The Stamina of Hit Points
The mechanics of armor class, rolling to hit, and hit points have been part of Dungeons and Dragons and RPGs from the very beginning of the hobby. They were adapted to the game from rules for naval wargames, which might explain the terminology. It makes sense to think of hitting ships, their being able to sustain multiple hits before sinking, and the quality of their armour affecting how much they can withstand a barrage of hits before sinking.
These terms have never worked very well when used for individual characters in a roleplaying game.
When first introduced, hit points were described as representing abstract qualities like skill, luck, stamina, minor cuts, bruises and scratches. This was confused by rolling to see if you “hit” a character with some sort of lethal weapon, and then seeing how much “damage” you did to them. More often than not this damaging hit with a lethal weapon left the character more or less unfazed, and they would continue to adventure as if nothing had happened.
Due to the terminology used, hit points were frequently assumed to mean how much actual physical punishment your character could take before dying. This trend towards seeing hit points as literal was underscored as videogame designers adopted the hit point mechanics from tabletop games and added a visual depiction of a character being *hit* only to reduce their hit points by some modest amount.
It’s really quite remarkable how long and deeply ingrained viewing characters in the same fashion as naval warships has been for both tabletop RPGs and videogames.
The problem of course is that if someone were actually hit with a medieval weapon such that it “damaged” them, they would in all likelihood be dead or dying. Some of the videos on Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior are interesting viewing if you think a character might be able to be hit by a battle axe and walk away with some minor cuts and bruises.
Quite a few games have tried to move away from the hit points = life points approach over the years, although usually by adding a second pool of points to track or otherwise making the game more complex.
4th Edition D&D takes some steps back towards an abstract view of hit points – but it keeps the sacred-cow terminology in place, and actually makes it worse by introducing “healing surges” a term that further enforces the idea that characters are being hit, injured, and then quickly recovering.
I suppose if you want a wholly unreal and cartoon-like game you might prefer that sort of imagery of characters getting repeatedly slashed and pummeled only to keep running around like a medieval Die-Hard film… but personally it’s always bothered me.
Ironically it was one of the earlier spin-off / hybrid games that I played that has the solution I’m currently finding most appealing: Fighting Fantasy game books, which used Stamina points and Luck points.
So instead of working with the legacy terminology I’m thinking of changing things a bit:
Hit Points –> Stamina Points
Roll to Hit –> Roll to Attack
Damage –> Stamina Loss
Armour Class and Healing are going to change a bit too, but that (and Luck points) are the subject of other posts…
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You ain’t wrong.
Another possibility would be to use the Fate system’s “stress” terminology. Also, “combat advantage” actually comes close to describing how hit points really behave, if only it wasn’t in already use.
I set up the “Luck Point” and “Body Point” system when I made piecemeal.
Luck Points work very much like traditional D&D Hitpoints. They flitter away when used up and have no lasting effects. The represent the supernatural luck of heroes and villains. When Indiana Jones runs around a corner face to face with a nazi wielding an SMG, the bullets all magically miss (Luck points). Eventually though a hero will run out of luck points and the damage will hit the body (“You’re **** outa luck as they say). Each body point lost carries immediate penalties to everything you do and takes weeks or more to heal a single one.
The other benefit being, now that its explicitly luck, Luck points are transferable and scalable. Your steed is no longer a liability, a 10th level captain of a pirate ship can come out of broadsides far better than a mere first level. If sci-fi is your taste, then your fighter pilot can use his luck points to shield his fighter from physical damage in the same way he shields his body (note that it scales, your pirate captain won’t lose all his luck points with the first salvo of muskets to spatter off his ships hull)
There are always alternatives that keep the effect (or improve on it) without keeping the downsides.
Hi,
I’ve gone out of my way to name them Dodge Points in my RPG, with Critical Damage being damage that is treated as ‘negative HPs’-concept.
Some attacks/effects can leave your Dodge Points untouched while you suffer Critical Damage, and some attacks/effects will never do Critical Damage–instead leaving the figure unable to move and effectively exhausted (‘0′ points).
Both Dodge Points and Critical Damage are still recovered through Healing magic, and can see spells that only restore one or the other sort.
I agree, but I also can’t help but associate HPs, ACs, and THAC0 with D&D. In fact, that’s my definition of D&D and why 3.0, 3.5 and 4e are called these rather than D&D!
Since 4e came out I’m willing to accept more games, and more variance in rules and terms, as still being essentially “D&D”.
1e, 4e, Castles and Crusades, Hackmaster, Labyrinth Lord, Palladium Fantasy Roleplay, Swords & Wizardry, True 20… it’s all D&D.
Even games like Ars Magica, Dangerous Journeys, Lejendary Adventure, Middle Earth Roleplay, Exalted and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay… they’re pretty much D&D as well.
To paraphrase, hit points, to me, are the worst method of tracking a PC’s survivability, except for all the others.
While HP can be tricky from a standpoint of emulation or in game narrative, nothing is quicker or easier for me to track or gague.
@James V: It’s not that hit points are a bad mechanic… they’ve just got a terrible name.
Agreed, it might be better to adjust the name to help people better understand the meaning.
Personally I will have to think on this more. I’m not yet experienced enough with 4e to make some generalizations about it. But I do enjoy this topic every time it comes up.
This is specifically split out in the OGL 3.5 variant, Vitality.
The same idea is used in Traveller 20 (or T20), where Hit Points are now called Stamina and Wound Points (from the OGL Vitality variant) are called Lifeblood.
These systems have the benefit of making “commoners” a bit more threatening as well as making combat quicker, albeit deadlier.
By the nature of the terminology, the abstract nature of the damage system is restored.
John // Wyrmwood
PS: Love that show!
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