Considering the original meaning of “hit points” referring to how many shells a given ship could take before sinking, 12hp out of a basic spell is still pretty impressive.
In chainmail, the war game dnd is historically based on, a hit point is a fraction of a hit dice, each HD represents one soldier, roughly, so 12hp being the average of 4hd isn’t too bad, no.
Considering the original meaning of “hit points” referring to how many shells a given ship could take before sinking, 12hp out of a basic spell is still pretty impressive.
…as a big simplification in naval war games, not as a real-life military rating for a ships durability under actual fire.
Technically that was “life”. It’s just that conceptually it was hitpoints.
In chainmail, the war game dnd is historically based on, a hit point is a fraction of a hit dice, each HD represents one soldier, roughly, so 12hp being the average of 4hd isn’t too bad, no.