Instead of Increasing Hit Points...

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

One of the common complaints I have heard about Ye Auld Game is hit point bloat; possibly because I make the complaint frequently myself. Those of us of a certain age will remember the raging literary-wars about falling damage that ran through Dragon magazine for what seemed like eons and the point about how a highish level Fighter could easily survive a fall from orbit. Now, of course, a lot of that argumentation was based on misunderstanding hit points and taking the game rules too literally, but it doesn't change the fact that D&D characters can end up with a lot of hit points and that this can lead to some very boring combats which end up seeming more like wars of attrition than frantic duels. Dissatisfaction with this is evident early on in our little hobby's history: one of Runequest's (1978) big changes was in non-inflationary hit points.

Okay, but I always found that while that kind of thing was more aesthetically appealing to me, it hit the hard wall of practicality when you do the dungeon-crawl. Much of crawling is about resource management and one of the rewards of leveling up was that one gets more hit points to manage, allowing one to go further into the dungeon before needing to haul ass back to the sunlit lands and heal. Sure, you can patch with Potions of Healing, but that gets goofy in my mind (YMMV). A few years ago, I came up with a little innovation in which half of all hit points lost will heal as soon as the character gets to rest; playing up the idea of HP's as exhaustion and stance and whatnot. It worked pretty well and I've stuck with it since then.

But here's a different idea that I had the other day: what if leveling up allows you to shrug off more damage? And then, what if the different classes are better or worse at shrugging off differing kinds of damage (somewhat like Saving Throws)? Something like this:

• Fighters: subtract level from damage taken in direct combat
  
• Thieves: subtract level from damage taken from surprise or sneak attacks, traps, or falling
• MUs: subtract level from damage taken from magical assaults

I stopped using Clerics a long time ago for various reasons, but I could see something like:

• Clerics: subtract level from damage from enemies of the faith, undead, demons, etc.

What would the point of this be? I don't know; maybe none. You could say that shrugging off more damage is what increasing hit points mean after all. But something tickles me about the idea, particularly in the way that it lets you effectively have more or less hit points when faced with different kinds of threats. I like that it would make Clerics the guy in the front rank versus things like undead and thus bringing them back to their origins as Vampire-Hunters. I like that it would help cushion the blow against Thieves who are especially vulnerable to certain sources of damage due to their talents. I like that it would make wizards better at defending against spells.

(Thinking about Saving Throws, it occurs to me that an alternate version would replace "subtract level from damage" with "make a saving throw for half damage" which would be kind of tidy, although messy when used against things that already allow a Save.)

Interesting? Ridiculous? Random thought on a nice day? Not sure myself.

[everyfan]

I thinkit's interesting

[oldkat]

Fighters: subtract level from damage taken in direct combat
Thieves: subtract level from damage taken from surprise or sneak attacks, traps, or falling
MUs: subtract level from damage taken from magical assaults

If one is using the standard (1974 LBBs) combat system, this would need more defining. Do fighters "subtract level from damage taken in direct combat" from every successful attack upon them? Thieve's, etc., MUs, etc. ? Seems a bit overpowering at first glance. I think, if I were to entertain the "shrugging off" described, I'd rather go with something like:

For every 3 levels a fighter attains (L-4, L-7, L-10, etc.) he or she reduces all attack damage by 1 per die. So, at L 4-6, he or she would only take 1-5; from 7-9 only 1-4, and from L 10-12 only 1-3 damage per hit. Clerics would move in groups of 4 levels per reduction, MUs in groups of 5. Thus, multiple opponents could still strike fear into mid and upper range characters, while the odds of surviving increase according to the character.

Just another way of looking at it. ymmv

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

I'm just noodling it around, so all ideas welcome. Although, to be clear, I'm talking about no increases in HP at all, so the damage reduction would need to be substantially better than 1 pt for every 3 levels.

[Finarvyn]

Jun 18, 2016 8:25:23 GMT -6 The Fiendish Dr. Samsara said:

I'm talking about no increases in HP at all...

Is this under the white box assumption that a "normal man" has 1d6 hit points? (Plus any con bonus, I would assume.) That's a pretty low number, particularly if the stat tables from the Greyhawk supplement aren't used.

One alternate option could be a HD cap, which I think I first saw in SimonW's "Go Fer Yer Gun" rules for Wild West C&C. I think that the large hit points problem can typically be overcome by making a cap or making the opponent's damage higher. D&D's approach was mostly to make damage higher, e.g. high level spells do more damage, monster attacks at higher level do more damage, and so on.

If I understand it correctly your damage reduction idea is a neat one, but I'm not sure how to counter the fact that a fireball spell pretty much becomes autokill since the average of 6d6 is 21 points and any system which allows such large reduction also has the problem where mundane attacks cannot get through at all. (To throw in some numbers, a successful save on a fireball would still do 10-11 points of damage, and a typical character would have around 3-4 hit points so would need around 7 points of damage reduction to survive. With that kind of reduction, an infinite number of magic missiles would just bounce off.) I think this goes full circle, unfortunately, and we wind up exactly where we started.

Anyway, a cool discussion. I'll have to ponder the numbers further....

[bestialwarlust]

Interesting idea. But I find that just sticking with WB HP and progression it's not much of an issue. As an aside there is a variant on SW white box called Hero's Journey in which the HP progression is slowed quite a bit and may accomplish the above without adding complexity. For example the fighter HP progression is:

1st level 1d6+2
2nd 1d6
3rd 1d6
4th -10th +2 HP

So you're only rolling HP for the first 3 levels at 4+ you just add +2 HP the game caps out at 10 so on average with no con bonus a 10th level fighter will have 25 HP

It's pay what you want so you can get it here:

www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177622/The-Heros-Journey-Fantasy-Roleplaying-Swords--Wizardry?term=heros+jour

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2016 11:13:01 GMT -6 The Fiendish Dr. Samsara said:

D&D characters can end up with a lot of hit points and that this can lead to some very boring combats which end up seeming more like wars of attrition than frantic duels.

This underscores the major source of all the "problems" with fighters people have had with D&D.

In OD&D, a turn is one MINUTE. And it should have STAYED there. We didn't look on combat as "frantic duels," we looked on it as small-unit tactics; your heavily armored characters secure your front and rear lines to protect your spellcasters, your light armored non magic using characters are your flanking and exploit troops, your spellcasters are your missile troops.

Organized forces destroy unorganized forces of nearly equal size, EVERY TIME. We weren't jumping around dashing and leaping and hoohahing, were were fighting like experienced combatants who used our skills and abilities in a coordinated manner to destroy the enemy. Kind of like a Roman legion with magic. It was a BATTLE.

And it was ANYTHING but boring.

[howandwhy99]

Agree with Gronan. D&D should never be considered a game of attrition. That's hack & slash thinking (or more rightly, non-thinking).

D&D is a game, aka a strategic enterprise where players plot and plan to overcome the design to achieve objectives within it. Head-to-head this isn't "I attack" and roll random hit & damage amounts. The game is about intelligent play, which is the only hope one has to last long enough to significantly add to their XP Score.

Get on high ground (+1 to hit), tip the table and get behind it (cover +4 AC), put out the light and get quiet (suprise chance and encounter distances shortened), fight in formation, have an escape plan, know how to avoid encounters not simply seek them. And on an on...

I still play in con games that get boring as players end up seeking "the fun" combat, attacking every giant beetle or (foolishly) going toe-to-toe against poisonous centipedes. Con games are 4 hrs. I'd rather try and complete the module than get stuck in largely valueless combats or traps.

[scottenkainen]

D&D is fundamentally a game of attrition. Getting on high ground or getting behind cover only give you modifiers to attrition-oriented combat. Only morale rules circumvent winning by attrition, but even then it's losses that are forcing morale checks.

[Deleted]

To say "all battles are battles of attrition" shows a lack of knowledge of terminology. "Battle of attrition" is a very specific phrase with a vary specific meaning.

[bea]

Jun 19, 2016 16:33:45 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

To say "all battles are battles of attrition" shows a lack of knowledge of terminology. "Battle of attrition" is a very specific phrase with a vary specific meaning.

Of course it is, but all battles in D&D are more or less attrition based. Technically HP and PCs or henchmen are resources, just like the weapons and armour they carry or the spells they can cast.

A battle ends when one side runs too low on resources to consider it worthwhile to fight, or see that the fight is too costly in terms of resources to be worth it. The morale roll for monsters is the only exception (a loss of morale among henchmen means you lose those resources, whereas a loss of morale among monsters means the battle is over).

That said, your first post pretty much nails it; tip the scales of bonuses so much to your advantage that your resources are spent at a significantly lower rate than that of your opponents' and the battle is yours.

[sepulchre]

The Fiendish Dr. wrote:

hit point bloat...falling damage that ran through Dragon magazine...a highish level Fighter could easily survive a fall from orbit...a lot of that argumentation was based on misunderstanding hit points and taking the game rules too literally,D&D characters can end up with a lot of hit points...can lead to some very boring combats...seeming more like wars of attrition than frantic duels.

I think all of this rests on the distinction between normal and fantastic combat found in Chainmail. Essentially, A world in which a human single-handed might challenge a monster of 3 or more hit dice (or fall from a great height) is a world of heroes (a lvl title that correlates with the figures of fantastic combat in Chainmail)a world of fantasy. A milieu in which many humans might confront a creature of fantasy/horror (that can by design be hit by normal weapons) and survive is that of "normal men" and "normal combat". So if you want more realism, use normal combat in Chainmail and flavor it with some monsters you want to see in the campaign, or keep a level ceiling at 3rd level (i.e., just play Basic).

Much of crawling is about resource management and one of the rewards of leveling up was that one gets more hit points to manage, allowing one to go further into the dungeon before needing to haul ass back to the sunlit lands and heal.

Well said.

what if leveling up allows you to shrug off more damage? And then, what if the different classes are better or worse at shrugging off differing kinds of damage (somewhat like Saving Throws)? Something like this:
Fighters: subtract level from damage taken in direct combat
Thieves: subtract level from damage taken from surprise or sneak attacks, traps, or falling
MUs: subtract level from damage taken from magical assaults
Clerics: subtract level from damage from enemies of the faith, undead, demons, etc.
it lets you effectively have more or less hit points when faced with different kinds of threats. I like that it would make Clerics the guy in the front rank versus things like undead and thus bringing them back to their origins as Vampire-Hunters. I like that it would help cushion the blow against Thieves who are especially vulnerable to certain sources of damage due to their talents. I like that it would make wizards better at defending against spells.

This approach essentially emulates the design. Leveling does allow one to shrug off more damage and the attack matrices, saving throw tables, class abilities and a player's tactical choices in response to these bear that out. Granted if the essential currency of the game were hit points (i.e. every consequence in the game were framed by hit point loss) I think this would definitely be a beginning to a compelling design.

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

Mike - I can't recall the source, but I'm pretty sure that Gary explicitly referenced the climactic duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in Robin Hood as the idea for combat (please correct me if I'm mistaken).  And I'm not talking about how the game should or should not be played.  I'm just talking about this mechanics of dealing with piles of hit points.  I'd happily accept that this is largely an aesthetic thing, which is why I pointed out how this idea is kind of just another way of doing this same thing.  Except for the way it would let you essentially tailor hit points depending upon Class vs source of damage, so that the Cleric can valiantly hold off the Vampire in a way that others couldn't.

Thanks for that thoughts so far, folks.

[oldkat]

Could be that this bloat component is a result of the premise of combat/level and HP that I've never been able to successfully accept. The idea that more HD means more combat ability is preposterous. Why would a (as example) horse with 3 HD fight with the same combat expertise of a bugbear, or L 4-6 fighting man? Granted, a horse is big, and one could accept that it could take more sword strikes to kill one than an average man, but that doesn't explain or justify why the horse would have the aforementioned combat skills. If combat, and the ability to strike and deliver damage could be reasonably mechanized to the game, then perhaps HP and HP bloat would drop.

I dunno, just a thought.

[delverinthedark]

I think there's something to what you say, oldkat. I never worried about hit point bloat because I see hit points as indicative of the ability to survive IN COMBAT, to survive HITS that one is prepared to defend against through skill or toughness rather than any kind of damage whatsoever. Dr. Samsara mentioned arguments about falling damage above; I think in situations like that it's best to apply common sense and say that a fall from a really great height will simply kill a character outright, while falls from lesser heights may cause broken limbs, impairments, etc. based on judgment and perhaps a randomizing factor. Better as a referee, I think, to use judgment and a sense of how the game world works than treat the abstraction as if it were the reality of the game world. That also means, though, that one should use judgment about where any given creature's capacity to survive in combat comes from and strive to make the creature works in the game that way.

All this talk of hit points makes me want to try working out something a bit closer to Chainmail, where each attack is a "hit" and "hit points" simply indicate how many hits each figure can take...

[scottenkainen]

I'd be interested in seeing that, Delver. This thread put me on a different train of thought. Could we somehow get rid of attrition-based combat altogether, and somehow build a random combat results table based on the morale chart? I could see using that for message board-based gaming, as attrition-based combat can take so long to plow through when you post just once a day...

[xerxez]

Scottenkainen, there is something like that in Dave Millward's "Heroes" game for skirmishes. The table is a one time roll for battle outcome with modifiers based on troop to troop ratio and one or two other factors, the first table is for the skirmish or battle result, then there is a category for what happens to the individual PC which can be degrees of wounding, escaping unscathed, or being captured and sold into slavery. It's not used for man to man battles. I would love to either create or see someone create a good table or method for this.

In line with the original post, I sat in on a game as an observer only a few weeks ago and the party of seven PCs plus retainers being of ninth and tenth level, fighting a demon and some lesser devils, it was a six hour session (I stayed for two of that) and nearly half of that was the battle!! And the DM running it is spot on top of everything, no slowups there--just keeping track of so many rolls and hitpoints for so many creatures, calculating missile and spell effects, it just took a long, long time. I almost don't want to run games above fifth or sixth level for this reason. But I didn't enter the game by way of wargaming, either.

[peterlind]

Jun 22, 2016 6:54:04 GMT -6 The Fiendish Dr. Samsara said:

Mike - I can't recall the source, but I'm pretty sure that Gary explicitly referenced the climactic duel between Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in Robin Hood as the idea for combat (please correct me if I'm mistaken).  And I'm not talking about how the game should or should not be played.  I'm just talking about this mechanics of dealing with piles of hit points.  I'd happily accept that this is largely an aesthetic thing, which is why I pointed out how this idea is kind of just another way of doing this same thing.  Except for the way it would let you essentially tailor hit points depending upon Class vs source of damage, so that the Cleric can valiantly hold off the Vampire in a way that others couldn't.

Thanks for that thoughts so far, folks.

So here is a quick analysis of the duel between Robin of Locksley (Flynn) and Guy of Gisbourne (Rathbone). I have missed some details since I watched the duel carefully only once. Each combatant wields a normal sized sword in one hand. At the start of the duel, Robin sheds his robe while Guy has a cloak. They are both unarmored. The duel starts in the Great Hall of Nottingham Castle. In the first exchange of cuts and parries, Robin succeeds in knocking down Guy, which allows him time to dispatch a Norman soldier.

Once the duel resumes, they move towards a large pillar in the Great Hall. Robin is able to create some distance which allows him to throw a spear at Guy. The spear nearly hits Guy, but catches on his cloak, momentarily pinning him to the pillar until he is able to free himself. Robin then moves towards the stairs leading to the basement/dungeon level, as he is interested in freeing Marian.

The duel resumes while Robin is halfway down the stairs and Guy attacks from above. After another exchange of cuts and parries, Guy makes a thrust towards Robin, Robin side-steps to avoid the thrust, then Guy loses his balance and falls down the stairs. Robin jumps down from the stairs to the floor and being an honorable fellow, kicks the sword back to Guy, and the duel resumes.

While fighting near a large candle holder, Guy locks swords with Robin and then pushes him back into the candle holder. The candle holder falls down and Robin falls beneath it. Guy has a momentary advantage and tries a couple of thrusts, but Robin is able to use the candle holder to avoid getting hit, and is able to get back on his feet. The duel resumes in the shadows, with their silhouettes only being visible. It looks like Robin makes a thrust that does not strike home. Guy pushes Robin back into a table, which knocks over the table and causes Robin to fall. Robin pushes the table back toward Guy with his feet and then stands up. Robin is able to jump over the table and resume the fight.

By this point, Guy is starting to look fatigued. He locks in with Robin and tries to stab him in the head a concealed dagger. However, Robin is not surprised, and is able to avoid being hit. He then lunges Guy into his abdomen, thus dispatching Guy. Guy then falls down to another level and looks quite dead. The duel took up roughly 4 minutes of screen time (actually closer to 3:45).

[The Fiendish Dr. Samsara]

Hmn, I don't seem to be getting notifications when replies are posted!  Oh well.

* Re. Robin Hood: IIRC, Gary was saying that he put together D&D combat to be a bit narrative rather than simulationist (certainly not his words; not in the 1970s!).  Instead of an attack throw meaning one swing of the sword, it was to summarize the results of some back-and-forth fighting over the course of 60 seconds.  Thus, in that great cinematic duel, Robin and Guy trade lots of blows, but, as peterlind has shown, it would be only 4 rounds in D&D. 



* Re. HD=Combat Ability: that's a totally fair point.  I think it is pretty clear that HD for monsters (unlike PC's) generally translates to "meat points" and so larger monsters have more HD.  So far so good, but that does make for some weird happenings like your horse example specifically and, in general, that "meatier" monsters fight better.  It's not obvious how to model a familiar monster such as the clumsy, but tough-as-hell ogre.  Not that you can't do it, but it's not that clear.  You end up fiddling with armour class, which is both conceptually weird and messy, and then bolting in something like "Has 4HD, but attacks at a -2".

All that said, I think that HD=Ability actually works fine more often than it doesn't and is kind of a brilliant simplification.  Like an awful lot of things in D&D, fixing the "design errors" is possible but almost always adds complexity.  Is that worth it?  Depends upon the player.  For myself, I have been playing my own hack, based on Jason Vey's Spellcraft & Swordplay for some good while and make a clearer distinction between HP, AC, and Combat Ability.  When making monsters, I say that using HD=Combat Ability is a good starting point, but record them separately so there is no confusion when they don't match.  And, as you predict, I discovered that my monsters end up with a lot fewer HD under this system (but also sometimes more when I want a big meat-bag that is hard to kill but isn't a particularly good fighter or hard to hit).



*Re Hit Points=Hit Dice=Hits: I keep thinking about this idea as well.  Especially in OD&D, with all weapons doing 1d6, the variance is not that great.  If a Normal Man has 1d6 HP and suffers 1d6 damage when being hit, one could average it out and say that that he takes 1 Hit (which is, I realize, just going back to origins).  The trickier part is that you don't want 1st level guys dying automatically if they get hit and with the RAW even a 1st level magic-user has chance of surviving not just one, but multiple hits (not a good chance, mind, but still a chance).  All of which is why, I assume, the system became what it is in the first place.

Still, I think that one could work around that.  Scottenkainen's point would slot right in here: if losing all HP wasn't death, but rather a roll on the Chart o' Dismemberment, then it could theoretically work.  And god bless me for a fool if I hadn't actually gotten 90% of the way there without realizing it!  Again, in my rules-hack (and I swear that I didn't mean to start self-advertising!) I instituted just such a thing: losing all HP means a roll on the Injury Chart, with the injury probably being temporary but maybe permanent. But somehow I failed to see how that could work with the HP=HD idea.  Geez! 

Still, I recognize that this is, indeed, more complicated and not everyone wants more complicated.

[Elphilm]

Jun 25, 2016 8:49:22 GMT -6 The Fiendish Dr. Samsara said:

It's not obvious how to model a familiar monster such as the clumsy, but tough-as-hell ogre.  Not that you can't do it, but it's not that clear.  You end up fiddling with armour class, which is both conceptually weird and messy, and then bolting in something like "Has 4HD, but attacks at a -2".

Would it really be a bolt-on, when the LBBs already use the familiar hit dice + hit points nomenclature? By the book, a 6+3 HD troll counts as a 7th level monster, but you could also rule that hp modifiers directly affect hit dice for the purposes of to-hit rolls, which would make the troll attack as a 9th-level monster instead. Then, you could introduce more creatures that have negative modifiers to hit dice (I think the only example in the LBBs is the 1-1 HD goblin). For example, if you wanted a huge creature that was really a scaredy-cat, you could give it something like 10-8 HD, so that it had an average of 27 hit points but would fight only as a 2nd-level monster.

[Deleted]

OD&D breaks down when you analyze the rules through any lens other than "how does this make the game actually play." First and foremost it is a game. That's why hit points work the way they do... it makes the game play the way Gary liked.

[jcstephens]

Realism vs. playability is the oldest debate in the hobby, and will not be resolved here. Hit points as ablative plot armor is firmly in the playability camp. Beware tampering with it, as that way Runequest lies.

[kesher]

Jun 25, 2016 13:33:42 GMT -6 jcstephens said:

Realism vs. playability is the oldest debate in the hobby, and will not be resolved here. Hit points as ablative plot armor is firmly in the playability camp. Beware tampering with it, as that way Runequest lies.

It's maybe worth reminding ourselves that, no matter the effort made, combat in RPGs is never, ever realistic in any sense. All we have are more or less complex simulations-in-an-imaginary-context.

Or, as the Sage puts it: Playing at the World

[oldkat]

Jun 25, 2016 12:42:17 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

OD&D breaks down when you analyze the rules through any lens other than "how does this make the game actually play." First and foremost it is a game. That's why hit points work the way they do... it makes the game play the way Gary liked.

I agree with Mike. This (above) is the very premise upon which the game is structured.

The problem, however (look out, a minor vent approaching), as I got older, years of playing, analyzing and researching the game have only made me more aware of how difficult it is to maintain the suspension-of-disbelief (a cornerstone of film making and watching/story writing and reading), when so much of it says, "X--believe this" then "But its also N--believe this too, even though it does not support X". That kind of stuff drives me crazy.

ymmv

[Deleted]

Vary it does. I approach OD&D first as a game and all other aspects are secondary, and it works just fine. Games don't require as much suspension of belief as trying to "build a world" does. Nobody asks WHY Parcheesi works the way it does. They just play the game.

"First and foremost, it is a GAME." - Gary Gygax on Rob Kuntz' Pied Piper forum, talking about CHAINMAIL

"We at TSR believe that it is impossible to simulate real-life
situations, although some of the excitement and challenge of reality
can be reflected in a game, although a game always remains a game." -- Brian Blume, "Strategic Review" Vol. 1 No. 2, page 2

[oldkat]

Well put, Mike. To which I concur(as in dictionary, meaning 3).

"First and foremost, it is a GAME." - Gary Gygax on Rob Kuntz' Pied Piper forum, talking about CHAINMAIL

Again, I could not agree more.

"We at TSR believe that it is impossible to simulate real-life
situations, although some of the excitement and challenge of reality
can be reflected in a game, although a game always remains a game." -- Brian Blume, "Strategic Review" Vol. 1 No. 2, page 2

Both points (above) which support the philosophy that, as such, anyone conducting/running it (as the moderator), is free to change, alter, modify in any d**n way they so choose, and it doesn't matter one flippin' bit what all of us think about such, since it is not likely to really affect us in any way; unless we choose to participate in such a situation, and in which case, we've volunteered to accept the changes to the game.

While forums as this are nice little zones to chat with others that share our love of the game, it is not good to treat them as platforms for speech on high, decreeing that this way or that is the only way to approach the game.

So, for the OP, I will simply respond, 'whatevah floats yo boat.'


Note: for all members and guests, the above mini-vent was not meant as a direct response to any individual involved in this discussion or anyone else's responses.

[sepulchre]

Gygax is concerned about playability, but it is always with regard to his interest in realism (emphasis on "ism") and it's full expression as simulation. Gygax was not satisfied with Parcheesi or even Chess this is why he began with the simulation that is a wargame.

To be clear here, "games" are a rational expression. That is, like the word, there is a ratio, a proportion between "the play" (returning to Kesher's citation above)and the thing the play imitates. The History of art reveals much of the same story, there is primitive art, like cave painting, and there is realism in art, like the portraiture of Vermeer or Wyeth, one of profound simplicity the other of beguiling detail.

Whatever the proportion between the imitation and it's subject - the game and the world, the act and not just the end or result is an expression of our willing suspension of disbelief; sustaining that depends much on everyone's understanding of the play - a lot of the reason this continues to become a topic of discussion.

If you want to play loose and poetic - play Chainmail or White Box, if you want more granularity - play AD&D, or Rolemaster, or Runequest. The choice comes down to how much of the math (the imitation) you wish to be spelled out - everyone who has played rpgs knows exactly what that means especially in contrast to war games in which most of what is subsumed is hidden behind a simple d6 chart.

[Finarvyn]

Others have said this earlier in the thread, but I'll chime in to say that I see OD&D as a game which has never tried to be a realistic simulation. Hit points mean different things in different situations, and trying to apply the same thing for all cases will simply not make sense.

A character with lots of hit points is hard to kill. This is intended to represent the notion that the character can fight in a combat situation for a long time before he gets overwhelmed and goes down. If you then take the hit point total and assume that he can take a dozen direct hits by arrows, can fall amazing distances, or whatever, then you have applied the concept in the wrong way. The character who can fight for a long time does so by avoiding direct hits and turning them into tiny cuts, or perhaps is using up some luck to avoid being hurt altogether. That's the purpose of hit points, and damage reduction due to armor shifts the premise to the notion that those hits are actually solid hits all along but the armor will absorb part of the impact.

Ah, but if the character is barely hit (you ask), why does it take so long to heal? If the hero is merely tired shouldn't he be able to be at full hit points after resting instead of regaining hit points over periods of weeks? Well, that's a game mechanic designed to stop folks from being invincible. D&D is a game of resource management and magic-users who spend all of her spells in the first encounter realize that this makes the rest of the adventure less fun, and in the same way the hit point is designed to give a sense of resource management in that you know you don't just get them back right away.

I think that's why many older-edition folks don't like the "short rest" and "long rest" concept in 5E (and other modern editions) where you get those resources back so quickly. It takes the original concept and twists it around.

Anyway, just a couple of coppers thrown into the pot.

[oldkat]

.. but if the character is barely hit (you ask), why does it take so long to heal? If the hero is merely tired shouldn't he be able to be at full hit points after resting instead of regaining hit points over periods of weeks? Well, that's a game mechanic designed to stop folks from being invincible. D&D is a game of resource management and magic-users who spend all of her spells in the first encounter realize that this makes the rest of the adventure less fun, and in the same way the hit point is designed to give a sense of resource management in that you know you don't just get them back right away.

Perfectly acceptable interpretation.
But so is anything else. One could even say that this ("resting") stuff as you describe is just another way of the designers/game's way of trying to have it both ways.
If HP are just luck, skill, stamina and a bunch of nicks and scrapes, then one could (I suppose)make the argument that the Cure LW/SW/CW spells are ridiculously chintsey and designed to support this attitude (having it both ways).
It's like back filling a hole that was dug wrong to begin with in the first place. If the hole had been dug right the first time, there wouldn't be the need for all the effort to remedy the situation ("resource management").

But that's just my perspective.
And anyone else's is perfectly acceptable.
That's one of the game strengths--"do it your way!".

[cooper]

I will say, quality of alternative rules notwithstanding, Gygax and arneson were good "computer" programmers before computer programmers were good computer programmers. What I mean is they understood the idea of "top down" design as the most effective means of programming their fantasy game rather than the "bottom up" design that has since been abandoned by all programmers. Gygax thought "I want people to adventure like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (and then he codes a game to do that).

So, to the OP, the idea is interesting, but its code in search of a design, instead of design in search of code. "What if players rolled X" for attacks/saving throws/hit points etc is intrinsically inferior to "I want characters to do X" and then write code to make that happen.

I'm presenting it differently, but it's basically "fiction first" in game design.