Quote from: Zalman on March 23, 2022, 10:56:29 AM
Agree here with Kiero, regarding natural healing. Magic healing is already scaled ... by cleric level.

That doesn't cut it. Cleric level is already factored into the power of the healing spell used. They should be healing a proportion of the target's hit points, not fixed amounts based on the spell.

Quote from: Kiero on March 23, 2022, 05:04:58 PM
That doesn't cut it. Cleric level is already factored into the power of the healing spell used. They should be healing a proportion of the target's hit points, not fixed amounts based on the spell.

Why?

Two fighters, one with 25 hit points, one with 50 hit points, swan dive off a cliff just because, taking 20 damage each. A cleric goes to heal them. Why should we expect the first fighter to take more magic than the second one to heal the exact same bump?

We're not even talking about natural healing at this point, where the fact that one character might actually be a faster healer than the other could come into play.

If you're thinking of the same healing spells I'm thinking of, these spells do not simply add hit points. Like if I get hit for 5 damage and you heal me for 8, I don't get to walk away with 3 hit points above my max. They're limited according to the actual wounds taken. Even the name of the spells, Cure X Wounds makes it clear that the wounds themselves are the subject of the spell.

Contrast this with "Heal" (sans "wounds" in the name) which will indeed restore more hit points to the second fighter if both are knocked down to half hit points.

Contrast this with the Heal spell, where the name implies healing the person, not curing the wounds, and lo and behold that healing is proportional to the subject's hit points--that portion happening to be 100%.

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 23, 2022, 08:37:16 PM

Quote from: Kiero on March 23, 2022, 05:04:58 PM
That doesn't cut it. Cleric level is already factored into the power of the healing spell used. They should be healing a proportion of the target's hit points, not fixed amounts based on the spell.

Why?

Two fighters, one with 25 hit points, one with 50 hit points, swan dive off a cliff just because, taking 20 damage each. A cleric goes to heal them. Why should we expect the first fighter to take more magic than the second one to heal the exact same bump?

You're saying that both fighters have the "exact same bump" - implying that both fighters took the same physical damage. That's assuming "hit points is meat". If a fighter has more hit points, then he is just strictly tougher and can keep fighting despite taking the same wounds that would kill a lesser man.

But this is hard to rationalize given D&D hit point escalation with level. The usual explanation is that a higher level fighter isn't taking dozens of the exact same wounds that would kill a commoner. Instead, it's explained that the higher hit point total is from skill and technique in reducing damage. So after a fall, they land better - and after a sword blow, they roll with the blow so it glances off.

By this view, after each taking a 20 damage blow, the 25hp fighter is more physically wounded - while the 50hp fighter landed more nimbly and has less physical wounds on him.

If you assume that all blows of the same damage cause the same physical wounds -- then higher-level fighters are blatantly supernatural because they can keep fighting on despite taking dozens of wounds that would kill an average person.

1) Hit Points don't make any sense under scrutiny.
2) Hit Points are an awesome game mechanic.

These two sentences are not in conflict.

Quote from: Kiero on March 23, 2022, 05:04:58 PM

Quote from: Zalman on March 23, 2022, 10:56:29 AM
Agree here with Kiero, regarding natural healing. Magic healing is already scaled ... by cleric level.

That doesn't cut it. Cleric level is already factored into the power of the healing spell used. They should be healing a proportion of the target's hit points, not fixed amounts based on the spell.

Meh, it amounts to the same thing in play. My gut tells me that the percentage of spell resources that the party cleric needs to expend to heal the party fighter x% will be roughly scaled to the party level. (Watch someone crunch the math now!).

Something I'd like to play around with if I did a Fantasy Heartbreaker of D&D is -

1) everyone starts with Max HP at 1st level.
2) Everyone gets 2HP/level + Con bonus.

But then I'd have to change Healing Magic, and AC, and other things... then I'd be firmly in redoing everything.

I want, ideally, combat to FEEL and BE dangerous, but I want combat-oriented characters to ostensibly be GOOD at it. To me the axis where players FEEL this is Damage Avoidance, and Damage Ablation.

This is why I like games that takes a PC's ability to actually *fight* into account. As a former EMT, I know fully well how fragile people actually are when it comes to physical violence. I'm not *aiming* for that as much as I'm winking at it. I want my PC's to have semi-realistic (but clearly superior) abilities to reflect that in play.

That said - I also want to nod at the trope of the heavily armored/tough sumbitch that plows into combat, and is taking hits, but just won't drop. The problem with HP being tied directly to level, is not granular enough, and it opens up other suggestions that I do not agree with.

So for me I want this tied to skill and gear. The *core* "health" of a PC should be narrow. Braining people with an iron frying pan, can *easily* kill anyone. But against a skilled combatant, it should be difficult to land a blow. Against a combatant with a helm - it might be very difficult to actually harm them.

HP alone is too abstract for me, without a good GM steadily narrating the ebb and flow. Too much has D&D wallowed in this whole point-deduction with easy hits, and that somehow sufficing for the drama of combat. OBVIOUSLY not every GM is like this - but we all know goddamn well that's how it's played. Otherwise all the stupid shit like Damage Per Round wouldn't exist from all the young'uns in how they rate "builds".

I'd take 10+ a PC's To Hit bonus as an AC stand in, and Armor absorbing damage as a starting point. Lower the HP accrual rate, and really nuke Healing magic, as my starting point, with LOTS of tweaks added in for fine-tuning.

Quote from: jhkim on March 24, 2022, 01:41:47 AM
You're saying that both fighters have the "exact same bump" - implying that both fighters took the same physical damage. That's assuming "hit points is meat". If a fighter has more hit points, then he is just strictly tougher and can keep fighting despite taking the same wounds that would kill a lesser man.

It doesn't assume hit points are meat. Even if the damage is 0% meat, 100% ether, that just means it's the same 20 points of ether damage.

The bump in both cases was non-fatal and not incapacitating. Same fall, same height, same result.

If there had been a third fighter, one with only 10 hit points, that one would be dead. In that case, there would be a clear difference in the severity of the bump that fighter took. And in that case, it actually would require more powerful magic to restore the character.

QuoteBut this is hard to rationalize given D&D hit point escalation with level. The usual explanation is that a higher level fighter isn't taking dozens of the exact same wounds that would kill a commoner. Instead, it's explained that the higher hit point total is from skill and technique in reducing damage. So after a fall, they land better - and after a sword blow, they roll with the blow so it glances off.

By this view, after each taking a 20 damage blow, the 25hp fighter is more physically wounded - while the 50hp fighter landed more nimbly and has less physical wounds on him.

This is laid out in a few places, but the 1E DMG has an in-depth discussion of this. Hits are actually hits. Bumps are actually bumps. It's just they're superficial until the last few hit points are exhausted. For some reason, a lot of people leave that part out. The meat is not evenly distributed throughout the whole total. It's concentrated at the bottom.

In other words, it's NOT the case that these two fighters have the same 3 physical hit points of a commoner, and that each hit against the first guy is 12% meat while each hit against the second guy is 6% meat, and therefore we can conclude the first guy is losing more meat than the second guy for taking the same amount of damage. This an inference not in evidence. And this particular inference seems to me to be contrary to the original explanation hit points for high level characters.

QuoteIf you assume that all blows of the same damage cause the same physical wounds -- then higher-level fighters are blatantly supernatural because they can keep fighting on despite taking dozens of wounds that would kill an average person.

I'm not making that assumption.

The system (explanation of hit points included) simply isn't telling me there's anything different about the 20 points of damage Fighter 1 took vs the 20 points of damage Fighter 2 took. The system does tell me there is something very different about the 20 damage Fighter 3 took. So it's certainly not the case that the physical damage for fighter 3 is the same as fighter 1 or 2.

If I heat water that is at 75C or 50C by 20C, I can later cool it down by 20C and end up right back where I started. If I try doing the same with water that starts at 90C, it will start to boil off when I heat it by 20C. If I later cool it down, I will have lost water.  Just because starting at 90C is different from starting at 75C doesn't mean starting at 50C then must differ from starting at 75C.

Quote from: tenbones on March 24, 2022, 12:54:43 PM
Something I'd like to play around with if I did a Fantasy Heartbreaker of D&D is -

1) everyone starts with Max HP at 1st level.
2) Everyone gets 2HP/level + Con bonus.

But then I'd have to change Healing Magic, and AC, and other things... then I'd be firmly in redoing everything.

I want, ideally, combat to FEEL and BE dangerous, but I want combat-oriented characters to ostensibly be GOOD at it. To me the axis where players FEEL this is Damage Avoidance, and Damage Ablation.

This is why I like games that takes a PC's ability to actually *fight* into account. As a former EMT, I know fully well how fragile people actually are when it comes to physical violence. I'm not *aiming* for that as much as I'm winking at it. I want my PC's to have semi-realistic (but clearly superior) abilities to reflect that in play.

That said - I also want to nod at the trope of the heavily armored/tough sumbitch that plows into combat, and is taking hits, but just won't drop. The problem with HP being tied directly to level, is not granular enough, and it opens up other suggestions that I do not agree with.

So for me I want this tied to skill and gear. The *core* "health" of a PC should be narrow. Braining people with an iron frying pan, can *easily* kill anyone. But against a skilled combatant, it should be difficult to land a blow. Against a combatant with a helm - it might be very difficult to actually harm them.

HP alone is too abstract for me, without a good GM steadily narrating the ebb and flow. Too much has D&D wallowed in this whole point-deduction with easy hits, and that somehow sufficing for the drama of combat. OBVIOUSLY not every GM is like this - but we all know goddamn well that's how it's played. Otherwise all the stupid shit like Damage Per Round wouldn't exist from all the young'uns in how they rate "builds".

I'd take 10+ a PC's To Hit bonus as an AC stand in, and Armor absorbing damage as a starting point. Lower the HP accrual rate, and really nuke Healing magic, as my starting point, with LOTS of tweaks added in for fine-tuning.

  What you are looking for, as to how it plays out according to this, is GURPS. 

Quote from: Kiero on March 23, 2022, 05:04:58 PM
That doesn't cut it. Cleric level is already factored into the power of the healing spell used. They should be healing a proportion of the target's hit points, not fixed amounts based on the spell.

Quote from: jhkim on March 24, 2022, 01:41:47 AM
...
But this is hard to rationalize given D&D hit point escalation with level. The usual explanation is that a higher level fighter isn't taking dozens of the exact same wounds that would kill a commoner. Instead, it's explained that the higher hit point total is from skill and technique in reducing damage. So after a fall, they land better - and after a sword blow, they roll with the blow so it glances off.
...

It is these kind of incongruities why I am not a fan of HP bloat.

A lot of problems are solved when you go to a fixed HP model. The OSR in general seems slow to do this, but that is to be expected.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 24, 2022, 01:52:50 PM

  What you are looking for, as to how it plays out according to this, is GURPS.

Sure. GURPS, Savage Worlds, FFG Star Wars, Talislanta, Fantasy Craft (you'll note a theme here from me LOL) etc. etc. they all do this in varying degrees.

This is why I say as far as D&D goes - mine would be a Fantasy Heartbreaker. The concept of HP isn't dumb per se, it's a matter of taste. I want a little more nuance, a little more complexity without jumping the shark.

Quote from: Jaeger on March 24, 2022, 02:32:49 PM

It is these kind of incongruities why I am not a fan of HP bloat.

A lot of problems are solved when you go to a fixed HP model. The OSR in general seems slow to do this, but that is to be expected.

Yep, and 80% of the problems go away when you just address HP bloat even short of a true fixed HP model, which is good enough for me.  Of the remaining 20% of the issues, I'd rather solve them by other means than slicing that last bit of bloat out of the equation.  For example, have a modest increase in the typical damage from weapons.  Likewise, keep attribute modifiers under control. 

Con modifiers play havoc with HPs, once you get out of the -3 to +3 range of the early editions.  And truth be told, I'm not entirely happy with the effects even with the modifiers that low, except in a 3d6 down the line kind of stat generation.  It's all trade offs to keep the numbers within ranges acceptable to the design intent.  Minimize Con effects on hit points (or just drop Con entirely), start with about double the typical early D&D number, change the typical weapon damage to 2d6 instead of 1d6--now you can scale up to about name level hit dice with not much of a bloat problem.  Though as Tenbones said, now you've got to rewrite the whole system from the ground up.  At some point, accepting that is the key, as well as recognizing that the rewrite may only be marginally D&D.

Quote from: tenbones on March 24, 2022, 02:55:24 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 24, 2022, 01:52:50 PM

  What you are looking for, as to how it plays out according to this, is GURPS.

Sure. GURPS, Savage Worlds, FFG Star Wars, Talislanta, Fantasy Craft (you'll note a theme here from me LOL) etc. etc. they all do this in varying degrees.

This is why I say as far as D&D goes - mine would be a Fantasy Heartbreaker. The concept of HP isn't dumb per se, it's a matter of taste. I want a little more nuance, a little more complexity without jumping the shark.

  I meant the nuance explicitly with HP use.  It has been a long time since I paged through Fantasy Craft (might hunt down a copy yet), but from memory I thought they had a massive damage threshold death check copied from Mongoose and used armor to absorb damage didnt they?  I thought I remembered seeing several things I like a lot about Conan, the higher level making you harder to hit (based on either a parry or dodge defense), the massive damage threshold, and the armor as damage reduction.  Does it have those things or has my memory started to Fuse things together?

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 24, 2022, 01:08:23 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 24, 2022, 01:41:47 AM
If you assume that all blows of the same damage cause the same physical wounds -- then higher-level fighters are blatantly supernatural because they can keep fighting on despite taking dozens of wounds that would kill an average person.

I'm not making that assumption.

The system (explanation of hit points included) simply isn't telling me there's anything different about the 20 points of damage Fighter 1 took vs the 20 points of damage Fighter 2 took. The system does tell me there is something very different about the 20 damage Fighter 3 took. So it's certainly not the case that the physical damage for fighter 3 is the same as fighter 1 or 2.

OK, I'm trying to understand the view here. There's three fighters: Fighter 1 (50hp), Fighter 2 (25hp), Fighter 3 (10hp). They all take a single 20 damage hit. By 1E rules, Fighter 1 and Fighter 2 have identical wounds, and take the same time (or magic) to heal - but Fighter 3 is dead.

Now supposed they both take a 5 damage hit. Assuming 1E rules, Fighter 2 is now unconscious and has taken a much more serious wound.  Fighter 1 has taken a lesser wound. They are not equally damaged.

I think I understand this as an explanation. However, under this approach, it is impossible for Fighter 2 to ever get to the state of being equally wounded as Fighter 1 is now in. He is always either less wounded, or much more wounded. This goes in general for all lower-level characters. They always have only minor wounds or grievous wounds with nothing in between.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 19, 2022, 04:13:24 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 18, 2022, 10:50:53 PM
My only complaint about hit points is that, because of all the misinterpretations of them coupled with all sorts of video games that depicted hit point loss as taking an axe to the guy complete with massive sprays of blood... that the term has become almost synonymous with "meat points" and every attempt I've ever made to tailor mechanics based on their stamina, skill, luck and morale aspects has resulted in so much pushback (i.e. how can someone restore hit points by inspiring someone to dig deep and keep fighting? a rousing speech can't reattach someone's hand... never mind there were no rules for dismemberment in combat in the system).

Basically, the only time I've been able to get people to embrace the hit point concept in a form that is closer to how they were originally intended was to call them something else.

It doesn't help that D&D in the rules wordings, reinforces the idea of hit points as meat points.
Heal, Potion of healing, Cure Light Wounds...

Quote from: Kiero on March 23, 2022, 05:04:58 PM

Quote from: Zalman on March 23, 2022, 10:56:29 AM
Agree here with Kiero, regarding natural healing. Magic healing is already scaled ... by cleric level.

That doesn't cut it. Cleric level is already factored into the power of the healing spell used. They should be healing a proportion of the target's hit points, not fixed amounts based on the spell.

That was one of the things that I liked about 4e. (Overall not a fan - but there were good pieces. Just that, IMO, the whole was less than the sum of its parts.) All HP/healing was based upon 1/4 of your total HP rather than a numerical amount.

Overall - I think that HP has its flaws, but it's a good default mechanic to use. Other games going for different vibes can use other mechanics to better fit said vibe. Whether a Vitality/Life system (the 2nd most common?) or something else which better meshes with the rest of the mechanics.

It's like how round-robin initiative isn't perfect, but it works pretty well, and you should have a specific purpose in mind before you use something else.

And in both cases make sure to build the whole system with them in mind from the ground up. (That's a big pet peeve of mine. You can't slap a new major pillar mechanic into an existing system and expect it to work at all. They need to be meshed with every other mechanic in the game.)


In my homebrew system, I'm using Vitality/Life points and a phase/side-based initiative system. Not because the way D&D does it is WRONG - just didn't fit the vibe I wanted (A swashbuckling space western). But they were among the first pillars I designed, so all of the characters/classes/abilities/weapons were all designed with them both in mind from the ground up.

Quote from: Kiero on March 23, 2022, 07:57:24 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 22, 2022, 11:14:45 AM
Likewise, if they were just meat, why does it take longer for the 5th level fighter with 1hp remaining to recover to full than a 1st level fighter to do the same?

Good point, "healing magic" and natural healing should be a level-based calculation, not a flat figure.

Well, in Lion & Dragon heal a number of hp equal to Level+/-CON for every night of rest.