Hit point

Hit points, also known as health points (or HP), damage points, or just health (among other synonyms), is a finite value used to determine how much damage (usually in terms of physical injury) a character can withstand. When a character is attacked, or is hurt from a hazard or fall, the total damage dealt (which is also represented by a point value) is subtracted from their current HP. Once their HP reaches 0, the character will fall unconscious and be unable to fight. In DDO, health is often abbreviated by two letter initialisms such as HP.

Unconscious

In DDO, player characters and hirelings do not die until they reach -10 hit points or lower. Getting reduced to anywhere from 0 to -9 renders you merely unconscious and dying. If you are dying, you lose 1 hp every ten seconds from blood loss until either you die or you stabilize, in one of three ways:

• Another character can heal you or grant you temporary hit points with any usual spell, item, or ability. Incapacitated Warforged characters can also be rescued with magical repair. This healing has to offset your negative hit points first. Once you rise to 1 hp or greater, you become conscious again (and stop bleeding).
• Another character can attempt to use the Heal skill on you. This uses up a healing kit. On a successful skill check, this immediately makes you conscious again and sets your hp to 1. Failure only uses up the kit. Warforged characters must be rescued with repair kits and the Repair skill instead.
• There is a 10% chance every time you would bleed that you become stable on your own. You must make a die roll of 10 or LOWER. You don't recover instantly, however. There is a brief delay, and then you become conscious with 20% of your maximum hitpoints. You cannot take any actions, nor do nearby monsters consider you a target, until you move, which will trigger a standing-up animation lasting about one second. Warforged characters and characters with the Diehard feat stabilize automatically, but they still have this delay. A proc from an item with regeneration will also trigger a stabilization.

Incapacitated characters are still vulnerable to attacks and to damage, and are additionally considered Helpless, meaning they will take extra damage from all attacks. They can easily die from getting caught in area attacks or from enemies that deliberately keep attacking them once they're down. (Most monsters will leave a character unconscious the first time they are incapacitated; however, if a character is incapacitated while being attacked by one or more monsters that have seen them recovering from the condition, the monsters attacking them will continue until they are dead.)

An unconscious character cannot move or take any actions (except few rare effects, for example Siberys Spirit Cakes). They can and should block (hold left shift).^{[Unverified"They can and should block (hold left shift)." has not been verified in-game. Please verify it!]}

Undead characters (Pale Master enhancements) no longer die at 0 hp; they benefit from the same unconsciousness range as living characters.

Extending unconsciousness range

Several effects increase how far into negative HP can you go before dying. You can check your unconsciousness range on the Details tab of your character sheet (section General Combat).

• Bath House: up to +15
• Die Harder: up to +15, Barbarian enhancement
• Don't Count Me Out: +5/10/20, Human or Purple Dragon Knight enhancements
• Eternal Defender: +250
• Genius Never Dies!: +1000, Alchemist enhancement
• Holding On: +40 enhancement bonus
• Legendary Green Steel items
• Steel's Eternal Flask of Super Bold Blend Coffee: +100 festive bonus
• Undying Beacon: Allies affected by your Beacons gain Unconsciousness Range equal to 10x your Favored Soul level.
• Undying Sapphire: +65 / +225 enhancement bonus
• Weighty Asset: +100 enhancement bonus (available on Stone Shoes / Legendary)

Pets only:

• Don't Count Me Out!: +400 enhancement bonus

See also:

• Diehard feat: automatically stabilize when you become unconscious
• Divine Intervention enhancement: When a warded ally is incapacitated, this effect heals the target after a few seconds for 10 to 39 hit points and then fade

U18: Incapacitation has changed for characters who stabilize. Once a character stabilizes, a twenty-second timer begins. If a character is still incapacitated when the timer runs out, the character will get up with twenty percent of the character's maximum hit points returned.

Increasing Hit Points

Hit points increase by themselves when you level up. That increase is not equal for everyone and depends on many factors. However, everyone benefits from the bonus 30 HP from the free Heroic Durability feat received at creation. Also +15 HP from Improved Heroic Durability.

Class

Your Class bonus to HP (marked as "Base" on your Character Sheet) is calculated based on the class you have taken each level in.

Melees:

• Barbarian: 12 hit points per level
• Fighter: 10 hit points per level
• Paladin: 10 hit points per level
• Monk: 8 hit points per level

Casters:

• Cleric: 8 hit points per level
• Druid: 8 hit points per level
• Favored Soul: 8 hit points per level
• Sorcerer: 6 hit points per level
• Wizard: 6 hit points per level
• Warlock: 6 hit points per level
• Alchemist: 6 hit points per level

Specialists:

• Artificer: 8 hit points per level
• Bard: 8 hit points per level
• Ranger: 10 hit points per level
• Rogue: 8 hit points per level

Epic levels: 10 hit points per level

Constitution

Your Constitution bonus to HP is calculated by multiplying your character level with your constitution modifier. This is not a static value; it's continuously recalculated as your constitution modifier changes because of buffs or debuffs. A negative constitution mod (resulting from a constitution below 10) grants a HP bonus of 0.

At level 30, your Con bonus to HP is 30 HP (1 per level) per 2 constitution over 10 constitution (your constitution modifier). As an example, 22 con at level 30 grants 6 × 30 HP for a total of 180 HP: ((22 − 10)/2) × 30.

Feats

• Toughness increases your hit points by +3 at first level, and 1 additional hit point for each additional level for a total of 32 hit points at level 30. This feat can be taken multiple times, and the bonuses stack.
• Epic Toughness feat adds 50 hit points. It requires a Constitution score of 21 and the Toughness feat.
• Scion of Celestia legendary feat adds 150 HP.
• Primal EPL: +3 maximum HP and +4 per ten character levels.
• Past Life: Barbarian: +10, stacks 3 times

Enhancements

• Racial:
  • Bladeforged can get up to +20 HP from their Construct Toughness enhancement line.
  • Dwarves can get up to +30 HP from their Dwarven Toughness core enhancements, and Child of the Mountain can add up to 5% to their Maximum Health.
  • Half elves with Barbarian Dilettante can get up to +15 HP from their Improved Dilettante line.
  • Warforged can get up to +40 HP from their Construct Toughness enhancement line.
• Barbarian:
  • Ravagers can get up +340 HP total from their core enhancements Demoralizing Success, Pain Touch and Subsiding Fury and their capstone; Visage of Terror
  • Occult Slayers can get up to +350 HP total from their core enhancements Resistance, Elemental defense, Blank Thoughts and Force Ward, and their capstone Mind over magic
    • Occult Slayers can gain up to +30 additional HP and 12 Magic Resistance from their enhancement One Spirit.
  • Frenzied Berserkers can get up to +80 HP from their Frenzied Toughness core enhencements.
• Bard:
  • Warchanters can get up to +30 HP from their Fighting Spirit and Warmaster core enhancements.
• Cleric and Favored Soul:
  • Warpriests can get up to +15 HP from their Toughness enhancement.
• Druid:
  • Nature's Warriors gain +8 HP from the first core ability in this tree.
  • Nature's Protector gain +8 HP from the first core ability in this tree, and +16 HP for each additional core ability taken.
    • In addition, they can get up to +25% Maximum HP while in Bear Form AND wearing Medium/Heavy Armor or Shield in Nature's Defense stance with their Ursa's Protector enhancement.
• Fighter:
  • Kenseis can get up to +15 HP if they choose Conditioning as their Ascetic Training enhancement.
  • Stalwart Defenders gain +1 HP per Action Point spend on this tree.
    • In addition, they can get up to +25% Maximum HP while wearing Medium/Heavy Armor or Shield when under Stalwart Defense with their Tenacious Defense enhancement.

• Monk:
  • Henshin Mystics can get up to +20 HP if they choose the Way of the Patient Tortoise as their Animal Forms enhancement.
  • Shintao monks can get up to +15 HP from their Conditioning enhancement.
    • In addition, they also can get a +10% Quality bonus to Maximum Hit Points if they train their Meditation of War enhancement, and are on Earth Stance.
• Paladin:
  • Sacred Defenders gain +1 HP per Action Point spend on this tree.
    • In addition, they can get up to +25% Maximum HP while wearing Medium/Heavy Armor or Shield when under Sacred Defense with their Tenacious Defense enhancement.
• Ranger:
  • Deepwood Stalkers can get up to +60 HP from their Survivalist enhancements.
• Wizard:
  • Pale Masters can get up to +30 HP from their Deathless Vigor enhancement.

Reaper enhancements

Reaper enhancements greatly increase your hit points. Most apply on Reaper difficulty only, but some apply universally:

• Grim Barricade second core: +20 HP
• Grim Barricade fourth core: +100 HP

Other bonuses

• Characters can get +10 hp from Draconic Vitality, received by achieving 150 Agents of Argonnessen favor.
• There are also other favor feats, that grants +5 HP each.
• Characters can wear gear with properties from the False Life line of enchantments, for between 5 and 68 HP. Also there is Quality and Insight type of this kind of bonus, which is of course which accumulates with other bonuses that increase number of maximum HP.
• The Vitality item enchantment grants +20 to +70 more hp that stacks with all other bonuses.
• Green Steel accessories can give +10/15/20 hp for a total of +45 hp across the three tiers (Elemental Energy). Greater Elemental Energy (+20 hp) can also be found on the Alchemist's Pendant and certain sets of Dragontouched Armor (with a Sovereign Rune of Health added).
• Legendary Green Steel Items can be given +28/+28/+14 hp for a total of +70 hp across the three tiers.
• Guild bonus to maximum hit points is available on one of the Guild Airships' buffs. The same bonus was available on the guild augment Crystal of Health (used to grant +5/10/15/20 hp, depending on size). However, gear with Guild Augment Slots no longer drops as of U17.

Note that items that increase your hit points directly (as opposed to increasing your Constitution) don't automatically give them to you; they merely increase the maximum possible. There will still be a hole left until you get some healing to top it off. These same items will also take the extra hp "off the top" if removed. Changes to your Constitution will indirectly, and immediately, increase (or decrease) your hp. In other words, a level 20 character with 480 hp who equips a Toughness item will be at 480/500 hp, while the same character who increases his Constitution by 2 points will be at 500/500 hp. Later, the same character removing the items while at 480/500 hp will then be at 480/480 after removing the Toughness item, or 460/480 after reducing his Constitution.

Multiplier bonuses to maximum hp

Competence bonus

Alchemist

• Chemical Weapon: +15%

Artificer

• Reconstructed Armaments: +20%
• Mastermaker: +20%

Barbarian

• Healing or Hurt: +25%
• Rune Carved Armor: +25%
• Uncanny Balance: +25%

Bard

• Howl of the North: +20%
• Second Skin: +20%

Cleric

• Divine Bastion: +20%

Druid

• Ursa's Protector: +25%

Fighter

• Weapon Master: +25%
• Stalwart Stance: +25%
• Brutal Impact: +25%

Favored Soul

• Divine Champion: +20%

Monk

• Self Defense: +25%
• Self Defense: +25%
• Empty Hand Mastery: +25%

Paladin

• Vigor of Life: +25%
• Sacred Stance: +25%
• Brutal Impact: +25%
• Divine Striker: +25%

Ranger

• Dual Perfection: +25%

Rogue

• Light Armor Mastery: +25%
• Staff Specialist: +25%

Sorcerer

• Improved Knight's Transformation: +15%

Wizard

• Improved Knight's Transformation: +15%

Warlock

• Ultimate Enlightenment or Ultimate Fiendish Form: +20%

Universal enhancements

• Whirling Blades: +25%
• Dangerous: +25%

Feats

• Improved Natural Fighting: +20% Wolf form only

Insight bonus

• Machrotechnic T5: +10% or +20% with Rune Arm, requires Forcefield Generator mantle
• US Strength of Vitality: +10% or +20% with Mantle of the Sentinel
• Primal Avatar T4: Nature's Blessing: When you rest provides you and nearby party members Nature's Blessing: +5% insight bonus to Maximum Hit Points.

Primal bonus

• Lore of the Wilds: 1% per 2 Wilderness Lore feats
• Howl of Winter: +5%

Profane bonus

• Ascendant Shroud: 10% in Zombie form
• Blighted Wolf: 10% in Blighted Wolf form

Quality bonus

• Bladeforged: +5%
• Bond of Destruction: +10%
• Stand Fast: +10%
• Child of the Mountain: +5%
• Conditioning: +5%
• Meditation of War: +10% in earth stance
• Paragon Body: +10%
• Shifter's Threatening Shift: +5%
• US Deific Resilience: 5%

Sacred bonus

• Ascendant Bond: Protector: +5%
• Glorious Stand: +10%
• War Caster: Blur: +10%

Legendary bonuses

• Conditioning item enchantment
• Various set bonuses, including LGS Opposition set (up to +27%), Eminence of Winter (+10%), Armaments of the Archons (5% / 10%), Set Augment: Legendary Bulwark (10%)

Temporary Hit Points

Some effects award a character additional, special hp called temporary hit points. Any damage the character suffers that would normally affect his real hp applies to his temporary hp first. As their name implies, they don't last forever—only until they're used up or the buff that granted them wears off. Temporary hp appear as a number with a "+" sign, in parentheses, after the character's real hp count on top of his red hp bar. This temporary HP barrier can be considered an "innermost" defensive layer as inbound attacks still get reduced by all damage reduction you have first (PRR, MRR, Energy Resistance/Absorption, the Stoneskin spell, etc) before you start losing temporary HP. This is in sharp contrast to something like Protection from Elements, a pseudo-temporary HP barrier against several energy types which takes damage before most damage reductions have taken effect.

Bonuses and penalties that affect healing amounts do not affect temporary hit point gains.

Some common effects that cause temporary hit points:

• Aid/Mass Aid: +9-18 hp for Aid, +9-23 hp for Mass Aid, depending on the caster level, for 1 minute per caster level.
• Blood Tribute: up to +50/+100/+150 plus 25 per epic level for one minute, has stacking -1 CON debuff until you rest or die
• Rage: Barbarian ability
• Brilliance: AoE temporary HP equal to Warlock's Con score (twice as much for epic characters), permanent while Aura-form Eldritch Blast is active.
• False Life spell - +13-20 hp for 1 minute per caster level. Note that this stacks with the more permanent False Life item enchantment.
• Feigned Health: equal to 33/66/100% of caster's Charisma score for 3 minutes.
• Flight of Glory: Leap of Faith grants 50 + 3 times character level to caster and nearby allies
• Greater Heroism: +11-20 hp, depending on the caster level, for 1 minute per caster level.
• Inspire Greatness song: +20 hp.
• Jaws of Ice: 10 times your character level for 30 seconds.
• Palliative Admixture: +20 hp, +10 sp for one minute.
• Rejuvenation Cocoon: up to 150 hp for 9 seconds
• Shining Through: 8x your Constitution Score for 10 minutes.
• Soothing Poultices: equal to 33/66/100% of caster's Intelligence score for 3 minutes.
• Stanch: equal to 50% of your maximum HP for 1 minute, but then adds a -3% maximum HP stacking debuff until you rest or die.
• Undying Vanguard: +10,000 hp for 20 seconds
• Vampiric Bond: +20 on hit, 6 seconds cooldown
• Winter's Heart: 8x Wisdom modifier for 30 seconds.

Items:

• Bodyfeeder: +15 hp for one minute.
• Demonic Shield: +30 hp, not removed on rest/quest entrance.
• Concordant Opposition +30 hp.
• Legendary Affirmation: 1,000 hp for one minute
• Lifedrinker: +25 hp for one minute.
• Life Shield: +15 hp for one minute.
• Soul Eating: +35 hp for one minute

Restoring Hit Points

• Use Cure/Repair Potions
• Use Cure/Repair Wands
• Use Heal/Reconstruct Spells/Scrolls
• Be inside an Exalted Angel Destiny Mantle healing aura
• Use Hirelings
• Rest at a Shrine
• Complete a quest
• Use guild airship amenity bar equipped with Banquet Hall amenity.
• Eat food items at a barkeeper in an indoor or outdoor tavern.

External links

• Wikipedia article on hit points, including references to Dungeons & Dragons