I've toyed with the idea that a charater's meat points are their constitution, you may note that some effects from 1st and especially starting in 2nd ed affect Con instead of hit points. Like dehydration or exhaustion.

If a conversion is necessary, divide HP by Con to get what ratio of actual meat damage has been done. That ratio represents how "lucky" or "heroic" or whatever excuse is happening.

But it's another level of complexity, and you can usually eyeball a catastrophic amount of damage by requiring a simple death save instead. Or using Con damage to represent drowning or dehydration or whatever.

And I agree that hit point bloat is a problem. It magnifies the issue that having a lot of hit points makes a character seem superhumanly resilient compared to an average person.

Quote from: Spinachcat on March 24, 2022, 04:52:06 AM
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.

That's a big part of the gist of the video.  People assume because hit points don't really make sense that they're "bad game design". They are not. They do make sense, for the player, as a simple mechanic to analyze risk. That's what hp measures for real: the relative degree of risk you're under. Not health. Not dodging. Not bobbing and weaving. Not toughness. RISK.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 24, 2022, 07:05:26 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on March 24, 2022, 04:52:06 AM
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.

That's a big part of the gist of the video.  People assume because hit points don't really make sense that they're "bad game design". They are not. They do make sense, for the player, as a simple mechanic to analyze risk. That's what hp measures for real: the relative degree of risk you're under. Not health. Not dodging. Not bobbing and weaving. Not toughness. RISK.

Hit points also incentivize a play style, which is great mechanic for creating a particular type of RGP (realistic, heroic, super heroic).

Quote from: jhkim on March 24, 2022, 04:14:32 PM
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.

The discussion in the 1E DMG does also have the number of physical hit points vary with CON, level, class, and a degree of randomness. With that much of a hit point disparity, Fighter 1 is certainly also physically tougher than Fighter 2. It would make sense that Fighter 1 could sustain a wound level in excess of what Fighter 2 could ever touch, and still keep going.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 24, 2022, 02:59:19 PM
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.  ...

Agreed, something like the E6 mod for 3.X did a lot to contain the madness of 1-20 progressive leveling.

I'm a bit surprised the concept didn't filter out more. Quite a few OSR games limit levels as a way to limit power creep - but then they stop leveling at their set limit, with no further advancement of any kind.

The OSR has yet to break from the "HP must go up with level" D&Dism...

Now that I actually think about it; I'm a bit surprised no OSR games in the E6 spirit have been made.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on March 24, 2022, 04:25:25 PM
...
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.
...

Round robin Initiative is the #1 culprit that slows down combat at the table. It's horrible.

Now if we're talking about side based initiative; Yes: you should have a specific purpose in mind before you use something else.

Quote from: Jaeger on March 24, 2022, 11:28:43 PM

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on March 24, 2022, 04:25:25 PM
...
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.
...

Round robin Initiative is the #1 culprit that slows down combat at the table. It's horrible.

Now if we're talking about side based initiative; Yes: you should have a specific purpose in mind before you use something else.

I hesitated to make that point, but since you did I'll back it up.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 25, 2022, 07:33:31 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on March 24, 2022, 11:28:43 PM

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on March 24, 2022, 04:25:25 PM
...
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.
...

Round robin Initiative is the #1 culprit that slows down combat at the table. It's horrible.

Now if we're talking about side based initiative; Yes: you should have a specific purpose in mind before you use something else.

I hesitated to make that point, but since you did I'll back it up.

The time combat takes up is a cumulative problem. The time it takes to resolve an action, time for the player to take all actions, time to go around the table, and the number of rounds it takes to complete. HP bloat, not HP itself, and the lack of enemies breaking and fleeing while above 0 HP is what contributes to the number of rounds it take to pulp the hostiles. As a consequence, the opening rounds are uninteresting because the because the engagement cannot be decisively concluded at that time. I prefer something more flexible where an action takes as long as it takes and action economy per turn or round is avoided, but that cannot be grafted onto a system built around action said action economy.

Speaking strictly of HP, a risk gauge is a useful tool, but having it filled up too much becomes too safe to fail, and thus boring.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 24, 2022, 04:09:25 PM

  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?

In Fantasy Craft - HP (Vitality) was literally a big fat pad. Wounds (Con score) were your  actual health. So the effect of HP here is narratively your ability to deflect/absorb punishment. But the system had methods to bypass this altogether and go straight to Wounds. Which made the whole notion of combat dangerous even for high-level PC's.

Criticals went to Wounds not Vitality. Sneak Attack too. This did not break with the penchant that "fighter types" had high Con scores, now it was more important than ever. So the mechanics really underpinned the narrative of what these scores meant.

I believe Star Wars d20 had something similar.

Fantasy Craft also had Defense Score (likewise based on your Class - so melee types had progressively better scores vs. non-combat types). I'm a huge fan of Fantasy Craft, I wish that was 4e would have become... but alas.

I'm not a HP hater - I just want more mechanical meaning to it in how it's expressed. Just a little more is all.

Quote from: tenbones on March 25, 2022, 11:29:19 AM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 24, 2022, 04:09:25 PM

  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?

In Fantasy Craft - HP (Vitality) was literally a big fat pad. Wounds (Con score) were your  actual health. So the effect of HP here is narratively your ability to deflect/absorb punishment. But the system had methods to bypass this altogether and go straight to Wounds. Which made the whole notion of combat dangerous even for high-level PC's.

Criticals went to Wounds not Vitality. Sneak Attack too. This did not break with the penchant that "fighter types" had high Con scores, now it was more important than ever. So the mechanics really underpinned the narrative of what these scores meant.

I believe Star Wars d20 had something similar.

Fantasy Craft also had Defense Score (likewise based on your Class - so melee types had progressively better scores vs. non-combat types). I'm a huge fan of Fantasy Craft, I wish that was 4e would have become... but alas.

I'm not a HP hater - I just want more mechanical meaning to it in how it's expressed. Just a little more is all.

   That was it, I am going to end up buying that book after all.  I guess I do not know why I have not, last I counted the shelf was at just under 200, so one more book shouldnt break the camel's back.    I just remembered it being a take on using a d20 and armor I really liked.

Quote from: Wisithir on March 25, 2022, 08:15:25 AM
The time combat takes up is a cumulative problem. The time it takes to resolve an action, time for the player to take all actions, time to go around the table, and the number of rounds it takes to complete. HP bloat, not HP itself, and the lack of enemies breaking and fleeing while above 0 HP is what contributes to the number of rounds it take to pulp the hostiles. As a consequence, the opening rounds are uninteresting because the because the engagement cannot be decisively concluded at that time. I prefer something more flexible where an action takes as long as it takes and action economy per turn or round is avoided, but that cannot be grafted onto a system built around action said action economy.

Speaking strictly of HP, a risk gauge is a useful tool, but having it filled up too much becomes too safe to fail, and thus boring.

The lack of consideration of morale (even when the systems often have rules for it present) is another issue. Sapient enemies with a self-preservation instinct shouldn't be fighting to the death regardless. Yet that's how many combats play out.

The fundamental problem I've found with wound/vitality systems where the pools use identical quantities (i.e. 10 damage will reduce either vitality or wounds by 10 depending on if the hit is a critical hit or not) is that, at least as d20 Star Wars and it's derivatives did things, is that they let the disparity between the two get too big.

The result tends to be then that the amount of damage needed to pound through the vitality portions in a reasonable time without crits rapidly becomes larger than the wound pool meaning it rapidly becomes a game of Russian Roulette waiting for the inevitable crit to wipe you out.

Alternately the damage doesn't scale properly and you're left to whittle through a pile of vitality as you hope for a crit to end the battle in a more merciful period of time.

Much better I've found are where the wounds are indirectly connected... like you have 3 wounds and each time you take a crit or are hit with no vitality remaining you lose 1 (or perhaps 1 per confirmation roll if you wanted instant deaths possible). That way the vitality damage can scale enough to not turn that part into a slog while not causing easy instant ganks every time a crit happens.

Quote from: RPGPundit on March 24, 2022, 07:05:26 PMPeople assume because hit points don't really make sense that they're "bad game design". They are not. They do make sense, for the player, as a simple mechanic to analyze risk. That's what hp measures for real: the relative degree of risk you're under.

Exactly. The way I always phrased it was, "Hit points are basically a mechanic to let you know how close you are at any given point in time to losing the fight."

Another key use for hit points is that they avoid the psychological frustration effect of the Whiff Factor -- or, to use Chris24601's simile above which I actually like better, the "Russian Roulette" effect.  Game mechanics can easily be set up to create infrequent hits with large effects which resolve in about the same actual game time as frequent hits with small effects, but the thing about the frequent small-impact hits is that they represent progress -- they make the player feel like his PC is tangibly contributing to winning the fight. It's the same reason so many video games display health bars for both players and antagonists -- it's hard to stay engaged with a game if you can't see the tangible effects of your actions, even if they're minor and slow to accumulate.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 25, 2022, 02:38:18 PM
The fundamental problem I've found with wound/vitality systems where the pools use identical quantities (i.e. 10 damage will reduce either vitality or wounds by 10 depending on if the hit is a critical hit or not) is that, at least as d20 Star Wars and it's derivatives did things, is that they let the disparity between the two get too big.

The result tends to be then that the amount of damage needed to pound through the vitality portions in a reasonable time without crits rapidly becomes larger than the wound pool meaning it rapidly becomes a game of Russian Roulette waiting for the inevitable crit to wipe you out.

Alternately the damage doesn't scale properly and you're left to whittle through a pile of vitality as you hope for a crit to end the battle in a more merciful period of time.

Absolutely- your task resolution mechanics at *all* levels have to reflect the reality of those interactions. Fantasy Craft *does* do this. Attacks that bypass Vitality are very specific and situational. The classes that *can* do these things are appropriate to those that you imagine could do them. That's what you want.

This is in direct analogy to the emergent issue of casters ending fights doing "their things" in a single cast. As well as being a means to give non-casters some mechanical heft to having such options available to them within their own realm of expertise.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 25, 2022, 02:38:18 PMMuch better I've found are where the wounds are indirectly connected... like you have 3 wounds and each time you take a crit or are hit with no vitality remaining you lose 1 (or perhaps 1 per confirmation roll if you wanted instant deaths possible). That way the vitality damage can scale enough to not turn that part into a slog while not causing easy instant ganks every time a crit happens.

This is a much more evolved mechanical expression I could get behind. My use of Fantasy Craft as an example that is one deviation from the standard HP rules. But FC does address this a bit by assuming Con represent a difficult number to defeat in a single attack by an unskilled person. This is why Sneak Attack is not as high in FC as it is in D&D. But the essence of your point is taken into account (remember they're trying to do 3e to the max).

But yeah your on the right track on how I'd like to see it too.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 25, 2022, 04:12:39 PM

Another key use for hit points is that they avoid the psychological frustration effect of the Whiff Factor -- or, to use Chris24601's simile above which I actually like better, the "Russian Roulette" effect.  Game mechanics can easily be set up to create infrequent hits with large effects which resolve in about the same actual game time as frequent hits with small effects, but the thing about the frequent small-impact hits is that they represent progress -- they make the player feel like his PC is tangibly contributing to winning the fight. It's the same reason so many video games display health bars for both players and antagonists -- it's hard to stay engaged with a game if you can't see the tangible effects of your actions, even if they're minor and slow to accumulate.

And this is why that "whiff" factor has never had a solid feel for HP. People look at HP as an absolute value for that PC. People can abstract it all they want - but until D&D starts imparting deathspiral mechanics for HP loss, it will never be really perceived this way by the masses - yes, because of Video Games.

I know it's been said from the beginning that HP *do* represent these vagueries - but it has never really felt that way to me, or anyone else I've played with. I'm not denying it's true - clearly it is - but as those silly memes that have emerged at our tables and from stories (or satirized like Backstabbing with a ballista or whatever) the rules are interpreted typically more literal than intended.

Quote from: tenbones on March 25, 2022, 04:39:26 PMPeople look at HP as an absolute value for that PC. ...as those silly memes that have emerged at our tables and from stories (or satirized like Backstabbing with a ballista or whatever) the rules are interpreted typically more literal than intended.

So would you say that the problem is that what was intended as primarily a Gamist element of the rules is now inextricably entwined with an effective widespread perception of it as a Simulationist element?