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The idea of hit points has been around since the inception of Dungeons & Dragons. In their simplest form, hit points are a way to keep track (numerically) of how well a character is doing physically at any given time, an especially important thing to know during heated battles. It is a value that represents how much damage a character can take before dying; how many wounds he/she can withstand and how much blood can be lost.  It is the primary measure of the health of a PC.

In fact, this idea is so entrenched in DnD culture that the 4e Player’s Handbook (PH) doesn’t make more than a passing mention of hit points (HP) until page 293!! That’s a long way to go into a 315 page rulebook without a detailed explanation of something as central to the game as HP.

On page 293 of the PH, the designers have this to say about hit points:

Over the course of a battle, you take damage from attacks. Hit points (hp) measure your ability to stand up to punishment, turn deadly strikes into glancing blows, and stay on your feet throughout a battle. Hit points represent more than physical endurance. They represent your character’s skill, luck, and resolve – all the factors that combine to help you stay alive in a combat situation.

The PH goes on to define maximum HP, bloodied value (1/2 max HP rounded down), and dying (when current HP drops to 0 or below). Then it talks about how one regains HP (through healing). All in all, there is about a page
and a half about hit points.

So what’s the big deal? Well, when I was first introduced to DnD, way back when I was a wee little lad of about 9 years old, I had a 9 year old’s perspective of HP. I thought of HP as a direct measure of how much damage you could take, in terms of open wounds, before death ensued.

Here’s an example of how I thought about it:
Grandak the Mighty Orc hits Frundar the Nimble with his battle-axe, doing 3 points of damage. This blow causes a huge gash on Frundar’s right upper arm and he is bleeding down onto the hilt of his trusty short sword. He retaliates by lunging at Grandak and pushing his sword into the orc’s abdomen, followed by a twisting action, and doing 7 points of damage, causing a large laceration. Grandak is stunned by the attack and looks down to see his own intestines peeking out, along with blood spilling out like gravy (he is down to about 2 HP at this point) and also sees blood squirting from the wounds in his legs (where he was previously injured). He swipes at Frundar again, but his swing is dodged by the dexterous halfling. Frundar makes a final piercing blow at Grandak and hits the orc, nearly severing his left leg from the knee down (Frundar rolled a critical hit). This causes the orc to immediately drop to the ground, dead from his wounds.

The point of the above description? It all revolves around how much blood the creature is losing, which in turn determines how alive it is. In other words, I equated HP directly with wounds, or directly with blood loss. As I have aged, though, I have come to understand that this isn’t exactly the way it should be. At least, not in 4e.

Why? Because it doesn’t make sense to equate HP directly to wound size or wound count or amount of blood. Doing so conjures images of the Black Knight of Monty Python fame. You know, the one who gets two arms and a leg cut off by King Arthur and yet hops around on one leg, spurting blood, and still says “It’s just a flesh wound.” (For reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4)  If this was the way it was supposed to work, a creature that begins with 78 HP and is down to 3 HP would have huge open wounds in vital areas of his body and would have almost no blood left in his body, possibly would even be missing limbs, but would still be standing and able to fight in battle.  This doesn’t make sense and bends the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

So how do I think of HP now? Well, when a creature gets hit and takes damage, it is not necessarily in the form of an actual bloody gash.  A hit represents some combination of powerful hits that knock the air out of your character, trying to maintain concentration, expending energy to dodge blows (i.e. fighting off battle fatigue), and the absorption of actual hits by your armor*. So as your character is in the middle of battle and gets hit, he may not be bleeding from horrible gashes and severed arteries, his loss of HP represents how tired he is becoming, how much his lust for battle is waning, how fatigued he is getting, how his ability to dodge is lessening, as well as actual physical damage.  When a PC’s HP drops to zero or below, that indicates that his resolve is depleted and the injuries have built up to a point where he cannot remain conscious.

This doesn’t mean that individual hits aren’t serious, or that there are no actual gashes, lacerations, or blood loss, but it does allow for a more creative interpretation of the loss of HP due to one hit.  I also think that this way of thinking about HP is closer to the intent of the designers of 4e than thinking of it as a direct measure of health.  Don’t think so? Go read page 293 in the 4e PH.

This way of thinking about HP makes the most sense and allows for continued suspension of disbelief because it doesn’t require the PC to become the Black Knight.  It doesn’t require the PC to finish the fight without arms or legs which, consequently, will spontaneously regenerate as long as he takes an extended rest after the battle.  Yes, it’s true, an extended rest magically heals all wounds in 4e, so don’t worry about those missing limbs, 6 hours of sleep will regrow those severed limbs!  This doesn’t mesh with any reality unless you think of HP as the more indirect measure of damage as I have described it.

What do you think?  How do you interpret HP?  Is it a strict, direct measure of actual physical health, or is is something more ambiguous?

Until my next post, I wish you good gaming.

~DM Samuel

*A quick digression: Armor Class (AC) also represents the ability of your armor to absorb damage, but in this case it’s from hits that didn’t land solidly, which is why AC is a type of defense.  HP may be likened to AC in that a component of HP may represent your armor’s ability to not split under a crushing blow (a sold hit).  This is a subtle but important difference and is the reason that HP is not a true defense, but rather an intrinsic characteristic of the PC.