Hit Points

[Garthanos]

Hit Points as a Power
The player should in cooperation with the DM. describe how each attack against their character is minimized by luck and energy and skill!

How did your hero minimize falling down the cliff side... did the old hay bail at the bottom break the fall.. did you grab roots and tubers on the way down... showing off your agility... did you bounce back and forth a lot on the edge taking more of the hit on armor than one might expect...luck can intervene in some unusal way or whatever ie let the player visualize it. Hit points as a power means letting the PC be awesome even when loosing hit points. Hit points as a power means a narrow miss for lucky heros, hitpoints as a power means a visual scratch or inconsequential wound for the tough hero.

the above barely qualifies as house rule...

If you noticed some of the above indeed sounds like suceeding on a saving throw? Well character luck and resolve/energy has indeed always been described as one of the components of hit points and those seem to be what you use to make that save! This rule demonstrates and tightens that connection. Effectively Hit points/Healing Surges and Saving throw overlap, I am thinking hit points ought to have a conversion between them and saving throws ... There are certain effects that really shouldn't happen except to a hero who is completely "out of their luck" and or out of energy, ie out of hit points. Forced movement into the bottomless pit is one such situation... there are probably other save or die situations lingering yet.

Hit Points as Luck
A player may spend a healing surge (or a healing surge worth of hit points) to re-roll a failed saving throw or in some cases (at DM's discretion autosave) a saving throw or to prevent complete incapacitation from a spell or power, for instance when they have no one to guard their incapacitated self. Not every save or situation qualifies but for a save who's failure would result in an effective instant death it seems allowing a auto save is reasonable for less absolute situations it could still be reasonable to allow a re-roll.

The above rule is also symmetric with my favorite house rule wound system which allows a player to choose fpr their character to take a wound and so incurring a ongoing impairing effect in place of losing/expending hit points when damaged by an attack.

Hitpoints as Energy and resolve
the same hitpoints or healing surges we spend on staving off death might be used to allow re-use of a power. This latter might limited to making a power reliable? or something of that sort or it might be only once per encounter. To some degree the balance of this option depends on how much of a precious commodity healing surges are in your game and whether they are likely to induce the 15minute game day phenomena, some players find they almost never run out others are on the edge.

For NPC's and Solos, in some cases fully customized resistances might be the coolest thing to do but a generic rule does have an ease of implementation.

Solo Incapacitation Resistance.
The DM may consider using hit point expenditure to justify a save re-roll (or perhaps an autosave against effects a monster is resistant to) in a similar manner for some Monsters as heros above, specifically "solos" who may be mob incapacitated by multiple on going effects of larger groups of pc's. Limiting this to multiple effects after the first. This will increase the challenge created by those monsters to better match expectations.

Although it seems just as reasonable to introduce other damage types, for some of these... ie being hit by the sleep spell even if it doesn't knock you out leaves you more vulnerable to going unconscious by some other effect, see http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...ation-transformation-attacks.html#post4785496

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't see the need for protecting PCs in this area. PCs always come in packs and have ways to help each other.

Monsters, on the other hand, may or may not come in packs and often have virtually no extra abilities in these areas. Monsters have very small stat blocks and few abiliites. PCs have very hefty stat blocks and many abilities.

The issue for me is not these effects, it's the fact that these effects can quasi-permanently lock down a monster. These effects almost never quasi-permanently lock down a PC.

Without effects like these, how does one challenge the PCs on a continuing basis? Monsters rarely have multiple different conditions that they can impose and you are neutering the one or two stronger conditions a monster might get.

Creating protection rules like these for monsters? Good idea.
Creating protection rules like these for PCs? Bad idea.

 

[Garthanos]

I don't see the need for protecting PCs in this area. PCs always come in packs and have ways to help each other.

Monsters, on the other hand, may or may not come in packs and often have virtually no extra abilities in these areas. Monsters have very small stat blocks and few abiliites. PCs have very hefty stat blocks and many abilities.

The issue for me is not these effects, it's the fact that these effects can quasi-permanently lock down a monster. These effects almost never quasi-permanently lock down a PC.

Without effects like these, how does one challenge the PCs on a continuing basis? Monsters rarely have multiple different conditions that they can impose and you are neutering the one or two stronger conditions a monster might get.

Creating protection rules like these for monsters? Good idea.
Creating protection rules like these for PCs? Bad idea.

My pc's since day one of gaming have typically run in mobs numbering 2..... 1 game master and 2 players... they are kin to a solo for whom 1 of them being put to sleep or stoned is a tpk. Now you retry your thinking based on those stats? not everyone runs the typical party of 4 to 6.

Ok I did do a short but fun run with 3 pcs once or twice.

 

[Garthanos]

My pc's since day one of gaming have typically run in mobs numbering 2..... 1 game master and 2 players... they are kin to a solo for whom 1 of them being put to sleep or stoned is a tpk. Now you retry your thinking based on those stats? not everyone runs the typical party of 4 to 6.

Ok I did do a short but fun run with 3 pcs once...

The game has reduced save or die.... put a nail in the coffin and we can stop worrying if circumstances have it sneak back in.

I would probably allow solos or elite monsters to do the same Last Ditch Save trick and sometimes it would look like they were taken out... so they can surge back in to the fight, to keep things interesting.

 

[KarinsDad]

My pc's since day one of gaming have typically run in mobs numbering 2..... 1 game master and 2 players... they are kin to a solo for whom 1 of them being put to sleep or stoned is a tpk. Now you retry your thinking based on those stats? not everyone runs the typical party of 4 to 6.

So, you think you should post on the house rules forum a house rule designed for 2 players and NOT tell everyone why you are doing that? Maybe you should retry your thinking about how you post in the first place.

For the core 4 to 6 players, your house rule is bad.

For 2 players, the entire game system is bad. It's just too swingy and you'll have to houserule it a lot to prevent TPKs. Back to back 20s could TPK a party of two, especially at low level.

Good luck with that.

 

[Garthanos]

wrongbadfun accusations?

Many if not most of the heros of fiction and fantasy are pairs of heros.. The lord of the rings is still more a rarity than the norm. So THE game system for playing fantasy roleplaying cant handle it anymore... (I have almost never bought premade adventures if that gives a clue... )

Another thread which featured ... how to do 2 players with D&D was focused on making PC's into super awesome duo roles in some sense effectively elites... the main reason was so you could use pre-canned adventures.

You honestly use vestigal save or die effects as THE feature to create challenge for your pc's?

I was avoiding saying your threads on fine tuning monster levels were a waste of time because player strategy will always make enough variance that you will need to adjust monsters to fit anyway.
But apparently you a member of the conformity police.

And where exactly do you get off?

 

[KarinsDad]

You honestly use vestigal save or die effects as THE feature to create challenge for your pc's?

No, but I don't throw it out of the game system either.

Without impairing conditions, the game is just damage like 1E.

I definitely understand that 4E without modifications does not work that well for 2 players. And your idea here might be an ok one for that scenario. But it is still overkill for the normal game system, making it considerably less challenging and more repetitive for players.

 

[Garthanos]

No, but I don't throw it out of the game system either.

Without impairing conditions, the game is just damage like 1E.

I definitely understand that 4E without modifications does not work that well for 2 players. And your idea here might be an ok one for that scenario. But it is still overkill for the normal game system, making it considerably less challenging and more repetitive for players.

Ahhhh ....
The name of the rule could have been called Hit Points as luck...bit it also shouldnt be attractive enough that it would always be used, just for desparation ie "things that really shouldnt happen to a hero till he is completely "out of luck"

Note I was specifically presenting it as an option for save or die effects like forced movement off a not normally possible to survive high cliff etc, not necessarily applicable to all saves, in general impairing effects are fine. Could doubling the cost in hit points or healing surges spent be used to discourage general use? Would it might require the limit of DM adjudication so that it is used only for something which seems a permanent end of story event? not sure.

It means the pc pushed off the 10000 foot cliff doesn't ever plummet to his death unless he really is well out of hit pts, ie Luck... sometimes he makes an easy save thats the die roll the rest of the time we get something which sounds/reads much like a successful saving throw but is really his luck wearing thin.

If hit points include luck and energy they are being under used... they could fuel powers and saving throws and similar things...

Hitpoints as Energy and resolve
the same hitpoints or healing surges we spend on staving off death might be used to allow re-use of a power. This latter might limited to making a power reliable? or some other thing of that sort or it might be only once per encounter or something similar.

I am not always fixing something with my house rules some times I am exploring how we can extend the simulation.

I want extended injury so the wound rule http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/240891-wound-system.html#post4649572 which lets players choose an extended injury result is cool..

Hit points as luck even if used for other saving throws... becomes another way to give players a choice of ongoing effects or hit point loss...juggling that could be stylistic instead of win or loose "my design target" is making an ongoing impairing effect acceptable... up to a point.... and making that point of acceptability a player choice.

Borromir versus Frodo.. Borromir has a higher I can take wounds and function threshold he actually has higher combat ability and wounds dont make him incompetant Frodo is worse initially but gets wounds less... ie frodo just doesnt take "wounds" till he runs out of luck (he seemed to do that fairly often.. did he have lower hitpoints than even the other hobbits? or was he spending them on resisting the one ring? see hitpoints as luck/energy)

Not resisting the ring seems like it would be a end of the story issue for Frodo... so he spends hitpoints when the saving throw doesnt work ie when the dice fail him.. he looses hit points and does so as a choice, the player describes the lessened effect of the one rings power influence on his character or even takes a long term effect that is less than my character is now a minion of the dark lord.

For Borromir resisting the rings influence doesnt seem to be an end of story effect it seduces him in to trying to take the ring from frodo...then tries to get him to kill frodo ... he spends hitpoints.. to have luck intervene and snap him out of it by providing eminent threat. His points are now down ... his luck is low and he falls.. but falls heroically in battle defending frodo.

Domination by ultimate evil.. hmmm save or die.... spend luck in the form of hit points and describe it another way.

In the first post I said....
"There are certain effects that really shouldn't happen except to a hero out of hit points I know you have seen them."
I didnt elaborate on them, very much perhaps that is an error, it was exactly the save or die issue I was talking about.
It comes up more times when you have only 2 players... but that doesn't make it not happen for multi-players and if it never comes up its a quirky corner case you dont have to worry about.
However as you point out maybe the same is true with villains who are solos who shouldnt be man handled by fate either... that is why they have a lot of hit points not just nice armor. I think we do want to avoid the monsters being impaired to death and yes custom monster design which made solos very resistant to impairing effects is one idea I seen bandied about.. redisign all the solos to include resistances which prevent compound impairment.

What if hitpoints spent at the beginning of thier turn allow an additional save at the begining of the monsters turn to cancel the effect before impairment (The hitpoints lost at the top of the cliff so to speak ). This would be like the Warden getting his two saves but at a cost which would also speed the combat. It wouldnt be nerfing the powers totally...but we do want the monster to be hit by some of those impairments just not as many as a team can throw on them... hmmm.

 

[Garthanos]

Updates and Clarifications

Hit Points as a Power
Hit points as Luck,
Hit points as Energy and Resolve