AC can only protect you so much. Eventually, a monster is gonna hit you. But don’t worry, here’s how to toughen up and take a hit (in D&D).
No matter how hard you try, eventually your D&D charavter is going to get it. They might even take damage. I know, I know. But that’s just the breaks. Which is why you have to toughen up – your character, that is.
Fortunately, there are lots of ways to do it. You might be hit in combat, but that doesn’t mean you have to take it lying down. Here are some ways to bolster those HP pools.
Increase Your HP
Aid is such a handy little spell. An absolute gem of a low-level buff. It is unique among healing spells in that it doesn’t just restore hit points, it actually increases both your current and maximum hit points by five. And when you cast the spell, you can target up to three people.
It’s great because you can give yourself and your allies the power to take an extra hit, and because it directly increases your HP total, it works in conjunction with other methods, like Temporary HP.
Add Some Temporary Hit Points
Hey, look, if you’re going to get hit, you may as well not take damage from your actual hit points. Even if the total is increased from something like the Aid spell. Why not take the damage with Temporary Hit Points instead?
Temporary hit points are kind of like an overshield. They’re bonus hit points that you lose before you dip into your regular pool of HP. I dunno what that means exactly in terms of the lore. Maybe it just means that you have extra luck, or otherwise dangerous blows become literal flesh wounds.
Whatever the case, a spell like Heroism is a great way to keep the temporary hit points coming—every time you start your turn you gain a handful of them, making this spell the gift that keeps on giving.
Resist That Damage
Stoneskin exemplifies another big way of dealing with incoming damage: resistance. Sure, your DM is rolling all of those dice, but what if you just got to tell them that, no, you won’t be taking all of that damage, it’s too much. You’ll only take half.
Which is where damage resistance comes in handy. A spell like Stoneskin gives you resistance to multiple damage types. But often times, you really only need one or two. Whatever happens to be the most damaging attack in the monster’s arsenal, whoch might be something like flaming breath, or a piercing barb. Whatever it is, matching with the right resistance can toughen you up.
Damage Reduction
Of course, you can always just take a little off the top. The right kind of ability can reduce the incoming damage of an attack. A spell like Resistance or an ability like a Monk’s Deflect Attacks can let you roll a die (determined by the strength of the ability you’re using) and then reduce the incoming damage by that much.
While it’s usually not much, abilities like this are often the only way you can get hit but take no damage whatsoever.
Redirect the Flow
Finally, you can share the damage. There are typically two ways this goes, sharing the damage with a willing ally, or forcibly redirecting the damage onto an enemy. Either way, these kinds of abilities help you spread the incoming damage around, meaning no one person has to take the brunt of the damage. And that makes it easier to take the blows.
Happy adventuring!
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