This topic came up recently over a PNP game with some pretty hardcore roleplayers.

Basically... Some of us are of the opinion that in a fantasy game characters can (and apparently do) survive being stabbed multiple times, through the chest, legs, arms, whatever. So long as their HP doesn't fall below 0.

However... some of us believe that Hit Points represent something different, such as glancing blows, armour deflections, etc, etc. So you might take 10 points of damage and still be at 290 hit points. And that as you continue to get stabbed, mauled, molested, punched, kicked, blah blah blah, you start to tire, so some blows start to cause real damage, real stab wounds (When you reach about the 20 hit point mark... if you have say 200 hit points.) so this is when the blood starts to appear.


And this really only applies to humanoids and the like, I think with dragons and such it's a completely different can of worms.

I can see the points in both arguments. No one can really be stabbed in the heart, take fifty damage, and expect to survive can they?


P.S. Ultimately this kind of discussion doesn't matter much, I just find myself interested in such things as I am a nerdling.

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This is the generally accepted interpretation, to my knowledge.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I suppose if you lose a fraction of your health (say a third) in one smack, that would be constrewed as a wound as well!

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Basically what Tormak quoted, is fairly the way I see it too.

Not that my opinion holds any special weight. ^^

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

It's a very interesting question and one that bothered me before. I never came up with anything more satisfying than "it's a game mechanic and doesn't have to be something you can relate to". Pretty lame, but I really can't translate it into RL situations. It's just a decent way to play a game without a "Game Over" message every 5 minutes but nothing more than that.

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Say 'no' to JSBF!

Yups. Disco's right. It's probably best to not think about it too much, but if you do, I find using it more as a measure of "Exhaustion -> wounded -> dead" than a "you got severely cut 50 times" to be better.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Well in 2nd Edition(I think) wasn't it that a critical hit was basically a strong blow to the head and resulted in instant death? You countered it by wearing a helm which made you immune to crits.

Personally I just figure that an armored character would have all their vital points, aka instant death points, well guarded and it would just be hard to land a hit on any vitals on an unarmored person when they are moving.
I think the Coup De Grace that you can preform on sleeping enemies is a reflection of that.

PnP:

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The origin of storms.

So basically, dev crits.

Dev-crits that anyone can get, yes.

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The origin of storms.

Oh, does that apply to spells to? a maximized 5d10 spell would be guaranteed dev crits then, barring resistances.

Every game I've played in removes that rule because that amount of randomness + rolling a 1 always makes the game a lot harder on the PCs than it should be.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

And the golden rule:

Everything above 1 HP means I can still fight.

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"Most assume that all the followers of Lathander are great morning people. They're very wrong."
"I think we are the only group where AD&D stands for Attention Deficit Disorder."

If you have Diehard, you can fight at -9!

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

If you're a raging Frenzied Berserker, you can still fight at -99999+

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Those trees won't burn themselves down. (by Maryn)

Dungeons & Dragons as a game is built upon an abstraction of reality rather than a representation of reality. What that means is that all the variables in the game are concepts, not real values. For example, take a stick and go out and whack a tree 10 times. How many time would you miss? Probably not even once, right? Yet a 1st level character would miss 45% of the time even if the tree had just the default AC.

So, really, how does one model a furious fight with just a pencil, paper, and a few dice? That was the problem the Gary Gygax faced in the mid '70's. After deciding on a few arbitrary values and balancing everything around them, a vehicle for thei magination. It has always been incumbent upon the DM's and their players to 'flesh out' what exactly all those number on your character sheet actually mean. After all, it's not the game mechanic that "Swings a warhammer and narrowly misses the fleeing goblin", is it?

It's the people that bring life to a fantasy game like D&D. One has to make of the numbers what they will, one persons dying gasp is anothers flesh wound. That essence, the beauty of the original concept, is what made and still makes D&D so popular, it's literally just your imagination.

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Thine taste in horrid footwear not withstanding, I did not say that thou were in fact an idiot, I merely implied that such things were self evident.

-Krrja

Uninjured - Healthy as you normally are
barely injured - I hit my toes against the chair. It hurts!
injured - Bruising and a fat lip. Maybe a gash or two.
Badly injured - Dislocated shoulder, several minor cuts and bruises. Maybe a concussion
near death - Gashing wound that won't clot

It's how I see it at least.
I don't do it by the damage of any one attack, because by that logic you could have a dragon maul you head on for 60-80 damage, and still be just fine as a person with 350 hp. I always see HP as your character's ability to AVOID the damage that heads your way, and just how badly you can get beat up, depends on your overall health. (someone with 80 hp max for instance, would go from uninjured to badly injured rather quickly, where someone with more HP wouldn't.) Since HP is also based on your class, I've always also RPed that classes with bigger HP dice, know better how to deflect blows better, glancing blows(Think SWG!) etc etc.. so they can last longer in head to head combat. since constitution is directly tied in with your health as well, I figure that can be drawn in to play a good role in it as well. Such as stamina and overall toughness. You're a mage with low stamina.. defending yourself in close combat gets tiresome easy, and after just a few swings and glancing blows, you end up getting a bad hit. Where a warrior with high con could go on fighting for quite a while, until minor scrapes, bruises and cuts wear him down, causes his muscles to slow and end up with a badly injured torso or whatever.

I decided to just go by the NWN descriptions of your "status", since it's already there. Makes it easier to keep track of it, since it represents the % status of your health, not your current hitpoints.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

^ That.

I'll have to go with disco on this one.

Nothing quite ruins the glancing blows interpretation quite like introducing a spell called evasculate or evascular mass.

You know, the ones where your veins pop out of you and try to strangle your friends?

Yeah, I have yet to find a good interpretation that works as well for melee combat as well as it does for being electricuted to death by a lightning bolt , or as well for being drowned versus being rended to death by a troll.

In the end it's a fantasy setting and yeah somehow that dwarf in fact -did- live through strangling his entire party with his organs.

I have yet to play a game where the 50 damage thing wasn't house ruled, as you can hit that well before level 10 from appropriate CR monsters and players can do it to monsters as soon as level 1.

Hitpoints mean nothing to a red shirt in an episode of Star Trek. If there's a situation in which Kirk & co could die, they're the unlucky sod who gets hit by the disintegrator ray. Oops.

If you're not playing a red shirt, you could say that hitpoints represent the amount of nasty scrapes of any kind which your character can survive. When they run out though, it won't be long before Bones is standing over your character saying, "He's dead, Jim."

So long as there is some kind of a plot though, there's always a chance to recover from a seemingly-fatal loss of hitpoints, and the flip side of jeopardy is that miracles can happen.

As soon as you run out of reasons why a character can't die, they can die.

I tend to use that approach. The firegiant didn't hit you with an axe weighing as much as you do (which should slay you outright) - you dodged to the side just in time, or it was a glancing blow. You become more and more tired as the battle goes on, since these aren't blows you're deflecting effortlessly. Eventually, blows start landing - on your armour, to be sure, but these aren't glancing, you start getting bruised like a ripe fruit until, eventually, you make that final mistake a blow lands, knocking you of your feet.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

I think Fourth Edition does a fair job of giving a hint as to what could be going on. The mechanic of 'bloddied' happens when you are at 50% HP. What this means is that the first half of your hit points you aren't even touched. Once you hit the half way point you 'falter' and are hit by a blow.

I'll give you an example from NWN. Remember the original video where the man fights the minotaur? They fight for some time in that video, but not very many blows are 'landed'. In fact, it gives the impression that the minotaur is only really hit twice. Once about half way through (bloodied) where he loses his horn (superficial damage, but still a change in the mood and pace of combat) then he is stabbed in the chest (drops to 0 or less HP).

I view Hit Points as more of a fatigue system when playing (As a DM or PC). The fighter generally has more 'umph' than a Wizard and thus is able to stand his ground longer (more HP). Taking 10 points of damage is just a number, but when you look at the HP of the target you have to consider it as a ratio of the person's total fatigue. Someone with 100 HP hit for ten takes a 10% lose to their fatigue. Someone who takes 10 damage and has only 20 HP just got smacked down half way and is now wounded.

This is DnD, where heroes are born and made. It isn't to unlike Pro-Wrestling where a person his beat down for almost the entire match, then turns it around instantly. How? Is he ignoring all his wounds? You could argue such, but in actuality it is more of a All or None system. If you have at least 1 HP you are fully functional in DnD (assuming no status effects are taking place, which are self explanatory).

If you want a system that takes determines damage as actual damage to the body and not a fatigue like system try Dead Lands. Any time someone his hit (shot) a roll is made to determine where on the body they are hit. The more damage they take to a certain part of the body the less functionality they have with things that require that part of the body. Such as getting your legs shit or bitten will make you walk slower, or even force you to crawl (if they've been blown off).

DnD, or for us NWN, does not have this system in place. It is all or none. One can argue that being at 'near death' is being nearly dead, but the near death person is still fully functional and able to ignore the name of the state he is in thanks to game mechanics (in both NWN and DnD as a whole). As a result I do not accept the taking of damage as your body actually being hurt (unless something specifically states such).

For examples like Janus's Dwarf fighting with his internal organs, all I can really comment on is a lack of coordination between those who made the basis of the system and those who are using the system. Not everyone is going to be on the same page and not everyone is going to agree with how a system based on the imagination works. This is not limited to players, but also to the developers of the system (which is how a spell like that could come to being).

I do want to say, I am looking forward to coming up and offering a system for gaining scars to my players when we start up a new campaign in fourth. When they hit bloodied we can use a system similar to Dead Land's body system to determine where they are hit and why type of scar they get. Could be cool to have that form of character growth for them (if they like the idea).

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"Scammers exist to generate tears, the real currency of EvE."
~Kuroda Takumi

I for one play it depending on the situation. Just a few minutes ago my char suffered a critical hit from a malarite wielding an axe, causing 42 HP of damage vs a total health of 144. That I played as one that did not go through his shoulder pads, but hurt like hell, and will be rather sore for a few days.

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"Edwin do this, Edwin do that. Somebody get this jerk a banana!" - Edwin, BG II

Valygar 'Stonesnake' Stark -Human Ranger
Garret Smith - Archer and peddler of deity-statuettes
Dáin Saltbeard - Dwarven sailor and fencer. No, I'm not joking.

Massive damage sucks bullocks. It's a game and you're the hero. You can take a beating.

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Former account: Wibi

My interpritaiton of HP.

I agree with most of the "glancing blows" things. An epic wizard is usually still very frail IMO looking from a human standpoint. Just more experience(and thereby levels/hp) gives him more insight into not getting hit in the face and vital spots as much. Still looks/smells/feels like a squishy though. ^^

You should totally add a hitpoint system to the forums, 'cept each post you make loses you one hitpoint.

No? Okay, carry on then.

you forgot the most amazing dueling rule, double 20 = both people do critical = weapon shatter :p applys to unbreakable objects. (say goodbye to that vorpal blade XD no really.)

If i remember rightly if any hit/bunch of hits at the same time, cause more than half your TOTAL hp you are DEEAD. so deead you have no heead.

I agree that berzerkers should not stop until the battles over regardless of hp, they are the equivilent of terminator, they should be aloud to go wild and then fall flat out dead afterward. or at least for 3? rounds after "death".

I would use some sort of armour hp thing to see when you start taking "actual hits" say after 10 damage your armour is busted and you take that dagger to the arm.and after that your gunna get hurt. you also just reminded me of something that ALWAYS happens in pnp and I have never seen on amia. bar brawl. every, single, time in pnp I swear, some sort of bar brawl. where's my damned 1d4 improv table??

but yea, if you have a positive hp score you can still cut things and or heal yourself and others. and if you can survive up til -9 you freaking rule. how do you get diehard? / can you on nwn?

+1 = alive (1/4 total hp left = you are probably bleeding/have a dagger in your shin/etc)
0= knockout
-1 = bleeding out/stabilized (unless diehard, which I assume your still bleeding but fighting anyway like rambo.)
-10 and beyond = you are deead. (unless you are aformentioned berzerker. in pnp. imo.)

Diehard is a PnP feat that requires Endurance.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I have a solution to this, infact its a rather simple one.

Just put max level at 3.

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Is palleballe.

And witjh that silly trolling post, topic done.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham