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{{quote|'''[[Ninja|Karashi]]:''' Had enough?<br />
'''[[Big Bad|Khrima]]:''' You know very well that by the definition of hit points that I haven't yet [[Critical Existence Failure|had enough.]]|''[[Adventurers
One of the most common tropes in the world of video games is the use of [[Hit Points]].
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This trope can be directly traced from the original ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', right down to the name. Since then, it's been used in genres as diverse as [[First-Person Shooter]], [[Role Playing Game]], and [[Real Time Strategy]], and is nigh-universal for each, due to its usefulness for programmers (the alternative is the [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]). On some occasions, the number itself is hidden and only a [[Life Meter]] is shown to represent damage. [[Survival Horror]] games favor foregoing even that, and simply displaying one of three to four colors in the status screen to indicate well-being.
In [[First-Person Shooter|First Person Shooters]], this number is often ''exactly'' 100, and is taken to be a percentage of the player's normal uninjured health, with "mega health"-type items that cause your health to go above 100 often resulting in your health slowly ticking back down to 100. Ever since ''[[
In [[Role Playing Game|Role Playing Games]] with levels, you usually get a higher maximum number of Hit Points with each [[Character Level]].
[[Call a Hit Point
They're often displayed in a [[Life Meter]]. Try not to let them decrease too much or pretty soon, your eyes and/or ears will become [[Sarcasm Mode|graced]] by the presence of [[Critical Annoyance]].
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** Pain pills will give survivors a temporary health boost and it wears down over time. When someone is down, their health for being down starts at 300 points and drains by 3 points per second and more if attacked. Survivors die if the incap health reaches zero.
** Special infected have their own amounts of health as well but they can only be actually seen when playing as them in VS mode.
* ''[[
== MMORPGs ==
* In ''[[Mabinogi (
== [[Platform Game]] ==
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' is something that manages to fall into the gap between the two health systems: a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]] without rings, invulnerable to most things with them. Rings are usually plentiful, and you even get a chance to grab some back if you get hit.
** In ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', the ring counter functions more like a typical life bar: You lose 10 rings instead of all of them when struck.
** In ''[[
<!-- %% I think that certain number may be 20, but I can't remember. Also, I think that considerable percentage ranges from 75%-99%. What's the exact formula for determining how many rings are lost? Can someone check? -->
== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==
* In the ''[[UFO
== [[Roguelike]] ==
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* ''Fudge'', a tabletop game/ game toolkit has a default mechanic called a wound track, which keeps track of individual wounds, albeit with a roll-over for wounds to go up a level in severity. The non-linear wounding system, presented in the 10th anniversary edition also keeps track of individual wounds, where there is no rollover, and is intended for grittier games. The only time hit points are even mentioned is when dealing with vehicles.
* Instead of HP, the ''True20'' roleplaying system makes you roll a saving throw any time you are injured to determine what happens to you. Multiple injuries make the difficulty rating higher, but there's always a chance of surviving any injury.
* The ''[[
* Games using White Wolf's Storyteller or Storytelling systems (and variants thereof), such as the [[Old World of Darkness
* In games using the D6 system, such as ''Star Wars'', you typically have one health level. Damage that exceeds your damage resistance roll either makes you stunned (at penalties for one round), wounded (at penalties for a long time), incapacitated (staying down), mortally wounded (down for 12 rounds if you're lucky, then dead) or dead. Some add "wounded twice" wherein you have massive penalties and fall over.
* In the short-lived TSR RPG ''Alternity'', players kept track of four separate degrees of HP - fatigue, stun, wound and mortal. Stun represented bruises and pulled muscles, wound broken bones and deep cuts, and mortal grievous bodily harm. Fatigue was a measure of exactly what it says on the tin. Losing half of your stun or wound caused the player to take a penalty on all actions, and any point of mortal or fatigue loss gave the player a penalty. All these penalties stacked, meaning that characters could get to the point where, having taken enough damage and fought for a long enough time, they wouldn't even be able to stand.
* ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' throws out [[Hit Points]] and replaces them with a Toughness save. Success means the character shrugged off the attack/rolled with the punch/whatever fits the situation, while failure could result in anything from a bruise to a one-hit KO, depending on the margin.
* Melee combat simulation RPG ''The Riddle Of Steel'' has "bleeding", which depletes hit points over time, is caused by minor injury and can cause eventual loss of consciousness (and rapidly thereafter, life), but a solid hit from a weapon will more than likely end the fight in one fell blow. The resulting combat system is extremely high fidelity in terms of simulating melee fights, but a little clunky and slow once more than two people are duking it out.
* [[Hero System]] has a variation--there is "body" and "stun"; stun recovers fast and body recovers slowly and represents real damage. Body points also don't scale to ridiculous values as your character "gains levels"; they're supposed to represent actual physical toughness, period, not the abstract "magical protections and evasive skill that slowly get eroded away" that D&D hit points represent. A more powerful version of [[Spider
* ''[[
* Palladium, including [[Rifts]] and PFRPG, also keep separate track of lethal and non-lethal wounds. [[Hit Points]] represent actual injury, while S.D.C. (Structural Damage Capacity) represents the wind that can be knocked out of a football player without causing permanent damage. Most attacks go through your S.D.C. and only get to your Hit Points once those are depleted, and [[Body Armor
* [[Prose Descriptive Qualities|PDQ]] games have your skills and abilities ''as'' your hit points. Your abilities (called Qualities or Fortes, depending on the game) are ranked, and points of damage translate into penalties on those ranks - one point of damage means decreasing one Quality by one rank. It's up to the player which Qualities get penalized at the time, so in a fight you can decide your combat Qualities are the last to go - or the first, if you really want to throw the fight. Later games in the system added Story Hooks - whichever Quality took the first point of damage in a fight is also used to suggest plot elements of the next adventure (and allows players to vote for the kinds of adventures they want to see). This has lead to at least one description of ''Truth & Justice'' (the superhero PDQ game) as "a game where you can punch Spider-Man in the Girlfriend" and that's why Mary Jane is always in trouble.
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