HP Bloat

During the 5E playtest, HP was lower and chance to hit was lower - to make a successful attack more meaningful. People hated the resulting "whiff factor". So they increased both HP and chance to hit, and now it feels like your character is actually doing something, even if nothing has actually changed in terms of how long the fight actually takes.

And so do the methods of increasing that damage, especially in short bursts. In any case, High level characters are intentionally hardier, because they represent more of an investment from the player, among countless other reasons including that more strategies beyond attacking HP become more and more viable.

Eight goblins surrounding you means even with an AC of 20 you're still going to get hit several times, and at low levels where you might be facing goblins that might actually mean death in a single round. Drop HP too much, and you're basically asking for the RNG god to occasionally TPK thanks to a few bad rolls.

>it becomes completely ridiculous.

At high levels, it's supposed to be.

How can you guys be this fucking stupid?

I don't even see how you managed to get that from what he said, it just seems like you're mad and don't really understand how hp works

> don't really understand how hp works

That is your basic problem, and the mistake that you will keep making until you actually bother to listen to the four hundred people in the past who've tried to explain the concept to you.

But, no, you genuinely like being stupid, so that's why this thread is here. For you to insist that HP works one and only one way (a way that it doesn't work), despite everyone calling you a retard.

Really what I want is for the majority of a monsters difficulties to come from its abilities and offensive stats instead of from hp or ac. How you balance hp and ac isn't as important to me

?

Jesus, back to /pol/ with you. If you want to recruit go to /r9k/, y'all fucked it up years ago.

There are plenty of games where hp doesn't increase nearly as much when characters progress that works just fine. You just seem angry and stupid

IIRC, old school editions also didn’t have critical hits double the damag, just hit automatically. That made it less swingy.

Not to mention about the attitude combat was to be approached with.

If you want the fight to last long enough for monsters to last long enough to use their abilities, you need HP and AC as a hedge.

I see it all the time in OSR design. People give the enemies all kinds of special powers and process on hit abilities, which don't matter because the 2D8 of damage from their basic attack is enough to down the average PC.

If the majority of a characters defense is in their ho instead of ac it also helps with swingyness

They only need to be beefy enough to avoid being burst down in a single turn, a lot of monsters are beefier than that

And, there are games where the HP increase scales up and more people like those better. You just happen to like games very few people like, without really appreciating why more people like the games you don't understand very well.

Yep, you're not very bright

fucking btfo

HP for the players, not the monsters

>It's basically an automatic tell that you're a retard if you use the term "HP Bloat."
>t. WOTC shill
Don't you have some digital assets to steal, asshole?

>Also, play at low levels if you want characters to casually die from little shit.
Or just play a game that's better suited to your needs than modern D&D.

>muh jews
End yourself. Modern D&D isn't great but it caters to casuals because most who grew up playing have less time for the hobby now.

>At high levels, it's supposed to be.
In other words, you fucking liar, HP bloat is a thing and you switched your story mid-stream. Did you asshole really think you could get away with it?

>How can you guys be this fucking stupid?
We get it, we just think it SUCKS, Mr. Wizards.

>That is your basic problem
The basic problem is that you're a lying asshole who accuses others of not getting it but having shit for brains yourself.

>despite everyone calling you a retard.
You're alone in this, Mr. Lying Asshole.

>And, there are games where the HP increase scales up and more people like those better.
Or they are idiots stuck on the D&D brand. Idiots like you.

>I totally understand how HP works
> proceed to demonstrate how much you don't have a fucking clue how HP works
Good job user

Not him, but great comeback, fucktard.

Play GURPS
Have fun

No, he understands it perfectly: hit points are not evocative of game world action and the GM has to shoehorn his own interpretation into it. It plain sucks.

Fuck off retard, it's not okay to go from 1d8+3 vs 12 HP at level 1 to maybe 3 or 4 hits of 1d8+2d6+20 vs 409 HP at level 20.

>HP Bloat is a thing

Saying HP increases as you level up and applying a negative descriptor to it doesn't actually create something, it just shows that you're a little bitch and want to bitch about something you don't understand.

The reverse would be like saying "Shriveling HP" is a thing, where characters in games don't get enough HP, and then making threads to complain about how characters are way too fragile at higher levels when they're supposed to be becoming borderline demigods.

I hate both of those designs. Whiffing half the time and instantly killing an enemy the other half of the time sucks, but boffer combat where it takes 20 hits to down something sucks even more.

You're of the same ilk, so I have nothing to withdraw.

>The barbarian literally does not give a shit about the hundred arrows stuck to him.
with a damage of 1d8, or about 4.5
100 arrows will deal 450 damage
a barbarian with 450hp wont be anywhere near your average party size, assuming no feats and +4 CON, you wont even ever reach the ability to have 100 arrows sticking out of you

factoring in rages ability to halve damage, 100 arrows will feel like 50,or about 225, which is still survivable, but still only at higher levels when your characters are pretty much superhuman already and justified in killing small armies

>and then making threads to complain about how characters are way too fragile at higher levels when they're supposed to be becoming borderline demigods.
You mean Exalted? Because people did complain about that.

...

It means HP bloats relative to damage, causing longer fights, particularly fights outside of the redzone.

>bitch about something you don't understand.
Oh, I understand perfectly. It's just that we don't like what we're seeing.

>The reverse would be like saying "Shriveling HP" is a thing,
That's absolutely possible, yes. Characters in Rolemaster have always been too fragile, even if HPs are not the real problem.

No, because there are other factors that shorten the fights, including burst damage and increased alternate methods of disabling enemies. Looking at only one part of a giant equation and thinking you're an expert makes you an idiot.

>Oh, I understand perfectly.

No, you really, really don't.

>That's absolutely possible, yes.

Do you not get that any game that doesn't have "HP Bloat" can be criticized for having "Shriveling HP"? Except for, of course, whatever game personally matches your exact standards for the ratio at which HP and damage should increase?

>Herakles is a literal exalted character
>still is vulnerable to a crapton of things

Sounds right to me

>No, because there are other factors that shorten the fights, including burst damage and increased alternate methods of disabling enemies. Looking at only one part of a giant equation and thinking you're an expert makes you an idiot.
So you're saying a high level party fighting against a dragon takes as long as a low-level party fighting against... an Orc?

>No, you really, really don't.
Certainly better than you do.

>Do you not get that any game that doesn't have "HP Bloat" can be criticized for having "Shriveling HP"?
Any game can be accused of anything, that doesn't mean jackshit.

>Except for, of course, whatever game personally matches your exact standards for the ratio at which HP and damage should increase?
No, it's not entirely subjective, you're wrong. We have a large canon of stories with fantasy heroes to compare.

D&D does not hold up.

Holy fuck, did I take a wrong turn and end up on /v/?

A high level party can end a fight against a dragon in a single turn. It can actually end that fight before the fight actually happens.

>No, it's not entirely subjective, you're wrong.

How.

>We have a large canon of stories with fantasy heroes to compare.

And?

Seriously. How can you literally be this much of a fucktard.

More importantly, above all else, "HP Bloat" is really nothing except a buzzword for people to complain about HP rising in a manner they don't like, largely because they don't understand HP. If you can list what games you like so I can go ahead and label them as suffering from "Shriveling HP", we should be done here.

Pretty much all of this can be solved by a level 10 cap

>A high level party can end a fight against a dragon in a single turn. It can actually end that fight before the fight actually happens.
I'm taking duly note that you're weaseling out of answering the question.

>And?
It creates expectations. Expectations which D&D does not meet.

>Seriously. How can you literally be this much of a fucktard.
As if you'd have the minimum intelligence required to spot one.

>If you can list what games you like so I can go ahead and label them as suffering from "Shriveling HP", we should be done here.
Call of Cthulhu. Please ensure to explain how the "shift in HPs" does not conform with the investigators' growth as heroes, topkek.

If you reimagine HP as actual meat points it makes the game objectively better.

Being able to take a million hits is part of the process of becoming a superhuman hero, and it's great to explain powerful characters in a setting with all kinds of deadly monsters and spells. Being able to survive a massive fall because of high HP isn't a bug, it's a feature. Your fighter spends an hour pulling swords that got stuck in him from the last fight out of his face. He's fine, he'll sleep it off.

>"HP Bloat" is really nothing except a buzzword
Or it's an accurate description of HP outgrowing damage. Or HP doubling/tripling between editions.

Because it's hard to balance mortality and heroics.

In the old days if you got to triple digit HP in a D&D system it was a huge deal, but likewise enemies rarely got into triple digit health as well.
There was an issue there though in terms of damage scaling for anyone who wasn't a caster.

In systems that use wounds you often see a challenge in do they do the "each body part has a small amount of wounds and you can lose an arm instantly to an axe let alone a monster" or "your entire body has a collection of wounds and you're brushing off attacks until one takes you to 0 wounds".

Both have benefits and downsides that are hard to balance out.

>I'm taking duly note that you're weaseling out of answering the question.

What part of " there are other factors that shorten the fights, including burst damage and increased alternate methods of disabling enemies" didn't you get the first time?

>It creates expectations.

You dumb fuck. You having the wrong expectations is your issue, largely because you've got a limited scope of what the game is intended for.

>Call of Cthulhu.

Characters are too fragile, impossible to form any bond with them, horror feels forced and arbitrary thanks to excessive fragility, please buff next patch.

See how easy it is to use "Shriveling HP" to act like personal opinions are way more important than they are?

>What part of " there are other factors that shorten the fights, including burst damage and increased alternate methods of disabling enemies" didn't you get the first time?
What part of that is an answer? Hell, what part of that makes it equivalent to an enemy the party Fighter could easily oneshot?

Cringe.

>What part of " there are other factors that shorten the fights, including burst damage and increased alternate methods of disabling enemies" didn't you get the first time?
I got it, I was verifying whether that was an accurate portrayal of the baseline with an example. You dodged the question.

>You having the wrong expectations is your issue, largely because you've got a limited scope of what the game is intended for.
Oh, ym expectations are just fine, it's just that the game has been designed to please idiots like you.

>Characters are too fragile,
Lel, that's intentional.

>impossible to form any bond with them,
In a D&D way? Lel, that's intentional.

>horror feels forced and arbitrary thanks to excessive fragility, please buff next patch.
The horror does not come through the crunch. If anything, the tragedy does.

>See how easy it is to use "Shriveling HP" to act like personal opinions are way more important than they are?
No, because the fragility of the protagonists are in line with Lovecraft. Other aspects of CoC are not but the HP system is overall fine.

In short: you're an idiot who does not understand how fiction creates expectations. Now if you're a gamist pleb, you don't care about those expectations, alright. But those of us who do care will point this out as a deficiency of the game. Because for us it is.

It was "intentional", but done excessively, to the point where the game is a failure and needs to be dramatically readjusted, see my new stat block.

My only complaint with that approach is that nobody (except casters) get's to do anything else all that superhuman.

Some of the most satisfying D&D sessions I had were during the 5e playtest for that reason. Granted, we did play low level heroes, but I think it was actually our focus on narration that really sold the "whiff." I made sure to keep the minutia of positioning to a minimum and also to narrate misses as more than just "you miss—okay next" so that combat went quickly but it still felt like things were actually happening.

Basically the halfling rogue accidentally killed a man for the first time in his life and panicked and left his dagger in the guy's eye and fled the scene to be hunted down later by law enforcement and a rival thieves' guild. It was good shit and it only happened because he happened to crit in a chaotic scramble and one-shotted the guy.

You've gotta straddle that fluff/crunch divide. Having high HP lets you survive without food for a long time, because starving deals HP damage. Having high HP lets you swim to the bottom of the ocean, because running out of breath deals HP damage, etc.

How about your attack rating? We could argue attack is a warrior's strength and skill, but what about using it for other features? If your character has like +15 to attacks with weapons, they could do clearly supernatural things with them. Why not? It's not like they can miss anyway, so let them curve arrows around corners or just cross their arms and make their swords jump around and fight for them. They don't have "magic" because everything in a fantasy setting is "magic".

I just despise seeing the edgy That GM posts on Veeky Forums. It's always some faggot who thinks he's cool for making a Rogue players roll a ridiculously difficult roll because he said he wanted to do a backflip when he attacked. Why? It's absolutely stupid. If the Rogue is level 6+ or clearly getting into superhuman levels, has 18 dex and a bunch of feats and magic items all about doing that shit, why can't he do backflips? It's retarded enforced "realism" which is cancerous towards the high fantasy, high power heroics of adventure games that most people want when they play D&D.

I always treat it as "luck" and only when hitpoints get low or there's a serious injury do you actually see it as damage. Essentially I consider it more like "hero points" where you just get a few narrow misses or whatever until it gets low enough. Kind of like how in movies where the main character and some schmucks run through an artillery blast. Hero emerges unscathed but the mooks get blown to bits. Realistically he would've been hit but thanks to luck or fate, he doesn't.

That way you can have a guy who's a badass veteran who mechanically would take an entire mag to kill, still technically only dying to a few bullets.

However, if the person is placed in a situation where mechanically something cant kill him but in real life would, like say a guy has a pistol to his head while tied to a chair, that changes things. I would say "alright dice roll doesn't matter here, if he pulls the trigger you're dead narratively, no one is tough enough to take a .44 magnum to the temple execution style and live." I would then be sure to give him options to get out of it unless he's being an idiot. For a player to die in those kinds of situations they would need to be incredibly stupid or betrayed, it's not something I would just do for shots and giggles.

Happiness is a buzzword.

Personally I don't care how a character chooses to fluff their Movement as long as it won't otherwise step on existing spell toes and they make appropriate rolls at appropriate times. If the Rogue wants to say that he did a series of backflips the entire 30 feet, I'm cool with that, but he still needs to make an Acrobatics check to jump over that enemy that was along the way, since the enemy provides a clear mechanical obstacle that should be checked against.

I never used to be super into realism, but I certainly had certain minimal expectations going into 5e. Then I was playing my 4th level Thief with Mobility and realized that thanks to Mobility, Second-Story Work, and Cunning Action, my Thief is capable of climbing a staggering 120 feet in 6 seconds.

So from that point onwards I've used superhero movies and Wuxia films as my touchstone for what "mundane" D&D characters can do.

that's literally how it works

That's leftypol false flagging.

Buzzword is a buzzword. So is "is" and so and "and". And also ".", also "also".

No shit noobie.

because old school games at higher levels can easily become total war games where the PCs mush hirelings and mercs into the meatgrinder while shooting bows because going toe to toe with a high level monster (you know, like a hero) is a good way to get shit on in pre-bloat systems

>Complaining about HP bloat
>In DnD
>In Pathfinder, you're able to push superhuman by level 8, earlier in gestalt games
>"My actual literal demigod has too much HP"

Or, as an aside, this
>Wizard can end combat in less than one round if they're prepared
>"Yeah, but why can my fighter take being stabbed with a dagger? This is the worst!"

Well, maybe he does not want the PCs to be actual literal demigods.

Ok so, rather than just complain, i'd like to figure out a solution.

Given D&D 5e as our framework, how can oldschool health be done, and easily to convert even monster's health?

>Cringe.
Wastrel.

>how can we make a game worse by listening to people with shit taste?

Let them complain. It's not like their whining does anything in the end.

buzzwords make us happy

>Let them complain. It's not like their whining does anything in the end.

It makes the board less interesting with more shit content.

Don't play pathfinder, play a different game based on reality. DnD doesn't play well with reality.

Take Con from health, both PCs and monsters, use Dex to attack rolls for all melee weapons, use Str for damage, but make it less important for damage (1/2 str mod) and more for piercing DR and such.

However, with such changes, we would also need to rebalance the other stats or casting supremacy would be even stronger, so do to Int what has been done to Strength (1/2 mod to spells but full mod to spell piercing or something (they still have spell resistance in 5e right?)) and take some of the sheer utility and power away from casters, move them more toward support classes than batman classes. Charisma, I think, doesn't need changing very much. It's not really too useful to those not needing as much as they can get, so it's pretty fine in comparison to Wis and Int.

Of course, having no Con to health would mean having 2.5 dump-stats (Con and Cha, with Strength being less useful) so character building would lean towards Dex builds that dodge everything.

But that's what I'd do.

You can’t, the entire system is built on certain assumptions and math.

It’s all quite balanced for what it is, but everything ties together so if you’re not happy with something as core as HP levels then you should use something else. At least if you care about ”fairness” and/or want to use existing encounters.

Just treat hp more like plot armor, or how long an experienced character could survive in a battle compared to a rookie. The barbarian didn't get hit with 100 arrows, his years of training have allowed him to dodge arrows to a heroic capacity. Sure, some may nick him, and he'll have about a hundred close calls, but eventually he's too tired to keep dodging and one gets a solid hit, downing him.

The wizard didn't get stabbed in the back, it was just a little scratch.He knows, however, that his luck will surely run out soon.

Yes, take advice on how to change the math of the entire system from someone who knows so little about the game that they’re talking about magic DR and spell piercing. Surely there will be no knock-on effects.

Eh, I've played like, 3 sessions. I'm sure it's fine.

>to the point where the game is a failure and needs to be dramatically readjusted,
When an RPG is consistently among the highest rated over decades with little to no change to the system, that system is not a failure by any means of the word. In fact, one could call it a pinnacle of game design.

>They don't have "magic" because everything in a fantasy setting is "magic".
Cringe.

>why can't he do backflips?
Because the ability to do backflips without trouble in combat should come more towards the end of an adventurer's career, with, let's say, 60% behind you.

>Surely there will be no knock-on effects.
In a game as poorly designed as this , will you even notice any knock-on effects?

>When an RPG is consistently among the highest rated over decades with little to no change to the system, that system is not a failure by any means of the word. In fact, one could call it a pinnacle of game design.

Imagine what could be said of D&D, a game consistently rated higher, and preferred by more than ten times the number of people.

One could call it the pinnacle of pinnacles of game design.

You think someone having a high climbing speed can break the game as badly as rejigging the entire HP and damage calculation? Braindead.

>Cringe

Saying "Cringe" is not an argument. You did not refute my points. Making your health points into meat points will make the fiction match the crunch, and help along the feeling of powerful adventurers instead of realism. You'd greatly benefit from it.

It’s pretty easy, you just cut monster HP in half and increase the number of encounters. Because what the OD&D autists forget to mention is that you were expected to have a lot more fights back in the day based on all the old modules. As a DM who has done both 5e health gets cut plenty because monsters do a lot of damage and can hit easily.

The biggest problem 5e has is it’s own designers not sticking to the math outlined on the DMG for NPCs and monsters. I recommend double checking the custom monster box with a monster you have not used before, because you might end up changing its CR.

The fiction already matches the crunch, meat points literally adds nothing to the mix other than making for absurd scenarios.

>with little to no change to the system
lrn2read, mate

>Imagine what could be said of D&D
That it used the innovator's advantage and leveraged its brand to the hilt, in spite of mediocre game design.

Nice strawman, faggot. I am saying the game is full of flaws, starting with Challenge Ratings.

First, you're replying to 2 different people. Secondly, I merely cringed at everything being magic. It wasn't meant to be an argument, it was meant to express disgust at your taste.

>The fiction already matches the crunch
Or rather need to hamfistedly make up some bullshit to make the fiction match the fluff, part of why D&D's game design is so mediocre.

>part of why D&D's game design is so mediocre
I don't understand why people REEEE about a game where it doesn't try to model real life.
D&D never did, most things are approximations, like HP, attack bonuses, skills, and many games don't even bother trying. It doesn't mean they are bad games, it means that simulating real life isn't the priority.

>It wasn't meant to be an argument, it was meant to express disgust at your taste.

The only one with shit taste is you.

Continue to enjoy your sans-scientific "magic" systems and the feeling of lifeless, sterile worlds. Please continue to wonder why your settings feel so bland and fail to compare to the works of the masters of fantasy and myth. Maybe once you grow out of your edgy highschooler phase, you'll get it.

Fantasy is fantasy. Everything is magic; because magic is not a force or an energy nor an alternate version of physics but a total shift of how the world is presented and functions. It does not function by our physical laws. Dramatic law, not physical. Symbolic law, never relativistic. Cry more you bloody philistine.

>lrn2read, mate

Unlike you, I've learned to ignore unimportant qualifiers. Bottom line is, if you want to use good ratings to qualify a game as well-designed, you're going to have to kow-tow to D&D.

>That it used the innovator's advantage and leveraged its brand to the hilt, in spite of mediocre game design.

Imagine being such a little bitch that you'd present an argument, and then be terrified of it when it's turned around and used against you.

God, how sad you must make your mother.

>a game where it doesn't try to model real life.
Fair enough but, you see, it doesn't even try to model Conan or Conan-equivalents with any degree of accuracy. Thus OP's issues with D&D.

>The only one with shit taste is you.
According to an idiot. Alright.
>Please continue to wonder why your settings feel
Yadda yadda yadda.
>Fantasy is fantasy.
Wow, and a rose is a rose, eh?
>Everything is magic;
No. Magic is magic. The rest isn't.

>Fair enough but, you see, it doesn't even try to model Conan or Conan-equivalents with any degree of accuracy. Thus OP's issues with D&D.

D&D approximates Conan at lower levels, and then approximates more legendary stuff at higher.

So, OP's issue is that he's retarded. Thanks for clearing that up.

>Unlike you, I've learned to ignore unimportant qualifiers.
Yeah but you haven't learned to distinguish important from unimportant. Why? Because you're a fucking moron. CoC hasn't changed much in decades because the player base doesn't have much to complain about it.
Unlike D&D with it's messy AD&D 2E design (although to be fair it was still relatively early in the history of RPGs, so that can be forgiven), its horribly balanced rules in 3E, its full-on gamist retardation in 4E and its blandness in 5E. No game without that brand and that legacy could have afforded to much misdesign in its lifetime.

>turned around and used against you.
Sure, pal, it's not like you're an idiot who makes shit up and then declares himself the winner of the argument because
>Lol, who's gonna stop me?
Enjoy your victory lap, moron.

>Legendary stuff
Oh, I remember that legend about the wizard with 82 hit points not counting constitution modifiers that got stabbed 32 times and survived to tell the tale.

So overall it's a shitty approximation then, got it. That's what OP was expressing disagreement with, fuckface.

The rules in most RPGs are designed to accomodate most players. Its up to the DM to beef up the monsters or their rolls to make the players feel challenged.

Some players like to play the character that can face impossible odds without flinching. Other players like to feel like real risk is on the line. Talk with your DM about your favorite moments at the table, it helps them give a better game experience to you all.

This is one reason why the "your party faces shadow versions of themselves" trope is a thing. It gives the party a chance to see just how OP they are in comparison to the rest of the gameworld.

Notice how you typed a lot of words, but still haven't managed to refute the very simple truth that D&D is consistently rated higher and has dramatically greater popularity, so that if you want to talk about well designed games by using those as metrics to establish the subjective quality of the games, D&D is superior. Vastly superior.

Or, you can rescind your idea that ratings and popularity matter, and have to accept the opinion that CoC is poorly designed to be as legitimate as your own.

It's really pretty simple and straight-forward, and the sad thing is, no matter how many qualifiers and diversions you try to present, you can't avoid this little conundrum you've landed yourself in.

>Enjoy your victory lap

Thanks.

>I don't understand HP

That's nice. Thanks for making that all to clear to everyone.

Oh, OP, you're so bitter about being shown to be a retard so succinctly.