Hitpoints Vs Defense Power

[izenger]

In RPG or any game with character stats, i always get this dilemma whether to choose to raise Hitpoints (health) or defense (armor, resistance,etc)

As they're both affect durability in rather exact way, while evasion only works in probability and there's not many game that encourage you to raise dodge rate well

Of course, the ideal choice is increase both of them if you aim to make "tank" character. But i like to discuss what do you prefer between those two here.

Here's some example:

1) In Dark Messiah Might and Magic, i don't think increasing health is appealing because how the healing items work which only heal in fixed amount (not related to maximum hitpoints) although there's full-health potion but it's fairly rare. Thus increasing health only to serve as increase your health tank although perk that increase health is required to equip armor with big defense power/armor value.

2) In Torchlight II, there's various type of defense/armor: physic, fire, ice, poison, and lightning. Because it's relatively complex, you can't go wrong by raising maximum hitpoints

3) In Koudelka, stats that governs maximum health and physical defense is in one: vitality. Meanwhile Piety governs defense power against magic but also make the character resists more effect of healing magic. Thus Vitality is advisable to raise.

Any feedback or other example? Let me know

[retr0gamer]

Since SMT3, Agility in that series is the most important stat to buff or raise. If the enemy misses attacks they not only do no damage but also miss out on another potential attack. It's a twofer.

I kind of prefer hit points myself as you see bigger numbers but do recognise how good defense is when an enemy is attack and barely making a dent. I think in some games critical hits ignore defense stats.

[toei]

Dec 16, 2020 4:46:56 GMT -5 retr0gamer said:

Since SMT3, Agility in that series is the most important stat to buff or raise. If the enemy misses attacks they not only do no damage but also miss out on another potential attack. It's a twofer.

I kind of prefer hit points myself as you see bigger numbers but do recognise how good defense is when an enemy is attack and barely making a dent. I think in some games critical hits ignore defense stats.

That's how it is in Dragon Quest (that's why criticals are the best way to kill Metal Slimes), and that made it pretty standard in old-school Japanese RPGs.

There are also special moves or spells that ignore defense and do a set amount of damage in various RPGs, or games where Defense and Magic Defense are separate stats and Magic Defense is often hard to raise (might not be affected by most regular equipment found in shops). I know I've been in situations where raising my characters' Max HP specifically was necessary to getting past a certain part. 

When it's not the case, it comes down a basic calculation. If you have 50 Defense and 10,000HP, and you have a choice between increasing your defense by 1 or you HP by 5, Defense is definitely better.

[ommadawnyawn2]

I tend to go with HP if it is or seems like a game where armor might have more situational bonuses. Same with general attack power over something like +elemental damage or +x damage vs certain enemy types.

It's different if elemental attacks or spells also have some other property, like fire making you run around uncontrollably and set things on fire, ice slowing you down or making you slip, etc. 

[kaoru]

Ah the good old times of ppl trying to cheat the system in FFII by hitting themselves on the head to get high HP values. And then the end game brings outs enemies that do % of Max HP damage and not having gotten good evasion to dodge any hits means the characters die in three attacks anyways xD

To be honest with games that do let me allocate points myself I tend to just research online what's good and what's a waste.

[dsparil]

I tend to just look it up too especially once skills get involved and it isn't clear what useful or not. PnP conversions that throw literally everything in even if it never has a single use in the game basically requiring knowing that beforehand.

I greatly prefer when defense is directly used e.g. damage - defense, instead of being part of some arcane calculation like in Pokémon for example. That being said, I'm inclined to value higher defense over higher HP unless it's a very big gain.

[toei]

Dec 16, 2020 8:14:21 GMT -5 kaoru said:

To be honest with games that do let me allocate points myself I tend to just research online what's good and what's a waste.

I find that a lot of times people stress out over those things pointlessly, because if you just try to be balanced early on and adjust as you go you'll usually be fine. If you're paying attention, you'll probably figure out by yourself when someone is really lacking in an area, etc.

[magic89]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNKsJgXw2Uo How works on Morrowind

[🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀]

Late response, but I've always found it annoying how much overlap there is between HP and Defence in RPGs. It really depends on the RPG how it's done exactly, but usually it's far from elegant.

I like how it's done in the first two Paper Marios. In those games, the defense value simply is how many hit points an enemy can absorb in a single hit, and the games use low values for damage outputs. So if an enemy has a defence of 2 and your attack does 4, it'll do 4-2=2 damage. It's simple to understand and easy to strategize around.

But in the average RPG the main difference is healing items/spells being dependent on HP and Defense being upgradable with armor, with HP barely being influenced by the player. Most of the time I don't think you have to pay too much attention to it.

[dr_st]

I haven't really played any RPGs where these things can get ridiculously complex, but even in simpler games, differences can be apparent, and change the balance.

In Heroes of Might and Magic series defense skill and hitpoints affect the durability of the creature in roughly equivalent manner, but then you have some direct damage spells that ignore defense skill completely, and on the other hand you have spells/creatures that reduce the defense skill of the opponent, temporarily or permanently.

In StarCraft, there are different armor types and different types of damage, so specific creatures can be more resilient to specific attackers and less to others.

[dsparil]

I meant to post this before, but this is the damage calculation for Pokémon.



It's a little absurd how complicated it is! Even simplifying to Level 100 and an attack power of 100 still gives you a core of 84 x (Attack / Defense) + 2. Because of that inverse relationship, adding Def versus HP is such a complicated question and why I don't battle online.