I agree with marcos9999 that the idea of hit points is lunacy especially considering its origin, but I do think Gygax and Arneson did it in the best possible way: characters started with the same HP (D6) as an attack could cause (D6). The blog post talks about the trouble of being stuck with 1 HP: 1 HP nothing! Every character was tromping around with enough health to maybe survive one sword blow - 1 was definitely worse but you weren't exactly sitting pretty anywhere else, either. The tactics...
View full commentI agree with marcos9999 that the idea of hit points is lunacy especially considering its origin, but I do think Gygax and Arneson did it in the best possible way: characters started with the same HP (D6) as an attack could cause (D6). The blog post talks about the trouble of being stuck with 1 HP: 1 HP nothing! Every character was tromping around with enough health to maybe survive one sword blow - 1 was definitely worse but you weren't exactly sitting pretty anywhere else, either. The tactics mentioned in the blog post weren't just standard to HP 1 characters, but to pretty much the entire party! It differentiated low-level play in a way I enjoy, though I'm not sure the progression of HP is really the best way to solve it, as I agree with marcos' other conclusions if not, necessarily, the suggested solutions, but let's not go over it point for point.
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