LogFAQs > #965023237

shadowsword87 posted...

The weirdness is that damage is tied to HP loss.
If you're at 20/20 HP, and you level up and get +5 hp, you're walking into the game with 20/25 HP. That implies you're hurt in some way.

Which gets into the problems HP has as as concept overall. Where you are generally completely fine and not really impaired in any meaningful way as you are constantly being shot, stabbed, or set on fire - but then you essentially stub your toe and die as you lose your last hit point.

Even games that include some form of physical penalty to characters with low HP (like Fallout using limb damage and applying drawbacks for crippled status) rarely do it realistically or gradually - it's an all-or-nothing thing. Which isn't really how any of this works in real life.

HP is so stupid as a concept that some games like D&D have started leaning into the idea that it isn't actually health as much as stamina - so it's less that you're walking around with massive flesh wounds and slowly bleeding out and more just you're exerting yourself so badly that you're using up your metabolic life energy. Though that still doesn't explain why you can potentially die from "passing out" when you hit 0 HP. And it still doesn't really justify why someone with 1/100 HP is still just as physically capable and energetic as someone with 100/100 HP, but losing that final HP is what instantly knocks you out/kills you.

The real answer, of course, is that these are all just game abstractions.