Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on March 19, 2022, 03:03:03 PM
Phoenix Command assigns injuries Physical Damage points. The higher the PD the less likely a character is to be willing to continue fighting, and the less likely to survive long term. PD can be anything from 1 for a stubbed toe, to 30,000+ for a decapitation.

High-level D&D combat, for comparison, isn't realistic, and doesn't even emulate films or comic books. Every combatant in the Conan universe goes down with one hit, for example. Conan never "loses hit points" and then suffers physical injury, he just never allows himself to get hit by virtue of his exceptional skill.

I prefer Call of Cthulhu's system, which retains the fact of human frailty.

I would rather start from a realistic system and modify it to emulate the movies, than have to struggle with a non-realistic system to explain what exactly went on in a fight.

  Disagree about Conan, he often suffers wounds that would drop lesser men, and in one story had to be taken from the edge of death by that sweet golden wine after fighting off a horror from beneath the decadent city.  Fighting Belit's pirates, he is wounded multiple times, and other stories he takes significant damage (thus the reason he is covered in scars with a well broken nose as king)  He gets hit A LOT.  Much less than a lesser skilled fighter would (though often, especially in his early years his prowess is derived more from talent than practiced skill) He rarely gets hit with a one shot type hit, and even when he does his helmet or some armor save him.  I always though the Mongoose version of Conan the Rpg did a pretty good job of emulating this with the massive damage threshold, your level and class affecting how hard you are to hit,  and having armor actually block damage. 

  I agree 100 percent about high level D&D combat emulating high stakes combat very well though, especially when compared to Conan-like stories or high stakes cinematic fights.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 19, 2022, 07:40:23 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 19, 2022, 01:54:16 PM
A knife is dangerous to anyone in the hands of anyone.

In real life this is true. To Conan its not dangerous at all because he's the hero of his story. At best he gets a few superficial cuts before continuing his adventure after gutting the random thug with his blade.

The distinction is that PCs aren't "random farmer #257." They're heroes. The gods and Lady Luck favor them with plot armor such that no random thug is going to end their adventure with a knife (they could easily end another random passerby though because they only have a few hit points) unless they're also blessed with incredible luck.

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 19, 2022, 01:54:16 PM
Also, if you lose Plot Armor to keep yourself from falling, then what is your character doing at the bottom of the 50 feet pit after taking damage from the fall?

They AREN'T at the bottom of a 50 foot pit. They stopped themselves from falling remember? They're hanging from the ledge and can try to pull themselves up, just like pretty much always happens to the protagonists in heroic fiction. You burn the plot armor so you DON'T go over the edge.

If they run out of plot armor, they plummet to the bottom of the 50' pit and are either dying or dead. They aren't getting up, gritting their teeth and starting to climb back up with only a few bruises (unless they have an ability like the monk's slow fall or a feather fall spell) because that would be silly and unrealistic.

As I said, hit points aren't realistic to real life... but they're pretty realistic to how things work for the protagonists in heroic fiction.

That's the problem. PCs shouldn't survive a dangerous situation because they're heroes. They should survive a dangerous situation because they made good decisions and played well.
A game can be lenient towards player characters, by being generous with hit points, or any other game design decision like that, but it doesn't have to be.
Some games advertise their lethality. Paranoia was built around having characters die in hideous, tragicomic ways. Dark Sun (1st ed) had a "character tree" to make replacing a lost character easier.

Hit Points are a good system because it's simple and easy to understand your situation. Your character has X Hit Points, and when they run out, that character is dead, or incapacitated in a less-lethal variant. You don't have to track each individual wound and it's effect on your character, which would be a far more "realistic" system, but a tedious one, like tracking encumbrance.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 19, 2022, 09:01:45 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on March 19, 2022, 03:03:03 PM
Phoenix Command assigns injuries Physical Damage points. The higher the PD the less likely a character is to be willing to continue fighting, and the less likely to survive long term. PD can be anything from 1 for a stubbed toe, to 30,000+ for a decapitation.

High-level D&D combat, for comparison, isn't realistic, and doesn't even emulate films or comic books. Every combatant in the Conan universe goes down with one hit, for example. Conan never "loses hit points" and then suffers physical injury, he just never allows himself to get hit by virtue of his exceptional skill.

I prefer Call of Cthulhu's system, which retains the fact of human frailty.

I would rather start from a realistic system and modify it to emulate the movies, than have to struggle with a non-realistic system to explain what exactly went on in a fight.

  Disagree about Conan, he often suffers wounds that would drop lesser men, and in one story had to be taken from the edge of death by that sweet golden wine after fighting off a horror from beneath the decadent city.  Fighting Belit's pirates, he is wounded multiple times, and other stories he takes significant damage (thus the reason he is covered in scars with a well broken nose as king)  He gets hit A LOT.  Much less than a lesser skilled fighter would (though often, especially in his early years his prowess is derived more from talent than practiced skill) He rarely gets hit with a one shot type hit, and even when he does his helmet or some armor save him.  I always though the Mongoose version of Conan the Rpg did a pretty good job of emulating this with the massive damage threshold, your level and class affecting how hard you are to hit,  and having armor actually block damage. 

  I agree 100 percent about high level D&D combat emulating high stakes combat very well though, especially when compared to Conan-like stories or high stakes cinematic fights.

I guess I haven't read enough Conan. I stand corrected; thanks.

But, does he ever "whittle down" enemies? Or just dispatch them with a single blow?

I've never seen D&D combat to emulate anything except itself. It doesn't create cinematic or literary effects, it's its own animal.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on March 19, 2022, 10:56:59 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 19, 2022, 09:01:45 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on March 19, 2022, 03:03:03 PM
Phoenix Command assigns injuries Physical Damage points. The higher the PD the less likely a character is to be willing to continue fighting, and the less likely to survive long term. PD can be anything from 1 for a stubbed toe, to 30,000+ for a decapitation.

High-level D&D combat, for comparison, isn't realistic, and doesn't even emulate films or comic books. Every combatant in the Conan universe goes down with one hit, for example. Conan never "loses hit points" and then suffers physical injury, he just never allows himself to get hit by virtue of his exceptional skill.

I prefer Call of Cthulhu's system, which retains the fact of human frailty.

I would rather start from a realistic system and modify it to emulate the movies, than have to struggle with a non-realistic system to explain what exactly went on in a fight.

  Disagree about Conan, he often suffers wounds that would drop lesser men, and in one story had to be taken from the edge of death by that sweet golden wine after fighting off a horror from beneath the decadent city.  Fighting Belit's pirates, he is wounded multiple times, and other stories he takes significant damage (thus the reason he is covered in scars with a well broken nose as king)  He gets hit A LOT.  Much less than a lesser skilled fighter would (though often, especially in his early years his prowess is derived more from talent than practiced skill) He rarely gets hit with a one shot type hit, and even when he does his helmet or some armor save him.  I always though the Mongoose version of Conan the Rpg did a pretty good job of emulating this with the massive damage threshold, your level and class affecting how hard you are to hit,  and having armor actually block damage. 

  I agree 100 percent about high level D&D combat emulating high stakes combat very well though, especially when compared to Conan-like stories or high stakes cinematic fights.

I guess I haven't read enough Conan. I stand corrected; thanks.

But, does he ever "whittle down" enemies? Or just dispatch them with a single blow?

I've never seen D&D combat to emulate anything except itself. It doesn't create cinematic or literary effects, it's its own animal.

Yes he does actually need to whittle down a few opponents iirc. Like in the rouges in the house im prettt sure he had to hit the ape man over and over but its been a bit since i read it. He also didnt kill the cops in the God in the Bowl in one hit. Many fled maimed though.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 19, 2022, 07:40:23 PMThey're hanging from the ledge and can try to pull themselves up, just like pretty much always happens to the protagonists in heroic fiction.

Except that doesn't always happen in fiction. Sometimes they fall and hit a bunch of tree branches on the way down, somewhat breaking their fall, or they roll down a hill smashing into trees and rocks, etc. Or maybe the fall wasn't high enough to outright kill them regardless, but they still end up injured in the ground. And most of what's involved in avoiding the fall in the first place is already covered by appropriate skill checks and whatnot. HP are for what happens after you failed to avoid injury, not to still avoid the source of injury regardless, to the point where falls don't exist unless they're fatal.

But you're taking a very selective view of heroic fiction that isn't even the only way that things can turn out in the genre and extrapolating it as some necessary thing that has to happen that way in the game, as if we're all trying to emulate that selective view of that specific genre of fiction. Or like this is a movie and not a game with gamey elements where characters are supposed to be able to screw up and face some consequences from time to time. And you're erasing ALL other alternatives and possibilities in the process, and turning it into some binary thing where falls are either always fatal or always avoided entirely, like falling and not getting killed, but still being injured isn't a possibility.

So that nothing bad can ever happen to characters, cuz "heroic fiction", unless they run out of HP, then ALL wounds suddenly become fatal, which are apparently the only types of lasting wounds that can exist. And is apparently more heroic than simply falling and surviving if you have enough HP to mitigate the damage from the fall.

And none of this even addresses the original point in the post that you replied to, which was that the issue with HP is that they don't properly illustrate lethality or the threat level of certain attacks or hazards that could potentially (but not necessarily) outright kill characters. And how simply changing the definition of HP from "Meat Points" (ie actual injuries) to something else not only fails to address that issue, but creates additional issues as well. Then you disagreed and proceeded to prove my point by insisting that HP are just Plot Armor and that nothing bad should happen to characters until they run out of them, to the point where not even falls can exist if characters have enough HP.

So yeah, the problem used to be that a knife wasn't enough of a threat to characters with tons of HP, and that not even a high altitude fall could kill them. But now that HP are 100% Plot Armor, falls can't even exist if they have enough HP left! And ALL falls must be either fatal (cuz you ran out of HP) or they never even happened!

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on March 19, 2022, 01:26:42 AM
Hit points are the worst way to track damage, except for all those other ways that have been tried from time to time.

Correct.

There's plenty of silly conceptualising around hit points. The bottom line is that as a gameplay mechanic they work really really well, which is why they are so ubiquitous. I'm quite fond of wound track mechanics (eg D6 System's Stunned/Wounded/Severely Wounded/Incapacitated/Mortally Wounded/Dead) which give a different feel to combat, and I think work better in some genres. I remember playing All Flesh Must Be Eaten and thinking what a poor fit its use of hit points was for the survival horror genre. But for D&D and for many other similar genres (Doom-type shooters, eg) hit points are excellent.

Quote from: squirewaldo on March 19, 2022, 10:51:43 AM
My only real complaint against Hit Points is how they come back 100% after a long rest, and that is just D&D, and even that is easily fixed by making a few mods to the rules.

I do like how Microlite20 handles Hit Points by adding the Strength Stat as a an additional source of damage after the Hit Points or gone (or as extreme damage in my house rules).

100% HP recovery is "just DnD 5E". In AD&D:

"For each day of rest a character will regain 1 hit point, up to and including 7 days. However a character with a penalty for poor constitution must deduct weekly the penalty score from his or
her days of healing, i.e., a –2 for a person means that 5 hit points healing per week is maximum, and the first two days of rest will restore no hit points. After the first week of continuous rest, characters with a bonus for high constitution add the bonus score to the number of hit points they recover due to resting, i.e.,the second week of rest will restore 11 (7 + 4) hit points to a fighter character with an 18 constitution. Regardless of the number of hit points a character has, 4 weeks of continuous rest will restore any character to full strength."

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 19, 2022, 11:35:28 PM
So yeah, the problem used to be that a knife wasn't enough of a threat to characters with tons of HP, and that not even a high altitude fall could kill them. But now that HP are 100% Plot Armor, falls can't even exist if they have enough HP left! And ALL falls must be either fatal (cuz you ran out of HP) or they never even happened!

Do you always take what people say in the worst possible light?

Falls "not existing" (until you're out of plot armor) is because ultimately we're not talking about true fiction (where even tracking something like hit points is irrelevant), but playing a team game. Dropping someone down a 50' pit is effectively saying "go take a break until this combat is over" to one of the players... in many systems because of a single bad roll or circumstances they could do nothing about... and that sucks when you're on the recieving end.

So, yeah, my system errs on the side of it working in ways that keep players able to meaningfully participate in encounters. Because it's a game not a story.

Also, you're the one equating 0 hit points to instant death, not me. I mean, that was how the oldest school D&D was, but these days there's typically a significant cushion in the dying range where they might yet be saved or even stabilize on their own because they're just that badass. This is what you see in most heroic stories where a character does survive such a fall and it's how it works in my system as well, with characters having a number of reserves that are depleted when you recover hit points by rallying, when you overcome fatigue, cast rituals, take extra actions, each time you hit 0 hit points and each time you fail a recovery check while you're dying.

If you want the grit dial turned up, then in addition to losing reserves from entering the dying condition, there's an optional rule for the GM to apply lasting injury-based conditions to targets that reach 0 in my system (legs, arms, head, internal injuries of varying severity). Not everyone likes that in their heroic roleplay, but it's there for those who do.

One operation of HPs that I really don't like is 'hit locations'. Because it adds a layer of complexity that I don't think is necessary also it makes them feel far less abstract.

On injuries, the only way I like them implemented is if you go down to 1-3 HPs. Then I might consider adding a minus to hit or agility-based moves. But I'd generally ignore anything above that. Though I might make a character 'stunned' for a round if they received a huge blow and it took away half their HPs or more.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 20, 2022, 08:46:36 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 19, 2022, 11:35:28 PM
So yeah, the problem used to be that a knife wasn't enough of a threat to characters with tons of HP, and that not even a high altitude fall could kill them. But now that HP are 100% Plot Armor, falls can't even exist if they have enough HP left! And ALL falls must be either fatal (cuz you ran out of HP) or they never even happened!

Do you always take what people say in the worst possible light?

Falls "not existing" (until you're out of plot armor) is because ultimately we're not talking about true fiction (where even tracking something like hit points is irrelevant), but playing a team game. Dropping someone down a 50' pit is effectively saying "go take a break until this combat is over" to one of the players... in many systems because of a single bad roll or circumstances they could do nothing about... and that sucks when you're on the recieving end.

So, yeah, my system errs on the side of it working in ways that keep players able to meaningfully participate in encounters. Because it's a game not a story.

Also, you're the one equating 0 hit points to instant death, not me. I mean, that was how the oldest school D&D was, but these days there's typically a significant cushion in the dying range where they might yet be saved or even stabilize on their own because they're just that badass. This is what you see in most heroic stories where a character does survive such a fall and it's how it works in my system as well, with characters having a number of reserves that are depleted when you recover hit points by rallying, when you overcome fatigue, cast rituals, take extra actions, each time you hit 0 hit points and each time you fail a recovery check while you're dying.

If you want the grit dial turned up, then in addition to losing reserves from entering the dying condition, there's an optional rule for the GM to apply lasting injury-based conditions to targets that reach 0 in my system (legs, arms, head, internal injuries of varying severity). Not everyone likes that in their heroic roleplay, but it's there for those who do.

I'm just going with what you're saying, since you kept insisting that HP allow you to avoid falls after I explained in my first reply why that doesn't work (no one's ever done it that way, it removes a bunch of possibilities from play, that's not even what falling damage is supposed to represent, what about cumulative injuries?, etc.). But rather than address any of that, or telling me I was taking it too literal if that was the case, you chose to double down on trying to justify HP allowing you to outright avoid falls.

As it stands, if HP allow you to avoid falls, the scene at the start of Jedi, when Jabba triggers the floor trap and Luke falls into the Rancor pit wouldn't even have happened, cuz according to you falling simply doesn't happen in heroic fiction. Even if you want to specify that 0 HP doesn't outright kill you, just incapacitates you, that still leaves out the logical issue that certain stuff, like that scene in Jedi couldn't even happened if HP just allow you to avoid falls, cuz that fall didn't incapacitate Luke. That's the level of ridiculousness that I see every time you keep insisting that HP should allow you to outright avoid falling itself, not just dying or getting incapacitated from it.

If I want to spare a character falling, I just give them an extra chance, or do the "You almost fell but are now hanging by the ledge. Enemies are closing in..." thing from the get go and handle it through additional checks, specially if they only missed by a few points. It usually takes multiple failed rolls in my games for characters to even fall while climbing or whatever. The idea that HP themselves outright prevent the fall, or tying HP as opposed to skill checks to it, doesn't even enter my mind.

But the game isn't always about sparing characters misfortune, or keeping the PCs together at all costs, purely for metagame reasons. Sometimes falling can bring additional opportunities (maybe the PCs find a secret passage or something while trying to rescue the fallen character). Sometimes characters do stupid things and deserve to pay the price. Sometimes falling is even dramatically appropriate (Rancor pit). But all of that is removed from the game if you add so many levels of abstraction that HP outright prevent you from even falling.

And none of this is even covering the fact that you're working from a very specific narrow interpretation of what heroic fiction even is, and proposing it as the way HP should simply work.

For the most part, hit points ARE meat.

That's not without exceptions. The only reason any idea to the contrary was even introduced was to explain away hit points for high level characters. For monsters, animals, beasts, ordinary (0th level) humans--basically, 99% of everything in the game world, hit points are meat.

But player characters get center stage. Even though they're the exception, it's confused with the rule, and people got all hopped up on the idea of hit points as abstract. Which itself isn't without its flaws. As far back as usenet, you could see hit point haters pivot within-thread from criticizing hit points for being meat to criticizing hit points for being abstract.

And so my approach has always been to simply understand that hit points are a convenience. They are what they need to be at the time they need to be it. Or like Pundit cites Gary saying: They don't mean anything. Or at least not any one consistent thing. They're just hit points.

When it comes to how to describe combat in-game, I just float to whichever interpretation makes the most sense for a given situation. Criticism of hit points largely rest on the critic deliberately selecting a mismatched situation to the interpretation. Which leaves me scratching my head wondering. Who approaches a game, something that's supposed to be fun, by deliberately seeking the worst, least fun perspective possible?

If you latch on to either interpretation and start building mechanics on top of it, then the critics can rightly point out the flaws. But if you use a more fluid interpretation as was the original intent, it works.

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 19, 2022, 09:39:35 AM
What's broken about HP isn't how people conceptualize them (Meat Points vs Luck/Stamina, etc.) but the fact that regardless how you choose to explain what they are they don't properly illustrate lethality or the threat level of getting stabbed with a knife and other low damage attacks (or even high damage once vs uber high HP characters). Once you solve that, the real problem goes away and what you call them becomes irrelevant. Cuz it was never about what you think HP represent, but the fact that high HP characters can't get killed by a knife or a nasty fall.

I don't know about any of that. Outside of discussions on the criticism of hit points, I never hear anything like this. D&D gamers and DMs overwhelmingly are saying just the opposite. That there are too few hit points at low level. And some of the old-school mechanics, like save-or-die poison, are called "buzz kills." Most gamers just don't like the idea of someone losing a character just due to an unlucky die roll.

But that's all besides the point. Different strokes for different folks. I get it. The fact is the hit point system readily allows you to choose your level of lethality. It can be extremely lethal--the 0th level human is the baseline in 1E, and one hit kills are very common. Statting humans with higher hit points was done precisely so they didn't get killed in one hit. It was an intentional application of the hit point system and produced the intended outcome.

The real, real issue from what I've observed is gamers simultaneously want combat to be quick and deadly, but don't want their own character (or any PC from the perspective of most GMs) to die from freakish die rolls. They're contradictory creatures. They'll pound their chests about their own precious personal preferences while being half-ignorant about what it is they even really want.

And there are a few different solutions to this out there to try to accommodate this nonsense that we're forced to contend with. For D&D, I solve for it by firmly rooting the world in 0th level humans, so players see that just about everyone around them can be cut down by a single knife wound. And then on top of that, I make use of assassins, backstabs, and poisons to remind them that, no, daggers are not just limited to d4 damage. There can be no question that weapons are deadly. But then I let them earn their hit point buffers as they level. I do also keep a lid on stat inflation, though, to keep these numbers from getting out of hand. That gives just enough feeling of safety that they're willing to engage in ordinary combat and other dangerous things frequently enough to keep the game from becoming a bore.

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 20, 2022, 10:15:09 AMI don't know about any of that. Outside of discussions on the criticism of hit points, I never hear anything like this. D&D gamers and DMs overwhelmingly are saying just the opposite. That there are too few hit points at low level. And some of the old-school mechanics, like save-or-die poison, are called "buzz kills." Most gamers just don't like the idea of someone losing a character just due to an unlucky die roll.

Well its more you go from: So fragile that you must have 100 pre-existing conditions to be that weak in real life, and then explode into 'I eat grenades for lunch'.

I mean we are talking about the D&D HP system here. If your using some custom thing where HP is heavily consistent and restrained and follows some new internal logic pattern, then we are not talking about rules as written at which point you are reafirming their issues in the core rules.

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 20, 2022, 10:15:09 AM
I don't know about any of that. Outside of discussions on the criticism of hit points, I never hear anything like this. D&D gamers and DMs overwhelmingly are saying just the opposite. That there are too few hit points at low level.

I brought that up in another post (maybe more than one). But in regards to the common claim that "HP are unrealistic" (which I believe was what kicked off this thread and OP's video), it's usually some variant of what I said there. Even Pundit brought up the knife thing in his video.

There was actually an instance in play in one of my games where a PC struck another PC with a sword in the middle of a heated in-character argument cuz the player knew that the other PC could "take it", due to high HP. So they disassociated the significance of actually attacking someone with a lethal weapon over an argument and how that looked from an RP perspective outside the metagame conceit that high HP can soak up a sword strike. In the player's mind that sword strike just like a slap in the face or something. Not intended as a killing blow. But the other player (me) didn't take it that way, so it led to an outright PvP fight. And none of this was clarified till later and we had to do a redo.

There's also been times when PCs have done stupid stuff while they're bound and surrounded or similar and being threatened with a knife, cuz they knew they had enough HP take a few hits. Or when players complained that a knife to the back of an unwary opponent still only did 1d4 if you don't have Backstab/Sneak Attack, which only alerts them rather than at least potentially take them out clean.

Don't disagree about players contradicting themselves. Perhaps multiple layers of "deathness" are needed, rather than "save or die". The less lethal layer could be simple incapacitation, where coming back to play after being patched up is a possibility. The most lethal would obviously be death itself, and the middle layer could be incapacity, plus some type of lasting penalty, similar to exhaustion levels in 5e. That way there's a level of risk and consequence from attacks or hazards that could potentially kill you, without the outcome always leading to rolling up a new character.

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 20, 2022, 11:14:45 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 20, 2022, 10:15:09 AM
I don't know about any of that. Outside of discussions on the criticism of hit points, I never hear anything like this. D&D gamers and DMs overwhelmingly are saying just the opposite. That there are too few hit points at low level.

I brought that up in another post (maybe more than one). But in regards to the common claim that "HP are unrealistic" (which I believe was what kicked off this thread and OP's video), it's usually some variant of what I said there. Even Pundit brought up the knife thing in his video.

There was actually an instance in play in one of my games where a PC struck another PC with a sword in the middle of a heated in-character argument cuz the player knew that the other PC could "take it", due to high HP. So they disassociated the significance of actually attacking someone with a lethal weapon over an argument and how that looked from an RP perspective outside the metagame conceit that high HP can soak up a sword strike. In the player's mind that sword strike just like a slap in the face or something. Not intended as a killing blow. But the other player (me) didn't take it that way, so it led to an outright PvP fight. And none of this was clarified till later and we had to do a redo.

There's also been times when PCs have done stupid stuff while they're bound and surrounded or similar and being threatened with a knife, cuz they knew they had enough HP take a few hits. Or when players complained that a knife to the back of an unwary opponent still only did 1d4 if you don't have Backstab/Sneak Attack, which only alerts them rather than at least potentially take them out clean.

Don't disagree about players contradicting themselves. Perhaps multiple layers of "deathness" are needed, rather than "save or die". The less lethal layer could be simple incapacitation, where coming back to play after being patched up is a possibility. The most lethal would obviously be death itself, and the middle layer could be incapacity, plus some type of lasting penalty, similar to exhaustion levels in 5e. That way there's a level of risk and consequence from attacks or hazards that could potentially kill you, without the outcome always leading to rolling up a new character.

I'm reminded of Siembeda commenting about the Palladium game system, where a player reportedly had his character shoot himself in the head to intimidate an NPC, because he had enough "Hit Points" (Actually SDC, but that's hit points by another name in the Palladium system) to soak a gunshot.

I don't have an elegant solution to the issue. And it is an issue because in order to make decisions about situations, player characters have to have some kind of understanding about the consequences of their decsions. Threatening a person with a sword is silly when done to a character or NPC who can easily survive a sword blow.
And yet we don't want to incentivise characters avoiding adventure because it's too dangerous. May as well stay home and farm radishes.