Hit points: What are they?

[jmucchiello]

I know this is a can of worms, but....

Are they real physical resistance to death? Or are they combat savvy that keeps you alive by being able to avoid blows that would kill the less savvy in one shot?

It appears they are physical resistance to death since you can only recover 1 or 2 of them on a full night of sleep.

If that is wrong, shouldn't they recover faster? I was thinking (5+luck mod) * level.

[finarvyn]

I wish I had a good answer for you.

I've always assumed that HP were a combination of taking damage and being able to avoid taking damage, with the idea that an experienced character might turn a solid hit into a graze. Early editorials in Dragon magazine seems to support this line of reasoning. This doesn't explain the slow healing rate, however, as you suggested.

I can't think of HP only as absorbing damage, since that would imply that a character could just stand there laughing and not defening himself while a foe hacks on him for a while. That doesn't make sense, either.

I'd go with the combo explaination and beef up healing rates. Makes more sense that way to me.

[jmucchiello]

What I'd like to see is hit points heal relatively fast, even my formula above at the end of any combat and after a long rest (whatever that is). The only use for magic healing is to bring someone back from deaths door during or immediately after combat. It could also heal those critical hits and fumbles that would normally leave nasty scars.

The real benefit to faster "healing" is to remove the "cleric as walking hospital" from the party.

[GnomeBoy]

I've started using a 'morale bonus' to hit points in D&D:

"You just took down the guy who's been plotting to overthrow the local government? Get back half of your hit point loss right now." That sort of thing.

Smaller bonuses for smaller events, larger bonuses for larger events. I'm probably going to make it a regular feature of anything I run from now on, since I prefer that to dotting the landscape with healing potions...

[finarvyn]

I've thought about assuming the the upper half of the hit point total equates to being fatigued while the lower half of the hit point represents actual physical damage. As such, characters only slightly (less than 50% wounded) might heal with just a few minutes rest, but anyone more than 50% would have to slowly regain at a few points per day.

Once they slowly heal back to 50% they essentially pop back to full hit points, but for at least a few days they would have to be very careful.

Not sure if the book-keeping is actually worth my time, however.

[smathis]

I've started using a 'morale bonus' to hit points in D&D:

"You just took down the guy who's been plotting to overthrow the local government? Get back half of your hit point loss right now." That sort of thing.

Smaller bonuses for smaller events, larger bonuses for larger events. I'm probably going to make it a regular feature of anything I run from now on, since I prefer that to dotting the landscape with healing potions...

That's a neat idea. I'll have to try that.

[smathis]

I've thought about assuming the the upper half of the hit point total equates to being fatigued while the lower half of the hit point represents actual physical damage. As such, characters only slightly (less than 50% wounded) might heal with just a few minutes rest, but anyone more than 50% would have to slowly regain at a few points per day.

Once they slowly heal back to 50% they essentially pop back to full hit points, but for at least a few days they would have to be very careful.

Not sure if the book-keeping is actually worth my time, however.

LotFP does something close. Mainly the healing rate for characters with less than 50% of their hit points is slower than those with more than 50%.

I wouldn't mind something along these lines in DCC. I'm unsure how to handle it though. Maybe if you have more than 50% of your hit points at the end of combat, you can recover half the hit points lost in the encounter by resting for 10 minutes. If you have less than 50%, you recover 1 hit point per day until you recover back to half your hit points. If you have more than 50% of your hit points at the end of the day, you can recover back up to full with a good night's rest.

Not sure I'm happy with 50% being the mark. But it's easy to remember.

[GnomeBoy]

...Not sure if the book-keeping is actually worth my time, however.

I considered that sort of thing, but ultimately didn't like the loss of abstraction.

If hit points are an abstraction, the stuff that 'heals' hit points can be abstract, too. Then I can use whatever means I can dream up to return them to players within the story. I'm on the lookout for other models of healing, since my group eschews PC clerics (and I hate to see them there just for the healing, anyway*) and placing lots of potions doesn't feel right to me (too video-gamey).



* I also dislike the players having the idea of "We'll just find a cleric when we get into town..." Of course, more and more they don't find that, because I don't like the game world to be that cozy. GMs before me, found that convenient, and this is in part why I'm not looking for alternatives...

[QuentinTheTroll]

I've thought about assuming the the upper half of the hit point total equates to being fatigued while the lower half of the hit point represents actual physical damage. As such, characters only slightly (less than 50% wounded) might heal with just a few minutes rest, but anyone more than 50% would have to slowly regain at a few points per day.

Once they slowly heal back to 50% they essentially pop back to full hit points, but for at least a few days they would have to be very careful.

Not sure if the book-keeping is actually worth my time, however.

LotFP does something close. Mainly the healing rate for characters with less than 50% of their hit points is slower than those with more than 50%.

I wouldn't mind something along these lines in DCC. I'm unsure how to handle it though. Maybe if you have more than 50% of your hit points at the end of combat, you can recover half the hit points lost in the encounter by resting for 10 minutes. If you have less than 50%, you recover 1 hit point per day until you recover back to half your hit points. If you have more than 50% of your hit points at the end of the day, you can recover back up to full with a good night's rest.

Not sure I'm happy with 50% being the mark. But it's easy to remember.

Does this help?

It is how I've always treated hit points in games that rely on critical tables:

Real life combat with weapons (and usually unarmed, too) takes place in a matter of seconds.

HP represent how close a person is, during the course of combat, to putting himself in a vulnerable position for the killing (or knock-out) blow.

The only time he's received "permanent" physical injury requiring treatment is when the crit table indicates.

All other loss of HP represents the psychological and physical (but non-injury: I'm talking muscle soreness, adrenaline drain, the whole "holy smoke, I survived" experience - if you've ever been in an unruled, unscripted fight, mortal or otherwise, you know what I'm talking about) "wear and tear" that occurs during a fight.

In other words, a guy with 1 HP is not "bloodied, bruised and knocking on death's door" unless he has the crits that indicate it. No, instead, at 1 HP, he's physically tired, making mental mistakes, and really close to making the wrong move that exposes him to a fatal strike.

If victorious, the HP loss indicates how tough of a fight it was on him, and how many days of "natural" recovery he'll need to be back to his very best: fresh and ready.

Of course, herbs and magic can sort of "artifically" accelerate him to that physical and emotional state and make him "sharp" again.

But a guy with 8 HP max walking around with 5 HP isn't "beat up," he's just "worn down" and needs some sleep and peace, so that he is better able to resist making some sort of move that puts himself in death's path.

I never have taken advantage of this, but I suppose it would allow a judge to determine recovery via different methods: perhaps some characters are simply more resilient, or have a defensive fighting style that means that they recover HP at faster rate following a fight, because they didn't invest a lot of risk during the fight. You could play with a lot of factors here without having to do any bookkeeping other than determining an alternate HP recovery rate based on a particular character's style.

Does that make sense, or just confuse things?

[jmucchiello]

If victorious, the HP loss indicates how tough of a fight it was on him, and how many days of "natural" recovery he'll need to be back to his very best: fresh and ready.

This loses me when you have over 20 hp. I can't imagine it taking weeks to get back to you very best after a single fight that drops you to 2 hp. After a week of going about your daily routine, you'd still be down at 9, less than half your peek. Does not compute. They should heal much faster if no real wounds are involved.

OTOH, I agree with Marv (I think) that keeping track of these variations is a pain. Which is why I just like a small hp boost right after a fight and the same boost for a day of rest.

[Coffeedragon]

I agree that hit points should reflect more of the luck, scrapes and bruises than actual physical damage.
Personally, I love the idea of critical hits doing actual physical harm and having lasting effects.

The problem that arises, however, is that one is then tempted to have two seperate hit point totals. One for non lethal damage and another for lethal damage inflicted by critical hits.
Some editions of D&D used regular and subdual damage which became a pain to keep track of.

Perhaps critical hits or wounds inflicted post the 0 hit point threshold should inflict ability score damage rather than hit point damage?
Hit points can then happily recover at a more 'realistic' and still abstract rate of X + Luck + Stamina x Level.
I include Stamina in the equation because the fitter and tougher you are physically, the faster you're ready for your next fight.

In fact, if we take hit points to be part luck and confidence, then Personality could play a part in it too? Perhaps different classes benefit from different ability scores?
Luck for thieves, Stamina for warriors and Personality for clerics?

Just a thought

[finarvyn]

If victorious, the HP loss indicates how tough of a fight it was on him, and how many days of "natural" recovery he'll need to be back to his very best: fresh and ready.

This loses me when you have over 20 hp. I can't imagine it taking weeks to get back to you very best after a single fight that drops you to 2 hp. After a week of going about your daily routine, you'd still be down at 9, less than half your peek. Does not compute. They should heal much faster if no real wounds are involved.

I agree totally!

I remember about a decade ago when I fell on my driveway and broke my leg, along with destroying the ligaments in my ankle. Took me eight weeks non-weight-bearing to heal. I figure that means that my leg has around 56 hit points, if I heal one point per day. If memory serves, in the Blackmoor Supplement "hit location" charts a humanoid (which I suppose I am) has 25% of his hit points in each leg, so my total body hit points would be roughly 224. If I have d6 hit dice, and I assume an average roll of 3.5 hp per die, that gives me 64 hit dice.

I'm 64th level!

Traditional hit points and healing are messed up.

[QuentinTheTroll]

If victorious, the HP loss indicates how tough of a fight it was on him, and how many days of "natural" recovery he'll need to be back to his very best: fresh and ready.

This loses me when you have over 20 hp. I can't imagine it taking weeks to get back to you very best after a single fight that drops you to 2 hp. After a week of going about your daily routine, you'd still be down at 9, less than half your peek. Does not compute. They should heal much faster if no real wounds are involved.

OTOH, I agree with Marv (I think) that keeping track of these variations is a pain. Which is why I just like a small hp boost right after a fight and the same boost for a day of rest.

It totally makes sense that 20 HP (or more) person who lost a ton of HP in a fight is going to be more vulnerable (although gradually improving) for days and weeks afterward without magical aid or herbal courage and focus.

Another way to think of it:

Day 1 – Krunk the Barbarian (HP 40) – gets into an epic battle with an ogre, beheading it and escaping serious injury. The fight was furious, however, and Krunk is down to 2 HP, very narrowly having escaped a certain killing blow. His mind races and he is unable to sleep that night. (+1) (3 HP)

Day 2 – Krunk gets up in the morning, exhausted and sore, but happy to be alive. He’s still campaigning so will have to sleep on the ground for one more night, but sleep comes easy, if painfully. He dreams of ibuprofrin. (+1) (4 HP)

Day 3 – Krunk gets into a tussle with a goblin, somewhat worried that he’s not as light on his feet as he should be. Fortunately, his natural combat skills makes short, brutal work of the varmint, and Krunk feels no noticeable effect from the easy fight. He’s given a bed in a farmer’s house out of gratitude for clearing the danger, and decides to spend the day perking back up. (+1) (5 HP)

Day 4 – Krunk sleeps the day away (+2) 7 HP, and then gets another night of decent rest (+1) 8 HP.

Day 5 – He’s feeling pretty normal now, not “get into a bar fight” normal, but good enough. He’ll catch up with the rest of the party and see if they’ve got any liquid encouragement to speed him back to high function.

If I’m reading you correctly, you would view his 40HP as his normal state of combat readiness. I don’t - 40 HP are his max, his ideal – but they aren’t necessarily his “normal” every day state of battle readiness. On good days, he’ll be above 30, on a crummy stretch, he’ll be below 15. And he can only hope, pray, or find herbs or magic that put him at his elite peak.

NBA players are professionals who play every other day of the season. Have you ever heard them complain that they “just don’t have their best games” in them some nights? 40 HP is Krunk’s "A-Game," and unless he’s a supplement fiend, he’s not going to have his "A-Game" in every fight.

I'll be playtesting this conceptualization soon, but I've done it in the past for other crit games, and you'd be surprised by the verisimilitude.

[kerrybrn]

Which is why I just like a small hp boost right after a fight and the same boost for a day of rest.

Personally, I prefer this suggestion. It doesn't add any complexity, nor does it mess with my "sense of verisimilitude".

[jmucchiello]

I don't buy it. Krunk is a complete nebbish if he still feels out of sorts 5 days after a fight. Is his stamina a 3? Adventurers are like pro athletes of today. They get those experience points because they keep themselves in good condition. Anyone in good physical condition who is still sore 5 days after a fight is INJURED. Barring a real injury, muscle soreness should never last more than a day or two.

[meinvt]

After thirty years I've found I'm happiest if I think of hit points as an abstraction of a character's survivability in the world, with any more specific description needing to be situation based.

Levels and Hit Points are in essence completely arbitrary. How they are lost, gained or recovered needs to be more a matter of game intent than some real world parallel. You could always house rule something like "characters recover one tenth of their full hit point total each night of rest plus one quarter of their total for a day of complete bed rest."

[jmucchiello]

After thirty years I've found I'm happiest if I think of hit points as an abstraction of a character's survivability in the world, with any more specific description needing to be situation based.

Levels and Hit Points are in essence completely arbitrary. How they are lost, gained or recovered needs to be more a matter of game intent than some real world parallel. You could always house rule something like "characters recover one tenth of their full hit point total each night of rest plus one quarter of their total for a day of complete bed rest."

I'd rather not have to house rule hit points. I'd rather they made sense in the rule book. This game is NOT D&D. So why cling to the concept of 1 hp / day with rest when there are other more logical solutions.

[meinvt]

I'd rather not have to house rule hit points. I'd rather they made sense in the rule book. This game is NOT D&D. So why cling to the concept of 1 hp / day with rest when there are other more logical solutions.

Fair enough. What I was trying to say is that I think the healing rules have more to do with the author's interpretation of what makes the game interesting than any overarching logical consistency. With that said, I'd be delighted to see a bit more refined injury and healing rules as well.

Mostly, I'd like to see some way to do first aid and medicine and not just lay-on hands divine healing.

[smathis]

I'd rather not have to house rule hit points. I'd rather they made sense in the rule book. This game is NOT D&D. So why cling to the concept of 1 hp / day with rest when there are other more logical solutions.

I agree with this. But it's worth noting that Hit Points have been discussed at great length on the forums. And all those discussions are still valid with the Beta rules.

Suggestion follows... immediately after combat, a character recovers 1d4 + Level hit points if the character spends 10 minutes catching his breath and binding minor wounds (which a lot of characters would spend looting). But can't recover more than was lost in the fight. Healing per day could also follow this, assuming the character gets real rest -- which isn't likely to happen on a hard, cold dungeon floor. So maybe in those cases, the characters only get their Level back in hit points. Reflecting how a seasoned adventurer can recover even in the direst of surroundings but the Radish Farmer will have a hard time recovering hit points in anything but the comfort of his warm bed.

I also don't mind the "recover 50% lost" rule, as an alternative. I'm not sure if the math would be easier or more difficult. But I know that "recover 50% lost" has been in use for a while as a house rule, so I can't think the bookkeeping would be too overwhelming.

[nanstreet]

I'm all for hit points healing at a rate faster than 1/day. I think ability damage makes a better model than hit points for long term wounds, and ability damage already heals slowly at 1/day. I like meinvt's idea of 10% back, or 25% back for a full day of rest. I'd even go for 50% back of hit points lost during a battle after the battle.

I've started using a 'morale bonus' to hit points in D&D:

"You just took down the guy who's been plotting to overthrow the local government? Get back half of your hit point loss right now." That sort of thing.

Smaller bonuses for smaller events, larger bonuses for larger events. I'm probably going to make it a regular feature of anything I run from now on, since I prefer that to dotting the landscape with healing potions...

Clever!

[Sizzaxe]

I kind of agree with the general tenor of things here too. HP are a sticky and abstract concept. One can make the case either way. In an effort to quantify the abstract one could say something like HP = to your Stamina to be physical HP, and loss of those last few are actual physical damage. Everything else is "experience/ability" related. But even this isn't perfect, b/c 0 lvl players with a high stamina still only have 1d4 HPs.

Personally I've never liked thinking of hp as abstract, because we always say "you hit" for nonphysical hp damage when it may not have amounted to a hit at all. It's a "fault" in the system that's hard to get around. Healing faster certainly "makes sense" when you consider HP as abstract. But then you lose some of the fear associated with facing battles. PCs become superheroes and not heroes.

But avoiding these difficulties involves making all pcs have something like less than 10 HP total throughout their career. Definitely scary that. Just ask anyone who plays GURPS.

[mudpyr8]

Even OD&D was 1-3 HP per full day of rest.

I definitely like the complete abstraction of HP. Maybe a standard award could be something like 1d3+Level+CON Bonus.

You get this bonus:

• Milestone (e.g. narrative moral victory; cleared the goblin cave; defeated a chieftain; acquired a quest item)
• Post-Battle Rest (1 Turn, safe, once per battle)
• A Safe Return (e.g. making back to home/base/safe harbor)

Rest and sleep (i.e. typical end of the day) would restore 1 HP/level, half that if interrupted (by encounter or otherwise).

A full day's rest would double that.

The problem/challenge is per the rules (page 78) critical hits heal with the associated damage. I think that damage should be healed separately if you are handling healing in this way. I think critical hits should also heal at half rate, heal only after the character is at 100% HP, and then only if the character makes a DC 10 CON check. I think that addresses the spirit of the "50% HP" suggestion - serious wounds heal slowly.

An easy way to deal with the "heal at half rate" is to double the crit damage for purposes of healing.

Permanent damage is just that: Permanent. No amount of healing can help (with the exception I presume of a Heal spell, should one exist).

What does this mean? Well, a little more bookkeeping for one. Second, magical healing is then the best way to heal crit damage, as it should be. Third, some of the crits only have color text that leave it up to the Judge to decide how they impact the game.

Examples: Crit Table III (6): Multiple broken ribs, +1d8 damage. Total damage delivered = 9. In addition, the character, 3rd level fighter (Max HP 18, CON 13) has taken 5 HP from other wounds. He is down 14 HP. After the battle he patches himself up, drinks some water, and gets ready to make it out of the dungeon. This heals him 1d3+3+1 = 6 HP. Whew, that's better. Now he has 10 HP to make it out of the dungeon, which he does, and taking his haul back to town he wanders into the tavern, orders a beer, a steak, and a room, and relaxes, although his chest hurts something fierce. This earns him another heal award of 6 more HP and he is now feeling ready for a good night's sleep. He is still down 2 HP and needs an additional 18 HP (9 point wound x2 for healing purposes) healing for his ribs, and the night heals 3 points (1 HP/Level). Since he was only down 2 he applies the remaining 1 point to his crit healing (now needing 17 more). He decides to rest a day before heading back in which gets him another 6 HP (reducing his wound to 11) for the day and following night. At this rate, he knows he will be down for a couple more days and needs to decide to spend his coin on a bed and board or find a healer to get back into the dungeon.

What do broken ribs do? Pain when you move, breathe, or cough. How long do they take to heal? 6-8 weeks and other than pain management techniques modern solutions for this aren't all that different than ancient ones. I'd penalize any physical skill check, fort or reflex save by -2 or so. To make it dramatic you could require a DC 15 CON check to avoid the penalty. Should the 6-8 weeks be incorporated into play? No. This isn't a simulation, it's much more like the old westerns where someone gets shot, holes up in a cave for a few days, and comes back to save the town. I've played gritty crit damage effects (Rolemaster, GURPS, Hero, added them to d20) and they are only interesting if they make the story interesting. In general, they suck. I have had many interesting adventures as a result of this, when they are epic, but usually they just devolve the game into a strategy session for how to get the player back in the game and that is about as far from the point as those rules could be.

Better to abstract even the damage effects/healing by understanding that these are heroes, they aren't "compound fractures/severed tendons" or whatever. These are wounds that lesser men would fall to but these heroes have what it takes, whether through kismet, chutzpah, or divine favor. They are knocked down for a few days but then get back to the game. A "few days" of rest seems reasonable to me if that is the idea. Force a temporary pause in the story, that may be interesting, without putting a full stop to the campaign.

Personally, I'd really like all Crit Effects to unambiguous in their description, application, and healing to avoid any confusion. If "Multiple Broken Ribs" is just flavor text, then maybe change it to "massive blow to chest" or some such. In a strong Narrative game as Judge I'm going to get creative in how that comes into play which may result in a debate that is not conducive to fun at the table.

Anyway, my .02. DCC RPG is likely to result in many house rules which I think is AoK in my book. With how the internet works, many of those rules will be shared, adopted, refined, and perhaps incorporated in the future. If crits didn't exist, or if they were purely a function of damage, this is less of a problem. When they start having explicit effects then people want to know how to heal them specifically. That's natural.

Okay, a lot longer than I meant for but hopefully this helps offer some perspective.