Yea, I think the idea is that if you figure that even the mightiest of men can still be laid low by a clever sword cut, then high level D&D is simply not going to map to reality.  My interpretation of a level 1 guy who has his knife to the throat of a 20th level warrior is that hit points aren't a stand-in for pure physical constitution, and when he tries to cut that guy something is gonna happen that will prevent it.  The hit points aren't intended as a simulation of raw physicality purely, and the simulation is bigger than that and can't be honed in on a knife cutting a neck.  Sure, a the blow would be lethal, but he has too many hit points for that, so the blow doesn't occur like that- instead he jerks his head away or there's some unfortunate twitch in the hand of the knifeman.  Whatever.

Now, there's a problem with my argument, and that is that hit points are sometimes portrayed by the game engine as just raw physicality, or at least, intended that way.  They are not, in any D&D system at least, used perfectly consistently in all cases.  I view those cases as suspect and subject to houserules- I want a game that feels real, but hit points are not that gritty, so the parts where some developer thought that they were are what needs to get sanded down.

Anyway, as you say, if someone wants a game to have a chance to kill someone with a powerful enough weapon- a knife to the throat, a big fucking axe, a plasma blaster at close range- then just the simple D&D abstraction of hit points doesn't work.  I feel you need a bigger change than just houseruling everyone to 20 health tops or whatever though, and I also feel that even old systems have this issue, as hit points as an abstraction- and complaints, and everything I just said- is a debate that goes back to the 1970s I think.  Certainly you can read people with commentary about it in 1980s Dragon magazines.

Quote from: Venka on August 25, 2022, 02:09:01 PM
Yea, I think the idea is that if you figure that even the mightiest of men can still be laid low by a clever sword cut, then high level D&D is simply not going to map to reality. 

If it can be assigned a probability then likely a mechanic can be created to handle it in a way that is consistent with how high-level D&D normally plays. There will be consequences in terms of extra die rolls but if it is a concern then it can be added.

For example in GURPS the odds of a one shot kill is effectively the odds making a critical hits, and the odds of rolling the right critical result.

For example, a high point GURPS character
A 6 or less is a critical hit which equals 9.26% chance of a crit occurring on an attack.
A critical hit means the opponent gets no defense roll.
Triple normal damage (which is devastating in GURPS) is gain by rolling a 3 or a 18. A total of a 0.92% chance.
Roughly 1 in 1,200 swings in GURPS by a character with skill of 16 or better will result in what is, in essence, a one-shot kill.

To emulate this in D&D, just throw a d100 and a d12. If they both come up with a 1 then you killed your opponent.

Or a referee cared about the in-between result then say that a nat 19 or 20 is a crit. Roll on a chart where the low probability results wipe out a proportion of the target's hit points instead of a fixed number. For example a result of 3 causes loss of all hit points, 4 to 5 causes a loss of 3/4rd of one's hit points, and so on.

My own solution to the issue of one shot kills is to allow another roll to be made if a nat 20 is rolled. As long as you keep rolling nat 20s the damage from the blow adds up. I adapted this mechanic from Hackmaster 5e.

In addition, I have a bunch of stuff that can be attempted like knocking out an opponent, disarm, trip. However, the catch is that the target gets a save. This means the attempt is less effective versus high-level and high HD opponents. Which is also the case in GURPS with high point, highly skilled characters.


I agree RAW D&D of any edition doesn't handle this kind of stuff well. But I found that there are way to adding this in without turning D&D into a completely new RPG.

I agree that hit point damage (especially small damage against a large pool of hit points) doesn't represent 'instant death' well.  For many games that do have hit points, there are circumstances where hit points aren't used, like a save against Death or Petrification.  Since those exist alongside hit points in most systems, it's not conceptually difficult to imagine an attack that (at least situationally) bypasses hit point damage and instead is resolved differently. 

Maybe stabbing someone with a knife COULD be 1d4+4 slashing damage, but having them pinned and the knife to their throat is 1d4+4 slashing damage plus save versus death.  Obviously having situations that are resolved differently depending on circumstances adds complication and an adjudication step that some people will dislike.  But if you primarily want piles of hit points but still want to have 'one hit, one kill' threats, there are ways to achieve that without cranking up damage to d1000s or anything.   

The AD&D1e system does mention that a to-hit and damage roll are not necessary when dealing with a helpless opponent, for example a bound sacrifice victim. If the evil high priest is about to sacrifice Conan with his 100 HP while he's bound with chains, he doesn't have to make dozens of attacks. He states he is slaying him and cutting out his still-beating heart, and it is done.

Further, a perusal of the assassination table under the assassin character class description will show that it's also to be used by characters trying to kill someone quietly in their sleep, and that sort of thing. This could be used by the DM if a 1st level character is holding a blade to the throat of a 20th level character - though one might ask how it is that a 20th level character let a 1st level sneak up to them and put a blade to their throat unopposed?

Other than earlier in the thread when Shark suggested it; it seems every design device known to man is suggested to tame HP bloat, except the most straight forward.

Just cap HP at a fixed amount like almost every other RPG out there that's not a D&D derivative.

For some reason, this never gets looked at seriously in OSR/D&D land.

A Level is just a way to do Advancement. There is no inherent reason why Hit Points have to increase with every level in class and level based games.


From ESTAR:

QuoteRegarding Hit Points
In miniature wargaming with dozen if not hundreds of figures you don't want to be messing around the details of individual figures. So combat was abstracted to 1 hit = 1 kill. When Gygax introduced fantasy elements to Chainmail along with heroes and superheroes, once way he beefed them up was to require 4 hits in order to kill a Hero and 8 hits to kill a Super-Hero.

Dave Arneson started running Braunsteins and later Blackmoor. This was found hit to kill too harsh for when the campaign was starting out. So one 1 hit to kill became 1d6 hit points. And one hit became 1d6 damage.
...

That is a good way of deciding the power level of a fixed HP D&D game. Start all PC's at 4HD max die roll equivalent and it never goes up. Maybe you let them add their CON bonus to the total (not for every HD) and that's it. Done.

This makes the implementation of things like major wounds when you take more than 1/2 at once more fixed and predictable as a PC advances.

The continual expansion of HP in D&D always creates scaling issues. Albeit in earlier editions of the game this issue was much less pronounced.

Fixed HP cures HP Bloat and all its knock-on effects straight-up.

A maximum hit point total doesn't represent anything that makes sense in game.  I mean, theoretically there's something that's tougher than everything else that represents the most youncould ever have
.  Let's call it a Tarrasque for convenience.  If something is tougher than that, it should have even more hit points.  If you just say 'nothing can be tougher than the Tarrasque because 500 hit points is the absolute maximum', well, that's very gamist.  It's not like we're an old computer game where there were only 256 possibilities (0-255 hit points). 

An artificial cap doesn't solve any problems.  It just refuses to admit that they exist or are worth solving for.

Let's be real.  Hit points going up vs attack success rate going up is just how it's done in this set of rules. 

But maybe not.  A lot of OSR games make changes.  Some go for combat changes to be what that author hoped D&D would have been. 

I go for different rules altogether.  This hit point system is one of the main faults I see in D&D. 

Quote from: deadDMwalking on August 25, 2022, 08:36:45 PM
A maximum hit point total doesn't represent anything that makes sense in game.  I mean, theoretically there's something that's tougher than everything else that represents the most youncould ever have
.  Let's call it a Tarrasque for convenience.  If something is tougher than that, it should have even more hit points.  If you just say 'nothing can be tougher than the Tarrasque because 500 hit points is the absolute maximum', well, that's very gamist.  It's not like we're an old computer game where there were only 256 possibilities (0-255 hit points). 

An artificial cap doesn't solve any problems.  It just refuses to admit that they exist or are worth solving for.

I will assume that you misread my post.

I clearly stated that PC hit points would be capped. I never said anything about NPC's or monsters.

Naturally, it goes without saying, that NPC's and Monster HP would be scaled in the system to the desired threat level for the PC's within the genre the game is trying to emulate.

Just like every other game that has a version of fixed HP: Like Runequest, Vampire, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, and most any other game not a straight D&D derivative.

Now the natural result is that the "powerband" the PC's will progress through will be shallower than the zero to superhero of modern D&D. But for those games that is a feature, not a bug.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on August 25, 2022, 09:40:25 PM
Let's be real.  Hit points going up vs attack success rate going up is just how it's done in this set of rules. 

But maybe not.  A lot of OSR games make changes.  Some go for combat changes to be what that author hoped D&D would have been. 
...

It doesn't have to be so. A "level" is just a way to dole out advancements. "Level" does not have to equal: exponential power jump.

There is nothing inherent in a d20 roll high vs. DC or AC system that demands HP increase every level. Nothing whatsoever.

It's just a roll +mod vs. a target number. Nothing special.

Class + Level + HP Bloat just the traditional style of play everyone expects. To the point that it is virtually a design blind spot when discussing OSR rules variants like in this thread.

PC's having more or less low fixed Hit point solves the scaling design issues that class/level based HP bloat games run into in varying degree's. You just need to be willing to set aside the zero to hero tiered play paradigm to implement it.

This is maybe a good time to point out that not only do hit points not represent meat points, they don't represent anything in particular. What they mean can vary wildly from situation to situation.

Quote from: Jaeger on August 26, 2022, 12:29:53 AM

PC's having more or less low fixed Hit point solves the scaling design issues that class/level based HP bloat games run into in varying degree's. You just need to be willing to set aside the zero to hero tiered play paradigm to implement it.

That's always been the real problem--not understanding that some degree of zero to hero is intended or wanted, whether that be set at "none" or "crazy land range of we really mean zero is lower than that and hero is off the charts".  Or often, somewhere in the middle, where some hit point scaling is warranted, but not to the degree that D&D does it.

Besides, there is always a cap and a lower limit.  Giving everyone bonus points and then not scaling hit points at all  just says that the cap and the floor happen to be the same.  There will still be someone else come alone and not like where it is set, whether that be because for them the floor is too low or too high for their sensibilities or ditto the cap.  The cap is not a bad house rule when using an existing system, but is hardly the only design choice.  After all, it's only the underlying math of the system.  If I have a floor of 3 and a cap of 20, I can set that explicitly or I can build it into the math of the system.  Same for any other numbers.  If I want a bigger range than that, but starting at a higher number, say 8 to 98, I can likewise do it explicitly or with the math. 

Now granted, when it's done with the math, you always run the risk that someone later is going to come along and tack on extra numbers just because, thus invalidating the design.  Which is how we end up with WotC D&D.  So called "professional" game designers should know better.

Quote from: Jaeger on August 26, 2022, 12:29:53 AM
I will assume that you misread my post.

I clearly stated that PC hit points would be capped. I never said anything about NPC's or monsters.

And my point is that is very gamist.  What is the difference between a PC and a monster in terms of 'toughness'?  We can probably safely assume that some monsters are tougher than all PCs (like Dragons) so you don't cap those.  But how does it make sense to cap PC hit points?  Effectively you're saying there is a maximum number of hit points a character CAN have, and eventually all characters reach that.  So this maximum (whether 25, 50, or 500) eventually says that a Wizard with this many hit points is exactly as tough as a Fighter with that many hit points.  As soon as you allow for the possibility that one OUGHT to be tougher, the cap doesn't make any sense. 

What happens if the wizard turns themself into a dragon? 

Either hit points have meaning in game, in which case if you can conceive of a situation where someone would be 'a little tougher' than another character (and thus deserve more hit points in excess of the cap) or they're not (making them gamist).  There's no real reason why Pac-Man gives you 3 lives when you play - that's just what they decided makes sense.  Arbitrarily saying 'PCs can have a maximum of 80 hit points' does the same thing - it picks a value for the sake of having one, not for having explanative power over what that means in the game. 

Even if you don't have an arbitrary fixed cap, you absolutely can have 'maximums'.  If players get 10 hit points per level, and they get a bonus of up to 2 per level, the most they can have is 12/level.  If you know that 10th level is the highest they can get, the most hit points anyone will have is 120.  But that doesn't really mean it's a cap.  I would expect that if another character is getting 5 per level, they'd hit 50; they wouldn't keep getting additional hit points until there was no difference between squishy and tough characters. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 26, 2022, 09:19:27 AM
That's always been the real problem--not understanding that some degree of zero to hero is intended or wanted, whether that be set at "none" or "crazy land range of we really mean zero is lower than that and hero is off the charts".  Or often, somewhere in the middle, where some hit point scaling is warranted, but not to the degree that D&D does it.
...

Maybe I misread you - but in my view the problem in WotC D&D has always been the inability to restrain the "zero to hero" powerband when it comes to HP Bloat.

1-2e had a restrained power band where hit dice stopped going up around level 10-12. Yes, they still had scaling issues, but no where near to the degree that every WotC edition of D&D does.

WotC would solve a lot of design issues if they implemented a similar solution.

Quote from: deadDMwalking on August 26, 2022, 10:03:30 AM
...
And my point is that is very gamist.  What is the difference between a PC and a monster in terms of 'toughness'? We can probably safely assume that some monsters are tougher than all PCs (like Dragons) so you don't cap those.  But how does it make sense to cap PC hit points? 
...

So I thought you misread my post. But now I think you legitimately don't understand what I am getting at.

Do you not know how games like Runequest, Shadowrun, Or Cyberpunk work? And that PC's in those games have low, essentially fixed HP?

Quote from: deadDMwalking on August 26, 2022, 10:03:30 AM
And my point is that is very gamist.  What is the difference between a PC and a monster in terms of 'toughness'? 

Hit Points are not a measure of toughness. They are an abstract measure of combat endurance, how long a combatant can continue to function in combat. If folks want hit points to represent health, toughness, etc, then they need to come up with a new system.

Quote from: Jaeger on August 26, 2022, 01:18:56 PM
So I thought you misread my post. But now I think you legitimately don't understand what I am getting at.

Do you not know how games like Runequest, Shadowrun, Or Cyberpunk work? And that PC's in those games have low, essentially fixed HP?

Of those, I know Shadownrun best.  I don't think Hit Boxes directly compare to Hit Points as they're usually used.  If you have 10 hit boxes, each box can be thought of as 10% of your health total.  It's very clear that a very tough troll can take a lot more punishment than a very svelte (non-tough) elf.  If the same hit is 4 boxes of damage to one person, but only 1 box of damage to another person, you're abstracting 'hit points' very differently to the standard conceit (a pile of survivable hits that are ablated by each incoming attack). 

So I disagree with the premise - there are lots of ways to 'track damage' and 'hit points' represent one commonly used style - but a maximum hit point cap without connection to the narrative fiction is a gamist convention.  That's not always a bad thing - D&D is a game and there are going to be things that are required to make it work, even if they don't make much sense.  But given my druthers, I want things to make sense in the game. 

Generally, if you say 'this is how something works in the game', I think you ought to be able to say 'and this is what it represents'.  The most common definition of hit points as a mix of fatigue, luck, avoiding serious blows and minor wounds as an abstraction works as long as you don't rigorously define 'hit' as 'an attack that successfully makes someone bleed'.  Hit points in that sense have a narrative function and if you can imagine someone being tougher, luckier, better able to avoid blows/turn blows into near-misses, you basically have a theoretical justification for not capping hit points.  If you cap it anyway, I think you should at least be able to say what that represents. 

Quote from: Jaeger on August 26, 2022, 01:18:56 PM
Maybe I misread you - but in my view the problem in WotC D&D has always been the inability to restrain the "zero to hero" powerband when it comes to HP Bloat.

1-2e had a restrained power band where hit dice stopped going up around level 10-12. Yes, they still had scaling issues, but no where near to the degree that every WotC edition of D&D does.

WotC would solve a lot of design issues if they implemented a similar solution.

My point is really that I don't disagree with your analysis, but think that WotC aping 1E/2E is not the only way to solve it.  Assuming the game is going to be rewritten anyway, which they haven't been shy about doing.  Besides, much of their bloat has been because of multiple sources of piling on, not a single thing.  3E, for example, would be notably improved in this respect just by using AD&D attribute ranges, thus pulling back on the Con bonuses a little.  Not fixed, but improved.  Or you could do what I'm doing in my system, which is spread out the hit die improvements to only the odd levels, not every level.  I'm still capping at 12 dice, but not "seemingly arbitrarily" at 12th level.  And of course, using smaller dice would help. 

To do any of that requires touching the math.  i can't just, for example, go change 3E to only give dice every odd level with no other changes, as that will make the mid-level characters much weaker than the design expects.  I'd need to adjust monsters too.

So my point is that the math needs to cap it.  How that gets implemented in the game system is not limited to an explicit cap.