Hit Points & Chivalric Romance
So one of the bits of D&Discourse I find popping up perennially is the “hit points are unrealistic” thing. Or, at the least, that they shouldn’t represent actual wounds, but instead more of a fatigue/morale abstraction. Combat actually consists of each participant taking repeated sword blows to their body, while they shrug it off & keep fighting, only to then recover with simple rest or a healing potion? Nonsense. Ridiculous.
But if you read old chivalric romance — Chretien, Malory, the undiagnosed author who wrote Perlesvaus — that’s absolutely how knights carry on. Regularly you get descriptions of combat that involve Sir Protagonist and Sir Encounter d’Random fighting ankle-deep in their own blood for like an entire afternoon. Then they go rest in a hermitage until they’re better or — more often than you’d expect — are healed on the spot with Unspecified Ointment. Which is still ridiculous, but it’s ridiculous with a literary pedigree now.
The ointment is usually depicted as rarer than your D&D-style ten-for-a-platinum healing potion, but it’s there. The healing through rest isn’t as handwave-y: it’s usually weeks, not overnight, and the text generally does imply that the hermit or whoever is treating their wounds, not just letting them crash in a spare bed. (Though the fact that it’s often a hermit also gives credence to the “clerical healing” thing.) And there are instances of an injured knight later succumbing to his wounds despite the rest, so you know. It’s not quite as abstracted as D&D healing, but the bones are very familiar.
Which leads me to my proposal for a fantasy TTRPG mechanic: hit points are real, but only if you’re a knight. Along with the title & the fief & the obligation of fealty, you also get a new box on your character sheet that makes combat work differently for you now.
