D&D Combat Rules: Hit Points

What are Hit Points?

Hit points means Health. Hit points are how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

Say you are playing a game of D&D and your Player Character (PC) has 23 hit points, this means your PC can take 23 points of damage in total. If an enemy successfully lands an attack on your PC and does a total of 6 damage you would then subtract that damage from your “Max Hit Points” of 23 to work out your “Temporary Hit Points” of 17. It is possible to restore /heal you hit points back up to your hit point maximum through certain spells or items. The next take damage they would need to subtract the damage from their temporary hit points.

Oh No, I’ve Dropped To 0 Hit Points!

When your player character is reduced to 0 hit points depending on certain factors that PC is either INSTANTLY DEAD or just Unconscious.

Am I Dead Or Not!?

If the remaining damage of the attack, that reduced you to 0 hit points, is higher than the PC’s hit point maximum that PC is instantly killed, however, if the damage left over is less than the hit point maximum then you are simply knocked “Unconscious”.

Death Saving Throws.

When your PC is knocked unconscious they still have a chance of dying. On each of the PC’s turns after they were knocked unconscious, they must make a death saving throw by rolling a 20 sided dice. If the number rolled is a 10 or above they succeed on the roll, a roll of 9 or below results in a fail. ( If they roll a 1 it is counted as 2 fails and if they roll a 20 it is counted as 2 successes) If a PC gets a total of 3 fails or 3 successes they either die or become “Stable” respectively. Being Stable means that a PC is saved from death, whilst still remaining unconscious, once stable a PC does not need to make any further death saving throws.