or natural rest.

Only by restoring the part of the victim's soul (including magical protections, luck, etc.) can this type of "wound" be healed.

This is anything BUT physical damage.

I rather like the Star Wars Vitality/Wounds system.

HP/Vitality - abstract ability to withstand/avoid lethal damage.

Wounds - Physical. When these are gone: He's dead, Jim.

It allows you to have mechanics that can pose realistic threats to even powerful PC/NPCS - in D&D a knife to someone's throat is 1d4 + Str bonus in damage. WTF does that mean to a Fighter with 120+ HP?

But make that Fighter have 120 Vitality and his Con Score in Wounds - and have rules that say having a person in such a situation is an auto-crit where Crit damage goes directly to Wounds and bypasses Vitality altogether...

Yeah that Fighter is gonna think a bit more realistically.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674426Do you really need a specific quote that says hp loss from level drain, transfer life (which is literally transference of life energy), energy drain (hell, it's right there in the name of the spell), and ingested or contact poison doesn't have to come from a physical wound?

Well, since we're specifically discussing the claim that Gygax explicitly wrote something: Yes, you would need to show that Gygax explicitly wrote it in order to prove that Gygax explicitly wrote it.

More generally, I'm not really clear on why you don't think most of those things would involve a physical debilitation/wound/damage. The damage you suffer from ingesting a poison, for example, doesn't reflect that you were so lucky that you failed to eat any of the poison.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;674442Energy drain OTOH, is purely magical effect by which the only hp loss comes from losing life-energy levels which are intangible resources as far as the inhabitants of the campaign are concerned. The hp lost during the process cannot be healed by magical spell or natural rest.

Sure. I'll buy that: Energy drain causes you to lose a level, which also causes you to lose the "inflation" of hit points that you received to represent the improved luck/skill/whatever that came with that level. Thus, the hit points you lose to energy drain are really a "deflation" of your total and may not actually represent physical injury.

But the hit point loss from energy drain isn't damage. (Similarly the restoration of hit points from a restoration spell isn't referred to as healing.) So I remain comfortable with my thesis statement. Energy drain does not demonstrate that hit points function any differently than I've said they do.

Quote from: tenbones;674481I rather like the Star Wars Vitality/Wounds system.

Personally, I hate it. It fundamentally breaks the abstraction of the hit point system and turns it into a dissociated mechanic. It also creates a lot of painful inconsistencies in the rules. ("Hmm... I seem to have been poisoned by the arrow which missed me completely.")

Quote from: Justin Alexander;674564Well, since we're specifically discussing the claim that Gygax explicitly wrote something: Yes, you would need to show that Gygax explicitly wrote it in order to prove that Gygax explicitly wrote it.

No, we're discussing the claim that HP loss and recovery is always tied to a physical condition.  You were the one who tried to pull quotes to support that position without being smart enough to realize that every quote you had relied on the PC being hit first as a precondition.

And now you want me to provide a quote out of the book that says that spells like energy drain and psionic life transfer aren't physical attacks?  Sorry dude, I don't need to do that because a) I wasn't the one relying on the quotes to prove my point in the first place, and b) I know what the words "energy" and "drain" mean, and they aren't tied to any physical wound.

QuoteSure. I'll buy that: Energy drain causes you to lose a level, which also causes you to lose the "inflation" of hit points that you received to represent the improved luck/skill/whatever that came with that level. Thus, the hit points you lose to energy drain are really a "deflation" of your total and may not actually represent physical injury.

But the hit point loss from energy drain isn't damage. (Similarly the restoration of hit points from a restoration spell isn't referred to as healing.) So I remain comfortable with my thesis statement. Energy drain does not demonstrate that hit points function any differently than I've said they do.

Energy drain isn't just level loss.  There are versions of spells where they are draining hp from a target and absorbing it yourself.  That doesn't mean physical wound was made.  It means you're draining the energy (hence the name) from the target and adding the energy to yourself.  There are also spells that are instant Save or Die, and if you make your save, you still lose hit point.  Finger of Death is an example.  There's no physical wound there the caster is inflicting.  It's draining the life energy out of a target.


Sorry, but it is simply not true that hp loss and recover is always tied to a physical wound.  At this point, I am convinced you're being deliberately obtuse, because this has been explained at least three times now with clear cut examples.

*Edit*  Another interesting observation.  The description of the Heal spell:

QuoteHeal (Necromantic) Reversible
Level: 6     Components: V, S    Range: Touch     Casting Time: 1 round    Duration: Permanent     Saving Throw: None    Area of Effect: Creature touched
Explanation/Description: The very potent Heal spell enables the cleric to wipe away disease and injury in the creature who receives the benefits of the spell. It will completely cure any and all diseases and/or blindness of the recipient and heal all hit points of damage suffered due to wounds or injury, save 1 to 4 (d4). It dispels a Feeblemind spell. Naturally, the effects can be negated by later wounds, injuries, and diseases. The reverse, Harm, infects the victim with a disease and causes loss of all hit points, as damage, save 1 to 4 (d4), if a successful touch is inflicted. For creatures not affected by the Heal (or Harm) spell, see Cure Light Wounds.

if all hit point loss was due to wounds or injury, that seems like a redundant statement.  However, it was explicitly called out as only healing hit points lost due to wounds or injury, implying (or reinforcing) that not all hit point loss is due to wounds or injury.

And of course, we haven't even talked about illusionary damage, which don't do any physical wounds at all, but hit point loss is still real if the target fails saving throws.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674578No, we're discussing the claim that HP loss and recovery is always tied to a physical condition. You were the one who tried to pull quotes...

Look. If you're too illiterate to follow the conversation, I don't have time for you.

Here's a quick cheat sheet for you:

My first post in the thread. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=673454&postcount=47) Notice the complete absence of quotes.

Mistwell's direct response to that post. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=673955&postcount=72) Notice that he's demanding an analysis of what Gygax wrote in the 1E core rulebooks.

My response to him. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=673983&postcount=81) Notice that we are still specifically discussing what Gygax wrote in the 1E core rulebooks.

Once you understand what we're actually talking about, feel free to come back and participate in the discussion.

When you're back, we can pick up with this question: Do you have a quote from the AD&D core rulebooks stating that these other sources of hit point loss don't include a physical wound?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674578if all hit point loss was due to wounds or injury, that seems like a redundant statement.  However, it was explicitly called out as only healing hit points lost due to wounds or injury, implying (or reinforcing) that not all hit point loss is due to wounds or injury.

Are you... trolling? I mean, you must know that English doesn't work like that, right?

Let's take a moment to analyze this. Your claim is that heal doesn't heal hit point damage taken from an imaginary category of damage which you don't think has any physical manifestation because it uses the phrase "wounds or injury".

So we back up one spell level of healing spells. We look at cure critical wounds and see the phrase "wounds or other damage", we could conclude that it must restore all hit point loss including your imaginary category.

So we back up another spell level to cure serious wounds and we see the phrase "wound or other injury damage". Okay, so this spell doesn't heal your imaginary category.

So a 3rd level healing spell won't heal damage in your imaginary category, but the 4th level healing spell will. But then at 5th level the healing spell goes back to not healing damage in your imaginary category despite the fact that of all these spells it's the only one which specifically counters purely mental effects (such as feeblemind and write).

None of that makes a lick of sense, of course, and your torturous interpretation of the phrase in question is obviously wrong.

QuoteFinger of Death is an example.

Not actually true, BTW.

Here's a thought.

Why does anyone care?

It seems like such a non-issue. Then again, I guess we're geeks, right? Arguing about pointless and trivial things is a way of life for us.

Quote from: The_Rooster;674724Here's a thought.

Why does anyone care?

Because if HP isn't 100% physical wounds, people might somewhere have to realize that maybe their objection to other rules isn't based on anything other than a subjective personal feeling rather than an objective truth.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;674723Look. If you're too illiterate to follow the conversation, I don't have time for you.

This friends, is irony.  You can be an asshole.  You can be an idiot.  But for the love of God Justin, why do you always have to be both?

QuoteHere's a quick cheat sheet for you:

My first post in the thread. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=673454&postcount=47) Notice the complete absence of quotes.

Mistwell's direct response to that post. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=673955&postcount=72) Notice that he's demanding an analysis of what Gygax wrote in the 1E core rulebooks.

My response to him. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=673983&postcount=81) Notice that we are still specifically discussing what Gygax wrote in the 1E core rulebooks.

Once you understand what we're actually talking about, feel free to come back and participate in the discussion.

Read your own quote dude.  You are backing up the argument that loss of hit points is always due to physical harm.  No matter how many people or how many examples are shown to you where it's not the case, you insist on that argument, and now have doubled down to calling people names rather than address the argument made.

QuoteWhen you're back, we can pick up with this question: Do you have a quote from the AD&D core rulebooks stating that these other sources of hit point loss don't include a physical wound?

The description of some of the things that reduce hit points!  I am assuming that the authors of D&D through the ages didn't think that the readers were so fucking stupid that they'd read something like "You transfer life energy from you and give it to an ally" as a physical wound that they would feel the need to say "Nope, not a physical wound here.  We're talking about life force.  Just so you know."

QuoteAre you... trolling? I mean, you must know that English doesn't work like that, right?

Let's take a moment to analyze this. Your claim is that heal doesn't heal hit point damage taken from an imaginary category of damage which you don't think has any physical manifestation because it uses the phrase "wounds or injury".

More irony because you apparently have zero reading comprehension.  I'm saying that heal doesn't heal hit point loss from things that aren't physical wounds because it says so right in the spell description.  That fact that Gary specifically called that out means that there is hit point loss in the game that can come from things other than physical wounds.  This is proven by the examples that I have already provided.

QuoteNone of that makes a lick of sense, of course, and your torturous interpretation of the phrase in question is obviously wrong.

It doesn't make sense to your pea brain because you can't accept that your claim and argument you made in your reply to Mistwell is flat out wrong.  You can't bear to admit you were full of shit.  Because everyone else with a 1st grade reading level knows that when a spell says, "all hit point loss from only physical wounds", it means that there are other types of hit point loss.  It's not an imaginary category.  Not only by that description, but by the examples already given to you over and over again that show how hit points can be lost without any physical wounds.

QuoteNot actually true, BTW.

Yeah, it is.  You said pre-4e.  Or are you going to deny that one now too?  There are other variations of finger of death besides 1e's version that are still not 4e's version.  And on a failed save, you still take damage.

Just one more example of you not knowing what the fuck you're talking about.

I have a strong feeling that I'm going to have to add you to my short list in my sig.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;674728Because if HP isn't 100% physical wounds, people might somewhere have to realize that maybe their objection to other rules isn't based on anything other than a subjective personal feeling rather than an objective truth.

Just wanted to clarify a bit so people don't misunderstand:

A subjective personal FEEL is a perfectly good reason for you to personally dislike a game mechanic.

(Seriously, I still hate d100 rolls and I have no real reason why, I just hate them)

Quote from: The_Rooster;674724Here's a thought.

Why does anyone care?

It seems like such a non-issue. Then again, I guess we're geeks, right? Arguing about pointless and trivial things is a way of life for us.

An interesting question.

Why does anyone care?

I think it depends on the individuals comfort zone with logic and consistancy.

Many people intuitively and or actively spot logic flaws.

Some are able to ignore it, others it annoys the @^%$ out of them.




For me, I notice, but it does not usually make my head explode.

Quote from: Bill;674900Some are able to ignore it, others it annoys the @^%$ out of them.

Or others who think it's a feature and not a flaw to ignore or be annoyed by.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;674752A subjective personal FEEL is a perfectly good reason for you to personally dislike a game mechanic.

It doesn't make that rule 'poor design,' however.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;674728Because if HP isn't 100% physical wounds, people might somewhere have to realize that maybe their objection to other rules isn't based on anything other than a subjective personal feeling rather than an objective truth.

DING DING DING

It messes up a common premise, that OD&D doesn't have story game elements.  It also calls certain lengthy blog posts and arguments into question.

It messes with the world view.

But if you wanted to do that, 'levels' and particularly 'GP = XP' are a better hammer for that nail.

The 'hit points are plot immunity' post was the best of the thread, and unsurprisingly it was summarily ignored.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674739This friends, is irony.  You can be an asshole.  You can be an idiot.  But for the love of God Justin, why do you always have to be both?

Just to be fair, he is posting not as just some dude with an opinion, but as "Justin Alexander who links to my own blog as an authoritative source".  So while you can say, "that's a good point, I didn't see it that way", dude really can't.   Not without damaging his 'brand'.  Not without cutting into the integrity of some tenant he wrote in 2008, etc.  So yeah, it's fun to call him on it, but it's also WAY too easy, so that it feels cheap.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;674916It doesn't make that rule 'poor design,' however.

That is actually my point entirely.

I hate d100 rolls. Doesn't mean I think BRP is a terribly designed system, its just not the one for me.

Quote from: The_Rooster;674906Or others who think it's a feature and not a flaw to ignore or be annoyed by.

True. Different people will see features and flaws very differently.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;674728Because if HP isn't 100% physical wounds, people might somewhere have to realize that maybe their objection to other rules isn't based on anything other than a subjective personal feeling rather than an objective truth.

Quote from: mcbobbo;674919DING DING DING

It messes up a common premise, that OD&D doesn't have story game elements.  It also calls certain lengthy blog posts and arguments into question.

Um, what?

Quote from: talysman;674935Um, what?

Honest to God, it's a meta-current that you're probably better off not diving off into.  'Innocence lost' and all that.

Assuming such a person who believed this hypothetically existed, it works roughly like so:

A) Story gaming is not roleplaying
B) Game elements that your character doesn't perceive in the same manner as you do are story gaming. (Not associated = story game / Associated = roleplaying game.)
[Relatively sound so far...]
C) D&D is obviously a roleplaying game.  And it makes a decent standard to judge other games by.
[Again, not too big of a deal]
D) Because D&D is never a story game, none of the elements in it can be story game elements.
E) Hit points are, therefore,  not plot related and always represent physical damage.
[And now we're in the ditch...]

Quote from: mcbobbo;674921Just to be fair, he is posting not as just some dude with an opinion, but as "Justin Alexander who links to my own blog as an authoritative source".  So while you can say, "that's a good point, I didn't see it that way", dude really can't.   Not without damaging his 'brand'.  Not without cutting into the integrity of some tenant . . .

[pedantic douchebag] Tenet (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenet). [/pedantic douchebag]

Quote from: mcbobbo;674921. . . he wrote in 2008, etc.  So yeah, it's fun to call him on it, but it's also WAY too easy, so that it feels cheap.

Too true.

Quote from: mcbobbo;674938Honest to God, it's a meta-current that you're probably better off not diving off into.  'Innocence lost' and all that.

Assuming such a person who believed this hypothetically existed, it works roughly like so:

A) Story gaming is not roleplaying
B) Game elements that your character doesn't perceive in the same manner as you do are story gaming. (Not associated = story game / Associated = roleplaying game.)
[Relatively sound so far...]

Well, no, (B) is in error. No need to go further down the list. So if anyone actually is arguing like this, they are simply wrong.

Perhaps there is someone, somewhere, who is anti-Storygame and believes that any metagame or dissociated element is a Storygame element, but I haven't seen this. I *have* seen people complain about metagame or dissociated elements, though. Perhaps the pro-Storygame people are misinterpreting two different opinions as being one, combined opinion?

:)
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer

Quote from: mcbobbo;674938Honest to God, it's a meta-current that you're probably better off not diving off into.  'Innocence lost' and all that.

Assuming such a person who believed this hypothetically existed, it works roughly like so:

A) Story gaming is not roleplaying
B) Game elements that your character doesn't perceive in the same manner as you do are story gaming. (Not associated = story game / Associated = roleplaying game.)
[Relatively sound so far...]
C) D&D is obviously a roleplaying game.  And it makes a decent standard to judge other games by.
[Again, not too big of a deal]
D) Because D&D is never a story game, none of the elements in it can be story game elements.
E) Hit points are, therefore,  not plot related and always represent physical damage.
[And now we're in the ditch...]

I think the ditch is hit due to the mistake of treating E in a binary fashion.

The premise: physical damage= not plot related, and non-physical damage= plot related is a flawed one.

Hit points are capable of modeling the physical and the non-physical without being connected to the concept of an overall plot.

Luck/magical protections/etc. only serve as a plot device if they have a plot to serve. Otherwise we are left with simply a measured statistic which serves as a point of comparison between one entity and another.

Levels/HD do the same thing on a less granular scale. No plot is required to explain that a 6 HD creature is twice as tough of a 3HD creature. Only if you require that there bea plot to justify the existence of 6HD creatures in a 3HD world does it become so. Otherwise you have OD&D, in which things simply are what they are.

I wouldn't say that anyone thinks dissociated immediately = storygame. I would say that for instance, no one would mistake 4e D&D for a storygame, and it definitely has a hefty amount of dissociated mechanics.

The complaint about dissociated mechanics isn't that they are storygame, its that they are anathema to immersion, as it requires you to interact with something that the player couldn't interact with directly himself.

The point I was trying to make is that some people hold that all dissociated mechanics are automatically bad, while ignoring that they themselves allow a certain degree of dissociated mechanics in their own games, but they just don't recognize them as such because of rationalizations and being painfully used to them already.

A certain level of dissociated mechanics are going to appear in any game, and they aren't necessarily BAD, they just are. Some people won't like a game if it gets too high, some people enjoy the gameyness of it. But some people have tied their own view of RPGs so wholly into the idea that dissociated mechanics are automatically bad for their style of game, that they will invent ways of proving that ANYTHING in any game they like is therefore automatically not dissociated.

Its usually not individual dissociated mechanics that will break immersion for most players. Its a combination of the number of them and how ingrained they are into the way we have always played. HP for instance is ingrained so ridiculously heavily into our collective roleplaying experience, and that is why so many people can be very very blind to the fact that they are, actually, dissociated, at least to some degree.

Exactly. Most of us who use hp as luck are not talking about a dissociated mechanic or a "storygame element". There's a common and ancient conceptual model of luck as a liquid or granular substance: you can have lots of luck, or run out of luck; you can collect objects that have luck in them, like four-leaf clovers, but if you hang a horseshoe the wrong way, the luck runs out. That's what we're modeling when we use hit points as luck.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;674950Luck/magical protections/etc. only serve as a plot device if they have a plot to serve. Otherwise we are left with simply a measured statistic which serves as a point of comparison between one entity and another.

Levels/HD do the same thing on a less granular scale. No plot is required to explain that a 6 HD creature is twice as tough of a 3HD creature. Only if you require that there bea plot to justify the existence of 6HD creatures in a 3HD world does it become so. Otherwise you have OD&D, in which things simply are what they are.

This is my take away,  personally.  'Some things just are.'  And the Arneson quote summed it up pretty clearly as, "they didn't want to die in one hit".

Nothing about the nature of role playing or even what the mechanism was intended to emulate.

Where we differ, though is in the assessment.  I now believe that hit points are pure plot, and not tied (necessarily) to physical damage at all.   They measure the he expected toughness level of a given hero or foe.

As for 'no plot in OD&D' we now see that this isn't completely true.  The plot is very much just a skeleton,  but it is there:  characters will advance enough to not die in one hit.

Quote from: mcbobbo;674973As for 'no plot in OD&D' we now see that this isn't completely true.  The plot is very much just a skeleton,  but it is there:  characters will advance enough to not die in one hit.

If that were indeed the plot of OD&D it failed. Lets not forget about those pesky SOD effects.

Oh noes!!  they circumvent the plot!! :)

Quote from: mcbobbo;674938Assuming such a person who believed this hypothetically existed, it works roughly like so:

A) Story gaming is not roleplaying -

And we can stop there, because of course storygaming is roleplaying. It's just silly and stupid roleplaying.

It's much the way that foot fetish sex is still sex, any time at least one of the participants is working towards an orgasm it's sex. But, I mean, you know, feet?! Likewise, any time people are playing a role through some series of imaginary events it's a roleplaying game, so storygames are still roleplaying games. But, you know, "story" in this context is just a new name for the old railroading.

You don't need recourse to hypothetical people and their imaginary arguments, you can just contend with what people have actually said. Hit points are abstract so don't stress about it.

I realise it's always easier to win an argument when you make up what your opponent is saying, but this is a discussion forum, not a Socratic dialogue.

Fuckin' Socrates, what a cunt.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;675112It's much the way that foot fetish sex is still sex, any time at least one of the participants is working towards an orgasm it's sex. But, I mean, you know, feet?! Likewise, any time people are playing a role through some series of imaginary events it's a roleplaying game, so storygames are still roleplaying games. But, you know, "story" in this context is just a new name for the old railroading.

I love criticisms from people who display a distinct ignorance of the thing they are criticizing.

I'm not going to bag on someone for not liking something, but if you are going to make fun of it, at least be ACCURATE.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;675166I love criticisms from people who display a distinct ignorance of the thing they are criticizing.

I'm not going to bag on someone for not liking something, but if you are going to make fun of it, at least be ACCURATE.

Player: I hit! That's... 10 points of damage!

DM: Your attack scrapes off the metal armour of the orc warrior, putting him off balance for a moment until he shakes his head at the blow and snarls at you.

Player: STOP RAILROADING ME!

Quote from: talysman;674968Exactly. Most of us who use hp as luck are not talking about a dissociated mechanic or a "storygame element". There's a common and ancient conceptual model of luck as a liquid or granular substance: you can have lots of luck, or run out of luck; you can collect objects that have luck in them, like four-leaf clovers, but if you hang a horseshoe the wrong way, the luck runs out. That's what we're modeling when we use hit points as luck.

If the creators of D&D had wanted to get the message across that HP meant luck, then they really should have called it "luck". T&T and AFF are two games that have luck stats (you can Test your Luck in the latter, and the more you use it, the more likely you are to fail).

But either way, the dice are more than adequate for me for keeping track of a character's luck. Luck is a whimsical thing, and when the character runs out of it, the dice will let me know.

Quote from: The_Rooster;675168Player: I hit! That's... 10 points of damage!

DM: Your attack scrapes off the metal armour of the orc warrior, putting him off balance for a moment until he shakes his head at the blow and snarls at you.

Player: STOP RAILROADING ME!

Turning abstract numbers into vivid descriptions isn't "storygaming".

Quote from: kyle aaron;675188turning abstract numbers into vivid descriptions isn't "storygaming".

Stop railroading me!

Quote from: The_Rooster;674724Here's a thought.

Why does anyone care?

It seems like such a non-issue. Then again, I guess we're geeks, right? Arguing about pointless and trivial things is a way of life for us.

:)

I guess the point is that if HPs aren't physical damage then healing surges make sense.
A guy shouting at you giving you more hit points makes sense if its motivation, luck, training, skill, but not if its ignore that gaping wound its just a scratch.....

Having got into a pretty serious fight last night in an elevator in Hong Kong I can certainly say that the hit-points damage I took certainly feel like physical wounds and look like them as well :D

Storygaming is like sex?

Which story game should I start with?

Someone once said that having sex wearing a condom was like having a shower with your socks on. I tried wearing socks in the shower and it was nothing like sex.

Quote from: jibbajibba;675201:)

Having got into a pretty serious fight last night in an elevator in Hong Kong I can certainly say that the hit-points damage I took certainly feel like physical wounds and look like them as well :D

That's because you're low level.  If you were a high level skilled MMA fighter, when most HP is to reflect skill, experience, and luck, you would have been able to essentially reduce the effectiveness of his strikes to be less effective.  After all, his attack roles would have been the same, but your abilities, as reflective in the definition of hit points, would have made them less of an issue

:D

Quote from: jibbajibba;673493I find myself siding with Kiero and Piestrio.

the fact that there is loads of discussion and description of HPs as luck and fatigue and skill etc doesn't matter if the opnly mechanical way you can get them back is healing.

I can write pages of stuff in a rule book about how loads of stuff but its just fluff unless the mechanics support it.

This.

The funny thing is, if it was a "New School" game featuring this same thing - fluff text saying X and actual mechanics saying Y - it would be bashed as a glaring error of design.

But its D&D so it must be perfect, right?

Quote from: silva;675278This.

The funny thing is, if it was a "New School" game featuring this same thing - fluff text saying X and actual mechanics saying Y - it would be bashed as a glaring error of design.

But its D&D so it must be perfect, right?

I'm assuming you never read the thread, otherwise you would have seen people post the ways to recover hp outside of healing.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;675281I'm assuming you never read the thread, otherwise you would have seen people post the ways to recover hp outside of healing.

I didn't see those posts.

I saw a few posts citing how you gain HP through levelling and loose them if ou loose levels of course.
I saw some posts about gaining HPs back when you polymorph, which I always thought was due to the polymorph aiding your healing.
I saw a post that pointed out that alcohol gave you a temporary HP boost.
Didn't see one that clearly gave examples of you loosing HP you lost in combat, falling, through magical attack, poison or whatever could be gained back in any way other than healing whether normal or magical.

My point through all this of course is that HP should be skill and luck and stamina that makes sense but when 4e actually set up some stuff that mechanically emulated that it was a huge point of contention and outrage.

Now I also think you need some physical wounds as well so a separate way of tracking that but I understand that it might be too complex. HPs work as a mechanic but they don't work like they are explained.

Now I am going to pull out of the thread because I don't want to cause ill feeling I have to rest to try and heal back some of these hip points :D

Quote from: jibbajibba;675282Didn't see one that clearly gave examples of you loosing HP you lost in combat, falling, through magical attack, poison or whatever could be gained back in any way other than healing whether normal or magical.

That's because there aren't any.  HPs are extremely abstracted, and the way in which they are described in the text does not match up with the ways in which you can gain and lose them.  Period.Full.Stop.

Some people can handwave it away and still immerse, some can't and go to a different game.

All the rest is people not willing to give an inch for fear of giving up the ground that will lead someone else to take a mile.  The Usual Suspects aren't the only people who give in to that tendency, unfortunately.

Quote from: silva;675278But its D&D so it must be perfect, right?

Perfect? No.

People being pedantic over a non-issue within the system? Yes.

Quote from: jibbajibba;675282I didn't see those posts.

I saw a few posts citing how you gain HP through levelling and loose them if ou loose levels of course.
I saw some posts about gaining HPs back when you polymorph, which I always thought was due to the polymorph aiding your healing.
I saw a post that pointed out that alcohol gave you a temporary HP boost.
Didn't see one that clearly gave examples of you loosing HP you lost in combat, falling, through magical attack, poison or whatever could be gained back in any way other than healing whether normal or magical.

So you didn't see the post(s) where after X amount of time, you automatically go back to full hit points?  That includes a 150 hit point character who suffered dozens of wounds, some very serious to bring him down to 1 hp.  A few weeks later, tada!  Back to max.  Anything beyond a moderate wound doesn't heal in a couple weeks; they usually take a lot longer.  The fact that you're recovering all those hp is representative that you can gain hp back via just resting.  And no, resting from exhaustion is not the same as healing a physical wound.

You also didn't see those posts where certain spells and spell like abilities transfer life energy.  That's a recovery of hp that isn't tied to a wound.  That's a transfer of life energy directly.

But of course you saw those posts because they were the same ones that held the other examples you did quote.  You're just deliberately ignoring them because it completely ruins the "hp are always tied to physical wounds" argument.

I would just like to say that, if a rule is still creating so much trouble about its nonsensical consequences after more than 4 editions and 40 years, probably it was not a very good idea to start with. Said that, something the most popular ideas are not the best realized ideas. Go figure. Also, things become a tradition quite fast.

Seriously: if it was a solvable problem (with other solution than changing games, that is), it would probably been solved long time ago. Most D&Disms are like that: if you like them, pointing the flaws on them is not swaying your opinion, and the opposite is also true. So there.

Quote from: Imperator;675343Seriously: if it was a solvable problem (with other solution than changing games, that is), it would probably been solved long time ago. Most D&Disms are like that: if you like them, pointing the flaws on them is not swaying your opinion, and the opposite is also true. So there.

The problem isn't that it's not a solvable problem. The problem is that some people see it as a problem when it's not a problem at all.

It's a feature, not a flaw.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674739

QuoteWhen you're back, we can pick up with this question: Do you have a quote from the AD&D core rulebooks stating that these other sources of hit point loss don't include a physical wound?

The description of some of the things that reduce hit points!  I am assuming that the authors of D&D through the ages didn't think that the readers were so fucking stupid that they'd read something like "You transfer life energy from you and give it to an ally" as a physical wound that they would feel the need to say "Nope, not a physical wound here.  We're talking about life force.  Just so you know."

So, no, you can't. Thanks. Glad we got that cleared up.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;674739Because everyone else with a 1st grade reading level knows that when a spell says, "all hit point loss from only physical wounds"...

Anyone with a 1st grade reading level would notice that you just made up a quote that, AFAICT, doesn't exist in AD&D.

Quote from: mcbobbo;674921Just to be fair, he is posting not as just some dude with an opinion, but as "Justin Alexander who links to my own blog as an authoritative source".  So while you can say, "that's a good point, I didn't see it that way", dude really can't.   Not without damaging his 'brand'.

I literally just posted in this thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=674564&postcount=104) a statement that Exploderwizard had pointed out an error in what I had said. How stupid do you have to be to make a personal attack claiming that someone never, ever does something that they literally did one page earlier in the same thread?

I'll also gladly welcome you citing any instance in which I linked to my own blog as an "authoritative source", as opposed to linking to my blog for additional details on what I was talking about.

I notice that you followed up by blatantly misquoting me and then linking to the essay that shows that you're misquoting me. So I guess you're just hoping that people aren't paying attention to the fact that you're just making shit up?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;675348So, no, you can't. Thanks. Glad we got that cleared up.

You're the one making the argument that hit point loss is only related to physical injury.  Show me the quote in the book where is says this, otherwise you are clearly full of shit, by your own standards you are trying to apply to me.

And before you say, "I did show quotes", let me remind that that all of the quotes you provided were prefaced with "on a successful hit", so clearly they were situational and not applied to everything.  The fact that they were prefaced with a condition should tell you right there that there are instances where hit point loss/gain is not due to physical injury.

I, on the other hand, have shown you quotes that clearly infer that hit point loss and recovery isn't only tied to physical injury.  That's more than what you have.

QuoteAnyone with a 1st grade reading level would notice that you just made up a quote that, AFAICT, doesn't exist in AD&D.

I've already quoted the spell from the book.  Once again, for the intellectually impaired:

Quote...heal all hit points of damage suffered due to wounds or
injury,..

Essentially Justin, you are like Bagdad Bob from the first first Gulf War, insisting on making an argument despite the evidence clearly not supporting you.  I'm pretty sure you can't be this dumb, so I have to assume you're being disingenuous.  So welcome to my ignore list.  Congrats on that, you're now with the likes of taustin, FASERIP, and Sommerjon.

Quote from: Imperator;675343I would just like to say that, if a rule is still creating so much trouble about its nonsensical consequences after more than 4 editions and 40 years

The only place where this rule creates "so much trouble" is on internet message boards with people whining about how D&D is "broken" and "bad" and "nonsensical", pushing that line of thought to open the door for their pet-theories about how the game must be "fixed" or "that game is so much more realistic" and bullshit. At an actual game table, it's never been a problem for me and, I'm guessing, a gazillion other gamers who played D&D for the last 40 years through 4 editions or so, and may be still playing the game today, as I am.

It's pure, TOTAL wank bullshit. Useless fuckwitery for ignoramuses content to wallow in their own pedantic mediocrity.

Quote from: Benoist;675359The only place where this rule creates "so much trouble" is on internet message boards with people whining about how D&D is "broken" and "bad" and "nonsensical", pushing that line of thought to open the door for their pet-theories about how the game must be "fixed" or "that game is so much more realistic" and bullshit. At an actual game table, it's never been a problem for me and, I'm guessing, a gazillion other gamers who played D&D for the last 40 years through 4 editions or so, and may be still playing the game today, as I am.

It's pure, TOTAL wank bullshit. Useless fuckwitery for ignoramuses content to wallow in their own pedantic mediocrity.

Exactly.  Whether or not you view hit points as physical only damage, or luck, or a combination of whatever isn't a troubled rule by itself.  If it works or the game, then it's fine.  And it has been fine for the majority of gamers for 4 decades.

Quote from: Benoist;675359It's pure, TOTAL wank bullshit. Useless fuckwitery for ignoramuses content to wallow in their own pedantic mediocrity.

I like you. Want to go out on a date?

Quote from: Benoist;675359Useless fuckwitery for ignoramuses content to wallow in their own pedantic mediocrity.

Welcome to the intrewebs.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;675350I've already quoted the spell from the book.  Once again, for the intellectually impaired:

...heal all hit points of damage suffered due to wounds or injury,..

The point at which someone points out the you lied about what the rulebook said and you respond by providing a quote which demonstrates that you were lying about what the rulebook said...

Well, that's the point where the discussion is over.

QuoteSo welcome to my ignore list.

Your mendacity will not be missed.

Quote from: Benoist;675359It's pure, TOTAL wank bullshit. Useless fuckwitery for ignoramuses content to wallow in their own pedantic mediocrity.

I will say that this thread wins bonus points for being the first time that someone actually tried to claim that (some) of the cure spells can't actually heal hit point damage from certain non-explicit sources that are in no way identified in the rulebook.

That was a surprising new low from the people who can't understand how abstract mechanics work.

Quote from: CRKrueger;675293That's because there aren't any.  HPs are extremely abstracted, and the way in which they are described in the text does not match up with the ways in which you can gain and lose them.  Period.Full.Stop.

Some people can handwave it away and still immerse, some can't and go to a different game.

All the rest is people not willing to give an inch for fear of giving up the ground that will lead someone else to take a mile.  The Usual Suspects aren't the only people who give in to that tendency, unfortunately.

Well said. This was 4e vs Old D&D dissociated mechanic discussion, except in reverse - Hit Points being attacked same way those daily/encounter powers were, and defended in same way. And same thing was at stake - proof that 4e is just like old D&D. Edit: The problem being, that basically it was a rotten pitch to play on to begin with.

And frankly, the only reasonable answer in my overimportant opinion is that something is more than a sum of it's parts, but also "the amount of beer in wine", so to speak - at some point the combination of mechanics that are so heavily abstracted they are slowly dubious to imagine without heavy hand waving (whether or not HPs are that, it's hard for me to say, I'd say no but they aren't perfect...and then another 30 pages), that drags the "Immersion Meter" for some people too close to the surface, rather than one mechanic in particular.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;675374The point at which someone points out the you lied about what the rulebook said and you respond by providing a quote which demonstrates that you were lying about what the rulebook said...

Well, that's the point where the discussion is over.

Against my better judgement to continue this...

Please point out where I lied?  Look at what I said

all hit point loss from only physical wounds

 and what the book actually says:

heal all hit points of damage suffered due to wounds or
injury

Those mean essentially the same thing.  When you say the same thing, even if the actual words a not exactly the same, that's not a lie.  That's paraphrasing.

And you keep ignoring the various life transfer and draining spell and spell effects I've already mentioned that prove that hit point loss and restoration can be accomplished outside of physical wounds.  Want another one?  The hit point damage from a wraith's touch.  It's chilling life force damage.

And of course I couldn't help but notice that you never provided a quote anywhere in D&D that says that all hit point damage is due to a physical wound.  I don't expect you will.

The more you post, the more you show people what kind of character you have.  Needless to say you don't have any.  You don't hold yourself up to the same standard you have for others, you ignore anything that proves you incorrect, and you attack people when you can't attack the argument.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;674564"Hmm... I seem to have been poisoned by the arrow which missed me completely."

Try it this way. "Hm... goodness, I'm a bit lightheaded. Like I've been poisoned... Damn, is that a scratch on my arm? I thought that arrow just caught the sleeve of my coat."

I'll repeat myself.

As I've shown, in D&D, characters are ironclad fighting ships. On land. Armour class represents the strength of their protective iron plating. Hit points reflect the structural integrity of character-as-fighting ship, taking damage, losing beams, trusses and supports, taking on water, and finally sinking.

If you want a visual image that makes sense, you're not going to find one. The damage model was taken directly from a naval combat game.

Later on, you'll find Gygax giving a fairly lame post-hoc rationalisation for this. But that explanation makes little sense -- in reality it's purely an abstract mechanic. Again, according to Arneson: "People got tired of dying in one hit."

The way I always played, and the one that only really makes sense in the Word and World According to Gygax, is that each strike represents some kind of glancing wound, that is to say, D&D characters die from a thousand cuts. Thus hit point damage is distinct from coup-de-gras such as executing a Sleep'd creature, which can be done in one hit, bypassing hit points.

Of course this creates a problem with falling damage, which has always been  the sticking point for D&D. The answer to that is that making falling damage realistic is not something that anyone cared about doing.

This is the only interpretation that makes sense of spells like "Cure (x) Wounds". It is unsurpassingly ridiculous to argue that hit points are orthogonal to damage to the extent there could be categories of hit point loss not due to wounds that "Cure (x) Wounds" can't touch. Gygax never meant that. Nobody has ever played that.

I've located a copy of the 1st edition DMG, so let's deal with the text:

QuoteENCOUNTERS, COMBAT, AND INITIATIVE
It would be no great task to devise an elaborate set of rules for highly complex individual combats with rounds of but a few seconds length. It is not in the best interests of an adventure gome, however, to delve too deeply into cut and thrust, parry and riposte. The location of a hit or wound, the sort of damage done, sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy. The reasons for this are manifold. As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical damage, by and large, as far as characters (and some other creatures as well) are concerned.

This might give aid and comfort to the luck/mojoist interpretation, if it wasn't for the following.

QuoteThe system assumes much activity during the course of each round. Envision, if you will, a fencing, boxing, or karate match. During the course of one minute of such competition there are numerous attacks which are unsuccessful, feints, maneuvering, and so forth. [..]

Damage scored to characters or certain monsters is actually not substantially* physical - a mere nick or scratch until the lost handful of hit points are considered - it is a matter of wearing away the endurace, the luck, the magical protections. With respect to most monsters such damage is, in fact, more physically substantial although as with adjustments in armor class rating for speed and agility, there are also similar additions in hit points.

*Emphasis mine.

Let me break this down:
In AD&D, hit point loss is never treated as anything other than synonymous with "damage". That's why "cure wounds" spells work.

"Damage" scored to character or "certain" monsters is not substantially physical. This implies that "damage" always has some component of physical damage -- a mere "nick" or "scratch", a matter of "wearing down" "endurance, luck and magical protections."

Hit point gain, therefore, reflects improvements in "endurance, luck and magical protection." Every hit reflects a wound -- but it's a scratch, a nick, a bruise, not a killing blow. Killing blows bypass hit points and go right to the guts.

On the most reasonable interpretation, the OP is right -- Arnesian/Gygaxian hit points always reflect some kind of wound. The relevant discussion is on page 61 DMG, and it's worth reading the whole thing.

Quote from: The_Rooster;675345The problem isn't that it's not a solvable problem. The problem is that some people see it as a problem when it's not a problem at all.

It's a feature, not a flaw.

Yes, of course. That is what I mean: if you like it it's not a problem, and if you don't there is nothing that will convince you that is OK. Yeah, HPs don't represent how combat works in reality but that was never the goal of the designers so if that is something that really bothers you, arguing that the game is broken makes no sense. Play another game. There are many.

Quote from: Benoist;675359The only place where this rule creates "so much trouble" is on internet message boards with people whining about how D&D is "broken" and "bad" and "nonsensical", pushing that line of thought to open the door for their pet-theories about how the game must be "fixed" or "that game is so much more realistic" and bullshit. At an actual game table, it's never been a problem for me and, I'm guessing, a gazillion other gamers who played D&D for the last 40 years through 4 editions or so, and may be still playing the game today, as I am.

It's pure, TOTAL wank bullshit. Useless fuckwitery for ignoramuses content to wallow in their own pedantic mediocrity.

It is more than evident that for most gamers is not a problem when it comes to the actual table because it still is, by far, the most loved and played game out there. It ain't for me.

When I say that HPs are nonsensical I mean that they don't reflect accurately reality as we know it, even at lower levels, and it doesn't matter. It is part of the character of the game, you either like it or you hate it. But I concur: the game it's not broken, because quirks are not broken-ness.

Quote from: Imperator;675435When I say that HPs are nonsensical I mean that they don't reflect accurately reality as we know it, even at lower levels, and it doesn't matter. It is part of the character of the game, you either like it or you hate it. But I concur: the game it's not broken, because quirks are not broken-ness.

I think the problem is that some people will straight up rail against a game mechanic for "not mapping to reality" and then will turn around and say that the mechanics in THEIR game map to reality and will rationalize anything away that doesn't.

If people would stop railing against everything in games they might not personally enjoy as objectively terrible and RUINING THE GAME, then probably no one would bother trying to point out that you know, their reasons for hating a mechanic aren't objective and actually judging it as objective is straight up hypocrisy.

I'm sure Benoist wouldn't have called picking on Fighter Dailies from 4e as being dissociated as pedantic bullshit, because its not something he likes. But oh, no, pick on poor OD&D-AD&D and its pedantic bullshit that when you step back and look at it without your existing familiarity that characters behaving like naval warships for damage is absurdly odd.

Once again, having your likes and dislikes aren't even an issue. I like some things, I dislike other things. I don't even have concrete reasons for why I like or dislike some of them. Its the objective "this is dissociated, therefore it is automatically bad" "I don't find this bad, therefore it must not be dissociated" rather than you know, most of it being fuzzy feelings that I find ridiculous.

Quote from: Imperator;675435When I say that HPs are nonsensical I mean that they don't reflect accurately reality as we know it, even at lower levels, and it doesn't matter.

I disagree with that statement, and it doesn't matter.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;675437I think the problem is that some people will straight up rail against a game mechanic for "not mapping to reality" and then will turn around and say that the mechanics in THEIR game map to reality and will rationalize anything away that doesn't.

If people would stop railing against everything in games they might not personally enjoy as objectively terrible and RUINING THE GAME, then probably no one would bother trying to point out that you know, their reasons for hating a mechanic aren't objective and actually judging it as objective is straight up hypocrisy.

I for one am very conscious that whatever I say I like or don't like, what ruins or doesn't ruin the game for me, is a matter of subjectivity, not objectivity. Some people have a big problem with the meaning of these words, apparently. I'm not one of them, since I can articulate what I think from my own particular standpoint, i.e. subjectively, well enough.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;675437I'm sure Benoist wouldn't have called picking on Fighter Dailies from 4e as being dissociated as pedantic bullshit, because its not something he likes. But oh, no, pick on poor OD&D-AD&D and its pedantic bullshit that when you step back and look at it without your existing familiarity that characters behaving like naval warships for damage is absurdly odd.

Saying why I don't like Fighter Dailies wouldn't be pedantic bullshit if I was asked. Going on and on about it, still today, ranting about it and creating threads to piss over 4e 6+ years after the fact, would be dumb and a waste of my time. If I was doing that when sitting at a 4e table somewhere, that'd be rightfully called "being an asshole." I would not do that.

As for picking on OD&D-AD&D because someone on the internet expressed a subjective opinion that cannot be left to stand about 4e or "narrative games" or whatever else, someone who has to be retaliated against in some way because "Nah, back at you, bitch," that's just petty. We've all been caught in these kinds of interminable discussions before where all that matters is the size of one's dick, and I personally fall for that regularly enough (which I should really stop doing), but at the end of the day, that doesn't fucking matter, as far as your or my immediate game tables are concerned.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;675437Once again, having your likes and dislikes aren't even an issue. I like some things, I dislike other things. I don't even have concrete reasons for why I like or dislike some of them. Its the objective "this is dissociated, therefore it is automatically bad" "I don't find this bad, therefore it must not be dissociated" rather than you know, most of it being fuzzy feelings that I find ridiculous.

This is not what's going on. What's really the problem is that these are discussions between inflated egos talking past each other, taking offense for anything and everything, not reading each others' posts, and then ignoring whatever, however, to declare victory over "objective reality" like fucking assholes. Nobody's actually listening to one another.

That's the real problem with discussions like this.

For what it's worth, my understanding is the Hit Point cognitive divide has always been with us since Gygax and Arneson named the hit point recovery spell "Cure Wounds".  A certain proportion of gamers have always struggled with the abstract and escalating nature of Hit Points.

This is of course, one reason why games such as RuneQuest were created in the first place - for combat to more closely represent their experience of "real combat", coming from the SCA.

Thus, instead of the higher level character have more Hit Points, representing "skill, luck, the blessings of the Gods etc", they have active defences that also increase, becoming better at preventing themselves being hit - part of what hit points are meant to represent.  With this approach hit points can stay low and always represent actual physical damage.

Earthdawn gets around this by having all Adepts magical, and have a magical ability called Durability which, because its magic, can be an actual increase in the amount of physical damage a person can take before falling unconscious or dying.

I suspect that these games would not have been written without the ambiguously abstract nature of D&D Hit Points.

Quote from: valency;675418Let me break this down:
In AD&D, hit point loss is never treated as anything other than synonymous with "damage". That's why "cure wounds" spells work.

Except for the times when it's not.  See, you're using words like "never", which is not correct.  There have already been examples posted of when hit points are lost that aren't reflective of damage, let alone a wound.  And for the record, "damage to hit points" doesn't always mean a physical wound either.

Quote"Damage" scored to character or "certain" monsters is not substantially physical. This implies that "damage" always has some component of physical damage -- a mere "nick" or "scratch", a matter of "wearing down" "endurance, luck and magical protections."

Again with words like "always".  It's not true. life transfer doesn't have a physical wound.  Certain energy drain spells and/or attacks don't either.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;675493Except for the times when it's not.  See, you're using words like "never", which is not correct.  There have already been examples posted of when hit points are lost that aren't reflective of damage, let alone a wound.  And for the record, "damage to hit points" doesn't always mean a physical wound either.

Again with words like "always".  It's not true. life transfer doesn't have a physical wound.  Certain energy drain spells and/or attacks don't either.

I agree. The people who are playing the "it's ALWAYS like this" and "it NEVER does that" and "it's OBJECTIVELY like this and that" rhetorical game are not the ones Emperor Norton likes to point the finger at, here.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;675493Except for the times when it's not.  See, you're using words like "never", which is not correct.  There have already been examples posted of when hit points are lost that aren't reflective of damage, let alone a wound.  And for the record, "damage to hit points" doesn't always mean a physical wound either.

Again with words like "always".  It's not true. life transfer doesn't have a physical wound.  Certain energy drain spells and/or attacks don't either.

I have always imagined things like life transfer, energy drain, or whatnot as causing physical wounds when they deal hit point damage.  Do you not describe any physical symptoms of the victim?  Victom's skin loosing it's color, victim becoming more sluggish, victim's nose bleeds, or whatever makes sense?

Hit points are not (by the original design) a 'measure' of anything except probability of ending up dead after being subjected to a phenomenon the deadliness of which is rated in hit points.

It's a finer-grained and cumulative/ablative elaboration on the X hits in a round approach of the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement.

Quote from: Old One Eye;675501I have always imagined things like life transfer, energy drain, or whatnot as causing physical wounds when they deal hit point damage.  Do you not describe any physical symptoms of the victim?  Victom's skin loosing it's color, victim becoming more sluggish, victim's nose bleeds, or whatever makes sense?

if that's how you interpret it, more power to you.  There's no wrong way.  However, it's not explicit in every edition that things like negative energy cause physical wounds.  We've always described a spell like energy drain as just that: your character feels the life force being drained from them.  No wounds involved.  The fact that a spell like HEAL specifically calls out that it only heals HP loss from injury and wounds implies to me that there are other forms of HP loss and gain.  Combine that with all these other examples, and it seems clear to me that HP loss and recovery aren't always tied to a physical wound

Quote from: LibraryLass;675416Try it this way. "Hm... goodness, I'm a bit lightheaded. Like I've been poisoned... Damn, is that a scratch on my arm? I thought that arrow just caught the sleeve of my coat."

A scratch on the arm is a physical wound.  You need to invent a narration that  a person can be poisoned by an arrow without that arrow actually causing physical damage, not even a scratch.  It doesn't sense but that's the argument being made.

Quote from: Psychman;675489For what it's worth, my understanding is the Hit Point cognitive divide has always been with us since Gygax and Arneson named the hit point recovery spell "Cure Wounds".

Nah, the divide was created when the first nerd had an aneurism when they heard the term "HIT point" and couldn't bend their pedantic minds around the fact that it included aspects that didn't include hitting.

Quote from: hamstertamer;675550A scratch on the arm is a physical wound.  You need to invent a narration that  a person can be poisoned by an arrow without that arrow actually causing physical damage, not even a scratch.  It doesn't sense but that's the argument being made.

Yeah. Physical damage. But not an injury. WP damage represents things that might actually debilitate you, VP represents something that is painful or that you can't keep up for long, but isn't especially likely to, on its own, bring you to your knees. To use the analogy of boxing, it's the difference between taking a quick jab to the chest or a big uppercut right in the jaw. You're getting hit either way. You take enough jabs or block enough haymakers, eventually you'll be worn down and tired. You catch it right on the chin, though, there's a good chance that you'll be on the mat for at least a second or two.

Quote from: LibraryLass;675559Yeah. Physical damage. But not an injury. WP damage represents things that might actually debilitate you, VP represents something that is painful or that you can't keep up for long, but isn't especially likely to, on its own, bring you to your knees. To use the analogy of boxing, it's the difference between taking a quick jab to the chest or a big uppercut right in the jaw. You're getting hit either way. You take enough jabs or block enough haymakers, eventually you'll be worn down and tired. You catch it right on the chin, though, there's a good chance that you'll be on the mat for at least a second or two.

A scratch is an injury, a scratch is physical damage.  I don't think you making the argument you think you are.

I wanted to hear a narration of how a poisoned arrow can poison someone if it never causes physical damage to that person.  That means without even a scratch.

Quote from: hamstertamer;675562A scratch is an injury, a scratch is physical damage.  I don't think you making the argument you think you are.

Pedantism 101.

Quote from: hamstertamer;675550A scratch on the arm is a physical wound.  You need to invent a narration that  a person can be poisoned by an arrow without that arrow actually causing physical damage, not even a scratch.  It doesn't sense but that's the argument being made.

Naw the argument being made is the argument the rules make.  They explicitly say poison can include things like contact poison or inhaled poison, neither of which is a wound inflicted by an arrow or dart or anything solid.

Similarly, there are psychic attacks from psionics that can cause hit point loss.  For example, in AD&D Damage from psionic attacks is deducted first from defense total until you run out of defense points, then any remainder gets deducted from your attack total until that runs out, and then any remainder is carried over as direct hit point damage (as is all subsequent damage).  All with no wound, and nothing "physical" involved at all.

Quote from: Mistwell;675565Naw the argument being made is the argument the rules make.  They explicitly say poison can include things like contact poison or inhaled poison, neither of which is a wound inflicted by an arrow or dart or anything solid.

Similarly, there are psychic attacks from psionics that can cause hit point loss.  For example, in AD&D Damage from psionic attacks is deducted first from defense total until you run out of defense points, then any remainder gets deducted from your attack total until that runs out, and then any remainder is carried over as direct hit point damage (as is all subsequent damage).  All with no wound, and nothing "physical" involved at all.

Poisons can be different kinds, so what? We both know that we are talking about the injury type of poison that are used on weapons like arrows. This is why LibraryLass added the "scratch on my arm" to her narration.  She knew that in order for it to make sense, that an injury, even a slight one, was needed for the poison to have effect.

BTW, an arrow is not a psychic attack. So that's irrelevant.

Quote from: Benoist;675497I agree. The people who are playing the "it's ALWAYS like this" and "it NEVER does that" and "it's OBJECTIVELY like this and that" rhetorical game are not the ones Emperor Norton likes to point the finger at, here.

That's a funny thing to say considering Sacrosanct is probably the person closest to my own viewpoint on HP and he's the one arguing with the people making those exact claims.

Quote from: hamstertamer;675562A scratch is an injury, a scratch is physical damage.  I don't think you making the argument you think you are.

I wanted to hear a narration of how a poisoned arrow can poison someone if it never causes physical damage to that person.  That means without even a scratch.

Well, you're not going to hear it, because that's not what VP fucking represents.

Vitality points are a measure of a character’s ability to turn a direct hit into a graze or a glancing blow with no serious consequences. Like hit points in the standard d20 rules, vitality points go up with level, giving high-level characters more ability to shrug off attacks. Most types of damage reduce vitality points.  (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm#vitalityPoints)

Quote from: hamstertamer;675570Poisons can be different kinds, so what? We both know that we are talking about the injury type of poison that are used on weapons like arrows. This is why LibraryLass added the "scratch on my arm" to her narration.  She knew that in order for it to make sense, that an injury, even a slight one, was needed for the poison to have effect.

BTW, an arrow is not a psychic attack. So that's irrelevant.

The argument presented in this thread is that all hit point damage represents a physical wound.

It's not true.  It's not even true with all poison attacks, and I gave you two types of poison attacks that do not involve even a scratch.  In addition, I added psionic attacks which do hit point damage, and others have mentioned a litany of other attacks which do hit point damage (life drain, etc.).  

I think at this point the question is not if the original post was wrong (we know for sure it was), it's just a matter of how wrong.  We know some hit point damage involves no physical injury at all, and we know some hit point damage involves some physical injury and some non-physical harm, and so the remaining question I suppose is whether there is any hit point damage which represents purely physical injury?

Hit points are an abstraction. Pretty much any position on them will encounter inconsistencies under a microscope. They are obviously meant to carry a lot of things. I think the dividing ine for most people is how closely they associate hp with physical damage. I wouldnt argue they are inteded to be purely physical, but i will admit that i personally have difficulty seperating the physical from hp loss and recovery. I imagine everyone is a bit different on that. For some reason i can accept that a high level fighter can take several max damage stabs from a sword, but have a much harder time with stuff like non-magical instant healing and the like. I think it is because the sword thing doesnt pop out at me when it happens (i tend to notice that sort of thing in hindsight) but the fast non-magical heals create an instant image in my mind of someone self healing their wounds. I do not expect to find any consistency in that position. It is just my purely subjective reaction to hp and how they play out.

Quote from: Benoist;675483That's the real problem with discussions like this.

Or understand the history of the mechanic.

And for those who don't know hit points in D&D started out like this.

In Chainmail one hit killed one figure.
Then in the Fantasy Supplement there was the Hero and the Super-Hero. A Hero took four hits to kill and the Super-Hero took eight hits to kill.

Also there was a Man to Man combat chart that cross indexed weapon type versus armor. If you rolled the number or higher the target died.

Of course in the Blackmoor campaign and slightly later in Greyhawk campaign the one hit = one kill rule was found to be too harsh. So a hit was expanded to do 1d6 damage and a hit was changed to a hit dice and also made 1d6 hit points varying slightly between classes.

A 2nd level fighter was considered twice as effective as a 1st level fighter and so on.

In the Greyhawk Supplement the d6 with modifiers was replaced with 1d4 for M-U/Thieves, 1d6 for Clerics, and 1d8 for Fighters.

Finally in AD&D and UA this was expanded to 1d12 for Barbarians, 1d10 for Fighters and so on down the line to M-U.

The basic concepts were not designed, they evolved through actual play. At the start hit points represent how many successful attacks it takes to down a target.  All the explanation of why hit points are what they are are "after the fact" explanations including those by Gygax and company.

The real reason for hit points is because the mechanic worked in actual play and thus persisted unlike others mechanics that did not.

Of course to those more versed in combat D&D style hit points look stupid and unrealistic. Which is why Runequest and other RPGs developed their own version more tune what their designer thought it should be. However like so many other elements of D&D, hit points are good enough for many and thus persisted nearly unchanged to the present.

So why is knowing the history of how hit points are developed important?

Because all of you are wrong and all of you are right. Because beyond the one hit = one kill design of Chainmail, hit points never really were anything. So precisely what they are is what you choose to make them in your campaign. If you like it and make it your own more power to you. If you don't that why there are alternatives.

Quote from: estar;675624At the start hit points represent how many successful attacks it takes to down a target.  .

IMO, this is exactly right, and is further proven by the fact that a round was a full minute long and all weapon damage was 1d6, meaning that in a full round, the 1d6 was how many hits you were able to make on your target during that full minute of combat.  Not that the weapon does 1d6 points in a single attack.

Quote from: estar;675624The basic concepts were not designed, they evolved through actual play. At the start hit points represent how many successful attacks it takes to down a target.  All the explanation of why hit points are what they are are "after the fact" explanations including those by Gygax and company.

.

This makes a good deal of sense to me, and also explains why many of the arguments that do try to pin it down, usually dont work out very well. I've experienced this my self when working on games, particulalry ones designed to deliver a d&d like, dungeon crawl experience. There are plenty of logical issues that emerge when you contemplate HP but they work very well at the table delivering the kind of play people expect from dungeons and dragons.

Quote from: The_Rooster;675564Pedantism 101.

No, Pedantry 101.

Quote from: estar;675624Of course in the Blackmoor campaign and slightly later in Greyhawk campaign the one hit = one kill rule was found to be too harsh. So a hit was expanded to do 1d6 damage and a hit was changed to a hit dice and also made 1d6 hit points varying slightly between classes.

Filling in some gaps (as I understand it):

Blackmoor changes to all PCs having 3 hit points. They also reduce all Hits they take by dividing them by their level. This apparently is taken straight from some Naval Combat Wargame. I assumed this was done before damage was rolled, but it might have been prior - in either case it seems pretty clear Damage was fractional. This system never sees print.

Gygax changes this to PCs having d6 hit points, plus another d6 each level rather than the divider.

Estar's right.

Following from that, my answer to Mistwell's question about whether a particular hit point ever represents pure "wound" damage in the game is: it depends on the particular situation. In fact, I'm a firm believer that the abstration is part of what makes D&D cool to play and run, because it leaves the room to describe what's actually going on with any particular situation, any particular series of fences or hazards or whatever else, up to the imagination of the participants involved. And that, to me, is a GOOD thing.

Split hairs, try to explicitly codify what's wounds, what isn't, and you're making the abstraction poorer for it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;675628There are plenty of logical issues that emerge when you contemplate HP but they work very well at the table delivering the kind of play people expect from dungeons and dragons.

This is a good point. What we should be discussing is why hit points have proven to be such a successful and popular game mechanic.

Personally, I think it's because they give characters some level of 'plot immunity' from level 3 on up. An important skill to master as an old-school player is when to cut and run; leave things too late and you can be taken down to 0 hps before you get a chance to react. In general, though, as long as you are wise, and as long as you do your best to avoid things that can kill you if you fluff a saving roll, then once you get to a certain level, you can do a lot to help guarantee your character's chances of survival by running off at the right time (if not your character's success).

More realistic combat systems don't allow this; there is always that 'critical impale to the head' waiting for you in the dice. If you think this is a good or a bad thing is a matter of taste, but the popularity of hps makes me think that most players see it as a negative.

As an aside, many years ago I read a book about the pilot of a WW2 Typhoon fighter aircraft. He said that once he had got enough experience, dogfights stopped worrying him, as he knew that he had a enough skill and talent to survive them; what he hated was making a ground-attack run, where no amount of skill on his part could save him after he was committed to the attack run.  Sort of like the difference between losing hps when you take damage, and having to make a saving roll to avoid death...

I don't give a shit. And the reason I don't is because HP has been proven by decades of play to be one of the best emulative mechanics for damage there is.

The problem here is with people confusing "realism" for "emulation".  If emulation was all about being "realistic" then sure, HP would suck.  But that's not what its about, and "realism" has nothing to do with the divide between RPGs and Storygames.

So I assume that every one who is adamant HPs are not always treated as wounds is cool with the 4e style healing surges in Next?

Quote from: jibbajibba;676140So I assume that every one who is adamant HPs are not always treated as wounds is cool with the 4e style healing surges in Next?

No they still suck. I prefer the abstraction of hit points as a strategic resource instead of a tactical one. Healing surges are a contrived method of making hit points a per fight resource which feeds in nicely with a grid and mini wargame consisting of a series of encounters.

I don't like the feel of it for D&D style play.

Quote from: jibbajibba;676140So I assume that every one who is adamant HPs are not always treated as wounds is cool with the 4e style healing surges in Next?

The HD mechanic in Next isn't really like healing surges.  Just ask the 4e players ;)


And honestly, I don't mind at all.  With short rests requiring an hour, the hp you get back from the HD mechanic isn't as "easy mode" as you think it would be.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;676156The HD mechanic in Next isn't really like healing surges.  Just ask the 4e players ;)


And honestly, I don't mind at all.  With short rests requiring an hour, the hp you get back from the HD mechanic isn't as "easy mode" as you think it would be.

Okay consistency is good :)

I switched to 10% of HPs regained per hour's rest 20 years ago.
I did it because HPs were skill and endurance and luck and I wanted to get rid of the reliance on magical healing that was so embedded in the game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;676140So I assume that every one who is adamant HPs are not always treated as wounds is cool with the 4e style healing surges in Next?

No, mainly because it's not handled remotely as well as it was in 4e, and considering it wasn't even as well-handled in 4e as it deserved to be, it's become just a crap mechanic on the whole.

Quote from: Elfdart;675629No, Pedantry 101.

See what you did there!

Quote from: RPGPundit;676121I don't give a shit. And the reason I don't is because HP has been proven by decades of play to be one of the best emulative mechanics for damage there is.

The problem here is with people confusing "realism" for "emulation".  If emulation was all about being "realistic" then sure, HP would suck.  But that's not what its about, and "realism" has nothing to do with the divide between RPGs and Storygames.

Right now, the D&D Next rules heal 100% of your hit points after a single nights rest.  I've argued, both at EnWorld and at the WOTC boards, that the default assumption should allow for at least the possibility that you don't heal 100% up from just the natural healing of a night's rest (with various fixes recommended, such as heal some HP and all HD, or all HD that you can spend for healing, or simply role your HD for healing overnight, or max half HP healed overnight, or 10% healing per hour rested, etc..).

Have you heard anything from WOTC on this topic that you feel free enough to talk about?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;676144No they still suck. I prefer the abstraction of hit points as a strategic resource instead of a tactical one. Healing surges are a contrived method of making hit points a per fight resource which feeds in nicely with a grid and mini wargame consisting of a series of encounters.

I don't like the feel of it for D&D style play.

I have always treated hit points as being wounds and am perfectly fine with the concept of healing surges.  As implemented in 4e or Next, they are a rather boring resource to track, though.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;675379Against my better judgement to continue this...

And of course I couldn't help but notice that you never provided a quote anywhere in D&D that says that all hit point damage is due to a physical wound.  I don't expect you will.

Man, I was hoping you actually serious about the ignore list thing. Instead we just get more of your pathetic lies.

Quote from: jibbajibba;676140So I assume that every one who is adamant HPs are not always treated as wounds is cool with the 4e style healing surges in Next?

I haven't looked at Next for several iterations of the playtest document, but there's still a significant difference between the house rule that treats some hit points as not representing any kind of actual damage to the character and 4E's approach.

Under the house rule, you're still free to describe the loss of hit points in any way you choose and the rules are not going to actively contradict you. (I'm assuming here that you've simply accepted that cure spells are now dissociated or you've rationalized that their divine energy is replenishing the character's pool of luck or fatigue or whatever.)

In 4E, on the other hand, you've got specific effects that restore your hit points by, for example, boosting your morale or physically healing wounds. The result is that the nature of a wound isn't determined until you heal it: So either you're prohibited from describing what's actually happening in the game world or you have to accept that the game mechanics are going to periodically retcon the game world.

Quote from: jibbajibba;676164Okay consistency is good :)

I switched to 10% of HPs regained per hour's rest 20 years ago.
I did it because HPs were skill and endurance and luck and I wanted to get rid of the reliance on magical healing that was so embedded in the game.

Sure, and that's exactly why D&D Next has gone the same way with such generous recovery rules, to get away from the reliance on magical healers. D&D 1st-3rd edition really assumes the existence of a magical healer in the group. 4th-5th reduces that reliance, at the expense of reducing the utility of healers in general.

Quote from: valency;676297Sure, and that's exactly why D&D Next has gone the same way with such generous recovery rules, to get away from the reliance on magical healers. D&D 1st-3rd edition really assumes the existence of a magical healer in the group. 4th-5th reduces that reliance, at the expense of reducing the utility of healers in general.

When 2e brought in Priests to replace clerics our players basically stopped playing healers. Much more interesting to play the priest of the Goddess of Luck or the God of Numbers or whatever, and whilst access to healing was always in the scope of all priests for game balance reasons it just didn't seem to fit.
Then we started a long campaign the Ruby Kingdom. There were two players I had a thief the other guy a Barbarian. The Two PCs had been around a while, I was 9th level the barbarian was 7th we had met in andother campaign in Ravenloft etc... anyway the game was very Swords and Sorcery and there was a constant issue with healing. The DM didn't want to litter the place with potions or give out daft magical wands, neither did he want to detract from the strong central 'buddy' dynamic by adding a priest whose only function would have been to keep us healed.
So after a couple of sessions I came up with a new HP paradigm. HPs would be an ablative pool of resources that would heal fast and underneath it there would be wounds. This also solved other issues we had with falling damage, with dagger to the throat or crossbow from 3 feet away etc.
We implemented it and then ran it for 20 years.

I mentioned this in another thread, I recently DM'd A0 using Next's rules and even though the HD mechanic helped, there was still a lot of risk of lethality.  So the healer isn't as needed, but it's still very valuable to have

Quote from: Sacrosanct;676304I mentioned this in another thread, I recently DM'd A0 using Next's rules and even though the HD mechanic helped, there was still a lot of risk of lethality.  So the healer isn't as needed, but it's still very valuable to have

Understood. I just want to see what it takes to get a TPK. In AD&D 1E it doesn't take that much at all, and most of it actually relies on the way the players choose to approach the challenge, whatever that is. So rather than a pure theoretical/mathematical rundown, which to be honest I couldn't care less about, what I want to see is whether say, a group of 4 kobolds could TPK a 1st level party at full strength, or a ghoul, or an ogre, for that matter.

This actually matters to me from a design standpoint: I care about people who want to run the Hobby Shop Dungeon with 4e, 3e, Torchbearer, whatever. I want to know how that alters the experience. Not that I will compromise with the original O/AD&D design - I will not, but it might help me to understand the effect this design will have under different paradigms, and provide advice accordingly.

Quote from: Benoist;676308Understood. I just want to see what it takes to get a TPK. In AD&D 1E it doesn't take that much at all, and most of it actually relies on the way the players choose to approach the challenge, whatever it is. So rather than a pure theoretical/mathematical rundown, which to be honest I couldn't care less about, what I want to see is whether say, a group of 4 kobolds could TPK a 1st level party, or a ghoul, or an ogre, for that matter.

This actually matters to me from a design standpoint: I care about people who want to run the Hobby Shop Dungeon with 4e, 3e, Torchbearer, whatever. I want to know how that alters the experience. Not that I will compromise with the original O/AD&D design - I will not, but it might help me to understand the effect this design will have under different paradigms, and provide advice accordingly.

I'm assuming you are excluding save or die.  In my experience in Next, an equal number of orcs can TPK a 1st level party pretty easily if the characters are unaware of things like the orc's relentless trait.  If played like they are designed, even goblins are very dangerous as they have an ambush trait which makes them deadly hit and run opponents.  Trogs?  Low level but deadly because they get two attacks per round and anyone in melee gets disadvantage on attack rolls due to stench.  We were five level 2 characters and 6 troglodytes would have tpk us if not for lucky rolls

Since when are Psionic attacks not causing Physical damage?  What do you think causes all those various type of permament brain damage, magical effects?

No one saw Scanners? :D

Quote from: Sacrosanct;676309I'm assuming you are excluding save or die.

Well no, I woudn't. Save or die in 1E AD&D does exist at low level via saves versus poison. So it does matter tactically in the sense that if you are approching a Spider in melee to begin with, you are dumb. It does matter. I'm guessing none of these kinds of punitive effects for abysmal tactics actually exist in Next... do they?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;676309In my experience in Next, an equal number of orcs can TPK a 1st level party pretty easily if the characters are unaware of things like the orc's relentless trait.  If played like they are designed, even goblins are very dangerous as they have an ambush trait which makes them deadly hit and run opponents.  Trogs?  Low level but deadly because they get two attacks per round and anyone in melee gets disadvantage on attack rolls due to stench.  We were five level 2 characters and 6 troglodytes would have tpk us if not for lucky rolls

OK. So that's not that much of a variation (though troglodytes are TOUGH for a first level party, as are Gnolls and the like).

it looks like poison in Next is HP damage rather than outright die.  Still most likely lethal for 1st level PC, but not nearly as deadly as AD&D.  Then again, not much is

For those curious, here are the two threads currently having an engaging debate on whether an extended rest should recover full hit points in D&D Next:

Wizards:
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/go/thread/view/75882/30024081/Long_Rest_is_a_Problem

EnWorld:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?339804-Long-Rest-is-a-Problem

Hit points. The eternal debate. Here is a solution:


When I find myself in times of trouble
Brother Gary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let them be
 
And in my hour of darkness
He is standing right in front of me
 
Speaking words of wisdom, let them be
 

Let them be, let them be
 
Let them be, let them be
 
Whisper words of wisdom
 
Let them be
 

And when the overthinking people
 
Living in the world agree
 
There will be an answer, let them be
 

For though they may be parted
 
There is still a chance that they will see
 
There will be an answer, let them be
 

Let them be, let them be
 
Let them be, let them be
 
Yeah, there will be an answer let them be
 

Let them be, let them be
 
 
Let them be, let them be
 
Whisper words of wisdom
 
Let them be
 

Let them be, let them be
 
Let them be, yeah, let them be
 
Whisper words of wisdom
 
Let them be
 

And when the rules are crappy
 
There is still some fun that comes to me
 
Play on until tomorrow, let them be
 

I wake up to the sound of die rolls
 
Brother Gary comes to me
 
Speaking words of wisdom, let them be
 

Yeah, let them be, let them be
 
Let them be, yeah, let them be
 
There will be an answer, let them be
 

Let them be, let them be
 
Let them be, yeah, let them be
 
Whisper words of wisdom
 
Let them be

Quote from: Mistwell;676463For those curious, here are the two threads currently having an engaging debate on whether an extended rest should recover full hit points in D&D Next:

Wizards:
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/go/thread/view/75882/30024081/Long_Rest_is_a_Problem

EnWorld:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?339804-Long-Rest-is-a-Problem

I don't want to get sucked into more message boards, but we could debate this here.

Personally I lean toward recovering from being filled with 40 arrows takes at least a few weeks.

Unfortunately, as a player, I also don't want to spend weeks in bed recovering.

Catch 22

Quote from: Bill;676664I don't want to get sucked into more message boards, but we could debate this here.

Personally I lean toward recovering from being filled with 40 arrows takes at least a few weeks.

Unfortunately, as a player, I also don't want to spend weeks in bed recovering.

Catch 22

But you weren't hit by 40 arrows... you expended 80 hit points making sure you avoided 40 arrows sticking into you :)

In TSR D&D then it will take you 31 days to recover. In 3e 80/level days
In 4e a few hours

In Next .... I thought you could set the 'heal' clock to be Level HPs per where time could vary from 10 mins upto a day or has that been cut now?

In my D&D you really have avoiced all those arrows but if the last one hit you when you had no hp left you are wounded and each wound takes a week to heal and gives you -2 on all rolls or you might be dead of course.

This entire thread reminds me why WFRP 1st Edition and especially RuneQuest are my go to games; there, there is no debate on hitpoints/wounds be anything other than physical markers.

Quote from: Bill;676664I don't want to get sucked into more message boards, but we could debate this here.

Personally I lean toward recovering from being filled with 40 arrows takes at least a few weeks.

Unfortunately, as a player, I also don't want to spend weeks in bed recovering.

Catch 22

This is something that used to bother me more, depending on the DM (and system). Lately, running ACKS, downtime to heal seems like a much more natural part of the game, and there are always plenty of interesting things for the party to get up to while that's happpening. It only takes a few minutes narration and perhaps a dice roll or two, but it serves to tie the characters into the milieu.

Quote from: jibbajibba;676666But you weren't hit by 40 arrows... you expended 80 hit points making sure you avoided 40 arrows sticking into you :)

In TSR D&D then it will take you 31 days to recover. In 3e 80/level days
In 4e a few hours

In Next .... I thought you could set the 'heal' clock to be Level HPs per where time could vary from 10 mins upto a day or has that been cut now?

In my D&D you really have avoiced all those arrows but if the last one hit you when you had no hp left you are wounded and each wound takes a week to heal and gives you -2 on all rolls or you might be dead of course.

Sometimes I want my character to actually get wounded.

A few arrow wounds is realistic, and would take more than 31 days to recover from.

A level 2 fighter with 8 hp would be fine in a week.

Mechanically it works not aesthetically.

Recovery times always being quick feels wrong to me.

Quote from: Bobloblah;676676This is something that used to bother me more, depending on the DM (and system). Lately, running ACKS, downtime to heal seems like a much more natural part of the game, and there are always plenty of interesting things for the party to get up to while that's happpening. It only takes a few minutes narration and perhaps a dice roll or two, but it serves to tie the characters into the milieu.

Downtime can be fun, but  your knight spending a month recovering while a Dragon savages the land is stressful :)

Quote from: Bill;676693Downtime can be fun, but  your knight spending a month recovering while a Dragon savages the land is stressful :)

What's wrong with stressful?

Quote from: Bill;676691Recovery times always being quick feels wrong to me.

Just be thankful you are not playing under Harnmaster. ;) That system's recovery rules are brutal.

Quote from: Bobloblah;676697What's wrong with stressful?

Depends if it is fun or not.

Quote from: estar;676699Just be thankful you are not playing under Harnmaster. ;) That system's recovery rules are brutal.

"Paging Dr. Fyvria Shek P'Var to the Emergency room!...Paging Dr. Fyvria Shek P'var...."

Quote from: Bill;676720Depends if it is fun or not.

Tyranny of Fun?

Quote from: Bobloblah;676676This is something that used to bother me more, depending on the DM (and system). Lately, running ACKS, downtime to heal seems like a much more natural part of the game, and there are always plenty of interesting things for the party to get up to while that's happpening. It only takes a few minutes narration and perhaps a dice roll or two, but it serves to tie the characters into the milieu.

In my game currently, one of the PCs is bedridden for a week (then recovering for another few days after that). The player is simply running one of his henchmen instead.

Quote from: Kiero;676730In my game currently, one of the PCs is bedridden for a week (then recovering for another few days after that). The player is simply running one of his henchmen instead.

Yeah, it's a conceit of ACKS that either the party goes out with a player running one of his main character's henchmen, or they do downtime stuff instead (build magic items, do research, recruit followers, commision items, investigation, mecantile endeavours, conduct hijinks, etc.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;676121I don't give a shit. And the reason I don't is because HP has been proven by decades of play to be one of the best emulative mechanics for damage there is.

The problem here is with people confusing "realism" for "emulation".  If emulation was all about being "realistic" then sure, HP would suck.  But that's not what its about, and "realism" has nothing to do with the divide between RPGs and Storygames.

Emulative mechanics...:rotfl:

Quote from: Bobloblah;676755Yeah, it's a conceit of ACKS that either the party goes out with a player running one of his main character's henchmen, or they do downtime stuff instead (build magic items, do research, recruit followers, commision items, investigation, mecantile endeavours, conduct hijinks, etc.)

Indeed, it was something I made sure the players were all bought into before we started. Along with them having a hand in the creation of those henchmen, since any one of them might become their "backup PC" either temporarily, or permanently.

There's no magic in my game, so no magical healing of bad injuries and no resurrection. So that means there's no revolving door for PCs who get into trouble.

Quote from: Mistwell;676241Right now, the D&D Next rules heal 100% of your hit points after a single nights rest.  I've argued, both at EnWorld and at the WOTC boards, that the default assumption should allow for at least the possibility that you don't heal 100% up from just the natural healing of a night's rest (with various fixes recommended, such as heal some HP and all HD, or all HD that you can spend for healing, or simply role your HD for healing overnight, or max half HP healed overnight, or 10% healing per hour rested, etc..).

Have you heard anything from WOTC on this topic that you feel free enough to talk about?

I'm not at liberty to say. I can say, however, that I think that full-healing-from-a-night's-rest is stupid.

Quote from: Sommerjon;676861Emulative mechanics...:rotfl:

There are clearly mechanics that contribute for, or against emulation, on at least two spectrums:
1. Whether the mechanics reflect the genre you're trying to emulate
2. Whether the mechanics are clunky enough to get in the way of the emulation.

Hit points are decent enough at number 1, and much better at number 2 than any of those fiddly 'damage track' mechanics.

Quote from: Bobloblah;676755Yeah, it's a conceit of ACKS that either the party goes out with a player running one of his main character's henchmen, or they do downtime stuff instead (build magic items, do research, recruit followers, commision items, investigation, mecantile endeavours, conduct hijinks, etc.)

Sometimes my groups have been doing for many, many years. Although many players have multiple characters and play a secondary character instead of a henchman of a "out-of-play" PC. Some even switch what character they are playing based on what the party needs/is doing. For example, one player has a character who hates the city. When the party is going to be adventuring in the city for a while, the ranger stays camped outside town and the thief character who lives in the city gets played.

Quote from: RandallS;677422Sometimes my groups have been doing for many, many years. Although many players have multiple characters and play a secondary character instead of a henchman of a "out-of-play" PC. Some even switch what character they are playing based on what the party needs/is doing. For example, one player has a character who hates the city. When the party is going to be adventuring in the city for a while, the ranger stays camped outside town and the thief character who lives in the city gets played.

I wouldn't mind having that sort of ensemble, revolving cast in my game, but my players like to get very attached to one and only one character at a time. I can't complain, really, they have adapted to having a bevy of henchmen around most of the time pretty well (all our previous games were just the PCs, or at most one regular NPC).

Quote from: RPGPundit;677403There are clearly mechanics that contribute for, or against emulation, on at least two spectrums:
1. Whether the mechanics reflect the genre you're trying to emulate
2. Whether the mechanics are clunky enough to get in the way of the emulation.

Hit points are decent enough at number 1, and much better at number 2 than any of those fiddly 'damage track' mechanics.

No, you prefer certain mechanics.  Emulation is your justification to shit on everything else.

Quote from: Sommerjon;677590No, you prefer certain mechanics.  Emulation is your justification to shit on everything else.

No, emulation is real, its the point of RPGs, and you look like an idiot for denying it.

Quote from: Sommerjon;677590No, you prefer certain mechanics.  Emulation is your justification to shit on everything else.

There must be a communication issue here.  What do you mean by the word emulation? Because I am having trouble thinking about RPG rules as something which doesn't involve emulating something.  It's a concept so intertwined with RPG rules that I don't understand how one can conceive of one without the other.

And understand I am no Pundit fanboi or anything.  I just think he's saying "water is wet", and I am having trouble understanding why you're disagreeing that water is wet.

Everything is a communications issue to Sommerjon.

Quote from: RPGPundit;678016No, emulation is real, its the point of RPGs, and you look like an idiot for denying it.

YOU-There are clearly mechanics that contribute for, or against emulation, on at least two spectrums:
1. Whether the mechanics reflect the genre you're trying to emulate
2. Whether the mechanics are clunky enough to get in the way of the emulation.

Hit points are decent enough at number 1, and much better at number 2 than any of those fiddly 'damage track' mechanics.

ME-No, you prefer certain mechanics. Emulation is your justification to shit on everything else.

I didn't deny emulation.  Emulation is utterly subjective.   I implied you're a moron for trying to appeal to the board.

Seems pretty straightforward to me...

We all know what HPs are trying to emulate; a hero's ability to last longer in a fight as their skill increases. Do HPs accomplish this? Yes. That's not a matter of personal preference. That's exactly what they do.

As to Pundit's second point, there are so many wound systems that the idea that one can make a generalized statement about them ("they are all clunkier than HPs") is meaningless and demonstrably false.

So I agree with Pundit on point 1, and think the 2nd claim is stupid.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678267As to Pundit's second point, there are so many wound systems that the idea that one can make a generalized statement about them ("they are all clunkier than HPs") is meaningless and demonstrably false.

Its only demonstrably false if you can give an example of a Wound system that is not 'clunkier' than HPs.

And tbh, I can't think of one.

Quote from: jadrax;678316Its only demonstrably false if you can give an example of a Wound system that is not 'clunkier' than HPs.

And tbh, I can't think of one.

Depends on how you define 'clunky'.

If by clunky you mean "difficult to match with any kind of real-life idea of how injuries work," then there's lots of examples.

If by clunky you mean "requires lots of fiddling around with crap so that I can get on to shit I actually care about," then HP is probably the least clunky wound mechanic out there.

Quote from: jadrax;678316Its only demonstrably false if you can give an example of a Wound system that is not 'clunkier' than HPs.

And tbh, I can't think of one.

Dr. Who - wounds are subtracted from attributes.

Neverwhere / The Window - wounds are roleplayed only

The Pool / Risus - Wounds take away dice from the general pool

007 - attacks cause either a Light Wound, Moderate Wound , Heavy Wound etc. you mark down a check for every type of wound, and if one row fills up it spills into the next.

Cineflex - Wounds are recorded as 1-3 points at a time, and provide a negative modifier to a health roll at the end of combat.

The Diamond Age - characters have a group of hearts, much like Zelda, and these are reduced by parts or wholes.

Puppet land - the character sheet has a pic of the puppet divided into puzzle pieces. Everytime you take a wound, a piece is coloured in.

Tribe 8 - characters have listed thresholds for light, moderate, severe etc wounds. Damage is compared to the highest threshold surpassed and the character gets a wound of that type.

Those are just off of the top of my head. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages, but none are cllunkier in execution than HPs.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678626Dr. Who - wounds are subtracted from attributes.

Neverwhere / The Window - wounds are roleplayed only

The Pool / Risus - Wounds take away dice from the general pool

007 - attacks cause either a Light Wound, Moderate Wound , Heavy Wound etc. you mark down a check for every type of wound, and if one row fills up it spills into the next.

Cineflex - Wounds are recorded as 1-3 points at a time, and provide a negative modifier to a health roll at the end of combat.

The Diamond Age - characters have a group of hearts, much like Zelda, and these are reduced by parts or wholes.

Puppet land - the character sheet has a pic of the puppet divided into puzzle pieces. Everytime you take a wound, a piece is coloured in.

Tribe 8 - characters have listed thresholds for light, moderate, severe etc wounds. Damage is compared to the highest threshold surpassed and the character gets a wound of that type.

I mean obviously this is going to be one where people's mileage will vary, but to me those are terrible examples. The only one that I would even consider is Neverwhere / The Window, although I don't know the system and would have to look at it to be sure.

Quote from: jadrax;678634I mean obviously this is going to be one where people's mileage will vary, but to me those are terrible examples. The only one that I would even consider is Neverwhere / The Window, although I don't know the system and would have to look at it to be sure.

Whether you'd enjoy using them is sort of incidental to the point though. I'm not advocating any of these as a replacement for HPs, merely observing none of these take more time to resolve than subtracting HPs from a pool.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678640Whether you'd enjoy using them is sort of incidental to the point though. I'm not advocating any of these as a replacement for HPs, merely observing none of these take more time to resolve than subtracting HPs from a pool.

Which is what I disagree with, as all of your examples *do* take more time.

Quote from: jadrax;678695Which is what I disagree with, as all of your examples *do* take more time.

Not in practice. And some obviously not - filling in a puzzle piece - 3 strokes of a pencil laid flat, a fraction of the amount of time it would even take to calculate the number of hit points to erase; many of the examples you simply check a box; taking a die out of a dice pool. At worste any of the given examples takes roughly the same amount of time. In most cases, less. What about the Saga system where you remove a card or two from your hand? There is simply plenty of systems less crunchy or equal in 'inconvenience' as HPs.

Doesn't mean any of them are better. But they exist.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678713Not in practice. And some obviously not - filling in a puzzle piece - 3 strokes of a pencil laid flat, a fraction of the amount of time it would even take to calculate the number of hit points to erase;

Wow, people actually do math when they take damage?  I just make hash marks.

Which would, er, be exactly the same number of pencil strokes.

Quote from: Mistwell;678028And understand I am no Pundit fanboi or anything.  I just think he's saying "water is wet", and I am having trouble understanding why you're disagreeing that water is wet.

There's a certain kind of Pundit-obsessed hater that will, if I declare "water is wet" say "no its dry you filthy liar!".

I mean, there was the one guy who spoke out loudly in support of pedophilia for no reason other than that I suggested I'm against its presence in the RPG hobby.

RPGPundit

Quote from: TristramEvans;678267Seems pretty straightforward to me...

We all know what HPs are trying to emulate; a hero's ability to last longer in a fight as their skill increases. Do HPs accomplish this? Yes. That's not a matter of personal preference. That's exactly what they do.

As to Pundit's second point, there are so many wound systems that the idea that one can make a generalized statement about them ("they are all clunkier than HPs") is meaningless and demonstrably false.

So I agree with Pundit on point 1, and think the 2nd claim is stupid.

In fact, I didn't state that all wound systems are clunkier than HPs; I claimed that "fidgety damage tracks" are clunkier than HPs.

Though in fact, most wound systems I've seen are "clunkier" than HPs.  Its hard not to be clunkier than "you have x points, you subtract from them when you get hit".

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;679149Though in fact, most wound systems I've seen are "clunkier" than HPs.  Its hard not to be clunkier than "you have x points, you subtract from them when you get hit".

Seriously.  Whatever failings HP may have, you can't count "fiddly and complex" among them.

People will disagree a lot about what any individual calculation, record keeping step, or the like, is clunky or not.

That is human nature.

'Clunky' to me, is unnecessary steps, no matter how trivial. They add up.

Quote from: RPGPundit;679149In fact, I didn't state that all wound systems are clunkier than HPs; I claimed that "fidgety damage tracks" are clunkier than HPs.

RPGPundit

If I misread you I apologize

Quote from: TristramEvans;679375If I misread you I apologize

Its ok, its a common enough occurrence.

Quote from: RandallS;677422Sometimes my groups have been doing for many, many years. Although many players have multiple characters and play a secondary character instead of a henchman of a "out-of-play" PC. Some even switch what character they are playing based on what the party needs/is doing. For example, one player has a character who hates the city. When the party is going to be adventuring in the city for a while, the ranger stays camped outside town and the thief character who lives in the city gets played.

The conditions of the pioneering RPG campaigns naturally leant themselves to players having 'stables' or 'bullpens' of characters, and so it was common in the 1970s.

Quote from: robiswrong;679167Seriously.  Whatever failings HP may have, you can't count "fiddly and complex" among them.

Yep. The only place HP go to shit is when you pair them with levels.

Quote from: Phillip;680232The conditions of the pioneering RPG campaigns naturally leant themselves to players having 'stables' or 'bullpens' of characters, and so it was common in the 1970s.

I consider it to be one of the defining characteristics of what I call "paleo" campaigns.  And if you *presume* that, a lot of rules from AD&D1 and before make a lot more sense.

Quote from: Phillip;680232The conditions of the pioneering RPG campaigns naturally leant themselves to players having 'stables' or 'bullpens' of characters, and so it was common in the 1970s.

We do this now. In my Dark Albion campaign, every player has two characters.  They can choose which one they play with at the start of each adventure.

RPGPundit