Hitpoints

[Jagger2002]

Reading the manual, hitpoints are clearly important but I am confused about exactly what they are. They are apparently modifiable and I think the higher the better. My general impression is that hitpoints basically determine defensive strength vs attacks???? Higher the hitpoints, less chance of being hurt??? So wondering exactly what they are.

[springel]

The name is a bit weird, because usually hitpoints are lost with damage and when they are all gone, the unit/character is destroyed, but here they are a defence number of an element that is compared to an attack number, and when the attack succeeds the whole element is retreated or killed without losing individual hitpoints. It doesn't correspond to any other use of 'hitpoint' in any other game system as far as I know. Logically it could be called defence number, and then we would have symmetry of attack number on attack or defence and defence number on defence or attack

[Jagger2002]

Ok that makes sense. For English, probably defense value would describe its function better.