>>26545477Well for starters they are not a representation of damage taken, I keep saying that. Hit points, being an abstraction, are hard to define, because they are abstract. I can try to give you an example, however.
Imagine you are a fresh-out-of-training swordsman, you have new clean armor and a sword that is maybe a little heavy. You get into your first combat. Your opponent swings at you. You tuck your shoulder and let it glance off your armor, it doesn't actually hurt you but you are worn out from it. You take 5 damage from this. You recognize that if you take another swing like that, you might not have the strength to block properly and deflect that attack, you have a maximum hp total of 10. You swing at him, critical hit. Your sword finds the narrowest of spaces between his shoulderplate and helm and his head falls off.
Now later, you are a seasoned warrior. An opponent challenges you. Their axe comes sideways towards your shoulder. You've seen this attack before, you remember it from your first opponent, you gained experience from that fight and are better equipped to handle this one. This is represented by having 50 hit points. The attack deflects off easily. You feel as though you could shrug off these beginner tactics all day. You perform a maneuver that took you years to learn, and to represent that it deals more hit point damage. The rookie attacking you doesn't know how to handle that, as another seasoned warrior might. He dies instantly.
Hit points are not a measure of how many times you can be stabbed before you die, they are an abstraction that represent how good you are at surviving a stabbing. It's hard to explain, but it's a concept that's been around for a long time.
