If hit points are an abstract system and indicate not just a

Because they are meat points, at last in D&D.
This is why 4th edition was worse received (not the only reason) and this is why whoever thinks anything else is delusional.

>>53234874
As a strict Gameist, I feel that the term "HIT points" really seals the coffin on the meatpoints theory. It's a character sheet notation for how many game hits your character can take, only in the fluff is it described as being hurt or wounded.

>>53234949
>As a strict Gameist,
You have to go back

>>53234815
It's an abstraction to expedite gameplay. They mean different things at different times, and don't actually exist in-universe.

>>53235027
Better to be upfront about it than >>53234874 and rattle off insults based on assumptions.

>>53234815
>but also their skill at avoiding it
wut? I thought that was AC's abstraction, and why it has dex bonuses.

>>53234949
its meant to be a notation for how many klling blows or "hits" your characters skill stamina and divine favour can avoid, a single d&d attack representing many attempted blows, not a single literal attack.

chainmail legacy etc where basic men had 1 hit point, lesser attacks are assumed to be irrelevant and have no effect due to the more heroic nature of the combat, rather than a system that applies wound penalties.

>>53235181
AC is the chance that your armour totally negates the posibility for attack due to a combination of superior deflection and maneouverability gained from not having to continuously block attacks against you, safe knowing they wont do much, wheras a lighter armoured opponent is stunted in both movement, speed of attack while also being continuously forced back to maintain the distance necessary to protect vital organs, putting them off balance.

There is a reason gygax later regretted giving AC a bonus from dex and ruled after the release of 1e in his own games that it did not,only the initiative bonus (much more relevant in 0e/1e rules) and ranged.

>>53235364
Sure, but what does that have to do with HP becoming skill in avoiding attacks? When did that happen?

>>53235395
It's not "avoiding attacks", OP said "avoiding damage", which is still not accurate because HP is just a damage buffer. Prob what he meant was "avoid death" since that's what HP does.

The book helps make it clear:
>Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck.

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>>53235395
>When did that happen?

Its always been the case

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>>53235512
plus

>>53235479
see
>>53234815
>also their skill at avoiding it

>>53235512
Nothing explicit about HP being skill at avoiding attacks. Just that misses aren't necessarily full misses.

>>53235560
oh but that is. Neat.

>>53235648
something else to remember about earlier assumptions of d&d was that you stopped gaining Hit Die once you got to (usually) name level generally no more than 13th level, after which each level you gained didnt get you extra hitdice (important for magic spells that say stuff like "doesnt effect creatures of 20 hit dice", you will never be this strong as a mortal), each level, which means no more Con mod either each level, only 1, 2, or 3 flat hitpoints for each addittional level depending on whether your class is deemed a magic-user/thief/cleric/fighting man type (ie paladins and rangers are 3, druids are 2 etc.

>>53235622
>avoiding it

Avoiding what? If you parse the sentence you realize it's "Avoiding damage".

HP doesn't help you avoid damage, AC or saves help you avoid damage. HP is subtracted by damage taken from being hit by attacks. However you don't die until your HP is zero. Therefore HP doesn't help you "avoid damage" but it does help you "avoid death".

>>53235896
Did you think I wasn't talking about avoiding damage? I was curious where the origin of hp as also avoiding damage came from. That's what the op said, and what I said I was curious about.

>>53235889
It would be interesting to see an infograph that showed hp change over editions.

>>53236060
>That's what the op said, and what I said I was curious about.
All i'm explaining is that OP is incorrect, so don't take his description seriously.

>>53236060
It's just a way to rationalise high level characters soaking insane amounts of damage while remaining nominally human. People have been saying it's ridiculous for as long as D&D has been around, so Gygax put a blurb about hit points as luck and stamina in one of the 1e AD&D core book, but ultimately the real explanation is it's just a fucking game who cares.

Hit points haven't changed drastically across editions, except that in 4e you get frontloaded a big chunk at first level so the gains when you start gaining levels don't seem so insane proportionally.

>>53236174
Yes they have, and quite massively at that.

>>53236060
oh, also in 1e only fighters can get more than 2 hitpoints per level from con (so 18 con is basically wasted on a thief, other than the other advantages)

>>53236085
Yeah, op confused me too. It seemed counter to how I had been taught to play, but >>53235560 says it is also skill at avoiding damage, luck, magic, etc. So now I'm curious where/how the shift happened across editions.

Sorry if that was unclear. Its interesting though.

>>53236174
>AD&D
>only warriors benefited from CON over 17
>HD stop cold at level 10, leaving you with +1/+2/+3 HP per level from 10-20 if you're a mage/priest/warrior class
>enemies had fuck and shit for bonuses to HP
>3.5
>yeah let's give everyone full CON bonuses and let HD scale infinitely
>and give monsters higher CON scores than a party will ever reasonably have
>this is a good idea

>>53236341
I actually forgot you got hd every level forever in 3/3.5 I never played it long enough to reach level 10 and be surprised.

>>53236395
It's why enemies like balors have like 6 times the HP they did in AD&D.

>>53236341
Enemies often had plenty hit point bonuses, just not from CON.

>>53236451
It's actually really rare and usually only shows up on enemies that are larger than normal, like ogres, trolls, and giants. It's also generally very small.

>>53235889
It was level 9 in BECMI and AD&D 2nd edition.

>>53236575
your right, my memory made them even more powerful than actuality.

>>53234815
Because the system is pretty shit and doesn't have separate Hit Points, Armor/Damage Reduction, and Dodge/Damage Negation stats, let alone different ways of doing/simulating it or subcategories like Stun/Body damage.

The farther you get from simulationist, the more weird abstractions you have to make.

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>>53234815
Because hit points are meat points and power levels always mattered in every singlr fight in dragon ball z regardless of all the memeing and bullshit.

Vegeta got punched out by Cell because his number was tiny.
You died to the Owlbear because you ran out of meat.

People are lying about how their favorite thing isn't terrible.

>>53236645
And the closer you get to simulationist, the worse of a game it actually is.

>>53236701
Naw. Simulationist systems are my favorite.
Some people are just bad at math.

>>53236741
Not that guy but I'm decent at arithmetic, I just don't like doing quizzes with my friends for fun.

>>53236741
>>53236701
>>53236788
>>53236645

How would one add dodge/parry/block to D&D?
Like the PF swashbuckler and duelists, or like the parries in 5th edition?
On the same note, would change rules in a way that armor gives AC, AND DR AND critical denial % too much?

>>53236701
>And the closer you get to simulationist, the worse of a game it actually is

Actually not, it will just become more complex.

Its just a metter of not hitting the specific player 'gameplay to complexity' thresshold

>>53234874
nigga, 4th edition was one of the best editions of D&D...

>>53237363
For me not but is subjective. Every edition does something better or worse than the others.
But you can't argue it was worse RECEIVED - case in point, see what they did with 5th.

>>53234815
>>53234874
>Because they are meat points, at last in D&D.
no, they are a confused mess from a simulationist POV

>>53235364
>AC is the chance that your armour totally negates the posibility for attack
which armour?
t. naked rogue with DEX 18

>>53236701
t. boardgamer

>this entire thread is dildos

>>53234815
Although >>53235041 pretty much already had it, it mostly is based in the system-design and abstraction.
If you had dexterity add hp, too, it would muddle the difference between stats, making constitution less relevant. It already is kind of a weird passive stat that doesn't really grant active boni (since both hp and fortitude saves aren't something you go out of your way to do during a session).
On the other hand, dexterity already does a lot - AC (regular and touch), ranged to hit, reflex save and a bunch of movement skills. If it would even add hp it would do even more, which is bad design - since your stats are kind of hard to come by and having a good roll/score would make you overall better than others and decreases the differentation (why play a beefy muscle head when you can play a lanky muscle head that has just as much hp, but better ac and so on?)

However, there are system that do hitpoint very clearly not as meat points. One of them is DSA/The Dark Eye. Your HP are mostly from constitution, but also from strenght. Your stamina comes from constitution, valor and dexterity.
CoC uses your size as a modifier for your total hp in addition to constitution

>Fighter with 50 HP takes 10 damage, representing him being slightly tired from avoiding the attack harmlessly
>Wizard with 11 HP takes 10 damage, representing him being mortally wounded

>They both take the same amount of healing magic/potions/first aid/etc. to fix

Explain this shit.

>>53237797
Again, rules are an abstraction, especially in D&D and don't try to depict "reality" or whatever is the problem with your example

>>53237797
It's a gamist abstraction. They don't represent anything except how far away from 0 you are. It's bullshit, I agree, but that's D&D in general.

>>53237797
>>53237842
oh is worse than that.
Imagine the hit was a poisoned dagger, and both failed the save. To be affected by an injury poison you have to be actually wounded.

Even better: and that was from a sneak attack from a rogue. Rogues can SA only when the enemy is taken by surprise (hence the dex to AC denial).

HPs are meat points people; get over it.

>>53237797
>Explain this shit.
HP is the damage done by weapon, not the damage received.

So if you hit a humanoid golem with a specific bazooka and a human with the same specific bazooka under the same specific conditions they will reduce the same HP from their max hp.

The max HP is how much some damage will harm you

>>53237912
If HP is meat points, why doesn't Strength add to it, since Strength is muscle mass? Furthermore, just how jacked is a Barbarian if they have over three times the mass of a commoner at level one?

>>53237912
>Even better: and that was from a sneak attack from a rogue. Rogues can SA only when the enemy is taken by surprise (hence the dex to AC denial).

Just because they don't get their DEX AC doesn't mean luck, divine intervention, or other such things ceased to matter.

>>53237969
The fact that the ability to deliver force and the ability to withstand it must be directly correlated is an assumption that just you, and you alone, made.

>>53237997
>representing him being slightly tired from avoiding the attack harmlessly
>representing him being slightly tired from avoiding the attack harmlessly
>representing him being slightly tired from avoiding the attack harmlessly
>representing him being slightly tired from avoiding the attack harmlessly

>>53237556
>I didn't finish reading the post before typing a reply

>>53238034
You know how you deliver force? Muscles. You know what a major part of your "meat" is, which is what meat points would logically represent? Muscles.

>>53234815
Because that's not what Dexterity does.

>>53237533
And in this context a simulationist POV is meaningless.

>>53237439
You mean "Exactly like 4e but we pandered to casual scum who need alignments to know how to play their character" edition?

>>53238059
Often there is no need to make too much of a distinction - many classes that use Str have, too high HD and do not neglect constitution.
But a good resistance is other. Is metabolism, and perhpas pain tolerance that, depending on the way is obtained, could not necessarily be due to muscle.
Imagine a dex-based Monk with high wis, con and dex, shit rest. d8, decent Con and HP, but the way he trained is more about body conditioning and finesse.
One could argue "why not just one physical stat" but then we would lose granularity.
For this reason, Con to HP is good as it is.

>>53238374
Come on. I am a 3tard and still I don't find 5th that bad. Is unfair treat it like that.
I would play BECMI if I wanted simpler games, but is a more than OK game and respects its legacy.

>>53238352
What prevents someone from changing that?

>>53238396
My point is that if HP is meat points, then it shouldn't come from Constitution. Constitution should help with you resisting dying when you're at the negatives, helping you resist bleeding, etc., but it wouldn't actually give you more HP, because Constitution is just your overall health, not the amount of meat you have.

It's a gamist abstraction, and can't be reconciled with reality. That's fine, but don't try to justify it that way when it can't be justified.

>>53238545
>It's a gamist
You have to go back to The Forge and stay there.
Also, I already answered to this point.

>>53238624
You didn't answer it, at least not in English. Could you rephrase it?

>>53238472
You'd be making dexterity do something it doesn't. You can, but that doesn't mean you should.

>>53238659
You repeated and reversed some of the points I made, so you understood my post. You just tried to move the goalpost.
Dex, Str and Con could be the same stat, but in that case we would lose granularity. Having them separated allows us to implement different character concepts, like a monk with low physical strength but with a body conditioned by training, or a sorcerer whose resistance to pain has been improved by ritualistic scarring.
Now go back to The Forge, the Abyss you belong to, you dishonest shithead.

>>53238659
>You didn't answer it, at least not in English
this was completely uncalled for, asshole

>>53238725
>>53238725
>Dex, Str and Con could be the same stat, but in that case we would lose granularity.
Never said that. I said Strength should give HP, not Constitution, if HP are meat points, which they aren't. That in no way implies unifying every physical stat into a single one.

>>53236788
This is what some people will never get. It's not about being good or bad at math, but "complex" mathematics are work for me not fun.

>>53234815
Because you didn't read the whole thing about what hitpoints are, and how constitution figures into it, or how they used to interact with how they do now.
2/10, you are assigned to remedial book reading in the BLUE room.

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>>53238059
Do you get more meat as you level or does your meat just get tougher? How much more meat do you need to stand getting wacked with a sword and being fine? What if your wizard isn't into doing crunches, but has more hp for some reason?

>>53238784
Can't tell if you are dense or just moving the goalpost.

>>53238869
Where did I say anything that you were talking about? Are you sure you replied to the right post? I'll point them out to you to help.

>>53237969
Here I question the logic of meat points, since they don't make sense by the way attributes or hit dice work.

>>53238059
Here I outlined the logic of meat points being meat points.

Nowhere did I say to collapse three attributes into one. I was challenging the concept of meat points, because as HP is in D&D, it isn't meat points. It's a vague, wobbly notion of "how close to death" you are with no actual in-universe way to explain it.

If you wanted to do meat points but keep the feeling of D&D, you would use Wounds and Vitality from Fantasy Craft, or something similar.

>>53234815
This is how nearly every argument with idiots who think HP is supposed to be an abstraction go.

>"Losing health points doesn't actually represent taking damage, it just abstractly represents tiring out or being worn down before the player takes a critical injury when their HP reaches zero."
>"Then how do healing spells work? They're not actually healing any wounds if there's no wound to speak of, but still recover HP."


And then the moron either spergs out and starts slinging insults without any arguments or they ragequit and never respond.

>>53238930
>HP is in D&D, it isn't meat points
How many fucking time le poisoned blade must be posted until people get that yes, is meat point.
meat point is not necessarily muscle, but general ability of the body to absorb damage (conditioning, scarring, muscle, adrenaline) but is a body thing. You have blessings for divine favour, hexes for unluck, dex to AC for reflexes.

Separate HP into Wounds and Grazes. Wounds are your meat, representing actual physical injury. Sword wounds, arrows stuck in you, that sort of shit. Grazes are the close calls and near misses that keep you in the fight, but gradually wear down as it drags on. It's your fighting morale, your stamina, and sheer luck all rolled into one.

At first level, you get your class's HD+ Con bonus in Wounds, and your class's full HD in Grazes. You always get at least 1 Wound, even if you have shit Con and roll badly. Every level after that, you get your class's HD in Grazes and your Con bonus in Wounds.

>>53238993
That isn't definitive proof that it's meat points, dude. That just shows that the game is inconsistent, which isn't difficult to do. Why is a level two wizard suddenly able to take a blow from an axe better than a level one wizard? Why is a level three barbarian worth, fuck, six commoners worth of meat? Why can I wail on a level 10 fighter with a dagger for five rounds and not even eat through half of his meat points?

>>53239054
Because D&D is a game where magic exists, and basically everything is either made out of magic, or made out of matter that was created through magic.

>>53239107
lmao fuck off

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>>53239107
k

>>53239054
>Why is a level two wizard suddenly able to take a blow from an axe better than a level one wizard?
A little smarter, a little more experienced to combat to change what would have been a sure blow into a glance, just hardier enough to roll with the punch.
Did you read the book, anon? It really does explain it.
>>53239049
You are reskinning the wounds/vitality system.

>>53239136
>A little smarter, a little more experienced to combat to change what would have been a sure blow into a glance, just hardier enough to roll with the punch.
Yes, you proved my point. It's a gamist abstraction that doesn't represent meat points. It doesn't really represent anything, because it contradicts itself with the poisoned dagger and things of that ilk. A level 5 wizard is just as vulnerable to a 2 damage cut from a poisoned dagger as a level 1, save for a slightly higher Fortitude save.

>>53239136
Skill, experience, luck and meat. Which still gets uniformly healed by magic. Its an abstraction.

>>53234815
Saw a system once where you could use different stats for HP like that, but I forget what it was called. Some weird hybrid of OSR stuff and BESM some guy brought into the FLGS once.

Basically you could shift stats around slightly to match your fluff, but it could hurt you too because if you did something like declare your Luck stat to grant HP, you had to give up something that Luck normally did and swap in their Con stat or whatever for it. So maybe you could evade attacks and traps through good luck, but activating magic items blindly tends to go poorly for you.

>>53239136
So it's a problem that's already been solved? Then why are we arguing about it?

>>53239192
>poison dagger
In which system?
2e, where poison is instant death?
3e, where poison debilitates your ability scores?
4e, where it is included with hitpoint damage and disease?
If you want to make a snarky point (that fails), you need to narrow it down.
>>53239199
>Which still gets uniformly healed by magic
Because you are the one assuming what it does.
There is a reason why curative magic is not the same as the spell that actually restores limbs. You are creating an artificial divide and calling it an argument when it really only shows how hard you are trying to troll.

>>53239270
lol okay meat points

>>53239270
>2e, where poison is instant death?

2e is full of poison that just deals damage. And how does that not fit in with the abstract hit points? A hardened barbarian that's been through a lot of shit can handle his poison better than some nerdy squeaky-eyed wizard.

>>53239270
>In which system?
Ask >>53237912. I assumed they were talking about 5e, the relevant D&D edition. Being cute and saying "which edition" doesn't actually work when the conversation naturally flows from assumptions under a specific edition.

And how does the point fail, exactly? I'd love to know.

>>53239270
In any system. But I see you are just being willingly obtuse.

>>53234815

Dodging requires physical exertion. Turning direct hits into grazing blows still incurs fatigue over a long battle. Higher constitution means you can go on at full- or near-full strength longer precisely because you don't tire out as fast.

Someone who focuses Dex tries to avoid threats before they come close to hitting them. Someone who focuses Con tries to endure threats by turning them aside or lessening their impact.

The poison dagger example is a weird one to use to try and pick apart HP-as-abstraction. The obvious answer to that is that yes, in specific cases the HP is a specific thing. It doesn't prove it always is, any more than warlord healing proves it's always mental state.

Because HP are meatpoints. That's just an explanation used to satisfy autists when they want to bitch instead of playing the goddamn game.

>>53238956
They recover stamina. That satisfy your autism?

>>53234815
If I might revive the topic to something of similar relevance:

How many meat points does a person actually have?

Obviously a well placed shot or stab will kill you in a single blow, regardless of who you are. But there are also plenty of stories of people surviving being stabbed 50 times, or being shot a dozen. Even 1 in 10 survive a head shot (look it up!).

Now obviously the whole "I have 1 HP left so I'm still fighting at full capacity" makes no sense, but ignoring that for a second, how many "flesh wounds" does it take to kill a man?

Instead of AC, why not just let Armor increase your HP? And whether you get hit or not depends on another stat entirely.
Of course, this would only work in a system without absurd HP bloat from levels such as D&D

>>53237797
4e did it right, healing spells healed based on your surge value, which was related to your max HP.

So a wizard would heal significantly less than a CON based fighter.

Which again, just proves that 4e is best edition.

>>53238956
>with idiots who think HP is supposed to be an abstraction

It's
Literally
In
The
Book

>>53238993
>How many fucking time le poisoned blade must be posted until people get that yes, is meat point.

It isn't ALWAYS DODGING ALL THE TIME or ALWAYS MEAT ALL THE TIME, you cuntweasel. You use both approaches, alternating where one works better

>>53234815
>If hit points are an abstract system and indicate not just a character's ability to withstand damage but also their skill at avoiding it
They are just meatpoints, anon

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>>53234815
HP as plot-shield and HP as meatpoints both require a level of suspension of disbelief, because neither works perfectly. Personally, for myself and my table, fluffing them as plot-shield-points requires less stretching than making every PC literally Marv from Sin City... not NO stretching, just significantly LESS stretching.

>>53234815
Because hitpoints =/= meatpoints is and always has been backtracking and damage control.

>>53244487
>It's
>Literally
>In
>The
>Book
that's fluff text for justification, the mechanics speak for themselves however

But if hit points are just meat points, then how come your third level wizard can take like five knife-stabs to the gut?