The Thing About Hit Points

Are hit points outdated? Hit points get a lot of discussion in D&D circles. They're an iconic part of the game, and, like all iconography, they are often targeted by iconoclasts. Still, they remain part of the bedrock of D&D - though not of gaming in general. For me, they work, in all their abstract yet satisfying glory. They don't work for everyone, though, and what they represent is the core issue of virtually all arguments about them. 

Some arguments take the tack that in a world where dragons and spellcasters exist, the very concept of hit points is, essentially, just as hand-wavey as Wish spells. But D&D's baseline humans are no more magical than in movies and tv. I mean the bystanders, the workers that exude boredom when being quizzed by detectives in Law and Order, and the corpses that kick off the L&O investigation. Not the most durable folk. Not much magic there. Four hit points doesn't go far. 

Hit points reflect much more than sheer physicality. Fate, destiny, luck, muscle memory, instinct, training, all of these things figure in to the concept of hit points. All those last second dodges and hails of bullets that strike everywhere but miss the protagonist are expressions of hit points (yeah, and Armor Class, too, but that's for another post).

The Commoner in the 5e Monster Manual, or the 0-level NPC of the early days of AD&D, is the normal human, with 3 or 4 hit points. D&D PCs are the action heroes of the game, akin to Schwarzenegger or Bruce Lee. It's not necessarily magic, but, rather, action movie logic. Which I suppose is a kind of non-magical magic.

One obstacle that gets in the way of hit point critics enjoying them is the supposed lack of the "instakill," the stealthy strike, the single devastating blow that takes out a target. Especially if that target is a Big Bad. Look, instakills are built into the system; low-hit-point creatures can be dispatched with a sword thrust or a dagger slit. Higher hit points means any number of things prevent such "coup de grace"s and the like. The mind-dominated noble is jostled so his self-imposed dagger strike goes awry; the bound captive twists at the right moment; the executioner is distracted; the barbarian dodges aside of the battle axe that almost split his skull to the sternum. We've seen it in movies and shows countless times. The protagonists, antagonists, and certain important supporting characters, cheat death in amazing ways time after time.

The main problem I have with some anti-hit point arguments is the notion of something being narratively appropriate. Games are not novels, tv shows, or movies. Chance plays into the proceedings. 

If you want to eliminate chance, or only allow it in certain situations, then admit it, to yourself if nobody else, and go into pure collaborative storytelling. That's not me being dismissive; there are more games than ever that focus on group tale creation. Dispense with the pretense of wanting to play a game where randomness plays a role. There's nothing wrong with that. If certain actions have to succeed due to them advancing the story, then it's more a tale than a game. When it's a game that has major mechanical elements predicated on random chance, a good DM and players know how to roll with it when that "coup de grace" doesn't work. I dare say that such things actually add to the "narrative," or the game experience, as everyone has to act and react to something they couldn't count on happening. 

So I'd say it's less a matter of hit points being outdated than players and DMs who are too inflexible, or who want to simply tell a story amongst themselves.

Tolkien's Valar as D&D Pantheon

It struck me that Tolkien's Valar and Maiar, the spirits who sang Middle-earth into being, would make for a solid D&D pantheon. Here's a quick rundown of what that would be like. Some elements need embellishing, particularly the details of the Maiar that might actually encounter PCs, but this is a quick pass-through that I'll build upon.

Giants in the Earth: Baby, It's Cold Outside: Alan Dean Foster's Tran-ky-ky

The durable Alan Dean Foster has written novelizations for dozens of movies and TV shows. He's ubiquitous, especially in the scifi and fantasy genres, and if you've read a novelization of a scifi or fantasy flick or show in the past forty years, you're probably familiar with his work. Beyond those novelizations, he has his own scifi setting, the Humanx Commonwealth, a sprawling interstellar governing body put together by humans and their unexpectedly close friends and allies, the insect-like Thranx. Foster has set numerous novels in the Commonwealth, featuring an interesting variety of planets and cultures. My favorites, and the ones with which I'm most familiar, comprise the Icerigger trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers, set on the ice planet Tran-ky-ky. It's a fun series of adventures, with salesman Ethan Fortune (for quick stats, use the human Noble for Ethan newly arrived to Tran-ky-ky, or the human Knight after he has spent months among the Tran) and galactic adventurer Skua September (use the stats for the human Champion from Volo's Guide to Monsters) finding themselves stranded among the natives of Tran-ky-ky.

These natives, the Tran, resemble gray-furred bipedal great cats with wings, called dan, much like those of a flying squirrel, stretching from their wrists to their waists, and natural skates, called chiv, adapted from their three-clawed feet.

From Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, by Wayne Barlowe.

Much broader than humans and a bit taller, Tran are lighter-boned and thus not as massive as humans, proportionately speaking. In fact, Tran unfamiliar with humans will find them surprisingly strong and fast. This works in reverse, as well; humans may well be startled by being able to hold their own in fights with the hulking Tran. This isn't to downplay the ferocity of Tran, who pride themselves on their warrior abilities. In their element, they are deadly opponents.

From Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, by Wayne Barlowe. Not exactly how I pictured them, but still pretty close.

That element is brutal cold. Tran-ky-ky is well below freezing at its equator, and its poles are are cold beyond anything on Earth, including Antarctica. For the Tran, though, this is home. The great ice oceans are traversed easily by the Tran, as they race like Olympic speed skaters without effort, their dan serving to help move them at breathtaking speeds. For longer journeys, they build sail-driven ice rafts. On land, though, they are at a disadvantage, tiring quickly if they are forced to walk or climb; Tran cities have their streets ice-coated for this reason.

The Tran are a warrior culture. Their civilization is about as advanced as Earth's in the Middle Ages of Europe. Feudal city-states trade and, occasionally, war with each other, while hordes of nomadic Tran sweep across the globe, raiding and exacting tribute from settled regions.

Tran-ky-ky

Tran-ky-ky has an unusual ecosystem, with plants that grow quickly with large ice-bound root systems, such as the sausage-like and edible pika-pina and the much larger tree-sized pika-pedan that thrive on the ice, and fauna that fill many niches found in more balmy climes, including the predatory flying gattorbyn (stats as per blood hawk, with immunity to cold) and the enormous and dangerous slug-like stavanzer (stats as per purple worm, with immunity to cold). The kossief, a worm-like predator that burrows beneath the ice and ambushes those who tread upon the thin frozen crust it creates above it, uses the stats for the young remorhaz. The fauna of Tran-ky-ky are often akin to giant versions of terrestrial invertebrates. The Tran, oddly, don't seem to resemble any of the other life on the planet.

Tran Traits
Ability Score Increase Dexterity increases by 2, Constitution increases by 1
Age Tran age and live about the same as humans.
Alignment Tran are much like humans in temperament, with no inclination towards one alignment.
Size Tran are tall and broad by human standards, standing at least two meters tall. Due to being hollow-boned, however, they are light for their size, ranging from 120-150 pounds. Their size is Medium.
Speed Walking on ground is taxing for Tran, so their speed is 25 on dirt or rocky terrain. Their skating speed is 50.
Born to the Cold Tran are immune to natural cold, and resistant to magical cold. Tran don't tolerate heat well, and when the temperature climbs to above freezing they must make a DC 5 saving throw per hour or suffer a level of exhaustion.
Languages Tran can speak, read, and write their native language, as well as another dialect of Tran living near them. In a D&D setting, they speak, read, and write Common and their own language.

Giants in the Earth: The Lords of Dus by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Way back when, when the Earth was new and still cooling, one of my favorite features in Dragon Magazine was Giants in the Earth, which detailed in D&D terms various characters from fiction. I was fascinated by this idea of bringing characters I'd only had the chance to read about into a game where I - well, really, my character - could interact with them. Later, I came to see it as a way to get a clearer idea of what the classes and races of D&D were meant to model from the source material. Plus, these characters make good, ready-made non-player characters, especially with the serial numbers filed off. So I decided to try my own hand at statting up some of the characters I've read and loved over the years. If my numbers are off, let me know, and show the math. On with the show:

I was a sophomore in high school when I first ran across the tales of Garth the Overman. The Seven Altars of Dusarra was the book; I had never seen the first volume of The Lords of Dus series, The Lure of the Basilisk.

The above are covers from two different printings. I don't know how my 13-to-15-year-old self could have avoided seeing and snapping these up, if they were available on the racks at Waldenbooks or my favorite local bookstore, the late, and dearly lamented, Baluk's.

This was my introduction to Garth the Overman. While I'm a fan of Darrell K. Sweet's art, I think this cover by Michael Herring is more to my liking when it comes to depicting Garth.

I didn’t really have much in the way of resources when it came to seeking out books back then, so I read what I had and hoped to eventually find the rest. I filled some study halls by becoming immersed in Garth’s adventures – and misadventures. A couple of years later, The Sword of Bheleu would appear, the third volume of the series. I never knew about the release of the fourth and final volume, The Book of Silence, until many years later. Both are shown below, with The Sword of Bheleu's cover by Laurence Schwinger, and Darrell K. Sweet taking on cover duty again with The Book of Silence. Changing tastes in reading and, again, a lack of places to actually find such books combined to keep me from reading the complete story of Garth and his trusty warbeast, Koros.

A few years ago, I stumbled across old, used copies of the books, the covers of which are the ones shown above, and decided to dive into the past and read the entire saga.

These are good, solid, unpretentious Swords & Sorcery books. Garth’s world is one that is the worse for wear, filled with crumbling cities and fading empires. There is an emptiness to the world that is subtle, but explainable within the context of the story. In fact, there is a certain eeriness to how ramshackle and unpopulated this world is. Its ineffectual rulers leave the folk living beyond the walls of cities to fend for themselves, sometimes in strange but effective ways. Contact between settlements is so infrequent that, occasionally, entire cities and fortresses effectively cease to exist without their neighbors knowing. It all becomes unsettling to the reader as the stagnation and decay seems pervasive everywhere. Yet, nothing is overexplained, and the author allows the reader to piece together what is happening to the land.

Maps were, and are, always a big draw for me when deciding on books to buy.

Garth himself is atypical of most Swords & Sorcery heroes; he is introspective, tends to be honest with his self-evaluation, and, when possible, will swallow his pride. He also makes mistakes and bumbles through some of his adventures, ruefully chastising himself afterwards. He is, ironically, quite human in many ways. In fact, his main impetus for adventuring is both surprisingly mundane and, ultimately, identifiable: reaching middle age, he grew restless with an existence that seemed to have no overarching purpose. In other words, Garth had a midlife crisis.

Overmen are taller than humans, as well as stronger and faster. Overmen and Overwomen are virtually indistinguishable to humans, though they easily can tell the difference among themselves, especially if an Overwoman is in her breeding cycle. Their skull-like faces and staring red eyes unnerve humans, especially as their facial expressions are unreadable. The product of sorcerous experiments in creating life, Overmen were driven into wastelands centuries ago in great wars. They are relatively few in number, but dangerous when provoked. They are individualistic and chafe under overbearing rule, so their settlements, cities, and military forces look cluttered and disorganized to human eyes. Though many Overmen have a bit of a superiority complex when it comes to humans, many can and will live and trade with humans when it benefits all concerned. Overall, as alien as Overmen may appear, they are a pragmatic and reasonable people.

Overmen for D&D 5^th edition

From Lawrence Watt-Evans’s Lords of Dus series.

Ability Score Increases. Overmen are much stronger than humans, so have a +2 to Strength. Overmen also are surprisingly agile and quick, which belies their size. They gain a +2 to Dexterity.

Age. Overmen live well over two centuries, becoming mature at about the same rate as humans.

Senses. Overmen have much keener hearing than humans, and gain a +2 to Perception checks due to this.

Powerful Build. Overmen count as one size larger, Large instead of Medium, when determining their carrying capacity and the weight they can push, drag, or lift.

Beyond a few Wise Woman, Overmen are unfamiliar with magic. In fact, they may not even believe magic exists until confronted by it directly. So there are few, if any, Overmen who choose any spellcasting classes. They tend to be fighters and, occasionally, rogues.

Garth, Prince of Ordunin

Medium humanoid (human), Neutral Good

Armor Class 18 (plate)

Hit Points 110 (11d10+44)

Speed 30 ft.

STR        DEX        CON       INT         WIS        CHA

20 (+5)   15 (+2)   18 (+4)   12 (+1)   12 (+1)   12 (+1)

Saving Throws Con +9, Wis +7

Skills Athletics +9, Intimidation +5, Perception +5

Senses passive Perception 11

Languages Common

Challenge 9 (5000 XP)

Indomitable (2/day). Garth can reroll a failed saving throw.

Second Wind (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). As a bonus action, Garth can regain 20 hit points.

Actions

Multiattack. Garth makes three melee attacks when takes the Attack action.

Greatsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage, and may reroll any 1s or 2s rolled for damage, but must take the results, even if those are 1s or 2s.

Garth, when wielding the Sword of Bheleu, God of Destruction, has these changes:

Garth’s alignment becomes Chaotic Evil, as Bheleu seizes control of his body.

Armor Class 18 (plate); if Garth is unarmored for some reason, his Armor Class is 16

Hit Points 121 (11d12+44)

Speed 30 ft., 40 ft. if Garth is unarmored for some reason.

Rage Garth can rage 4 times before having to take a Long Rest, after which he can rage again. Rages last one minute, during which Garth has advantage on Strength checks and saves and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. He also gains a bonus to attack damage as reflected in the stats show below. If he drops to 0 hit points but doesn’t die outright, he can make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. If he succeeds, he drops to 1 hit point instead. Each time he does this after the first, the save DC increases by 5. It resets to 10 after a long rest.

Reckless Attack Garth may choose to attack recklessly. On his turn, he gains advantage on attacks using Strength, but attackers gain advantage on attacks against him until his next turn.

Danger Sense Despite his own judgment being clouded or outright overridden by those of Bheleu, the god’s senses allow Garth to be keenly aware of potential danger from traps and spells; he gains advantage on saves against them.

Feral Instinct Garth has advantage on initiative rolls. If he is surprised at the beginning of combat and not incapacitated, he can act normally on his first turn.

Brutal Critical If Garth makes a critical hit, he may roll an additional weapon damage die to add to the total.

Actions

Multiattack Garth makes two attacks when he takes the Attack action.

Sword of Bheleu Melee Weapon Attack +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d6+3+5) slashing damage + 12 (2d6) fire damage.

Flames of Ruin Garth, channeling the power of Bheleu via the Sword, may use the Fire Bolt cantrip at will, which jets forth from the end of the blade, if he chooses to do so rather than wield the blade directly. This causes 18 (3d10) damage per bolt. Garth may also choose to cast a Flame Strike for 16 (4d6 fire) + 16 (4d6 radiant) damage, half damage if a DC 12 save is made. This costs Garth a level of exhaustion.Garth may channel a Fire Storm through the Sword of Bheleu for 42 (7d10) fire damage per creature in the target area, half damage if a DC 12 save is made. This costs Garth two levels of exhaustion.

Wrathful Storm Garth may Call Lightning via the Sword of Bheleu once per long rest. Each creature within range takes 18 (3d6) lightning damage, half if a DC 12 save is made.

 

Warbeasts

One of the great assets of the Overman civilization, at least those of Ordunin in the Northern Waste, is their possession of warbeasts. These are genderless, magically-bred creatures that appear to be enormous great cats with black hides and golden eyes. Their legs are disproportionately long, betraying some of the hybridization of various animals during their creation. They run with tremendous speed, yet when walking, their wide, padded paws give them a smooth gait that is unhindered by rough terrain. They can subsist on prey roughly the size of a goat for three days, but beyond that time they can become hungry. A week of not being fed will make the best-trained warbeast dangerous even to its owner. Overmen, as a culture, hold no sentimental attachments to animals, including their warbeasts, though they do take good care of them as valuable possessions. Garth is unusual in having named, or allowing to be named by a human female he rescued, his warbeast; appropriately, it is named for the war god Koros, the son of Bheleu, the god of destruction. Warbeasts use the stats for Saber-Tooth Tigers, with a speed of 60 ft.

Sword of Bheleu

Sword, artifact, (requires attunement)

This huge greatsword is beautifully made. In its pommel is a large red jewel that glows when the god Bheleu is exerting his power through it. It is the token of the god of destruction, through which he furthers his agenda upon the world.

The Sword of Bheleu is a magic, sentient greatsword that grants +3 to attack and damage rolls made with it, and acts as a flametongue. It can only be wielded by the avatar or agent of Bheleu; any others who dare to even touch it are burned. The sword flares with flame when anyone besides its chosen agent attempts to touch or wield it, its heat increasing in proportion to the seriousness of the attempt to wield it. Those who merely try to touch it with a single finger receive a mild burn; any who attempt to grasp its hilt are severely burned for 2d10 damage and must make a Constitution save with a DC of 15 or drop the sword immediately; even if successful, the potential wielder still takes half damage. Even if the sword remains held, the damage is dealt again the next round until the prospective wielder drops it or is dead.

Sentience. The Sword of Bheleu is not sentient itself, per se, but as a token of its god it is effectively Chaotic Evil, with an Intelligence of 15, a Wisdom of 9, and a Charisma of 20. Bheleu is eager to destroy anything and everything, and will be constantly trying to seize control of his avatar’s physical form by a contest of wills.

Rage of Destruction. Once the Sword of Bheleu gains control of its wielder, the wielder flies into a rage, temporarily becoming a Path of the Berserker Barbarian of the same level as their normal class. All class features of the normal class other than hit points and proficiencies are temporarily lost as Bheleu’s destructive spirit overwhelms the wielder’s personality. The one difference is that the wielder of the Sword of Bheleu may wear heavy armor and still gain the benefits of the rage.

Flames of Ruin. The wielder of the Sword of Bheleu can use the Fire Bolt cantrip at will, though using the blade itself is usually foremost in the mind of the wielder. The wielder may also use Flame Strike at the cost of one level of exhaustion, or Fire Storm, which costs two levels of exhaustion.

Wrathful Storm. The wielder of the Sword of Bheleu may use Call Lightning once per long rest.

Bheleu’s Boon. The wielder of the Sword of Bheleu will have all damage and exhaustion removed during a long rest. The god of destruction wants to keep his chosen representative alive until the Age of Destruction has ended.