Mario's HP is shown in the orange bar on the top of the screen in Paper Mario, represented by a heart icon.
Heart Points, which are abbreviated as HP, are points used by all characters in battle. It is depleted when a character is attacked. They represent the character's life force; if it runs out, the character is defeated. If Mario runs out of HP, the game is over. Items such as the Mushroom can be used to restore these valuable points, and the items Life Shroom and the 1UP Mushroom (only in Paper Mario: The Origami King) can cancel the effect of defeat, by reviving Mario after he runs out of HP.
Stronger attacks will reduce HP by a higher amount. Defense points reduce the amount of damage taken from enemies by the number of defense points the character has. Weak attacks will not do damage to characters whose defense is at least the amount of damage the attack would do to an enemy.
Mario can take damage from the world environment as well, by falling into dangerous water or touching spikes for example. In Paper Mario, Mario cannot get a Game Over from taking damage in the environment, while in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, damage sustained from the environment can cause a Game Over event.
The player can choose to increase Mario's maximum HP by five when he levels up in Paper Mario or Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. In Super Paper Mario, the whole party's HP increases every other level up. In addition, HP Plus badges can be used to increase his HP in increasements of five when needed.
Partners[]
Sushie injured from an attempt to hit a spiked enemy in Paper Mario.
In Paper Mario, Mario's partners do not have HP and instead get stunned for a certain amount of turns when damaged.
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, each of the seven partners has separate HP scores from Mario and a mechanic exists in which the partner can go in front of Mario to make enemies prioritize attacking the partner instead of Mario. If the partner runs out of HP, he or she can't move anymore, and can't be revived by using items or Star Power. However, if a Life Shroom is in the inventory, it is immediately used up to revive the partner.
The partner's maximum HP cannot be upgraded by a level up. Instead, it can only be upgraded by either upgrading the partner to Super Rank or Ultra Rank, or by using HP Plus P badges, which increase the HP of all partners by five each.
In Super Paper Mario, all four playable characters share the same HP count, meaning that if one character is damaged, it is not possible to swap to a different character to prevent defeat.
Enemies[]
Enemy HP varies depending on the kind of enemy. Stronger enemies with more HP, defense, and attack are encountered later in the story to account for Mario and his partners' increased attack power and to provide increased levels of difficulty. Bosses usually have much more HP than regular enemies at the time the boss is fought. In Paper Mario, The Master in his third form and Bowser after he powers up on the Power Platform both have the highest amount of HP, at 99. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Bonetail has the highest HP for an enemy at 200 points.
The HP of enemies can be revealed by using the Tattle ability of Goombario or Goombella in Paper Mario or Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, or by using the Peekaboo badge. An orange HP gauge will show up next to enemies whose HP levels are revealed, showing both the exact amount of HP left and a gauge showing the percentage of HP left.
Maximum HP[]
Mario's maximum HP can be anywhere from 5 to 50 (65 if three HP Plus Badges are worn) (Paper Mario), 5 to 200 (365 if 33 HP Plus badges are two) (Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door), 10 to 255 (999 if items are provided, however, doing that needs 1,117,500 coins in total) (Super Paper Mario), 20 to 100 (Paper Mario: Sticker Star), 50 to 200 (Paper Mario: Color Splash), or 50 to 200 (up to 235 in battle using the Gold Heart Plus in battle)(Paper Mario: The Origami King).
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, each partner has a different maximum HP, with Admiral Bobbery having the highest out of all the partners, starting with 20, and upgrading to 30 and 40 as he upgrades to Super Rank and Ultra Rank respectively.