What do hit points represent?

[Kavonde]

So today's Stolen Pixels reminds me of something I've spent way too much time thinking about, and I thought I'd share.

I don't think hit points represent actual, physical health. I think they represent, basically, how long a character can go before their luck runs out.

I'm basing this idea on the fact that RPGs, whether video games or pen & paper RPGs, always seem to strive for a level of cinematic awesomeness. And yet, a typical fight is just two teams whacking away at eachother until everyone on one side falls over. At the end of a good fight, both sides will be battered, bloody, and staggering off to find somewhere to rest.

However, in a movie, the heroes often go the entire fight without so much as a scratch on them. I've heard fellow gamers suggest that maybe these guys are so high level that the mooks they're fighting can't touch them, but even if a hero is squaring off against his arch nemesis, there won't be much injury on either side until the final, decisive blow. This is because in movies, hit points don't represent a hero's health, they represent how much longer the hero can go before he slips up and gets a sword in his chest.

Star Wars example: Anakin and Count Dooku duel for awhile, neither appearing to score any hits, but it's clear that Dooku is the better swordsman. At the end of the fight, Dooku slices off Anakin's arm, and Darth Whiny is out of the fight. Dooku gradually wore down Anakin's hit points and then dropped him to zero.

However, sometimes in a movie, the hero or villain will take a hit and keep on fighting. These moments represent a critical hit, blowing past the character's defenses and actually landing a blow. For example, in the Princess Bride, Inigo suffers a critical hit right at the start of his fight, but goes on to win anyway.

This concept of hit points is something I use in my own pen & paper games, and it's an idea I'd really love to see in RPGs where people are running around swinging ten-foot broadswords, or dueling with insta-kill energy weapons(cough, Old Republic), because it makes far more sense than having two people just stand around bashing eachother and does it without overhauling the entire system to incorporate more "realism." Hit points are an abstract concept to begin with, so why not abstract them into something that makes sense?

Anyway, just thought I'd share. Hope this insight's useful, or at least entertaining.

EDIT: It should be noted that Lord of the Rings Online did something kinda like this, with morale instead of hit points. However, the animations still showed the typical I-Bash-You-Bash, which didn't quite sell the idea.

 

[Marmooset]

Bruce Campbell is hit points personified.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

That's actually how I play FPSes without having my immersion broken by the fact that I just got hit with a bullet, then my body magically spit it out and plugged the hole. I just like to think of it as a "near miss", like the next few bullets are going to get closer and closer until they eventually hit and kill me, unless I find cover soon and wait for them to start focusing on someone else.

 

[sageoftruth]

The people of Assassin's Creed seem to agree, since a hit consists of an awkwardly blocked sword strike. That leaves one other question though: What about status ailment attacks like a poisonous bite?

 

[Draithx]

Even lightsabers won't kill instantly, hell you said yourself that Anakin got his arm cut off but still lives.
I think hit points are fine the way they are if you just consider hits as glancing blows or minor cuts. Like doing a single point of damage to a character with 10 hit points would be a minor cut, 5 points would be a serious cut that didn't strike a vital area and doing 10 points would instantly cut the character in half.

 

[Chamale]

I like the idea that hit points "reduce your luck", and as such your luck will eventually run out. At this point, the next hit kills you. The luck can also be a plasma shield or something like that in a sci-fi game.

Of course, it doesn't make sense when the screen goes red to show that you've been injured. If your luck is declining, you're not really being hit by bullets. So, in games like Modern Warfare, declining hit points mean that the character is being shot several times and still standing.

In Left 4 Dead, hit points do mean something. At less than 50, animations change and speed it slower. The lower a character's health gets, the slower they move.

 

[Kavonde]

I always thought of it more as the obvious, how many hits you can take before you go down. That's why I like my health bars sectioned, with one clearly defined section going away with every normal hit, like in Legend of Zelda.

I mean, it might be your theory too, but I don't think that's what they had in mind when they (whoever "they" is) created it.

Well, I think Zelda kind of does the straight "hit points equals damage" thing, but it's kept in check by the relatively small amount of life you have.

The people of Assassin's Creed seem to agree, since a hit consists of an awkwardly blocked sword strike. That leaves one other question though: What about status ailment attacks like a poisonous bite?

Well, that depends on the system. Like, if we're talking poison that deals direct hit point damage, like in most JRPGs or D&D 4th Edition, then it translates just fine; the poison or whatever is gradually weakening you, and it's going to make you screw up.

Actually, it works fine if it instead affects your abilities, like in D&D 3rd Edition, too. So...yeah.

 

[Super Duck]

I've always thought of HP as pain tolerance. If you think about it in terms of something like WoW it makes more sense.

You build your Stamina which gives you more hit points. Now, in a game like WoW, you're constantly being beat on by various weapons and spells. However, with either the right magic or the wonderful healing powers of food and bandages, you can withstand huge amounts of torture.

I always figured it as magic heals your wounds to keep you from dying but there comes a point where the pain becomes to great and you eventually collapse without any magic to maintain your body. This also accounts for such things as poison and bleed effects.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

It's just the calculated amount of damage a character can take before they "die" or "get injured" and this final of hit points is determined through what kind of armor a character has and other stat building items.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I've always considered hit points to be mental. The force of a bullet won't actually knock anyone down. It's the body reacting. If the force of that bullet dropped someone, then the person firing the gun would go down too according to physics.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

That's actually how I play FPSes without having my immersion broken by the fact that I just got hit with a bullet, then my body magically spit it out and plugged the hole. I just like to think of it as a "near miss", like the next few bullets are going to get closer and closer until they eventually hit and kill me, unless I find cover soon and wait for them to start focusing on someone else.

A nice outlook... though hard to apply in certain games when your screen is smeared with rasberry jam every time you're shot

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

IMO hit points represents a mix of stamina(IE physical energy) and willpower(mental energy), the less you have the more likely you are to pass out and not get up for awhile.

Also the way they calculate instant kill weapons like a light saber is so much nerfy wankery if there is ever one, it should do critical damage to the body part hit(cripple+80% damage) so if you don't have shields or anti saber armor or luck+dexterity you are SOL. I do like basing saber skill on willpower tho they go that much right.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

A nice outlook... though hard to apply in certain games when your screen is smeared with rasberry jam every time you're shot

Eh, I like to play that off as a panicked burst of adrenaline that distorts your perception after the supersonic crack of a bullet goes whizzing right past your head. A red-out, of sorts.

It seems like a lot of rationalization to go through just to get that little extra bit of plausibility out of a game, but it's totally worth it when you're baked, playing on an HDTV with surround sound, and the only thing that keeps you from going "HOLY SHIT, THIS IS REAL" is the fact that you can shrug off bullets.

 

[Blue_vision]

I've always thought of hit points as blood loss (boring old me,) but luck is actually a really cool way of thinking about it.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

So today's Stolen Pixels reminds me of something I've spent way too much time thinking about, and I thought I'd share.

-snipped the rest-

ONE Flaw... Take certain martial arts movies, where TONS of blows have landed one one another, ni your terms, there would be alot of critical hits being landed, and the whole idea behind a critial hit is that it's usually pretty rare

 

[Kavonde]

I've always thought of HP as pain tolerance. If you think about it in terms of something like WoW it makes more sense.

You build your Stamina which gives you more hit points. Now, in a game like WoW, you're constantly being beat on by various weapons and spells. However, with either the right magic or the wonderful healing powers of food and bandages, you can withstand huge amounts of torture.

I always figured it as magic heals your wounds to keep you from dying but there comes a point where the pain becomes to great and you eventually collapse without any magic to maintain your body. This also accounts for such things as poison and bleed effects.

I've spent the last few minutes trying to explain exactly why I think WoW is the worst offender here, but then I realized that I think Bliz is actually on about the same page as me.

So you start out at level 1, and you gradually grow in power and ability until you reach level 80. Along the way, you fight evil across two worlds and make the world a little bit safer for your fellow sentient beings. However, as capable and skilled as you might be, you will always be massively dwarfed by the power and strength of any given dungeon boss, and swatted like a gnat if you try to take on any of the faction leaders solo.

Basically, WoW scales with you. You're really not much stronger at 80 than you were at 60, or 40, or 20, at least according to the setting's internal logic. You've got a broader suite of abilities and much more impressive gear, but if you went back and fought, say, a version of Mr. Smite who's scaled to your level, you'd still get stomped into the ground. (Well, pier.)

So what I'm trying to communicate through this long and rambling post is that I think WoW already views your hit points less as "pain threshold" or "how many hits you can take before you die," and more like a formula derived from your skill, equipment, and experience relative to the world around you.

I have no freaking clue if any of that made sense.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

That's actually how I play FPSes without having my immersion broken by the fact that I just got hit with a bullet, then my body magically spit it out and plugged the hole. I just like to think of it as a "near miss", like the next few bullets are going to get closer and closer until they eventually hit and kill me, unless I find cover soon and wait for them to start focusing on someone else.

A nice outlook... though hard to apply in certain games when your screen is smeared with rasberry jam every time you're shot

Sir!....We've been JAMED!!!

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They cut back on level layouts because it disrupts the "flow of the game" ,they cut back on game play mechanics because it disrupts the "flow of the game",they cut back on pickups and use regeneration because it disrupts the "flow of the film".... oy.....whats next.....

 

[FinalHeart95]

Isn't it like the state of your body at any given time? For example, 100% HP is as healthy as can be, 50% is kinda meh, and 0% is dead. When your max HP goes up, this is because you became an overall more powerful person, so you are healthier than others that have lower max HP.

Status effects like poison do reduce your health, but they don't have immediate effects. Think about it, a blow to your ribcage that breaks a rib or two is an instant effect. If you get poisoned, the poison has to run through your body before it can really take effect.

...I think anyway.